Information Thorvalla Kickstarter goes online

[Commissar Draco]

To be perfectly blunt, from the comments made early on, it was clear this "Thorvalla" was not going to follow in the footsteps of Realms of Arkania and the project lost appeal for me. Marginalizing the hard-core base is not a recipe for success.

This and High fantasy killed the boner for me, Still pledged 15 jewgold to give misanthrope Codexian connoisseur in me a reason to rage on.

 

[Vival]

He should have just gone with something like: "i'm Guido Henkel and i'm going to combine the strengths of both Planescape Torment and the Realms of Arcania series".

But Planescape Torment and Realms of Arkania are very, very different in scope and style. I cannot reconcile the two game designs. Any such statement would immediately raise red flags for me. And in a sense, I think that is what Henkel may have been trying to do, although not artfully at all.

It may have brought a lot more interest for his project though including the gaming press and staying somewhat vague makes it harder for skeptics to criticize while making it easier for others to believe in it.

 

[EG]

Kickstarter money is charity.

Not legally.

 

[Dorateen]

He should have just gone with something like: "i'm Guido Henkel and i'm going to combine the strengths of both Planescape Torment and the Realms of Arcania series".

To be perfectly blunt, from the comments made early on, it was clear this "Thorvalla" was not going to follow in the footsteps of Realms of Arkania and the project lost appeal for me. Marginalizing the hard-core base is not a recipe for success.

Can you elaborate on this a bit more?

Look, I hold the RoA series is high regard. It was not just one game, but an amazing trilogy, each successive title adding some improved features, but staying true to the core gameplay design. You had incredible depth and party customization, turnbased isometric combat, a text parsed and keyword dialogue mechanic. There were recruitable NPCs, but they joined the Party.

Now in Thorvalla, it is designed around a single PC. Already you have a less intricate party composition system. And what the hell is the "looking for your lost dragon" story hook? That reeks of a modern game's neead to provide a personal motivation for the player, rather than creating an open world for the characters to discover without emotions forced on by the developer. And again with the card game for a combat system!

Before launching the kickstarter, Henkel gave an interview, a retrospective on the RoA series. In it, he rightly derided bioware and Baldur's Gate as an RPG-lite compared to his work.

Then, when Henkel has a chance to create his own project... he goes with a single PC and recruitable companions, just like bioware.

I cannot abide the hypocrisy.

 

[Jasede]

It was clear to me it was going to be influenced by BaK in a heavy way so I don't mind the personal motivation.
It's mainly the combination of an unattractive pitch, lower name-recognition (more like no name recognition outside our circles) and some weird curve-ball information that just makes us frown, like card-based combat (what?). The fact that all he made lately were some sort of iPhone games doesn't help.

 

[J1M]

Kickstarter money is charity.

Not legally.

You can't claim charitable donations if you get something in return. So legally it is the same.

 

[tuluse]

I don't think that's true. Public TV and radio stations give back "gifts" if you pledge enough, you can still write it off on your taxes.

 

[Moribund]

If they aren't a nonprofit organization it's not charity. just try writing that off on your taxes.

 

[stony3k]

Before launching the kickstarter, Henkel gave an interview, a retrospective on the RoA series. In it, he rightly derided bioware and Baldur's Gate as an RPG-lite compared to his work.

Then, when Henkel has a chance to create his own project... he goes with a single PC and recruitable companions, just like bioware.

I cannot abide the hypocrisy.

Single PC and recruitable companions are not the reason Bioware games are RPG lites. Plus he has explained that his vision is somewhere in between, where you will be able to customize the companions to a large extent (except the race it appears)

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

From the Thorvalla pitch I knew that I wanted it to fail.

Don't like it, it must die. I see. Like other games that "failed" because the company who made them didn't have the funds or didn't know how to market them. They surely deserved to fail and sell much less than others. Congratulations for being part of the fucking lowest common denominator, again.

Seriously, anyone who claims on the Codex that a game DESERVES to fail because it didn't appeal to the LCD is a moron.

The problem with Thorvalla is it didn't appeal to anyone. Even RoA fans and people who spend all their time discussing CRPGs on message boards. They only managed to get 1,000 of them. Why did it not appeal even to that hard-core fanbase? There was nothing there. The whole concept was something Guido thought up in half an hour while taking a shit after breakfast.

