Information Thorvalla Kickstarter Update #2

[skuphundaku]

Peter Molyneaux is the perfect example of how being a great developer a long time ago is no guarantee of still being a great developer now.

He should have. He's sold two companies to big publishers in his time. Funded Black & White out of his own pocket ($6 million). This probably isn't so much about needing funds as it is about getting some nice risk-free no-obligations-attached money. And you know it'll pour in for him. He's got his fans, Lord knows why, and the press adores him, coz he's an idiot.

Ah well. People will still get the game for a low price, so there's no huge harm to this, but it is a little disingenuous. And the game will underwhelm.

It seems that this is par for the course for famous British developers of old. Braben has the same type of cult following and it shows in how that Elite: Dangerous joke of a project is raking it in and will, most likely, make it. On the other hand, Braben funded the development of Raspberry Pi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_pi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_Foundation ), so he's not all bad. Actually, him funding Raspberry Pi puts him very close to the top of my "good guys" list, too bad that on the gaming front he's been misstepping for a very long time now.

 

[kaizoku]

Thank you so much for the vote of confidence, GirkinFirker. Your sentiments are most appreciated. Kickstarter is the right place to pledge because if we won't make our goal here, the game simply will not happen. There won't be any restarts or anything. We're throwing everything we have behind this one campaign.

All I can say is that we tried but US pres in particular has decided to completely forgo virtually any coverage of the project. It's not that we didn't try. We prepared things and made material available to the press way ahead of the Kickstarter launch.

Not sure I agree. We thought about this long and hard and ultimately decided to go now because we felt otherwise we would have to wait until April, which would have been absolutely unfeasible.

detected



So he says this is the game he wanted to make for over a decade, makes a bad campaign, shows nothing palpable (*), and goes all butthurt with how things are going... well, I don't even...
(*) so did a lot others, but he doesn't have the other ones' charm


Despite the damn cards I'm keeping my $100 pledge, but it doesn't matter anyway.
FFS!


Can't he fucking work part time like all the other indies?!

 

[FeelTheRads]

What the hell is butthurt about that comment?

detected

Totally man. HAHAHA they don't know how to make money, they deserve to fail. HAHAHA fucking jews, they want to actually make money.

 

[kaizoku]

What the hell is butthurt about that comment?

detected

Totally man. HAHAHA they don't know how to make money, they deserve to fail. HAHAHA fucking jews, they want to actually make money.

I meant there is a money issue involved.
Otherwise why would he say "we would have to wait until April, which would have been absolutely unfeasible."

 

[Morkar Left]

Have you guys thought about that freelancers may have other occupations later on they will be busy with and don't want to cancel them until they know they actually have another project? That gets especially important when a whole group of people is involved. Just as a consideration.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Peter Molyneaux is the perfect example of how being a great developer a long time ago is no guarantee of still being a great developer now.

Nah Peter Molyneaux is just Peter Molyneaux.

Which means being a "cult" person you can sell to the cultists every kind of rubbish.

It seems that this is par for the course for famous British developers of old. Braben has the same type of cult following and it shows in how that Elite: Dangerous joke of a project is raking it in and will, most likely, make it. On the other hand, Braben funded the development of Raspberry Pi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_pi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_Foundation ), so he's not all bad. Actually, him funding Raspberry Pi puts him very close to the top of my "good guys" list, too bad that on the gaming front he's been misstepping for a very long time now.

I don't know. Yesterday I watched Braben's video and found it quite ok. The concepts look good, he does not sound like a conceited asshole. It's just that I abhor the whole multiplayer thing. Apart from being an MMO, it could still be quite good.

They should call it Elite: Online

 

[Burning Bridges]

Have you guys thought about that freelancers may have other occupations later on they will be busy with and don't want to cancel them until they know they actually have another project? That gets especially important when a whole group of people is involved. Just as a consideration.

That's one of the things that keeps coming up. But personally I prefer to support projects by people who actually have time to do them.

 

[Morkar Left]

Having time is a fluent concept. When ks fails he has still the option to do the other work, when ks is successful he can skip the work to someone other because he gets paid from ks funding. Don't know if this is a problem for him or others of his team but possible.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Be it as it may, even if he is super busy this is not going to get him more backers.

