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Update news on blades in the dark. Surprise surprise it turns out that a fair few of the people haven't been working on the promised modules for the game, though the one I was most looking forward to is being worked on at least. There is also a huge amount of additional stuff being added to the book, which I can kind of understand. I don't really know how to feel about this, on the one hand a lot of the stuff that is getting added in looks like it will be both useful and good and they have released the rules so that you can actually play the game if you would like to, on the other I don't like seeing projects over run to this extent. I mean it wouldn't surprise me if the game isn't "out" until almost a year after the date it should be, but it does look good.
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May 11, 2016 07:03
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Honestly, I don't even bat an eye of a tradgame Kickstarter is only a year late anymore. In a world where Far West and Alas, Vegas exist (well, "exist," but you know what I mean) and Exalted 3E can go years plural from the original estimated release date before finally releasing in sale-ready form, missing your deadline by just a single year is actually pretty decent.
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May 11, 2016 07:32
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My group has been playing Blades pretty much since the KS finished. We're enjoying it. Its unfortunate that its running past his estimate so much but I have full confidence it'll be finished. Harper has been constantly communicative and has regularly shown off what he is working on and pushing playtest updates every few weeks.
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May 11, 2016 07:41
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Galaga Galaxian posted:My group has been playing Blades pretty much since the KS finished. We're enjoying it. Its unfortunate that its running past his estimate so much but I have full confidence it'll be finished. Harper has been constantly communicative and has regularly shown off what he is working on and pushing playtest updates every few weeks. That is the good bit and I don't want to be too hard on the guy because it is a genuinely fun little game. It's just worrying and I hate seeing stuff over run.
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May 11, 2016 08:30
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I mean in an ideal world sure, that would never happen, but the simple fact of the matter is that if you Kickstart a thing, anything, even by really reliable and solid creators, you need to be prepared for the highly likely possibility of it missing its estimated date. But let's be honest, the real problem with delinquent Kickstarters generally isn't simply the fact that it's late, it's that it's late and there's no communication from the creator and no indication that work is continuing or if a project is even going to be completed. Blades in the Dark is late, but Harper's been good about putting out regular updates as well as regular playable builds of the game. Yeah, I think that Kickstarters that promise a million add-ons by a bunch of extra creators is probably a bad idea because it multiplies the points of failure where things can gently caress up because somebody else besides the primary creator turns out to be lazy or gets in an accident or runs off with the money and now promised stretch goals are missing. On the other hand, given that the actual main book isn't 100% released yet I'm going to reserve judgement for later. John Harper seems like enough of a class act that if some of his outsourced stretch goals fall through he'll probably try and come up with something to make up for it, but in the meantime it's not yet at the point where anyone needs to start getting worried or angry imo.
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May 11, 2016 08:43
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Josef bugman posted:Surprise surprise it turns out that a fair few of the people haven't been working on the promised modules for the game I feel like it's kind of hard for people to start working on supplements when the main game mechanics weren't fully set in stone yet, so the stretch goal authors probably set theirs on the backburner until the mechanics were ready. For the record, here's the progress tracker Harper posted a couple of days ago: quote:Completed
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May 11, 2016 08:46
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Kai Tave posted:Honestly, I don't even bat an eye of a tradgame Kickstarter is only a year late anymore. I do, what kind of jerk runs a year late?
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May 11, 2016 09:06
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Lemon-Lime posted:I feel like it's kind of hard for people to start working on supplements when the main game mechanics weren't fully set in stone yet, so the stretch goal authors probably set theirs on the backburner until the mechanics were ready. Yeah I wasn't even expecting any of the side books to even start until the main book was completed.
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May 11, 2016 09:27
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Ettin posted:I do, what kind of jerk runs a year late? Will Hindmarch. Two years late on Project: Dark, current standing record between updates regurgitating same two cut up images as "progress" is 168 days. Yes, I am salty. The two other RPGs I've kickstarted (World Wide Wrestling: International Incident, Unkown Armies 3rd Ed) were almost ready to dump into dtp before their campaign have even ended.
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May 11, 2016 09:32
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Lichtenstein posted:Will Hindmarch. Two years late on Project: Dark, current standing record between updates regurgitating same two cut up images as "progress" is 168 days. And yeah, I regret backing Project Dark at this point, especially now that I'm waiting for BitD.
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May 11, 2016 13:17
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Josef bugman posted:That is the good bit and I don't want to be too hard on the guy because it is a genuinely fun little game. It's just worrying and I hate seeing stuff over run. I appreciate his level of communication and drive to finish, too. He really should have finished the actual game before he launched his KS, though. Because that other content couldn't advance until the game itself was done, this delay is of his own creation.
