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Game News Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter Funded

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Bard's Tale IV; Brian Fargo; Brother None; Chris Keenan; Eric Schwarz; George Ziets; InXile Entertainment; Jeremy Kopman; Josh Jertberg; Michael Cranford; Torment: Tides of Numenera; Wasteland 2

The Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter campaign concluded last night. No further stretch goals were achieved, but there were enough social achievements on the last day to unlock the Brian Fargo Bard Skin, as detailed in the penultimate Kickstarter update. I was too busy sleeping to watch the livestream of the wrap party, but I'm told that it featured about 11 minutes of Wasteland 2 Director's Cut gameplay footage, as well as some Torment: Tides of Numenera discussion (as announced in yesterday's Torment update). Here's the archived version of the stream:



5:00-21:00 - Brian Fargo on Bard's Tale IV
23:00-45:00 - Chris Keenan on Wasteland 2 Director's Cut (includes gameplay footage)
54:00-1:43:00 - George Ziets, Josh Jertberg, and Jeremy Kopman on Torment: Tides of Numenera (includes new concept art and details on Sagus Cliffs)
1:48:00-2:39:00 - Bard's Tale IV Q&A with Brian Fargo and Michael Cranford

With $1,519,495 of funding and 33,738 backers, Bard's Tale IV is the most successful oldschool RPG Kickstarter campaign since Torment. It's also far less successful than anybody would have expected after its very strong opening. It's a campaign that went from taking in over a million dollars within days to struggling to reach $5,000 per day. A campaign that went from an explosive launch featuring some of the fanciest in-engine footage ever seen in a Kickstarter campaign to a month of Shadowrun: Hong Kong-style "it's a marathon, not a sprint" nonchalance.

What to make of this? In my opinion, it's not so much that the campaign was missing some vital element, but more that it just didn't have enough of all those elements that it did have. One gets the impression that unlike inXile's previous two Kickstarters, the Bard's Tale IV campaign was run by people whose time and minds were occupied by other things. How much better could it have done? It's hard to say. Some might argue that a self-described dungeon crawler Kickstarter could never have reached much more than this. Perhaps gaining more than a million and a half dollars would have even required that Bard's Tale IV pretend to be something it isn't. And in that case, perhaps there's something just about this result.

It'll be interesting to see how inXile deal with having a much lower budget than they've gotten used to. Time will tell whether this tighter budget leads to tighter focus, especially given their promise to release a game that impresses visually. Then again, by the time Bard's Tale IV actually goes into full production, who knows how much extra money they might have to put into it. It's mostly a question of how much they're willing to risk on a genre that has now, alas, conclusively proven itself to be less popular.
 

Havoc

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From June 30th:
I doubt the KS will get 1.7mil, nevermind the 1.9mil mark. 1.5mil is doable, the rest is fanta sea.

ZwN1eYO.jpg
 

Darkzone

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What to make of this? In my opinion, it's not so much that the campaign was missing some vital element, but more that it just didn't have enough of all those elements that it did have, across the board. One gets the impression that unlike inXile's previous two Kickstarters, the Bard's Tale IV campaign was run by people whose time and minds were occupied by other things. How much better could it have done? It's hard to say. Some might argue that a self-described dungeon crawler Kickstarter could never have reached much more than this. Perhaps gaining more than a million and a half dollars would have even required that Bard's Tale IV pretend to be something it isn't. And in that case, perhaps there's something just about this result.
It'll be interesting to see how inXile deal with having a much lower budget than they've gotten used to. Time will tell whether this tighter budget leads to tighter focus, especially given their promise to release a game that impresses visually. Then again, by the time Bard's Tale IV actually goes into full production, who knows how much extra money they might have to put into it. It's mostly a question of how much they're willing to risk on a genre that has now, alas, conclusively proven itself to be less popular.

The amount of dropout in this campagne was astonishing as in "two steps forward, one step back", because: Save game issue has not been clearly and fast enough addressed. In the comment sections there was a lack of presence of the inXile employees. The vision document was not fast enough published, the Fargos Q&A session raised more questions then answered. The Vision has been not good enough presented. Many people didn't know comparable computer games. Overall for many people seemed as inXile had no interest in their own campaign. And why do you should back something if you have this impression. Fargo have seemed to try to sit out the problems, instead of attacking the problems.
More frequent updates, more and better clear messages, more presence in the comments section, to draw comparisons to show similar games in certain aspects and to explain how BTIV will be different would have been a also more productive. Overall yes the heads were not in the campaign, while the incentives were very good. 3 million were possible, but 1.5 is also not bad at all. Perhaps this lower amount may raise the creativity. But it really bites me that McComb as a goal has not been reached.
I still believe that this is going to be a amazing game, with relative good sales and i will enjoy a remasted BT1-3. But the campaign lacked in some aspects, and for Van Buren one has to learn from this campagne.

