Wow, it's amazing to see my words completely taken out of context like that.
"Before, everything felt so.. half-assed and underdeveloped"
Let's look at that full quote, shall we?
"This was a much better update than the other two. Before, everything felt so.. half-assed and underdeveloped. After reading this, I remembered why I dropped 20 bucks the instant I was able to."
I guess you can take that as a full out vitriolic attack on Obsidian. Or you can take your pills. Your choice, I suppose.
My main point was this: Obsidian is, to my knowledge, the biggest, most professional, and most well entrenched studio to do a Kickstarter. They've also been considering doing this for -months and months-, and they knew they were doing it for at least the better part of a week.
Yet, there are a lot of things here that don't seem to match onto Obsidian's level. The video was decent, but, TBH, it wasn't nearly as good as WL2 or DF. Heck, I think I've been better sold by some of the indie videos lately, and Planetary Annihilation almost certainly had a better video. In all three instances, the videos were more interesting, funnier, yet also more informative than Obsidian's. Of course, that's nitpicking. I recognize that, but it's only because this is Obsidian. This ain't some dudes in a garage. They should be able to blow the competition out of the water.
The stretch goals are even worse. I mean, remember this update: "We are in the office discussing stretch goals right now! Stay tuned for another update today."
I honestly cannot believe Obsidian did not have stretch goals ready and planned weeks ahead of time. I really don't get why they wouldn't. Again, remember, professional team. Lots and lots of staff. Months and months of planning. They had a countdown all week. And.. they didn't even have this stuff set? Like, at all?
I feel like most developers lately have had image versions of their stretch goals with cool little effects to reveal new stretch goals at certain thresholds. Sure, maybe some of those took a bit longer than Obsidian to come up, but I think we all knew Obsidian was going to get shitloads of money incredibly quickly. And, again, this is a professional, sizable well-entrenched developer. This ain't FTL or Star Command or Expeditions. And they knew.. for months.. and, at the least, definitely knew for a week ahead of time.
Now you say that maybe they just didn't know how quickly this could move. Maybe that's right, but I really don't understand how it could be right. Chris Avellone has been a big part of Kickstarter culture, and he should've been well aware of how quickly this stuff would move. In fact, I think pretty much all of us expected this to beat WL2. If they didn't even see the possibility of this happening during the initial weekend, again, that's a mistake.
When the stretch goals came out.. they were. uninspiring. They felt generic and rushed, and little tidbits like this, "Base game includes three races, five classes, and five companions. We have ideas for these, but we want to hear your opinions on what you'd like to see." I don't know, it just felt like they didn't really even have anything to show. For a bit there, I was honestly concerned that PE wasn't anything. It was just "a fantasy RPG" Obsidian wanted to make. I was still willing to support it, but I wanted to see a project with some interesting ideas. Sure, DF got away with a completely detail-less campaign, but, with the long wait, I assumed Obsidian was really putting something together.
You can also see some of this on the main page. The actual info. on the game fits into a couple small paragraphs, and there's really not a lot there. It just felt underwhelming.
Contrast this with, say, the blog updates preceding the Kickstarter, which were awesome. Or the third update, which went back to giving us a sense of what this is all about. That's what I was talking about.
Now, I've gone and really explained my point of view. However, in order to do so, I've necessarily made a far stronger point than I originally intended to. Overall, of course I'm giving my money to this. It's Obsidian. Making a classic RPG for fans. Yes, take my money!
My criticism was meant to be short and couched in positivity: "This was a much better update than the other two. Before, everything felt so.. half-assed and underdeveloped. After reading this, I remembered why I dropped 20 bucks the instant I was able to."
You've made this into a far bigger thing than it was. I'm just explaining what I meant. Overall, I love Obsidian, I put money down almost instantly, I'm watching constantly for updates and money info, and I just want this to be as successful as possible. I'm also happy to see that, with the third update, Obsidian has a lot to say about this, and that's all I needed to know. I would still throw money on a Doublefine-esque "We'll make an RPG of some sort"-type Kickstarter, but, with the months that have passed and with the build up of this week and the interviews and such, my hopes suddenly became sky high. The initial approach didn't really capture that enthusiasm or magic, but I think they're doing it right by turning it around now.