Of course not, but it wouldn’t be as big a project as it is without that name behind it. Not everyone would have access to the tech and people Chris Roberts has. If it were a project by a smaller dev, the game itself would be much less grand in scope. Now would it get the same level of funding if no one knew who this Chris Roberts fellow is? It might ultimately be successful if the campaign was being run the same way in the end, but it undoubtedly wouldn’t receive funding a quickly or as fervently. A name goes a long way, of course, but I don’t think one can base a campaign list this solely on a name.
Now sure, as I say that, lots of folks are Kicking for Elite: Dangerous, and that’s great. Most people are looking past the lack of not only visual aids, but in my opinion, respect for fans asking them for money based solely on this faith.
I think it’s a crowdfunding system that asks users for money based on a successful pitch, clear information, enthusiastic updates and consistent transparency, all of which can add or take away from faith in a project’s creator(s). While there’s enough faith in Braben alone, the lack of a successful pitch, clear information and so on just fiils me, at least, with a feeling of disrespect.
Like, “Hey, I’m David Braben and I’m making another Elite game. Give me money.” And that’s it, we can’t actually SEE the game for which we’re being asked to give money. That just bugs me.
Totally agree with Brian. We all know Kickstarter is not a pre order system.
But if you have supposedly been thinking about a game for a few years and had some people to tinker with ideas, show us something that illustrates your vision when you ask us to give you money for something that might come out in 2014. Make us share your enthusiasm and excitement for the project. Don’t just sell us Old School RPG or Elite redone and ask for a million with no effort put in the pitch.
Not sure why you feel so strongly the other way, JM. Guess we are just looking at it from a different angle.
To be fair I think it’s bad luck that I am rabblerousing here. I hold Roberts to the same standard and if I am going to buy into Star Citizen I want a good reason. How is this different from the other games that are out there. I just wasn’t looking on the forum as much when star citizen was announced.
Roberts has been a little more forthcoming with his plan though…
Tom, he’s been a LOT more forthcoming. From day one he’s had a working version of the game to show us, and since then they’ve released a pretty good stream of information, from Q&A’s to AMAs to tech specs for the ships and so on. Since it’s Chris Roberts, creator of what some will say is the most iconic series in space gaming history, he also has a ton of history and good will behind his name. But it’s not only his name he’s relying on.
We all know what’s at stake in Kickstarting a project and that there are never any certainties.
However there are things a developer can do to help instil more trust in potential backers. Showing us the work he has in progress can go a long way towards doing that.
On the other hand a developer can also do the opposite, like starting a text only campaign with expensive rewards for a game that’s supposedly been in and out of development for over a decade. And anyone remember The Elite Club?
I really want this to succeed, because it’s Elite. I’ll be holding off my pledge until there’s at least some more info about the game though.
I suspect it’s almost entirely down to what I consider to be the bullshit part of Kickstarter - stretch goals, campaigning for more pledges by producing stories and art, etc. My point of view is that critical thinking seems to only be applied one way - to those that don’t give regular updates on things like character classes, maps, and so on.
For me, all that stuff is just noise, because game design doesn’t work that way. 2 years from now all that is likely to be very different or culled or completely unrecognisable. And someone talking about how they’re going to add XYZ cool feature that everyone raves about is a long, long way from them actually implementing it successfully. Broad strokes? Main features? Yes please. That’s all I’m actually interested in. I’m giving money to fund the design and creation of this game - I’m not giving money because the Viper concept art looks totally awesome man.
The Elite kickstarter is pretty spartan but to suggest he can’t do it is odd because the only thing he’s doing that he’s not actually done before is the multiplayer. It’s not actually much of a gamble. Star Citizen on the other hand is promising an awful lot of things that have some pretty major design and technical challenges and no-one bats an eyelid as to whether it’s possible or not.
Hope that makes sense.
Plus, you know, there’s the frustration that Brian will back an MS Paint picture of a spaceship but gets angry if there’s just text ;)
I’ve played JFFE with a measure of success. I don’t like the way pirates just kinda show up without warning and I stopped playing and gave X my time instead. I’m not even playing that much if X at all right now either as a matter of fact. I’m not sure where to get that fix right now. I’m just not ready for that glacial pace. Trading runs are not too interesting to me right now.
From what I remember it involves some arcane mix of the CD version and a patch not intended for that version. Or the other way around. Either way, there’s a stable version out there that pretty much Just Works.
Nobody else bothered by the Tiers?
For $X you get to name an NPC. For $Y a planet. Great. Nothing says ‘well crafted immersive sci-fi universe’ than meeting NPC pirate ‘Bob smith’ on the planet ‘Dave’.
I’m kinda glad tolkien didn’t auction off the names of the fellowship members to his fans, and I’d like to keep that crap out of games too. It just seems so cynical and crappy.
One thing I loved from Frontier (besides this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg) was being able to fly from space and down to a planet, dont think we’ve had that in any other space games?
Speaking of space games; Maybe a kickstarter to make a sequel to “EPIC”. (it had planetside mission, but cant remember if you could fly from space down to it… just as we had in Wing Commander 3 (and possibly 4).)
