Modders founds company, will make "Skyrim-like RPG" [Archive]

Closet_Skeleton

2013-09-30, 03:31 PM

Sounds over-ambitious for a kickstarter. There's a reason nobody has actually made an Elder Scrolls killer even though most publishers would kill for one (okay, actually its probably because the investors dumb enough to support all wasted their money on failed WoW killers instead).

Especially interesting to me, considering I'm just now figuring out how to make mods, among other things. :smallbiggrin: Thanks for that link!

EDIT: Lowlanders and Highlanders? Are the humans going to be Scotsmen and Dutchmen? :smalltongue:

Scotland has highlanders and lowlanders. The Dutch only have lowlanders, but you don't need to bring them in to round out the Scots. My grandmother was lowland Scots, Scottish Highlanders are called that not because Scotland is higher up than England (much of it isn't and Wales has mountains too) because there were two different people living in Scotland with two different languages, the Highlanders mostly speaking Gaelic (eg Irish, a celtic language) and the lowlanders spoke Scots (a Germanic language that's usually just considered an English dialect). Scotland's major cities and population centres are in the lowlands but since a lot of Highlanders were kicked out in the 18th century they're what Canadians and Americans think of when they say 'Scottish descent'.

erikun

2013-09-30, 06:49 PM

I'd be a bit hesitant to support this project. The only thing I know about the developers are that they mod Elder Scrolls games, meaning just that they can design models. I'm not seeing any indications about story or how they plan to implement this open-world aspect in their game.

Especially considering this forum, I am quite familiar with people having large plans but not really having the resources or know-how to implement them. It's very easy to say an open world where choices dictate how the game story resolves, while it is very hard to actually make it work - to the point where most people have trouble pointing out a good example in a video game which did it right.

GolemsVoice

2013-09-30, 06:54 PM

There's the upcoming The Witcher 3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher_3:_Wild_Hunt) which promises to do more or less that, and from what I've heard it looks pretty good.

While I wish the modders best of luck, I fear they won't achieve what they planned to, and I'd also wager it takes more than 500.000 do even try. But still, they might just do it!

Avilan the Grey

2013-10-01, 01:41 AM

Avilan the Grey

2013-10-01, 01:43 AM

I'd be a bit hesitant to support this project. The only thing I know about the developers are that they mod Elder Scrolls games, meaning just that they can design models. I'm not seeing any indications about story or how they plan to implement this open-world aspect in their game.

To be fair, Bethesda has hired a large number of Modders over the years; they are frequent visitors to the Nexuses and other forums and keep tabs on who makes the best mods. That the TES / FO:X crowd produces a number of really really good designers is no secret.

Closet_Skeleton

2013-10-01, 04:22 AM

Witcher is a completely different game, because of the fixed, rather unlikeable character. TES is all about complete customization.

Its the fixed character that allows the Witcher to do more with choices and consequences than TES does.

The problem with this ideal game is that there are just so many variables. When you have limited development time and other resources, you removing some choices to make your more ambitious ideas practical is the way to achieve things. If this game was possible, we wouldn't have waited for modders to do it. Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines came close but was a lot less open than The Elder Scrolls and sent its developer into bankruptcy.

Being a modder is a good background for a game studio employee, I'm merely doubting the ability of any studio to pull this off, the kickstarter/modder origin of the studio makes it even more dubious to be sure, but it isn't really the most rational of the reasons to be doubtful.

Winthur

2013-10-01, 05:09 AM

Meh, bar is set too low.

Now, if they tried to make a Morrowind-like RPG, it would be a feat. :smalltongue:

Ailurus

2013-10-01, 05:30 AM

Airk

2013-10-01, 09:36 AM

*checks Kickstarter page*

As much as I'd love to see this project succeed, I'm quite doubtful. While some of their mods were solid, looking at their resume page does not inspire me with confidence. There's a HUGE leap between using mod creation tools and actually creating a game from scratch and (at the risk of sounding like a complete jerk) it really doesn't look like many of them have any real programming experience. Game/level design, artwork, story, character design I'm pretty sure they'll do great on, but I'm very doubtful they'll be able to write the game from scratch, much less a 3d open world game for 3 separate platforms.

Think I'll file this one under "if it turns out good, I'll buy a copy" but I'll be surprised if it does end up good.

Basically this. I mean, the thing is clearly "A bunch of people who think the fact that they can put together some good mods means they know anything about actually producing a game set out to make the biggest, hardest to create type of game imaginable and claim they will do it better than the hugely successful AAA competitor" This is CLEARLY a money pit as far as I am concerned. Open world games are brutally expensive and hard to make.

Also, honestly, I think the idea of an "open world game with real decision making consequences" is, as Closet Skeleton asserts, essentially impossible. Not literally impossible, but more expensive than any game could ever hope to make up on. I think it's a very, very apt point that the games that come the closest to offering "real choices" are also the ones with fixed protagonists. (I'd consider Mass Effect to have a fixed protagonist here - yes, fine, you can pick gender and appearance, but you're always making Commander Shepard, not Space Force Employee #37.)

Essentially, the more open world you make a game, the more you dilute it's ability to tell a compelling narrative, because events can/will happen in random order, or not at all. The player kills the NPC who might eventually have been involved in another quest/stage of the story/whatever? Well, oops. And so on.

Skyrim is a fun sandbox, it's a terrible storytelling medium.

nooblade

2013-10-01, 10:14 AM

But if they're so good at modding they should be able to take this engine, go over some hurdles to make things work, and then plow through a lot of content. Might even be less buggy than a TES game. But it really looks like they haven't tried to do the engine part yet. If it were me, I'd want to get that out of the way first. Worst case scenario: it's actually a mod not a separate game.

I have no idea what is with their plans.

Good to see more indies, but since there's not much out about it I'm more interested in this bunch (minus Starbound): "top 10 indies to watch" (http://kotaku.com/ten-indie-games-you-must-keep-an-eye-on-1424118671).

warty goblin

2013-10-01, 10:27 AM

An Elder Scrolls game takes what, forty or so people a couple years to make? And that's working with familiar and in-house technology. Yeah, not paying for that with $500,000.

shadow_archmagi

2013-10-01, 11:30 AM

If you want an open world game with meaningful choices, just cyrogenically freeze yourself until Dwarf Fortress is ready. Which reminds me, I need to make my monthly donation!

wiimanclassic

2013-10-01, 04:31 PM

Isn't one of the guys making it that guy who thinks he knows more about ES lore than the people making the games and tried to shove his fanwank down everyone using his Open Cities mod by placing ugly Oblivion gates in every town?

Something about how what happened in Oblivion when a gate closed, you know, when they collapse, was a concession made for the game and that they totally wouldn't collapse when closed in Skyrim for no reason and no one would ever move these eyesores that belched out demons before. Yeah.

I see no way this can go horribly when that guy disagrees with the others on the lore or plot of the game.

I think I actually have the write up someone did of that mess and what else happened because of it somewhere.

Edit
Yup. It is that guy. This is going to go horribly, hilariously wrong the moment he disagrees with the writers about the plot or lore or anyone says bad things about what he makes. Dudes a good modder but he can not handle criticism or people saying anything against his artistic vision(like how you shouldn't shove oblivion gates in an Open Cities mod for Skyrim). I get the feeling the game is going to die under the weight of his ego.

Found it.
http://pastebin.com/XVcSie4q

Hiro Protagonest

2013-10-01, 04:49 PM

If you want an open world game with meaningful choices, just cyrogenically freeze yourself until Dwarf Fortress is ready. Which reminds me, I need to make my monthly donation!

Extra Credits is spot on about depth and complexity in games. The game is deep, but until they fix the interface, I ain't touching it again.

I don't care if some people think the best moments are when your dwarf on the front lines suddenly retreats because he's not using his favorite axe, no tutorial, not even anything that tells you what the keyboard keys and mouse buttons do, and it's an incredibly deep civ-building game as opposed to something much simpler like most roguelikes? Way too complex.

Ailurus

2013-10-01, 04:55 PM

But if they're so good at modding they should be able to take this engine, go over some hurdles to make things work, and then plow through a lot of content.

