xkcd

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 6:30 pm UTC

Is anyone else excited like I am about the prospect of a new Wasteland game? I realize the original game was released in 1988 (to critical acclaim), but it ultimately spawned the original Fallout 1 /2 games that really set the standard for post apocalyptic games. I went and played Wasteland a few years ago and if you can overcome the graphical limitations, it's a freaking awesome game. Having said that, I'm envisioning a new Wasteland game to be the way I always wanted Fallout 3 to be - Isometric, full of great story and choices, and fun fun fun.

Anyway, Brian Fargo is apparently doing a kickstarter for it coming up soon. I've been subscribed to the No Mutants Allowed RSS feed which has started to pop daily with new tweets and information on said kickstarter.

I know I'll be watching closely

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:49 pm UTC

http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/blog/

They just launched this today.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 9:10 pm UTC

http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=61006

Kickstarter was approved really quickly, and goes live tomorrow.

About as serious as a group of guys as it gets when it comes to a small dev group.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:54 pm UTC

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2

It's already up over $140,000 at the time of this post, on the first day of the KS.

Nuts and bolts time.

We’re going back to the original and building from there. No first person shooter, we’re going top down so you get a tactical feel for the situation. And we’re not ditching the party play to turn it into some hack-and-slash bloodfest. It’s turn based, tactical, with a storyline that will be deeper and broader.

We’re determined to keep the gritty, grim and satirical writing. We’re going to pitch those moral dilemmas at you. You’re going to be faced with the consequences of your actions.

We’re planning on an initial 6 months of pre-production. We’ll nail down every important element that you, our creative partners, want. Once we have all that figured out, we buckle down for 12 month development cycle. During that time, players can get a sneak peek on a private closed beta through Steam. In addition, we will be giving you constant updates and showing you our progress along the way.

(from Rock Paper Shotgun): "We worked on it at InXile for nearly a year, and so we worked through the storyline, what the life of the ranger is, dialogue structure, social skills, party influence, character stats. We worked through quite a lot of things so we’re not starting at ground zero. We pretty much know the templates, the next step after that was to bring all the writers in, and bring the artists in, and really fill out the meat of the world. That’s the costly part and where we didn’t get anywhere."

I know for a fact I'm not the only person interested in this game

. But I'll keep posting (relevant) stuff in this thread until ST tells me to stop.

It's worth your time to at least check it out, because it's gonna be one hell of a throwback RPG once it's up and running!

by **SecondTalon** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:08 pm UTC

I'll do no such thing.

I will just suggest to keep it about 3 days between posts when you're the last poster, but otherwise.. no, keep yammering. Because I'm Dr. Frasier Crane.

I mean, I'm listening.

by **Cubethulhu** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:52 pm UTC

Wow I effing love kickstarter! Not only is it bringing to fruition amazing games and movies. Its showing that fans can actually support new content from creators they like. Maybe all this kickstarter activity is the start of something truly beautiful.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:57 pm UTC

$182,000 and climbing. That's what, $40k in two hours since I last posted? I don't know how long this rate of growth will continue, but it's been really exciting to watch. Makes me wish it made sense for me to pledge more than $100, but w/e. I'll be enjoying my two copies of the game and my beta, as well as my name in the credits. :-D

This is my first experience with KS, but it is really cool to see. Double Fine did an incredible job getting funded far past it's goals. I'm really hoping the same happens here.

by **Endless Mike** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 8:10 pm UTC

Awesome. I put in for it. I hope it succeeds!

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 8:13 pm UTC

Just passed the $250K mark and is climbing steadily. I'm not sure if it's a matter of whether or not it will succeed, but just a matter of how quickly and whether it will surpass its goal

by **Vaniver** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:42 pm UTC

Man, Kickstarter rewards. I could tell I had scrolled down too far when I needed to check my checking account to see how much money was in it. (I'm moderately amused that the $10k reward had to specify that they weren't on the hook for travel costs.)

It's at $298k at present.

by **WarDaft** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 10:28 pm UTC

Ha, when I loaded the page, it was almost pi, $314,181, only 22 dollars off. Considering it's now already up another thousand, that's pretty good I think.

(I'm moderately amused that the $10k reward had to specify that they weren't on the hook for travel costs.)

I'm more amused by the fact that there are backers at both the $5k and $10k level. Can you pledge on kickstarter if you don't actually have the money to back it up? That wouldn't really make sense but I find it even harder to believe they already have people putting in thousands of dollars, unless those people are already involved with the project.

