Same. It just feels wrong. I see the game as more one of danger, wandering, and discovery in an unknown world. Not one with a comfy bed to return to. I guess if they did it in some way like the'mental' stronghold that had been mentioned it would be okay with me...
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Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter by InXile [Complete; $4.3 million funded]
- Thread starter Perkel
- Start date
Same. It just feels wrong. I see the game as more one of danger, wandering, and discovery in an unknown world. Not one with a comfy bed to return to. I guess if they did it in some way like the'mental' stronghold that had been mentioned it would be okay with me...
I'm looking forward to the lesbian sex scenes
That's where it was! Either I dreamt the thing or it was cleverly removed :/ I think someone in the chat at the time caught it too and mentioned it. Then other people went through the 'they said it won't count to the final total stretch goals, blah blah' and was quickly glossed over haha. Oh well, not a big deal really
Haha I never read that but I remember duckroll saying it was crap. Surprising given Avellone's otherwise stellar work on Fallout throughout the years.
But a Torment-related comic written by Avellone? That seems particularly impossible to fuck up.
Brother None
Member
You guys posted way too much for me to catch up
It was an amazing final day, $400K in final day and $900K in final five blew my expectations out of the water.
Thanks to all of you! It's been such a wild ride...
Did I miss any questions or are there any to ask? I'm back now! Had to focus final day coz I was p much the only one working while everyone was off partying :shakes fist:
It was an amazing final day, $400K in final day and $900K in final five blew my expectations out of the water.
Thanks to all of you! It's been such a wild ride...
Did I miss any questions or are there any to ask? I'm back now! Had to focus final day coz I was p much the only one working while everyone was off partying :shakes fist:
You guys posted way too much for me to catch up
It was an amazing final day, $400K in final day and $900K in final five blew my expectations out of the water.
Thanks to all of you! It's been such a wild ride...
Did I miss any questions or are there any to ask? I'm back now! Had to focus final day coz I was p much the only one working while everyone was off partying :shakes fist:
Was the Stronghold stretch goal reached?
Brother None
Member
No.
trab pu kcip
Member
did they interview YSG? I gave up watching somewhat around 4 am here haha.
AstroZombie
Banned
You guys posted way too much for me to catch up
It was an amazing final day, $400K in final day and $900K in final five blew my expectations out of the water.
Thanks to all of you! It's been such a wild ride...
Did I miss any questions or are there any to ask? I'm back now! Had to focus final day coz I was p much the only one working while everyone was off partying :shakes fist:
Why wasn't McComb wearing his Kane outfit?
This would be great, I'm excited for the day a game Kickstarter passes 10 million. So much of Kickstarter's game development future lies in inXile's hand's.
Nor I. Besides, PE seems to kinda fall in line with what that was all about anyway (minus a THAC0 mechanic probably)
AstroZombie
Banned
Considering the quality of Bioware's post BG2 output I'd guess most of the talent behind that game left long ago.
Project Eternity is pretty much that, so the answer is just short of 4 million.
(Baldur's Gate 2)
Lead Design - Kevin Martens ---> worked on all Bioware's subsequent projects, left after Dragon Age 2 for Diablo 3
Director of Writing and Design - James Ohlen ---> worked on all Bioware's subsequent projects, now senior director of creative design at Bioware
Lead Programmer - Mark Darrah ---> worked on all Bioware's subsequent projects, now executive producer of Dragon Age franchise at Bioware
Design - David Gaider, Brent Knowles, Lukas Kristjanson, John Winski ---> all still at Bioware
etc.
You guys posted way too much for me to catch up
It was an amazing final day, $400K in final day and $900K in final five blew my expectations out of the water.
Thanks to all of you! It's been such a wild ride...
Did I miss any questions or are there any to ask? I'm back now! Had to focus final day coz I was p much the only one working while everyone was off partying :shakes fist:
Well now we wait........congrats anyways.
Goddamn, DAT EA sure has soiled their talents.
You guys posted way too much for me to catch up
It was an amazing final day, $400K in final day and $900K in final five blew my expectations out of the water.
Thanks to all of you! It's been such a wild ride...
Did I miss any questions or are there any to ask? I'm back now! Had to focus final day coz I was p much the only one working while everyone was off partying :shakes fist:
Any chance that the large cloth map from the $500 tier would be available as a separate add-on/purchase?
So here's a dream scenario. Tired and cynical after selling his soul to EA and cashing out, a disheveled and bearded Ray Mazuka blankly stares at his two hundred and fifty inch television. A commercial for dragon age 3 comes on and Ray begins frantically clawing around in the dark for the remote, knocking over a few of the dozens of empty liquor bottles scattered throughout his second living room, clearly this is the newer shit. Finally ray gives up and decides to just watch TV in his other living room. As he walks through his halls he passes the chronologically arranged posters of games he's been a part of. Finally, he stops at Baulder's Gate and decides he finally knows how to buy happiness. TRUMPETS AND SHIT PLAY, BOOM, he buys the rights to Baulder's Gate, puts the team back together, and begins again.
