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

[Darkzone]

Now you can get a top of the line engine (Unreal 4) for 5% of your sales

Well not exactly:
"...you'll need to track gross revenue and pay a 5% royalty on that amount after the first $3000 per game..."
source: https://www.unrealengine.com/release

I am not sure, but this could also mean that you have to pay made money that is not only from the game but from your company....I bet you checked that...

I'm quite sure that "5% royalty on that amount after the first $3000 per game" is for the game / project that you have made with UE4. Else nobody would buy into such a deal and also in most first world states this would not go in a court through.
And if you look further into this:

Spoiler

Royalty Payment and Tracking

Once you've begun collecting money for your product, you'll need to track gross revenue and pay a 5% royalty on that amount after the first $3000 per game per calendar quarter. To report your earnings, complete and submit this form.

Explicite Product is mentioned and referencing the product created with the UE4. Support center for the report for the UE4 project.

 

[CRD]

If they give so much importance about political agenda, why they are wasting their time with games?

That statement also applies 100% to the Codex.

Rating-bombing a game and actively trying to bankrupt a developer because they had a character you didn't feel comfortable with (because of your own latent homosexuality) is the sort of thing that is seen as a rational and desirable action around here. C'mon.

Even if some people rate-bombed the game for the trans character, I think most of them didn't because of that as majority don't give a shit and are ok with it.

The bomb was because the quality was atrocious and the script was written not thinking in a good game, but in getting approval from tumblr destroying every bit of baldurs gate spirit and adding meme jokes while at the same time, they wanted the fans from the classic to buy the game instead of the public they were trying to pander.

And that is fucking retarded and so, they got the reviews they deserved for a meme and zero immersion expansion.

 

[Fenix]

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.

But there was a spike in game production, isn't it? More games was developed due Kickstarer, and even if ratio of good and bad games are the same or lower, everybody got something.
Well, my favorite Underrail and Age of Decadance have nothing with it, but Dragonfall, SitS and... well... uhg...

Talking about Obsidian, Inxile and other medium studios is perceived as important because they have pedigree.

What that pedigree mean? I intentionally don't use translator for this, the only association every Russian have with this word is "dog food"! :D

We only had butt-ugly indie stuff from Spiderweb.

Hey, HEY! These are good games, I mean first few Avernums on old engine, not the remake on engine that used Avadon engine.
Geneforge is cult classic, even if I didn't manage to finish first one because of my perfectionism.

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

I don't think so.
Subject of question is a consumer's and players mentality, so it only guesses and I have no opinion on this, only some observations.
1 - look at industry of Early Access.
Why it is so big? Why THE FUCK people pay money for THIS?
Because people in modern culture mostly treat games as "food" for consumption, like films, books, serials etc, people swallow games.
And Early Access phenomenon shows that they havn't enough food, because or there is never enough for such behavior, or is is NOW not enough of qualitative "food".
Games are boring and shallow en masse, so consumer is always hungry.

2 - personal expierince, if big title wasreleased, it overshadow indie games because of hypetrain. Luckily, it doesn't work for me for last couple of years, like "I'm too old for this shit".

So, I think, after consumer slurped out of the trough of AAA-gaming, he return to a humble indie games, who without noise and dust do its work to deliver something new, experimental and interesting.

I think one big reason I can't into AoD is that, well, it looks like ass.

Ugh.... why are you people confuse techy graphics with art?
While technically old, art is perfect, you can clearly see the details of equipment and weaponry, what else you all need?
I think you should understand the difference, you are codexer, not some unwashed -insert popamole jornos site- after all.

 

[Lurker King]

What that pedigree mean? I intentionally don't use translator for this, the only association every Russian have with this word is "dog food"!

Status, noble lineage, etc. Use linguee.

 

[Fenix]

they had a character you didn't feel comfortable with (because of your own latent homosexuality)

I want to come out of the closet. In my inner personality I have a latent spider, because I'm arachnophob. That's it.

 

[Sacred82]

I don't see the problem, Torment's selling point has always been its pretentious sophisticated writing by SJW's deep thinkers.

