Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Russia is over. The end.]

Well, you mentioned interviews.

Well I certainly didn't mean press interviews. I meant someone from inXile interviewing someone critical, like lead designer or lead writer. The press wouldn't know what questions to ask.

 

[Athelas]

I seriously thought they had a shitload of stuff planned for the campaign - interviews, videos, like with torment basically.

The Bard's Tale in-engine video is probably a 'bigger deal' than anything the previous Kickstarters showed.

T:ToN received two million in two days IIRC. In other words, it received the majority of its funding before any (substantial) updates could even take place.

 

[Alchemist]

I think not having the in-engine video on day one was a mistake. Whatever though - they will recover and it will fund decently in the end.
Also as they mentioned, Brian is the frontman and has had to deal with a funeral and such so not running on full steam during the past few days I imagine.

 

[Kz3r0]

Guys, getting millions is hardly not doing well, the only setback I see is not getting funded in the first three days.
Even so little has changed, from now on we'll see what they have prepared to spice up the campaign.

 

[J_C]

Guys, getting millions is hardly not doing well, the only setback I see is not getting funded in the first three days.
Even so little has changed, from now on we'll see what they have prepared to spice up the campaign.

The problem is not getting only 1 million in 3 days, but getting only 15K per day after the initial boost. And I have a feeling that they can't show anything that will give a huge boost again. I fear that this campaign will only boil down slowly.

 

[Rostere]

People who are interested in old-school games typically are because of either the story, setting or gameplay - and definitely not graphics. What is the only thing InXile has shown us? Graphics.

Concerning the actual gameplay, we only know that it will be "phase/turn-based". Both T:ToN and PoE have had much more specific selling points. T:ToN would have the story and setting as cool as the original game, while PoE would have the RTwP combat of the IE games. The only things the BT4 kickstarter has promised is "dungeon crawling" and "phase/turn-based combat". We don't know any specifics, or why this project is better than MMX or LoG2. There's a lot less pandering to old-school sensibilities and a lot more shiny graphics than the previous campaigns. I think it's pretty easy to see why this is not getting the money of the previous games.

 

[Apexeon]

The problem with the graphics they showed is that it will eat most of the development budget.
Unless you can buy most the stuff off the "unreal" asset store?

Why didn't they just go real old school 2D pixel art.
Make a beautiful 2D experience like how we played it back in the day.

Oh yer progress and unreal immersion showed up.

This is golden age at its best (art wise).

 

[Zombra]

I'm not on board with all that wasted screen space, but would have been very happy with a 2D art style. I agree with everybody saying that showing off these glitzy graphics and nothing else sends the wrong message.

 

[Alchemist]

Make a beautiful 2D experience like how we played it back in the day.

Oh yer progress and unreal immersion showed up.

This is golden age at its best (art wise).

Yeah, I'd love to see that kind of 2D style employed again in a 1st-person CRPG. Maybe utilizing higher resolution art and higher screen sizes, but keeping to that style.
I doubt any of the mid-tier developers like inXile would consider it though. Grimoire is the closest we'll have to that on the horizon... maybe.

 

[Zombra]

Update #4

Jun 8 2015

Brian Speaks, First Stretch Goal Added and...oh yeah, One Million Dollars!!!

Thanks to all of you we passed the $1.1 MILLION mark over the weekend! This puts it at the 23rd most funded video game Kickstarter of all time after less than week! We can’t thank you enough for your support. It is so inspiring to see so many of you continuing to join the RPG renaissance and prove the party based dungeon crawl genre is far from dead!

The reception of our in-engine video of The Bard’s Tale IV was also absolutely phenomenal. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it now, and if you did and loved it, share the word with your friends! ! The more that you share it, the bigger our budget, and the better the game we all get. We cannot do it without your help and involvement!

The in-engine video walks you through a level built in Unreal Engine 4, using our in-game-quality art assets, with no pre-rendered bits anywhere. This kind of prototype serves to give you an early look at our game, but also for us to familiarize ourselves with running these environments in Unreal engine 4 and to get a feel for our goals and atmosphere. But a video can’t answer all questions, so over the weekend in the project comments, we asked you all to let us know what topics you want to hear more about.

Brian has recorded a video to answer those questions.

Stretch Goals
Another question was regarding stretch goals. Where are they? We certainly have a number planned and ready but it just doesn’t feel right to put them out before we know we’re going to fund. Now that we’re comfortably heading to being fully funded we can no longer resist sending the first of these your way!