 

[General Maxson]

I don't get it why Guido doesn't want to properly take advice from people that had successful kickstarters, and restart? Like it's now or never, and he's been waiting for 10 years? What would a few months more (of real preparation) mean? People dig (good) comebacks, I'm certain if he takes advice from someone smart he would succeed. This, on the other hand is a failure, and I don't think his frequent updates will help now.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Don't get me wrong, if he starts over or not is entirely his business.

But if he really puts the idea of making Thorvalla before everything else, he has to make a second attempt.

 

[Burning Bridges]

By the way, they are trending towards 258,000$ so not all hope is lost. I think with that in mind it's absolutely ok to let this run a little longer.

What they should do right now is to drastically increase the number of early bird editions, as they are almost entirely sold out.

5000 x 15 is only 75,000, and they need much more than that.

 

[Smejki]

It seems you kinda misunderstand the math behind "trending". History pledges are taken into account, and the initial ones are always so strong it affects the prediction. You can say trending info is meaningful only when the green line is more or les horizontal around actual point. This is not the case. If the campaing stays long enough and doesn't change its feeling it most probably drop around $100K I estimate.

 

[EG]

Trending at a quarter of their estimate five days in isn't very hopeful...

Have this rant to pass the time:
Idie-ish developers all seem to be easily wounded. They're prone to wilt at the first mention of doubt, and to outright hide and sulk atop their keyboards at the first hint of a problem.

TheIndieStone, for example, mentioned how they feared their own forums for the latter half of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. Due to this great stress, they refuse to give out ETAs, countdown lists, or (up to recently) proposed version features. And now, here's another Kickstarter doing the same thing . . .

Why? o_O

 

[Brother None]

Idie-ish developers all seem to be easily wounded. They're prone to wilt at the first mention of doubt, and to outright hide and sulk atop their keyboards at the first hint of a problem.

Is it an indie thing? Lots of professionals do it too, but they're often prohibited from speaking out, and PR professionals who are more separated emotionally and more professional about this stuff address things instead. And even *they* sulk sometimes. Any creative effort takes a lot of a person into it, and I think as a rule that makes it very hard to deal with criticism. Factor in a lot of developers being less socially apt than the average person. Factor in some, especially veterans who have long heard from adoring fans, not being as used to handling criticism.

It makes me sad because it's not a constructive attitude, but I can certainly understand it. It's frustrating to put a lot of yourself into something and see people dismiss it, often with arguments you struggle to understand. Ideally people should be able to deal with criticism better, but I understand when they don't. It's just too bad, because it doesn't help anyone.

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

Creator G3 Studios about 2 hours ago

Thank you so much for your thoughts, Walkir - and I agree, unfortunately, I have to admit.
So, what can we all do to kickstart this Kickstarter?
I get the sense we've hit all the right notes with our updates but it doesn't seem to be enough to really infuse this campaign with the kind of enthusiasm needed to really move it forward. I'd love to hear everyone's ideas on what we could do in that respect.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Help! I don't have a clue what I'm doing, somebody anybody please save my kickstarter...

 

[FeelTheRads]

Obviously they should announce they're gonna make an IE game spiritual successor that won't really be like an IE game. Everybody loves those.

 

[Smejki]

I wish there was a chance to prove you that even this wouldn't save them.

 

[Taluntain]

So, next year would have been more unfeasible than a failed project this year? Sounds perfectly logical to me...

Like I posted on our forums, bad timing coupled with a setting that is unfamiliar and/or unappealing to the masses with no really big draw even if there isn't much substance (PE at least had a bunch of names pretty much everyone who's ever played an RPG knew and recognized) is a recipe for failure, especially if you don't make a big enough splash in all the gaming media well in advance. Because I can just imagine this going ala "yeah, there's this viking game by Guido Henkel on KS" and "oh yeah, Banner-something, right?" and "no, this a different one" and "but it's about vikings, right?" and "um, yea... but it's by Guido Henkel!" and "who?"... and so on.