Again, its a lot more than that. Using Oblivion as the starting point (just because that's the one I have the most experience modding myself), its very easy to add dialog/conversation options to an NPC - renting a room at an inn has around 100 separate lines of dialog in the base game because of the ease of adding new ones in.

However, doing this from scratch would be a lot more work - you need to set up (in a very brief, simplified sense) a system for the quests (Oblivion even treats renting a room as sort of a quest), a system for storing the dialog (even if its just text dialog), a system for associating the dialog with NPCs, associating particular dialog with particular quests and a system for associating NPCs with quests they're involved in. And then look at the fact that that is only dialog, and Skyrim itself was estimated to have 60,000 lines of dialog. And that's not even getting into tracking when NPCs die, NPCs start and stop becoming involved in a quest (say one innkeeper gets killed and another takes his/her place), and more. Even more if you have to think about audio and lip-syncing (if you want it to be voiced), plus changing facial expressions depending on their mood (oblivion allowed that, at least to a small extent).

Worst case scenario: it's actually a mod not a separate game.

I'd be all for that (assuming its something like Nehrim: At Fate's Edge, or even Tale of Two Wastelands or Skywind/Morroblivion), but since they seem to be doing this commercially that's not gonna happen. There's no way Bethesda is gonna let them sell a Skyrim mod. It will have to be their own engine.

nooblade

2013-10-01, 10:53 PM

I guess the engine they picked doesn't handle most of the game? Havok looks like it's only for physics. Aww.

I remember Morrowind modding through some script editing. Everything that everyone could ever say, and all the things you could say back, quest rewards, and perhaps some other things, all of it was collected and compiled into a giant dialogue ... thing.

I wonder if there are any free, open source scripting/dialogue editor sort of like Morrowind, or if that much comes with game maker engines or things. It does sound like a pain to recreate from nothing. I sort of expect just about everything to be available open source since SDL and openGL and a few other things are awesome like that.

GoblinArchmage

2013-10-01, 11:39 PM

Hm. The article says that they need to hire developers? Oh I see, these modders are just the "ideas guys." They'll totally release their epic game once they can find people to actually make it.

Isn't one of the guys making it that guy who thinks he knows more about ES lore than the people making the games and tried to shove his fanwank down everyone using his Open Cities mod by placing ugly Oblivion gates in every town?

Something about how what happened in Oblivion when a gate closed, you know, when they collapse, was a concession made for the game and that they totally wouldn't collapse when closed in Skyrim for no reason and no one would ever move these eyesores that belched out demons before. Yeah.

I see no way this can go horribly when that guy disagrees with the others on the lore or plot of the game.

I think I actually have the write up someone did of that mess and what else happened because of it somewhere.

Edit
Yup. It is that guy. This is going to go horribly, hilariously wrong the moment he disagrees with the writers about the plot or lore or anyone says bad things about what he makes. Dudes a good modder but he can not handle criticism or people saying anything against his artistic vision(like how you shouldn't shove oblivion gates in an Open Cities mod for Skyrim). I get the feeling the game is going to die under the weight of his ego.

Found it.
http://pastebin.com/XVcSie4q

Holy crap, it's that trainwreck? This should be good.

Ailurus

2013-10-02, 03:53 AM

I remember Morrowind modding through some script editing. Everything that everyone could ever say, and all the things you could say back, quest rewards, and perhaps some other things, all of it was collected and compiled into a giant dialogue ... thing.

I wonder if there are any free, open source scripting/dialogue editor sort of like Morrowind, or if that much comes with game maker engines or things. It does sound like a pain to recreate from nothing. I sort of expect just about everything to be available open source since SDL and openGL and a few other things are awesome like that.

Similar exists for Oblivion, Skyrim, FO3 and NV as well. But Bethesda created all those editors.

Castaras

2013-10-02, 03:57 AM

This's gonna collapse in a pile of burning rubble. Then again, I couldn't look at the site for more than a couple of minutes after I tried to work out who it was on the team and they decided that it would of course be a good idea to use different colours and different brightnesses of colours on their "Who we are" page....

Maybe I'm a little petty. But still... not really anything that inspires confidence.

Artanis

2013-10-02, 09:04 AM

Considering what happened to Magna Mundi, I don't see any way this won't crash and burn so badly that it leaves a radioactive, mile-wide glass crater. Really, the best possible thing for this project and its creators would probably be for the kickstarter to fail miserably.

Avilan the Grey

2013-10-02, 09:23 AM

Well in any event, I hope talented people get recognized. Even if this implodes.

GolemsVoice

2013-10-02, 09:25 AM

To be honest, much of what they promise sounds like what you can get already in Skyrim or Fallout.

Morph Bark

2013-10-02, 03:13 PM

Studoku

2013-10-02, 03:50 PM

Wow. I can't make a prediction on how this is going to fail because there are just too many possibilities.

If I had to bet, I'd go with them running out of money in a year, begging for more and the guy in charge throwing a hissy fit when people don't donate because "nobody appreciates his vision".

Divayth Fyr

2013-10-02, 04:59 PM

I hope he's gotten better since then
He didn't. One of his earliest comments about Dragonborn was
"Brilliant move Bethesda. Dragonborn.esm also wipes out the body part data from Update.esm that's needed for riding dragons." followed with "No, it's from a lack of proper QA. No other explanation for this is plausible. How this even gets out of testing is beyond me. It can't have been an issue on the XBox or one would expect there to have been holy hell raised over it." after someone argued that dragons got new skeletons, so the old data might not be needed. And guess what? Turned out it wasn't needed. Similiarly, he moaned about the people in Bethesda deleting a navmesh (which may be a potential source of crashes if we go to the cell which had it before - however the one they removed was in a cell inaccessible without cheating). And to use the base staves which were already coded into the game for Dragonborn's staff enchanter they changed their names and costs (5 gold was rather cheap even for an unenchanted staff). His comment? "Someone wasn't paying attention when designing the staff crafting either. They've overwritten several of the base staff templates that the rest of the game builds on. It's good that they're providing us new features, they just need to be more careful." Though one could say not claiming they ruined the game/community is a step in the right direction ;)

Avilan the Grey

2013-10-03, 12:41 AM

Edit
Yup. It is that guy. This is going to go horribly, hilariously wrong the moment he disagrees with the writers about the plot or lore or anyone says bad things about what he makes. Dudes a good modder but he can not handle criticism or people saying anything against his artistic vision(like how you shouldn't shove oblivion gates in an Open Cities mod for Skyrim). I get the feeling the game is going to die under the weight of his ego.

Found it.
http://pastebin.com/XVcSie4q

...Forgot to post this...
Maybe the other modders ARE from his "entourage"?
In any event it might be good for him to mess up his OWN lore for once.

Also, I LOLed. But I enjoy things like this. This is why I always read local papers wherever I go, because the petty fights on the pages where readers can send in letters are always HILARIOUS.

Morph Bark

2013-10-03, 04:18 AM

He didn't. One of his earliest comments about Dragonborn was
"Brilliant move Bethesda. Dragonborn.esm also wipes out the body part data from Update.esm that's needed for riding dragons." followed with "No, it's from a lack of proper QA. No other explanation for this is plausible. How this even gets out of testing is beyond me. It can't have been an issue on the XBox or one would expect there to have been holy hell raised over it." after someone argued that dragons got new skeletons, so the old data might not be needed. And guess what? Turned out it wasn't needed. Similiarly, he moaned about the people in Bethesda deleting a navmesh (which may be a potential source of crashes if we go to the cell which had it before - however the one they removed was in a cell inaccessible without cheating). And to use the base staves which were already coded into the game for Dragonborn's staff enchanter they changed their names and costs (5 gold was rather cheap even for an unenchanted staff). His comment? "Someone wasn't paying attention when designing the staff crafting either. They've overwritten several of the base staff templates that the rest of the game builds on. It's good that they're providing us new features, they just need to be more careful." Though one could say not claiming they ruined the game/community is a step in the right direction ;)

Well, that's just perfect for their team, then. :smalltongue:

But yeah, if he's going to screw up, I hope it doesn't affect other promising modders on their team too much. No need for a lunatic to drag everyone down with him.

