D:OS has soured me on Kickstarter stretch goals

Ah! That's still the case then. Crafting was totally unnecessary in the betas too, except for making special arrows for bow characters.

Goodness, somebody is playing along with the argument game with D'Ablah

I've only used crafting for getting more money so far … My party seems to be notoriously low on money since I tend to hoard everything "for better times" … And because I can't tell an ingredient from an useless thing … Yes, it says so if the thing is an ingredient for something, but I suspect hidden combination possibilities as well …

There are items that don't say they're ingredients but can be used in crafting, or at least there used to be.

Yes, you can combine noningredients too and sometimes you get something from it. I've mentioned poisoned cheese you need for a subquest. Cheese can be combined with a poison. Neither is marked as an ingredient.

For hoarding, do hoard scrolls of school(s) you don't/won't use. For example magical unlock scrolls - I'm unsure if a book for that spell exists at all and these scrolls are rare. Luckily, magical locks are rare too! I'm level 18 and saw only two so far.
Hoard resurrection spells if you won't go witchcraft. No water spells on your party? Grab as many rain scrolls as you can.
The rest of stuff… Sell.

Special arrows… Most are meh, but you'll adore stunning ones. Charming comes handy sometimes.
No need for crafting them, you may buy them pretty much everywhere and also mobs drop those frequently.

This could be more about miscommunication rather than failing promises.

For me, the term "stretch goal" means not a required or promised functionality but a promise to try to deliver additional functionality. Now, Kickstarter may have perverted the meaning to be a promise but that would be inconsistent with many previous years of experience with usage of the term.

Here's is Swen's "official" answer:

… As I'm writing this, I dont know how backers will react to our dropping day/night cycles. It unsettles me very much to possibly disappoint our backers because they made the extended development on Divinity: Original Sin possible. But there are limits to what time and budget permit and sometimes its necessary to make a choice when you discover something is more work than you anticipated. In this case we chose to go for stability, balancing and polish.

One alternative wouldve been to put in a day/night cycle without a lot of reactivity from the npcs, just for the sake of being able to say that we've done it, but thats something we didnt want to do. The vision driving Divinity:Original Sin has been that every feature which is in there has real gameplay value and isnt a gimmick.

Perhaps those who are disappointed may take comfort from the engine & toolkit supporting pretty much everything thats necessary for schedules, up to having NPCs sleep in their beds, so its not impossible that somewhere down the line a mod or a derivative game is released that uses these features. …

I don't know, man. It seems a little shady to me to say "We're going to deliver 'x' feature if we reach 'y' amount of dollars!", and then later say, "Sorry! We couldn't implement that feature that we claimed we would in order to get your money in the first place!".

I know everyone here is in love with Larian but this is simply bad business if you ask me. I don't like it at all. Neither should the backers. I would demand a refund, to be honest, if I was someone who pledged because they wanted those stretch goals in the game.

If a Kickstarter promises a pimped up red Porsche with air condition and an usb radio
and they deliver a black Lamborghini without air condition and no usb radio, but with much greater horse power and a 2 year repair guarantee - I take the Lamborghini any day.

Me too!
Now where's that project? Link please!

Originally Posted by joxer
Me too!
Now where's that project? Link please!

Is this you, joxer?

So basically, your argument HiddenX is give them a pass because they delivered a good-possibly-great game?

I don't agree with that line of thinking at all.

If I give you money for something, I want the product delivered, plain and simple. I don't want excuses later saying it was harder than you originally thought. If you have excuses then you should refund the money no questions asked.

I'm sure they took a lot of pledges based on the fact there was going to be these extra features in the game. They falsely advertised and they should refund the money to anyone who asks for it, IMO.

If EA did this, joxer, you'd be up in arms calling it the scam of the century .

Perhaps you missed some of my prerelease posts.
Before the game was released the rumor was that Larian is making a separate DLC to sell that'd include an item that is not a part of KS bonuses - and so we, KS backers, will have to toss more cash to get it. Something like that.

I wasn't silent on it. Dunno if I wrote "scam" exactly, but I was pissed off and did a few angry posts. I've supported a full game. I didn't and would never back a KS project that is a fundraiser for tons of DLC. Never, ever.

But when the game was released, it was obviously a case of a bad rumor, nothing else. We got everything, no scams in EA style.

