Well, what do you want them to make? Obviously speculation at this point, but I wouldn't mind seeing a spritual successor to Planescape:Torment, with all the weirdness and wonderful ideas that it might bring. Of course, some may say that we already got a variant of that in Mask of the Betrayer. Me? What I would really like is if Obsidian did a much better version of Arcanum. There's still a ton of ideas to explore in the steampunk vs magic genre, and gelling it with Planescape's sense of mythic philosophy might bring about something unique, especially if Avellone is helming it.
Well I'd hope that if it's a kickstart project they wouldn't feel the need to launch it earlier than is necessary, though the fact that it's funded in this limited way might force that. Unsure. I'd want them to just focus on their strengths, which are characters, story, writing in general. I'm not sure I'd want to pick something specific, I suspect they can do a better job than me, and while my heart wants to say another game in the world of Planescape Torment, I don't think a kickstarter budget will allow you to do that in 3D. Asking the fans is a mistake though, go launch a page for something you are passionate about (otherwise what's the point of excluding the publisher?) and then see if you get the funding.
It's unfortunate that they don't own any of the juicy IPs out there. They have people who have worked on Vampire: The Masquerade, Arcanum, Planescape Torment, Fallout, etc. (Hell, just look at Chris' moby games entry) I think a sequel to just about any of those would get folks excited, but it might be harder to drum up excitment for unbranded isometric rpg. But then again, it's not like Tim Schafer is promising any sort of direct sequel either -- at least for the kickstarter. BTW, for Darklands, the original Designer for that is now a producer over at Amazing Society, though I think that JE Sawyer over at Obisidan could definitely do that game justice as far as a sequel in spirit goes. Edit: Darklands Designer name: Arnold Hendrick, there are some youtube videos interviewing him here:http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...68C4C790B3694167FD2C68C4C790B3694167F&first=0
I'm certainly in the "Planescape: Torment is the whole reason to do a Kickstarter", and I don't know about everyone else, but when that game came out, I knew nothing about the Planescape setting; plus P:T wasn't a sequel, and I'm doubtful any D&D trappings of the gameplay in P:T really mattered, so I think if people want "a game as good as Planescape: Torment", original IP is probably what you'd prefer anyway. So to me it's ideal that they don't have "juicy IPs" and wouldn't be able to afford to license any. Maybe, as you say, that makes it harder to raise money, but I think that's the only reason to do it the kickstarter way (it's a game they'd have more trouble funding traditionally).
No matter how little you knew of Planescape going in, that doesn't change the fact that it was a licensed game and that when Black Isle made it they had five years worth of backstory to draw from. Original IP may be what we'd prefer, but it'd be better to point at the rich, novel-quality story of Alpha Protocol than Planescape.
Well, I think its been established that your fanbase are the last people you should listen to, odds are they'll buy it anyway and it takes you down the increasingly hardcore route. As I said though, if you're not going to do something you wanted to do in the first place, why exclude the publisher at all? In terms of marketing, I think Double Fine have shown you just need to turn up and the rest handles itself.
I should probably put this opinion in the other kickstarter thread, but my opinion seems more relevant to a business like Obsidian. This whole kickstarter concept is ripe for abuse, and Obsidian is about as trustworthy as any other developer looking to revive a franchise. There are going to be details to whatever project they decide to make, and a lot of the important ones might not get across to them. To put it simply, it's one thing for a developer to promise a cool game in a certain style, but there are factors that could completely derail the whole point of a kickstart. For example, Obsidian may decide that it's in their best interest to appeal to a mass market with a new planescape game in the mass effect/dragon age style. If these kinds of bad decisions are made, there is a likelyhood they will wait until after the donations are secured before announcing that goal. There is also the possibility for a kickstart to lure in a publisher who will put in even more money, which would significantly water down whatever design goals the donators wanted, if not outright ignored. Can you really trust a big name developer to actually implement the decisions the donators want? They have been in such lock-step with publishers for so long making games with mass appeal, is there really a difference anymore? Indie developers seem much more trustworthy, but even they aren't infallible. All it takes is some developer hubris to screw up a good idea, and with potentially several million dollars in public funding on the line, this whole feel-good support-the-little-guy kickstart concept could crash and burn very, very quickly.
So long as it has reward tiers, it's not charity. Depends on whether they ever want to secure funding that way again.
The first crazily successful Kickstarter game that I heard of was from Andrew Plotkin for a text adventure game. He was asking for $8000 so he could quit his day job and write interactive fiction full-time. I've met Andrew, and he lives around Boston somewhere (Cambridge, I think) and I couldn't quite see how he was going to live for any length of time on $8k and then make money off of interactive fiction. Here's what he said in his original pitch: He hit his goal on the first day and actually got around $30k. I could see how you could live like a monk for $30k in Cambridge. Okay. The other day, with all of the "this DoubleFine thing is going to change how games are made," I went and checked in on Andrew. Here's part of his latest update posted back in December: And then the kicker: So he's working on it at least. I'm not sure Kickstarter is such a game changer. It might be. Not sure yet.
