Project Eternity - Closes with >$4.1M

rune_74 said:
I meant in general throughout the 50 or so threads on Project eternity. Did anyone seriously doubt it would go this far?
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I was guessing around 3.3 million, hoping for 3.5 - so yeah 4.1 was a very pleasant result though not orders of magnitudes beyond what I thought was reasonably possible. I can tell you that MCA and Tim Cain are surprised though - they had worried it would take them much of the funding period to even reach their goal.
 
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I've expected 3.5, but over 4? I'm surprised, pleasantly though.

Since it's 4M and not 40M, I don't expect a miracle of a game in two years, but assuming it'll be a great game nevertheless, that could make a huge impact on future kickstarter projects. Ppl are not giving the money for something that they have to wait for couple of years. After seeing what will happen here, if it happens to be a success, future projects could have an easier job of reaching their goals.

Which will then affect a few more things. First, publishers won't be able to legally blackmail developers to make a game publisher wants to see instead of the game the audience wants. Also the audience will be the investor, when we want a game like this and like that, we'll give the money up front to get what we want in the end, instead of preordering some stupid dumbed down MP endlessmobrespawning grinding crap because publishers don't give us any choice.
Don't forget to add to the case the full add-on planned for Eternity instead of dozens of "grab the money and run" DLC.
 
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joxer said:
Which will then affect a few more things. First, publishers won't be able to legally blackmail developers to make a game publisher wants to see instead of the game the audience wants. Also the audience will be the investor, when we want a game like this and like that, we'll give the money up front to get what we want in the end, instead of preordering some stupid dumbed down MP endlessmobrespawning grinding crap because publishers don't give us any choice.
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And we'll get feature-heavy games with little QA or sensible feature culling. It's like checkbox design only worse ;)
 
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kalniel said:
And we'll get feature-heavy games with little QA or sensible feature culling. It's like checkbox design only worse ;)
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Obsidian have good QA, as their Onyx engine and DS3 show.
 
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Little QA in a game = mad audience, no sales and practically a suicide in the long run. Who would do such a thing no regardless how the game was funded?
 
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I don't know what it is with these kickstarters, but to me it seems RPGs started with this a good while ago - and we've yet to see a SINGLE release/demo of actual value (I'm talking meaty titles to challenge the publisher model, not games like FTL), and we're left with an exponential growth of promises. More coming every day.

I'm really looking forward to the first high-profile RPG being released, so I can finally make up my mind about this model.
 
Yeah, can't wait until we see some results, but it's only been what 6 months since the first big Kickstarter game campaign?

I was looking at the most recent email update. Didn't realize they already had plans to release on GOG! That makes me happy (though I guess I'm getting a hard copy as well). Love the convenience of having everything there.
 
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blatantninja said:
Yeah, can't wait until we see some results, but it's only been what 6 months since the first big Kickstarter game campaign?

I was looking at the most recent email update. Didn't realize they already had plans to release on GOG! That makes me happy (though I guess I'm getting a hard copy as well). Love the convenience of having everything there.
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Only 6 months? I must be losing track of time... Dead State, for instance, seems like ages ago....
 
Well, we have DS3 and then we have:

KotOR2
NWN
Alpha Protocol
Fallout New Vegas

I'm not sure I would say, with a straight face, that Obsidian has good QA based on that.

As for the cause - and whether or not it was an internal problem or an external problem - the end result is that 4 out of 5 Obsidian titles are very, very buggy upon release.
 
DArtagnan said:
Only 6 months? I must be losing track of time… Dead State, for instance, seems like ages ago….
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Dead State drive ended July 5. The other two I pledged for, Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun returns, were in April. All of them have a good way to go even to their initially promised release dates, and some delay would not be unexpected either. So: Patience, young Padawan!
 
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kalniel said:
Didn't S.E. do the QA for DS3? And is 'PC controls' something I have to whisper? ;)
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Obsidian did his own QA for the Onyx engine, they also build tools to tests DS3 through their engine. All their previous games where made on 3rd parties engines (and in the case of KoTOR forced out of the door 3 months early).