Also, I LOLed. But I enjoy things like this. This is why I always read local papers wherever I go, because the petty fights on the pages where readers can send in letters are always HILARIOUS.

It's like internet arguments, but on paper!

Divayth Fyr

2013-10-03, 06:47 AM

But yeah, if he's going to screw up, I hope it doesn't affect other promising modders on their team too much. No need for a lunatic to drag everyone down with him.
Well, he is responsible for "Level Design, Content Design, Quality Assurance". I can already see the discussion going on:
- You idiot! You forgot to include the code for feature x!
- Have you tested it? I moved some parts of the code, x should work fine.
- Oh, I guess that's ok.

- Why did you change the way Y works in Z?
- Well, we agreed that we wanted Y to work differently.
- But I want it to work in Z the way it did. I even have an explanation (...)
- That doesn't make sense compared to all the other Ys
- You don't know what you're talking about. Change it at once!
:smallwink:

Artanis

2013-10-03, 07:50 AM

Well in any event, I hope talented people get recognized. Even if this implodes.
That's actually why I said the best thing for them would probably be for the kickstarter to fail. They're getting a lot of press (good or bad) that shows that they have guts and ambition and makes people want to look up what their talent has let them accomplish in the past. However, should the kickstarter succeed, then a massive failure of truly epic proportions (as most or all of the posters in this thread seem to think will happen) would be a big red flag for anybody who wants to hire them in the future.

Avilan the Grey

2013-10-03, 07:55 AM

It's like internet arguments, but on paper!

You see, back in my day we used to have analog iPads...

GungHo

2013-10-04, 09:59 AM

Yup. It is that guy. This is going to go horribly, hilariously wrong the moment he disagrees with the writers about the plot or lore or anyone says bad things about what he makes. Dudes a good modder but he can not handle criticism or people saying anything against his artistic vision(like how you shouldn't shove oblivion gates in an Open Cities mod for Skyrim). I get the feeling the game is going to die under the weight of his ego.
Ah... that guy. Yeah, it's gonna be a hot mess.

Rion

2013-10-06, 02:50 PM

Someone mentioned Magna Mundi which is quite appropriate since that was a team of modders trying to make a new game similar to the one they modded with the support and engine of the developers who made the original game. It crashed and burned under the weight of overambition and a egomaniacal and paranoid head developer incapable of accepting when reality didn't align with his vision. When Paradox (the developets and publishers of the original game) shut down Magna Mundi, he ranted and raved abou conspiracies and how the game was almost done before it was shut down out of fear of competition, despite combat first being added less than a month nefore the cancellation.

I'm expecting a meltdown of equal proportiona out of this. One can only hope it happens after a failed kickstarter, rather than a successful one wasting a lot of money and destroying the future careers of any good modders involved.

wiimanclassic

2013-10-06, 05:58 PM

erikun

2013-10-07, 05:58 PM

I hope it gets funded since then failing as horribly as I see this thing doing might destroy some of the massive egos involved, god knows some of them need it.
Egos that large are not destroyed by trifling concerns like losing half a million dollars. They'll likely complain that they weren't given enough time, or enough money, and so it's the supporters' fault that the project didn't complete. :smallsigh:

wiimanclassic

2013-10-07, 06:06 PM

Egos that large are not destroyed by trifling concerns like losing half a million dollars. They'll likely complain that they weren't given enough time, or enough money, and so it's the supporters' fault that the project didn't complete. :smallsigh:

True, this is the guy who kept going on his crusade for "modders rights" even after the vice president of Bethseda said he was wrong.

GungHo

2013-10-14, 08:09 AM

"Modders' Rights"?

Does he call Steam Workshop "Bethesda Care"?

Mewtarthio

2013-10-22, 03:56 PM

Well, less than a week to go and they've managed to raise less than 10% of their goal...

Hiro Protagonest

2013-10-22, 03:59 PM

Well, less than a week to go and they've managed to raise less than 10% of their goal...

I'm not going to read the updates out of fear of ranting about how nobody appreciates their vision or the genre...

Mewtarthio

2013-10-22, 04:06 PM

They're not talking about it in the updates, though the comments mention that they're still trying to make the game:

@Scott: It's true, $500k doesn't even cover the costs, we do have small private investors and personal funds going into the mix as well. If this Kickstarter fails, we'll proceed with development and run a new Kickstarter once we've made more progress.

Divayth Fyr

2013-10-22, 04:18 PM

They addressed that in the FAQ

Yes, we will keep trying. (...) We plan to put together a new streamlined Kickstarter very quickly after this one ends, waiting only long enough to prepare the materials we didn't have early enough this time around.

Anyone knows if Kickstarter has a limit to how many times you can try to fund something and fail?

Aolbain

2013-10-22, 05:12 PM

Someone mentioned Magna Mundi which is quite appropriate since that was a team of modders trying to make a new game similar to the one they modded with the support and engine of the developers who made the original game. It crashed and burned under the weight of overambition and a egomaniacal and paranoid head developer incapable of accepting when reality didn't align with his vision. When Paradox (the developets and publishers of the original game) shut down Magna Mundi, he ranted and raved abou conspiracies and how the game was almost done before it was shut down out of fear of competition, despite combat first being added less than a month nefore the cancellation.

Don't forget the part when he threatened legal action and claimed that the engine (and all Paradox games that used it) were now owned by him. He resurfaced after a couple of months, trying to advertise his "new" project, which were totally not (the still super broken) Magna Mundi under a different name.

I miss him.

Edit: I'm completely in love with their concept and it would be super if this happened. But it won't. On the of-hand chance it gets of the ground at all, it's going to crash and burn,

viralata

2013-10-25, 09:24 AM

So, any recent news about it?

The last thing I saw was Gopher's video on youtube.

Mewtarthio

2013-10-25, 10:25 AM

So, any recent news about it?

The most recent news is that they've got three days to raise the other 90% of their funding. Their ostensible plan afterwards is to seek other sources of funding and attempt to crowdsource again once they've actually got something to show besides promises and good intentions, but seeing as they've been awfully quiet of late, I'm guessing they'll just quietly walk away.

Well, that one guy might not be so quiet, from what I've heard, but I bet the rest of the team will.

Edit: I'm completely in love with their concept and it would be super if this happened. But it won't. On the of-hand chance it gets of the ground at all, it's going to crash and burn,

Well, of course the concept is awesome. The concept is literally "It's Elder Scrolls but more awesome!", so it's a little tautological to say so. It's actually extremely easy to say you're going to make an awesome game. If it were that easy to do, though, someone would have made their Elder Scrolls killer by now. Probably Bethesda, seeing as they've got all the resources and the fanbase.

Now, if they'd come out and said exactly what they were sacrifice to get more "freedom" with a lower budget and a smaller team, that would have been better. It wouldn't have been enough to get me to pledge (they'd need some serious industry experience or a very good demo to convince me they could pull this off), but when they're basically claiming that they can produce a AAA title on half a million dollars because they don't have to worry about, like, corporate greed, man... Well, it doesn't inspire confidence.

What inspires even less confidence is their "Risks and Challenges" section. Just look at that. The first item is "Workflow Blocks," which is so ridiculously vague that it might as well be "Making Games is Haaaard!" Their proposed solutions are regular meetings, Havoc tech support (?), and "replacing unproductive team members." Yeah, Druid Games seems to think all software developers are easily replaceable cogs in their machine. That kind of kills their image of a team of cheerful indie modders running on dreams and confidence, no? Plus, they're talking about building a massive system from the ground up here: Shaking up the team mid-project is a surefire road to development hell.

The next two items are "Hardware Failure" and "Data Loss." Those are pretty obvious problems for a software company; it'd be like a pizza company saying "Don't worry; we have a plan for if our delivery guy's car breaks down." I'm glad they've thought of these things, but the fact that they're explicitly highlighting them like this (as two separate items, no less) emphasizes their lack of experience outside modding.