Torment section from the The Bard's Tale IV's Kickstarter wrap stream.
 

DeepOcean

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I don't know if Inxile felt the heat of the out of control stretch goals like other companies did or Fargo knows that with the delay of Torment, he won't have the man power for Bard's Tale soon or there is another KS on the pipeline when Torment is released and he doesn't want to commit too much to Bard's Tale but I don't think Fargo really expected a ton of money, he seems satisfied with what he got or we would see alot more frantic action from him on the campaign.

He just gone through the motions after he got what he wanted like HBS did on Shadowrun Hong Kong. The stretch goals were very non-committal, Colin in pratically a InXile name at this point, if Fargo truly wants him on Bard's Tale, he will be there stretch goal or not. Fargo must be aware that there were plenty of better options for IP ressurection, if we know blobbers sales sucks, he must too, so this wasn't designed to be a 5 million dollars project .
 

Athelas

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It is a bit worrying how little they got, especially considering what they have to deliver (top-notch graphics, ten unique classes, big dungeons, etc.).

It's also a shame InXile isn't able to reiterate on the same combat system instead of designing three significantly different combat systems for each of their RPG's.
 

BGMD

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Meh. Kickstarter money (+stretch goals) is here just to minimize the risks as much is possible, so not too bummed about stretch goals because I'm fairly sure that if needed InXile will increase the scope with these two "unique" dungeons anyway with profits from W2 DC / Torment and Fargo will as always put a positive spin on it for making the game "a better experience".
 
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Satisfying enough, because we almost reached all goals which serve a pure blobber experience. If we had gotten closer to 1.9 million or higher, then they could have turned gameplay to something 3D or isometric (the equippable 3D models in the inventory already hinted that). That was the irony behind the kickstarter - it divided blobber fans and isometric fans. I for one, am happy to see a quality blobber in the future, instead of yet another isometric RPG.

:greatjob:
 

Infinitron

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Watching the party stream now.

5-21 - Brian Fargo on Bard's Tale IV
23-45 - Chris Keenan on Wasteland 2 Director's Cut (29-40 for gameplay footage)
 

Darkzone

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Satisfying enough, because we almost reached all goals which serve a pure blobber experience. If we had gotten closer to 1.9 million or higher, then they could have turned gameplay to something 3D or isometric (the equippable 3D models in the inventory already hinted that). That was the irony behind the kickstarter - it divided blobber fans and isometric fans. I for one, am happy to see a quality blobber in the future, instead of yet another isometric RPG.

We basically got an half blobber half isometric game. It is not bad but i could be more. I hope only that we get McComb and his goal under the hat and i also wouldn't mind Avellone.

Watching the party stream now.

5-21 - Brian Fargo on Bard's Tale IV
23-45 - Chris Keenan on Wasteland 2 Director's Cut (29-40 for gameplay footage)
The only interesting part is The Torment part.
 
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theSavant

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We basically got an half blobber half isometric game.

More like 80:20

Chance is higher for a full blobber since Fargo said fully visible equipped characters costs more resources. The 3d modell in the inventory would have been the first step for accomplishing that, but since they never reached this goal (...), I doubt it.
 

roshan

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You know your kickstarter campaign has been abysmal when after it's over, fans still have no idea what they've backed.
 

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At least they know whether it has turn-based combat, unlike a certain other Kickstarter. :smug:
 

Korron

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I'll put money on Bard's Tale 4 doing worse.

Too bad nobody took me up on that offer in the shadowrun KS thread last February. Nostradamus right here. Mobile devs > inxile. lawlz.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
54-1:30 - George Ziets on the Sagus Cliffs (very cool)
 
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Bonerbill

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This kickstarter was never going to make that much money even if they did things differently. This genre doesn't have its legion of fangirls like the late 90's WRPGs.

Nevertheless, I don't think amount of funds they make on the kickstarter is going to matter. Torment is easily going to make them 10 million dollars plus, so just take the funds from that game to BT4. They're a small company, so they're not going to burns through money like other companies.
 
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