Game News Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #22: Q&A with Tim, Cooking?, and Avellone Trolls You!

[Mrowak]

Also, by not providing any plan they opened themselves to criticism like never before.

Mrowak, even if they provide a plan, the vast majority will not be able to understand it or just won't read it. There will always be butthurt. Always.

But if you are informed but don't read the data provided to you, you are the one to blame for butthurt.

On the other hand, if you are misinformed and not told the whole truth the fault falls on the dev.

Also what VD said. Their goals are simply unrealistic in the given time-frame and with the funds. It is evident that they really did not think this through. They might later on, but so far I have little faith in their planning and management abilities - they simply didn't prove it. Far from that.

 

[Infinitron]

But if you are informed but don't read the data provided to you, you are the one to blame for butthurt.

"Blame" doesn't matter for PR purposes. Those people will raise a stink on the Internet regardless.

Also what VD said. Their goals are simply unrealistic in the given time-frame and with the funds. It is evident that they really did not think this through. They might later on, but so far I have little faith in their planning and management abilities.

We all know what VD thinks about game production timetables, he's been yammering on about it since Wasteland 2. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Personally I can see these games being done in 18 months, but then requiring an additional few months for bugfixes and testing. People will have access to a beta at that point so they won't be so mad at the delay.

 

[Jasede]

All right, I see what you are saying. But what about the other KS games? Did they have a plan? Why does Obsidian need one but they don't?

(Disclaimer: I believe it'd be great if they all had one, but I'd still like to hear your answer.)

 

[Mrowak]

But if you are informed but don't read the data provided to you, you are the one to blame for butthurt.

"Blame" doesn't matter for PR purposes. Those people will raise a stink on the Internet regardless.

Oh, how you are wrong. Blame is exactly the thing that turns whining into legitimate complaints. Legit complaints can hurt you like a motherfucker.

Also what VD said. Their goals are simply unrealistic in the given time-frame and with the funds. It is evident that they really did not think this through. They might later on, but so far I have little faith in their planning and management abilities.

We all know what VD thinks about game production timetables, he's been yammering on about it since Wasteland 2. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Personally I can see these games being done in 18 months, but then requiring an additional few months for bugfixes and testing.

What are you basing that on? Did you see their plans? Schedule? Budget? No? So it's your baseless conjecture. Reality proves you otherwise, for instance in the example given to you by VD.

 

[Infinitron]

What are you basing that on? Did you see their plans? Schedule? Budget? No? So it's your baseless conjecture.

It is not baseless. We have the very recent and highly relevant evidence of Brian Fargo claiming his team is progressing at a "kick-ass" pace. Maybe that will change later on - we'll see.

 

[Mrowak]

What are you basing that on? Did you see their plans? Schedule? Budget? No? So it's your baseless conjecture.

It is not baseless. We have the very recent and highly relevant evidence of Brian Fargo claiming his team is progressing at a "kick-ass" pace. Maybe that will change later on - we'll see.

It's not evidence. It's them claiming it is.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not evidence. It's them claiming it is.

lol, what other evidence can you possibly have? Any "oversight" they grant you will presumably be over-the-Internet reports. They're not going to let you visit their offices and look at the codebase for yourself!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Also what VD said. Their goals are simply unrealistic in the given time-frame and with the funds. It is evident that they really did not think this through. They might later on, but so far I have little faith in their planning and management abilities - they simply didn't prove it. Far from that.

It's not that. Look at how KS works. You don't present a plan and say I need that much money to do this and that. You tell people that you want to make an awesome game and you need X amount of dollars, which usually tied not to what you're planning but to your status (larger studios can get more money). After you hit the goal, the frenzy starts. You start pulling stretch goals out of your ass and throw them at people, driving the pledges up. It's the most idiotic part of KS, but that's how the game works.

Then and only then, after you have a pile of cash, you can start planning (how you gonna shove all that shit into an 18 months schedule). Not before, because "before" you have no idea what budget you're working with and what you had to promise in order to get that money. There is a difference between a 3 level dungeon and a 9-10 level one. There is a huge difference between one "big, big" city and two, between 4 classes and 10, etc.

 

[Mrowak]

All right, I see what you are saying. But what about the other KS games? Did they have a plan? Why does Obsidian need one but they don't?

(Disclaimer: I believe it'd be great if they all had one, but I'd still like to hear your answer.)

I explained myself in detail before in grater detail. I will only say that such high-profile player like Obsidian simply should know better how to conduct business.

