Originally posted by stori11

This is just ludicrous. They have a kickstarter, with a goal of 1 milion dollars. Now knowing kickstarter it might go beyond that, if they are lucky they will end up with maybe 2x the amount of money they asked for. But its not enough, they want you to pay a subscription, starting in beta, purchase the game AND there will be micro transactions after release. I know the micro transactions and kickstarter are both optional, but bear with me. Than go look at their webside, clicky on investors. They are on top of it all looking for investors willing to give ATLEAST 100 thousand dollars in investment. What the fuck do they need all that money for? I can't help but feel like they are trying to milk people for money, before the game even comes out on top of it. Now I don't know anything about mmorpg development and what not, but this all looks least to say very suspicious.

 

Also their kickstarter bonuses and all that already to me looks like a shop with micro-transactions, except the products you purchase will come after a couple of years.

 

Also to the poster above, its not early enrollment, its beta. While they promised to have all the bugs ironed out before the paid beta, all the bugs they can iron out obviously, they do say that most features will be added during the beta and they will be using it to balance out the game. So that is not early enrollment, its a bug-free beta. But since it will be missing features it still is nothing more than beta.

 Be realistic. they have 5 days left and are only at 66% of their goal. On average they are bringing in less then 30k a day.  Even if they get a HUGE increase on the last day they will be lucky to make their goal. (they made 660k in the first 25 days and need 340k more in the next 5 for goal as of this post) 

Originally posted by Kabaal
It already sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen. Kickstarter itself is in it's infancy and nothing but a gamble right now, to add a subscription for the beta really is taking the biscuit.

 Every game put out currently by the Big name companies (SoE, Blizzard, EA/Bioware) is a gamble IMHO, and most of them

require a subscription or preorder to beta (GW2's case)

  Always much more fun to complain about poor games made by clueless Suites at the big developers, and the general lack of sandbox games then to actually take a chance on something new right? 

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by Kabaal
It already sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen. Kickstarter itself is in it's infancy and nothing but a gamble right now, to add a subscription for the beta really is taking the biscuit.

 Every game put out currently by the Big name companies (SoE, Blizzard, EA/Bioware) is a gamble IMHO, and most of them

require a subscription or preorder to beta (GW2's case)

  Always much more fun to complain about poor games made by clueless Suites at the big developers, and the general lack of sandbox games then to actually take a chance on something new right? 

You can't really compare the two. When you pay a big name company for a game there is a guarantee you'll get said game and none of them that i've ever seen have required a sub during the beta, with kickstarter there's no guarantee the game will even make it to release. Projects by small companies shut down all the time, some restart back up and eventually complete but many don't even with investors. That's what i meant by a gamble, not that it's a gamble whether the games will be any good or not.

Kickstarter has yet to prove itself one way or the other which is why i think that then adding a subscription on top of that for the beta is dodgy as heck.

Unless you are content iwith the same old game with a fresh new skin you are going to need some way for new outfits to secure funding at startup. Bootstrapping is pretty much inadequate these days. If investors are unwilling to risk big money in innovative designs and there is no other way to fund, you will have nothing fresh and original.

I'd rather have a few gold nuggets mixed in with the pyrite in my pan than only the fool's gold of what we've been seeing from the already established companies. If we get a few really successful indie games maybe the big money will start to flow more freely for AAA companies and we will get some healthy diversity in their product portfolios again.

Keep in mind what they are shooting for here is early enrollment (they should have never used beta) is more like what you would see with a standard MMO launch where the majority of functionality is there, there may be some bugs but they are minimal and everything you do during early enrollment carries over to the released game.

The alpha period is going to be more like what you would see in a normal MMO beta where you are doing all the bug hunting.

The reason to get in on early enrollment is two fold:

1) Help build a strong community for the rest of the players to come

2) Help prioritize game changes/additions going forward as well as have input on how those changes/additions should work.

A perfect example of this is the capstones they were planning. This was an initial design to discourage multi-archetyping as being as powerful or more powerful then single archetyping. Now after much discussion from the community, with logical changes they've gotten rid of the capstone and now instead have a dedication system where the skills you slot, if all of the same archetype, give you a small bonus (to show your dedication to an archetype) but still give the flexability to multi-class if you wanted. Ie going from a limiting system to a more flexible system.

Originally posted by Kabaal
It already sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen. Kickstarter itself is in it's infancy and nothing but a gamble right now, to add a subscription for the beta really is taking the biscuit.

This link is a good update on Kickstarter MMORPGs at massively fyi: 2012: The year of the MMO Kickstarter

As for the Goblin Works: The CEO, COO and CTO all have some good business experience and mmorpg experience between them for eg: Ryan Dancey: 20 Questions with… Ryan Dancey from Goblinworks about Pathfinder Online

LDG: Mr. Dancey, many of your accomplishments in the past years have been behind the scenes of many people’s beloved games. Would you be so kind as to tell the audience a bit about those games, and their accomplishments?

Ryan Dancey: I co-created Legend of the Five Rings, make the joint venture between ISOMEDIA and AEG work to produce the Imperial Edition of that collectible card game, and got Five Rings Publishing Group created when we spun the game off into a stand-alone company.  At Five Rings Publishing I greenlit and oversaw the development of Doomtown, the Deadlands CCG, Legend of the Burning Sands, a second game set in the L5R world, Rage Relaunched under license from White Wolf, Dune, and the Star Trek Collectible Dice Game.

