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Kickstarter: Bard's Tale IV (inXile, 1.25 mil, PC, Mac, Linux)

KungFucius

KungFucius

King Snowflake
I don't know why I back these things. I still haven't played Wasteland 2 or Pillars of Eternity and Torment is coming next. I played through Divinity and liked it, but now they have a controller friendly version, which is what I want from the other games. I want to play it on my couch like DA:I or Witcher 3.

Why can't these devs make a game that is couch friendly too? And don't say because it will take away from the keyboard design. They could do an FFIV style hotbar, map the controls and be done with it.
 
M

mclem

Member
Kagami said:
Auto-mapping is a tricky subject because it prevents certain kinds of exploration puzzles (anything that messes with the player's sense of location) from being meaningful, reducing landmarks to mere decoration rather than something to pay attention to. You can end up mentally living on the map instead of learning the world.
Click to expand...

Ultima Underworld had an imperfect - but quite nice - solution: When something happened that placed you in an unfamiliar area (falling into a pit, teleportation, that sort of thing), automapping would simply stop until you found your way back to known terrain.

You could easily expand that to have areas where the automap would explicitly not work for some reason, and that should have the desired effect while still preserving the automap for the times when it's mostly harmless.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
mclem said:
Ultima Underworld had an imperfect - but quite nice - solution: When something happened that placed you in an unfamiliar area (falling into a pit, teleportation, that sort of thing), automapping would simply stop until you found your way back to known terrain.

You could easily expand that to have areas where the automap would explicitly not work for some reason, and that should have the desired effect while still preserving the automap for the times when it's mostly harmless.
Click to expand...

Strange Journey did this (disabling the map in areas) but the reactions were mixed (it probably didn't help that the map they disabled it on was full of teleporters and that the game makes you retrace in dungeons to find sidequests and that SJ is pretty difficult even by SMT standards).
 
S

SL128

Member
mclem said:
How playable are the mobile ports, anyway?

Not that I think I could play them without graph paper readily to hand, admittedly.
Click to expand...

I downloaded my copy of The Bard's Tale for Android today to try. The game requires keyboard input, and the buttons are very small so it's not worth playing on mobile (unless you have a tablet with a plug in keyboard?).
 
H

HansMaulwurf

Neo Member
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.

The Problem with CROWDFUNDING, as I see it, is that it is basically a popularity-contest. If you have made some games decades ago and you have name recognition, you won't have any trouble getting funded. If you are an NoName Indie who just started out and want people to crowdfund you, I hope that your game is already 90% done.

TLDR: I think that crowdfunding shouldn't be used in this case because inXile has just released a crowdfunded game and the money from that game should be used to make Bard's Tale 4. Or did Wasteland2 with 420,000 sold Units (according to SteamDB) didn't sell enough. At a base price of $40 this makes roughly $16.8 Million (!!!) (I know that the math isn't that simple, but still)
 
A

Alastor3

Member
HansMaulwurf said:
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.

The Problem with CROWDFUNDING, as I see it, is that it is basically a popularity-contest. If you have made some games decades ago and you have name recognition, you won't have any trouble getting funded. If you are an NoName Indie who just started out and want people to crowdfund you, I hope that your game is already 90% done.

TLDR: I think that crowdfunding shouldn't be used in this case because inXile has just released a crowdfunded game and the money from that game should be used to make Bard's Tale 4. Or did Wasteland2 with 420,000 sold Units (according to SteamDB) didn't sell enough. At a base price of $40 this makes roughly $16.8 Million (!!!) (I know that the math isn't that simple, but still)
Click to expand...

Did you read their kickstarter page or even watch the video ? They are investing their own money to make the game as well.
 
Z

z1ggy

Member
HansMaulwurf said:
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.

The Problem with CROWDFUNDING, as I see it, is that it is basically a popularity-contest. If you have made some games decades ago and you have name recognition, you won't have any trouble getting funded. If you are an NoName Indie who just started out and want people to crowdfund you, I hope that your game is already 90% done.

TLDR: I think that crowdfunding shouldn't be used in this case because inXile has just released a crowdfunded game and the money from that game should be used to make Bard's Tale 4. Or did Wasteland2 with 420,000 sold Units (according to SteamDB) didn't sell enough. At a base price of $40 this makes roughly $16.8 Million (!!!) (I know that the math isn't that simple, but still)
Click to expand...

They are investing money as well. But on the other hand, yes, this is their business model and nothing wrong with it. I don't see why they shouldn´t to be honest, KS is a good resource of money for them. And in the end, if you don´t like what they are doing, don´t back it up.
 
4

4Tran

Member
HansMaulwurf said:
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.
Click to expand...
They're using Kickstarter exactly the way it's meant to be used: as a source of financing and risk mitigation that they can't get through traditional techniques. InXile is small and they make very niche games. If they put all their money into a game that flops, then the whole company can die. A successful Kickstarter both secures the funds to make sure that doesn't happen, and it lets them know that there's a sizable audience for their game, and it serves to advertise what they're offering. It's a pretty good deal for everyone involved.
 
A

Alastor3

Member
4Tran said:
They're using Kickstarter exactly the way it's meant to be used: as a source of financing and risk mitigation that they can't get through traditional techniques. InXile is small and they make very niche games. If they put all their money into a game that flops, then the whole company can die. A successful Kickstarter both secures the funds to make sure that doesn't happen, and it lets them know that there's a sizable audience for their game, and it serves to advertise what they're offering. It's a pretty good deal for everyone involved.
Click to expand...

couldn't have said it better myself :p
 
B

BrokenFiction

Member
4Tran said:
They're using Kickstarter exactly the way it's meant to be used: as a source of financing and risk mitigation that they can't get through traditional techniques. InXile is small and they make very niche games. If they put all their money into a game that flops, then the whole company can die. A successful Kickstarter both secures the funds to make sure that doesn't happen, and it lets them know that there's a sizable audience for their game, and it serves to advertise what they're offering. It's a pretty good deal for everyone involved.
Click to expand...

Quoted again for truth.

Brian Fargo and inXile have mastered the art of the KS. They interact with their fans, they deliver the goods, they make changes and are receptive to feedback. I couldn't ask for more.
 
hemtae

hemtae

Member
New update: Free Game Offer Extended!

As we’re entering day 2, we’re still going strong! We had massive interest in our free game offer, and now our good friends at CD Projekt Red and GOG.com have graciously agreed to allow us to extend the offer for another 24 hours! Anyone who backs The Bard’s Tale IV on Kickstarter in the first 48 hours of the campaign will receive a FREE copy of inXile’s Wasteland 2, or CD Projekt Red's The Witcher, or The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. To be exact, this offer ends on June 4th, 6am PST. To be eligible for the free copy you have to back at the $20 reward tier or above.

Help us spread the word! Be sure to tell anyone you think might be interested in this deal and was on the fence about backing, as this will be the last chance to get your free game from us!

We’ve been getting a few questions, so to clarify: We’ll deliver your Steam or GOG.com key for Wasteland 2 or your DRM-Free GOG.com key for The Witcher or The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings after the Kickstarter campaign ends and all pledges are collected. Once the campaign is over, we'll have our backer web site ready to go, where we’ll distribute all our backer rewards, including your free game. With Kickstarter’s aid, we are able to track exactly when you first pledged, so if you pledged at $20 now but later on want to upgrade, don’t worry, we’ll still know you were a backer in our first 48 hours!
Click to expand...
 
F

fallout

Member
Others have responded while I had this tab open for too long, but I figured I'd post it anyway.

HansMaulwurf said:
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Click to expand...
I don't see a problem with it. They're using some of their funds to seed it. However, to make the game they want to make and the game they think their fans want, they could use more funding. That's what patronage is all about: people paying up front to have something that likely could not have been made in the way they wanted it to be made.

Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.
Click to expand...
Technically, every game ever is paid by the players. I know you mean in this case, the payment is being made in advance of the development, but the risk reduction is a big element of being able to make a game like this. Few publishers are going to foot the extra money that inXile is looking to gather. Even if they did, that would impose further restrictions on the game's development which inXile would like to avoid.

The Problem with CROWDFUNDING, as I see it, is that it is basically a popularity-contest. If you have made some games decades ago and you have name recognition, you won't have any trouble getting funded. If you are an NoName Indie who just started out and want people to crowdfund you, I hope that your game is already 90% done.
Click to expand...
While the "popularity contest" aspect is certainly true with all of the nostalgia-filled games being crowdfunded, you can't really fault people for generally wanting to put their money where they have confidence. Popularity in game development isn't just about having fans. It's about having trust in the ability of the developer to deliver what you want.

To give some personal examples, I backed FTL because it was nearly complete and I played the OnLive demo. I backed the Double Fine Adventure because of the documentary aspect. I didn't back Project Eternity because as much as I love the pedigree, I didn't have entire confidence in their ability to give me a game that I wanted. I've since picked up Pillars of Eternity and love it.

TLDR: I think that crowdfunding shouldn't be used in this case because inXile has just released a crowdfunded game and the money from that game should be used to make Bard's Tale 4. Or did Wasteland2 with 420,000 sold Units (according to SteamDB) didn't sell enough. At a base price of $40 this makes roughly $16.8 Million (!!!) (I know that the math isn't that simple, but still)
Click to expand...
I think there are cases where crowdfunding has been philosophically misused, but this really isn't one of them.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Honestly it makes sense to be more careful with the smaller teams. Pretty much every Kickstarter that I've backed that has fallen through has been a small project , and its usually not from malevolence or incompetence either. Its just because small teams can't whether hits that bigger teams shake off , losing a (your) programmer/composer/artist is devastating to many Indie teams and things just spiral out of control when it happens. That means that you should only back them if you can afford to throw the money away.
 
S

Sir_Crocodile

Member
HansMaulwurf said:
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.

The Problem with CROWDFUNDING, as I see it, is that it is basically a popularity-contest. If you have made some games decades ago and you have name recognition, you won't have any trouble getting funded. If you are an NoName Indie who just started out and want people to crowdfund you, I hope that your game is already 90% done.

TLDR: I think that crowdfunding shouldn't be used in this case because inXile has just released a crowdfunded game and the money from that game should be used to make Bard's Tale 4. Or did Wasteland2 with 420,000 sold Units (according to SteamDB) didn't sell enough. At a base price of $40 this makes roughly $16.8 Million (!!!) (I know that the math isn't that simple, but still)
Click to expand...

I'm quite happy to support the devs I like to make the games I want without them having to worry about going bankrupt if it flops.

Old-time big-names using kickstarter is fantastic
 
R

ringlord

Member
I'm in. Just seeing the original Bard's Tale album sleeve and Skara Brae map bring back great memories of sitting in front of an Apple IIc for hours on end, graph paper at the side. The best gaming moments I've ever had, to be honest.

Edit: the $20 limited tier is disappearing fast. Down to 30 available out of 15,000 as of this post.
 
G

ghibli99

Member
I'm in as well. The series is why my first industry job was at Interplay. So glad to finally see this happen! Loved 1 and 3, but didn't get into Destiny Knight all that much for whatever reason. I fired BT1 up on our IIe a few years ago:

9H9pa.jpg


Ahhh, the nostalgia!
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
ghibli99 said:
I'm in as well. The series is why my first industry job was at Interplay. So glad to finally see this happen! Loved 1 and 3, but didn't get into Destiny Knight all that much for whatever reason. I fired BT1 up on our IIe a few years ago:

Ahhh, the nostalgia!
Click to expand...

You worked for Interplay? My hat's off to you then good sir, I've enjoyed many a game by Interplay! Man, I believe I must own over two dozen games with the Interplay name on them, possibly more.
 
C

Caronte

Member
HansMaulwurf said:
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.

The Problem with CROWDFUNDING, as I see it, is that it is basically a popularity-contest. If you have made some games decades ago and you have name recognition, you won't have any trouble getting funded. If you are an NoName Indie who just started out and want people to crowdfund you, I hope that your game is already 90% done.

TLDR: I think that crowdfunding shouldn't be used in this case because inXile has just released a crowdfunded game and the money from that game should be used to make Bard's Tale 4. Or did Wasteland2 with 420,000 sold Units (according to SteamDB) didn't sell enough. At a base price of $40 this makes roughly $16.8 Million (!!!) (I know that the math isn't that simple, but still)
Click to expand...

1) Are you sure those numbers aren't for people who own the game instead of copies sold? As you know, some copies of those are from the people who kickstarted the game, so they didn't get any money from them after they shipped the game. They also gave the game for free in some tiers of both Pillars of Eternity and Torment kickstarters. No money from those copies either.
2) They want artistic freedom and doing things their way. The fact you are pissed because of this is hilarious.
 
K

~Kinggi~

Banned
Always funny seeing Fargo in full PR mode. We not going fast enough, so he must PR HARDER. He says game video coming tomorrow and he got Chris Roberts to inform his cult...i mean backers about the game.


Really want this to get funded soon so everyone can focus on cool stretch stuff.
 
L

Lain

Member
Earlier today I poked to see where this was at, saw it still didn't reach the goal, saw that the 24hours free game offer was extended to 48 hours and saw still 21 20$ early birds tiers available, so despite my annoyance about the no Italian localization, I ended up going for that.

Hopefully one of the stretch goals will be to add an Italian translation to the game.
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
HansMaulwurf said:
I'm sorry, but how is this okay?
Is this inXile's business plan? To have every game developed from now on being paid by the players? How is this not another DoubleFine-type of using Kickstarter to finance their company while having next to no risk. They just released Wasteland2, so they must have cash in the Bank right now. And I find it funny how they tried to address this before it becomes a huge PR nightmare but then give the same "Publishers are bad" excuse.

The Problem with CROWDFUNDING, as I see it, is that it is basically a popularity-contest. If you have made some games decades ago and you have name recognition, you won't have any trouble getting funded. If you are an NoName Indie who just started out and want people to crowdfund you, I hope that your game is already 90% done.

TLDR: I think that crowdfunding shouldn't be used in this case because inXile has just released a crowdfunded game and the money from that game should be used to make Bard's Tale 4. Or did Wasteland2 with 420,000 sold Units (according to SteamDB) didn't sell enough. At a base price of $40 this makes roughly $16.8 Million (!!!) (I know that the math isn't that simple, but still)
Click to expand...

I don't agree that Kickstarter should be a company's business strategy, but this post is really ridiculous.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
Caronte said:
1) Are you sure those numbers aren't for people who own the game instead of copies sold? As you know, some copies of those are from the people who kickstarted the game, so they didn't get any money from them after they shipped the game. They also gave the game for free in some tiers of both Pillars of Eternity and Torment kickstarters. No money from those copies either.
2) They want artistic freedom and doing things their way. The fact you are pissed because of this is hilarious.
Click to expand...
So it looks like there's about 60,000 copies given out to Kickstarter backers. That, conservatively, takes it down to 360,000 units. The PoE/Torment tiers to get WL2 keys were fairly high, so let's give a super generous 10,000 units to those guys. Down to 350,000 sold on Steam. Say, $25 average selling price, that's $8,750,000. Cut away 1/3rd to Gabe, we're still talking over $5 million in income. I'm sure there's some other costs to consider, but........I can understand the point of view that it seems a little cheeky of them to ask for more money when they've got some in the war chest.

That said, I suppose this could simply be the additional funds they require, not necessarily the budget for the whole game. And regardless, they are free to do as they please. They aren't forcing anybody to give them money.
 
7

7iberius

Member
Seanspeed said:
So it looks like there's about 60,000 copies given out to Kickstarter backers. That, conservatively, takes it down to 360,000 units. The PoE/Torment tiers to get WL2 keys were fairly high, so let's give a super generous 10,000 units to those guys. Down to 350,000 sold on Steam. Say, $25 average selling price, that's $8,750,000. Cut away 1/3rd to Gabe, we're still talking over $5 million in income. I'm sure there's some other costs to consider, but........I can understand the point of view that it seems a little cheeky of them to ask for more money when they've got some in the war chest.

That said, I suppose this could simply be the additional funds they require, not necessarily the budget for the whole game. And regardless, they are free to do as they please. They aren't forcing anybody to give them money.
Click to expand...

Taking those numbers at face value, the $5 million estimate would be revenue, not income. It gets further reduced by taxes and business overhead costs. Wasteland 2's budget was twice what the Kickstarter raised as InXile matched the crowd funds with their own money. They've said they'll be doing the same thing again and matching the Bard's Tale kickstarter with their own money to get the final budget for the game.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
4Tran said:
They're using Kickstarter exactly the way it's meant to be used: as a source of financing and risk mitigation that they can't get through traditional techniques. InXile is small and they make very niche games. If they put all their money into a game that flops, then the whole company can die. A successful Kickstarter both secures the funds to make sure that doesn't happen, and it lets them know that there's a sizable audience for their game, and it serves to advertise what they're offering. It's a pretty good deal for everyone involved.
Click to expand...