Now it's up to $318k.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 10:39 pm UTC

You do actually have to enter credit card info to do it, so they probably verify that you have the money. They won't actually bill you until it's funded, but you need to actually have the money.

And 324k now

by **Xeio** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:00 am UTC

Mishrak wrote:You do actually have to enter credit card info to do it, so they probably verify that you have the money. They won't actually bill you until it's funded, but you need to actually have the money.

You don't need to have the money till the fund date.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:19 pm UTC

Ah interesting. I figured they'd check to see if the money was at least good, but I guess they're operating under the idea that since you need an amazon account/ credit card (or some other means of electronic payment), that at least most of the payments will be valid.

I'm impressed at how fast this is getting funded. It's already nearly 72% funded at $641,000/$900,000. Not even 48 hours in!

by **Vaniver** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:10 pm UTC

WarDaft wrote:I'm more amused by the fact that there are backers at both the $5k and $10k level.

I... was closer to pledging at that level than I want to admit. Thankfully, the tried and true tactic of "decide if you still want it in an hour" worked, and I pledged a reasonable amount.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:15 pm UTC

I was very very close to bumping my pledge up from $100 to $250 because i'm a sucker for autographed collectors items. I managed to talk myself out of it fortunately, but darnit! Signed shineys!! :cry:

by **You, sir, name?** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:17 pm UTC

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:50 pm UTC

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ak3tepg36XA

Total Biscuit on Kickstarter and WL II

by **Vaniver** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 1:59 am UTC

Almost there, two days in.

by **WarDaft** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:50 am UTC

$11,500 to go.

I wonder how much over the requested amount it will hit.

by **You, sir, name?** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:14 am UTC

Exceeded the minimum now!

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:09 pm UTC

Over $1.17M now. If it hits $1.5M we'll see it on Linux and Mac OS which is just great. Still a full month to go. It's starting to taper off now, but that's normal now that it's hit the goal. It may take a week or so to hit 1.5, but it should be very doable.

They also upped the limits on the $10k and $5K packages. The $1k package is sold out, but maybe they'll increase that one too.

They also changed the $2500 reward:

You get to place a personalized collectible artifact in our world and write its backstory! It could be anything from an engagement ring to a teddy bear. We will have 200 of these rare and semi rare items that can be found throughout the Wasteland 2 world. When collected, all players will learn about the personal touch that you added to the world. You'll also receive a signed Collector's Edition, boxed version and 10 digital copies of the game to do what you'd like with, in addition to a lv4 Desert Ranger medal of honor limited edition collectible. (This does not include NPC/Weapon/Location as well)

by **emceng** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 8:39 pm UTC

Ok, can someone explain Kickstarter to me? Do you get your money back if the project shows a profit? Or are you just funding whatever, and your money is gone?

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 8:45 pm UTC

The way it works is if the minimum funding requirement is not met by the end of the Kickstarter, you get your money back. More accurately, they don't bill you. If the money goes over the Kickstarter amount, then that further funds whoever you're kickstarting. 5% of the money goes to KS too, which is a pretty sweet deal for both sides. So the $ amt on the KS isn't a Cap, it's only a minimum requirement. There is no cap, from what I can tell.

You don't get anything in terms of profits or things like that. You just get some pre-release stuff that most people won't get, and you get to be a part of funding something that otherwise probably wouldn't get off the ground.

by **Soralin** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:17 am UTC

Yeah, it's not an investment in the capitalism sense, it's more like a pre-order. Or, think of it more like a patronage model, we're pooling together a bunch of money to get something that we want made. And if the pool of money turns out to be not enough to make the thing, then no one gets charged, so you don't have to worry about chipping in some cash, and then the project not having enough to be completed.

by **You, sir, name?** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:20 am UTC

Just reached 1.4 mil. It's a good day for civilization.

by **Endless Mike** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:47 pm UTC

You, sir, name? wrote:Just reached 1.4 mil. It's a good day for civilization.