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May 11, 2016 14:16
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The "delays" aren't native to Kickstarter vs traditional publishing; they're just shoved in the forefront since you have to provide a more specific release on KS. I can tell you that traditional game manufacturing and publishing dates are changing all the time too, rarely hitting initial projections. The difference is that a publisher can be a lot more vague with when a traditional release is coming until the containers are being unloaded state-side and not be crucified for it. A month or two before a game releases and a publisher announces an anticipated street date and everyone celebrates, while behind the scenes 9 times out of 10 they wanted it releasing sooner. e: Not that I'm defending the year-late style projects at all, mind you. That's just terrible planning. The clever KS folks will over-quote their delivery so they have a buffer to land "on time", and then can even come early. No excuse for being so wildly out of sync with your production process to miss release by more than a few months. Merauder fucked around with this message at 14:54 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 11, 2016 14:47
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I overquoted the original delivery date, was late a month anyway, then ended up being a month early for the second half of the rewards which I originally thought was going to be the harder half to finish on time. I guess my point is that things never go as planned, for good or ill, so you better be extra careful just in case.
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May 11, 2016 15:12
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Lichtenstein posted:Will Hindmarch. Two years late on Project: Dark, current standing record between updates regurgitating same two cut up images as "progress" is 168 days. We were really happy about how much of WWWRPG: II was ready for backers; I think we wrote The Road and formatted it within a WEEK of finishing backing, and the ashcan verson of II was available instantly or near instantly. Write your game to the minimum amount of viability and use KS funds to make a better version and your players will be much, much happier.
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May 11, 2016 16:53
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I just took a look at the comments for Alas, Vegas. The last update from Wallis was in November of 2015, and the comments section is wall-to-wall unanswered requests for refunds and people wondering how to get in touch with other people listed on the project, plus general bitching. The idea was really cool and I just want my game goddamn it. 
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May 11, 2016 17:06
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Remember, if you backed Alas, Vegas or Far West, you'll get a copy of both when they release!
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May 11, 2016 17:18
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Evil Mastermind posted:Remember, if you backed Alas, Vegas or Far West, you'll get a copy of both when they release! Brb inventing a time machine that can reach imaginary dates.
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May 11, 2016 17:37
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Ettin posted:I do, what kind of jerk runs a year late? Speaking of, I'd forgotten that Breakfast Cult was a thing but giving the DTRPG page a read has reminded me that "students trying to stop Cthonic horrors in not-Hogwarts" is very much my jam. I've never played Fate Accelerated, though, so what can you tell me about how Breakfast Cult plays and what you actually do in the game to help sell me on it?
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May 11, 2016 18:49
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I just get a bit annoyed by reading through some of the books I have on Glorantha and seeing things like "coming early 2015" and I want to laugh and laugh.
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May 11, 2016 20:52
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I'm pretty sure that the original Dresden Files FATE came out like three years after it had originally been announced, and that wasn't even a Kickstarter.
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May 11, 2016 21:31
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Spellbound for Fantasy Craftwas supposed to come out in 2010-2011. But we're assured it's still coming out.
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May 11, 2016 21:40
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Spellbound for Fantasy Craftwas supposed to come out in 2010-2011. That one annoys me to no loving end. They made it sound like it just needed a layout/editing pass last year at around this time, then it became sometime after Gen Con, now it's "There's a lot going on in 2016 so it's on the back burner". gently caress you Crafty! Why the gently caress would I support the Spycraft 3 kickstarter when you've proven you can't deliver on things people have paid for?
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May 11, 2016 21:56
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Crafty has always had that problem though. I remember right after Spycraft 2 came out and they had plans for like two different sci-fi settings and all sorts of other stuff and it just...didn't happen. I get that tradgames don't pay the bills and you need a day job to keep the lights on, but past a certain point it's like, maybe you should scale things back a bit then.
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May 11, 2016 22:06
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Kai Tave posted:Crafty has always had that problem though. I remember right after Spycraft 2 came out and they had plans for like two different sci-fi settings and all sorts of other stuff and it just...didn't happen. I get that tradgames don't pay the bills and you need a day job to keep the lights on, but past a certain point it's like, maybe you should scale things back a bit then. I know, right? These days I only buy their honestly a little mechanically sketchy Mistborn line, and even then it's more of a 'here's a pleasant surprise in your new products email from DTRPG' than anything I pay attention to.