The last item (number four is just a joke) is "Company Instability," aka "The risk that everyone will get bored, realize this was a terrible idea, and walk away." Their response to this risk is to have paperwork. No, really. They've filled out the forms that make them an official company, so now everyone's much less likely to leave. Having a piece of paper that says you're a team means your souls are bound to each other with unbreakable oaths of loyalty. Attorneys are wizards, don'cha know?

Wow, I didn't mean to make such a long post. I really am seeing new red flags everywhere I look.

Airk

2013-10-25, 10:42 AM

Wow, I didn't mean to make such a long post. I really am seeing new red flags everywhere I look.

No, I liked it. In fact, I'd like to see your take on some other Kickstarters. :)

Studoku

2013-10-25, 01:19 PM

I've realised why their game sounds so familiar. Everything they're saying about it is stuff Peter Molyneux said about Fable.

Mando Knight

2013-10-25, 01:42 PM

If it were that easy to do, though, someone would have made their Elder Scrolls killer by now. Probably Bethesda, seeing as they've got all the resources and the fanbase.
An Elder Scrolls killer would be unlikely from Bethesda. You don't kill your own franchises with similar-but-higher-quality games, you continue them. Usually.

Having a piece of paper that says you're a team means your souls are bound to each other with unbreakable oaths of loyalty. Attorneys are wizards, don'cha know?
Devils, actually (at least the soul-binding ones are, anyway). The dev team hopes to avoid instability by becoming programmer-warlocks. :smalltongue:

Mewtarthio

2013-10-25, 01:50 PM

An Elder Scrolls killer would be unlikely from Bethesda. You don't kill your own franchises with similar-but-higher-quality games, you continue them. Usually.

That was the joke. "If it were that easy to make a game that's like the Elder Scrolls but a million times more awesome, then Bethesda would have just made the Elder Scrolls like that in the first place." :smalltongue:

Tyndmyr

2013-10-26, 06:56 PM

Teln

2013-10-27, 02:07 AM

Oh, seriously overambitious. Skyrim is not a small or easy sort of game to make. That as a first project for a company rings warning bells, even if they have previous experience. Modding is great...some of my first dev experience was modding. I've learned a lot since then, though, and modding something a bit is wildly different from making something like this.

If you want to launch an actually successful game company, you don't do this. You make small, catchy, niche games that get you a fan base and income so you can work your way up.

I'd imagine that the practical experience that comes from working with the guts of an engine for the first time would also be helpful.

viralata

2013-10-27, 01:11 PM

wiimanclassic

2013-10-27, 04:37 PM

I've just checked their kickstarter page, and it seems they will not get funded. There's part of me that would like to see it happening, even if they could not fulfil all they are promising. Perhaps some upgrade system like I've saw on Mount & Blade series, where new features are upgraded with a new version release.

Anyway, they're already anouncing they won't give up on this, and will try again very soon. I sure hope this time they can bring in some ingame footage. IMHO, I'm not expecting something with graphics quality like Skyrim or other recent games, as long as it can bring in at least half of the things they say they will deliver in terms of giving player some immersion.

Exhibit A for this crashing and burning.
Arthmoor is involved. The guy who thinks he knows TES lore better then any of the people who MAKE the damn lore. The guy who refused to even consider throwing ugly Oblivion gates into a completely unrelated Skyrim mod was feature creep. The guy who refused to stop his crusade against people making his less ****ty even when the vice president of Bethseda said he was in the wrong about modder's rights. The guy who has no idea how copyright works and somehow things he has one on a mod when the CK for Skyrim outright says he doesn't own the mod the moment he uses the CK to make it.

Exhibit B
Arthmoor needs to play nice with others for this to work and there's a chance one of them isn't a massive push over who won't bow to his massive ego.

viralata

2013-10-27, 06:46 PM

The only thing I know about Arthmoor is that he's the author of open cities for Skyrim. Don't know how him personally to judge him at that level, so I'll take your word on it.
Still, I won't judge a whole team by a sole member. I mean, I don't know all of the team involved, but if they could deliver half of what they have planned, I'd be a happy gamer :)

viralata

2013-11-12, 10:18 AM

Like it or not, they seem to be a persistent bunch.

It seems they're trying that kickstart thing again (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/594743529/player-driven-rpg-unwritten-echoes-of-twilight)

Morph Bark

2013-11-12, 10:22 AM

Devils, actually (at least the soul-binding ones are, anyway). The dev team hopes to avoid instability by becoming programmer-warlocks. :smalltongue:

So they're Binders, eh? Are they hipsters? :smallamused:

GungHo

2013-11-12, 11:05 AM

Cookies as a stretch goal.

Mewtarthio

2013-11-12, 11:44 AM

Wow, that was fast. I was expecting them to take several months at the very least; ideally something more like a year so they can actually get their feet wet and show us some real work.

So, what's new this time? I see they've rebranded themselves as a "Player-Driven RPG" (whatever that is), added some more concept art, and oh here's a feature I didn't see last time:

Chronicle your adventure in your journal, taking real notes whenever something of interest crosses your path.
Emphasis theirs

At least they've learned some humility; they've now got a line in there about "Okay, guys, maybe it won't be bigger than TES... but we're totally going to do a real game once this one's successful, and you'll be able to import characters from this one and it'll be an entire franchise that's like TES but better!"

Things I have yet to find: Anything that tells me how they intend to do all this. For a product this ambitious (with the rebranding, it sounds like they want to create an entire freaking genre here), I need something substantial.

shadow_archmagi

2013-11-12, 11:47 AM

While I admit that that's a neat concept, the fact remains that I actually *can* take real notes whenever something of interest crosses my path, so I'm unclear how or why the game will incorporate this as a feature.

I guess this is a stupid thing to wonder, because the project is doomed anyway.

warty goblin

2013-11-12, 11:49 AM

So, what's new this time? I see they've rebranded themselves as a "Player-Driven RPG" (whatever that is), added some more concept art, and oh here's a feature I didn't see last time:

An in-game text editor that probably uses a silly font on a background that's supposed to look like old parchment! Brilliant! Just what RPGs need! I can't hold up a finger for each time I've been playing an RPG, and, surrounded by pens, pencils, paper, other electronic devices etc, wished there was just some way to write something down.

Mostly because holding up one finger would seriously overcount the number of times this has been a problem.

Airk

2013-11-12, 12:21 PM

Again? Already? Christ, this is verging on 'scam' territory.

GungHo

2013-11-12, 01:34 PM

An in-game text editor that probably uses a silly font on a background that's supposed to look like old parchment! Brilliant! Just what RPGs need! I can't hold up a finger for each time I've been playing an RPG, and, surrounded by pens, pencils, paper, other electronic devices etc, wished there was just some way to write something down.
All hail Ye Olde Notepade, the savior of immersion.

Artanis

2013-11-12, 05:40 PM

I also see that the goal has been cut by nearly half. Because hey, if half a million wasn't enough to make a remotely feasible game, asking for half as much money for 80% as much game will TOTALLY F***ING WORK.

Seerow

2013-11-12, 05:48 PM

Again? Already? Christ, this is verging on 'scam' territory.

Agreed.

If they'd waited a year, and come back with something that looked even like barebones alpha gameplay, I'd be willing to take them seriously.

But coming back less than a month later, and cutting their expected budget in half? No, this sounds like a bunch of guys hoping to make a large chunk of change and run. Alternatively, a bunch of guys who honestly think they can make a AAA game with 5% of the budget, because they're just that awesome. (in other words displaying themselves as morons doomed to fail, and just waste the money of anyone who supports it)

Artanis

2013-11-12, 05:56 PM

Agreed.

Before, I hoped that their kickstarter would fail because succeeding meant them going down in flames and getting every single one of them blacklisted from the gaming industry.

Now, with them trying another kickstarter so soon, I hope it succeeds for the exact same reason :smallannoyed:

Avilan the Grey

2013-11-13, 03:13 AM

An in-game text editor that probably uses a silly font on a background that's supposed to look like old parchment! Brilliant! Just what RPGs need! I can't hold up a finger for each time I've been playing an RPG, and, surrounded by pens, pencils, paper, other electronic devices etc, wished there was just some way to write something down.

