Not just dragons. Allison Theus, currently a concept artist at Retro, specializes in creature design in general. She worked on Warhammer 40K: Dark Millenium at Vigil as far as I know.
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Shadow of the Eternals - Eternal Darkness Spiritual Sequel [Crowdfunding, Dyack, ???]
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If they said no the first time to publishing it, I'm not sure why they'd say yes the second time.
Yeah, I guess you're right. But it's quite cheap anyway and Wii U needs some exclusives now when the situation is bad (maybe they didn't expect this when they said no in the past.
I think they might not have wanted to get involved in the legal mess that was Silicon Knights. No matter what game they pitched or how good it might have been.
I think this is well possible. I wonder whether SK will still appear in Nintendo's next annual report.
I don't know how to feel about this. I love Eternal Darkness and the idea of a sequel, but this spiritual successor looks like that idea ... sort of. It's not a true Eternal Darkness 2, it's episodic and it's a project by Dyack which raises all sorts of red flags. But Dyack, love or hate him, did do good things at one point in his career.
I won't put any money toward this but I'm OK with it being funded and then some to see what comes of all of this. If it's good, I'll buy it. If it's shit, oh well, no money lost from me.
I won't put any money toward this but I'm OK with it being funded and then some to see what comes of all of this. If it's good, I'll buy it. If it's shit, oh well, no money lost from me.
Wouldn't be available for the Wii U though.
Carnby
Member
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
Weirdest news I've heard for a while. It doesn't make sense at all. Spiritual successor with patented systems? Wii U release? DYACK?? Episodes and crowdfunding..
Too much.
Will follow the project closely, not giving these guys any money though.
Too much.
Will follow the project closely, not giving these guys any money though.
Ninja Scooter
Member
I can smell the cease and desist from here.
When you know how Iwata's Nintendo handles "second-party" agreements, I don't think they'll pour $1M in a project like this, when they even know with who they're dealing with.
Paul Alexander
Member
I wonder what sort of creative concessions Dyack had to make, if any, in order to get people to sign on to make this game.
Last I checked, Silicon Knights was, prior to apparently dissolving, employing something like 3-4 people, including Dyack and his wife.
Even with an eight person team, this game isn't getting done by Q3 2014...unless they're reusing a substantial amount of material from the failed ED2 prototype. In which case...yikes.
Does anyone with a solid understanding of their legal troubles have any clue if this is possible?
Last I checked, Silicon Knights was, prior to apparently dissolving, employing something like 3-4 people, including Dyack and his wife.
Even with an eight person team, this game isn't getting done by Q3 2014...unless they're reusing a substantial amount of material from the failed ED2 prototype. In which case...yikes.
Does anyone with a solid understanding of their legal troubles have any clue if this is possible?
Dyack isn't in charge of the money this time it seems.
And if what Mama Robotnik said doesn't end up being the case, I don't see the problem. Hopefully they'd seek to get the rights to everything before firing up a KS campaign, no?
TemplaerDude
Member
Guys, don't give money to anything Dyack is involved in, and stop trying to find ways to justify it.
Seriously.
Seriously.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
olimpia84
Member
It's the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed GC titles out there so the interest from some is natural. What's there to justify?
KojiKnight
Member
Great, now I want Retro to be involved in making ED2... thanks.
As long as Dyack doesn't take the funds to pay off his last lawsuit and then the backers get absolutely nothing....
Sounds very dodgy indeed. Dyack should be banned from starting new companies.
TemplaerDude
Member
It's another example of how GAF refuses to let anything fucking die and the fact that people on here are willing to give money to something has that shit eating fuck faces name attached to it is disgusting.
Fourth Storm
Member
Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. I mean, I do want an Eternal Darkness sequel and it is Dyack's baby, so I don't agree w/ all this "give it to Retro" nonsense. At the same time, I just don't trust the man with my hard earned money.
That in particular seems legally problematic. Even without that, Dyack can't be trusted with managing money.
I seem to remember that they sued Epic because they claim that they are not getting what they paid for when they license the unreal engine, such as technical support. New/advance tech that was created for their Gears of War game weren't in the current version of the engine that was licensed out. They were claiming that Epic was doing what they did to Activision(or Gearbox did to Sega), which is using the money for their own project and not their clients.
Naked Prime
Member
This. I'd love to support this but with Dyack history seemingly:
-grossly misusing funds from publishers for funding unrelated & personal projects
-poorly managing his staff (how can you allegedly keep people on staff until 2012 when Twin Snakes is the last title they've worked on?)
-choosing to sue Epic rather than building up SK's talent pool and skill-set (they've been lacking in asset creation since MGS:TS imo)
-Just managing the company into the ground
I can't get behind this. $1.5 million sounds like they are going to put all that into the 1st episode and hope that fuels the rest.
Hero of Legend
Member
Too Human? Also they worked on a few canned projects in between.
