Realms Beyond - Current Status and Future

Originally Posted by daveyd
The two owners names aren't a big secret. They're right on the Kickstarter page. I am hesitant to post real names because I don't want to encourage people being doxxed or harassed, but I suppose it doesn't matter as it's really not hard to find out. Hobgoblin is Peter and Timothy is Sheihadul the "managing director" who abandoned ship.

As I mentioned, Sheihadul has not responded to any recent inquiries, either from Ceres teammates or backers.

Imagine being harrassed for abandoning a project and not even saying a word…

Originally Posted by rune_74
Imagine being harrassed for abandoning a project and not even saying a word…

Yeah, to me his silence indicates he knows there's no excuse for his actions. If he had a valid explanation he could've come forward any time in the last 6 months and made a statement on Discord or forums.

To be 100% clear I also do not think he has done anything illegal. I know there are people who think this project was a scam. Well, if they are scammers, they're not very good at at it. In the past year, more than once I've seen people come into the Discord, asking if they could still pre-order the game / rewards. And developers told them they're no longer taking pledges, wait for Early Access.

I'm just a backer who has played the combat beta and hangs out on the RB Discord , but still seems entirely plausible to me that the KS money was spent as they've said. I believe this was an overly ambitious project that was poorly managed . There's quite a lot of people on Discord with Ceres developers tags who have worked on the project at some point. 120K really doesn't go very far in game development. Also KS / Stripe take 10% right off the bat.

I don't care why the co developer/ co-owner abandoned the game, but its just a shame the game won't get finished. I was excited about it and thought it looked promising.

Whatever the guy's reasons, who cares. Maybe he lost interest, found a new hobby, or hell, maybe he is just a loser with no integrity. It happens.

Anyway, at first when reading the rpg news story, I thought it sounded like the lone remaining developer/programmer who is still interested in pursuing development of the game was going to say he was planning on another kick-starter… lol. I was thinking, yea, right, good luck with that!

I seem to recall this project ran into some legal issues previously under a different name. (Chaos Chronicles?) It does make one wonder. Hopefully it can be reconstituted though in some form. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
Anyway, at first when reading the rpg news story, I thought it sounded like the lone remaining developer/programmer who is still interested in pursuing development of the game was going to say he was planning on another kick-starter… lol. I was thinking, yea, right, good luck with that!

Ha, no, HobGoblin is well aware this fiasco has hurt his reputation and the only way the damage can be even somewhat undone is if he is able to give backers a game resembling what they pledged for. I think the idea to create smaller campaigns is a good one, I wish they'd thought of it earlier but hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps they will still be able to try it. We'll see.


In the meantime, I think they're planning to send combat beta demo keys to backers who don't have one yet soon. He mentioned requesting a lot keys from Steam awhile back. (it has already been posted to the backerkit of anyone who pledged for "Early Access"). Combat beta is far cry from a complete game but it is fun to play around with.

Originally Posted by rjshae
I seem to recall this project ran into some legal issues previously under a different name. (Chaos Chronicles?) It does make one wonder. Hopefully it can be reconstituted though in some form. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

There was a disagreement between the developer (Coreplay) and publisher (bitComposer). IIRC Coreplay said they needed more money / time to properly complete CC and bitComposer felt they should have been closer to release. They couldn't come to an agreement, the game was cancelled, and both companies went bankrupt soon after.

The perils of crowd funding, in general. It's a sad and cautionary tale for us all, I do hope something rises from the ashes. Fortunately, this doesn't tend to happen very often, yet when it does, it can really smart.

Bummer I was looking forward to this game, but I was kinda obvious something was wrong as there was no feedback on their Kickstarter page for a long time.

I also backed, but this isn't the first, second, or even third failed project I have had to deal with, so I am no longer so emotional about having lost my money. Its still sad, but I am currently really postively surprised by Solasta, which I also backed, so sometimes these investments do work out well.
It sounds to me like to Co-owner lost faith in the project and assumed he would never get his investment back. Still, you think he could at least transfer his decision making power over to the developer on the off chance that the project would get finished eventually.

Pity, I looked forward to this game. I really liked the visual design as well. But Im not backer, I dont pay for games before release. I intentionally say "before release" instead of "unfinished" as those are unfortunatelly not same things in our world. So the biggest risk Im willing to take these days is buying game on release date. No Kickstarters or Early Accesses for me. Thank you, but no, thank you.

Shucks.

Originally Posted by daveyd
There was a disagreement between the developer (Coreplay) and publisher (bitComposer). IIRC Coreplay said they needed more money / time to properly complete CC and bitComposer felt they should have been closer to release. They couldn't come to an agreement, the game was cancelled, and both companies went bankrupt soon after.

Reminds me of what almost had happened to Larian with their first game …

Originally Posted by Ripper
I suppose we must consider the possibility that this guy has a reason for his behaviour. Perhaps he decided he wanted nothing more to do with this clusterfuck and these people, and wants to move on with his life.

