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Author Topic: When Kickstarter goes wrong?  (Read 678665 times)

MrWiggles

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2760 on: September 15, 2014, 08:10:30 pm »

After looking at the reward tiers. A lot these seem to have need a limit count. Like for instance, how copies of the OST for the first pokemon movie do they have? And for their sakes, I'm going to assume its in good enough condition to burn onto a computer. How many pokeballs do they have?

Why do I need to donate 25 bucks to get weekly updates? If I donated a dollar, I am at least a bit interested.
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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2761 on: September 16, 2014, 09:41:52 am »

and the various programs they want, are, to my understanding, all legit prices

Question:
Why do they need....
  • Dreamweaver (this is an HTML editing program)
  • Flash and FlashBuilder (they're doing a live action film, not 10 minute cell shaded animation, plus both of these do the same thing)
  • Illustrator (2D vector graphics for print)
  • Fireworks (image editing for websites)
  • InDesign (design and layout for print)
  • Lightwave and Maya and CINEMA 4D (all of these do the same thing)
They also don't have a compositing software suite.  Like, at all.  Unless one of their video editing programs can do it, they're going to have trouble.  Nuke is a program that all it does is compositing (and does it very well) and costs several thousand dollars.  Photoshop ain't gonna cut it.
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Squeegy

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2762 on: September 16, 2014, 09:50:15 am »

I'm a little worried about my upcoming Kickstarter, but I'm comforted by the thought that it can't be worse than these.
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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2763 on: September 16, 2014, 10:17:50 am »

I'm a little worried about my upcoming Kickstarter, but I'm comforted by the thought that it can't be worse than these.

Protip: does anyone aside from you, the people you're working with, close friends and relatives know you're working on a project that will be on Kickstarter "soon"?

If not, get some.  Kickstarter is not when you do your advertising campaign.  Start the advertising first and tell people "hey, follow my progress at [blog/facebook/wherever] and when the Kickstarter goes live, you'll see it there."

Get the enthusiasic following first, put it on Kickstarter later.  Unless you get picked up by some super popular unrelated media person, no one will see your Kickstarter, and it will fail.
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Squeegy

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2764 on: September 16, 2014, 10:40:46 am »

Yes, I'm rather aware of that. I'm weighing my options, but I don't really have a lot of connections and obviously I don't have money to spend on advertising. I'm hoping to have everything sorted out within a month and be ready to go live. In the meantime, you can check it out if you like.
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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2765 on: September 16, 2014, 11:29:10 am »

Yes, I'm rather aware of that. I'm weighing my options, but I don't really have a lot of connections and obviously I don't have money to spend on advertising. I'm hoping to have everything sorted out within a month and be ready to go live. In the meantime, you can check it out if you like.

Aside from having run into a couple of guys who did something like this before--the name of their game escapes me, I spent all of about an hour seated next to them at a convention*--I'm a little bothered by the "statless system" that still has...well...stats.  In order for things like a bell curve of success to be meaningful, the character needs to have some kind of recorded statistic that indicates how that bell curve applies to them.  If they were a baker before being drafted, then their skill at Bakery should succeed more often than their skill at Archery (which they've never done before).  And the only way to model that is through stats.  Anyway, you haven't explained how your statless system accurately models medieval combat using the vague mechanics presented.  For the roleplaying crowd, this kind of thing is important to them when examining a new system.

On money:
Indicate some rough budget that indicates how the indicated goal value will be used.  A "40% of the money goes towards art, 10% towards Kickstarter fees, 25% towards xyz" etc.  It doesn't need to be a perfect breakdown, but there are some known costs and figures that can be represented.  The rest can be approximated.  People aren't interested in knowing that the cover is going to be commissioned for "$600" while interior images will be "$120 each," just that "Y percent will go towards art."  People backing a project want to see that you've at least picked a reasonable goal and that the costs you've put forward are reasonable.

Beyond that, you're going to encounter sheer resistance just in the market you're trying to penetrate: Dungeons & Dragons dominates the table-top roleplaying market.  Each step down the popularity ladder is something like one fifth as large as the one above it.  And there's a reason for this: it is incredibly difficult to get a gaming group to try a new system and these crowds are incredibly stingy with their cash, unwilling to invest in a system that they cannot or will not play.  I've been trying for months, almost a year now, to get my group to try a game of Our Last Best Hope.

Yes, you're aiming this for an online crowd, but even so, it is just as difficult to get a group together for an online, realtime, game as it is for an in-person game.  As evidenced by the GURPS game I'm a part of.  The GM had to cancel for this coming Saturday due to work being a bunch of incompetent morons, several people have issues with next Saturday.  It's already been 2 weeks since the last game, going out another week to Oct 4th makes it five weeks between sessions.  If you're aiming for play-by-post, your style of game is not condusive to it: combat in a play-by-one-post-a-day is generally either non existent or resolved in around three posts (attack, counter, cleanup) so that the story--the part everyone's there for--can continue in a timely manner.