 

[Tao]

Or as we say in Finland "Pessimisti ei pety" or in anglo-saxon "Pessimists doesn't get disappointed".

What really happens then:

 

[Malpercio]

If they give so much importance about political agenda, why they are wasting their time with games?

That statement also applies 100% to the Codex.

Rating-bombing a game and actively trying to bankrupt a developer because they had a character you didn't feel comfortable with (because of your own latent homosexuality) is the sort of thing that is seen as a rational and desirable action around here. C'mon.

Comfortable with? You mean that pathetic attempt at virtue signaling by the devs in Dragonspear? It is one thing to write a trans character, it is another to write a character solely to appear virtuous on twitter. This is a setting that already has a belt that changes the gender of its user and which was a quest point in Baldur's Gate 2. Yet, you have a dev that lazily tried to score points with a shallow character. What trans person opens up a conversation with how they are trans? Does that make any fucking sense?

I will even give a counter example. Take Pisha from Vampires: The Masquerade. If I remember correctly, she alluded to being a lesbian if you asked about her past. The dialogue did not derail into a discussion of lesbianism. In fact, her sexuality did not override the rest of the character, which devs like Bioware fail to understand. That's the difference between treating an identity as normal and not stigmatized versus blatant virtue signaling in Dragonspear.

tldr, Dragonspear deserved some shit.

I probably wouldn't even have noticed the trans NPC personally if you guys didn't make a campaign about it. It's literally one line of irrelevant dialog.

I would have read the line and moved on with my life. The fact you still mad about one line of dialog from one minor NPC in a 40+ hours game one year(?) later says more about you than anything, to be honest.

If you want to get offended or triggered by something, get offended by the shit writing regarding Jaheira and Khalid.

 

[Maculo]

I probably wouldn't even have noticed the trans NPC personally if you guys didn't make a campaign about it. It's literally one line of irrelevant dialog.

I would have read the line and moved on with my life. The fact you still mad about one line of dialog from one minor NPC in a 40+ hours ago game one year(?) later says more about you than anything, to be honest.

If you want to get offended or triggered by something, get offended by the shit writing regarding Jaheira and Khalid.

Way to avoid the issue and misread. Himmy implied that the backlash was due to people not being "comfortable" with the character, as opposed to the devs making a shallow, virtue signaling character. I can criticize developers for making a shitty character, just like any aspect of the game. We have had developers do such characters well (e.g., Pisha from VMB), and then we have shallow attempts by Bioware and the Dragonspear devs. I do not see why they get a pass for something so blatant.

And, who said I approved of Jaheira or Khalid? You are making assumptions and inserting your own context. If you going to make shit up, do it well.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

It wasn't the Codex that started the Mizhena trans character campaign. The person at that other forum has their facts wrong. All the Codex did was pick up on the news and complain about it in multiple threads.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Had already forgotten most of the Dragonspear drama and not sure why it's reemerging, but I always thought people were less concerned about the ham-fisted tranny insertion and more butthurt about a writer declaring the orginal game was "sexist"/"problematic" and so she would be changing certain characters... when working on an expansion aimed at fans of the orginal game !

The internet drama, complete with lame gamergate lines from Minsc and producers frantically tweeting Jezebel for help was probably more entertaining than most games that year, but I don't remember many Codexers bothering to write reviews, "mass review bombing" is a bit of a stretch.

 

[Kalin]

Geneforge 1 looks better than Numa-Numa.

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

I liked P:E. A lot. It's my favourite cRPG since FO:NV in fact.

The topmost reason I couldn't get into AoD is probably that it looks like ass. That generation of 3D engine needs to die in a fire, and not everything has to look like a giant farted on it.

I also didn't find anything in the first hour of writing that was interesting or compelling enough to keep me playing. For whatever reason, I didn't relate to Theron or the characters in it; they just felt like so many taskmasters or quest dispensers. Maybe that would change later but I never got that far.

I can see you're a person with good taste, when it comes to cRPGs.