Mostly because holding up one finger would seriously overcount the number of times this has been a problem.

Sounds like Ultima Underworld?

Teln

2013-11-13, 08:01 AM

Oy, I just checked out their update and found this little gem:

We had to beg Havok for more time with our engine evaluation so we could finish some content for this campaign and being awesome as they are, they graciously gave us extra time...

No engine license, and no money to buy one with because their last Kickstarter failed! Why are they even bothering with an engine they know they can't afford?!

Divayth Fyr

2013-11-13, 08:17 AM

No engine license, and no money to buy one with because their last Kickstarter failed! Why are they even bothering with an engine they know they can't afford?!
Possibly - though this is a guess on my part - because Skyrim uses some Havok technologies, which means the modders are familiar with a part of the engine (as opposed to getting something else).

viralata

2013-11-17, 11:12 AM

What about this? It seems Gopher will be a character in the game!

http://www.youtube.com//watch?v=Dc1gDQcdARY

nooblade

2013-11-17, 11:52 AM

It sorta looks like they did something?

It reminds me of that Fable artistic trailer video with the hero-chicken.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-11-17, 01:04 PM

I hope their composer gets some notice: the Main theme they have posted is actually pretty cool. Concept sketches seem pretty decent as well.

The rest is a wreck. I personally love the stretch goal of "extend the programmer's contract by 1 year." If they DON'T hit that goal, what do they plan to do? Additionally...do they plan to do this with one programmer, one animator, one artist, and one 3D modeler? That's what they seem to be proposing...

Divayth Fyr

2013-11-17, 02:06 PM

The rest is a wreck. I personally love the stretch goal of "extend the programmer's contract by 1 year." If they DON'T hit that goal, what do they plan to do? Additionally...do they plan to do this with one programmer, one animator, one artist, and one 3D modeler? That's what they seem to be proposing...
If you look at their "meet the devs" page, you'll see they "have" two programmers - one being an integral part of the group which created the company and a contracted one (but contracted for how long? and will he work on the game at all if the kickstarter fails?). Similiarly, models and such could be made by 3 or 4 people from the team - but that would obviously mean other things getting delayed. A team like that is fine when working on a mod - I guess they see making a game as something more expensive and time-consuming but still doable?

I love the fact that they barely started working on the game itself (the engine was chosen during this summer) and already have a "coming soon to steam greenlight" banner ;)

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-11-17, 02:33 PM

Hm. Guess I couldn't find the "Meet the Team" section then.

Divayth Fyr

2013-11-17, 02:38 PM

Hm. Guess I couldn't find the "Meet the Team" section then.
http://www.druidgameworks.com/meet_dev_team.html

viralata

2013-11-17, 02:54 PM

I hope their composer gets some notice: the Main theme they have posted is actually pretty cool.

I think I found his soundcloud profile: https://soundcloud.com/guinolas

It sure looks like he has a big collection of music!

MickJay

2013-11-17, 05:45 PM

The concept vaguely reminds me of the Planeshift MMO. It's been in development for over a decade, but thanks to the dedication of fans and devs it's still progressing. It started with a very unfriendly interface, no items, 3/4 skills missing, an "old school"/atrocious (depending who you ask!) quest system and it's been improved on since. The story of Planeshift's development does give an idea of just how much effort it takes to make a more-or-less playable, open-world game (and not even one where choices matter in a major way!).

viralata

2013-11-21, 12:56 PM

After reading the info they are updating every day, I believe they're really serious enough to make the game. Therefore, if I'll have the money by the end of the month, I'm going to help them.

Although buying a game from a big development team is a more safe call - and in terms of graphics and renderings surely better - there's something about these indie developers that catches my eye.

Of course, I thought on some of the things that have been told about Arthmoor, but at the end I'll be pledging at a team and their great concept, and not on a single guy. Also, I never went far enough to know him better, I just played some of his mods, and I'm quite happy I did it, since they made my game experience a lot better.

Hiro Protagonest

2013-11-21, 01:41 PM

If you want to take a risk and donate to an open-world game where choices matter, wait for Trials of Ascension to come up again.

viralata

2013-11-21, 01:53 PM

If you want to take a risk and donate to an open-world game where choices matter, wait for Trials of Ascension to come up again.

I knew it previously, it was nothing that caught my interest, and I'm not also a fan of MMORPG's. And by that they are very different games.

Also, if the Unwritten has received a lot of criticism for asking 500K to make it happen, then decided to lower it to 280K (they show the details behind that decision), what to say about Trials of Ascension, where you'll never actually be the owner of the game you'll pledge for?

$200 for Alpha access? No thank you :)

Hiro Protagonest

2013-11-21, 02:04 PM

I knew it previously, it was nothing that caught my interest, and I'm not also a fan of MMORPG's. And by that they are very different games.
Okay. Single-player and MMO are a pretty big difference.

Also, if the Unwritten has received a lot of criticism for asking 500K to make it happen, then decided to lower it to 280K (they show the details behind that decision), what to say about Trials of Ascension, where you'll never actually be the owner of the game you'll pledge for?
I technically own about one tenth of my games, because those are the games I bought from GOG. Plus Dwarf Fortress. The rest are from Steam. Hasn't affected my play yet.

$200 for Alpha access? No thank you :)

...Then don't pledge that? Why do you want alpha access? Alphas suck.

Besides, ToA is actually believable. Their promises? Always-on PvP with one safe zone, the monolith. No level indicators for other players. A settlement system that lets players take certain designated areas and build buildings in them. Stuff that was in Ultima Online. Then a day/night cycle about four hours for one full day, where night is really dark and lasts about an hour and a half. Resource respawn rates that go down if you take too much. The "dynamic spawning" is done by GMs moving spawn points around. They have a game guide. They have a proof of concept prototype which they made eight years ago.

viralata

2013-11-21, 02:22 PM

I technically own about one tenth of my games, because those are the games I bought from GOG. Plus Dwarf Fortress. The rest are from Steam. Hasn't affected my play yet.
What I meant is you'll have a monthly subscription. That sort of proposal never got my interest. I like that when I pay for something, I'll have it without further restrictions.

...Then don't pledge that? Why do you want alpha access? Alphas suck.
If I pledge, I want to follow close the development of the game. Is that something so out of place?

Besides, ToA is actually believable. Their promises? Always-on PvP with one safe zone, the monolith. No level indicators for other players. A settlement system that lets players take certain designated areas and build buildings in them. Stuff that was in Ultima Online. Then a day/night cycle about four hours for one full day, where night is really dark and lasts about an hour and a half. Resource respawn rates that go down if you take too much. The "dynamic spawning" is done by GMs moving spawn points around. They have a game guide. They have a proof of concept prototype which they made eight years ago.
Those are surely great assets for a MMORPG. The building things too, although I can imagine other players around the world harrassing you all the time, but hey, there's no place like home :)
Day and night cycle... Have you seen the videos that Druid Gameworks released about a week ago? That combined with the music equals or surpasses ToA proposals. Also, don't forget they were modders, and will make the game moddable, which means I will have the chance of making the day/night cycle as long or short as I want, plus adding content from other users (who knows if they don't let us build our own house - which I believe they will - some modder will make it happen)? That will expand the lifetime of the game.
A prototype made eight years ago? Wouldn't that make it the Duke Nukem Forever MMORPG?

Avilan the Grey

2013-11-22, 02:35 AM

Besides, ToA is actually believable. Their promises? Always-on PvP with one safe zone, the monolith. No level indicators for other players. A settlement system that lets players take certain designated areas and build buildings in them. Stuff that was in Ultima Online. Then a day/night cycle about four hours for one full day, where night is really dark and lasts about an hour and a half. Resource respawn rates that go down if you take too much. The "dynamic spawning" is done by GMs moving spawn points around. They have a game guide. They have a proof of concept prototype which they made eight years ago.

Of course all this is only good if you are remotely interested in MMO's.
Personally I can't wait for FO4 and Elder Scrolls VI, while for example avoiding ESO altogether. (I am still terrified that ESO will limit the time and dedication Bethesda will put into their future Single Player games).

