It's the age-old struggle: the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other

So Project Eternity has finished its Kickstarter campaign with $3,986,929 (plus a bit more via PayPal to take it past four million total). A spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale was never going to be a particularly tough sell (the most difficult part was probably not getting buried under an avalanche of cash) (well, that and living up to expectations set by some of the most beloved PC games of all time, but that’s still to come), but hitting the original $1.1m target in just over a day was still pretty impressive.

It’s not just Kickstarter that’s racking up money outside the conventional “buy a finished boxed game for $60” model, Mechwarrior Online has raised $5 million through its Founder’s Program, a sort of pre-sale as it goes into open beta, and Chris “Wing Commander” Roberts is seeking funding through a variety of routes for Star Citizen. Gamasutra had an interview with Funcom’s Craig Morrison, touching on the problem of MMO launches in the current landscape,

And I think we need to get people out of that mindset, so that a game can start at like 100,000, or an indie game could start at 10,000. Because a studio game is going to want to have a decent place to start with, and wherever that level may be. But that a game can start, as long as it’s cost effective, as long as you budgeted your project to be in that ballpark and you know from the beginning, “Okay, we’ve set our budget, we’re aiming for 100,000 at the start.”

And then we need the gamers to not react with, “Oh, well. That’s a worthless game then, because it’s not going to have a million users.” We need the users to be, “Oh cool, this game appeals to me in my niche and my interests, and I want to see this game succeed, so I’m going to support it.”

And then if the game takes off and grows, then you can get that kind of organic growth.

Perhaps a funding model like Star Citizen can help with that, getting people (and their money) involved early, building the player base and game together, rather than hyping the arse out of a game while developing it in the desperate hope of making the money back before everyone buggers off. The traditional model can still work in a lot of areas, but with development times getting longer and costs getting higher the big companies tend to focus on the safe money, ever increasing sequels in a limited number of genres; not exclusively, this week’s UK charts have a new IP in Dishonoured at number two, and XCom at number seven reviving tactical combat, but they’re sitting amongst Just Dance 4, Resident Evil 6, Fifa 13. Sequels aren’t a bad thing per se, Borderlands 2 and The Elder Scrolls V are also in the Top 10, but variety is the spice of life.

Crowdfunding isn’t immune from the problem, though; as John Walker pointed out, the big success stories are rooted in nostalgia, the people and/or IPs behind Planescape: Torment, Wing Commander, Mechwarrior. Not that nostalgia is a magic wand, SHAKER, an old school RPG with impeccable pedigree, doesn’t seem to have caught the imagination like Project Eternity, and doesn’t look like it’s going to hit its million dollar target. Ironically, while crowdfunding may be a way of attaining more organic growth in a game’s player base, you need to get a good start in Kickstarter; the SHAKER project was originally titled “An Old School RPG” and didn’t have a whole lot of detail, perhaps dissipating the initial excitement needed to build up the head of pledge-gathering steam that powers further coverage.

I’m a little surprised we haven’t seen an MMO Kickstarter from big names, along the lines of Wasteland 2 or Double Fine Adventure. I’m sure we’ll see some come along, perhaps on other platforms or with different funding mechanisms, but for now a quick Kickstarter search for “MMO” doesn’t turn up very much. There’s Eric Heimburg’s intriguing Project Gorgon that sadly that isn’t even halfway to its target yet, and a few other (over)ambitious looking projects trying to invoke Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot and the like that have secured even less. Come on, though, people, how can A FITNESS RPG have only hit $11 so far? “Finally, a deep-space survival MMO game to incentify fitness. Level, Earn and Battle.” That’s got to be worth a $10,000 pledge.

Wot I'm Playing: Roundup

It’s a busy old gaming time at the moment. MMO-wise, I’m still on holiday; I’ve popped in to City of Heroes a couple of times since they announced it was to close, though I feel I ought to give it a proper good-bye, maybe one last run of the Positron Task Force or something. Guild Wars 2 is patched up, just in case the mood strikes, but it’s been Skyrim fulfilling my recommended daily allowance of fantasy questing.