 

[Lurker King]

I probably wouldn't even have noticed the trans NPC personally if you guys didn't make a campaign about it. It's literally one line of irrelevant dialog.

Well, that other line about minsc making a gamer gate joke is much worse, don't you think? You take a known character and uses him to advance an agenda about SJWs controversial internet stuff. Another problem is that every female character wants to put you in your place for being a man. This is also bad. So you have a couple of additional lines. The fact that some of the male characters are caricatures that have no dialogue function but to be ridiculed by females is also really bad. I think we also have some additional lines here. What is worse, the writers behind this retardness treated with disdain the complaints made by the fans of the franchise. So this should be also taken into consideration, don't you think? So the question is not how some people got worked out by this retarded misandric SJW agenda, but how some players simply ignore the hamfisted activism in the game and in the interaction with the fans. I think is because they don't give a shit about good writing at all or how the fans are treated by developers.

 

[Lomer2]

I liked P:E. A lot. It's my favourite cRPG since FO:NV in fact.

The topmost reason I couldn't get into AoD is probably that it looks like ass. That generation of 3D engine needs to die in a fire, and not everything has to look like a giant farted on it.

I also didn't find anything in the first hour of writing that was interesting or compelling enough to keep me playing. For whatever reason, I didn't relate to Theron or the characters in it; they just felt like so many taskmasters or quest dispensers. Maybe that would change later but I never got that far.

I also liked PoE (even the stronghold for its rich, if somewhat underdeveloped, mechanics) and backed both it and the sequel. But I really adore AoD and I can tell you that you are missing a lot due to some superficial dislike towards its graphics. Did you try zooming it out to the max? It really improves the exterior view and the interiors have always looked much better for some reason. Besides that, some other graphic elements have always looked very well, such as the loading screens or the items in the inventory (Arcanum had similar dichotomy between in-game graphics and inventory art).
But I can only respect persons like you and Infinitron, who, despite not being very interested in games of AoD ilk, are still buying them to support indie developers.

 

[Prime Junta]

I will give AoD another spin one of these days. Today is not that day though.

 

[Sprout]

So the question is not how some people got worked out by this retarded misandric SJW agenda, but how some players simply ignore the hamfisted activism in the game and in the interaction with the fans. I think is because they don't give a shit about good writing at all or how the fans are treated by developers.

We just don't care about the same issues. To me the thinking of anti-sjws is just as arcane as that of sjws themselves. Both are understandable in principle, but humanity consistently turns decent ideas from gold to shit. So not interested in getting worked up about it either way. Developers however shouldn't be disrespectful to their audience whatever their bone with the issue is, it's unprofessional and such attitude should face censure.

 

[mondblut]

Rating-bombing a game and actively trying to bankrupt a developer because they had a character you didn't feel comfortable with (because of your own latent homosexuality) is the sort of thing that is seen as a rational and desirable action around here. C'mon.

The amount of sweet salty sjw tears it generated certainly made it rational and desirable in retrospect.

 

[Kev Inkline]

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.

Speaking of which (when asked about why the curious lack of Beautiful Isolation KS campaign in the news):

Pyke I think the real problem with reporting on Kickstarters isn't that many Kickstarters have failed, but that it's increasingly uncomfortable to report on what comes across as well, panhandling. You don't want to come across as a site that considers its reader base as a sort of charity mailing list. "Look who needs your money this week, friends!"

He says as the front page is all Pillars, TTON, Underworld, Banner Saga, and Apocalypse Now

 

[Sentinel]

I hope you guys have fun with Tides of Nu men era.

 

[Ivan]

my partial refund request hasn't elicited a response. I must be in a queue.

 

[Malpercio]

I probably wouldn't even have noticed the trans NPC personally if you guys didn't make a campaign about it. It's literally one line of irrelevant dialog.

I would have read the line and moved on with my life. The fact you still mad about one line of dialog from one minor NPC in a 40+ hours ago game one year(?) later says more about you than anything, to be honest.

If you want to get offended or triggered by something, get offended by the shit writing regarding Jaheira and Khalid.