Given that Zarf has already written one game to that scale, and numerous smaller ones with an equivalent level of sophistication, I'm not sure what your point is.
I think Adree is saying that modern IF has surpassed Infocom. I think he may be forgetting some of the later Infocom games like Spellbreaker and A Mind Forever Voyaging, though.
Jesus you people. What I meant was to compare yourself to Infocom was less than humble and the only arrogance that needs encouraging is my own.
Adree, have you played any of Zarf's text adventures? They're pretty good. I don't think he compares unfavorably to Infocom.
I think most of those Infocom adventures were pretty much made by individual people, anyway, weren't they?
Most were written by a single person, though using a proprietary technology base with a custom virtual machine and lisp-like language which had been engineered by multiple people.
I played Planetfall for the first time six or seven years ago. Wasn't impressed. Yeah, that's all I got.
It's not hard to meet the level of tech and sophistication of Infocom games now. It's a little easier, even, since memory is way less restrictive--the common authoring tool, Inform, produces virtual machine executables in Infocom's format and has some memory limitations suitable to the machines of the era, but the same Andrew Plotkin is also responsible for the creation of another VM with no real memory limits and retargeting Inform to it. (For most other types of games, it's actually much easier now to make a game of the same tech and complexity as a twenty-year old game, since even a hobbyist has better development tools than existed then. Less significant for IF, though.) I think it's not outrageous that most people in the IF community think the best hobbyist works these days are in most ways competitive with Infocom and in some ways superior; they're made with a commensurate amount of effort by people with a commensurate amount of experience--plus the advantage of thirty years of advances in game design culture and expectations (about challenge, dying, "fairness", etc). And of course Zarf never said his game will be as good as an Infocom game, which is what Adree seems to be lambasting him for. He said it would be "be built on that scale" (e.g. the size of the world, or length of gameplay, or some such) and "to that level of sophistication" (e.g. complexity of parsing, world modelling, and maybe storytelling--the first two basically come for free from using Inform).
Kickstarter seems like a great outlet for funding smaller (& cheaper) game projects. Niche genres, not triple A titles. Thus Obsidian should just do a small original IP project. One area that is under served like adventure games that has passionate people behind it: the isometric turn-based RPG in all its old school glory.
Back to IF, Plotkin, and Kickstarter: Hadean Lands had better form the basis of a new religion, or something, for that $30K...because it is going to have to beat out stuff like Aaron Reed's Blue Lacuna, which was pretty frickin' amazing, and free. But yeah, Obdisian and Kickstarter. I got nothin I really want from them that they're going to be able to do -- certainly not another Alpha Protocol. But Toys for Bob, now...
Now there's a thought. They wanted to do Star Control 3 (yes, 3, bitches) a few years back but couldn't get the publisher interest, this would be perfect for them.
Toys for Bob would be cool, though I don't think they own Star Control, though they could do a 'spiritual successor' pretty easily, as its a game that doesn't require a huge budget for its assets. Obisidian could reuse its engine from DS3 and transform it into a more standard RPG, though I don't know if they could actually leverage the use of any of the assets they've made from previous games for it. That could up the expense, having to make 3D assets for it. But they could possibly make an episodic game.
Toys for Bob will hopefully get some money bags from the Skylanders crack they are peddling out there.
I was talking to a coworker earlier today about how risky it would be to do a Kickstarter-funded game on a licensed IP. I mean you pretty much have to have the license contracted before you start the Kickstarter campaign, right? How would you pay for it? And what happens if the Kickstarter campaign is successful, but six months into development the licensor has a priority shift and kills the project? I mean in theory the folks who donated are savvy consumers who understand how risky the industry is and oh my god I can't even finish this sentence it's so implausible.
Honestly, Andrew Plotkin has done so much for hobbyist IF that I'm happy if my Kickstarter money just ends up as a contribution to the the Andrew Plotkin Beer Fund. Blue Lacuna is indeed pretty damned kick-ass, though.
... or they'll just make more Skylanders. It's what Valve did when they made money on hats and selling other people's games; they stopped making their own.
If they made Star Control skylanders I would buy all of them. There is Orz dialogue in Skylanders btw (but not coming out of an Orz.)
As was pointed out in the HL3 thread, Valve have actually released more often since Steam than before, a game every year except 2010 I think.
Nah, it should be Star Control 4. For reasons unexplained, (since the game was never made, obv) when the words "Star Control 3" are uttered aloud some people start going into convulsions, or fits of apoplectic rage. Maybe it's a resonant frequency thing? Dangerous, regardless. Anyway, whatever the reason, I'm sure SC4 will be excellent.
