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[Draco18s]

Kobolds are also quite scary when you give them magic items.  Ring of invisibility, wand of giant strength, diving might, lightning...

And there are rules for kobolds using the latent powers of their dragon blood. They can be quite entertaining. Not just level 1 creeps.

It's also hilarious when they throw an instant fortress at the heroes, and then rush inside and start firing hexes from behind impenetrable walls.

[Sharp]

None of that is unique to Dwarf Fortress of course, but it'd be nice to see this game go off on its own a bit more. Or at least put a unique spin on everything, kind of how DF Elves are decidedly not your standard Fantasy elves, even if they share some similar characteristics.

I dunno, it's pretty standard of having elves be tree-huggers, really the only difference would be the eating people after battle and is that such a big difference really?

[Niveras]

There was an old idea of a DF-like themed around illithids, completely with an elder brain (DK-style) to feed and thralls. Now that would be a kickstarter I'd support, even if mechanics-wise it turn out to be pretty close to DK/DF.

I don't know why all these fort-sim games theme around dwarves. Whether drawing inspiration from DF or trying to leech some popularity, or maybe just a completely coincidental and independent development of a similar theme, it's somewhat disturbing that the people trying to make all these games can't come up with a slightly different flavour. At least Gnomoria has gnomes, and that steampunk cult game has steampunk and cults.

That said, I'm okay with DwarfCorp being dwarves - at least so long as it actually turns out to be decent. I just wish there was more variety in these things.

[woosholay]

At least Gnomoria has gnomes, and that steampunk cult game has steampunk and cults.

i need a name for that

[hemmingjay]

I believe he may be refering to Cult:|The Awakening which was renamed to Empyrea: The vapor( I kid, I kid. Sort of)

[Mephansteras]

Sounds more like Clockwork Empire to me.

[Niveras]

Yeah, Clockwork Empires is the one I was thinking of.

I don't think Empyrea has much steampunk.

[guessingo]

makes you wonder how much toady could get with a kickstarter... $100k+ probably. Could call it 'toady needs medical insurance'.

[hemmingjay]

Toady could raise well over $1million if he were to promise converting the game to 3d graphical. In fact, if AlexPoysky and I were to combine our talents and connections we could probably get just shy of $3 million dollars. DF has a huge footprint on the internet, beyond this forum and indeed beyond gamers alone. There is a crowd who sees the inherent art created in DF as well as the various academia interests. The problem being, I doubt Toady would ever have interest in such an undertaking. I am also pretty sure he would have to work with a team and I don't know that he could work in that setting at this point.

[10ebbor10]

IIRC, Toady was got a 6 digit offer just for the right to use the game's name. Not sure though.

[hemmingjay]

I ended up pbacking them to be supportive and today received an update that follows below. It seems they were not very impressed with us here at B12.

http://www.dwarfcorp.com/site/2013/08/27/kickstarter-postmortem/#comment-172

[Shadow Creator]

It seems like your very well written and polite comment on their site regarding the Post Mortem has prompted them to take it down for the time being while they redo it. They had already removed their post prior to taking the whole page down before I got a chance to see what was written but if it was negative at least it looks like it is being corrected.

May there be peace between the dwarven clans.

[hemmingjay]

Well, to be honest they had insulted Reddit and Bay 12 while also mentioning how everyone else on the planet was to blame for their short comings during their campaign on KS. They also blasted a good portion of their supporters who were confused by their reward structure(it was not very clear, even by their own admission) by mocking their simple questions and poor English. My concern over their ability to complete the project on such a small budget while also working on their own jobs and dissertation was not only well founded, but just the tip of the iceberg. They also outed our good friends at Towns by saying they wanted to use DwarfCorp engine for Towns 2, which to my knowledge wasn't even public information yet. 

For those that don't know, they apparently decided to delay the project for 9 months after getting the funding. I believe they also offered refunds for anyone who didn't want to wait, but I never received that message.

[Draco18s]

*stuff*

First off, Reddit is like that.  The project I worked on was reluctant to go to Reddit for the very reason they highlighted.  Posting about our own project and including any kind of "we're doing a Kickstarter" was going to be negatively received, and we knew this.  In the end, I don't think we even tried.  We had similar results with various other review sites and reviewers.  Every email we sent out had zero response.  The only review that was done was done by a handful of nobodies and I think the video got 12 views.  I guarantee six of them were from my group.

Second, Bay12 had been supporting them and now isn't.  They know exactly when it was that everyone from here pulled out.  I think we are well deserving of the scathing remarks made about us.

Third, confusing reward tiers are inevitable on Kickstarter.  The project I worked on went through a massive early-days email blast campaign to get people to switch from [original phrasing] of a reward to [updated phrasing] just to clarify an ambiguity.  In the end one of those reward tiers ended up with the old phrasing anyway (probably through error on my part due to the two rewards looking almost identical and telling people to switch the wrong way).  That entire process took over a week and my group went to extraordinary efforts to get the text clarified in the reward listing itself.

Fourth, delays happen.  Our project was so much of a pipedream that in our wildest imaginations we were only looking at $20k.  We got $40k.  It's been over a year since our initial estimate of reward delivery and its still not shipped yet.  DwarfCorp's delay?  PhD or DwarfCorp.  That's a big choice to make.  Cancel what is turning out to be a successful project or give up on their degrees.

Fifth, don't doubt the (in)ability of people to type emails and comments.  While I have no explicit example from my own experience, I am almost sure that the quotes they used were copy and pasted.  They might not be and instead be paraphrasing several similar emails, some poorly written, others not, but all giving the same overall feeling to the developer: "You're shit for making your game."  Our group has received nothing but praise and we don't even know why.  Everyone loves our game, everyone.*  But ours isn't based on anything, inspired by anything, or remotely similar to anything.  It's just a random collection of sleep-deprived ideas and witty text thrown on paper at 2am with some gameplay thrown in to keep things organized.  But I can see the backlash that is possible for being ever so slightly similar to another game, where all people can do is say "oh it's [other game] but not."  Anyone remember Terraria?  "It's Minecraft, but 2D."

And no.  I'm not a rabid fanboy.  I pledged $10 in the last days knowing full well that I may be wasting my money on an ultimately doomed project.

But I was ok with that, because it might turn out well.  Couldn't possibly be worse than this book I got from one Kickstarter.  Ugh.  It's been non-stop chase scenes with no one telling the main character anything about why they're running away from the freakishly strong bad guy.  I can't read any more of it, it's just so...pointless.  Honest to god the author pulled a "Bet you $100 you will believe me before you leave" and lost to the main character (as neither he nor the reader learned a damn thing about what's going on).

*Yet no one has commented on the pictures I posted from us not-winning an award for it.  I am surprised and saddened.  I dressed up as a mother fucking dinosaur for a black tie event.

[forsaken1111]

Kickstarter campaigns troubles? Lets insult our supporters!