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May 11, 2016 22:17
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The thing to consider is that crowdfunding makes us, in a way, investors and customers: we are basically funding the project from its initial pitch, not for ROI, but for a product. As such, we suddenly have additional considerations without any real additional rewards to show for it. A lot of projects fail before launch: we may care a little, but it rarely matters to us. Video games being an amazing example of this as tons of projects are quietly shutdown every month, but there generally isn't huge outrage. Partially, this is due to the fact that most companies don't announce titles to the general public until they are far enough along, usually, where they will finish or, if they do fail, they can quietly let them die without any public reaction. Now that people are paying in advance to fund the project with no reparation for failure, we are getting to feel the burn of being an investor: investing in a good pitch from people who can't deliver. The worst part? If the project succeeds, we just get the product: practically no real return on investment. At best, you go back to 0. I'm not saying crowdfunding is bad, but it certainly has made consumers be much more proactive and critical of the actions of companies that they buy products from: it's an interesting thing to observe.
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May 11, 2016 22:19
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The KS for Retrocausality was supposed to deliver in November 2018 and here it is August 2316 and still nothing. gently caress you Ettin.
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May 11, 2016 22:37
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Covok posted:The thing to consider is that crowdfunding makes us, in a way, investors and customers: we are basically funding the project from its initial pitch, not for ROI, but for a product. As such, we suddenly have additional considerations without any real additional rewards to show for it. A lot of projects fail before launch: we may care a little, but it rarely matters to us. Video games being an amazing example of this as tons of projects are quietly shutdown every month, but there generally isn't huge outrage. Partially, this is due to the fact that most companies don't announce titles to the general public until they are far enough along, usually, where they will finish or, if they do fail, they can quietly let them die without any public reaction. Now that people are paying in advance to fund the project with no reparation for failure, we are getting to feel the burn of being an investor: investing in a good pitch from people who can't deliver. The worst part? If the project succeeds, we just get the product: practically no real return on investment. At best, you go back to 0. Most crowdfunding schemes are just giant preorder campaigns though, e.g. this one https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114151279/miniature-scenery-terrain-for-tabletop-gaming-and Which I am totes backing because the terrain looks really great, but yeah, he's made the moulds and pre-production etc so he's clearly looking for locked in volumes to make sure he sizes production runs correctly (and simplifies the mould management). A lot of crowdfunding seems more like that that seed funding to get a project stood up.
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May 12, 2016 00:20
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In good news, Wizard School totally updated today! Predictably, they're pushing the release back a month. But update! Yay!
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May 12, 2016 00:31
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Most crowdfunding schemes are just giant preorder campaigns though, e.g. this one https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114151279/miniature-scenery-terrain-for-tabletop-gaming-and A lot of this has to do with huge disparities in the different types of costs for bringing a product to market. For a lot of trad games projects, the R&D and development phases are very cheap, and then the pre-manufacturing and manufacturing steps are massively more expensive. It makes sense to do as much as you can before you seek funding, and it makes sense that all the legwork of writing and playtesting a (for example) board game can be done up front, but then the cost of having hundreds of copies of the game manufactured, assembled and shipped has to be crowdfunded.
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May 12, 2016 01:07
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Yeah the work of trad games is usually relatively cheap to produce if you don't place a price on people's time since that's usually all that's required. Programming can be much the same, but real programmers tend to value their time. If most TG kickstarters actually accounted for paying for that design and development at a real living wage goal numbers would be much higher. That said, for a new game (boardgame, RPG, cardgame) these days unless it's from an established company with a good reputation I expect an alpha of the game available before the campaign ends.
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May 12, 2016 01:35
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Leperflesh posted:A lot of this has to do with huge disparities in the different types of costs for bringing a product to market. For a lot of trad games projects, the R&D and development phases are very cheap, and then the pre-manufacturing and manufacturing steps are massively more expensive. It makes sense to do as much as you can before you seek funding, and it makes sense that all the legwork of writing and playtesting a (for example) board game can be done up front, but then the cost of having hundreds of copies of the game manufactured, assembled and shipped has to be crowdfunded. Yeah, I think this is a very valuable service.