Compare Obsidian's efforts to the one's of some random Johnny Cleve, who has to make 50% of the game in order to prove himself to get any funding. Now I understand that Obsidian simply cannot make 50% of the game - it's too much effort for a title of this callibre. So they turn to people for help using their reputation and names of great developers they have. Fair enough. The problem is this: appart from namedropping and a few disjointed ideas they did not bring anything to the table. You'd think a company with so many years of experience should show how professional they are by approaching people as they would a publisher - with a fucking clue and hard numbers. But alas, it's marketing - and we - people who finance the project - are treated like sheeple.

Now about Double Fine and inXile - them I can sort of understand because they were the pioneers, who really did not know if they'll get enough funding and it was. But after si much time Obsidian does exactly the same? Good God, why do you treat the people with such a condescension?

 

[Vault Dweller]

What are you basing that on? Did you see their plans? Schedule? Budget? No? So it's your baseless conjecture.

It is not baseless. We have the very recent and highly relevant evidence of Brian Fargo claiming his team is progressing at a "kick-ass" pace. Maybe that will change later on - we'll see.

Surely, you realize that someone claiming that they are on schedule (when they haven't even entered production yet), isn't evidence at all.

That's the point, there is no evidence to suggest that a decent, brand-new RPG can be done in 18 months (i.e. no game that anyone can point at and say "look, it's been done before!"). We have Tim Cain's very specific quote, we have various "development time" data that points at 3 years.

To counter that, we have Brian Fargo who says that it's all a bunch of malarkey and that 3 years is "after gross net deduction profit percentage deferment ten percent of the nut. Cash, every movie cost $2,184 RPG takes 18 months to make" and that publishers are to blame for long development schedules, which doesn't make any sense at all, because it means that publishers are paying twice as much for development - a trait they are not known for.

 

[J_C]

Do you really believe that publishers meddling doubles the development time? .

Well doesn't double it, but waiting for approvals from the publishers for every design decision does not make the development time shorter, that's for sure.

We don't know that how much time these will take. We don't have a reference. Which was the last 2D isometric RPG done by a big, professional studio without publisher support? I doubt there was ever one.

 

[Infinitron]

Surely, you realize that someone claiming that they are on schedule (when they haven't even entered production yet), isn't evidence at all.

Maybe not, but it's the most relevant data we have on a project of this particular kind (ie, using Unity, using time-tested technologies the studio is already familiar with as opposed to learning new tech, no wasting time on console support, etc)

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's not data. It's an unsupported (at the moment) claim. It will become a relevant fact if Fargo releases WL2 in 18-20 months and it's not a horribly rushed shite, but not before.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Do you really believe that publishers meddling doubles the development time? .

Well doesn't double it, but waiting for approvals from the publishers for every design decision does not make the development time shorter, that's for sure.

Does the work stop while they wait?

 

[Infinitron]

It's not data. It's an unsupported (at the moment) claim. It will become a relevant fact if Fargo releases WL2 in 18-20 months and it's not a horribly rushed shite, but not before.

It's already October. Shouldn't that be 12-14 months?

 

[J_C]

Do you really believe that publishers meddling doubles the development time? .

Well doesn't double it, but waiting for approvals from the publishers for every design decision does not make the development time shorter, that's for sure.

Does the work stop while they wait?

No, but if the publisher says that they should change some stuff in the game, than it takes additional times.

 

[Mrowak]

Also what VD said. Their goals are simply unrealistic in the given time-frame and with the funds. It is evident that they really did not think this through. They might later on, but so far I have little faith in their planning and management abilities - they simply didn't prove it. Far from that.

It's not that. Look at how KS works. You don't present a plan and say I need that much money to do this and that. You tell people that you want to make an awesome game and you need X amount of dollars, which usually tied not to what you're planning but to your status (larger studios can get more money). After you hit the goal, the frenzy starts. You start pulling stretch goals out of your ass and throw them at people, driving the pledges up. It's the most idiotic part of KS, but that's how the game works.

It's marketing - as I said. And I agree, in the current form it's nonsense.

Then and only then, after you have a pile of cash, you can start planning (how you gonna shove all that shit into an 18 months schedule). Not before, because "before" you have no idea what budget you're working with and what you had to promise in order to get that money. There is a difference between a 3 level dungeon and a 9-10 level one. There is a huge difference between one "big, big" city and two, between 4 classes and 10, etc.

I am aware that adding so much stuff will complicate development process significantly - that's why any sort of initial modular plan is needed.

What I meant by "initial plan" is the plan for the minimal sum they are trying to gather. After the campaign is over they can count the moneys and provide the actual schedule.

Ideally every stretch goal should be accounted in the basic plan - the company ought to show how adding 8 level dungeon will change their schedule, how the second city will influence development process, including timelines and expenditure, etc. The numbers - or rather rough estimates - should be ready before the campaign is up and running in order to at least prove that they know what they are getting themselves into.