Teln

2013-12-03, 03:08 AM

Five days to go, and they've only raised ten percent of what they're asking for. Now what?

Artanis

2013-12-03, 09:00 AM

Five days to go, and they've only raised ten percent of what they're asking for. Now what?
Considering how much less they're asking for this time, that's an even worse performance :smallamused:

Divayth Fyr

2013-12-03, 09:30 AM

Five days to go, and they've only raised ten percent of what they're asking for. Now what?
From their forum

We have several plan Bs on the table but none of them entail returning to Kickstarter any time soon.

Though I'm not entirely sure what they could be planning - the last news was they need the money to even buy the license for their engine of choice...

Mewtarthio

2013-12-03, 09:42 AM

They did finally bring up the lack of a gameplay video:

We do understand the added value game play footage would bring to our campaign here. That said, on a game like Unwritten: Echoes of Twilight, development to the point of functional game play is months of work. Our team had never used Havok's AAA Vision Engine before. We started a 30 day evaluation of the engine to decide if it was right for this project; an evaluation is like a free trial.

Our access to the engine was temporary and during that initial trial our team was learning how to use the tool, what it could do, and then evaluating whether or not it could handle things we needed it to, like complex inventories, weather systems, leveling, quests, dialogue, combat, AI, and large world spaces, etc. When the evaluation was over, we decided it was the engine for us, so we ran our first Kickstarter in hopes of raising a project budget to license our engine and "kick-start" full development.

Then the first Kickstarter failed. Taking feedback from our supporters, we went back to Havok and asked them to give us more free time with their engine; which they awesomely agreed to. Our goal was to meet the many demands of our previous backers for some sort of game footage, some sense of our style and world, and proof that we as modders could make something from nothing. With another 3 weeks approved by Havok, we went to work trying to get something together we could be proud to show off. That's just 3 weeks to plan it out, make all new models, textures, skies, shaders, get AI working on characters, animations running, and the whole scene built from nothing, filmed, and polished. We achieved that goal, and the day after we filmed our village scene our Havok key extension expired. Mission accomplished!

Or so we thought. Now there are almost daily requests for actual game play video showing the dynamics of the game. We're even being advised that without it, our project isn't worth investing in; that a game needs to be close to completion before it can be successfully kickstarted? At the barest of bones, actual game play footage for Echoes of Twilight is a $30,000 investment, and that's for Windows PC only no consoles.If we had $30,000 we absolutely would have worked on the game longer before attempting a Kickstarter, but that kind of money is a pipe dream for us without crowd funding. Raising the funds to get our game off the ground is the whole reason for this campaign.

You know, there's a reason most indie developers don't start with an Elder Scrolls killer on a AAA engine.

Artanis

2013-12-03, 11:12 AM

Wait wait wait...they didn't even know how to use their engine?

:smallsigh:

Divayth Fyr

2013-12-03, 11:22 AM

Wait wait wait...they didn't even know how to use their engine?

:smallsigh:
Is it really that surprising? I mean, they promise us a game that will be everything that TES is and much, much more - a feat big companies with lots of money and people never really did (nor tried to do - with good reasons). Not having much experience with the engine is the least of their problems ;)

GungHo

2013-12-03, 11:34 AM

We're incompetent, but we mean well. Give us money.

warty goblin

2013-12-03, 11:38 AM

Wait wait wait...they didn't even know how to use their engine?

:smallsigh:
Why would they know how to use it? Generally if you're evaluating a new piece of software, it's to see if it can do what you want it to, which seems a completely sensible thing to do.

We're incompetent, but we mean well. Give us money.
There's nothing incompetent in not knowing how to use an extremely complex bit of technology until you go hands-on with it. They may be over-ambitious to the point of comedy, but that's a different thing than technical incompetence.

Artanis

2013-12-03, 12:33 PM

Why would they know how to use it? Generally if you're evaluating a new piece of software, it's to see if it can do what you want it to, which seems a completely sensible thing to do.
Oh, I know that. It's just...they hyped up, "we're using Havok!" as one of their selling points, and then we find out that they'd never even used that goddamn selling point?

BRC

2013-12-03, 12:51 PM

Why would they know how to use it? Generally if you're evaluating a new piece of software, it's to see if it can do what you want it to, which seems a completely sensible thing to do.

There's nothing incompetent in not knowing how to use an extremely complex bit of technology until you go hands-on with it. They may be over-ambitious to the point of comedy, but that's a different thing than technical incompetence.

Incompetant is not the right word, but it is certainly laughable.

Its easy to imagine Kickstarter as Free money or a sort of super-preorder. "Do you want to play this game? Buy it now before we make it", but with Kickstarter you must convince backers not only that they want the game you're selling, but that you can make the game you're selling. Kickstarter backers are half consumers, half investors, and as a result you must appeal to them as both.

I take it back. They ARE incompetant. They are incompetant in the same way I am an incompetant surgeon. They lack the skills (or competance) needed to complete the task they are trying to convince us they can do. Their incompetence is to be expected, they are a team of dedicated amateurs using unfamiliar technology, but that does not make them any less incompetant.

We shouldn't expect them to be able to use Havok, which means we shouldn't expect them to be able to make one of the biggest, most successful games in history ONLY BIGGER AND BETTER AND MORE AWESOME using Havok.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2013-12-03, 01:39 PM

They complain that people want to be shown a proof of concept so complete that it's basically done. No, people want to be shown a proof that you know what you're doing, and that you CAN do what you're doing. Look at successful game kickstarters: they show professionalism and competence. This team ONLY had an idea, and proved that not only were they not able to do what they are planning, but they're not competent enough to realize that.

Airk

2013-12-03, 01:57 PM

Why would they know how to use it? Generally if you're evaluating a new piece of software, it's to see if it can do what you want it to, which seems a completely sensible thing to do.

Because NO ONE is INTERESTED in giving money to a bunch of nutjobs who promise the moon but have never built a rocket before, that's why. You simply do not go on Kickstarter and say "We are going to make the most AWESOME GAME EVER, we PROMISE!" and expect people to believe you. Why should they? How do they know you from bob the janitor? You've admitted you have no idea what you are doing.

There's nothing incompetent in not knowing how to use an extremely complex bit of technology until you go hands-on with it. They may be over-ambitious to the point of comedy, but that's a different thing than technical incompetence.

Correct. But there is EVERYTHING incompetent about saying you are going to build a game with something you have no idea how to use. These people are utterly unqualified to make a game. They should have figured out how to use the engine FIRST if they want anyone to take them seriously as a game company.

warty goblin

2013-12-03, 02:26 PM

Because NO ONE is INTERESTED in giving money to a bunch of nutjobs who promise the moon but have never built a rocket before, that's why. You simply do not go on Kickstarter and say "We are going to make the most AWESOME GAME EVER, we PROMISE!" and expect people to believe you. Why should they? How do they know you from bob the janitor? You've admitted you have no idea what you are doing.

I never said anybody should give them money, only that not knowing how to use a piece of technology they'd never used is hardly proof of technical incompetence. I'd bet if you took pretty much any videogame developer and threw a new engine at them, they'd need a while to work out how to get it to do what they want, regardless of how good a developer they are.

Correct. But there is EVERYTHING incompetent about saying you are going to build a game with something you have no idea how to use. These people are utterly unqualified to make a game. They should have figured out how to use the engine FIRST if they want anyone to take them seriously as a game company.
I say I'm going to do things with code I've never used all the time. In some cases the code don't even exist yet, because I have to write it, often to specifications I don't yet understand. I'm pretty sure I'm not incompetent.

BRC

2013-12-03, 02:37 PM

"Incompetant" is a tricky word without further definitions, but I can think of several ways it applies here.

Are they Incompetant as Kickstartees (Or whatever), yes. They are unable to convince backers to give them money.

Are they Incompetant as Game Developers? Almost certainly, insofar as knowing one's own limits should be a core competency for anybody putting time and money, especially somebody else's money, into a project. In this case they are claiming that starting with an unfamiliar system they can create a game better than one created by a much larger team with far more funding and considerably more experience.