There’s something of a tension, though, between my general meandering around the world, resulting in an overflowing quest log full of all sorts of interesting sounding things to investigate, and my slightly completist/OCD side trying to get everything ticked off. Even when absolutely determined to finish existing tasks before acquiring any more, it’s hard to avoid picking up a couple of new quests for every three you finish. Like both Morrowind and Oblivion before I’ve reached a sort of mid-point where there’s an awful lot I’d like to do still, but there isn’t a single thread that’s really got me hooked to yank me through, so it’s easy to get distracted by other things. Like Borderlands 2.

Borderlands 2 is a worthy sequel to the loot-spewing RPG/shooter of MOAR DAKKA original. As an operant conditioning chamber it’s incredibly effective, I almost subconsciously now run up to anything with a green light on it and hit the ‘open’ button, useful in the game for racking up stacks of cash, ammunition, eridium and gear, but quite hazardous when crossing the road at traffic lights. Crammed with pop culture references, I particularly enjoyed a three-way stand-off in a graveyard as part of “The Good, The Bad and The Mordecai” (no prizes for guessing which classic Leone film it references) (“Duck, You Sucker!”, obviously); it worked especially well to the sound of Short Change Hero by The Heavy, the song used in the introduction of the game, a gloriously Morricone-influenced piece that I went and bought and have had stuck in my head for the past couple of weeks.

Away from frantic gunslinging action, I’ve also been popping back in to a bit of Minecraft. I’ve seen bits and pieces about updates and improvements over the past year or so and keep meaning to check them out, but had never quite got around to it until Shuttler started talking about multiplayer servers, so I hopped on for a quick look around. Then, y’know, you have to have a quick dig, so grabbed a bit of wood, made a pickaxe… and then it started getting dark, so obviously you need to build a quick house, and pop a chest in it for storing things, and then a second level, digging down for coal, perhaps a quick mezzanine, oh and a wheat field of course, and then once you’ve got the wheat you might as well grab a few animals to start a farm, and… well, it’s like Yellow Car. Just as you never stop playing Yellow Car, you never stop playing Minecraft, it just happens that sometimes you’re not logged in to it.

With similar longevity World of Tanks has been kicking around for the best part of a couple of years, and I still hop in for a spot of armoured combat now and again. There was a big update, version 8.0, a few weeks back, overhauling the graphics and physics within the game; previously steep slopes had a sort of invisible wall that stopped you crashing over them, now you have to be a bit careful around cliffs. Not just at the top either, from force of habit on one map I was hunkered down at the bottom of a cliff, where previously I would’ve been out of the firing arc of anyone above, and got a rude surprise when an opponent plummeted down in a death-dive… I’ve got a few favourite tanks in tiers II, V and VIII that I mostly play, no real goals progression-wise for the moment, I might pick it up a bit more seriously when British tanks arrive in version 8.1.

In the meantime there’s another multiplayer update to Mass Effect 3, Retaliation, that’s just come out. It’s a pretty major overhaul, adding a whole new enemy faction in The Collectors, a Challenge system of some sort and Hazard maps with additional dangers, alongside the usual new classes and weapons. I’ve been firing up ME3 for the fortnightly “Operations” that set challenges with commendation pack rewards that offer you the chance to unlock Yet Another Rank Of The Sodding N7 Eagle Pistol. Some of the challenges (“Achieve full extraction in a mission in under 15 minutes”) are absolutely fine; others (“Achieve full extraction in a mission with all four players as the same non-human race”) are much trickier. Not so much in execution, but the matchmaker has no way to specify that you’re trying to complete these challenges, so forming a compliant team in the first place can be terribly frustrating.

I’ll probably be playing Retaliation for a couple of days as thanks to slightly irritating staggered launch dates we don’t get XCOM and Dishonoured until Friday in the UK. Though Dishonoured looks deeply splendid in a Steampunk-Thief–Deus Ex-ish sort of way, with all the other games around at the moment I decided I’d only pick up one of the two big new games at launch, and the pre-order offers swung it. Dishonoured has (roughly) 904 different pre-order variants at different retailers offering slightly different perks, items and what-not; XCOM has, as far as I can make out, the same Elite Soldier Pack pre-order bonus everywhere, apart from Steam, which thanks to a curious tiered pre-order reward system also chucks in some TF2 bits, and a copy of Civilisation 5. As, shockingly, I don’t have Civ5 (absolutely loved the first game, back in the day, but just haven’t got around to any of the sequels), I figured I might as well go for that offer, making something of a mockery of the whole “too many games” business, but never mind. I’ve managed about four turns of Civ5 so far and really want to take a proper crack at it, should enough time somehow become available.

