Game News inXile admit that Torment stretch goal content has been cut, including companions

[Prime Junta]

You are the victims of your own gullibility. And I’m telling you: this will happen again because you give too much importance to pedigree and too little importance to facts.

I'm not a victim of anything. I'm simply holding someone accountable for the promises they made. I don't even need my $125 back. I requested it to send a message. If enough people do that, Mr. Snake-Oil will either go out of business or reconsider his practices.

The fact remains that crowdfunding has sparked a RPG Renaissance. Sneering cynicism is a nice comfy cave to retreat to, but if everybody does that, all we'll have is more lowest-common-denominator AAA shit.

From where I'm at, if you care about people making games you like, the best course of action is (1) to continue crowdfunding promising projects, and (2) to hold the developers accountable if they fuck up. What would you suggest?

 

[l3loodAngel]

No such project exists. Not one project did deliver every thing that was promised (either the content or quality was missing).

Some promises are vague and subjective, e.g. "Infinity Engine spiritual successor" or "mature and compelling writing" or "a deep and personal story" or, for that matter "level of quality."

I wasn't happy with the Pillars stronghold or its crafting system, and have criticised both extensively. However, I did not feel that Obsidian had reneged on their promises. They tried and failed, and over the next two years, did their best to patch up the holes. There's nothing dishonourable in that.

And they fucked everything that JS didn't have time to in the process. The patches did little to improve those dead broken things.
Also deep story is not so subjective unless you put elementary school children in your pool of customers as is level of quality. Quality is almost Never subjective.

I think during the next inXile kickstarter campaign the Codex should pledge a collective 5,000 $ and only pay 2,000 $ or less. After all, no project delivers 100% on its promises and I'm sure they will accept the lower amount as a fulfilled pledged. It's not like they will judge us by the money content we failed to deliver, right?

WTF? You deliver how mutch you want to deliver. FFS it's completely voluntary, or you want DU to spend the money. I am not sure I understand/want to understand.

 

[Gondolin]

WTF? You deliver how mutch you want to deliver. FFS it's completely voluntary, or you want DU to spend the money. I am not sure I understand/want to understand.

You promise a certain amount and then you pay less. There's no reason why the developer should expect you to honor your pledge. However, you should insist on getting full value out of the developer. Because that's how projects work.

 

[l3loodAngel]

WTF? You deliver how mutch you want to deliver. FFS it's completely voluntary, or you want DU to spend the money. I am not sure I understand/want to understand.

You promise a certain amount and then you pay less. There's no reason why the developer should expect you to honor your pledge. However, you should insist on getting full value out of the developer. Because that's how projects work.

No such project exists. Not one project did deliver every thing that was promised (either the content or quality was missing). You expectations are unrealistic. Those KS promises doesn't make the game complete or incomplete it's just features that can be in/absent. Judging project completeness by cut content is like judging a meal by spices that were ommited in the cooking process.

So you retard are saying that projects should be judged, not by their quality, but by cut content? Just fuck off.

 

[Infinitron]

When you hate the broken clock so much that you don't even think it's right twice a day

 

[Lurker King]

The fact remains that crowdfunding has sparked a RPG Renaissance. Sneering cynicism is a nice comfy cave to retreat to, but if everybody does that, all we'll have is more lowest-common-denominator AAA shit.

The only thing that the crowdfunding has sparked was the delusion that there is a cRPG Renaissance. The reality is that 9 out of 10 of these games are bland, shallow and uninspired. Before we at least had the “evil publishers” excuse, but now we know that most known developers are not up to the task. This is not about being cynic, but about being realistic. If everybody were more “cynic”, I can assure you that developers would think twice before fooling their audience with rushed concepts and delusional stretch goals. It's precisely because players are too gullible and easily pleased that the standards are so low.

Your answer just confirms what I said early. You give too much importance to pedigree and too much importance to kickstarter because you just repeat what everybody else is saying without thinking. If we don’t trust kickstarter, we don’t have to stick to triple-A. We have talented developers that didn’t want to invest on kickstarter and delivered solid games, e.g., “Almost Human” delivered “Legend of Grimrock” and “Legend of Grimrock 2”; Stygian Software delivered “Underrail”; Iron Tower delivered “Age of Decadence” (you know, that game you didn’t played but you quoted in your Tyranny review) and “Dungeon Rats”; “Overhyped Studios” is about to release “Battle Brothers”, and these are just the ones on the top of my head.

I think what is happening is this. You want to be “in the loop” of the next big thing in cRPGs. Talking about Obsidian, Inxile and other medium studios is perceived as important because they have pedigree. Since these studios depend on crowfunding to survive, you wrongly assume that crowfunding is necessary to the survival of cRPGs. It’s basically a combination of human futility and ad populum thinking.

 

[Jasede]

Not one good RPG has been crowdfunded yet. Best CRPG I played lately was Witcher 3.
And I fucking hate Witcher 3.

 

[Infinitron]

Would you say that Witcher 3 is better than AoD and Underrail?

