Darklord Rooke

Feel free to use one of these *Tiptoes quietly away*

Re: the idea that Larian and Obsidian only used Kickstarter once - So Rayark uses kickstarter all the time, do they? If not, then why are you introducing this point in this topic? It's irrelevant. But let's quickly address the issue of using kickstarter 'all the time.' Harebrained Studios have kickstartered 4 of their last 5 games: Shadowrun, Hong Kong, their board game, and their most recent kickstarter, Battletech. Battletech just received 2.8 million dollars last month after asking for $250,000. Also, Harebrained Studios are beloved to the fanbase. Kickstarter isn't about a way to 'finish games', it's a way to raise money to produce a game. Obsidian, Larian, Black Isle weren't looking to rebuild their brand but were looking for a way to fund their game. Of those 3 studios, only Larian had begun the process of buiding their game before they headed to kickstarter.

It's also what Obsidian studios, Larian studios, and Black Isle studios did to turn a previously dead genre into a golden age of RPG gaming. So I fully reject your assertion that companies using kickstarter is automatically a 'bad thing.'

Cartagra? I'm not familiar with the VN industry in Japan, so this is just an educated guess. Didn’t cost as much to make, no voice acting, fewer words, fewer visuals, means you don’t need to have as many people purchase the game, means you don’t have to be as safe as companies today tend to be, means you got more variety and/or experimental weird stuff.

No.

I would like to make it 100% clear. When I liked Tay's post, I'm indicating my happiness, and delight that several days of data (and likes ho ho) was lost, not my happiness that Tay spent so long trying to recover everybody's likes Thank you for the hard work Tay, we all appreciate it. My sympathies to everybody who's lost so many, many likes during this terrible event

Copy and pasting from word. The default forum text colour is a weird one which seems to shift depending on which theme you use. Word used a black font though, which makes the words darker when using the Fuwafabulous theme and impossible to read without highlighting on Dark or Temporal.

Gate Overlord Monster Musume That's... pretty much the only series I enjoyed.

I'll check it out the minute a) it develops a plot (which would undoubtedly be due to mystic devilry) and b) gravity reverses and we all start drifting upward.

A lot of women just laugh it off as male chauvinism, but racism has the potential to be utterly explosive atm.

It's fake.

The new Star Wars is a welcome return to form without progressing things a whole deal. But it's real good and if you're a fan of the series you'll enjoy it. It blows away the prequels while not quite matching the peaks of the original trilogy.

Baldur's Gate. http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Minsc

Schwarzritter. Hence the incredibly imaginative nickname someone clearly spent a whole 2 seconds thinking up.

SolidBatman would also like to volunteer, he's just too busy to come on and say so.

This is a pretty good idea -> incentive to pledge more money. On the other hand, you have to be careful not to inflate costs too much. Tricky balance, good luck , you're 35% of the way there.

You mean that incredibly long period of nothingness at the beginning of most VNs doesn't generate universal excitement? This is my surprised face

Koestl really brings out the character's personalities. He's ensured it's a really engaging romp. I don't like dark, heavy stories either, but I've been told Gahkthun isn't or I wouldn't be reading it. Of course, it's possible I've been LIED to by fiendish fiends

An excellent game being translated by one of the community's premier translators and there's almost zero hype being generated. This makes me sad

People in this thread are confusing 'remake' with 'remastered' - 'remastered' means keeping the game the same and just updating sound and graphics, on the other hand 'remakes' can end up being significantly different from the original. For example, note that Grandia 2 was a 'remaster.' Also the original FF7 is still on Steam for those who want to reminisce about the days when Square produced good games. Episodic may be good or bad, by itself it doesn't actually say much. There's no reason it can't be done in RPGs but it all depends on whether it's done well. Updating the battle system, well, JRPGs have stagnated to bad results and companies are desperately searching for ways to appeal to the modern gamer. Square-Enix is a mainstream RPG company and so they need to make JRPGs relevant to mainstream fans, I can understand why they're doing this. For a company who's last good game was in the PS2 era, remaking a fan favourite to this extent is a pretty ballsy move. If they stuff this up they likely won't be forgiven Anyway, I'm much more interested in FF15. I mean, we've only been waiting for it for a decade, and FF7 probably won't come out anytime soon anyway.

There’s nothing wrong with recognising the fact that some stuff is too niche to really succeed down normal publication routes. You bring up MG but it took many years, and a focus on mainly nukige titles, to actually bring some amount of stability to the company. And even then Steam probably changed the game for them. Sekai's going for a faster growth, but doesn't want to adopt as much risk. You may not like them shedding their responsibility of risk-taking, but others are fine with it. The idea that using Crowdfunding every time is wrong is actually a statement that is quite wrong (ignoring the fact that this is based all on perspective.) I'll go into a bit of detail below. People use kickstarter because creating ambitious games (most of the time) costs money (the quality of Indie games has increased dramatically since Kickstarter.) People fund companies on kickstarter because people recognise that ambitious games (most of the time) costs money. They want this quality and they are willing to pay to get it. People also realise that traditional means of publications are not always the best sources of revenue generation for niche games. There is nothing wrong with this, it’s a statement of fact. The top-down isometric RPG has been revived via Kickstarter, and yet Spiderweb studios was happily succeeding in this space beforehand. The fact that Spiderweb studios was succeeding in this space doesn't negate the arguments that Kickstarter has rejuvenated that sector, or that the general rule has been 'it's virtually impossible to get an isometric CRPG published via normal channels.' Many people who are anti-kickstarter don't have the benefit of being a hardcore fan of a genre which was dead for a decade, and only recently revived (in dramatic fashion) because of Kickstarter. I keep telling people, become a fan of a genre of games which are extinct, hang around for a decade with nothing new to play, then witness Kickstarter result in multiple, high quality releases for the first time in God knows how long, and maybe your perspective may change on the issue. I'll bring up Harebrained Studios again, Harebrained Studios has used Kickstarter 3 or 4 times, but people don't care. Because of them, we're going to get a turn-based, mouth watering, strategic RPG with mechs set in the classic Battletech setting. They wouldn't have been able to create such a game without kickstarter because the audience they're targeting doesn't generate enough sales for them to create such games. That doesn't mean they've failed as a company, and in fact, Harebrained studios is one of the beloved Indies of the RPG industry. And the RPG fanbase definitely don't consider them 'dishonest.' So continual use of Kickstarters is not 'wrong' at all. It depends on the circumstances. It doesn't mean every company who continually uses Kickstarter is a totally cool company, but I haven't really seen actual logical arguments as to why this kickstarter (for an excellent all-ages VN) is 'the work of the Devil.' I see a lot of people trotting out the same, tired, Kickstarter lines though. Sekai produces 18+ versions of their games of DP. Furthermore, all ages is becoming a thing more because of Steam than Kickstarter. SP should have released their 18+ versions quicker, no doubt about that, but you can't say that they aren't there. The fact that there are versions which are censored shouldn't concern you when there is the option to purchase the 18+ version. Everybody has their unique thought and perspectives on things, and if they wish to purchase an all-ages version then that is their prerogative. They may be getting an incomplete version of the game, but that's their choice. Killing it? Hyperbole. I'd love to hear the explanation for this. No actually, it isn't. And you're not entitled to nice things in the first place. I could say 'the fact that my neighbour is living means I can't have a 50 inch, ultra HD television set. That means my neighbour's health is my business because if he were to suddenly die in mysterious and violent circumstances then there would be nothing to stop me entering his house and taking it.' But there is, actually, a whole bunch of laws and social constructs. Your right to nice things comes provided it doesn't disrupt society's order, and you pretty much have no say on what people choose to spend their money on. And nor should you, because that opens a Pandora's box you really don't want to go down.

That void you're feeling, people usually try and fill that with food. It's a nutritious way of dealing with feelings of emptiness, loss, pain, regret, failure, etc etc. It's why everybody's so healthy.

And yet we are constantly bombarded with examples of successful Kickstarters that do not follow this simple rule. Harebrained studios kickstarter’d Shadowrun, Shadowrun Hong Kong, and now the very exciting new Battletech game. Kickstarter is a patronage system, and people don’t get to limit what can and can’t be done with that system merely because certain acts offends their particular sense of morals. In other words, if other people want to spend their money supporting these companies and you don’t approve, that’s really none of your business. I will say this though, if you think developers will only need assistance on their first ambitious startup, then I think you have a fairly limited experience of the development world. If that were the case, people would have no need for Publishers. JAST finances their stuff through J-List. MG took a long time to get to their current, stable position.

There's no logical reason to hate Kickstarter here. If you don't like its use, don't contribute.

Not harsh at all, it's a fair score and a lot of good points were raised. At the end of the day Ever 17 is fairly overrated imo, and like you mentioned it has some real pacing and atmosphere building issues among other things.