In readiness for XCOM I’ve been finishing off a run through Silent Storm: Sentinels, an excellent turn based tactical RPG in the mould of the original UFO: Enemy Unknown that recently became available on GOG.com It’s good stuff even if, like in the original, things go slightly downhill with the appearance of Panzerkleins. I don’t think I’m ready for the Ironman mode of XCOM with no reloading, though, I’ve been saving quite a lot during missions. Mostly when using grenades. Confronted with a basement full of enemy troops, a grenade seemed like the perfect solution, but a slight error in trajectory resulted in the grenadier lobbing the Mills bomb into the head of his own comrade, from which it bounced off, then detonated, taking out the three members of my squad storming down the staircase, the staircase itself, and most of the hallway and kitchen floor above, resulting in two more of my squad ending up in the cellar rather sooner than planned, slap bang in the firing line of four rather cross Hammer soldiers. That’ll be a reload, then…

I'm a Metastarter, Wicked Metastarter

Hey, you! Remember those games from when you were younger? They were brilliant, weren’t they? Especially that one, you know, the one that was totally your favourite and the best game ever, and you’d play it with your friends and times were simpler then and happier and the sun was brighter and the days lasted longer and everything was better not like these days I mean have you heard that modern music it’s all noises you can’t even hear the words and you wouldn’t dare go out on the streets after dark and you’re stuck in a dead end job and you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking racing around to come up behind you again the sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older shorter of breath and one day closer to death. If only games were like they used to be, everything would be better, but they don’t make games like that any more.

Or… do they? Through the power of Kickstarter a magic time tunnel has opened to the 1990s and every game you ever liked is getting a sequel, direct or spiritual, so KiaSA Productions are getting in on the act as well. Unfortunately we don’t have a solid pedigree of classic games to build on, so we’re launching a Kickstarter for Metastarter: The Nostalgia-Heavy Kickstarter RPG.

Create your party! Roll up a party of one to six game industry legends choosing from classes including Designer, Artist, Programmer, Composer, or advanced classes such as the Maverick Genius who receives a boost to the Add Innovative Features skill, but suffers a constant Wild Overpromise debuff.

Select your portfolio! Make deep tactical choices as you select the back catalogue of your team; did they produce a couple of mega-hits, or a long running series that was generally favourably received? Oddball cult favourites, or lots of mainstream sales but little longevity? With a limited number of Cachet Points you’ll have tough decisions to make.

Get Kickstarting! Once the team is assembled select a classic game genre that’s far less popular these days, and launch your Kickstarter! Set a target amount, create a promotional video, decide whether to include ‘A Secret Moonbase (on the actual moon) For All Players’ as a $2.4 billion Stretch Goal, and watch the money roll in!

Launching the Kickstarter campaign is just the beginning of Metastarter, though; fight for industry press coverage, try and create a buzz via social media, deal with trolls who still hold grudges over a patch that fixed an exploit on one of the team’s previous games in 1994, face the logistical issues of shipping the $417 reward level unique limited edition hand-drawn commemorative tea-towel and napkin set around the world, can you beat the $3,336,371 top score? Find out, in Metastarter: The Nostalgia-Heavy Kickstarter RPG, not coming soon to Kickstarter or any other crowdfunding platform!

Also be sure to look out for the sequel, Releasing A Kickstarted Game To Inevitable Disappointment As Nothing Can Possibly Live Up To The Idealised Perfection Fans Have Had In Their Heads For The Last Ten Years, due in 12-18 months!

Mounting fury over lack of Mists of Pandaria backlash

IRVINE, CA — Fans of massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft are disappointed and angry that new expansion Mists of Pandaria has caused little disappointment or anger in the wider gaming community. Two full days have passed since release and the expansion has racked up a paltry 15 one-star reviews on amazon.com, a far cry from the triple-digit numbers hoped for. “I just don’t understand it” said keen WoW player Ian Keenwowplayer; “after the rage that greeted the announcement of Pandaria at Blizzon 2011 I was sure we were in for a maelstrom of all-caps fury, but it’s been a real let-down. My speciality is to instantly leap upon any mention of the movie Kung Fu Panda and point out that Pandaran in Warcraft lore pre-date the film by many years in a highly detailed argument with extensive annotation and footnotes. I was there at midnight on Reddit and in the general chat channel with a paste buffer full of quotes from tie-in novels, but had no need to deploy them. I had to actually play the game in the end.”

