coffeetable posted:

This isn't how stretch goals work. Stretch goals don't provoke individual backers into upping their pledge in order to reach the goal, nor do they convert people who were previously undecided. The purpose of stretch goals is to keep people interested and keep people talking, and that leads in an indirect way to new backers and increased $/backer.

coffeetable posted:

This isn't how stretch goals work. Stretch goals don't provoke individual backers into upping their pledge in order to reach the goal, nor do they convert people who were previously undecided. The purpose of stretch goals is to keep people interested and keep people talking, and that leads in an indirect way to new backers and increased $/backer.

quote:

Updated our Journal (10): Physical Add-Ons for $45+ Tiers, Printed Novella Compilation Add-On, Fourth Fathom, Mur Talks Companions

TL;DR: New physical add-on options! Mur Lafferty talks about companions (video). Fourth Fathom achieved and Cult Dendra O’hur added! GOG.com digital download option. Party with us next Friday!

Hi Forgotten Ones,

On Saturday, we surpassed 54,000 Backers, unlocking the Fourth Fathom of the Castoff’s Labyrinth. Only about 1000 more for the Fifth Fathom! And today (with PayPal’s $50+K contributions) we’ve reached the $3.1M Stretch Goal, adding a third cult. Pat Rothfuss, we are coming for you!
Physical Add-Ons (Now Open to All Tiers $45+)

We had been restricting physical add-ons to those at a physical goods Pledge Tier. We are relaxing this restriction – if you have pledged at the $45 Tier or higher, you can now increase your pledge to include physical goods for add-ons. We’ll absorb domestic shipping charges, but for our international backers, we ask that you add an additional $10 shipping & handling per item to help cover the extra shipping cost. Maximum of 5 total physical add-ons per person – if you would like more than that, please contact us via PM and we’ll see what we can do.



Printed Novella Compilation

Per popular demand, we are making the Printed Novella Compilation available as an add-on. This includes the novellas by Monte Cook and Colin McComb, as well as the From the Depths five novella compilation. $40 (plus $10 shipping & handling if international). (Available in English only.)

T-Shirts and Posters

Other physical add-ons available at this time are backer-exclusive Torment T-shirts ($25 each) and Posters ($25 each). Sample (not final) designs are shown below. T-shirt sizes are S through XXL.





First Castoff Statuettes

For the true collector, we’re making signed and numbered limited edition statuettes available as add-on options outside of the $2K Tier. The matte version is at $1200 and the painted one $1800. (Created by Imaginerick.) (No need to add more for shipping and handling of these.)

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First Castoff Statuettes

For the true collector, we’re making signed and numbered limited edition statuettes available as add-on options outside of the $2K Tier. The matte version is at $1200 and the painted one $1800. (Created by Imaginerick.) (No need to add more for shipping and handling of these.)

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Mur Lafferty Describes Companions

In Tales of Torment: Episode 5, Mur explains more about companions and why they might accompany (or abandon) you throughout Torment. She describes the initial concepts of two of them and what role they might play in your story (but please keep in mind that these are representative examples and may be different in the final game).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_muGkp5E-c

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Other Things

GOG.com
Many of you have asked us if we will be releasing Torment on GOG.com. After all, they're the best place to get the game that inspired this all – Planescape: Torment. Well, good news! We're happy to announce that we've talked with the GOG.com crew and they've let us know that they would love to distribute Torment! They will be one of your options to download your digital DRM-free copies. (They’ll also be a place to get Wasteland 2 DRM-free.)

(Check our tumblr site for PS:T links, including to mods for the game.)

Seeking Volunteers for Translation of Our Tumblr Site

We’re working with Easyling to translate our tumblr blog into as many languages as possible, so you can get information on the game and the Kickstarter rewards in your own language and so we improve our reach. We’re looking for volunteers among our fans to help get this rolling – the Easyling app will allow you to translate pages or parts of pages without any requirement for technical know-how, all we need is your own language skills and energy. If you’re interested, send us a message through Kickstarter with your email address and the language you’d like to help us translate our blog to.

