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Ex-STALKER devs want to kickstart its "definitive spiritual successor", named Areal

M

_machine

Member
openrob said:
So is that Unity again?
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Certainly looks like an Unity game, but then again it can be a bare bones proprietary engine. Not exactly convincing looking so I can understand that they were hesitant to show it, but most prototypes tend to look really crude though especially if it's from an engine underdevelopment. It's not horrible by anymeans, but it's certainly in really early stages.
 
R

Ryo Hazuki

Member
Eurogamer wrote an article about it. Apparently they used an asset pack for Unity for the gameplay video. Here: Autumnal Nature Pack. Some guy on the Kickstarter page made a comparison screenshot too.

FCIkm0e.jpg
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M

mclem

Member
Now I'm not clear on the licensing of asset packs - I've been meaning to look into it - but I was under the impression they were designed with the *intent* of being used in commercial products (with appropriate attribution and remuneration, of course). Is that incorrect? I mean, I have no artistic capability, I was thinking that if I were to work on a game again I'd have to make use of such a thing.

Edit: Oh, wait a minute, are they using a sample environment, too, not just the assets? If they're not making it clear that that's just a test-bed, I can see a problem with that.
 
M

mclem

Member
Wait, are those posts last night trying to imply that the complaints are Russian spies trying to discredit a Ukranian production?

Well, that's... ambitious.
 
R

RicoTheMad

Banned
The footage they produced is still maybe like a few days worth of work for a full time developer to produce. Looks like they just bought a bunch of Asset Store packs from Unity and threw them together.

Could they eventually produce a game? Maybe, given quite a few years. Are they lying to people and don't deserve the money? Hell yes, they are liars.

1) The claim to create an in house engine, yet they are using Unity for everything.

2) They use and abuse the STALKER name to get them to where they are, rather than work they have produced for the project.

3) They have no actual developer talent listed anywhere. Just a bunch of idea guys, basically.

Go give your money to someone else. Don't support these scam artists no matter how much you want a new STALKER game. Seriously, this isn't it.

I'm a HUGE STALKER fan but let's be realistic here, these guys aren't it. It's all smoke and mirrors.
 
O

okiemok

Member
Those times when you needed special prototype demos are gone. Now it is enough to conclude an agreement with a kickstarter pledge and take their money with 60 seconds of a Unity scene. You can get the money for yourself! But you can actually only release your product on some particular platform if you can make a decent game.
 
M

mclem

Member
okiemok said:
Those times when you needed special prototype demos are gone. Now it is enough to conclude an agreement with a kickstarter pledge and take their money with 60 seconds of a Unity scene. You can get the money for yourself! But you can actually only release your product on some particular platform if you can make a decent game.
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I would suggest that if they had a 'special prototype demo', they'd be doing rather better than struggling to meet a $50k goal.
 
L

Leb

Member
I'll be honest, a short and roundly unimpressive demo of a Unity project with prefab environmental assets and prefab models is still far more than I ever expected this project to produce.

And KS backers seem to agree; this has been WG's largest funding day since everyone first realized that WG was preposterously incompetent. I... I suppose the upside to their potentially being funded is that this comical folly might continue for years to come.
 
R

RicoTheMad

Banned
Leb said:
I'll be honest, a short and roundly unimpressive demo of a Unity project with prefab environmental assets and prefab models is still far more than I ever expected this project to produce.

And KS backers seem to agree; this has been WG's largest funding day since everyone first realized that WG was preposterously incompetent. I... I suppose the upside to their potentially being funded is that this comical folly might continue for years to come.
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The problem with games like these getting funded, I feel, is that come next year or two years or whenever they fall flat on their face and fail, people are going to point at other Kickstarter projects and say "See? All KS's are nothing but fraud projects and scam artists! Don't back any of them!".

So while the failure may harm only those people who backed them directly, indirectly it affects both other more dedicated developers who now have to deal with extremely skeptical fans (Early Access and KS are already full of skeptical people, with good reason) and it also affects gamers, since now developers have less means of getting funding/smaller amount and thus have to alter their projects or can them completely.

It's kind of sad to see KS and Early Access abused so much, because they sounded like great funding options to me, but the more money-grubbing jerk devs release stuff on them, the worse it gets for the rest of us slogging along with our spare time/money hoping to make the best game possible.