Blizzard spokesperson Ian Spokesperson tried to put a brave face on the reception, pointing out page after page of incoherent forum rants with random capitalisation, bizarre punctuation and highly innovative approaches to spelling the word “ridiculous”, but under questioning was forced to admit that the forums were always full of incoherent rants, and nothing had really changed since the expansion apart from a rise in accusations of Blizzard “panda-ing” to the lowest common denominator of their player base. Studies have yet to determine whether the majority of authors are making deliberate puns on the homophones “panda” and “pander”, or idiots.

In a bid to understand the lack of reaction we reached out to the Deputy Chairman of the National League of Angry Bloggers and Union of Really Quite Cross Online Commenters, Ian Deputychairmanofthenationalleagueofangrybloggersandunionofreallyquitecrossonlinecommenters. “It’s just been a really busy year”, he said. “We’ve had to be unnecessarily disparaging about Star Wars: The Old Republic, TERA, Diablo III and The Secret World, not to mention assorted updates and expansions. Guild Wars 2 is currently taking a massive amount of effort to tell everyone just how little we care about it, and how boring it is. It’s hard to keep up the sustained levels of bile and hatred that’s expected, especially when you factor in news of disappointing sales and job losses to be repugnantly gleeful over.” He also feels that the really big triple-A campaigns like that for Mass Effect 3 are having a damaging effect overall, setting unreasonable expectations. “People don’t understand the resources needed for something like that, I mean to be so tenaciously insane over something so inconsequential, we just can’t manage that for every release. We still have members searching out any story related to Bioware, EA, or the words “Mass” or “Effect” and posting furious comments, we’re not expecting them to be available for unwarranted abuse about other games before 2015. You know, we try a bit of fast-turnaround small-team abuse, but people see a couple of ‘OMG THIS GAEM SUX’ user comments on metacritic, they’re just not interested, they’re all ‘where is the nineteen page deconstruction of every quote ever made by any person connected with the game in an interview, where is the personal abuse on Twitter’, that sort of stuff takes time, you know?”

In a bid to pacify the increasingly angry Blizzard fanbase, Mr Deputychairmanofthenationalleagueofangrybloggersandunionofreallyquitecrossonlinecommenters agreed to launch an exclusive attack on Mists of Pandaria. “Erm, it’s really stupid” he ranted “like, uh, that movie with… y’know… the voice of the guy from School of Rock and… yeah, Kung Fu Panda, that’s it”.

“Oh really?” he continued “Originally seen in The Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft III in 2003, five years before the film? No, I didn’t know that. Yeah, that’s fascinating, really… look, I’ve got a bus to catch, yeah? OK, great, you send me the scans of all the comic panels that included or referenced Pandaren together with the fan-fiction they spawned, yup, I’ll definitely be on the lookout for that, I really do need to be going though, OK?”

Hobby Corner

Greetings, hobby idiots! It is I, Simon Quinlank, Earl of Hobbies and Margrave of Pastimes. I have seized control of this blog in order to bring my latest hobby to you. This hobby is called Recreating The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports Within A Different Game, and it is a good hobby. For this hobby, you will need:

1. A passing familiarity with The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports. If you do not possess a passing familiarity with The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports, you may obtain one by playing The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports, specifically the Skeet Shooting event. If you do not possess The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports you may emulate it using the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator, but only if you completely legally possess the ROM and do not illegally download it at all. Other methods of gaining a familiar level of familiarity with The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports include “watching” a “videographic recording” on “You Tube”, or remembering the BBC television quiz show “First Class” hosted by Debbie Greenwood. I am going to remember the BBC television quiz show First Class hosted by Debbie Greenwood.
2. A Different Game. There are many computer games, of which some are not The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports. You shall require one of these. I am going to use the computer game Borderlands 2. This is a good game, even though it was not featured in the BBC television quiz show “First Class” hosted by Debbie Greenwood. Neil Petark claims that Borderlands 2 did feature in the BBC television quiz show “First Class” hosted by Debbie Greenwood, but he is wrong. He is probably thinking of GamesMaster hosted by Dominic Diamond.
3. A flask of weak lemon drink.

