RPGWatch Feature - Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness Interview

Oh wait it’s coming back to me now. The greed system is “annoying and pointless”, they don’t differentiate themselves from their.... AAA competition, they don’t have Chris Avellone for credibility, they should delay their Kickstarter and it reeks of “ammatuerism”. But you wish them well that’s good!
 
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Oh wait it’s coming back to me now. The greed system is “annoying and pointless”, they don’t differentiate themselves from their…. AAA competition, they don’t have Chris Avellone for credibility, they should delay their Kickstarter and it reeks of “ammatuerism”. But you wish them well that’s good!

I'd rather they prove me wrong and produce a decent/fun game.

You don't know how to read? Or are you just bitching as usual? :)
 
Well, it's quite obvious that every penny goes to development and next to nothing is wasted for marketing. ;)
 
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Maybe these debates fall into the “no news is bad news” category and we are assisting in marketing

B8tKPPUCQAAJdnU.jpg
 
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I’ve always thought this “negativity” complaint is a bit silly. Look at the number of projects that have failed to deliver, and even been scams. Why should we not have voices that offer something other than fulsome support in all cases?

It’s rare that I’m strongly critical of a project – you’ll find me being positive far more often. I also don’t think Purpleblob is noted for malice and withering scorn. But, in some cases I see signs of incompetence , disingenuous PR spiel, and things that don’t add up. When I took the likes of Dreamatrix and Ellis Studios to task, I listened to the same song about negativity. It’s not going to stop me from saying, “Danger, Will Robinson!”, when that’s my opinion. These are people looking for 50 grand from the community, and I’m not at all persuaded that they deserve our confidence.

Vince, the creator of Age of Decadence and Dungeon Rats, no stranger to the struggles of small indies, could also see the same thing, and gave it to them with both barrels a while back - far more strongly than anyone here.

Framing it in terms of “wanting them to fail” is also a bit silly, IMO. It’s rather like you have an argument with your daughter, and she says, “You just want me to fail!” And you reply, “No I don’t. It’s just that you want to be the prima ballerina at the Bolshoi, but you’re 48 years-old, 300 pounds, and you can’t dance.” It’s not out of any wish for failure to make the case that this likely won’t end well for anybody.
 
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I never said you wanted them to fail and I don't believe you do. It's a free country and you can criticize as you see fit of course. But it goes both ways. If we are going to get specific I don't have a problem with your predictions of their Kickstarter or even your comment on their "dire" message. It isn't perfect. But the whole thing about the CGI seemed like a petty reach to me.
 
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Yes, it was the dev/PR person in the other thread that was framing it in terms of people "who want them to fail."

With regard to the CGI thing, I don't think it's petty to find attention to detail significant, particularly when competence is already in question. If you watch the pitch video, you'll see that the gameplay footage is high quality, but the CGI stuff is in a terrible state, and the contrast is stark. Setting aside the fact that that it looks like something from a 1996 multimedia CD, it's been re-encoded to the point of being corrupted. Look at the state of it from about the 1:00 mark. As an amateur video editor, my reaction is that would never get past someone who knew remotely what they were doing. A small sign - but one of many that's helped build up my impression.

Also, this is their KS, their big shot. I would expect a better effort. It's a bit like receiving a job application that's full of spelling mistakes and with a big coffee ring on it.
 
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Yes, it was the dev/PR person in the other thread that was framing it in terms of people "who want them to fail."
Yeah, that guy wasn't doing them any favors here. I had planned on backing this game's KS before Rothgor showed up here. His attitude and responses to Archangel and others raised a lot of red flags for me, which I guess prompted me to look a lot closer at the whole project. Now I won't be backing the game, but if it turns out well (I'm quite skeptical about that), I'll certainly buy it when it's out.
 
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Well 20,000 in two days is not bad for a small game like this. I'm also not looking for good PR or video CGI as this isn't Larian, or obsidian. It's a team of five people.

Anyway I've seen worse RPGs funded and members applauded those projects.

PS:Ripper I know one of the Leads at Dreamatrix & talked to them personally by e-mail and Live Chat. So I remember you pulled the same act when he wrote on these boards.

Jeff Vogel was right when he said the customer is not always right.:disappointed:
"Don't be afraid to fire a customer," Vogel said. "They say that the customer is always right. That's not true. Customers are wrong all the time. The difference is that nobody ever won an argument with a customer. There are times where you're going to have to say to someone, 'Look, my thing isn't for you. I can't add that feature. I can't write that expansion. I just can't do the thing you want.' Offer them a refund and send them on their way.

"If someone is on the forums and you can see that they're just there to cause trouble, ban them! If people are making noise, 'That person isn't screwing up your business, you shouldn't have banned them,' then ban them too! The beatings will continue until morale improves! …People who are nice and support you will understand."
 
