• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Kingdom Come - Realistic open-world Medieval RPG [Kickstarter]

Games look pretty amazing but where the hell is cutting arms and legs off? Chivalry done it right and I hope they'll do it as well.
 
On the other hand, Oblivion supposedly featured the capital of a continent-spanning empire, and many of its most important cities. With a total of 300 people, and on a similarly-sized map.

Yeah I like the fact that warhorse are not purporting that what you're seeing is anything more or less than it is. I do feel that Bethesda come off pretty badly in that blog post, but at the same time when you're claiming around fifteen buildings and a great hall constitute the 'capital city' of Skyrim you're asking a lot when it comes to player suspension of disbelief.

I think we're a long way off 1:1 and in many ways it's not desirous but some sense of magnitude, enormity and scope makes sense if you're going to throw around words like 'City' and 'empire'.

I believe that the private investor will be so impressed with amount of support this campaign gets from the crowd, he might invest more than he previously planned.

Well if he is buoyed enough by the speed of the kick-starter to throw them some more money then that would be no bad thing.

Also updated to Digital baron..cos fuck it :)
 
This game is already at 233k and keeps going.

Is this another example of how publishers only want to cater to the mass market side of the people that play games?

Skyrim sold like 15 or 20 million units, so I'm not sure that was the concern. Something seems fishy here, I don't see how they could do a pitch with this video, point to Skyrim's sales, and be told to hit the road. My guess is the investor was probably wanting too large a cut after having bank rolled the 1.5 million dollar demo.
 
Update #1

Thank you!

So we finally let the cat out of the bag and now everything is in your hands. So far it looks beyond-our-wildest-dreams-kind of good. We are very grateful for your support and for the amazing response we got! It’s a great feeling of satisfaction for all of us to read that watching our trailer gave you goose bumps or that this is the game you’ve been waiting for your whole life. We’ll do our best not to disappoint you!

We also try to reply to your emails as fast as we can and clarify all possible issues. And as we are happy enough to expect to reach our original goal soon, we also work on our stretch goals.

We are planning video updates about important gameplay elements. We want to show our character editor and how you can use it to customize your character. There will be more info about the combat system and you will see how it looks in the latest version of Cryengine. Then we want to show you how our world looks like and what its real-world counterparts are. And by the end of the campaign we have a big surprise planned.
 
Skyrim sold like 15 or 20 million units, so I'm not sure that was the concern. Something seems fishy here, I don't see how they could do a pitch with this video, point to Skyrim's sales, and be told to hit the road. My guess is the investor was probably wanting too large a cut after having bank rolled the 1.5 million dollar demo.
They covered their publisher travails very extensively on their blog. The investor who provided them the $1.5 million is the same investor who's still on board and publishers really didn't want the game (though they do mention in the blog that Skyrim's sales helped allow them to pitch an RPG at all). I agree it seems ludicrous, but there were actually publishers in Europe who thought that Americans wouldn't want to play a game about European medieval history.
 
They covered their publisher travails very extensively on their blog. The investor who provided them the $1.5 million is the same investor who's still on board and publishers really didn't want the game (though they do mention in the blog that Skyrim's sales helped allow them to pitch an RPG at all). I agree it seems ludicrous, but there were actually publishers in Europe who thought that Americans wouldn't want to play a game about realistic European medieval history.

I would add that word in there because the common conception in america about the middle ages is a heavily romanticized hollywood versin that intertwines with fantasy. A game like that owuld sell.. but it would not be very realistic.

At the end of the campaign I will be very curious to see where a breakdown of the founding by country. I would actually not doubt European predominance... similar to Star Citizen.

There is for some reason a great love of sim experiences in Europe... not sure why.
 
So they should hit their goal today. I wonder how much this will end up making. They should easily pass 1 million pounds.
 
I disagree with how you read it.

What they are doing is actually setting a realistic scope for their setting, and that's why they are able to build a relatively (!) "small" map to accommodate it -- which is still realistic. It's a set of small European settlements somewhere in the countryside.