Are they Technically Incompetant? No, they're not a pack of luddites wondering how to make the magic computer box turn their ideas into a game. They're Modders, so they know how to write code, create assets, and how a game functions. This does not mean they know how to build a game from the ground up.

Being unfamiliar with a new engine is not a sign of unusual incompetance. However, asking people to give you money to make a game when you have yet to demonstrate core competance with the engine is a sign of supreme arrogance.

Divayth Fyr

2013-12-03, 03:29 PM

Are they Technically Incompetant? No, they're not a pack of luddites wondering how to make the magic computer box turn their ideas into a game. They're Modders, so they know how to write code, create assets, and how a game functions. This does not mean they know how to build a game from the ground up.
As you noticed, being a competent modder, doesn't make you a competent game designer. And most modders have contact with code in the form of scripts - writing those is far from writing the actual program code responsible for various functions of the game.

Lighturtle

2013-12-03, 05:49 PM

The ambition/incompetence combo reminds of the science-based, 100% dragon MMO (http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet_im_a_26_year_old_lady_whos_been/).

Grinner

2013-12-03, 09:27 PM

I am moderately curious as to why they insist on using Havok. As I recall (and Wikipedia confirms), Havok is a physics engine. They'd still need to tack on graphics and audio libraries at minimum (nevermind scripting, pathfinding, and sundry other niceties), in addition to the headache of tying it all together into a cohesive whole. And this is before moving on to actual content creation.

It would be a lot simpler to just adopt UDK and buy a pile of manuals, replete with readymade solutions.

Grif

2013-12-03, 09:42 PM

Divayth Fyr

2013-12-03, 10:54 PM

I am moderately curious as to why they insist on using Havok. As I recall (and Wikipedia confirms), Havok is a physics engine. They'd still need to tack on graphics and audio libraries at minimum (nevermind scripting, pathfinding, and sundry other niceties), in addition to the headache of tying it all together into a cohesive whole. And this is before moving on to actual content creation.
Havok was only a physics engine - the company now has more (http://www.havok.com/products/vision-engine) to offer.

GungHo

2013-12-04, 09:39 AM

I never said anybody should give them money, only that not knowing how to use a piece of technology they'd never used is hardly proof of technical incompetence. I'd bet if you took pretty much any videogame developer and threw a new engine at them, they'd need a while to work out how to get it to do what they want, regardless of how good a developer they are.

I say I'm going to do things with code I've never used all the time. In some cases the code don't even exist yet, because I have to write it, often to specifications I don't yet understand. I'm pretty sure I'm not incompetent.
As BRC explained for me (thank you BRC), I am meaning incompetent much more broadly than this. I am not speaking to technical competence. I am speaking to project management and delivery competence. They're in way over their heads if they can't get down beginning of the project when they're asking for money with the promise of end to end delivery.

I cannot really make a comment as to whether or not they are technically competent... they seem good enough at adapting other people's code and making it go the way they would like it to go within the confines of the sandbox they're provided. The jury is out as to whether or not they can do this from scratch. So far they have provided zero evidence of their capability because they believed that they actually need to come up with an entire village of content just to show a tech demo and they ran out of time trying to plan it all out rather than just making an inn or something more managable.

Airk

2013-12-04, 10:23 AM

I never said anybody should give them money, only that not knowing how to use a piece of technology they'd never used is hardly proof of technical incompetence.

Not knowing is not proof. Claiming that you will do something with something you know nothing about, on the other hand.

I'd bet if you took pretty much any videogame developer and threw a new engine at them, they'd need a while to work out how to get it to do what they want, regardless of how good a developer they are.

Sure. And they wouldn't make promises that they could do <extremely complicated thing X> with in in <time frame Y> until they had determined whether <product Z> is actually capable of <task Q>. Being a "developer" is more than just using a tool.

I say I'm going to do things with code I've never used all the time. In some cases the code don't even exist yet, because I have to write it, often to specifications I don't yet understand. I'm pretty sure I'm not incompetent.

Not comparable. What you have here is the equivalent of someone who has written some shell scripts in PERL saying "I'm going to code a game in C#!"

Sorry. They are incompetent. They have no competence here.

tigerusthegreat

2013-12-13, 08:38 PM

A developer should understand and be able to use the language/tools/whatever they are going to be utilizing before giving a time estimate. That is just good practice. I know I've had some tools I've picked up almost instantly, and others that have counfounded me until I found someone who used it regularly and could get me past one hitch or another.

tigerusthegreat

2013-12-13, 08:40 PM

I'll just drop in and contrast the way this team is running with the way The Mandate team conducted their kickstarter. The differences are quite stark.

Mandate started off ambitiously, but with a clear goal and a team that seemed to know what they're doing.

This is probably the best way to sell it to people. Mandate had a lot of good and interesting stuff to show, and a clear idea of what their game was focused on. I wish I had the cash to donate to them when their kickstarter was up.

This, I don't regret missing.

viralata

2014-08-11, 11:36 AM

Any news about that Mandate? I never pledge because I'm no Sci-fi lover.

Anyways, I guess no one can acuse those guys of not being persistent on their effort:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/druidgameworks/freelance-artists-for-witanlore-dreamtime

Divayth Fyr

2014-08-11, 11:52 AM

Anyways, I guess no one can acuse those guys of not being persistent on their effort:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/druidgameworks/freelance-artists-for-witanlore-dreamtime
Hey, this one might succeed simply due to how little they ask for ;) Though I'm not really sure if that will be a good thing...

viralata

2014-08-11, 04:10 PM

Hey, this one might succeed simply due to how little they ask for ;) Though I'm not really sure if that will be a good thing...

If I read it correctly, it's a different game. Supposedly, it will take place before the other one they were planning to do. And they seem to have more pictures of how the graphics might be...

ShneekeyTheLost

2014-08-12, 12:20 AM

So a modder with all the maturity of Gregorious T. and his personal echo chamber is asking for money to make a game on an engine he doesn't fully understand and can't afford on a chase for a holy grail on a shoestring budget?

Seems_Legit.jpg

Avilan the Grey

2014-08-12, 12:55 AM

Ailurus

2014-08-12, 06:39 AM

Actually, this sounds a good bit more reasonable and encouraging than their initial ones. While there is still a disturbingly limited amount of info about how the game itself will work, they do say its smaller scale than their initial goal, and its also going to be in an episodic format which suggests its more story based than the initial sandbox plan. And honestly, that's the right way to do it. Make something smaller, get used to the technology, show people what you can actually do and then go on to the bigger ones you want to do.

Now, that said, I still don't trust their timeframe (seriously, you're missing most of your character models and still hope to have it out by the end of the year?), and I've never shared the internet's fascination with everything bear. So, I'm not planning on giving them money for it. But, its a much more achievable goal, and I do hope it works out for them.

Winthur

2014-08-12, 06:59 AM

yet another kickstarter scam, really common nowadays, if keiji inafune can do it, anyone can

Mewtarthio

2014-08-12, 08:12 AM

Check the FAQ. Apparently, they hope that their $3 episodic game will do well enough to finance their TES-killer.

viralata

2014-08-26, 10:14 PM

After seeing their new video, I'm not sure about them not knowing the engine they're using.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIlt8x_7G5A

ShneekeyTheLost

2014-08-26, 11:34 PM

After seeing their new video, I'm not sure about them not knowing the engine they're using.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIlt8x_7G5A

I'm extremely unimpressed. There's maybe a dozen objects used over and over, with basic bumpmapping on the stone wall that repeats with a border so blatant it should be in Minecraft.

Furthermore, that's not a game engine, that's bleedin' BLENDER they are using to model and render.

In other words, what you are seeing is basically a 'artists conception' video done by someone who knows how to work in 3d modeling. Granted, you're going to need someone who can do 3d modeling if you want to get anywhere in a game like that, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more than that, with tens of thousands more objects to build into a library to drag n drop all over the world. Plus the gigs upon gigs of raw data in building the actual world itself. What you are seeing is smaller than a single 'zone', and they're wanting to build a whole bleedin' planet?

