Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: The Banner Saga, 2D Turn-Based Strategy RPG

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They kind of did address this,

But I don't really feel like defending them.


EDIT: I see now that it had already been pointed out earlier.

Chewbot

This goes to you and all other junior kickstarters that got more money than they have ever seen in their life.

Kickstarter gave you too much money! It already went to your head. They should have given you the 100,000$ you wanted, and not 1 cent more.

It just took four weeks for three cool guys with a bold plan to believe they are now becoming internet millionaires. Wake up.

Just four weeks ago (!) you came to kickstarter with a modest goal of 100k and a really likeable little project, and were being given a whopping 650k$ instead, by the League of nice people of the Internet.

I guess these people wanted to support three cool guys making cool games in a garage, and you fit that model perfectly.

People thought, cool, lets give them over 6 times what they need, and every one will be happy! With 650,000$ these three guys can work comfortably for 2-3 years and even pay for a lot of extra stuff they need.

Now, your first big mistake was taking for granted that all that money was to be used for anything but your own expenses, and started contracting out the work. But your team already consists of 2 artists and 1 programmer. Why hire more people?

That's not indie development. That's big, risky business. And it's shit, if you do it in your first project. Since you have no experience with that kind of business, you are not entitled to use advanced money that way, but only AFTER you have made your first successful game. You are not Steve Jobs yet by any stretch. You are not even Brian Fargo. You are three guys on probation period! You might still make it and become successful software developers, but in my opinion you're already moving in the wrong direction.

I initially wanted to support your project, but I absolutely don't like the mode of thinking you showed after you got a ton of extra money, 550,000$ in all! People often betray their real character in such moments of joy.

Instead of dividing the money by three chapters (650,000 / 3 == 200% per chapter), you instead multiply by three (3 chapters times 650,000 = close to 2,000,000$), and feel a bit like Steve Jobs.

I know you will not admit it. But deep inside you know that I am right

After the kickstarter success, your first move should have been to put all three chapters in one, and stick to your initial plan, i.e. three guys in a garage.
Before budgeting money for an orchestra. Before console ports. Before hiring staff, although you already have a team that can put 6-9 man years into the project.

I hope this is not going to become the future of kickstarter. That guys move from garage developers to well off junior chiefs in four weeks, and think it's all right.

I'm sure you will all be happy to know that according to kicktraq ( http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/stoic/the-banner-saga/ ), with that big announcement they attracted far more backers and more money than in any single day before that, even with the Codex pulling out. They now have a core audience that is very contrary to what the Codex represents. It is for the best that we do not contribute to the pre-funding of this game now. Consider a purchase post-release if you must

People in general are gullible and forgetful.

From SA: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3469966&pagenumber=11#post402804430

Hey, who the fuck is Xerophyte? http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...erid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=10#post402791618

Rex?

"We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane" - Kickstarter developer

Whoops, wrong link there. Fixed it.

Xerophyte and his Grandia II review

The Codex made these guys. I reckon most of them are just butthurt about the Codex because at one point in the past they posted some moronic shit here that didn't qualify them for the cognitive elite.

I wouldn't read anything into what they say.

Well actually sometimes even they say the right things.

This is actually, quite correct. After I've seen these games were possible 10 years ago, I want only Arcanum 2, Jagged Alliance 3, Fallout 3, or new games of the same class. Without the moronic bullshit about angels and chariots of fire.

What I don't want are Apple Store games for the PC, with orchestra soundtracks, courtesy of the gullible people of the web.

Who the hell is this futile prick who once founded RPGCodex and is speaking like that today (i.e. "wouldn't read RPGCodex forums in general")? This merits some further investigation. It's really sad how some people degrade when they get older. I wish I could go back in time and shove "his" RPGCodex into his anus, when it was still just his idea.

Xerophyte was a hero of the RPGCodex! But look at him now...justice knows every man's user ID.
He has committed a terrible sacrilege, and he will pay for it with his life! As will every man here who contributes to the decline.

Trolls and shitposters will be flogged. Spammers will be strangled. Deserters will be crucified!

written in 2002 A.D. by the founder of RPGCodex
A man out of his time and a visionary mind if I ever saw one.
This is just too unbearably funny, that I find this out after contributing six years to this man's idea ..

IMO, DU showed he still has what it takes when he debated VD on the merits of AoD's dialogue system. It was very

EDIT: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...adence-march-update.70771/page-5#post-2031232

It's sad to see how fast money corrupts people. Just a few weeks ago mr. Thomas gave an interview to this site and promoted thier game, chewbot (is he thomas?) answered questions and patiently explained the basic game concept. He even reacted quite calmly when he was hit with the standard codexian verbal abuse and I genuinely liked him as a result.

Now they have their money and already the first signs of arrogance are there for everyone to see. In just a few short days we've gone from "hey guys, let me explain our game concept which is influenced by this and that old-school RPG" to "that's the game we're making and if you don't like it you can fuck off". You may feel like you're on the top of the world now but remember that you got there through the good will of the people who gave you their money. That good will can be lost as easily as it was generated.

Chewbot, mr Thomas or anyone else from the developers who might be reading, I would like to know this: How much money will you spend on porting the game to XBL/PSN? If it is $50k or less, ie the amount of money that was gathered after you set the $650k goal, then I'm absolutely fine with it. If porting the game will cost much more than that and you will have to use a chunk of the money people gave you before that announcement, then you have misled us into giving you money under falce pretenses. Plain and simple.