On the other hand, Oblivion supposedly featured the capital of a continent-spanning empire, and many of its most important cities. With a total of 300 people, and on a similarly-sized map.
To be fair, it was more technology and art issue in Oblivion. Lets not forget, its the game from the same company as Daggerfall :P
 
To be fair, it was more technology and art issue in Oblivion. Lets not forget, its the game from the same company as Daggerfall :P
It would have been an interesting approach for them to devote the entire map to reproducing the Imperial City. Probably not what people want from a TES game though. Also, Daggerfall basically requires fast travel to play, and Daniel Vavra points out that it is basically a crutch.
 
I don't get it how will half a million dollars or 1 million persuade the investor that this game will in any way be successful. I mean it's one thing to sell a kickstarter idea to 20000 people, but it doesn't indicate anything whether the game will sell million copies when it comes out.
 
I don't get it how will half a million dollars or 1 million persuade the investor that this game will in any way be successful. I mean it's one thing to sell a kickstarter idea to 20000 people, but it doesn't indicate anything whether the game will sell million copies when it comes out.
At $30 a copy, you don't need to sell a million copies to recoup that sort of investment.
 
I don't get it how will half a million dollars or 1 million persuade the investor that this game will in any way be successful. I mean it's one thing to sell a kickstarter idea to 20000 people, but it doesn't indicate anything whether the game will sell million copies when it comes out.

I dont get why You didnt just read Kickstarter's paragraph about this issue.
 
I don't get it how will half a million dollars or 1 million persuade the investor that this game will in any way be successful. I mean it's one thing to sell a kickstarter idea to 20000 people, but it doesn't indicate anything whether the game will sell million copies when it comes out.

I think the time it took to reach the goal is more than evidence enough, combined with the interest of media all over the place
 
I'm just fresh from reading the blog post. Starts off making their point strongly but then concedes that they must do the same to retain interest to avoid a "crutch" which I'm not sure is a fair way of considering fast travel. Anyhow...

What then, is the purpose of the start followed by capitulation and offering the very same thing and solution that they previously derided with a fair amount of vitriol? The abrupt tonal shift could even be considered misleading by some corners as it comes very late in the piece to boot. I feel it's compounded even further by the glowing praise for RDR, which for many however beloved, neatly sits inside the "potato landscape" umbrella.

Should basic things such as offering a vote to decide the very core nature of the world be decided this late in the game (pardon)? Tempted to jump in on the Kickstarter but I feel it would be wise to hold off a while to see where they are headed. From the blog I'm not convinced they're too sure themselves.
 
I'm just fresh from reading the blog post. Starts off making their point strongly but then concedes that they must do the same to retain interest to avoid a "crutch" which I'm not sure is a fair way of considering fast travel. Anyhow...

What then, is the purpose of the start followed by capitulation and offering the very same thing and solution that they previously derided with a fair amount of vitriol? The abrupt tonal shift could even be considered misleading by some corners as it comes very late in the piece to boot. I feel it's compounded even further by the glowing praise for RDR, which for many however beloved, neatly sits inside the "potato landscape" umbrella.

Should basic things such as offering a vote to decide the very core nature of the world be decided this late in the game (pardon)? Tempted to jump in on the Kickstarter but I feel it would be wise to hold off a while to see where they are headed. From the blog I'm not convinced they're too sure themselves.

I think the glowing praise of RDR is not for its map geography to gameplay ratio stuff, but rather for the nature of its story.
 
It sounds overly ambitious.

And the combat..........looks stale. Sure, it looks more realistic in terms of the technique involved, but it looks completely lifeless with the canned animations and lack of drama. I don't know if any of you have ever been in a battle back in the 1300's(I have), but its like life and death stuff. People get fucking aggro and pumped over that shit. They don't just sit there and duel to the death like its an after-dinner festivity.

This looks cool, but its one of those games that seems far too ambitious for a small developer to pull off. I'd love to be proven wrong.
 