 

[Lurker King]

I didn’t play it. Even with the interesting characters, the popamole gameplay kills it for me. I would try someday. I’m finishing Banner Saga now.

 

[Bitcher1]

Do ye guise think it's too late to ask for a refund?

 

[Sensuki]

I didn’t play it. Even with the interesting characters, the popamole gameplay kills it for me. I would try someday. I’m finishing Banner Saga now.

You played the first 2?

 

[felipepepe]

The fact remains that crowdfunding has sparked a RPG Renaissance.

You know, I wanted to do the "Age of Incline GOTY" voting just because of that... has Kickstarter really spawned a golden era?

The poll closes tomorrow, but let me tell ya - it ain't impressive. Current Top 20 has only 4 crowd-funded games. Apparently the Codex had more fun with JRPG console ports than with KS games.

 

[Prime Junta]

The only thing that the crowdfunding has sparked was the delusion that there is a cRPG Renaissance.

Here we are, bitching about how bad all these party-based isometric cRPGs with decent production values are. Six years ago, there weren't any. We only had butt-ugly indie stuff from Spiderweb.

Underrail and AoD have benefitted from the success of Pillars, WL2, SRR, and so on too.

For the record, I did get maybe 20 hours into Grimrock but ended up dropping it; thought it was repetitive and boring as fuck. I also just gave AoD another spin but still didn't like it. Maybe I'll get around to Underrail at some point, but I'm not all that optimistic about it -- most of its biggest fans seem to also like games I don't.

However, I'm really happy these and other games have succeeded. Nobody's going to like everything, but the games I do like do mostly emerge from this category -- and the bigger it is, the more likely it is there will be something there for me.

 

[Prime Junta]

You know, I wanted to do the "Age of Incline GOTY" voting just because of that... has Kickstarter really spawned a golden era?

"Golden" is maybe a bit much. But we are seeing games now that we weren't seeing before, and I do think that the big-ticket crowdfunded games were the catalyst. They cleared the space, even if everything that's in it isn't actually crowdfunded. Publishers started paying attention to mid-budget niche stuff, for one thing.

Could be coincidence of course, but if so, it's a bit of a big one.

 

[Jasede]

If you had phrased it that way from the start maybe we wouldn't have had to disagree.
It truly is no Golden Age, but yes, some genres and games we haven't seen in a while grace us thanks to crowdfunding.

Personally I think they're all terrible but their genesis is undeniable.

 

[Lurker King]

I didn’t play it. Even with the interesting characters, the popamole gameplay kills it for me. I would try someday. I’m finishing Banner Saga now.

You played the first 2?

I played the first and drop it, a long time ago. The moment to moment gameplay and combat was horrible. Since the second was following the popamole crowd, I gave up.

 

[Prime Junta]

maybe we wouldn't have had to disagree

Where's the fun in that?

 

[felipepepe]

Still think it has more to do with larger macro-environment changes, like Steam, cheaper engines, better tools, etc... not to mention Legend of Grimrock.

Also, it's debatable if the big KS projects helped or actually suppressed other games. How many people bought W2 instead of AoD and got their fill of isometric TB games? Last September saw the release of Ember, an isometric RPG, yet I didn't hear a single think about it because people were too busy with the big names. Would he fare better in 2012?

My point is, aren't the big KS names taking all the attention over the smaller indies?

 

[Black Angel]

Not one good RPG has been crowdfunded yet. Best CRPG I played lately was Witcher 3.
And I fucking hate Witcher 3.

Undertale, Serpent in the Staglands, no?

The fact remains that crowdfunding has sparked a RPG Renaissance.

I think KS RPGs were mere catalyst/signal boost for the whole world to know that RPGs, specifically cRPGs, are not dead. The true reagents of RPG Renaissance, however, would be primarily Age of Decadence and Underrail, and that's mostly because both games used no crowdfunding whatsoever (though at least they do gets through Steam Early Access).

Your answer just confirms what I said early. You give too much importance to pedigree and too much importance to kickstarter because you just repeat what everybody else is saying without thinking. If we don’t trust kickstarter, we don’t have to stick to triple-A. We have talented developers that didn’t want to invest on kickstarter and delivered solid games, e.g., “Almost Human” delivered “Legend of Grimrock” and “Legend of Grimrock 2”; Stygian Software delivered “Underrail”; Iron Tower delivered “Age of Decadence” (you know, that game you didn’t played but you quoted in your Tyranny review) and “Dungeon Rats”; “Overhyped Studios” is about to release “Battle Brothers”, and these are just the ones on the top of my head.

It's unfair to just outright conclude that KS is bad. After all, SitS was kickstarted. I haven't played it, but judging from the general reception here, the game delivered its' promises. Since it's released in 2015, I'd like to include it with AoD and Underrail as the true reagents of RPG Renaissance, but like I said, I haven't played it, so I can't say it.

I also just gave AoD another spin but still didn't like it.

Why is it? The graphics? The camera?