Signed Print Added to $2K Tier

We’re adding a signed print (from the corresponding $1K Tier) as an additional reward for the $2K Statuette Tier. (A signed print was already included in the $5K and $10K tiers.)

Backer-Only Online Store Post-Kickstarter

We’ve received many requests that more add-ons be made available. We are adding some of these to the Kickstarter pledge options, such as the items mentioned in this update, but in many cases using the Kickstarter add-on capability isn’t the best option. Sometime after the Kickstarter ends, we will set up a backer-only online store where both digital and physical items will be available for purchase. So if you’ve pledged at a Tier lower than $45, you’ll have the online store as an option for some physical goods.

Come Celebrate with Us!

The Torment Kickstarter ends at the end of next week! Our closing party will begin at 2 PM PDT on Friday, April 5th. If you’d like to celebrate with us, please login at tormentRPG.com (you’ll need to register at our site if you haven’t already) and you’ll be able to let us know. The bar tab will be covered by the Bard (i.e., profits from the Android version of The Bard’s Tale will be paying for the party). (And I hear Colin has promised cake!) Please let us know by this Thursday if you’d like to come!

Kevin Saunders
Project Lead

Pyradox posted:

I thought the fact that your character projects their pain onto their companions was an pretty interesting mechanic to go with. I can see that making a pacifistic playthrough very appealing for people who get invested in them.

Jewel Repetition posted:

Don't know who Mur Lafferty is but she's making me glad I pledged.

Edit: But while we're talking about companions, have they said anything about voice actors? They were fantastic in PS:T and I worry that it either won't be a priority or they won't have the budget for it this time around.

01011001 posted:

Somehow I don't think that advertising that I am responsible for torment is a good idea.

Jewel Repetition posted:

Don't know who Mur Lafferty is but she's making me glad I pledged.

Edit: But while we're talking about companions, have they said anything about voice actors? They were fantastic in PS:T and I worry that it either won't be a priority or they won't have the budget for it this time around.

NihilCredo posted:

*Planescape lore regarding how the afterlife works.*

FRINGE posted:

MASSIVE GAME DESTROYING SPOILER - ABORT ABORT!

GhostBoy posted:

Only as much as can be inferred by the "Considering" tags and comments on the backer community site. It won't be fully voiced, for certain, but there will be some voicing. As best I can judge, I think they are aiming for the same level as PS:T, where VA is focused om ambiance and key phrases. In a text-heavy RPG like they are making, doing much more than that may just be detrimental, as it highlights all the lines that didn't get voiced. Plus, when your guys can be anything from self-sacrificing martyrs to evil overlords, I think it is hard to cover the breath of voice nuance required (since we known companions shift their tendencies as well). Maybe they'll voice inter-companion banter if there is any, to avoid the annoyance of having the player stop to read through that at random times.

GhostBoy posted:

Only as much as can be inferred by the "Considering" tags and comments on the backer community site. It won't be fully voiced, for certain, but there will be some voicing. As best I can judge, I think they are aiming for the same level as PS:T, where VA is focused om ambiance and key phrases. In a text-heavy RPG like they are making, doing much more than that may just be detrimental, as it highlights all the lines that didn't get voiced. Plus, when your guys can be anything from self-sacrificing martyrs to evil overlords, I think it is hard to cover the breath of voice nuance required (since we known companions shift their tendencies as well). Maybe they'll voice inter-companion banter if there is any, to avoid the annoyance of having the player stop to read through that at random times.

Brother None posted:

Infer no more! This is indeed the intention, "something like PS:T". That's pretty broad, but intentionally so, we don't even know our budget yet so it's impossible to know what makes sense to allocate to VA, but we are "looking into" partial voice acting. Full voice acting is right out because of limitations and costs involved, but partial VA makes sense, and WL2 did it too.

We haven't talked about voice actors involved and probably won't for a long time yet, that's way later in production. The guy doing the "updated my..." bits in the videos sure does a mean Micheal T Weiss impression tho, doesn't he?

PS: pretty good new interview with Kevin and Colin on GameBanshee

Zeroisanumber posted:

They've hit 57,000 backers, which is cool because I'm really interested in delving to the bottom of the labyrinth to find out what that giant creature is and why it looks so sad and forlorn.