It sounds overly ambitious.

And the combat..........looks stale. Sure, it looks more realistic in terms of the technique involved, but it looks completely lifeless with the canned animations and lack of drama. I don't know if any of you have ever been in a battle back in the 1300's(I have), but its like life and death stuff. People get fucking aggro and pumped over that shit. They don't just sit there and duel to the death like its an after-dinner festivity.

This looks cool, but its one of those games that seems far too ambitious for a small developer to pull off. I'd love to be proven wrong.

Combat system is still WIP. They just showed bunch of canned animations to see how it would be working.

IMO i don't think it will look like that in final game. It will be more basic. Mouse or pad isn't really good controller for proper realistic combat especially if you want to use shield.

As of facts i don't think any game will be able to realisticaly depict proper sword fighting techniques based on real life.

For example in most games shield block is one action and sword attack is another.

In reality based on real data no one fought like that. Shield was used at same time as sword. Using one or another was mistake that could end your life shortly.

Also swinging with sword like axe was biggest mistake. Swords mostly were used as pierce, stabbing weapon as cutting on armored (even leather armor) was innefective.

Hammers axes were not big. They were smaller than small swords.

Other thing is armor. In case of heavily armored knights swords were almost useless and most of the time fight between two knights didn't end with swords but with grapple and dagger.

Here are some proper fighting techniques:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjT4JepA-Vc&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S_Q3CGqZmg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhpqAGdZPc


and here is how real battle could look like with armored men.

http://www.chilloutzone.net/video/die-polnische-ritterliga.html

Mind you those are more or less amatours but you can see well how effective full plate armor could be against almost any kind of attack beside stabbing in joints of armor.


Also spears were mostly battlefield weapons were swords were kind of personal weapon in case of combat much like todays soldiers beside assault rifle have pistol as sidearm.

Spear/polearms 90% chance will win with sword just because its superb reach. Polearms also are perfectly created to fight in very close distance which whole other mistake common in RPGs (as spears are shit in close combat)



So if someone would want to create realistic combat in medieval times most of players would need to use Spears or bows or riding horse with again spear.

I don't see how pad or mouse could replicate super precise thrust of spear... Even in MoB spear is kind of hack and slash instead of proper thrusting weapon (on foot)
 
Should basic things such as offering a vote to decide the very core nature of the world be decided this late in the game (pardon)? Tempted to jump in on the Kickstarter but I feel it would be wise to hold off a while to see where they are headed. From the blog I'm not convinced they're too sure themselves.
I think the rest of your post has been addressed elsewhere, but just FYI: that article was published in June 2012 :) I'm pretty sure they've made their decision by now.
 
Makes me wonder if this is one of the fastest funded projects to date. Over £260K and counting.
It may be in the top 15 game projects, but it's not really close to the top. Project Eternity made almost 1 million in one day, and Torment over 1.5 million.

I think we're a long way off 1:1 and in many ways it's not desirous but some sense of magnitude, enormity and scope makes sense if you're going to throw around words like 'City' and 'empire'.
Particularly for those of us who played TES back in Daggerfall, which was just a province of that empire. A province with roughly 15000 towns, settlements and villages. Governed from a capital with 80 people in it.
 
nearlly at goal already i think they have proved many publishers wrong
 
All things aim at the secret benefactor being this guy, 1.5 billions, not bad.
IIRC RPS already confirmed that. I wonder what kind of deal they made (sponsorship or investment etc,)

And the combat..........looks stale. Sure, it looks more realistic in terms of the technique involved, but it looks completely lifeless with the canned animations
I don't know what got you banned, but the combat simulation doesn't even use animations - it's based on kinematics.
 
GAF, when I become a billionaire I am going to invest 40 million in making the most eye-meltingly pretty exploration-based non-linear open-world RPG the universe has ever seen.
That's just about Witcher 3's budget (>110,000,000 zł), so you've got to aim higher :p
 
That's just about Witcher 3's budget (110,000,000 zł), so you've got to aim higher :p

But that's coming out on three platforms. Presumably it would be slightly cheaper to do PC only.