At $1.3 million, we will add an enhanced companion NPC system and add 2 more CNPCs, including Lioslaith the Shadow, a legendary Spear Daughter of the matriarchical Fichti people, the dark haired, woad-painted nature worshippers who live in the deep forests far to the northwest of Skara Brae.

With this enhanced companion NPC system, all recruitable NPCs will have unique personalities and backstories which will open up interesting side content and add rich and surprising reactivity to your adventure. In addition, these CNPCs will voice their thoughts and asides, giving their take on the people, places and events that you encounter as your party moves through the world. No two CNPCs are alike and they carry their own reputations with them. While they can add some additional firepower to your party, some might even get you into more trouble than you were expecting…

Spread the Word!
Your amazing support has led us blazing past the $1 million point and on the path to reach our initial funding goal, and we’ve got some great stretch goals cooking. Beyond your pledges alone, it means a lot to us to hear from you and see you spread the word on our campaign. Every post you comment on, link you provide, hashtag you use, goes back to us and helps spread the bard's song far and wide. Together, we can make a difference!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianFargo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBardsTale
Tumblr: http://thebardstalerpg.tumblr.com/

Add-Ons
We’ve also been listening to feedback regarding our campaign, and we have heard you! We’ve now opened up a number of digital add-ons with ideas to add more moving forward. You’ll find the current ones listed on the Kickstarter page:

$5 - Guilt Absolution Letter/E-mail from Brian Fargo

$8 - Digital "History of The Bard's Tale" Novellas (3 novellas spanning TBT 1-3 lore)

$8 - Digital The Bard's Tale IV Novellas (currently 3 novellas on TBT IV lore)

$15 - Digital Novella Compilation (all available novellas)

$20 - Extra Digital Copy of The Bard's Tale IV (PC, Mac, and Linux)

Add-ons give you more flexibility to get exactly those rewards you’re looking for, for instance supplementing a physical tier with a few of the digital extras.

To add an add-on: click the blue "Manage" button at the top of the Kickstarter page, and increase the amount of your pledge to match your add-on choice. Later on after the Kickstarter campaign, when we open our backer web site, you’ll be able to specify which add-on you intended to choose.

Example: You pledged for a $105 Premier Collector’s Edition +$8 shipping, but would like to add a digital copy for a friend and a Guilt Absolution Letter to pardon your buccaneering ways. That would be a total pledge of $113 (base tier and shipping) + $20 (extra copy) + $5 (Guilt Absolution letter), for a total of $138. Click the blue “Manage” button next to your pledge, and manually change the amount pledged to $138. You do not need to change anything about your tier selection.

Shout-Outs
With our own Kickstarter going strong it’s time for us to share the love with some of our friends and fellow crowdfunding hopefuls.

The first project has less than a week to go, an open world action RPG titled Umbra. It takes place in a corrupted world that is falling apart, where you play a former soldier forced to flee a death penalty for your magical powers, expressed in the game by the unique Apocalyptic Form mechanic. It’s a gorgeous-looking isometric game that has funded but has some juicy stretch goals that will make it that much better.

Second, Fallout 1 Lead Designer Chris Taylor and Fallout/Planescape: Torment designer Scott Everts have teamed up with Obsidian to create a strategic card game based on Pillars of Eternity, entitled Lords of the Eastern Reach. We’re very excited to have this card game be available for our board/card game nights, and this project too has some very enticing stretch goals open to us!


Thanks!
Chris Keenan
Project Lead

 

[Zombra]

Nice video, answers a lot of good questions. I'm a little disappointed that there will only be 4 PCs instead of 6. I like what I'm hearing about saved games. "Phase-based" is confirmed at pretty much being like 2012 XCOM. A little disappointing again, but I can live with it.

 

[Alchemist]

Yeah I liked most of what he said aside from having only 4 main PCs. I hope they consider expanding that to at least 6. Not sure of any reason to limit it - we have huge high resolution screens now and can fit lots of character info in the HUD.

Maybe there could be an option to forego CNPCs and custom make extra party members for those slots. But I'd rather have 6 main PCs + CNPCs + summons.