And didn't Epic sue them first?
Night_Trekker
Member
I'd be comfortable donating money to something like this ONLY because Dyack is not the CEO. He should be doing creative work, not trying to run a company.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
To be fair, the quality of that video is pretty good, if you consider it to be a episodic game. Models are fine, as are the textures. Animation looks solid. Presentation looked good: nice cinematography, cuts, lighting, and so on. You could show that vid as a trailer for episode Eternal Darkness 2 and it would pass pretty easily.
Given Eternal Darkness' structure, which is really very small "levels", I wonder how hard it would be to just finish one short episode, release it for free, and use that as a pitch for the rest of the project. Especially something like this, which has a lot of cynicism and worry hanging over it.
Like, I'm fairly certain a team of ~three people could whip up a HD remake of the first stage in Eternal Darkness pretty damn quickly and easily. I guess they're going for bigger things here, maybe more cutscenes and story telling, but when selling the idea to the market, it doesn't hurt to be generous.
Given Eternal Darkness' structure, which is really very small "levels", I wonder how hard it would be to just finish one short episode, release it for free, and use that as a pitch for the rest of the project. Especially something like this, which has a lot of cynicism and worry hanging over it.
Like, I'm fairly certain a team of ~three people could whip up a HD remake of the first stage in Eternal Darkness pretty damn quickly and easily. I guess they're going for bigger things here, maybe more cutscenes and story telling, but when selling the idea to the market, it doesn't hurt to be generous.
akidnamededdy
Banned
I will fund this
.
As much as anybody loved Eternal Darkness, you'd be nuts to help crowdfund anything with Dyack's name attached.
if you count "paying retail cost for a finished product that actually exists" as funding
As much as anybody loved Eternal Darkness, you'd be nuts to help crowdfund anything with Dyack's name attached.
Oooo....The trailer looked nice. I kind of wish they went for a bit more of a realistic style but I can get past that (plus we know it's not the final product). As far as what I think about the whole thing, I don't know right now. I love Eternal Darkness but we need much more details on this.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Well for one thing, if you read the fine print there's no legal, moral, or other obligation for the person or group receiving the Kickstarter money to do anything resembling what the Kickstarter claims to be about. And Dyack hasn't exactly proven himself trustworthy with money even when he was contractually obliged to deliver something. What's he going to do with free money with no strings attached at all?
It's not his company.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
more than a riot lol
A really short (3 sec) animation of that creature from 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O0jJwiKT98&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O0jJwiKT98&feature=youtu.be
A part of me got to thinking whether Precursor games approached Nintendo about doing a prequel of sorts to ED to gauge interest in a full sequel. Nintendo agreed to allow them limited usage of aspects of the ED license in exchange for a Wii U release.
And if the project doesn't turn out to be a complete clusterfuck and actually is delivered on time, at a high quality, and actually makes some cake, Nintendo might actually greenlight a full sequel.
Unlikely? - yes. Possible? - I don't see why not.
And if the project doesn't turn out to be a complete clusterfuck and actually is delivered on time, at a high quality, and actually makes some cake, Nintendo might actually greenlight a full sequel.
Unlikely? - yes. Possible? - I don't see why not.
Kinda funny you posted another ED related video exactly a year ago today.
Ninja Scooter
Member
So lie to their potential kick starter backers? For a company run by Dyack I don't see why not either.
Isn't Nintendo rather generous when it comes to other companies copying their (patented) gameplay mechanics? It's obvious that SK was shopping around this Eternal Darkness 2 prototype. I just don't think that Nintendo was willing to fund it - their focus seems to lie on established franchises and casual new IPs, with a few original hardcore franchises at times from Japan. I still remember when they canned all of their hardcore-targetted franchises on Wii from Western developers.
Not sure what part of the pitch would be a "lie". Backers would fund the project and get the game/episodes when they were complete. If they've worked out a deal with Nintendo to avoid getting C&D'd and/or sued to oblivion, so much the better I would think.
I just find the WiiU platform choice to be interesting.
Shiggy said:
Well, since Nintendo owns the license, I don't think they were shopping ED 2 to anyone but Nintendo. And Nintendo is interested enough in the license to renew the trademark recently. Doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot I guess - they could just as easily park it for the next 10 years.
The choice of platform is logical, I think. This game is probably not going to create huge enthusiasm among PS3/360/360/PS4 gamers. The graphics are average and most recent SK games have rather been lacking in all areas. In addition, SK was plagued by management issues.
Making this game Wii U-exclusive (+PC version), they are more likely to get the Nintendo ultras on board who are happy to get an exclusive title on their platform and a spiritual sequel to an old Nintendo franchise.
They could still pitch the game to other publishers. The scenario can be easily changed in case a publisher approves the pitch - which obviously didn't happen here for quality, management, and financial reasons.
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