Henkel's been out of it for too long, apparently. What he needed to do was to sell it like the second coming of Torment, even if it had nothing to do with Torment. Sound familiar?

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Kickstarter will never save us from the lowest common denominator BS, this crap is ultimate proof of that.

 

[Primordial Soup Nazi]

Thank you so much for the vote of confidence, GirkinFirker. Your sentiments are most appreciated. Kickstarter is the right place to pledge because if we won't make our goal here, the game simply will not happen. There won't be any restarts or anything. We're throwing everything we have behind this one campaign.

This guy is vastly over-inflating how much (or how many) people really care about this outcome; Thorvalla would probably be a fun Kickstarter-born game, in a sea of other fun Kickstarter-born games coming out in a year or two. I haven't seen or read anything about this one in particular that makes me think that the cRPG world can't live without it.

If they don't have the passion and determination to make this game happen no matter what, then I sure as shit don't have the passion to give a damn if (when) they fail.

And if you're going to ask for people to pay you for a product that doesn't exist yet, and THEN imply that they should handle the workload of a viral marketer, then you need to be wholly, utterly gracious and humble about it. This whole "well, its in YOUR hands, now, you goobers!" mentality is ridiculous. Try something along the lines of "I know this is asking a lot, but any positive word-of-mouth that you guys can give would be both beneficial and greatly appreciated!"

I really hope this half-assed cRPG Kickstarter trend goes away; sooner or later, its going detract from worthwhile projects that might otherwise hit their funding goals; a lot of us won't have much faith left.

 

[Apexeon]

Thank you so much for the vote of confidence, GirkinFirker. Your sentiments are most appreciated. Kickstarter is the right place to pledge because if we won't make our goal here, the game simply will not happen. There won't be any restarts or anything. We're throwing everything we have behind this one campaign.

I really hope this half-assed cRPG Kickstarter trend goes away; sooner or later, its going detract from worthwhile projects that might otherwise hit their funding goals; a lot of us won't have much faith left.

Agree --> like me a real indie and not these old school developer welfare crews running off past glory.
You don't need a Million bucks to make a good game you just need nightshift work and lightwave 11 .
(coders eat money so I will have to pitch for them).

You would think they could put out a lot more concept art and info then a bunch of notes and few drawings off the floor.
I will show what throwing everything we have behind this one campaign really looks like.

Yes I am a Australian and I live in the same state as the Grimoire dude .

 

[J1M]

Every failed kickstarter forces the following pitches to improve. Funding crappy pitches like Hero-U leads to things like Thorvalla and Bloom.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Every failed kickstarter forces the following pitches to improve. Funding crappy pitches like Hero-U leads to things like Thorvalla and Bloom.

That doesn't make any sense. Hero-U was still running when Thorvalla was launched and who knows when it was planned. If they fail they fail on their own.
Still don't know how Hero-U was a crappy pitch, though. I guess "I don't like the type of game they're making" means the pitch is bad, and when you like it the pitch is good or something. Because if we're talking strictly on how they run their campaign, it was better than the other Sierra Kickstarters. I suppose those were crappy pitches as well and they didn't deserve to be funded. Fuck those losers wanting to make games, I want them to make cool pitches instead. Pitchstarter, fuck yeah.

 

[Davaris]

Every failed kickstarter forces the following pitches to improve. Funding crappy pitches like Hero-U leads to things like Thorvalla and Bloom.

That doesn't make any sense. Hero-U was still running when Thorvalla was launched and who knows when it was planned. If they fail they fail on their own.
Still don't know how Hero-U was a crappy pitch, though. I guess "I don't like the type of game they're making" means the pitch is bad, and when you like it the pitch is good or something. Because if we're talking strictly on how they run their campaign, it was better than the other Sierra Kickstarters. I suppose those were crappy pitches as well and they didn't deserve to be funded. Fuck those losers wanting to make games, I want them to make cool pitches instead. Pitchstarter, fuck yeah.

Hero-U's Kicktraq curve is almost text book perfect. They even estimated perfectly, how much they could get. They tell you what you will be doing in their game, and why you will enjoy it. That is a good pitch.