So yea, extremely unimpressed. I pity people who think this is actual gameplay. It's a movie clip, nothing more.

Mando Knight

2014-08-26, 11:48 PM

Plus, they come from a modding background. Small-scale environment artistry is one of the things I'd expect them to be able to do.

Nilehus

2014-08-27, 12:37 AM

More than I could do, but nowhere near what Bethesda can do. Not impressed.

viralata

2014-08-27, 01:09 PM

I'm extremely unimpressed. There's maybe a dozen objects used over and over, with basic bumpmapping on the stone wall that repeats with a border so blatant it should be in Minecraft.

Furthermore, that's not a game engine, that's bleedin' BLENDER they are using to model and render.

The video starts with the Unreal Engine 4 logo. They have anounced for a while now they're working on the UE4. I don't know much about it, but I presume they might have used Blender to create the models, but the rest must be brought already with the engine. I mean, what would they win by showing pre-rendered stuff?

ShneekeyTheLost

2014-08-27, 03:29 PM

The video starts with the Unreal Engine 4 logo. They have anounced for a while now they're working on the UE4. I don't know much about it, but I presume they might have used Blender to create the models, but the rest must be brought already with the engine. I mean, what would they win by showing pre-rendered stuff?

Funding by pretending they have something they can actually produce.

Also, UE4 engine is designed for FPS type games. There are whole dimensions to an Elder Scrolls type game that it just doesn't cover. Which means now they're going to have to create a whole new engine to go on top of the engine (assuming they actually do have license to use the UE4 engine commercially) and re-create a whole bunch of wheels.

What you are seeing is a blender video. I recognize the rendering and model movements. I've worked with Blender, and it isn't a bad choice for 3d modeling on a budget since it is open source, but you've basically got a short movie clip rather than a game with an engine that can actually accept user interface.

Mando Knight

2014-08-27, 06:25 PM

Also, UE4 engine is designed for FPS type games. There are whole dimensions to an Elder Scrolls type game that it just doesn't cover. Which means now they're going to have to create a whole new engine to go on top of the engine (assuming they actually do have license to use the UE4 engine commercially) and re-create a whole bunch of wheels.
And they can't use Source for it either, because that was designed for FPS games. No way would it be efficient to make a sequel to the seminal MOBA using it. :smalltongue:

The Unreal Engine has already been used for other kinds of games, because an engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine) isn't the whole game. The engine is the internal structural system of the game. Think of the game engine more as like a giant bucket of plain LEGO bricks, to which you add your special pieces and minifigs to make your special model. The same basic pieces could be used in a spaceship, a castle, a statue of a cat, or an automatic ball-sorting/spreadsheet-writing machine, but it's the parts you add to it that make it into the thing you envision.

ShneekeyTheLost

2014-08-27, 07:37 PM

And they can't use Source for it either, because that was designed for FPS games. No way would it be efficient to make a sequel to the seminal MOBA using it. :smalltongue:

The Unreal Engine has already been used for other kinds of games, because an engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine) isn't the whole game. The engine is the internal structural system of the game. Think of the game engine more as like a giant bucket of plain LEGO bricks, to which you add your special pieces and minifigs to make your special model. The same basic pieces could be used in a spaceship, a castle, a statue of a cat, or an automatic ball-sorting/spreadsheet-writing machine, but it's the parts you add to it that make it into the thing you envision.

An engine is, at its heart, a bunch of boilerplate code used to support a code infrastructure. It is designed with a purpose to support certain things. In the case of an FPS engine like this, it focuses primarily on physics support. Which is pretty huge, don't get me wrong, however that is just one dimension of a game like they are attempting to describe.

It's like trying to claim you have a car when all you have are the wheels and crankshaft. Can you make a car from that? I suppose so. But it's going to take a hell of a lot more work than if you had purchased a kit.

There's an old engineer's saying: Within any tool, therein exists the capacity for it to be used as a hammer. But that doesn't necessarily mean it is particularly effective at it.

steamenergizer

2014-08-27, 08:52 PM

Funding by pretending they have something they can actually produce.

Also, UE4 engine is designed for FPS type games. There are whole dimensions to an Elder Scrolls type game that it just doesn't cover. Which means now they're going to have to create a whole new engine to go on top of the engine (assuming they actually do have license to use the UE4 engine commercially) and re-create a whole bunch of wheels.

What you are seeing is a blender video. I recognize the rendering and model movements. I've worked with Blender, and it isn't a bad choice for 3d modeling on a budget since it is open source, but you've basically got a short movie clip rather than a game with an engine that can actually accept user interface.

So, have you actually done any research on UE4? UE4 is a framework, and it hasn't been designed for FPS games only. Last I checked it also only costs $20 a month per users, so it's not out of the question that what we see in that video is actually from the engine. I also think it's far fetched that their team would go through all the trouble to render an environment like that in Blender, just to claim it was UE4. That would be a complete and utter waste of time considering their situation as an indie dev team.

ShneekeyTheLost

2014-08-27, 10:55 PM

So, have you actually done any research on UE4? UE4 is a framework, and it hasn't been designed for FPS games only. Last I checked it also only costs $20 a month per users, so it's not out of the question that what we see in that video is actually from the engine. I also think it's far fetched that their team would go through all the trouble to render an environment like that in Blender, just to claim it was UE4. That would be a complete and utter waste of time considering their situation as an indie dev team.

It is several orders of magnitude easier to create a movie in Blender than it would be to create a game stable enough to shoot that sort of footage. Actually, several magnitudes of orders of magnitude.

Complete and utter waste of time? Depends on your perspective. At least they might scam money out of people.

Avilan the Grey

2014-08-28, 01:35 AM

Flickerdart

2014-08-28, 01:42 AM

Indeed, one of the most famous games using that engine is XCOM, which is a turn based strategy game. Most engines are very flexible. Heck, the engine used for Oblivion / FO3 / FONV was in NO WAY optimized for open world games. Bethesda used it anyway, and got quite far with it...
Bethesda (a developer with money, manpower, and experience) is perfectly capable of modifying an engine to get the functionality that they want. Random modders, maybe not so much, eh?

Eldan

2014-08-28, 02:18 AM

And they also got famous for producing big and amusing bugs with it.

Grinner

2014-08-28, 04:19 AM

It is several orders of magnitude easier to create a movie in Blender than it would be to create a game stable enough to shoot that sort of footage. Actually, several magnitudes of orders of magnitude.

I have to respectfully disagree here. Remember that UE4 is a professionally designed middleware game engine. Personally, I really didn't see any effects so far out of reach, particularly if their shader artist knows what he's doing.

That said, this is the Unreal Engine we're talking about, so the computer they're running that on is guaranteed to be some kind of powerhouse, perhaps above and beyond what the average consumer has.

Divayth Fyr

2014-08-28, 06:59 AM

I also think it's far fetched that their team would go through all the trouble to render an environment like that in Blender, just to claim it was UE4. That would be a complete and utter waste of time considering their situation as an indie dev team.
Seeing how the team members mentioned that the most common complaint was the lack of ingame stuff being shown, it certainly wouldn't be a waste of time to prepare something to pass for ingame footage (I'm not saying it was done - I don't have nowhere near enough experience to tell one way or the other).

And they also got famous for producing big and amusing bugs with it.
With Bethesda and Obsidian those aren't bugs - they're features. ;)

Mewtarthio

2014-08-28, 07:03 PM

Seeing how the team members mentioned that the most common complaint was the lack of ingame stuff being shown, it certainly wouldn't be a waste of time to prepare something to pass for ingame footage (I'm not saying it was done - I don't have nowhere near enough experience to tell one way or the other).

It's not the sort of thing that inspires much confidence, at least. Who knows, maybe they did successfully build a small level for their game, and maybe they really are showing it off by just having a camera pan through it while nothing happens. I still don't think that's what most people have in mind when they say "in-game footage."

With Bethesda and Obsidian those aren't bugs - they're features. ;)

Obsidian games have features? :smalltongue: