? I didn't say 2D is harder (unless you meant to type 3D instead of 2D). Even so, I didn't say 3D is "harder" either. It's all about what resources you have and what you're aiming to create.
I quoted those two updates because it shows that they decided that 3d was easier than 2d for anything beyond a very basic topdown game, even with their resources.
As Corey said in the Kickstarter comments, about Two Guys SpaceVenture: "I brought them up because I know the developers, and know a lot about the problems they've gone through. Many are exactly what we've been through - Unity turned out to be much harder to use for an adventure game than expected, key programmers did not work out (after months wasted), 2D graphics looked bad in the engine and they had to switch to 3D."
And I, and I think quite a few other series fans as well, wanted more than just that basic top-down 2d game.
However, generally speaking when you go from 2D to 3D the scope likely grows. Scenes and environments get bigger, then as a result you need to populate each environment with more objects, characters, etc. so that the areas aren't barren and boring. The game design starts to expand and the tasks start piling up. I'm not saying that is exactly what's happened with Hero-U, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's a factor in the game taking so long and not having much to show.
The move to 3d was, as he explained there, done in order to make some of those things you talk about easier. It was interesting how he said how he went in thinking 2d would be easier, but eventually was convinced that 3d was. That did show their inexperience with modern game design, but eventually they worked it out.
There are plenty of good reasons - the 3 years that have already passed, poor management, apparent lack of progress, etc. This may seem unfair, but most people aren't going to have the interest or patience to look beyond the most noticeable traits of teh project.
... Apparent lack of progress? What? I have no idea what you're talking about, they've clearly made a lot of progress. The whole point of this kickstarter is showing off their progress, after all. At least wait until they actually show their progress before you say they haven't made enough.
And it's only been 2 1/2 years since the kickstarter, not 3 years, and they're 1 1/2 years past their original completion date, not 3 years. It is late, but you exaggerate how much.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not rooting against the Coles, and I appreciate that you can provide some insights into the game that many of us don't have. However, this project does not look like it's in good shape from any perspective. Judging from comments at the kickstarter page some backers are going to have their own issues with the second campaign. Corey is getting into some minor tussles with backers, and I find his responses to be pretty damning.
Most of the comments in the update about how they spent the money are positive. Lots of positive responses to that there.
This is from a reply in that page:
@Jonathan Turner: Ref "Anyway, don't feel bad because you didn't know everything in minute detail before you started."
Actually that's a big difference between Kickstarter 2012 and Kickstarter 2015. Back then, most projects just had an idea and a few sketches. Today most very successful projects are well along in development and have a lot to show.
That's actually a major reason why we're doing this Kickstarter. We're ready for the 2015 version and want to show off some of the cool things we've developed over the last two years. We hope to attract many of the players who very realistically decided to "just wait and see" back in 2012.
At the same time, we also want to show our respect and thanks to you backers who supported us in 2012. For that reason, we've raised the price slightly on most of the tiers - The game will be $25 instead of $20, the boxed game is $80 instead of $75, and so on. The collector's edition includes choice of a t-shirt or cap this time, but is now $200 instead of $150.
We plan to launch the game at $29.95, so backers here will still get it at a discount, and everyone who backed in 2012 will get an even bigger discount.
He makes a good point about 2012 kickstarters versus kickstarters today. When they did this kickstarter, that kind of kickstarter with minimal details were indeed common. That changed afterwards, but you are clearly holding that against them even though when they did their kickstarter, the kind of kickstarter they did was totally normal. That's not right, don't blame them for expectations increasing after they did their kickstarterr!
inm8num said:
There's nothing wrong with other projects seeking funding from venture capitalists or publishers later on.
I think a LOT of people who back kickstarters would disagree with this statement! One of the major benefits of kickstarter is freeing people from having to deal with the controls (and taken-away-IP rights) of publishers. If people want publisher funding, they shouldn't also be on kickstarter, the whole point is to get away from that. I know, some kickstarters do use outside funding, and how much influence the people giving that funding have over the project is important -- if it's none, perhaps it'd be okay -- but still, I would prefer to see kickstarter games funded just by kickstarter.
"People who believe this project should be completely crowd-funded will back us", Corey Cole said in one of his posts you quote. I feel that way myself.
By that point they've made much progress and have a light and the end of the tunnel. I get the impression that this time around the Coles either tried to secure outside funding and failed (unlike the offer they had previously received as shown below), or they're in denial about the status of their own project compared to where those other projects were when they sought "vulture capitalists".
And I think that they're trying kickstarter first, because they know people prefer kickstarters to be funded through kickstarter, not kickstarter and also traditional publishers. They'd get definite pushback for any publisher deal beyond a basic publishing deal, and rightly so!
They knew $400k wasn't enough for even their initial game
Standard kickstarter procedure. Ask for what you think you can get, not your budget you want; unless you're lucky you won't get the full budget you want. Blaming them for this is crazy, this is how gaming kickstarters choose their starting number. This game is being made with a smaller budget than most of the Quest for Glory games, inflation aside (and inflation makes that gap even larger!). That's not ideal, but with kickstarter you have to take what you can get. Games are expensive, and as great as crowdfunding is, it doesn't get anyone who isn't Star Citizen a big budget.
(which would have used another game's tile-based engine and averted all the time and money lost to developing their 3D version of the game).
No, if they had stuck with that engine the game well might not have gotten funded at all. They started talking about expanding the scope before the end of the project because of getting so many QfG fans saying that what they really wanted was something more like QfG, not the much simpler (and less interesting) game they were proposing.
Honestly, with the benefit of hindsight, what they should have done is asked for a bit more money with a plan to make the game they're making now. I think that they'd have gotten more money had it been clear that it'd be more QfG-like than the original proposal was, but they scaled the proposal to the budget, and to the engine that that team they were initially working with had... which of course fell through when that team left a month after they got funded. But they couldn;'t have known any of this beforehand, so I don't blame them for it. Anyway, I want the game they are currently making, not the topdown 2d thing they started out proposing.
He's right about this, but it just reeks of poor management and planning before launching their campaign.
No, it just shows that they were out of options, and launched it when they had to. Sure, it'd be nice if they only had to ask for money now, but that wasn't an option. They did not have any other funding options when this kickstarter was put up in fall 2012. It's either kickstarter or nothing (remember, that outside funding offer he had was from 2013, not back when they started the kickstarter or before). Also, again, at that time kickstarters with that level of lacking info were common. Don't blame them for things that were fairly normal at the time just because now on kickstarter they aren't.
This is troubling because, again, Corey admits he had a chance to secure additional funding but turned it down. Regardless of what the "very high cost" was, he made a choice that essentially has resulted in need to ask the crowd for more money. But at the same time he's referenced "vulture capitalists", so it seems like a mix of misplaced resentment and denial about the reality of where his project stands.
Again, you seem to entirely miss the point of how great it is that kickstarter allows developers to get away from having to sign over all of their IP rights, etc. over to publishers just in order to get their games made, and that allows games like this to get made again! The best thing about the kickstarter games thing is that it gives people a way to get games like this, or Wasteland 2, or Broken Age, funding, for games that either would never have been funded otherwise, or that would have had so many catches in the funding that the developers would suffer.
Maybe this game is better than some game made with that would have been, or maybe not, who knows, but I'm very glad that an alternative to the publisher model appeared; Kickstarter games are one of the major things that helped bring back many nearly-dead types of PC games that publishers have no interest in funding because they don't make enough money. Publishers are not always bad, don't take me wrong, but the industry is better with more options. And again, if you're going to use kickstarter, yes, I would prefer people not then go get publisher funding... and if the Coles are doing a second kickstarter in order to stay away from that, then I support that for sure.
This is also concerning because I saw somewhere that the Coles have basically bet their home on this game. Nobody wants to see them fail, but the truth of the matter is:
- They went to Kickstarter unprepared with practically nothing to show (yes, other projects like Broken Age stands, but as unfair as it seems that's the truth).
- They knew their funding goal of $400k before fees/rewards/etc. was nowhere near enough.
- At least one of their initial developers left the project because they expected the project budget to be $800k.
- The Coles turned down an offer of a $500k investment.
- The game progress has been limited and uninspiring to some.
- 3 years later, the Coles have no choice but to ask existing backers and potential new ones for more money.
-On point one, as he pointed out that was normal for kickstarters in 2012. It's only later that standards for what people wanted from kickstarters changed, probably mostly because of Broken Age's issues (among other games).
