Kickstarter - Realm Explorer

I don't really understand this thread, you guys know it is a kickstarter right? Where *concepts* are presented to backers. Why would you expect any features to be complete and polished? They haven't even gotten to the alpha stage.

Moving and swinging around swords is a lot better than just some concept art created for two personalities who have no development experience what so ever (I'm look at you, Yogventures)
 
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I don't really understand this thread, you guys know it is a kickstarter right? Where *concepts* are presented to backers. Why would you expect any features to be complete and polished? They haven't even gotten to the alpha stage.
I do not expect complete and polished features, I expect a good indication that the game is going to be completed and that it will deliver what was promised on time. And of course, if I am to invest in a project I need to have as clear an indication as possible that its creator is far more invested than I am.

Telling me that you are going to bring the 'new evolution' in gaming, promising me epic adventures, "the most dynamic sandbox world yet to be conceived" etc. etc. and all that in a year and with only $250,000 + the fact that, as skavenhorde said, they didn't finish their previous game gives me an indication that you either don't really know what you're talking about or you're lying. In any case I'm staying away.

Now, I might be completely wrong here. Would have I believed Notch if we was to tell me a few years ago that this little idea for a game that he had would be the real next big thing? Possibly not. Unfortunately though, I'm not convinced, and I can't just give them money because I might just be wrong. Reasonable doubt, unfortunately, works against them in this case.
 
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Moving and swinging around swords is a lot better than just some concept art created for two personalities who have no development experience what so ever (I'm look at you, Yogventures)

Oh come on, yes this and Yogventures are probably competing for some of the same backers but there's no need say things that are flat out untrue about another project. It's not particularly honest to call a pitch video consisting of a sort of skit performed in an alpha build of the game "concept art."

Sure, having a a large following on youtube helped them a whole lot - helped get the word out and also it makes at least some sense to consider backing someone whose reputation and popularity among their fans is probably their single most valuable asset. You might not like it, but you still don't get to pretend they didn't also do a more effective job with their initial descriptions of features and their pitch video. The fact that its initial pitch video demonstrated working multiplayer, hostile mobs, and a few other features besides running and jumping in all their pre alpha .1 goofiness probably didn't hurt. The whole mod-tools and world-building feature set for creating and running custom worlds and quests might have helped a bit too.

I wish these guys the best too and I like the style a little bit more and some of the things they allude to maybe doing sound very promising. The problem isn't he state of the game per-say, rather the kickstarter page itself feels like it was put up in a hurry and I find it hard to believe they really thought through doing that trailer like that. The trailer is pretty awkward compared to the more personal appeals made by a game creator talking directly to the camera - though it does seem that the fatter and funnier the guy in the chair the better that goes. I think some of the weirdness in how the test reads might be caused by cut/paste from a word document; some sentences that appear to be meant as section headers appear as first sentences to individual paragraphs. This makes thoss paragraphs sound like they start with an overly broad claim and then contain some half related examples. It think that's why, the first time I read it, it sounded like they were equating "RPG" to "customizing your appearene." It looks like half that section - the part dealing with RPG elements beyond clothing and such - is seperated by an oddly placed heading line and a screenshot.
 
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Hi everyone, I'm Matt (Zeruel) from RealmSource. I'm the team leader of the RealmSource team and of Realm Explorer. I've been seeing discussions about Realm Explorer starting to pop up all over the place but I was alerted to this thread when someone mentioned what was brewing over here.

I wanted to stop by, answer any questions, dispel a few things and see where this thread goes.

Before I start responding to specific posts I wanted to express how impressed I am with the community here. In spite of some skepticism and even criticism I can see that you guys have at least attempted to take a critical look at what we've put out there so far.

I also wanted to share this Youtube video (which was posted on the KickStarter last week) showing some additional game functionality. You'll notice that the issue where a hit would register out of sync with the swing animations (what you see in the mining / digging demonstrated in the first KickStarter video) has been resolved. We're in pre-alpha (hence being on KickStarter) so there are still a lot of things that are being worked on all the time.