Yeah, about a 50% chance that either WL2 or SRR will be great RPGs, by around 2014. I already have a massive hard-on.

He didn't, the point is that if you really want to do the game you jump at the possibility when is given, this further shows that the game is not the priority, the episodes formula was understandable when they weren't sure if the game would be funded, sticking to it now is just greed, of course they can do what they want, but not pretend of not being called out on it.

Correlation is not causation, hurr durr, all the Kickstarter projects until now got a spike at the end, especially the most successful ones, and this is what makes announcing ports at the last minute such a sleazy move.

Chewbot, if you're reading this.

On your original kickstarter page you mention the following:
-Porting to more devices. OUR FIRST RELEASE will be on PC and Mac, but funding would allow us to convert the game to iOS, Kindle fire, consoles like XBLA and PSN and etc...

This gives us the impression that the porting would have been an afterthought. Something that may or may not have happened after the game was released. What you're doing now, using these funds to develop all versions at the same time will inevitably lead to compromises. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt now and believe you when you say that this won't be the case, but you'll soon find out it will be.

If I was a malicious person I'd call this duplicitous marketing, something which BioWare has been known to do repeatedly in the past. Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree and all.

Kickstarter really tamed the Codex, come on guys, he has come here to promote his game appealing at all this site appreciate, now that he is awash in cash suddenly the Codex doesn't suit his tastes, how quaint.

Just about any KS project will experience a surge in money when the time's running out.




But about the console ports, I'm not really worried about the affect it'd have on gameplay, but just the cost and practicality of it. It takes money, but hopefully make more money in return. But why does that money to port it have to come from the Kickstarter, where what's being offered is "A copy of THE BANNER SAGA with all the Chapter 1 content, along with all the big upgrades we're planning to add to the multiplayer, distributed digitally on PC or Mac." there? PC and Mac versions, if someone who wants this shit on console donates, he won't even get that! Instead having to buy the game twice. So why not use all efforts on PC version now and then, possibly make a console port with the profits if you want? With the funds gotten now going towards the core game, even if that includes silly moneysinks like orchestra.


And is this town thing supposed to be a multiplayer thing, as somebody said? Or continuation of the nomad caravan thingy which was the game they originally pitched... It's just too damn vague. Sucks either way since I like the caravan traveling idea better, and hate persistent things like that in MP, rather play 1-off matches than grow some persistent city I have to level up before I can fight those tactical 1-off battles on even ground with people.


At first the project seemed interesting, hinting at types of gameplay that I enjoy, but as the campaign progressed I never saw any further details that'd made it more clear what kind of game it will exactly be. You have tactical battles, cool, that part is mostly covered I guess though remains to be seen how good it'll be of course. Then you travel around and different things can happen, ok, what does this mean in action? Is there an overland map to roam freely? Is it a linear path, but XP and monies gotten in missions can vary? Is it a linear path but with C&C to choose between junctions? Or something else? Who the fuck knows, really.
And now this city thing... WTF is it even, compared to the rest of the content.
All the PR seems to just be focused on superfluous stuff like music, instead of detailing the game. Which is important too, but the core game needs to be worth playing for me before those things matter at all. To me it shows something about the priorities of the devs too.

Still I hope the game'll be good, will be judged when it comes out. As of this time, with the info we've gotten, that's impossible to say.

It was a good, and perhaps needed, wake-up call, and those who disaproved were able to remove their pledge in time. More projects are bound to come in the following months, and definetly we will see more developers at the Codex showing their ideas, so it's good that we remain alert and learn from bad experiences.

That said, Banner Saga it's still going to happen, so if it turn out good we can just buy it. Only loses from all this was some pre-orders and (cool) posters, and a little bit of innocence on both sides.

Sure if Banner Saga turns out a great game which caters to much more than just the most primitive gameplay I will be the first to walk on my knees to Stoic's garage, apologize, and buy a copy.

But right now I am saying: you have 10h left to pull out of another side scrolling casual game with a bit of primitive dialog and turn based combat in between, and I would recommend every one to do it quickly, after what we've heard and seen. It won't even hurt the project very much, they got much more money than they need obviously, and start spending it for rubbish already.

It's more likely that it's because it's the final 24 hours of Banner Saga, so donations naturally go up by a lot regardless. But that said the donations in this case seem a bit slower. Wasteland got a lot of cash in its final 24 hours as did DFA. Banner Saga got $25 k, which isn't as strong, even proportionally as WL2 and DFA.

Either way, yeah it sounds like Banner Saga isn't turning out to be the game I'd hoped for.

Unless the codexers who maintained some level of donation say that it's actually pretty good after it comes out or all 3 episodes are out for <$5 on Steam, I'm not getting this.

EDIT: Oh fuck me why haven't I been reading this thread properly...I need to take a rest

Posting where? Kickstarter comments?

No, only Double Fine had a similar spike (one that is much larger at the end than at any other point). Wasteland did not. Either way, it is being made for console and with console in mind, that's a new audience. Doesn't matter about the graph correlation. What does matter is lack of reaction elsewhere, including in the money, the comments and other websites. It is not a good sign