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May 12, 2016 02:09
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Doodmons posted:Speaking of, I'd forgotten that Breakfast Cult was a thing but giving the DTRPG page a read has reminded me that "students trying to stop Cthonic horrors in not-Hogwarts" is very much my jam. I've never played Fate Accelerated, though, so what can you tell me about how Breakfast Cult plays and what you actually do in the game to help sell me on it?  The basic premise of Breakfast Cult is that you're attending a high-tech occult Academy that selects students with exceptional talents, occult potential or just straight-up psychic powers. The Foundation who run the place also do classified occult research, and sometimes their secrets get out or a cult tries to infiltrate the Academy to get their hands on it. During the game you solve mysteries, learn about the Ancient Ones, sometimes fight monsters, and try not to get detained by the authorities. Also, some characters (you included) can have secret Agenda aspects, like a cult affiliation, hiding secret powers, trying to commit a petty crime, and other things that can get in the way of the investigation. You want to expose other people's Agendas but hide your own if you have one. What you do exactly depends on which Ancient One is involved; each one adds a different set of game aspects and minions that change how things play out. The Void is a super-science conspiracy thriller, Axis Mundi is The World's End in a school, the Yokai are a Japanese ghost story, Osservat Ornelqua is like The Faculty mixed with Tokyo Shock movies, Sunrise Heavy Industries is Guyver, etc. As for Fate, the system tends to favour pulpy adventure games over straight horror, so Breakfast Cult isn't as grim and gritty as some cosmic horror games out there. It can still get pretty bad though. LongDarkNight posted:The KS for Retrocausality was supposed to deliver in November 2018 and here it is August 2316 and still nothing. gently caress you Ettin. We had to push it back to 1066, sorry.
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May 12, 2016 02:58
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Plague Inc. Based on the video game of the same name and designed by the video game's creator comes Plague Inc. This is a first created as both a Kickstarter and board game so those are two big red flags. Game is set at $30 so it's not too bad. Every player is a different plague and the goal is to infect and kill off as many countries as possible. At the outset, the game looks okay. The rolling to kill off countries is kind of worrisome, even if it's roll-under. I'd prefer a more deterministic mechanic, but that's the only aspect where die rolling comes into play. New countries/regions come up each turn and the deck is random so it may be the case that countries come up that make it difficult for players to spread. Early game this isn't quite an issue as everyone has the ability to take one of their pieces and jump it into another region instead of adding more. It is a lost turn however. The game has a set minimum amount of turns with it likely not extending too far barring random chance. Nothing about it looks too amazing, but it seems decent enough as an entry to medium level game. Dragon Hoard A localization of a Japanese game with a reported 19,000 units sold. No info on complete rules and there's only 16 days left without a play video showing how it's played. It has music though! It's not even at 20% funded so it's likely not going to get funded. Other note: Game costs $50 and they haven't been able to get stateside shipping to anything reasonable so it's currently $35 on top of the price of the game
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May 12, 2016 07:03
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Xelkelvos posted:Plague Inc. It (the board game) doesn't look terribly interesting but I will say Plague Inc is a fantastic mobile game that dominated a lot of my train commutes the last few years.
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May 12, 2016 07:52
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Xelkelvos posted:Plague Inc. Alternatively, you can buy Pandemic: Contagion right now.
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May 12, 2016 08:56
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Xelkelvos posted:Dragon Hoard
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May 12, 2016 10:06
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I forgot to mention the safety notice about the figures containing trace amounts of lead so I assume the figures it shows the game coming with are made from pewter and not silver plastic or something.
Xelkelvos fucked around with this message at 11:28 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 11:21
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Xelkelvos posted:Dragon Hoard quote:Enabling all this is Dragon Hazard's main mechanic: dice rolls! Players will roll dice to determine how far they can move and whether movement will rouse the dragon from its slumber. On top of that, quests, both random encounters and dragon-related quests, will be resolved through dice rolls. While it feels like there’s a lot of luck involved, players can use their personal stash of resources to add more dice to their dice pool to even out the luck. Managing this resource pool will be the key to winning or losing the duel with the dragon and may lead to moments where players must weigh future resource benefits against short-term gains. Hmm. Unfortunately, this is a game that needed to be like $30-40 base, with $20 expansions, especially when stuff like Warhammer Adventure Card Game (and LOTR the LCG) exist. Or if you want to go "full board," there's also stuff like Eldritch Horror and Mage Knight. I like the art style, although now I just want to bust out and play a session of Ryuutama. Also, why the hell is US shipping $35 when the company is based out of Los Angeles?  Speaking of videogame-related Kickstarters, here's one for This War of Mine. It seems like it's meant to be choose your own adventure-y? GrandpaPants fucked around with this message at 15:34 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 15:31
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quote:All pledges will be shipped out from Japan.
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May 12, 2016 15:44
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Why the hell would you do that instead of shipping to LA in bulk to a fulfillment company?
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May 12, 2016 16:09
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