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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I'm curious as to what their total budget is because the $1 million they raised in Kickstarter backings is a bit low for a competitive project like this unless they have at least another $49 million in investments. I dunno, man, it looks like they're coming in well below budget.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:26
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:That's a pretty cool Dark Ages of Camelot mod. According to the article in Pathfinder Online: Thornkeep, the KS money was to make a tech demo to show (pre-arranged) investors.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:38
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What's the difference then between the tech demo kickstarter that raised $300K and the other one that made $1 million? I'm pretty sure the $1 million one was for the actual game or I at least hope it is for the backers.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:47
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:What's the difference then between the tech demo kickstarter that raised $300K and the other one that made $1 million? I'm pretty sure the $1 million one was for the actual game or I at least hope it is for the backers. There's no difference, it all amounts to smoke and mirrors anyway.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:50
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I have no doubts that this is going to make Curt Schilling look like a financial genius by it's end. It seems like the standard, "Why can't we make the next big MMO?" project that ends in bankruptcy.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:53
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I have no doubts that this is going to make Curt Schilling look like a financial genius by it's end. It seems like the standard, "Why can't we make the next big MMO?" project that ends in bankruptcy. One big difference is that one of the leaders is Lisa Stevens, Paizo's CEO, who is famously business-savvy (especially for the RPG market) and has another very profitable property (Pathfinder itself) attached as well. It's not great - the whole idea about basically treating launch as a running target like the Gmail beta or something is really bad - but PFO is in a way better position than say, City of Titans, and it has better financial people on it right now than Curt Schilling did.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:57
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Entering the MMO market with your first(?) game is a poor decision. MMOs are harder to make than other titles, expensive, highly competitive, and the market for them may even be a bit saturiated. Not that I'm not saying they can't make one, but it would have been wiser to start with something more manageable as their company's first digital title.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:02
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Covok posted:Entering the MMO market with your first(?) game is a poor decision. MMOs are harder to make than other titles, expensive, highly competitive, and the market for them may even be a bit saturiated. Not that I'm not saying they can't make one, but it would have been wiser to start with something more manageable as their company's first digital title. Yeah they really would have been better off making something like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, a single player game possibly with robust multiplayer instead of diving head first into the blood red waters of the MMO market.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:07
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I'm curious as to what their total budget is because the $1 million they raised in Kickstarter backings is a bit low for a competitive project like this unless they have at least another $49 million in investments. The $1 million was supposedly just to speed development and add features. To be fair, they've started their Alpha Testing as promised, and that's what you're looking at. Dancey has repeatedly said they can make it on a much lower budget because they aren't making at theme park MMO, and those are dead anyway, claims Dancey. So they don't need to develop that much! It'll be just like EVE Online, where people will make their own fun! It's a "Field of Dreams" business strategy, essentially. Hopefully there will be MMO-playing ghosts ready to make his dreams come true! Arivia posted:According to the article in Pathfinder Online: Thornkeep, the KS money was to make a tech demo to show (pre-arranged) investors. That was the first kickstarter. Most people are going to be talking about the second kickstarter, where they raised money for (see above). Arivia posted:One big difference is that one of the leaders is Lisa Stevens, Paizo's CEO, who is famously business-savvy (especially for the RPG market) and has another very profitable property (Pathfinder itself) attached as well. Yeah, Lisa's really sharp. Conversely, though, it also has Ryan Dancey. I don't think Goblinworks is necessarily a bunch of folks looking to take the money and run, and I'm willing to believe they have some faith in what they're doing - but there just aren't any indications for us to have faith in what they're doing, and that's the core problem.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:08
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Arivia posted:One big difference is that one of the leaders is Lisa Stevens, Paizo's CEO, who is famously business-savvy (especially for the RPG market) and has another very profitable property (Pathfinder itself) attached as well. It's not great - the whole idea about basically treating launch as a running target like the Gmail beta or something is really bad - but PFO is in a way better position than say, City of Titans, and it has better financial people on it right now than Curt Schilling did. She has zero experience with MMOs, or video games for that matter. They're pretty different fields and being smart does not immunize you from making dumb mistakes, which PO pretty clearly is. The problem is that PO has literally nothing to distinguish itself. It looks like crap, it doesn't have interesting or unique gameplay, it's an incredibly generic fantasy game, I could go on and on. It has an incredibly ambitious feature list, but the only people who are going to buy that would buy Pathfinder-branded bridges. The whole thing just reeks of failure from conception to present and there's pretty much zero reason to believe that will change, because they have zero money to fix any of that, even assuming competent management.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:22
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The other problem is that no matter how bad it is, it'll get a ton of players simply because it has the word "Pathfinder" on it.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:24
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Arivia posted:One big difference is that one of the leaders is Lisa Stevens, Paizo's CEO, who is famously business-savvy (especially for the RPG market) and has another very profitable property (Pathfinder itself) attached as well. It's not great - the whole idea about basically treating launch as a running target like the Gmail beta or something is really bad - but PFO is in a way better position than say, City of Titans, and it has better financial people on it right now than Curt Schilling did. I really believe that Lisa Stevens is a genius for putting Ryan Dancy in a position where his boondoggle won't drag down Paizo as a whole when it implodes.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:33