It's not only about transparency and respect for your audience, but also about making things easier for you. By showing that they have a plan and that they can make it adaptable they prove that they think about such critical issues like scheduling and have the clear vision of what they are trying to accomplish. Contrast this with having some haphazard ideas and then having to blend them somehow together so they work while the clock is ticking.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's already October. Shouldn't that be 12-14 months?

I meant the overall development time, not time left.

No, but if the publisher says that they should change some stuff in the game, than it takes additional times.

It does, bit how often does it happen and on what scale to double or significantly increase the development time? The fact that it's consistent across the board suggests that the interference is minimal.

 

[Jaesun]

Do you really believe that publishers meddling doubles the development time? .

Well doesn't double it, but waiting for approvals from the publishers for every design decision does not make the development time shorter, that's for sure.

Does the work stop while they wait?

No, but if the publisher says that they should change some stuff in the game, than it takes additional times.

Changing stuff in the game is completely normal in EVERY game making process though.

 

[Raygun_elf]

Mrowak
How many backers of PE do you think actually want that kind of disclosure? I would be willing to bet most do not care about the financial specifics of how the money is allocated to development, they just want the game. They donate now, forget about the project except for the odd update, and then play it when it's out. It's no different than a pre-order really, God you sound like a pretentious twat, you don't have the right to anything more than the game + the extra content in the tier you pledged to, least of all for a privately-held company to divulge personal financial information to the whole world, even in a watered-down form.

And even so, what would telling the backers any of this stuff accomplish, we are not economists or accountants, and we aren't paying Obsidian to do their work for them.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Neither I, nor thousands of others care. The vague goal was to make the game large in scope like BG2, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale rolled into one. Athkatla and Sigil are the very minimum player's are going to expect. Them being vague will work against them. We really don't even know if they realise what makes those huge cities so memorable.

Those are 3 IE games, but they differ from each other significantly. Athkatla was much bigger in scope than Sigil, but you really can't compare them due to the quality and writing. Can they produce the city size of Sigil, but with content from Athkatla. Most likely.

I do not care. They were not clear. It's their fault if they make the cities worse than in original games.

You are the idiot here if you believed that they will make city as big as Athkatla with so many encounters, as well written as Sigil and with the complexity of encounters as in IWD. They have promised nothing of a sort. They promised IE engine style game, that they can build for the budget.

You know if they would have told to me from beginning that they want to make steampunk RPG with elves and dwarfs I would have probably said fuck you. Now I have donated $ 70 bucks for the project and they have expanded it, to suit my tastes better.

So you are basically saying that if they provided you with the full info from the start you'd pledge the money on it at the beginnig, instead of the middle of the campaign. Fantastic!

I do not rule out marketing in the campaign. But I'd prefer facts instead of wishful thinking.

You CAN do more things with a bigger budget, I thought that was clear.

2. I don't give a shit if they will have to change something for a good reason.

And what if the good reason is: "Oh shit! We miscalculated and we don't have enough money to work on combat system for 4 extra months. Guess we'd better release a broken mess." That does sound like a good reason to me... but good for whom?

If you don't have any control over the project don't even bother knowing. What you want is that they would give information in the form of the news, that you can only obeserve but not interact with. Well the plane cashed and all the passengers died. Happy now?

No. The point I am trying to make is that there should have been measures there that would prove to us this won't happen. Budget outline would be nice to have, for one thing.

A measure? And they would have been judged on the basis of their budget by people who:
a) Have no idea what game budget is all about. Have never seen one and have never invested into one.
b) Have no idea about finance and can only express feelings towards it.
c) Can manage to screw a 6 answer poll at Obsidian forums.

A lot of stuff the game companies do are not accountable except for salaries and some fixed costs. How do you account for late night brainstorming? Changing the system based upon fan feedback? It would have been few lines with salaries for employees. That: a) would give you no info and b) you can't control it.

 

[Mrowak]

Mrowak
How many backers of PE do you think actually want that kind of disclosure? I would be willing to bet most do not care about the financial specifics of how the money is allocated to development, they just want the game. They donate now, forget about the project except for the odd update, and then play it when it's out. It's no different than a pre-order really, God you sound like a pretentious twat, you don't have the right to anything more than the game + the extra content in the tier you pledged to, least of all for a privately-held company to divulge personal financial information to the whole world, even in a watered-down form.

And even so, what would telling the backers any of this stuff accomplish, we are not economists or accountants, and we aren't paying Obsidian to do their work for them.