Also I didn't know CDPR had it in them to go that high. Good for them.
 
Looks great but that's problematic rather than encouraging if you're dealing with a sub $1000000 Kickstarter. I don't believe they'll deliver in the slightest. Far too ambitious for the price.
 
Really love how Dan Vávra is so perfectionist in his design thoughts.

BTW: Too bad Dan's original design of Mafia 2 was so cut down by publisher in features(http://tcrf.net/Mafia_II#Cut_Features) and missions (http://tcrf.net/Mafia_II/Cut_Missions)


Looks great but that's problematic rather than encouraging if you're dealing with a sub $1000000 Kickstarter. I don't believe they'll deliver in the slightest. Far too ambitious for the price.
Kickstarter goal is just 10% of overall budged of first part (they already spent 1500k in earlier development)
 
GAF, when I become a billionaire I am going to invest 40 million in making the most eye-meltingly pretty exploration-based non-linear open-world RPG the universe has ever seen.
I am holding you to your word Dennis.

In other news.. this thing will be funded sometime in the next 1 hour to 1.5 hours I imagine.

God damn.
 
I think the rest of your post has been addressed elsewhere, but just FYI: that article was published in June 2012 :) I'm pretty sure they've made their decision by now.
Ah ha! That's a huge relief, the way it's been commented upon lately I wrongly assumed it was recent and didn't even check. My bad, what was the final decision out of interest? Unable to check the full details for myself at the present.
 
If it were PC exclusive, I would invest in it.

I've never been keen on supporting PC games that were developing with consoles in mind though. Its limits their potential.
 
Just backed it. It seems incredibly ambitious and would require a massive budget but let's see where this goes.

That's another thing that's bugging me.

A game this massive being made for the Xbox1/PS4 on 300k?

Its seems to unreal to me. The only way I can see this working, is if all that we see in the screenshots and videos is all of the game, or that it is limited to nothing but combat.
 
That's another thing that's bugging me.

A game this massive being made for the Xbox1/PS4 on 300k?

Its seems to unreal to me.

They already have an investor that has put in 1.5m+ into it. The kickstarter is to show him there's interest. (And to obviously help with funding)
 
They already have an investor that has put in 1.5m+ into it. The kickstarter is to show him there's interest. (And to obviously help with funding)

Ah, I see. Still seems kind of small to me. Will be interesting if it works though.

What game engine are they using?
 
GAF, when I become a billionaire I am going to invest 40 million in making the most eye-meltingly pretty exploration-based non-linear open-world RPG the universe has ever seen.
Didn't Curt Schilling already try and fail at this?
Ah ha! That's a huge relief, the way it's been commented upon lately I wrongly assumed it was recent and didn't even check. My bad, what was the final decision out of interest? Unable to check the full details for myself at the present.
Not sure, to be honest. I'd guess since they are going with 3x3 that they settled on real (non-lunar) topography but not realistic distances between towns.
 
Didn't Curt Schilling already try and fail at this?

Curt Schilling's failure was to try developing a massive MMO, one of the most expensive genres to produce, concurrently with his game production.

He could have easily kept his head above water if he wasn't contracting out whole studios working on an MMO.
 
That's another thing that's bugging me.

A game this massive being made for the Xbox1/PS4 on 300k?

Its seems to unreal to me. The only way I can see this working, is if all that we see in the screenshots and videos is all of the game, or that it is limited to nothing but combat.

No, its made with 7.5m$. They've already got 1.5m$ from investor and this 0.5m$ is just to earn a trust for investor that its worth to put another 6m$.
 
So it's supposed to release on the consoles first or is it the other way round?

Presumably concurrently or later on consoles.

"* Publishing on closed platforms is subject to approval by the platform holder. This can also influence release date there."
 
Top Bottom