Realm Explorer: Preview 1 - Breaking Stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdREjI88X2Y

First I'll address a few specific comments and then clear up some misconceptions that I've seen.

Yeah, no kidding. Lots of characters seen running with their swords drawn, with epic orchestral music playing. Awful "digging" animation which the character moves and the dirt disappears. "anything is possible" or something to that extent, as the character is shown in their little mud tunnel/room they just dug. Woah, exciting :)

If they want to get me excited, they need to show more Is possible than that. I love the minecraft formula, but I could make that trailer with a toolset and fraps!

We're presently working on a lot of additional content that will be coming out over the next week including:
-A single player demo to send to media sites / youtube channels
-Better mining/digging footage
-A demonstration of the depth of the character customization system (wearing a different boot on each foot or different glove on each hand if you so choose)
-A video explaining more about our goals with Realm Explorer and about our team

I understand some people don't find much appeal in the sandbox genre so if it isn't your cup of tea no offense is taken. Personally I really enjoyed playing both Oblivion and Skyrim and I'm a huge fan of the Dragon Quest (previously called Dragon Warrior) games. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was also a great action/FPS/RPG.

Part of the fun of sandbox games is being able to manipulate the world so something as "simple" as digging in the dirt (which not many games have) may be more appealing to those players.

Yeah, I missed the memo. I like Terraria but I can't play it for long, unfortunately. At least I get it - looking for new materials etc. I didn't see any of that in this video (unless I missed it) - it looked like digging just for the sake of changing the terrain, which isn't my thing.
You may recall a part in the video where the player is using a pickaxe to chop gold ore out of the stone. I'll be making this point more clearly in a future video (if the current video, description and screenshots aren't clear enough). You can dig to both change the terrain as well as to gather resources (various metal ores, gemstones, etc.).

dig1.jpg

http://www.indiedb.com/games/realm-explorer/images/realm-explorer7#imagebox
http://www.indiedb.com/games/realm-explorer/images/realm-explorer2#imagebox
http://www.indiedb.com/games/realm-explorer/images/realm-explorer3#imagebox


Of course the purpose of all of that digging is to be able to craft things out of the resources you collect:
http://www.realmsource.com/kickstarter/realmexplorer/forge1.jpg

You will also be able to build structures.

It beats the hell out of me how you get that vibe from a randomly generated gameworld with no mention of quests (that I saw).
You actually mentioned it in the post that started this thread. :)

Interact with friendly and hostile NPCs.
Participate in dynamically generated quests.

That being said there are always tradeoffs between a purely scripted, linear RPG and a procedurally generated game. A linear RPG is generally about telling a specific story. A procedurally generated game is about having an experience and sharing that experience with your friends.

I was intrigued to figure out just whether or not it could polish the Minecraft formula by adding in more RPG elements… intrigued until I saw that trailer with some characters running around and flailing about with their weapons as some purported example of gameplay.

I'll stick with Minecraft until these guys at least know how to make a proper trailer.

A proper trailer like Minecraft?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9t3FREAZ-k&list=UU3XJRyvLD7rvsVFCFS1IX0A&index=35&feature=plcp

Or perhaps a proper trailer like Skyrim?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoXFk-0NrDI&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLE1473D6027FEF4C6

These are two of the most successful games of the past 2 years. One shows an extremely basic tech demo and the other is a high res render of a stone wall with voice over work and no gameplay.

It's easy to think of how awesome a game is in hindsight, once it’s done, but a trailer, especially an initial trailer, can serve many purposes. Who even remembers that the only thing we had to look at for Skyrim was a stone wall for several months?