Ok, this kind of logic is simply retarded. So you don't one the info on the legitimacy of the project... because you do not care to check if it's legitimate? You aresatisfied with a fantasy dreamworld that the project will succeed without anything substantial to support, just because developer says so...

Even if you are person like that, then what harm would revealing the numbers and that they know what they are doing do to you...

You know such behaviour resembles wanting to hear only the good PR marketing stuff, because hard numbrs could prove that the whole idea is bollocks and shatter your dreamworld on the spot. Come to think of it it's not different from the marketing any other company such as EA or Activision do, for which we keep flailing them at every turn. But when Obsidian does the same thing, it's all fine.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Mrowak
How many backers of PE do you think actually want that kind of disclosure? I would be willing to bet most do not care about the financial specifics of how the money is allocated to development, they just want the game. They donate now, forget about the project except for the odd update, and then play it when it's out. It's no different than a pre-order really, God you sound like a pretentious twat, you don't have the right to anything more than the game + the extra content in the tier you pledged to, least of all for a privately-held company to divulge personal financial information to the whole world, even in a watered-down form.

And even so, what would telling the backers any of this stuff accomplish, we are not economists or accountants, and we aren't paying Obsidian to do their work for them.

Ok, this kind of logic is simply retarded. So you don't one the info on the legitimacy of the project... because you do not care to check if it's legitimate? You aresatisfied with a fantasy dreamworld that the project will succeed without anything substantial to support, just because developer says so...

Even if you are person like that, then what harm would revealing the numbers and that they know what they are doing do to you...

You know such behaviour resembles wanting to hear only the good PR marketing stuff, because hard numbrs could prove that the whole idea is bollocks and shatter your dreamworld on the spot. Come to think of it it's not different from the marketing any other company such as EA or Activision do, for which we keep flailing them at every turn. But when Obsidian does the same thing, it's all fine.

It is the awakened consumer who will usher in the golder era of industry.

 

[Raygun_elf]

Mrowak
How many backers of PE do you think actually want that kind of disclosure? I would be willing to bet most do not care about the financial specifics of how the money is allocated to development, they just want the game. They donate now, forget about the project except for the odd update, and then play it when it's out. It's no different than a pre-order really, God you sound like a pretentious twat, you don't have the right to anything more than the game + the extra content in the tier you pledged to, least of all for a privately-held company to divulge personal financial information to the whole world, even in a watered-down form.

And even so, what would telling the backers any of this stuff accomplish, we are not economists or accountants, and we aren't paying Obsidian to do their work for them.

Ok, this kind of logic is simply retarded. So you don't one the info on the legitimacy of the project... because you do not care to check if it's legitimate? You aresatisfied with a fantasy dreamworld that the project will succeed without anything substantial to support, just because developer says so...

Even if you are person like that, then what harm would revealing the numbers and that they know what they are doing do to you...

You know such behaviour resembles wanting to hear only the good PR marketing stuff, because hard numbrs could prove that the whole idea is bollocks and shatter your dreamworld on the spot. Come to think of it it's not different from the marketing any other company such as EA or Activision do, for which we keep flailing them at every turn. But when Obsidian does the same thing, it's all fine.

Personally speaking, I like playing games, and discussing them too. And although tidbits of how games are made is interesting stuff (like the documentary they are promising) I don't really care for anything I'd consider a chore, and reading financial plans definitely sounds like a chore to me.

But the point is largely irrelevant, a company that is private (not publicly-traded) on Kickstarter is never going to give you what you want. That's not just Obsidian and it's not because their assholes, it's just something private groups never do. The marketplace is a savage place.

 

[Infinitron]

Ok, this kind of logic is simply retarded. So you don't one the info on the legitimacy of the project... because you do not care to check if it's legitimate? You aresatisfied with a fantasy dreamworld that the project will succeed without anything substantial to support, just because developer says so...

Even if you are person like that, then what harm would revealing the numbers and that they know what they are doing do to you...

You know such behaviour resembles wanting to hear only the good PR marketing stuff, because hard numbrs could prove that the whole idea is bollocks and shatter your dreamworld on the spot. Come to think of it it's not different from the marketing any other company such as EA or Activision do, for which we keep flailing them at every turn. But when Obsidian does the same thing, it's all fine.

Understand this - we're not giving Kickstarters our money so we can replace publishers. They'd have to pay us money to do that.

The reason we're paying money - the reason this entire Kickstarter revolution began - is because we wanted BETTER GAMES. That's all we wanted.

Everything else is irrelevant. Whether it is the "innovation" that the faggots on RPS like talking about, or your "transparency". Fuck innovation, fuck transparency, give me oldschool RPGs.