If the game isn't out until October 2017, they are probably investing a lot themselves. The $1.25m target may not even affect whether the game gets done or not - especially when you consider many of those pledges are lost future sales because the game is in the reward.

I think there is an argument that this particular approach to kickstarter is part preorder campaign and part social media marketing - getting people aware of the game and also measuring likely interest which can be useful if they go to a publisher.

While within the letter of the law for kickstarter, I do think it is less about funding the project and more about marketing.




As for nostalgia, is the game going to have an option to play a 'floppy drive seek' sound effect just before enemy encounters. On the Amiga I remember you got used to the drive spinning up just before an enemy appeared.
 
C

Caronte

Member
Seanspeed said:
So it looks like there's about 60,000 copies given out to Kickstarter backers. That, conservatively, takes it down to 360,000 units. The PoE/Torment tiers to get WL2 keys were fairly high, so let's give a super generous 10,000 units to those guys. Down to 350,000 sold on Steam. Say, $25 average selling price, that's $8,750,000. Cut away 1/3rd to Gabe, we're still talking over $5 million in income. I'm sure there's some other costs to consider, but........I can understand the point of view that it seems a little cheeky of them to ask for more money when they've got some in the war chest.

That said, I suppose this could simply be the additional funds they require, not necessarily the budget for the whole game. And regardless, they are free to do as they please. They aren't forcing anybody to give them money.
Click to expand...

You need to consider the cost of delaying the game (several times IIRC), patching the game and now developing the GOTY version (and port to consoles).

But even if they did have the money, I don't understand why it would be bad of them to ask money from kickstarter. You are not donating anything, you are actually buying the game at a discounted price. It's like a very early pre-order.

I don't know why anyone should be pissed about this. You don't want to give them money? Don't do it, no one is forcing you. I haven't supported this campaign in fact, not because they have money already but because I'm not really hyped for this series. I'll wait until I see the finished product.
 
F

FGMPR

Banned
Sir_Crocodile said:
I'm quite happy to support the devs I like to make the games I want without them having to worry about going bankrupt if it flops.

Old-time big-names using kickstarter is fantastic
Click to expand...

Not only this, but when one considers the amount of money and man hours they are clearly putting into the Wasteland 2 upgrade, I think its fair to say that they have earned the trust of backers. It's like HBS and Shadowrun: even if someone takes issue with HBS using kickstarter again and again, clearly the backers are absolutely fine with it because the games continue to find themselves funded.

To be honest, I really don't understand why people get upset about the motives behind using kickstarter when at the end of the day, everybody get's what they want (at least in regards to those developers who have earned a certain level of trust).
 
Bl@de

Bl@de

Member
Sinatar said:
First person, not isometric.
Click to expand...

First person exploration, isometric combat (that's what it sounds like, even if I would prefer always first person)

And no way the whole game is going to look like that. I'm always sceptical of early in-engine footage
 
L

Lumine

Member
Sinatar said:
First person, not isometric.
Click to expand...

Ah that makes a lot more sense actually.

Bl@de said:
First person exploration, isometric combat (that's what it sounds like, even if I would prefer always first person)

And no way the whole game is going to look like that. I'm always sceptical of early in-engine footage
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have my doubts as well. It says "in-engine" for a reason I suppose.
 
A

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
Bl@de said:
First person exploration, isometric combat (that's what it sounds like, even if I would prefer always first person)

And no way the whole game is going to look like that. I'm always sceptical of early in-engine footage
Click to expand...



I assumed first person but the descriptions did make it seem like they were either avoiding saying that or weren't sure on it. I'd be pretty thrilled if it backed out for combat but don't expect it. I've never preferred first person combat in any genre, but it's always the worst part about this kind of game.
 
K

Kylarean

Member
Lumine said:
An isometric party based kickstarter RPG and they're going to try and make it look like that? I'm... impressed to say the least.
Click to expand...

Isometric? Did I miss something? When did Bard's Tale go isometric instead of first person?

EDIT: nvm. it's still what I think it was, just forgot to refresh the page before i replied.
 
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