*He did explain their hit-location system though, which was pretty cool, and even demonstrated how you could hit someone's lower back using a sword and attacking from their front.  It's basically momentum of a 'missed' swing passing over the shoulder and coming down against the back, with a slice as the attacker pulls back to a guard position again.
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Parsely

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2766 on: September 16, 2014, 11:35:56 am »

Are you talking about statless systems in reference to Squeegy's Foot Soldiers..? Because IIRC Squeegy's got numbers and stats coming out of his ears. There's a good amount of stuff in that manual of his.
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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2767 on: September 16, 2014, 12:20:36 pm »

Are you talking about statless systems in reference to Squeegy's Foot Soldiers..? Because IIRC Squeegy's got numbers and stats coming out of his ears. There's a good amount of stuff in that manual of his.

Yes.

Quote
What is Foot Soldiers?
    Classless: In Foot Soldiers, you are not typecast. Like in real life, what you are good at is what you pursue, and no two characters must end up alike.
    Statless: Human beings are not defined by statistics, but the strength of their initiative, the skills they hone, and the favor of God.
    Accurate: The book includes a detailed description of the setting, written by a British archeologist, and the equipment is accurate to the time period.
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Parsely

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2768 on: September 16, 2014, 01:12:49 pm »

Are you talking about statless systems in reference to Squeegy's Foot Soldiers..? Because IIRC Squeegy's got numbers and stats coming out of his ears. There's a good amount of stuff in that manual of his.

Yes.

Quote
What is Foot Soldiers?
    Classless: In Foot Soldiers, you are not typecast. Like in real life, what you are good at is what you pursue, and no two characters must end up alike.
    Statless: Human beings are not defined by statistics, but the strength of their initiative, the skills they hone, and the favor of God.
    Accurate: The book includes a detailed description of the setting, written by a British archeologist, and the equipment is accurate to the time period.
This is my sheet from one of his Foot Soldiers games. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AniyPddpIU-sdFd2bHpwWlBtTWdzSUVoTUR0a1lrQUE&usp=sharing#gid=0

Those aren't stats? I've got attack/evasion dice, HP, XP, movement speed, weight, measured damage..
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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2769 on: September 16, 2014, 01:19:07 pm »

Then your description is wrong.  You, yourself, described the game as statless, which I quoted from your Kickstarter page.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2014, 01:20:39 pm by Draco18s »
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Parsely

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2770 on: September 16, 2014, 02:53:24 pm »

Then your description is wrong.  You, yourself, described the game as statless, which I quoted from your Kickstarter page.
I don't have a kickstarter, that belongs to Squeegy..
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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2771 on: September 16, 2014, 03:29:09 pm »

Sorry, yes. ::) Names come and go, sometimes.
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Squeegy

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2772 on: September 16, 2014, 05:04:22 pm »

Foot Soldiers does not have character statistics or "attributes" as they are sometimes called, e.g. STR, DEX, INT. This is the common definition of stats in RPGs, I wasn't aware people considered any numbers related to a character to be stats.

Anyway, you've hit on all sixes, but there's no way to break down the budget into percentages because while I have in mind some people I could contact to provide these services, I can't say for sure exactly how much they will cost. I don't know how much art I will need. I don't know how much it will cost, because prices vary based on complexity. I think that sort of decision is better left up to the graphic designer, who I am paying $100 to do a mockup of a sample page that could be from the final product as well as some title cards and Kickstarter graphics.

I've played Foot Soldiers in both real time and play by post. I've never heard of anyone condensing a battle into three posts (I think you may be overestimating how much your experience represents that of all RPG players). But I appreciate the feedback.
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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2773 on: September 16, 2014, 05:34:37 pm »

I've played Foot Soldiers in both real time and play by post. I've never heard of anyone condensing a battle into three posts (I think you may be overestimating how much your experience represents that of all RPG players). But I appreciate the feedback.

You're right here.  But for someone like me, at the table combat is fun and "social interaction" is hard.  But online, in either real time text or asynchronous text, combat is boring and slow, and "social interaction" is the meat I savor.

I've done incredibly little play-by-post, mostly because the game collapses less than a dozen posts in between 5 people.  But I can't imagine how a typical combat (that I'm used to with minis) could ever be done reasonably on a forum.
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MarcAFK

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #2774 on: September 17, 2014, 07:30:06 am »

I've been thinking about what happens to forum based roleplaying,it might be interesting to have a forum dedicated specifically to roleplaying, where the gamemaster has a host of options to use the forum itself to keep track of stats, maps, inventories etc.
Having some of this stuff automated or at least handled by software would free up the gamemasters time to concentrate on the plot and roleplaying, having a chat applett built into the thread might help keep the game in order too.

Edit: It might be possible to set things up so that the whole game doesn't grind down to a miserable halt in the event of a single person being unavailable for a few days. It's not the end of the world if a single player isn't able to participate in combat, they could return after a few days and add their input to events that have passed, add their own flavour and roleplay etc.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2014, 07:33:05 am by MarcAFK »
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