 

[Prime Junta]

Still think it has more to do with larger macro-environment changes, like Steam, cheaper engines, better tools, etc... not to mention Legend of Grimrock.

Also, it's debatable if the big KS projects helped or actually suppressed other games. How many people bought W2 instead of AoD and got their fill of isometric TB games? Last September saw the release of Ember, an isometric RPG, yet I didn't hear a single think about it because people were too busy with the big names. Would he fare better in 2012?

My point is, aren't the big KS names taking all the attention over the smaller indies?

I dunno, maybe?

Speaking only for myself, I have a hard time getting into most indies for a variety of mostly non- reasons. The stuff I like tends to be expensive: rich, varied gameplay, big scope, lots of story, doesn't look like ass, that sort of thing. I think one big reason I can't into AoD is that, well, it looks like ass. The few low-budget indies I do like tend to be super-focused hipster shit (Kentucky Road Zero), hyper-autistic insanity (Dwarf Fortress), or so far in Absurdistan I can't help loving them (Barkley).

I've tried to do my patriotic duty by buying and trying some of 'em, but most of the time with no luck. While they get an A for effort, they're just not as good as the games they try to emulate.

(I do have Undertale on my list -- it sounds like it's far enough in the Absurdistan category that I might like it.)

 

[Sensuki]

DFA and Wasteland 2 definitely encouraged other developers to give crowd funding a go

My point is, aren't the big KS names taking all the attention over the smaller indies?

Codex news is a prime example of this.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Still think it has more to do with larger macro-environment changes, like Steam, cheaper engines, better tools, etc... not to mention Legend of Grimrock.

Also, it's debatable if the big KS projects helped or actually suppressed other games. How many people bought W2 instead of AoD and got their fill of isometric TB games? Last September saw the release of Ember, an isometric RPG, yet I didn't hear a single think about it because people were too busy with the big names. Would he fare better in 2012?

My point is, aren't the big KS names taking all the attention over the smaller indies?

Honestly, Ember got all the attention that a mobile game ported to pc should get. It's got choice, and no visible reactivity, mobile phone-grade controls on the pc, and simplistic combat.

 

[Roguey]

You know, I wanted to do the "Age of Incline GOTY" voting just because of that... has Kickstarter really spawned a golden era?

The poll closes tomorrow, but let me tell ya - it ain't impressive. Current Top 20 has only 4 crowd-funded games. Apparently the Codex had more fun with JRPG console ports than with KS games.

Four's better than zero.

 

[Lurker King]

Here we are, bitching about how bad all these party-based isometric cRPGs with decent production values are. Six years ago, there weren't any. We only had butt-ugly indie stuff from Spiderweb.

And we were better than. Now we have a bunch of idiots saying these games are new classics, thus lowering the genre standards even more. From the four games I mentioned above, three were already in development by then. So no, we didn’t have only Spiderweb games. I think what we really have to thank are platforms like steam, but Obsidian wasn’t making games before kickstarter, so it must be kickstarter because medium studios are the only solution. And what the hell is “decent production values”? Graphic whores on muh dex. LOL

Underrail and AoD have benefitted from the success of Pillars, WL2, SRR, and so on too.

That’s another debatable dogma. How do you come to this conclusion?

For the record, I did get maybe 20 hours into Grimrock but ended up dropping it; thought it was repetitive and boring as fuck. I also just gave AoD another spin but still didn't like it. Maybe I'll get around to Underrail at some point, but I'm not all that optimistic about it -- most of its biggest fans seem to also like games I don't.

But you didn’t drop PoE, Tyranny, etc. In fact, you even made reviews about it. It shows how your priorities are all messed up. You have a poor understanding of the subject. What exactly you didn’t like about AoD? The character building, the combat system, the deep reactivity or is it that the writing? I’m sure PoE is better in all these things. *sigh*

 

[Vault Dweller]

Still think it has more to do with larger macro-environment changes, like Steam, cheaper engines, better tools, etc... not to mention Legend of Grimrock.

Precisely.

What one can get on Kickstarter pales in comparison with what one can get on Steam. Steam Greenlight opened the gate and allowed any developer who can drum up enough support to get on Steam, which was unprecedented. Without Steam 99% of indie developers would have never made it past the finish line. Free or cheap engines like Unreal and Unity made a huge difference as well. When we started working on AoD we were quoted 125-250k for a decent engine. Now you can get a top of the line engine (Unreal 4) for 5% of your sales.

The importance of Steam for indie developers can't be overstated as it's not just an instant access to millions of gamers able to buy your game with a click of a button. It's also built-in marketing, demo/game hosting that might cost you a fortune otherwise, payment processing, and tons of other things.

Kickstarter made it possible for larger companies like inXile, Obsidian, and Harebrained to raise millions of dollars, which they do need, but it was hardly a key factor for smaller studios.

DFA and Wasteland 2 definitely encouraged other developers to give crowd funding a go

The question is what role crowd-funding played for smaller developers and whether or not they could have made games without it. Serpent in the Stagland raised whopping 28k. I don't think that without this tidy sum the game would have never been made.