Also, not liking the UI or cut content aren't bugs. I think that a lot of people don't understand what bugs actually mean.
 
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azarhal said:
Obsidian did his own QA for the Onyx engine, they also build tools to tests DS3 through their engine. All their previous games where made on 3rd parties engines (and in the case of KoTOR forced out of the door 3 months early).

Also, not liking the UI or cut content aren't bugs. I think that a lot of people don't understand what bugs actually mean.
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And a lot of people think QA is just about bugs and don't understand what QA actually means.
 
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kalniel said:
And a lot of people think QA is just about bugs and don't understand what QA actually means.
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If only.
I wish Bethesda thought that.
 
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DArtagnan said:
As for the cause - and whether or not it was an internal problem or an external problem - the end result is that 4 out of 5 Obsidian titles are very, very buggy upon release.
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Well, at least the trend is in the right direction, DS3 being the last and least buggy of the 5 apparently (as I haven't played it). I still think the funding level seems low, and figure quality may be sacrificed given the huge feature set promised with all the stretch goals. But it's worth the Kickstarter gamble for me.
 
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Thrasher said:
Well, at least the trend is in the right direction, DS3 being the last and least buggy of the 5 apparently (as I haven't played it). I still think the funding level seems low, and figure quality may be sacrificed given the huge feature set promised with all the stretch goals. But it's worth the Kickstarter gamble for me.
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Except, DS3 is their worst game. If polishing stuff means simplistic, superficial and arcadey action with a bit of RPG elements - then I'll take buggy any day of the week.

The Onyx engine was fine for what it was, but it didn't really do anything impressive - and the depth/mechanics were exceedingly simplistic. It doesn't take much to polish that kind of game compared to the kind of massive depth they're talking about with Eternity.

People talk about them developing using established engines before as if that was a disadvantage. Usually, when you have working engines - it means a LOT less work because you don't have to re-invent the wheel. That tells me they're quite inept when it comes to polishing stuff - or they suck really bad at planning and managing a long-term project.

What they did to NWN2 - all but killing the massive MP potential with their shitty version of the editor - wasn't very impressive.

We'll see if they can truly pull off a reasonably polished AND meaty RPG with Project Eternity - but I really have no reason to think they can.
 
DArtagnan said:
What they did to NWN2 - all but killing the massive MP potential with their shitty version of the editor - wasn't very impressive.
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That shitty editor has allowed many good sp mods that I don't care about the mp potential.
 
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Code reuse if the code is not well documented and understood and buggy can be more of a hindrance than a help. Basic lesson learned by anyone with any software development experience. In this example, using someone else's engine rather than a homebrew engine gives no guaranteed advantages, and may actually add risk, without any additional information.
 
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Thrasher said:
Code reuse if the code is not well documented and understood and buggy can be more of a hindrance than a help. Basic lesson learned by anyone with any software development experience. In this example, using someone else's engine rather than a homebrew engine gives no guaranteed advantages, and may actually add risk, without any additional information.
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Are you saying the NWN (Aurora), Unreal and Fallout 3 (Gamebryo) engines were poorly documented and they didn't have help available from the people developing them?

Because that doesn't sound right to me.

It's true that if you buy an engine blind and you don't have access to good documentation or help from people with experience - then it can be a big problem.

But Obsidian have had good relationships with the people behind the engines AFAIK - and their problem seems to be overextending themselves and a lack of technical skill matching their ambitions.

That's my take, anyway.

Maybe they've hired new people? We'll see.
 
DArtagnan said:
People talk about them developing using established engines before as if that was a disadvantage. Usually, when you have working engines - it means a LOT less work because you don't have to re-invent the wheel. That tells me they're quite inept when it comes to polishing stuff - or they suck really bad at planning and managing a long-term project.
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There is a big difference between developing on, let say, Bethesda's engine that Bethesda itself can't seems to debug vs working with an engine you built yourself and have the people who created it right beside you to help you out when you have issues (like Onyx).
 
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