Way to avoid the issue and misread. Himmy implied that the backlash was due to people not being "comfortable" with the character, as opposed to the devs making a shallow, virtue signaling character. I can criticize developers for making a shitty character, just like any aspect of the game. We have had developers do such characters well (e.g., Pisha from VMB), and then we have shallow attempts by Bioware and the Dragonspear devs. I do not see why they get a pass for something so blatant.

And, who said I approved of Jaheira or Khalid? You are making assumptions and inserting your own context. If you going to make shit up, do it well.

It's not even a character, it's a five lines npc and like only one is related to that.

Your favorite merchant from BG2 is probably more of a"character" than that.

I probably wouldn't even have noticed the trans NPC personally if you guys didn't make a campaign about it. It's literally one line of irrelevant dialog.

Well, that other line about minsc making a gamer gate joke is much worse, don't you think?

Oh, that certainly was on other hand. Pretty bad joke and had no place in the game certainly.

Can't say I noticed any misandry in the game however.

 

[DeepOcean]

I probably wouldn't even have noticed the trans NPC personally if you guys didn't make a campaign about it. It's literally one line of irrelevant dialog.

I would have read the line and moved on with my life. The fact you still mad about one line of dialog from one minor NPC in a 40+ hours game one year(?) later says more about you than anything, to be honest.

If you want to get offended or triggered by something, get offended by the shit writing regarding Jaheira and Khalid.

For clarification because people have fish memory:
1 - Some people on the codex take Baldur's Gate 2 as one of their favorite games.
2 - BeamDog use IP laws to take out the original Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 from sale.
3 - BeamDog Enhanced Editions actually don't enhance anything and are inferior on many places to the original games that you can't buy anymore.
4 - Siege at Dragon Spear would be okay for a mod but no people on their sane mind would pay real money for it as the writing, the quests, the linearity, the handholding, the story, the characters all SUCK balls. Only saving grace being the combat that was made by old school infinite engine modders and not SJW pretentious hipsters that made ALL the rest that SUCKED.
5 - They had a trans minor character.

Did you realize a certain pattern here? Of all the above problems, apologists just ignore all the problems that involve incompetence and dishonesty from the developer and try to pretend is all about the tranny. People get offended because their game fucking suck and they tought be politically inclusive was a bigger priority than making a good game.

If a doctor killed your wife because he was incompetent, would you feeling nice and tolerant discovering he was a tranny?

I see this same shit now on Torment: "It is just a design decision! They want to kill an indie developer because of a harmless designer decision!". Next step and after they find the pro Trump tweets made by some codexian posters they will claim "I knew it, they want to destroy InXile because they are pro Trump!". And all this shit will deteriorate on politics debate and the fucking awful design decisions will be ignored on the process.

 

[twincast]

For clarification because people have fish memory:
1 - Some people on the codex take Baldur's Gate 2 as one of their favorite games.
2 - BeamDog use IP laws to take out the original Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 from sale.
3 - BeamDog Enhanced Editions actually don't enhance anything and are inferior on many places to the original games that you can't buy anymore.

I'm still fucking pissed at that. Well, future prospective buyers can still purchase the proper classics in tandem with the enslaved edishuns, but fuck those fuckers.

4 - Siege at Dragon Spear would be okay for a mod but no people on their sane mind would pay real money for it as the writing, the quests, the linearity, the handholding, the story, the characters all SUCK balls. Only saving grace being the combat that was made by old school infinite engine modders and not SJW pretentious hipsters that made ALL the rest that SUCKED.
5 - They had a trans minor character.

A terribly written trans minor character. Oughta be precise here.

It's not even a character, it's a five lines npc and like only one is related to that.

Erm, that's the whole point (among the sane critics)? The "character" only exists to be a contrived soapbox.

 

[Lurker King]

For clarification because people have fish memory

The way they treated the games, trying to “make it appropriate to modern sensibilities”, reflects lack of respect for the franchise and cheap opportunism. The way they reacted to fans’ criticisms, showed lack of respect for their target audience and cretin activism. If some studio made something similar to “Age of Decadence”, I would be furious.