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I bought the Guide to Glorantha today to get some background on the setting before 13th Age in Glorantha comes out and god, I probably should have realized this, but I had no idea I was buying an 800 page textbook on a setting. I just cannot handle this during the actual school semester, it's even laid out exactly the same as one of my physics texts.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:50
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It is a setting made by an anthropologist.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:52
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Swagger Dagger posted:I bought the Guide to Glorantha today to get some background on the setting before 13th Age in Glorantha comes out and god, I probably should have realized this, but I had no idea I was buying an 800 page textbook on a setting. I just cannot handle this during the actual school semester, it's even laid out exactly the same as one of my physics texts.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:53
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Tulul posted:She has zero experience with MMOs, or video games for that matter. They're pretty different fields and being smart does not immunize you from making dumb mistakes, which PO pretty clearly is. EVE online was also visually impressive in 2003 when it launched. You can't make a game that doesn't look nice. It doesn't have to be Destiny or the Witcher but it has to at least look visually appealing so you can justify playing it for hours on end. People won't sit down and devote hours to a game that looks like Pathfinder, even as an alpha. The game is not going to radically change before launch unless the development cycle lasts 5 years or longer. Fantasy is also not a niche that isn't being filled today. What can they offer for instance that the new EverQuest, which looks nice and promises the same things, can't offer? Golarion is also purposely pretty generic and kitchen sink so what's supposed to be the draw? RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 02:54
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Swagger Dagger posted:I bought the Guide to Glorantha today to get some background on the setting before 13th Age in Glorantha comes out and god, I probably should have realized this, but I had no idea I was buying an 800 page textbook on a setting. I just cannot handle this during the actual school semester, it's even laid out exactly the same as one of my physics texts. The Glorantha Thread is your friend on this one. Come post and get some general overview on things and look up whatever sounds cool in the Guide instead of trying to read it cover to cover.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:54
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Evil Mastermind posted:The other problem is that no matter how bad it is, it'll get a ton of players simply because it has the word "Pathfinder" on it. Hopefully between this and "Unchained" I look forward to the Paizo fan base eating their own.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:05
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LongDarkNight posted:Hopefully between this and "Unchained" I look forward to the Paizo fan base eating their own. I don't think there's anything wrong with Unchained or the Paizo fan base, unless you want to provoke an internecine nerd war or something.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:06
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Arivia posted:internecine nerd war Yes please, these are always fun.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:22
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It'd be funny. Like if the South had won the Civil War then 6 years later Alabama attacks Georgia.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:26
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None of the local comic/game stores had Dungeon World. I got IPR to ship a copy for $5 snail mail instead of $13 and got the PDF on top of that. Super excited to actually play a game sometime.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:33
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Arivia posted:I don't think there's anything wrong with Unchained or the Paizo fan base, unless you want to provoke an internecine nerd war or something. Unchained is clearly PF's Bo9S in terms of signaling an edition change.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:51
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Unchained is an ironic title, given they're too chained to their current edition to change things that much. Though it's possible they could be testing the waters for that sort of thing, so much of their marketing is wrapped up in offering a familiar comfort for certain players.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:59
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Kai Tave posted:It was pretty hilarious that for a while Palladium had .pdfs you could buy but WotC didn't. Yeah, eventually they stopped being so stupid but for years some bright soul at WotC central decided to quash all digital publications for "piracy" concerns. I guess piracy must be over forever now that they've decided to release a whole bunch of digital stuff again. Well, WotC released a bunch of pdfs for a short while, then pulled them because of piracy concerns. So then the only way to get those pdfs was piracy. I'm very curious who made that decision and whether it was a WotC or Hasbro employee.
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Sep 8, 2014 04:59
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Worth noting is that I mentioned in passing Goblinworks raising 300 grand for a tech demo they only showed to investors to a bunch of indie game developers and mouths hit the floor.
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Sep 8, 2014 05:00
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Unchained is an ironic title, given they're too chained to their current edition to change things that much. Well I hope they change just enough things to cause some edition warring. 
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Sep 8, 2014 05:02
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The Flying Milton posted:None of the local comic/game stores had Dungeon World. I got IPR to ship a copy for $5 snail mail instead of $13 and got the PDF on top of that. Dude, it is super pbp friendly. And we have a lot of games that recruit. Keep an eye out!
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Sep 8, 2014 05:12
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Paizo has no way to win with a new edition. Change too little and whats the point, change too much and suddenly we have Pathfinder 1st grogs.
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Sep 8, 2014 05:13
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remusclaw posted:Paizo has no way to win with a new edition. Change too little and whats the point, change too much and suddenly we have Pathfinder 1st grogs. That's when Paizo swoops in by saying "Unlike WotC, we'll still support the old edition instead of 'forcing' you to use the latest one" and then runs the two editions concurrently until they either stop doing one or go bankrupt because that's a terrible business structure (dividing your market into groups lowers the sales of products while maintaining normal costs for the goods).