Backers are "clusterfuck" ???

Like in "I don't want to have anything to do with backers anymore" ??

Another donation down the dunny. Such is life.

Can't really see a "happy" ending to this, but I assume they can pick up those assets at auction for about $10. Who's going to pay more than that for a seven(?)-year-old game engine and related assets, based on OGL 3.5, which have already been grandfathered down from a failed project?

Originally Posted by screeg
Who's going to pay more than that for a seven(?)-year-old game engine and related assets, based on OGL 3.5, which have already been grandfathered down from a failed project?

Hobgoblin42

Originally Posted by screeg
Can't really see a "happy" ending to this, but I assume they can pick up those assets at auction for about $10. Who's going to pay more than that for a seven(?)-year-old game engine and related assets, based on OGL 3.5, which have already been grandfathered down from a failed project?

If I read correctly, Hobgoblin already owns the rights to the actual engine, so it's only the assets and IP that will be auctioned. I struggle to imagine that it would be worth the auction house fees.

It is really sad what is going on with this game. I didn't back it but I was looking forward to buying it on release date . . .

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
This is really bad. Didn't they have any RL contact possibilities to the non-responding 50% owner ?

Exactly, I was wondering the same thing. This whole story is extremely odd. They worked with the guy and have no other means of communication besides messages?

Originally Posted by daveyd
To be clear it's not as if he disappeared off the face of the Earth. He has responded to the programmer earlier this year, but only confirm that he is not dead. He has ignored any questions specific to the game or company including simple requests like changing a company address. Also, never responded to their smaller module idea. Apparently he has a new IT job and couldn't care less about the game anymore.

The whole reason this guy was co-owner of the company is he invested a significant chunk of his own money to pay for the art assets after bitComposer went bankrupt (if you recall Realms Beyond is the resurrection of the cancelled "Chaos Chronicles" project). So his behavior doesn't really seem rational as by abandoning the project he's forfeiting all of the money he invested in it. But apparently he's got a new job and is financially comfortable enough that he just doesn't care about the game / company anymore.

That's very unusual behaviour. Doesn't seem to make sense from the investment perspective. But from the perspective of backers and his coworkers, this guy sure seems to have some psychopathic traits. Of course, we don't have his version of the story, because sure, the whole story is very odd, but he doesn't even care to explain his side to the very people that he is harming . . . that's cold.

Originally Posted by Ripper
If I read correctly, Hobgoblin already owns the rights to the actual engine, so it's only the assets and IP that will be auctioned. I struggle to imagine that it would be worth the auction house fees.

Yes he owns the engine as it's a custom engine he created. A modified version of the Spellforce 2 engine IIRC. And I think he also personally owns some of the 3D models.

The post-bankruptcy auction would be for the rest of the art assets, the music, maps, IP, and any game content that has been created. (The writer has said they have created "over a dozen area maps, as well as plenty of dialogues and quests that exist in a semi playable state").

It's hard to imagine that another studio would want most of that stuff which was created for an engine they won't own. So they'll probably be able to get it for the starting bid, which will be determined by exactly how much debt the company ends up with.

Originally Posted by gabrielarantest

That's very unusual behaviour. Doesn't seem to make sense from the investment perspective. But from the perspective of backers and his coworkers, this guy sure seems to have some psychopathic traits. Of course, we don't have his version of the story, because sure, the whole story is very odd, but he doesn't even care to explain his side to the very people that he is harming . . . that's cold.

Yes, I actually heard something which might shed some light on his behavior. But I'm hesitant to say it because for one thing I didn't even hear it direct from the other developers, and I don't wish to spread a rumor. Suffice to say, if it's accurate, it's not a valid excuse IMO.

Originally Posted by daveyd
Yes he owns the engine as it's a custom engine he created. A modified version of the Spellforce 2 engine IIRC.

I hadn't heard that before. That's interesting because the screens I saw didn't seem similar to Spellforce 2 in any way that I can think of.

Yeah, that's why I harp on about engines not dictating as much as folks tend to think. I think it kind of depends on what we mean by engine. Sometimes you get a situation where people wanted to make a Quake-type game, so they essentially licensed the whole Quake game, minus the assets. But if you strip an engine down to just the basics, you can make all sorts of games with it. It mainly comes down to what they facilitate easily. If he had the right to use the Spellforce engine, and was familiar with it, it probably made sense to use it for a different style of game.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I hadn't heard that before. That's interesting because the screens I saw didn't seem similar to Spellforce 2 in any way that I can think of.

Well, keep in mind it's just the engine under the hood, not any of the assets, UI, etc. And it was modified to have turn-based combat & 3.5e rules. But aside from that he said the engine is "almost the same version" as the one used for Spellforce 3.