Zurai posted:

One thing I think inXile is dropping the ball on is communication via Kickstarter. Project Eternity had 26 updates over the course of their Kickstarter, and it felt like they updated pretty much immediately whenever anything notable happened (such as passing a stretch goal). Torment, on the other hand, didn't even post when they hit $3M, their biggest game mechanics stretch goal, not even just to acknowledge that it was reached. They waited, IIRC, 3 days to post an update afterwards.

There are fairly frequent updates on their Tumblr, but not everyone's going to check their Tumblr, Tumblr doesn't automatically send you emails with every update, and you have to actually re-read the main Torment page to find the link to it.

I just feel like there's a lack of communication, and that lack of communication gives a feeling that they're just not as amped about it as Project Eternity's team was. I'm not saying that's true, I'm sure they're all plenty excited, but complete silence for days after major goals have been reached doesn't exactly tell us that.

GhostBoy posted:

The thing about kicstarter is that, while keeping the KS crowd happy and interested, you have to generate buzz and plain old get more backers! Those are not going to come from the KS comment crowd. Interviews with game sites, setting up podcats things, figuring out what the next stretch goal is (and wrangling the deals to maybe, possibly make it happen)... those are all things that some has to do. So where is your time better spent: doing updates on the KS page (where there is a perfectly visible link to follow) or making other things happen?

Zurai posted:

One thing I think inXile is dropping the ball on is communication via Kickstarter. Project Eternity had 26 updates over the course of their Kickstarter, and it felt like they updated pretty much immediately whenever anything notable happened (such as passing a stretch goal).

Zeroisanumber posted:

They've hit 57,000 backers, which is cool because I'm really interested in delving to the bottom of the labyrinth to find out what that giant creature is and why it looks so sad and forlorn.

Brother None posted:

It's a difference in approach. inXile's philosophy on updates is simply one of less frequent, meatier updates, with a little bit for everyone, both during and post-Kickstarter. Our daily average in the "quiet period" has not been much worse than Eternity's, it's been about the same, so I wouldn't say we dropped the ball, it's a difference in approach that ultimately makes little difference if you're looking at the bottom line. Sure, you can prefer another style, that's all good, but we prefer this style.


Yup.

awesomepanda posted:

Any chance we can get a higher resolution picture????

Brother None posted:

No, sorry, that's the size we're keeping it at for now. Might do a higher resolution/desktop background version of the final one though.

awesomepanda posted:

BrotherNone, has Brian Fargo's contribution already been added to the total raised? Or will it be added at the end/

Brother None posted:

Drifter posted:

What is that purple stuff / bottom layer, like a rock cutaway a la a fossil record diorama or a weird forest thing?

Brother None posted:

It's a difference in approach. inXile's philosophy on updates is simply one of less frequent, meatier updates, with a little bit for everyone, both during and post-Kickstarter. Our daily average in the "quiet period" has not been much worse than Eternity's, it's been about the same (a bit lower, but that difference is more due to fast start and existing high $/backer), so I wouldn't say we dropped the ball, it's a difference in approach that ultimately makes little difference if you're looking at the bottom line. Sure, you can prefer another style, that's all good, but we prefer this style.


Yup.

GhostBoy posted:

while I appreciate a good VA probably a bit more than most, we should probably keep in mind that there are a lot of diamonds in the rough out there.

Brother None posted:

PS: pretty good new interview with Kevin and Colin on GameBanshee

That Interview posted:

Colin: We do plan to experiment with [the dialouge tree system] in some interesting ways (though many of our readers have demanded extensive text, in the tradition of PST), but we’re not going to overhaul the system entirely and scrap the good work that it produces. Instead, we’re planning to fine tune it.

Man with Hat posted:

I'm curious about this. Does anyone have a guess at how they might change that? I just hope there's none of that "click something in the general vicinity of what you mean and the character will say something completely different" stuff that games so love nowadays, because that sucks. But I can't imagine it being a thing in a torment game, so these worries are tiny.

I do, however, wonder how it could be changed for the better. I'm sure it could, mind you, but I'm wondering how.

Brother None posted:

Yup.

Brother None posted:

Yup.