 

[EG]

If they aren't a nonprofit organization it's not charity. just try writing that off on your taxes.

I'm a bit surprised this wasn't immediately understood.

Very good, Moribund.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

From the Thorvalla pitch I knew that I wanted it to fail.

Don't like it, it must die. I see. Like other games that "failed" because the company who made them didn't have the funds or didn't know how to market them. They surely deserved to fail and sell much less than others. Congratulations for being part of the fucking lowest common denominator, again.

Seriously, anyone who claims on the Codex that a game DESERVES to fail because it didn't appeal to the LCD is a moron.

The problem with Thorvalla is it didn't appeal to anyone. Even RoA fans and people who spend all their time discussing CRPGs on message boards. They only managed to get 1,000 of them. Why did it not appeal even to that hard-core fanbase? There was nothing there. The whole concept was something Guido thought up in half an hour while taking a shit after breakfast.

without a doubt this...

It's almost as if he dropped a deuce while browsing the web and suddenly discovered Kickstarter and that his old bff's Brian Fargo & Chrissy Avelone made 3-4 million dollars off little more than an idea and said to himself "Holy shit! I'm gonna be a millionaire by the end of the day!"


the problem is...his idea sucked.

 

[Overboard]

I understand, now show me on the doll where Guido and Thorvalla touched you.

 

[kaizoku]

ITT Limp Boner sucks Hobbit's cock

 

[EG]

What's wrong with his idea, again? o_O

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

^ Animu style jrpg card game featuring awesome vikings and romanceable ridable dragons?! Sounds like everything Skyrim should have been! TAKE ALL MY MONEY!

 

[Wyrmlord]

The fact that there is now an animated demo of the game is serious improvement.

Yes, it's just a cottage and a dragon, plus some day-night cycles and some weather patterns, but it goes a long way to show what the game's look will be.

By the way, it reminds me of Age of Mythology in terms of the look and style.

 

[FrancoTAU]

Hey, it finally is starting to look like a real pitch. They should've canceled this a week ago and relaunched a month from now with stuff like this.

 

[Alex]

I wished they had gone 2d, though.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I wished they had gone 2d, though.

He says 3D will save a lot of money and a lot of memory space, and I believe it.

Have you noticed how in some 2D games, your character keeps switching his right hand sword to his left hand and his left hand sword to the right? It annoyed me in BG2, because for a second I wondered if I accidentally put the Celestial Sword in the off-hand rather than main-hand.

To correct this, they would have to duplicate the effort and make second models for everything to adjust the mirroring, easily multiplying the development time and adding to the memory used. 3D removes these nuisances altogether.

 

[Alex]

Maybe, but I find 2d games to be better looking than 3d ones. I think the thing about 2d is that it is either really cheap (if you have few or no animations, and your backgrounds have little detailed) or expensive (if you go the 90s game route). 3d games tend to not look as well as the high end 2d, but annoy you by drawing more attention to themselves than the low end 2d. Of course, I imagine some people actually prefer 3d, but I never really understood why.

 

[FrancoTAU]

It depends on the genre for me. I find the overhead 3D thing to be annoying for RPGs and Zelda type action games.

 

[kaizoku]

It's looking great.


Support it you traitors!

Yes, it's not going to make it, but the greater the number of people that support it, the more visibility it will have, which will help with the 2nd KS... which I'm hoping he does.

 

[Brother None]

Hey, it finally is starting to look like a real pitch. They should've canceled this a week ago and relaunched a month from now with stuff like this.

Yeah. It's a real shame to see this effort go into this pitch which is just dead. Really hope they have an opportunity and will try again later. At this problem it's all about media coverage, and packaging all this stuff for a fresh pitch and they might actually have a shot at a good amount (probably not one million). Assuming they ask for and get some help from industry and media friends, which they appear to just not have done.

 

[Overboard]

Oh codexia, if you will not rise up and support Thorvalla to strike down the decline, who will?

For all the bleating about decline and popamole, when the guy who made the Realms of Arkania series (and PS:T) comes along with a kickstarter campaign, all you do is complain about his PR ability. Are you planning to play the games you fund, or gaze lovingly at their kickstarter pages and pitch videos for 30-80 hours?

Try raising your pledge to $150. If the game doesn't get funded like so many believe, then nothing of value will be lost. If it does get funded, you can reduce your pledge to a more manageable amount before the end of the campaign.