I don't know though, am I wrong in thinking like this? I tend to be overtly paranoid about stuff, but that's the direction I see things going lately.
 
zeorhymer

zeorhymer

Member
RicoTheMad said:
The problem with games like these getting funded, I feel, is that come next year or two years or whenever they fall flat on their face and fail, people are going to point at other Kickstarter projects and say "See? All KS's are nothing but fraud projects and scam artists! Don't back any of them!".

So while the failure may harm only those people who backed them directly, indirectly it affects both other more dedicated developers who now have to deal with extremely skeptical fans (Early Access and KS are already full of skeptical people, with good reason) and it also affects gamers, since now developers have less means of getting funding/smaller amount and thus have to alter their projects or can them completely.

It's kind of sad to see KS and Early Access abused so much, because they sounded like great funding options to me, but the more money-grubbing jerk devs release stuff on them, the worse it gets for the rest of us slogging along with our spare time/money hoping to make the best game possible.

I don't know though, am I wrong in thinking like this? I tend to be overtly paranoid about stuff, but that's the direction I see things going lately.
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What's worse is that for every project that KS gets approved or for every sale Early Access makes, both companies make a profit. There really is no ramifications on their part at all. They've washed their hands by saying, we are selling this stuff as is / this is your donation we aren't liable for anything.
 
R

RicoTheMad

Banned
zeorhymer said:
What's worse is that for every project that KS gets approved or for every sale Early Access makes, both companies make a profit. There really is no ramifications on their part at all. They've washed their hands by saying, we are selling this stuff as is / this is your donation we aren't liable for anything.
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Exactly. Pretty much what happens is, scummy guys win, customers lose everything and get told to shut up and take it.

I think both systems have amazing potential and have and can be used to make and fund great games. There's some folks who have done it right... But way too many others who are doing it wrong. You can tell who the folks who want to make a good game are, vs the folks trying to make a buck.
 
O

okiemok

Member
Leb said:
And KS backers seem to agree; this has been WG's largest funding day since everyone first realized that WG was preposterously incompetent.
Click to expand...

Looking over their comment board, it looks like they are getting hit with several accounts spamming in defense of Areal. They evidently had one account open up at the $1000 level, but that has since changed. So at this point I don't think anything is real with the funding numbers.

Also, since the AMA, they have lost/net gained 0 new users, yet the money seems to steadily rise by a few hundred each day. I suspect there is some manipulation going on there.

RicoTheMad said:
think both systems have amazing potential and have and can be used to make and fund great games. There's some folks who have done it right... But way too many others who are doing it wrong. You can tell who the folks who want to make a good game are, vs the folks trying to make a buck.
Click to expand...

I think KS works well for projects such as boardgames, whereas the project creator is basically offloading the physical risk to the consumer. Software is such a different animal though, with time, skill, and physical risk to name a few. I don't think KS fits well for many computer Game projects and as we have seen, several such projects are failing or downsizing expectations. Projects that had a much greater probability of success than this one.

Perhaps if it was more milestone based, or there was some sort of stepping structure over time.
 
M

mclem

Member
RicoTheMad said:
The problem with games like these getting funded, I feel, is that come next year or two years or whenever they fall flat on their face and fail, people are going to point at other Kickstarter projects and say "See? All KS's are nothing but fraud projects and scam artists! Don't back any of them!".
Click to expand...

People have already been doing that for several years now. Kickstarter seems to still be, well, Kickstarting.

Post-DFA, though, there was a period where I think people may not have scrutinised a Kickstarter as much as they ought to have, and may have got stung a bit in the process. The lesson to learn from that is not 'Eek, Kickstarter is scammy, stay clear!', the lesson to learn from that is "I need to take more responsibility for carefully deciding how to fund projects". And that latter lesson might mean that less money goes to Kickstarter overall, but the money that *does* come in will be more sensibly contributed, and that's no bad thing.
 
L

Lafazar

Member
Neuromancer said:
It's out of control right now. I don't really see the point of copy/pasting huge swaths of text.
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Well it is one way to bury negative comments (the project owner has no direct control over the comment section). Note that the accounts trolling the comments have only backed this one project and nothing else...
 
L

Leb

Member
Well, they've just posted the best update yet, in which they include a letter from Vladimir Putin himself. In this time of great international turmoil, Putin is making the tough choices and has chosen to throw his weight behind the beleaguered developers at WG.
 