Edit: Ray uses his money to poach talent too.
Day 1 DLC
Eh, KOTOR was released before EA and that was already a very clear move in the wrong direction.
CrunchyFrog
Member
Hoping they change their minds, or that perhaps they don't lose quite as much money to the post-campaign attrition as usual. If they opened some kind of specific pre-ordering store or kept the paypal open long enough I'm sure they could get that last 200K. It just seems so close for them to completely NOT think about it.
And just a bit of trivia, there WAS actually some kind of BG3 in development at one point, called "The Black Hound." While it was to have pretty much the same gameplay mechanics as in the preceding games (albeit updated to D&D3E as in IWD2), it was to be more of a spiritual successor, story-wise. It was referred to a long time under the name Project Jefferson, which is in line with the also then in development project Van Buren (aka the original BI-developed Fallout 3). And the similarities don't end there. They were to both use the Aurora Engine, the spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine. But neither project ever saw the light of day, so the engine was never used.
Almost everyone listed there also worked on NWN and Jade Empire prior to EA, which BioWare was also crucified for.
CrunchyFrog
Member
It's odd. I was gonna say that perhaps it was BI more responsible for BG's success, but then I remember that the only game they developed was IWD, and they merely published BG. Was the BG series really just lightning in a bottle?
Wasn't Neverwinter Nights built on the Aurora Engine?
Ahh come on, those games are masterpieces compared to post EA output
I think what happened makes a lot more sense when you consider what their overarching studio goal was.
Basically, their goal was to make interactive video game stories and get them to the largest audience possible. At the time, things like FPS games or etc had basically no plot, so they picked the RPG genre as it was the primary one associated with a large scale story. To that end, they licensed the D&D ruleset and setting and worked on simulating it with the Infinity Engine while working on the interactive story.
As other genres became more popular and stories became more common in them, BioWare kept trying to model their games after things that were more accessible and could reach a large audience, since that was their goal in the first place.
This is where the whole infamous "GTA: San Andreas is the holy grail of RPGs" thing comes from, since it was a framework that could tell a large story, sell 20+ million copies, and have some basic progression mechanics.
Sentenza
Gold Member
Yep. More accurately, the Aurora Engine was built specifically to create NWN.
While Dragon Age 2 kind of sunk the perception, there was an era where BioWare had a pretty big tradition in engine development.
Though we do seem to be building a new core RPG tech for smaller developers with Unity these days.
CrunchyFrog
Member
Errr, reading it over again I may have misunderstood. There's overlapping references to both the Aurora Engine and the "Jefferson Engine." Maybe the Jefferson engine was a prototype Aurora? Or maybe it's just a misprint. Or maybe IDK.
Jade Empire perhaps, though NWN will always be better renowned as a module platform.
Man, this just makes Bioware look like they got lucky a few times, huh? Though I guess it's more they're a good-yet-flawed studio that may have gotten the good slowly crushed out.
Sentenza
Gold Member
Interestingly enough, I think BG2 still is the most successful title from Bioware (last time I read something about it, lifetime sales were estimated around 5 millions), especially once you consider the budget involved.
They definitely did state that, and I quoted it a few times since I found it rather interesting, but they later clarified it was the series as a whole that did that.
BG2 itself was 2 million, which was still quite great for the time though.
I think these Kickstarter campaigns also show that some of those people definitely still exist, and were engaged enough back then that they're willing to pay a lot to see more like it.
ExigentContact
Member
Their last great game was DA:O, in my opinion. Far from perfect, but far closer to what they should have been doing in comparison to the likes of Jade Empire and Mass Effect. The fact that they were the flagship RPG developer for a time (until Bethesda took the perception crown with Fallout 3 and Skyrim) really annoys me.
I don't think EA really ruined BioWare much more than BioWare ruined BioWare. The microtransactions and shoddy DLC hurt, but they were more or less heading in the same direction without EA's help, barring the exception of the first Dragon Age. KOTOR was more linear and constrained, JE even more than that. ME turned everything into a corridor shooter with RPG elements.
trab pu kcip
Member
that's a nice way to put that they lost their artistic integrity completely. I don't know...I guess with DA:O they somehow managed to make the last game to please a lot of gamers + casuals. I don't how profitable it was exactly, but it seemed quite popular. everything else lacked heart & balls & style & substance completely because it had to be even more accessible. they just pushed this mass market thing too far. that's what I liked about Fargo (I think it was him) yesterday, when he said that he doesn't want to make the game for everyone. he just wants to make what he wants to make & what the oldschool fans paid for.
ExigentContact
Member
DA:O was a word-of-mouth minor miracle. Sold in the ballpark of 3-5 million units on consoles with an unknown figure for PC. Then everyone at EA and BioWare decided to shit out a sequel to a game that took four or five years to make in 18 months.
Please. Everyone knows if you want a good-to-great sequel done in a little over a year, you field Obsidian to do it.
Actually, an Obsidian sequel to DA:O would be...orgasmic.
Sentenza
Gold Member
Because it was fucking atrocious, I think.