I wanted to try and show a mix of art content and working game functionality. I can understand if some people may not find this interesting; the big publishers have trained us well. We can look at carvings on a stone wall and get excited about Skyrim or watch a Modern Warfare / Call of Duty trailer showing completely pre-rendered cinematics and get so excited that we see those types of titles make $1 billion+ in sales. (Right after everyone buys a copy we then see all of the fans complain about the game for the next year until they release yet another sequel that everyone runs out to buy).


I know this post is getting long so I'll try to wrap it up. I'll also try to respond to any other questions or comments and see what I can do about being more active in this community in general.

What I wanted to address were some comments about our development team, RealmSource, and another game project we've been working on, Gnostaria. Our team is made entirely of professional software developers. I've been programming professionally for over 10 years and overall for about 15 years. Our artists are all full time modelers / animators / texture artists who work full time in the gaming industry. I've commented on the connection between Gnostaria and Realm Explorer on the KickStarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/realmsource/realm-explorer/comments

So far we've spent upwards of six figures of our own funds towards our game development; that's not including the thousands of hours of programming work over the past few years.

Gnostaria is a project that we are still working on; it's been on hold since we've been working on Realm Explorer. In some ways Realm Explorer is a non-MMO version of Gnostaria. Gnostaria ran into several problems over the years which greatly delayed its progress. One problem we had with Gnostaria was that we started with the Torque 3D engine. We developed our own custom server and persistence technology so that any work we did on the game wouldn't be tied to a specific game engine. This ended up being an important decision since Garage Games, the creator of the Torque engine, went out of business for several months (they are now back in business). At around that time we started looking into the Unity engine which, while about 10x more expensive per license, was at least 10x better as an engine. What would take weeks to do in Torque we could do in a few days with Unity.

Another issue we had is that we had some problems with publishers. We talked with several publishers over the years but their requirements were constantly changing. Sometimes we were asking for too little money; sometimes too much. Sometimes they wanted to see more content; other times more gameplay. With one publisher in particular we spent 6 months talking to, preparing project documentation, budget estimates, preparing playable demos, videos and more and they simply stopped talking to us after saying they liked our project and would get back to us. The same company ended up contacting us again a year later but again nothing ever came of it. It appears that they have finally gone out of business although they did have a few titles from big IPs.

A combination of investing a lot of time in an antiquated engine (made by a company that ultimately went under) and being jerked around by publishers for 2 years greatly delayed and disrupted the development of Gnostaria.

Having learned those lessons we're doing things different with Realm Explorer. The game is a lot more focused and it leverages a lot of the work we already spent years developing for Gnostaria. The Unity game engine and not being an MMO also vastly improves the speed at which we're able to develop things.

If you made it to the end of this post you have my thanks. I'm happy to answer any questions or comments anyone might have.
 
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^ Thank you. A lot of that should probably go into your next update if you can fit it in, specifically-

So far we've spent upwards of six figures of our own funds towards our game development; that's not including the thousands of hours of programming work over the past few years.

Given how much is needed to complete this project, it is perhaps reassuring to know that it is not in any way out of proportion with the invest you yourselves have already made in the project in addition to the time spent.

Having learned those lessons we're doing things different with Realm Explorer.

Good for you to address that. When someone does a cursory look into your studio, they quickly see your previous project and that it hasn't been released. It takes quite a bit more reading for people to find all the details about why it happened and how Torq 3d and much of the middleware market has kind of given up over the last few years. I came across those details - Torq 3d folding up while you were working on your MMO - purely by chance because I found the old tech demo you made for Gnostaria and thought it looked rather good. It's especially not hard to find that, but a lot of people aren't going to see past "wait, they didn't finish their last game."

What I really appreciate and felt was missing from the original post is that you provide a far better idea of exactly where you are, what is currently being worked on, and the things you plan on working in the near term. That gives a much clear sense of how things are progressing and being prioritized. It makes the final planned feature list feel like something that fits into a realizable development road-map just to hear the direction things are going in right now.

A proper trailer like Minecraft?

