Kickstarter - Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall RPG

Lord british was the death of rpgs in the 90's? really?

Not all by himself, he was just one member of the "lets sell idiotware to idiots and get rich, instead of this pesky RPG stuff" choir. As was Brenda Garno, and I even provided specific evidence in her case. I could about Richard Garriott as well, but this post wasn't about him.

A lot of unwarented hate here…

Unwarranted? One of the architects of the demise of old-school RPGs, back before they were "old-school" yet, asks for money from the very fans she sold out to chase the mass market easy money over 15 years ago to make an old-school RPG? It's kind of sad and pathetic, in my opinion. And, yeah, considering RPGs were my number one hobby back then, I do feel pretty strongly about it. Sue me. Let her beg money from action-adventure-interactive-movie-clickrandombuttonandcoolshithappens-RPGs so she can make one of those, instead. If she does that, I promise I won't complain.
 
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Reyla: They make Facebook games now.

Of course they do. And so why does anyone believe them when they claim they are going to make an old-school RPG for the niche market? They're going to take the money and make low budget idiotware for idiots, because that's what they do. I'm *really* the only person who ever saw Brenda Garno explain in her own words on Compuserve how the potential sales for RPGs didn't justify developing one, and that's why Sirtech had put Wizardry 8 on hold and was making a stupid "Druids" adventure game to appeal to people who are easily amused? Well, even if that's so: according to you she currently makes FACEBOOK GAMES. Oh, gee, that's so different from what she was advocating 20 years ago on Compuserve! Not. This isn't rocket science, people. Best indicator of future performance is past performance. She screwed RPG fans before and she'll do it again.
 
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Another one? I like Obsidian's pitch better, but this is a pretty good group of folks too. They're quite a little ways from their heyday, but I can pitch in some bucks for this I think. I need to get my wallet out for Obsidian anyway. I'll try to pledge to both this weekend.
 
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There is another update on kickstarter with more details on the story I guess. I'm considering pulling out of this one but will hold on a little longer and give them some room to impress.

Update #2 Link
 
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There is another update on kickstarter with more details on the story I guess. I'm considering pulling out of this one but will hold on a little longer and give them some room to impress.

Update #2 Link

Well that was really interesting, backed the project now. Should have been in the original pitch, but very interesting.
 
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You must be really bored to get an argument out of something like this :)

Then again, I seem to have that very same ability with trivial matters to a significant degree. I tell myself it's not me - it's everyone else ;)
 
That wasn't in the pitch.

I think you mean it wasn't in the original pitch. It was updated less than 24 hours later. What's the difference?


A better example is Mask of the Betrayer or Knights of the Old Republic 2 or Planescape or Fallout, etc…
I don't see anything close to this kind of pedigree in this team.

Then you've obviously never played Wizardry 8.


Excessive reliance on cred that is at times I think rather disingenuous.

No more disingenuous than Obsidian claiming PS:T, Arcanum, and FO 1&2.
 
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Oh and Dhruin this is the first line in the kickstarter:

Old School RPG is a classic first-person, fantasy/sci-fi RPG brought to you by award-winning veterans. Create 4 characters and explore!

how did you miss that?

By not being there when I posted the newsbit? It's easy to be smug when you come along later and it's different, isn't it?

Well that was really interesting, backed the project now. Should have been in the original pitch, but very interesting.

Oh, but you can point out things should have been included in the original pitch.

I think you mean it wasn't in the original pitch. It was updated less than 24 hours later. What's the difference?

What's the difference? Seriously? I posted - along with several others - that this was a pretty weak pitch. You suggest it was no different Obsidian. We point out it definitely was. You point to updated information that wasn't there (seriously, why would I be re-reading a pitch I've already carefully read through?) as proof there was as much detail as the Obsidian pitch. I point out that wasn't there when I read it.

The difference is we wouldn't have had this conversation if that was there in the first place. Make sense?
 
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What's the difference? Seriously? I posted - along with several others - that this was a pretty weak pitch. You suggest it was no different Obsidian. We point out it definitely was. You point to updated information that wasn't there (seriously, why would I be re-reading a pitch I've already carefully read through?) as proof there was as much detail as the Obsidian pitch. I point out that wasn't there when I read it.