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Sep 8, 2014 05:19
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Unchained is an ironic title, given they're too chained to their current edition to change things that much. "I spent all morning trying to break this padlock with my hands and I couldn't do it, so now we're calling it Pathfinder Chained."
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Sep 8, 2014 05:26
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Ettin posted:"I spent all morning trying to break this padlock with my hands and I couldn't do it, so now we're calling it Pathfinder Chained." We can close down the subforum now, the best post has been made.
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Sep 8, 2014 05:32
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Ettin posted:"I spent all morning trying to break this padlock with my hands and I couldn't do it, so now we're calling it Pathfinder Chained." Pffft, stupid Warrior, I forget why I even keep you around. Just let me cast Knock. 
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Sep 8, 2014 05:36
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Swagger Dagger posted:I bought the Guide to Glorantha today to get some background on the setting before 13th Age in Glorantha comes out and god, I probably should have realized this, but I had no idea I was buying an 800 page textbook on a setting. I just cannot handle this during the actual school semester, it's even laid out exactly the same as one of my physics texts. Mr. Maltose posted:The Glorantha Thread is your friend on this one. Come post and get some general overview on things and look up whatever sounds cool in the Guide instead of trying to read it cover to cover.
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Sep 8, 2014 05:44
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MartianAgitator posted:Well, WotC released a bunch of pdfs for a short while, then pulled them because of piracy concerns. So then the only way to get those pdfs was piracy. Well, part of the problem was that not only did you have the sales loss question but the PDFs of the 4e core rulebooks themselves came out about two weeks ahead of the actual print release so it stole some of the thunder there. They kept offering PDFs up until the cycle of books that came out along with the 4e PHB2, after which they had their huge pull of products from all online vendors with a reasoning that was something along the lines of "we keep releasing our PDFs and then seeing them up on torrent sites within minutes, so we're not going to do this anymore." It wasn't a simple corporate thing, they kept this up for the better part of a year before throwing in the towel (May/June 2008 to April 2009). Of course, after that people would still make PDF copies of their books, they'd just do it the old fashion way by scanning the physical books (or wait until it hit D&D Insider). Paizo still releases pdfs of all their products watermarked to the buyer's Paizo store account, but I don't think that's a huge deterrent. But yeah, while I don't agree with WotC's decision when faced with the results, they certainly gave PDFs a chance for a while and it's nice to see them doing so again.
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Sep 8, 2014 05:50
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Kai Tave posted:The thing I don't get, having seen this sort of problem expressed in the Next thread and the Catpiss thread, are people who want to run or play other games beside D&D/Pathfinder/whatever but "the group won't do it" and it's like all they can do is shrug and bear it. Just loving tell your weird elfgame friends that you would like to play a game that isn't [whatever] and that's not some totally unreasonable thing to ask of people you're ostensibly friends with. Especially if you're the GM in this equation. Playing games shouldn't be a thing you tolerate in order to hang out with some pals once a week. For one thing, this is often less a matter of really good friends, and more a matter of sorta-friends who are the best people can do- and people have to choose wither that, or No Gaming. Playing RPGS is cool fun, I can see wy people try and Make Do. For another, the edition war has always had a social component. The local gaming clubs or stores, or your actual circle of friends, could be dominated by grogs, or could just have one grog holdout who, in reasonable or not so reasonable ways, will make clear they will never be happy playing 4e, or fate, or whatever. So you can either deal with somebody sucking the life out of your social circle, tell them to gently caress off out of the one time a week/month you all get together, or give the baby their bottle. I sympathize with people in such a situation. Arivia posted:One big difference is that one of the leaders is Lisa Stevens, Paizo's CEO, who is famously business-savvy (especially for the RPG market) and has another very profitable property (Pathfinder itself) attached as well. It's not great - the whole idea about basically treating launch as a running target like the Gmail beta or something is really bad - but PFO is in a way better position than say, City of Titans, and it has better financial people on it right now than Curt Schilling did. Considering they could have just made say, an indie+ scale turn based rpg instead of throwing money into a hole, no, this is not a good position and was in no way a good decision, even if some firebreaks have been put in. Evil Mastermind posted:The other problem is that no matter how bad it is, it'll get a ton of players simply because it has the word "Pathfinder" on it. But an mmo? No, this is a farce which will certainly fail and the only beneficiaries are Ryan Dancey and a few other ''devs''.
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Sep 8, 2014 06:09
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Ryan Dancey is a loving all star champ at getting people who absolutely know better to give him another chance to gently caress everything up all over again, and then burning all his bridges on the way out, only to somehow find a new person who absolutely knows better to give him yet another chance.
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Sep 8, 2014 07:18
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The 3e skill rules were based on WotC. Nerds climbing walls, swimming, making chainmail, all giving them a baseline for what was "realistic" enough without magic. Unfortunately diplomacy was based on how many people Dancey could talk into creating the OGL.
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Sep 8, 2014 07:45
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Am I just reading that analogy wrong or are you really saying that the creation of the OGL was a bad thing? I had the impression that it was one of the better things to happen to the hobby
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Sep 8, 2014 09:15
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From a business perspective, it was terrible for D&D - something like Pathfinder couldn't have happened without it.
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