D:OS has soured me on Kickstarter stretch goals

There is a fairly large numbers of promises broken in this case, so yeah, should they ever turn to Kickstarter again I won't pledge with any of their 'stretch goals' in mind. I might even call them out on features they promise regardless of wether they ask for money upfront.

Remember back in the day when sites like RPGVault followed the development of DivDiv relatively closely and the game was touted as a new U7 which it wasn't (not enough focus on writing, dialogue and puzzle solving). So I guess the lesson here is be wary and hold fast to your wallet.

I spent a few bucks on Divinity:OS but I'm NOT dissapointed - I love this game.
Most of my expectations are fulfilled, some hopes are even surpassed.

While I agree that not getting everything promised is a let down, realistically having stretch goals get cut is going to be pretty standard, and not just for KS funded games. Games with publishers end up cutting stuff too because over the course of development you find out that it just won't work. Even the best laid plans go out the window when the bullets start flying.

I just don't believe them that they realized the difficulties of and needed resources for the day/night cycle feature so late in the development cycle.

Originally Posted by greywolf00
While I agree that not getting everything promised is a let down, realistically having stretch goals get cut is going to be pretty standard, and not just for KS funded games.

Well, I hope not, because after several KS projects that I have backed and where I felt that promises were not kept and the "bad news" were communicated rather poorly I am pretty much in Drithius' camp. I'm going to be much more conservative in spending my money in the future, backing at minimum level -if at all- instead of the $1xx+ category that I have chosen for quite a few projects in the past.

This should never become a standard. Stretch goals should be evaluated very carefully and when there is the slightest doubt about feasibility simply not be presented to the pledgers. It is bad form and not fair to dangle a carrot in front of the euphoric masses and then yank that carrot away later on.
If they propose a goal like "help us reach $1 million and we'll make this available" then that's a promise that should be kept at all costs. Otherwise the KS devs run the risk of appearing just as sleazy as the dreaded publishers and gamers like Drithius or me will become more wary as to how we spend our cash.

Games with publishers end up cutting stuff too because over the course of development you find out that it just won't work. Even the best laid plans go out the window when the bullets start flying.

You really can't compare this to a published game (or any other software project where the money is not coming directly from the customers in advance). The publisher funds development. They can decide freely what to do with their money and what to cut or what to implement.

However, if a KS dev proposes a stretch goal then there is a direct correlation between the pledged funds and the featured item because what they are saying is "this is what we will be using your additional funds for". If the goals are not honored then that's a real problem in my opinion. Why even have stretch goals if you're going to throw them out the window later on?

Again, I hope that (not only) Larian have learned their lesson and will be much more careful and conservative in their stretch goal evaluation.

A KS can probably be a bit like a gold rush when the money keeps pouring in but that should not cloud a KS dev's judgment. They need to stay cool and analyze what is really feasible within time and budget. Plan carefully, plan ahead so you don't have to make up goals on the fly. And whenever in doubt, just don't. It takes a lot to build trust and very little to destroy it.


With all that said, I still love D:OS and the guys and gals at Larian!

Yep, Larian made a halfway decent game, but I paid extra to reach the stretch goals and they'll never see a dime from me again; in advance. Fool me once, shame on you……

I'm not seeing the best game evah that some folks here see. I see a lesser game than either Divine Divinity or Ego Draconis. It's still a decent game, but not really special.

However, I haven't played the finished product, just the various betas. Maybe there is a ton of new, totally exciting gameplay that I just missed while testing the game. If Cyseal and the first 1/3 of the game are the lamest parts, then I might be in for a nice surprise.

I also super super hope that we're done with Zixzax, Zandalor, Bellegar, etc. It's time for something new. Keep the universe if necessary, just move it forward a couple thousand years.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
This should never become a standard.

Not uncommon would have been a better choice of words on my part.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
Why even have stretch goals if you're going to throw them out the window later on?

Again, I hope that (not only) Larian have learned their lesson and will be much more careful and conservative in their stretch goal evaluation.

A KS can probably be a bit like a gold rush when the money keeps pouring in but that should not cloud a KS dev's judgment. They need to stay cool and analyze what is really feasible within time and budget. Plan carefully, plan ahead so you don't have to make up goals on the fly. And whenever in doubt, just don't. It takes a lot to build trust and very little to destroy it.


With all that said, I still love D:OS and the guys and gals at Larian!

Again, planning before coding is nothing more than dreaming. At times what you want to do and what it turns out you can do are sometimes totally different and you have no idea exactly how that's going to play out until you're actually doing it. There's really is no way around that, it's just the nature of the beast. With the limited budgets of Kickstarter projects they have to be more willing to sacrifice tricky/difficult plans or risk running out of money which is far worse than failing for fulfill 100% of their promise imo.

This is where there's an advantage to publishing deals as information about development and the original plans aren't common knowledge to gamers. We all want transparency with KS projects but we also have to realize that we won't always get everything that was planned.

Originally Posted by greywolf00
Again, planning before coding is nothing more than dreaming. At times what you want to do and what it turns out you can do are sometimes totally different and you have no idea exactly how that's going to play out until you're actually doing it.