E

Enco

Member
Leb said:
Well, they've just posted the best update yet, in which they include a letter from Vladimir Putin himself. In this time of great international turmoil, Putin is making the tough choices and has chosen to throw his weight behind the beleaguered developers at WG.
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Hahahahahahhahhaha

Yes. I definitely feel safe in giving them my money. What can possibly go wrong.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
Leb said:
Well, they've just posted the best update yet, in which they include a letter from Vladimir Putin himself. In this time of great international turmoil, Putin is making the tough choices and has chosen to throw his weight behind the beleaguered developers at WG.
Click to expand...
Holy crap, I just read it.
This is hysterical.
 
K

komplanen

Member
There's an immense wall of text that someone is spamming in the Kickstarter comments.

It begins:
Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America The adventures of Russian agents like The Ghost of Marius the Giraffe, Gay Turtle, and Ass — exposed for the first time.
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I skimmed through most of it and it doesn't seem to be a parody but rather an actual serious Buzzfeed article about Russia waging information war against Ukraine. Now I understand people in Ukraine are living in a horrible situation and most certainly Russia has been known to astroturf the news like nobody's business but to suggest that a Kickstarter failure of this caliber could possible be down to pro-Russia commenters is absurd. It's not like Russian astroturfers are manufacturing the Unity asset gameplay images and videos, is it?
 
R

Rats Off To Ya

Banned
$10k from the goal with four days to go. It seems like they've actually made a bit more in the past few days, so it doesn't seem impossible.

I almost hope it gets funded now. Anyone backing at this point deserves to have their money stolen, and I want to see the saga continue. Imagine what these guys will come up with when they have actual backers to answer to.
 
R

RandyBobandy

Banned
RatsOffToYa said:
$10k from the goal with four days to go. It seems like they've actually made a bit more in the past few days, so it doesn't seem impossible.

I almost hope it gets funded now. Anyone backing at this point deserves to have their money stolen, and I want to see the saga continue. Imagine what these guys will come up with when they have actual backers to answer to.
Click to expand...

Lots of funding in the last hour. Over 2k out of no where. This is the most since like the first day and of course the comments are still being spammed into oblivion

Anyone still backing this is an idiot
 
8

8 X 11 Printer Paper

Member
RandyBobandy said:
Lots of funding in the last hour. Over 2k out of no where. This is the most since like the first day and of course the comments are still being spammed into oblivion

Anyone still backing this is an idiot
Click to expand...

Fun fact they have had only 1 new backer today but they have gained over 2.5K, on various days they lost backers they still somehow gained 200 or so dollars.
 
R

RandyBobandy

Banned
8 X 11 Printer Paper said:
Fun fact they have had only 1 new backer today but they have gained over 2.5K, on various days they lost backers they still somehow gained 200 or so dollars.
Click to expand...

Lol, it's over 6k now. The average per day was like 300

Shady as fuck

They seriously have multiple people spamming the comment section too. It's unreadable
 
B

BPoole

Member
Is anyone here still backing this travesty? I urge anyone who has backed this to use their money more wisely and pledge to the potato salad KS
 
L

Leb

Member
In light of Putin's letter, I think we can safely assume that the 2 new backers today are Putin's daughters, who each contributed roughly 6k to the project.
 
R

Rats Off To Ya

Banned
RatsOffToYa said:
$10k from the goal with four days to go. It seems like they've actually made a bit more in the past few days, so it doesn't seem impossible.

I almost hope it gets funded now. Anyone backing at this point deserves to have their money stolen, and I want to see the saga continue. Imagine what these guys will come up with when they have actual backers to answer to.
Click to expand...

Hahahahahaha!

I made this post an hour ago and they mysteriously raised the $10k in that time. So fucking shady.
 
B

BPoole

Member
So even if they do end up making the game, and it turns out to be halfway decent, I'm still not giving these shady fucks a penny
 
B

BPoole

Member
Almost $60,000 now, meaning they got $20k+ in a the span of 3 hours after being stuck in the $30,000s for weeks.

Edit: Now back to $49k
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Holy shit, I just decided to skim the updates. That is some of the hilariously absurd BS I've ever seen. Oh look, we got an email from Putin!
 
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