 

[Lady_Error]

4 PCs + 2 NPCs is fine.

 

[stony3k]

My reading of the video is that it's 4 PCs + 1 NPC + 1 summon, so a little disappointing but not too much. I like most everything else he said

 

[Zombra]

Yeah I liked most of what he said aside from having only 4 main PCs. I hope they consider expanding that to at least 6. Not sure of any reason to limit it - we have huge high resolution screens now and can fit lots of character info in the HUD.

I imagine it's in anticipation of full graphical representation in combat. The game is already pushing towards GPU hoggishness. Plus the processing of reading which hat, shoes, cumberbund each character is wearing. I don't know, MMOs do it all the time I guess. Still.

 

[Zeriel]

Heh, someone on the video said something along the lines of, "I kind of want this to get less funding so it doesn't pull back the camera on combat."

I kind of am in that boat, though not really. I still hope this gets as much funding as possible, but I hope they reconsider their take on that. Even if they have the funding to afford it, I think they can spend their money on much better things than art of player character armor.

 

[Havoc]

The Room?

Spoiler

 

[theSavant]

I'm still trying to figure out the combat system explanation. This is my interpretation:

So basically there are 2 phases. One phase for my entire party and the second for the enemies. He says that you can change actions any time during your own party's phase, right? Which basically means I press 4 actions for 4 characters, like A-A-A-A. And what he means is that one can stop any moment pressing "A"s, to choose a different action for the next character. Right? (similar to Might Magic X controls).

Besides: I guess I'm okay with 4 characters, even though it's more mainstream-like. Had to laugh when he mentions "blobber"

 

[Infinitron]

Kicktraq now has a projection cone:

 

[Zombra]

I'm still trying to figure out the combat system explanation.

I guess you didn't play XCOM 2012. It's pretty simple. You have your characters, and they all get to go before the enemies, but in whatever order you wish.

For example: you say "Cleric buffs fighter", and cleric buffs fighter. Then you say "Fighter attacks bodyguard", and the buffed fighter kills the bodyguard in one hit. Then you say "Ranger shoots boss", because without the bodyguard to deflect damage the ranger can disable the boss rage attack that he makes if his bodyguard is dead. But your ranger misses. So lastly you say "Wizard casts defensive spell", to prepare for the rage attack that the ranger failed to prevent. Then it becomes the enemy turn, and the enemies go in whatever order the AI determines.

In the old Bard's Tale ("true phase-based") system, you'd say something like, "Fighter attacks bodyguard, ranger attacks boss, cleric buffs fighter, wizard casts defensive spell against boss attack." Then you'd press Enter to start the turn. Maybe your fighter would go first and attack the bodyguard but not kill him, then the cleric might buff the fighter (which doesn't help this turn at all), then the Ranger attacks the boss but can't make his disabling shot because the bodyguard is still there, then the wizard casts the defense against the rage attack but since the bodyguard is still alive the boss won't make his rage attack yet. Full potential of all of these actions is wasted because the order of resolution is out of your control.

In a standard turn-based system, the game would just tell you, "Fighter turn, what does he do?" and then once you resolve that it might say "Wizard turn, what does he do?" so that is more reactive but less dynamic.

Everything make sense?

 

[Metro]

Is that what it's going to be? Yep, my money is going to Todd.

 

[Athelas]

That seems like a step down in verisimilitude from JA2 or FFT, in which unit turns, both player and opponent, are decided by unit speed.

Some would say the ability to determine turn order is an upside from a tactical perspective, not a downside.

I can't believe it's been a week and we're still speculating on the most basic elements of gameplay features.

Is this your first Kickstarter?

 

[Infinitron]

It's not that unclear, I concluded the game was going to have X-COM-like combat before the campaign even began: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...e-kickstarter-live.95694/page-34#post-3928038

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

"Good news, thank you for your support *lowers eyes* I really appreciate that".

Most people can't lie with a straight face, and neither can Fargo.

 

[Athelas]

As others have noted, previous inxile kickstarters had a clear selling point.

You must mean they did a better job of selling you a (deliberately vague) dream that appealed to you.

I understood what TTON was about - weird setting, reactivity and C&C

'Weird setting, reactivity and C&C' is just as general a description as 'phase- dungeon crawler with full-party creation'. 'Reactivity and C&C' is something every RPG claims to do nowadays (and funnily enough, so does this one). The T:ToN kickstarter did have a big advantage in being able to draw on a existing tabletop setting, but that's obviously not something InXile created. You omitted the Wasteland kickstarter, which had by far the least amount of detail.