The difference is we wouldn't have had this conversation if that was there in the first place. Make sense?

How was I pointing to information if it wasn't there, and why would I care if it was there when you read it? It was there when I read it.

You seem to be overlooking the fact that Obsidian was still adding things to their pitch days after it was first announced. They didn't reveal basic information like party size, character creation, companions etc., until 3 days after their original pitch.
 
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But what was first, chicken or egg?
 
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You are right lots of smugness in this thread, like assuming we all knew that first line was added after it was launched...(didn't know that sorry) It is very smug to instead of saying hey they added stuff like the other kickstarters, to bow out and say it is pointless. Bloody weird how the hive mentality went on this one though.
 
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No more disingenuous than Obsidian claiming PS:T, Arcanum, and FO 1&2.
Now this response is just sad.


Also, Gamasutra has an article/interview with Brathwaite.
Among some other things, there´s a clarification on the possible development of 2 games:
Brathwaite and Hall have conceived of the game as having two distinct worlds part of the same universe and the same timeline, where one of them is fundamentally Brathwaite's and the other's is Hall's, with a bridge connecting the two.

Hall's second world is viewed as something of a sequel if the game's stretch funding goals are met. But ultimately the pair will collaborate on all aspects of development, and in Hall, Brathwaite has the ideal complement to her RPG values.

Part most relevant to this thread would be this, I guess:
But there's something of a learning curve for everyone: For example, Brathwaite says she and Hall were excited by the initial enthusiasm toward their announced collaboration, but the degree to which audiences wanted extensive details right away was a little unexpected.

"In the traditional world of development, you come up with an idea: It's very loose, you know what your systems and genre will look like, and you have an overall idea of how the game is going to play… but it's not done, so there are a lot of questions you still have." That sort of loose sketch might have been enough for an experienced publisher back in the day, but the expectations of a passionate audience who wants to know where their money is going are quite different.

Although the Old-School RPG Kickstarter has only been up for a matter of days, Brathwaite already has a lesson to suggest to other developers that might want to try the same path: "There's no such thing as too much information," she says. "If you know it, don't hold back… put it out there. That's just an absolute must. People who are playing the game don't want to hear your pitch, they want to know what the game is even if it isn't done."
 
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Most pointless conversation ever. My fault for participating.

you so rarely participate, its good to see you out there.
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The disucussion has got silly but I think its pointing something else out: people are getting weary of the me to's jumping on the bandwagon.
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Someone pointed out they were doing facebook games; well, thanks to crowd sourcing they are willing to do something different, right?
 
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JDR13: No more disingenuous than Obsidian claiming PS:T, Arcanum, and FO 1&2.

Pretty ignorant to claim there's no difference between the actual developers of those games leaving the company they worked for and starting a new company, and Brenda Garno who wrote the manuals for Sirtech managing to talk a company in Canada into making Wizardry 8 after Sirtech went out of business. But facts and logic are unimportant to you, aren't they? As long as you get your old school shooter-with-RPG-elements out of it, what do you care?


...and in Hall, Brathwaite has the ideal complement to her RPG values.

Her "RPG values". What a laugh. She sold RPG fans out in 1993 and never looked back. Now she claims to want to make an old-school RPG with other people's money, even though she is apparently making Facebook games for people who aren't even gamers at all in any meaningful sense of the word? The saddest part is the number of people on this dedicated RPG forum who actually seem to believe they are going to get an RPG that's worth playing and that targets them and not some goofballs who never played any computer games that didn't run in a web browser.

I'll say this one more time: she sold out gamers to chase non-gamers in the early days of the information age, she's currently targeting non-gamers on social media, and now she's asking you - gamers - for money to make a game. She's gonna take your money and make a game that she hopes will appeal to non-gaming mass market. Use your fucking brains. That's what they are for. I'm so fucking sick of people on this forum complaining nobody is making hardcore RPGs for RPG fans anymore and then watching y'all dumbfucks repeating the same mistakes RPG fans made 15 years ago. She's going to sell you out to chase the easily amused. It's what she does.
 
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