Simple then; just send out a message/ KS update along the lines of "if we get a lot more money, we might be able to add some cool stuff". The only thing you shouldn't do is saying "if we get 200k more bucks we'll add a day/ night cycle" and even put it up as a stretch goal. That is, if - in your particular case - planning ahead is nothing more but dreaming.

Some projects have started doing that (Double Fine's 2nd KS project for example) and that does strike me as the safest approach. However, there's also a gamble to it as companies can get more funding by promising specific additions people are really interested in with the potential risk of not being able to fully deliver. The additional funding could result in a better game even if a specific feature or two is missing.

Only in short-term. In long-term they (and also other developers) will get less money from crowdfunding. Not realizing announced stretched goals is a bad practice for the videogame crowdfunding industry in general.

What if Larian made a game with all features "technically" implemented - day/night cycles and NPC schedules, but in a total arbitrary way - not connected to the gameplay? Would you guys be satisfied then?

Sometimes developers have to make a requirements cut and/or re-design, just to make a well functioning well-rounded product in the end.

Oh I agree and I'm advocating that this is a great practice but it's a complicated situation. I have no doubt in a perfect world Larian would have delivered everything promised and much more but reality requires adjustments.

Larian is already delivering a lot of patches/enhancements for D:OS and they have promised to continue with this kind of support.
I think we will see a lot of new features for this engine in the near future.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
What if Larian made a game with all features "technically" implemented - day/night cycles and NPC schedules, but in a total arbitrary way - not connected to the gameplay? Would you guys be satisfied then?

I'd do the same thing I'd do if a car salesman sold me a car but delivered only the parts.

Oh wait that can't happen since you can't sue game developers like you can sue people for fraud in all other avenues of life.

I wouldn't call this fraud. I equate backing a KS project to buying stocks, there's an inherit risk involved and this seems like a minor one to me considering they still delivered a good product (kind of like a stock slightly underperforming projections). I could absolutely understand being up an arms about a game never being delivered at all, though I'm not sure just how much legal recourse there is in such a case.

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
I'd do the same thing I'd do if a car salesman sold me a car but delivered only the parts.

And this is the greatest misunderstanding of non-software-developers.

Software is not build like a car or a house. Software development is a very creative artistic process. You cannot build software by strict rules according to fixed plan.

Look here under iterative model.

-> Adaptive development

Originally Posted by greywolf00
I wouldn't call this fraud. I equate backing a KS project to buying stocks

Good point, but would you make up excuses for your bank advisor if the dividends end up being much lower than what he promised? "Gee, you're a swell guy, I guess you just had a bad day. Here, sink some more of my money for me".

I'm actually glad that someone decided to make an oldschool game like D:OS on this scale. But we all like some honesty as well.

The concern simply is that opportunity makes the thief in crowdfunding. I backed the ill-fated Dragon's Death on Indiegogo and was cheated out of 15 bucks by people who certainly wouldn't have snatched a dollar out of my wallet in the street. It's not like the money was eaten up by some lengthy development process either, they just took the money (~500 $) and ran. On a platform that thrives on trust, this sort of thing just is counter productive.

I don't trust anyone for supplementing my own investment research for advice except my brother who runs his own hedge fund and I wouldn't hold mistakes against him, though I would be less willing to follow advice in the future. At the end of the day it's my money and ultimately my responsibility, either to invest it myself or allow someone else to invest it for me.

I guess it all depends on your approach/expectations of the platform. I always figured that the most likely best case scenario of a project was I'd get most of what I wanted/expected and D:OS fell here for me.

I also figured the most likely worst case scenario was something like Forsaken Fortress where I didn't get a lot of what I expected.

There's always the slim chance that you get everything you wanted and more or nothing at all (which is why I'm not a fan of IndieGoGos they get the money no matter what type projects) but I expect those to be outliers.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
but I paid extra to reach the stretch goals and they'll never see a dime from me again; in advance. Fool me once, shame on you……

I didn't pay extra for stretch goals nor I ever cared for stretch goals. I poured some more to get a better game. And I got it. A better if not the best game this year. Too early to say perhaps, but it's the best one that's released so far.

Not only they will see a dime from me, next time they go on Kickstarter again, I'm doubling my pledge.

It's pretty simple. If you understand the nature of developing complex games with intricate features, you understand that it's close to impossible to accurately estimate what you can do in that way.

What people are asking is that they simply don't promise something they can't do - which, essentially, means they can't promise anything significant.

That's really the heart of the matter.

Sure, they could be more upfront about living in reality and they could underline with each feature that it's something they BELIEVE and TRUST they can do, but not an actual guarentee.

Even so, it would be intepreted as a promise. No? Yes, that's people for you. That's how these things spread.

If you like D:OS a lot and you don't want to support their next game because of stretch goals, you're only hurting yourself - as well as other people who like the game, and Larian as well.

To me, that's being a moron. But that's ok - the world is full of morons. We're all morons in our own ways, so it's all good.

Personally, I didn't back D:OS and I got it later on Steam. That was a mistake, mostly because I didn't really follow development and because I'm not in love with Larian like many others. But, even at this early stage in the game, I recognise that they've done something special and they've gone above and beyond what I expected.

That deserves a million times more of a reward than what "penalty" they should get for not delivering on every stretch goal at release. So, next time (if there is such a thing) I will pledge and I will pledge a lot.