I know you mean that sarcastically, but yes. Something along those lines would have been more propper. The trailer you put up would have made a pretty decent traditional sort of game trailer if you were to have made it maybe in the beta or as a launch trailer. That's just because that form of promo video leans almost entirely on the strength of its visuals - not because it would have been propper to wait till then to do a kickstarter.

I linked to that physics demo the other day in this thread and said I would have rather seen that followed by you explaining pretty much most of what you've said here today - maybe interspersing other gameplay footage. I wasn't being sarcastic. We understand that a lot of these projects are in pre-alpha or still in high level design stage; pitch videos in these early phases have to lean on the strength of what is said in them when the visuals aren't ready to speak on their own. Maybe the pitch video where the creator sits down and spends most of the time talking about their product, the status of their project, why they've come to kickstar, and why now has become a bit cliche. That's the stuff people need to hear right up front though.

Anyways, good luck - it sounds like an interesting mordern sort of take on a what makes me think of an opern-world sandbox rogeulike.
 
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They have swapped out the main video on their kickstarter homepage. It does a better job of explaining who they are, what they've done so far and spent so far, and what their goals are than the announcment trailer did.

It's worth giving a second look. A shame this wasn't the kind of pitch they went with on day one. It still would have been an uphill battle for a relative unknown to get that kind of money this early in development though I suppose.
 
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Hey everyone. I wanted to follow up on this. I've had some trouble over the past few days getting on to the site (for some reason the the password recovery emails aren't making it to my email) but I was finally able to make it back on.

I just wanted to say thanks for the second look and the overall feedback. We've seen quite a few backers from RPG Watch and we'll continue working to make Realm Explorer something that our fans will enjoy playing.
 
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I find this project a bit hard to evaluate and coming away from looking at the project pages with little idea of whether it will turn out to be an interesting game or not or really what the gameplay will consist of exactly. There are certainly some indications that something interesting might be there though.

I also think the limited $5 tier was a strategic mistake: The actual funding contribution is minimal, but it acts to put off backers who see others getting a better deal than they can get. Also, if you discount something for one set of people, that then lowers it's perceived value in the eyes of others.

That said, I think Kickstarters live and die by the amount of publicity that they can generate before and in the early stages of the Kickstarter. If the project is lingering in the doldrums with little time left, new pledgers will tend to react to that making it hard to recover from a poor start.
 
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Latest development video from Realm Source showcasing Realm Explorer.

 
Sorry Slaine I'm really not interested in a no main juicy story sandbox MMO that you can play offline too. Brief golem sidestory? Man...
Hundreds of different weapons? Bah. Maybe a dozen plus there is no chakram among those.

But don't worry. There are ppl interested in such stuff. I'm simply not one of them. I want a game, not jobs in fantasy setting MMO simulator.
 
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Sorry Slaine I'm really not interested in a no main juicy story sandbox MMO that you can play offline too. Brief golem sidestory?
Thanks for your reply Joxer. Just to correct you on a few minor points. Realm Explorer is still in alpha and the RPG elements such as story and questing are yet to be implemented. So at this point saying it's lacking in certain areas is a bit premature. As the game is an action combat sandbox RPG most of the first three parts need to be working first.
Man… Hundreds of different weapons? Bah. Maybe a dozen plus there is no chakram among those. But don't worry. There are ppl interested in such stuff. I'm simply not one of them. I want a game, not jobs in fantasy setting MMO simulator.

There is currently around 30 weapons craftable animated in the game. Chakram is not there but I have a feeling it will be in the next batch. PVP combat and NPCs are amongst the last features before story line and questing gets added.

There's around 230 items so far coded in again this is just core functionality. People wishing to run their own online multiplayer realm can further customize items and weapons to suit there servers.

But your right this is not going to be the game where you watch long cut scenes and get objectively guided through the game.

This is more an optionality raising an empire from the ashes, farming or mining a humble living, defending your village from marauding undead and exploring and interacting (and killing) other online players - type of game.
 
Thanks for your input.
 
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