You may drink your weak lemon drink now, or save it until later. I shall drink mine now while thinking of Debbie Greenwood hosting the BBC television show “First Class”. Hello, Debbie Greenwood. Would you like some weak lemon drink? ANSWER ME!

Next, start playing Borderlands 2. In order to Recreate The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports Within Borderlands 2, you will need a shotgun. For the most accurate recreation this should be a shotgun with a two-round magazine, but other shotguns may be used if you are a second-rate hobbyist not dedicated to accurate recreation, such as Neil Petark. Once you have a shotgun, you will need to locate a Bullymong Slinger. These can be found in many of the early zones of Borderlands 2. Approach the Bullymong Slinger, and say these words that I will now write down: “Hello Bullymong Slinger! My name is Simon Quinlank and I am Recreating The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports Within A Different Game. I require that you fling objects such that I can shoot them from the air using this shotgun!” (Note that at the point I said “Simon Quinlank” you should say instead your own name, for you are not Simon Quinlank, unless your name is Simon Quinlank, but it is not, for I am Simon Quinlank.)

The Bullymong should then commence the flinging of objects. It may have commenced the flinging of objects even before you started speaking to it, demonstrating an admirable zeal for the hobby of Recreating The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports Within A Different Game. Granted, it is flinging boulders directly at you, instead of hurling clay pigeons in front of you, but I deem this to be close enough to count as a successful hobby. Now you must shoot them, with your shotgun! BANG! BANG! Do you see? Then, reload the shotgun as more projectiles are hurled. Then, shoot the projectiles, BANG! BANG! Then, reload the shotgun. Continue until you run out of ammunition, become bored, or die. Congratulations! You have Recreated The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports Within A Different Game. You may now select another different game in which to Recreate The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports, or you may return to your weak lemon drink. I am going to return to my weak lemon drink. Hello, Debbie Greenwood, did you enjoy my Recreation of The Skeet Shooting Event From The 1984 Konami Arcade Game Hyper Sports Within A Different Game? OF COURSE YOU DID!

If the tanks succeed, then victory follows

The old MMO “trinity” has been flexing somewhat of late, what with the skill wheel of The Secret World, the everybody-heals classes of Guild Wars 2 and three player instances in World of Warcraft amongst other developments. Inspired by Tobold’s post title, Playing without a tank, I thought I’d conduct an experiment, and refuse to either play or group with a tank in a game for a week to see what happens.

In hindsight, though, World of Tanks might not have been the best choice of game…

I cross the void beyond the mind

I’ve worked out who I am in Skyrim. Let’s examine the evidence:

• Mysterious stranger
• Followed by a frequently changing companion
• Interferes in the business of anyone and everyone
• Opens a lot of locks

I’m obviously an incarnation of The Doctor. My general approach to the game is entirely consistent with that, constantly being distracted by new and shiny things (not to mention dressing Lydia in Forsworn Armor and calling her Leela all the time):

“Of course, Jarl, I shall immediately go to this remote monastery you speak of, many miles away, to learn more. Come on, Leela!”
“It’s Lydia”
“That’s what I said. To the monastery, allons-y!”

Two minutes out of town…

“Ooh, a cave, I wonder what’s in there?”
“Shouldn’t we be going to the monastery, my Thane?”
“I told you to call me Doctor. Anyway, what monastery? Look, a chest! Quick zap of the old soni…lockpick, and, ooh, a Steel Helm of Fire Resistance. I wear a Steel Helm of Fire Resistance now. Steel Helms of Fire Resistance are cool.”

There is one tiny difference: The Doctor is famous for his aversion to weapons and pursuit of non-violent solutions to conflict, whereas in extreme circumstance, if pushed, I will sometimes wield a sword. And an axe. And a couple of daggers. And stab unsuspecting bandits in the back. Or shoot them with a bow. Or cast an assortment of fireballs, lightning and ice shards. Hey, nobody’s perfect…