Pretty much any day is a good day for Civilization provided you don't have to be anywhere.

by **Endless Mike** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:37 pm UTC

Not trying to double post, but today an update came from Brian Fargo. There's some nice human interest stories in there, but more interestingly is this:

And speaking of goodwill it occurs to me that we can harness the power of Kickstarter in a more meaningful way. Fan funding is bigger than me or Wasteland 2 as I have remarked before. The development community has come together to support us in ways that I didn't think possible and our power as developers will ultimately come from us sticking together. Both gamers and developers have so much more strength than they realize. But in order to help facilitate the power of crowd funding I am going to suggest that all of us that do utilize this form of financing agree to kickback 5% of our profits made from such projects to other Kickstarter developers. I am not suggesting taking a backers money and moving it to another project.. I mean once a game has shipped and created profit that we funnel that back into the community of developers to fund their dreams. I am tentatively calling this "Kick It Forward" and I will be the first to agree to it. In fact, I will have our artists create a badge that goes on all Kickstarter projects that agree to support this initiative. Imagine the potential if another Minecraft comes along via Kickstarter and produces millions of dollars of investment into other developers. This economic payback will continue to grow the movement way beyond the current system. I hope others will join me with this idea and make this a true shakeup.

(Bolding his.) Pretty cool idea, and I hope it comes to fruition. It would be great to see more games come out as a result of this.

by **Enokh** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:50 pm UTC

Wait, so is it that you get your money if the project doesn't reach it's stated goal of, say, 1.5 million, or do you get your money back even if the project meets that goal but never gets completed?

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:58 pm UTC

The goal was $900,000. So we've surpassed that. Everything after it is just to help further fund the project.

by **Soralin** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:36 pm UTC

Enokh wrote:Wait, so is it that you get your money if the project doesn't reach it's stated goal of, say, 1.5 million, or do you get your money back even if the project meets that goal but never gets completed?

Definitely in the case of the former. If a project had a goal of 1.5m, and it didn't make that much, then people don't even get charged in the first place. Amazon Payments(who handle the transactions for kickstarter) handles it as a delayed payment thing or something, and doesn't actually charge it until or unless the goal is reached, after the end of the kickstarter. So that way you don't end up with money donated to projects that won't have enough to be completed.

http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics#AlloFund wrote:All-or-nothing funding?

Every Kickstarter project must be fully funded before its time expires or no money changes hands.

Why?

1. It's less risk for everyone. If you need $5,000, it's tough having $2,000 and a bunch of people expecting you to complete a $5,000 project.

2. It allows people to test concepts (or conditionally sell stuff) without risk. If you don't receive the support you want, you're not compelled to follow through. This is huge!

3. It motivates. If people want to see a project come to life, they're going to spread the word.

Theoretically in the case of the latter, If a project meets its funding goal, but doesn't deliver what it promised, then they might be liable for legal actions, although that would obviously be harder to carry out than the former, which is just automatic.

http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creating%20a%20project#IfIAmUnabToCompMyProjAsListWhatShouIDo wrote:If I am unable to complete my project as listed, what should I do?

If you are unable to fulfill the promises made to backers, cannot complete the project as advertised, or decide to abandon the project for any reason, you are expected to cancel funding. A failure to do so could result in damage to your reputation or even legal action on behalf of your backers.

by **You, sir, name?** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:36 pm UTC

$1,494,855

So painfully close now.

by **Vaniver** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:37 am UTC

Passed $1.5M. 25 days to go.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:54 pm UTC

Woo. Mac and Linux is a green light

I know that will make a lot of people happy, not having to run it in a virtual machine.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:21 pm UTC

http://www.ripten.com/2012/03/27/brian- ... fun-again/

This a great interview with Brian. I know he's doing about a million of these right now, but this one actually has some new stuff as well as some interesting insights into the world of big game Publishers and Developers.

by **Gelsamel** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:06 am UTC

I funded this as well as Double Fine Adventure, I hope they both turn out awesome.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:09 pm UTC

http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=61196

Obsidian Entertainment is going to get in the mix if this thing hits $2.1M. Chris Avellone. Obsidian. Freaking sweet.

by **Soralin** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:59 pm UTC

Mishrak wrote:http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=61196

Obsidian Entertainment is going to get in the mix if this thing hits $2.1M. Chris Avellone. Obsidian. Freaking sweet.

It's up on the kickstarter page too now: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inx ... nd-2/posts

For those of you who don't know who Obsidian or Chris Avellone are, they are the bulk of the brains who worked on Fallout 1&2, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment when I was back at Interplay. More of the band is back together to make sure we bring you a fantastic RPG. Chris is going to help push the density and literary content of the game.

And up to over $1.7M right now.

Dark Souls Challenge · by **Mishrak** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:34 pm UTC

Pushing 1.94 million right now. This could very realistically push $2.5. Short of a madhouse explosion in the last few days, or another bombshell announcement like Obsidian, 2.1 at the very least is a done deal.

by **Gelsamel** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:36 pm UTC

Also do we know if they mean 2.1m on Kickstarter or total donations? Because KS takes a cut.

Who is online