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Customer is not always right statement doesn't fly well when the company choose to go with crowdfunding platform - but thats just my opinion :)

Anyway, I whole heartily agree with Ripper's concerns and I'm pretty sure he is sharing it since he cares about the fellow Watchers :)

Doesn't bother me much whatever happems. If the project succeds and the company proves their worth, I got new game to enjoy! If they don't deliver, well, then I didn't waste $$ on unworthy project. If anyone wants to argue I may be robbing the chance of good thing happening - well, thats your belief since I find this project unworthy with given information.
 
I didn't realize how long this game has actually been in development until I searched for some footage on YouTube. There are early gameplay videos dating all the way back to 2016.

Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.
 
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Customer is not always right statement doesn't fly well when the company choose to go with crowdfunding platform - but thats just my opinion :)
When customers contradict themselves, at least one of them is indeed not right. No matter if the project is crowdfunded or not. :)
@JDR13;
I think it's a good thing. You can't make a game like this for 50k€.
They've said themselves that a lot of money already went into the game and the Kickstarter is for crossing the finish line.
For this to be true the project must have been in development for some years as you can't bring a game like this with a small team like this to just before the finish line in one year.
So imho it adds credibility.
Of course on the other hand it raises questions. Why haven't they secured funding faster? Why didn't they started their Kickstarter earlier?
But we all know how difficult it is for small indies to do both of it. So there are a lot of valid answers here.
 
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I didn't realize how long this game has actually been in development until I searched for some footage on YouTube. There are early gameplay videos dating all the way back to 2016.

Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.
Goes back even further than that. Someone who claimed to be loosely associated with the project started a thread about it on the Codex in Apr 2015. At that time, the Kickstarter was "coming soon". Also, some of the gameplay clips / screenshots still being touted today go back a few years. It seems like they have very little to show, given the time that has passed.

For this to be true the project must have been in development for some years
Yeah. So how do they have so little to show still? A few screenshots, a small number of very short clips of combat. And a demo of "drying". And a lot of the same art seems to be re-used over and over in their various media.
 
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When customers contradict themselves, at least one of them is indeed not right. No matter if the project is crowdfunded or not. :)

What I meant is that when the company is asking for the good will from customers, they have to make a concession to please customers - after all, how would you expect the customer to chip in if they don't agree/like with the proposed features of the intended product? But ofcourse, customers aren't always right and they can/do make silly decisions too and never get the product they've paid for ;)

I think it's a good thing. You can't make a game like this for 50k€.
They've said themselves that a lot of money already went into the game and the Kickstarter is for crossing the finish line.
For this to be true the project must have been in development for some years as you can't bring a game like this with a small team like this to just before the finish line in one year.
So imho it adds credibility.

I agree with Stingray on this one - if the game is almost complete, then why aren't they showing more materials? Also, why do these materials look so out of date (it's almost like they haven't made any progress since they went silent back in 2016 or whenever it was)?

Sure, it takes a lot of money, time and passion to make a decent game, especially by small indie team. But heck, ConcernedApe worked on the game alone and his game quality was muuuuuuch better than what I've seen from GrapeOcean (imo).
 
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PS:Ripper I know one of the Leads at Dreamatrix & talked to them personally by e-mail and Live Chat. So I remember you pulled the same act when he wrote on these boards.

Jeff Vogel was right when he said the customer is not always right.:disappointed:

Well, with Dreamatrix I was also suspicious, and the "act I pulled" was finding them lacking in competence and candour. BTW, when you're talking to your buddies over there, ask them why they left people with a broken and unfinished game, failed to deliver the rewards, and disappeared from Steam and KS.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/522716131/wave-of-darkness/comments

As for the customer not always being right, I'm in no danger of being a customer of either Dreamatrix or this bunch. I'm sure many such devs would approve of your "beat the dissenters into line" scheme. I don't think that actually works very well, though. I, for example, ended up saying more, and more forcefully, than I would have, pushing back against the pushback.
 
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Wave of Darkness has a 39% rating on Steam and a 2.5 user rating on Metacritic. Damn, if only Ripper hadn't Pulled His Act, everyone would probably realize that it was actually great.
 
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Not to mention, their previous Kickstarter game Legends of Dawn has a 18% rating on Steam, a 4.4 Metacritic user rating, and a 29 Metacritic critic score. IGN says: "This amateur roleplaying game shouldn’t even be sold as it is, let alone purchased and played. If you already did, the most efficient way to deal with it is to delete it from your hard drive and demand a refund.”

If Ripper was on these guys' cases during the KS, sounds like he deserves an award for prescience. Why on earth would anyone be defensive about that company?
 
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Well I'm done going off topic & beating a dead horse. :cool:

Just one final piece of advise design your own game instead of being an Armchair general, or simply put walk a mile in a developers shoes before condemning their games.

So enjoy the usual around here guys and gals. I'm going on Hiatus again.;)
I think the Devs could themselves a big favor and steer clear of RPGWatch
Yep and they wont be the last developer either.
 
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