Bard's Tale IV - Released

TomRon said:
I consider myself an Inxile fanboy since I've really enjoyed all their recent offerings, but to have such poor optimisation at launch does sound worrysome. I hope they get their shit together fast so they don't experience another burn like with T:ToN, it's doubtful if the company will survive that?

I was considering playing this straight away and putting PoE2 on hold for a while, but I guess I'll wait a bit…
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I'm not sure, because they did kickstart this to the tune of 1.5 million so they have some cushion in terms of those pre-orders. And then this game might sell well in the first weeks. I get that it might seem intuitive to think that bad player reviews are going to hurt the sales, but not so sure really. One thing is the mainstream "professional" reviewers are giving it good scores, a very respectable 8.2 on metacritic currently, and even famous youtube game reviewers like ACG are saying nice things. So it still may sell well, even so.

But yea, if this does end up being a total lemon and failure, that would suck if it led to a bankruptcy...I'm not that pessimistic, however.
 
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I was in the middle as to buy this or not on release but steam review scores and mixed reactions at the watch tells me wait for the sale. So these steam reviews have caused them my full price custom. These days I don't pay much attention to mainstream reviewers so the fact that they are giving good won't affect people like me.
 
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I'm still having a good time with the Bard's Tale 2018 update, so I'm not at all fussed by bad scores on Steam. Steam isn't my platform of choice either (GoG is the only platform I'm using these days), so their user reviews are meaningless to me.

Frankly, I don't give a fig for reviews these days at all; the "professional" reviews are either bought-and-paid-for, apparently, and the "regular user scores", even metacritic, have been hijacked by the internet troll army who feels it their mission to bring down {insert company X}... or so it seems by the FLOOD of immediate, overwhelmingly (and ludicrously) bad reviews.

Even sites like this aren't immune to the phenomenon, judging by the influx of whinging and bickering I've seen from certain members over the last year or two, so I'm just going to go out on a limb and instead go by...

... my own opinion. Informed by what I've seen of the actual game -- third-party opinions excluded -- and by what I've come to know from InXile's own products (I've played both Torment and Wasteland 2, so I'm not going in to the company blind, here), I'm going to let THAT be the metric I use to decide whether I will or won't opt into the product.

Crazy, I know, but when NO source of information is trustworthy, when every opinion that's already out there is tainted by an agenda/politics, what else is there?
 
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They do seem to have a nasty habit of releasing products even though they are fully aware that there are major bugs/issues at the time of release. I'm not currently playing any games, and I'll certainly be waiting for a few patches to hit before I'd even consider plowing into this one.
 
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Arkadia7 said:
I'm not sure, because they did kickstart this to the tune of 1.5 million so they have some cushion in terms of those pre-orders. And then this game might sell well in the first weeks. I get that it might seem intuitive to think that bad player reviews are going to hurt the sales, but not so sure really. One thing is the mainstream "professional" reviewers are giving it good scores, a very respectable 8.2 on metacritic currently, and even famous youtube game reviewers like ACG are saying nice things. So it still may sell well, even so.
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T:ToN got stellar reviews as far as I remember, but I believe the game didn't sell nearly as much as they hoped in spite of that? In large part I think that was because of the negative Steam reviews? Personally I don't care much for Steam reviews. I'll rather read a couple of reviews that are well formulated than worry about what the average is. I'm pretty sure it affects sales though?
 
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Not even started impressions:
1. Microscopic subtitles
2. Phone graphics
3. No gender choice for elves and dwarves
4. Where do I save the game before going for a coffee?
5. Where is digital code wheel?

Impressions? It's disappointments! I mean what year is it? 1918 or 2018?
 
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Okay. I'll admit: I had a friendly wager with a fellow biz analyst guy on this game.
Having read the community feedback and reception, I have won.
Hey, Mr. L.E! You owe me a bottle of Moët! ;)
 
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I think i like it. I dont have grave bugs and i like that it has lots of new mechanics to learn and master. Sure, its no standard RPG..
Also environment graphics and sound/music are fantastic.
 
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@joxer;:
Leaving the game saves the game. It's not very clear about that, but yeah…


Otherwise, there's many little things that could be improved, and a few minor and somewhat annoying bugs. I could look over most of that. I actually like the atmosphere so far (and enjoy the puzzles. Nothing overwhelming so far, but lets see.)

But my main complaint right now is the limited information you get about how exactly certain skills or combat abilities work. Who is affected? How is damage calculated? What scoundrel stole 1 strength from my rogue? What stacks with what (especially between classes, e.g., rabble rouser + commander)? If THIS is the puzzle people are complaining about, I would tend to agree.
 
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daveyd said:
Why would built-in DRM be a positive?
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It's not DRM it's optional puzzles impossible to solve without it. Dunno what you get there - while it's not needed to finish the game, a completionist in me is highly irritated!
 
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joxer said:
It's not DRM it's optional puzzles impossible to solve without it. Dunno what you get there - while it's not needed to finish the game, a completionist in me is highly irritated!
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I got my code wheel in the email from my Kickstarter pledge, not sure about where it is delivered otherwise
 
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Some of the puzzles require a code wheel that you pay extra for, or only get as a backer?
 
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The code wheel will not be required to play the game, but using it will unlock additional lore and flavor throughout The Bard’s Tale IV world.
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Wasteland 2 had a skill called Southwestern Folklore only for backers that functioned similarly. Eventually all of the codes will be posted to the internet.
 
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Yuck. I don't mind "special editions" that give people extras outside the game, but withholding ingame content is a good way to get kicked onto my "wait for the definitive edition on sale" pile.
 
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Backer exclusive in-game content is nothing new. This isn't even technically exclusive, because the codes will be posted on the internet regardless.
 
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Yes, I know. And I don't like it.

I could put up with some magic slippers that I'm not getting somewhere, but puzzles I can't solve would really piss me off.
 
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