- On point two, this is how kickstarter works. You ask for what you think you can get, not what you really want.
- For point 3, this isn't so bad. The end result is the game we have today, not that much more basic 2d game that would have been much less interesting, if that's the game that funding would have gotten us. So this is a net positive.
- For point 4, it's odd that you say this right before they show their current progress. You're throwing doubt on it without even looking at what they have to show, because they haven't shown it yet! It's still a few days off. Seriously.
- And for the last point,considering all the challenges they've had, it's just impressive they got this far without needing more money earlier.
Now, I do agree that they clearly were inexperienced with the modern game industry, and this probably did delay the game. They hadn't made a game since the late '90s, and that gap showed. For perhaps the most obvious example of this, the game probably would have been fully 3d much earlier, or maybe even from the beginning, if they'd known then what they realized by late 2013 (links in previous post). And I'm sure it took a while to get back into it, once development started. But they figured those things around and worked through them, and I don't mind the delays if they result in a good game in the end. As I've said though, that "if" is key.
This scenario simply does not look good at all. Quite frankly, it looks terrible. Corey has referenced delays and issues on other Kickstarter projects or even games from the Sierra days. My impression is that while it's nice to see him trying to remain optimistic, he's having a difficult time of understanding why people are reacting negatively to news of another crowdfunding campaign (even if for just $100k). I mean, he's already in damage control mode and barely anybody's talking about this. When the campaign launches I doubt opinions will be any more positive.
Once again, the reaction in the actual finances update was quite positive. You're looking hard for ways to criticize them, I think, but it's just not entirely accurate.
I don't think the Coles have made any decision in bad faith or with any intent to deceive anyone (obviously), but all of the above is why I didn't back the project. It simply didn't look like a game that needed to be made or had any kind of clear vision or capable management behind it.
You didn't think it looked like a game that needed to be made? As a big fan of the Quest for Glory games, I thought that just about any new game from the creators of that series, who hadn't made a game since QfG V, needed to be made!
Again, I know that's unfair given 87,000 people donated to Double Fine simply on an idea of an 'old-school point and click adventure', but by the time the Coles came to Kickstarter expectations changed and people were more selective with how they supported projects. Corey keeps referencing Broken Age and their need to split the game, fund it with other means, etc.
Expectations had changed by the time Hero-U reached kickstarter? What? No, they really hadn't. I don't think there was some huge shift between, say, the Two Guys SpaceVenture in May (another game funded with very limited details) and Hero-U in October (both 2012), or even Broken Age earlier that year. And if there was some, Hero-U did a MUCH better job than Broken Age of actually having a plan. Yeah, that plan didn't happen, but the kickstarter had a real game being proposed, with gameplay details and everything. That's not the case with Broken Age, they had nothing beyond "well it'll be an adventure game from Tim Schaefer". And as much as I loved Lucasarts adventure games, I wanted more details than that; that's why I only backed Double Fine Adventure at the basic digital-download tier, not a higher one. Hero-U had more details than that, and by the end of the kickstarter it was clear that it was going to be more than the original proposal. So, I backed it at a bit higher tier (the boxed tier, $75). Sure, nostalgia for QfG is part of why I backed it, but I'm sure that's true for a lot of the backers.
Even so, at launch Tim Schafer was the head of a company that had put out a few games by that point. Hero-U has sadly shown how unprepared the Coles were to manage a project like this.
Sure, I said earlier that yes, their 12+ year break out of the games industry surely caused some issues at first. There was a lot to learn! But there's no "sadly" about it; they did learn those things, and worked through them. I certainly didn't predict all of the twists the game would go through, but they always were open and transparent, always kept the updates coming -- yes, I think it was key that this isn't one of those projects where the creator went dark for a long time -- and kept working on the game. And anyway, you're blaming them for some things I don't think it's fair to blame them for, in addition to some where it is.
Overall, I think that they have done a good job, and I'm glad I backed the game.
Once more, I'm not trying to rag on or incite negativity toward the Coles. I feel extremely, genuinely awful for them.
It kind of sounds like you are, though, and kickstarter in general as well... I at least think that had they gone and gotten money from some publisher to finish the game that'd have had probably more, not less, criticism than going for a second kickstarter has!