Also, it came out just after BG2, everyone was expecting a spiritual successor for it, just with the new shiny 3D graphics and I still remember how disappointed and pissed we* all were when we started playing this new thing they made.
*we= people who gathered on it.comp.giochi.rpg, a "popular" Italian newsgroup for RPG lovers at the time.
P.S. "we" were also quite baffled about how the "new shiny 3D graphics" looked like utter crap compared to Infinity Engine titles.
Well we know the series is over 8 million copies: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=42228014&postcount=1
EA's fiscal reports place DA2 at somewhere between 2.5-3 million, so that puts DA:O + DA:A at somewhere around 5-5.5 million unless DA2 had notable legs (which is unlikely).
Once again though, I do think it shows a healthy market for something like this, so I'm curious to see how some of the Kickstarter games perform post launch.
voodoopanda
Member
I really enjoyed my time with NWN back in the day but I barely touched the actual campaigns and didn't really enjoy my time with them. It was definitely a failure in that regard, and that is what people would expect from it, especially coming from Baldur's Gate 2. However, the toolset that came with it and all the various mods and adventures other people made for it kept my interest. A lot of the mods fixed issues with the original campaign too, by modding in bigger parties and better party AI and stuff like that. The way it handled online mods was great too, it had several fan made mini-mmo type worlds to check out. There was just a near endless supply of quality stuff coming out of the community to try out. Graphics/UI-wise it definitely hasn't aged well either, so I don't know how much fun it would be to go back to it nowadays.
Gentleman Jack
Member
I vaguely recall them promising some sort of link between BG2 and NWN, be it character imports or something. In any event they made a promise to diehard baldur's gate fans and when NWN didn't live up to expectations set by BG2 goodwill evaporated just like that.
ExigentContact
Member
Ah, yes. So above the upper end of the figures I've seen -- good news for DA:O. Not so much for DAII, but I suppose it shows that even with the critical thrashing the game received it was able to survive. That said, there's gonna be a lot of brand rebuilding necessary to push past the first game's numbers.
I keep hearing of a more RPG-like RPG, but I'll believe it when I see it. Frostbite should at least allow for the bigger spaces they've been promising, but we'll see. I'm cautiously optimistic, but I tend not to give BioWare quarter these days anyway.
With Kickstarter in the picture, I'm hoping these games succeed and rebuild the niche for deeper CRPGs and RPGs derived from those systems. If it pushed at least one AAA developer into the market (BioWare) again I'd be happy and look forward to the future of the genre. Even without big names butting in these are exciting times. There's a chance that the fans have bet on things without merit, but a man can dream for a renaissance.
Brother None
Member
Because that's actually his one of his wife's stage uniforms (this is his wife). It's not exactly a comfortable fit.
trab pu kcip
Member
makes me wonder why they even fucked up so bad. especially gameplaywise it was so dumbed down to appeal to bigger crowds when it did not have to be that way to be successful really. this is also exactly what happened to the bioshock franchise in my opinion btw. with the difference that the latest bioshock was praised by critics beyond believe for some reason while bioware at least always got some negative press for their bullshit.
hm I can only speak for myself but I hope the KS games get the attention they deserve & make enough money to keep the machinery going but I don't see a bigger market for games like this anymore & it's probably better to keep it that way. honest artists like the current torment team don't even have the ambition to achieve anything like that as we heard several times. I'm happy with my kickstarter and indie games and for all I care all the AAA suckers can go to hell
I see. I played BG2 recently (my first top down DnD game was actually NWN1.. so maybe that explains things) and I actually really enjoyed it, even though the graphics don't really hold up well, I found the story very intriguing and much more fulfilling then a lot of games that get churned out today.
But theres a special place in my heart for NWN1, I didn't really enjoy the single player campaign when I played, I was a youngin' so I didn't really have the patience to read all the dialogue, but I thought it was pretty fun. The fan-made MMOs with persistent servers I thought were a ton of fun, and there were servers with dedicated DMs that would do really fun events where they'd DM like pen/paper game, and kind of create the world and its monsters around you.
I'm actually playing NWN1 now with some friends, and it's a blast with a small party of friends on the highest difficulty with full PVP on. There's actual difficulty and repercussions for dying and fucking up a mission, and just plain shooting a fireball in the wrong position and that openness of the world and the ability to play it with your friends is something that games are really missing now.. NWN1 doesn't hold back any punches when you get a nice mix of settings, and I really like how interactable the world is. I miss pick pocketing from BG2 though.
on that note, I did also play BG2 multiplayer with some friends, and they didnt like having to control multiple characters, but we had fun playing that too.. I think overall BG2's story was much better than NWN1's, but the multiplayer functionality in NWN1 is vastly superior.
Because it was shitty.
Mod support and their engine for mods allowed to have vast fantastic community with many persistent servers which kind of did their original goal that was to give people tools to play D&D as they were doing it in real life with real life story teller.
NWN campain was simply bad, lack of proper party, shitty characters, boring acts, shitty looking game overall (even worse now).
NWN after BG2 was simply inferior game in every way and NWN without BG2 to compare to it still would be bad game.