Okay, we didn't get nights and romance under the stars, so what. We got so much more. And if getting more is a scam, then by all means Larian, please scam me again like this!

@Fluent

I believe in this:

1) Kickstarter is no order catalogue
2) to get a software product to an successful end you have sometimes to sacrifice original plans/requirements and/or change them (I'm knowing this from my own experiences very well)
3) I believe in artistic freedom for software developers; it's okay if you change/cancel minor design goals if you enhance the overall product and improve the main functionality
4) Last but not least I'm simply not missing Night/Day cycles and NPC-schedules in D:OS. Weather conditions that affect the gameplay are implemented. Cities are vibrant and full of life with chatting etc. It's simply enough for this kind of game.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
@Fluent

I believe in this:

1) Kickstarter is no order catalogue

I don't know what you mean by this.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
2) to get a software product to an successful end you have sometimes to sacrifice original plans/requirements and/or change them (I'm knowing this from my own experiences very well)

And I agree with this. But the part you seem to be missing is that they collected funds for those "original plans". Then they didn't deliver even though they were paid to do so.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
3) I believe in artistic freedom for software developers; it's okay if you change/cancel minor design goals if you enhance the overall product and improve the main functionality

It's fine to cancel or change minor design goals. It's not fine to take pledges based on those design goals and then not deliver them.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
4) Last but not least I'm simply not missing Night/Day cycles and NPC-schedules in D:OS. Weather conditions that affect the gameplay are implemented. Cities are vibrant and full of life and chatting. It's simply enough for this kind of game.

Again, that's fine, but what about the people who pledged based on those stretch goals? Are they to simply be ignored? Day/night cycle might be minor to you, by the way, but to others it's a pretty big thing.

But hey, I'm happy the game is good and they are selling lots of copies. Hopefully it means more hardcore cRPGs in the future. But I still think they did bad business to not honor those stretch goals.

Actually, I'm afraid I have to fall on Drithius' side on this one. Yes, they delivered a great game. Yes, shit happens and things rarely turn out as planned. Yes, guessing how long some new feature will take to implement within a factor of 2 is hard at best. I understand that all too well and, as a developer, even get grilled because people can't understand that last point and blame me for it.

But we're talking about truth in advertising here. There's nothing about that sort of stuff in the stretch goals. It pretty much says 'you pay us this, we'll give you that.' Now Krill getting sick I get - that's "act of god" stuff that everyone understands and expects. But the others? Not so much. Especially given that an orchestra didn't need to get paid.

I think it would have been much better to explain this stuff down in the Risks area. What we got was this:

All of the game systems are already in place and the biggest technological risks have already been tackled. The base game is also already funded. Given that we want to add a lot of extras, our biggest risk therefore is that the game will not be released in time.

But Larian has over a decade of experience making RPGs, we know the drill and we have a good RPG editor that helps us work more efficiently. Additionally, most of the work that we want to do can be done in parallel to our current development plan.

I think all they really needed to do was add in something like "Creating new things is inherently risky. While we believe we can do as we've outlined above and have actually completed much of it, it's possible some features will need to be pulled and/or drastically changed before the game is released." There, done, covered. The whole argument vanishes and we all live happily ever after.

P.S. And yes, *I* did get my money's worth. I know how this development stuff goes so I wasn't surprised when some stuff that looked do-able ended up being not do-able.

The Codex is raving about a fantastic new CRPG with many new ideas and reinvented old ideas, and the Watch is grumpy about a few stretch goals that are not fulfilled for the game, but have been implemented in the editor!

That's a complete role reversal guys
And I'm on the Codex side this time.

I am sorry they didn't implement all stretch goals but would you prefer if they did it even if it sacrifices rest of the game?If it avoids another Gothic 3 or Realms of Arkania remake fiasco decision was good.

I agree and liked your post to bring more balance here

Maybe someone from larian could jump in here ?

BTW dart: you being so critical of is, I'm surprised how much you pledge

Originally Posted by ilm
BTW dart: you being so critical of is, I'm surprised how much you pledge

Critical of is?

I tend to be critical of most things, even the things I love.

To me, being critical is wanting the best from something - it's not just bitching and whining.

But I'll always support quality from the heart. It's so rare in this world, that I'd have to be a fool not to do so, regardless of broken promises or human error.

Of ks. In the sense that you have to be careful, trust the Dev, good pitch, etc. (Good advice) Considering that. I'm surprised you find so many good ones to back