I was partially responsible for the deal that allowed Wizards of the Coast to acquire TSR, and Five Rings Publishing was acquired by Wizards of the Coast when it bought TSR.  At Wizards I greenlit BattleTech Commander’s Edition.  In 1998 I was asked to become the business manager for the tabletop RPG division, and the Dungeons & Dragons brand manager, and in 1999 I was named Vice President of that division.

My team was responsible for producing and marketing the third edition of D&D.  I developed the Open Gaming License, the D20 System Trademark License, the System Reference Document, and created the Open Gaming Foundation.  My team also licensed produced and marketed the Star Wars Roleplaying Game using the D20 mechanics.  We produced Pokemon Jr., the RPG with the biggest on-release unit sales in the history of the industry.  We produced and marketed the Dune RPG, the D20 Call of Cthulhu RPG, and the Wheel of TIme RPG.

After leaving Wizards of the Coast I started a company to provide organized play services to game publishers and worked as a consultant for large toy companies seeking to enter the hobby gaming market.

In 2007 I joined CCP Games, and lived in Reykjavik Iceland in 2008.  CCP is the developer and publisher of EVE Online, DUST 514 (now in beta), and World of Darkness, the MMO based on White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade.

It's a big confidence vote with KS. Also they have private funding: The current KS is for increasing the headcount from 11 upwards of 20 approx.

Originally posted by azzamasin
Friends don't let friends play indie.

Indie games are our only hope..

I will pay to beta this game.

Why?

Because the more money that can be provided this way (and kickstarter etc) the less they have to go to VCs and other heavy investors to secure, and the less influence those investors have on the game.

I personally will pay to support anything I want to believe in or want to see happen.

Subscriptions are for finished products and not in the works products.  Especially since they have nothing to show, everythings is talk and we all know that all talk is exactly what we'll get in the game...

If I was ever remotely intrested in the game, now I am waiting till launch.  Plenty of games out there that are finished products.  Kickstarter and investors should be more than enough for the game.  Charging subs for beta stages is just milking their consumers imo and serious question what the fundings are going to and if they are not giving themselves glorified paychecks.

Originally posted by Ambros123

Subscriptions are for finished products and not in the works products.  Especially since they have nothing to show, everythings is talk and we all know that all talk is exactly what we'll get in the game...

If I was ever remotely intrested in the game, now I am waiting till launch.  Plenty of games out there that are finished products.  Kickstarter and investors should be more than enough for the game.  Charging subs for beta stages is just milking their consumers imo and serious question what the fundings are going to and if they are not giving themselves glorified paychecks.

It's not Beta, it's Early Enrollment. Beta is either done for testing (it's origional use) or marketing (more modern use) purposes. Neither apply here. The game's going to be a fully tested product upon day 1 of Early Enrollment... at least as much as any MMO these days is on release. They don't really WANT a ton of marketing at this point as they are planning, the slow, phased build up of customer base (aka the Eve model) rather then the typical AAA of throw open the doors and get everyone in at once.

In fact, Early Enrollment is INVITE ONLY.....they are doing invites in batch'es of X number per month.... and I think running in that mode for 9-12 months before allowing open access.....at this point I think they are upto the 2nd month of batches for invites with the pledges. They are in business to make money...as everyone else in the MMO biz is...but if they really were just about taking the cash and running....they wouldn't be doing invite only and limiting invites per month....they'd just throw open the doors on day one and take cash from as many people as were willing to play. YMMV.

But no worries....when Early Enrollment opens up I'm sure you'll have plenty of opportunity to learn whether it's a quality product or not from people who are trying it out hands on. That's the real proof of anything....everything else (positive and negative) is just speculation.

I'm in, because A) I'm not hurting for cash  B) I'm really interested in the type of game they are making, an I don't see anyone else out there making it.... certainly not AAA publishers and C) The company that GoblinWorks is associated with is Paizo, they have a really, really solid reputation of treating thier fans/customers well and I doubt they'd be willing to tarnish it over something like this..... now if they had sold out to EA, it'd be a different story. YMMV.

Originally posted by Slapshot1188
I bit the bullet and pledged. It seems like the most legitimate option for a true fantasy sandbox with all the features I could ask for. I need to be in on day one to help shape this world.

Same here. If PfO can emulate what EVE has done but for fantasy it would be very cool - and be there at the beginning. It's a risk worth taking given I'm not playing/paying for a mmorpg atm or foreseeably.

Originally posted by Ambros123

Subscriptions are for finished products and not in the works products. 

Subs are for what ever the seller says they are for.

You as a consumer though can, of course, choose not to participate.

There are no cosmic laws or defintions in play here though.

In an era where games are moving to micro transactions and frequent DLC's this seems somewhat  archaic. I guess things might change in the next 18 months (or likely longer) when beta launches.

Cancer being taken to the next level and you people eat it up and smile.

Say the words out loud "Im going to pay for a beta sub" 3 times in the mirror. I dare you.

a lof of companies are charging for beta access these days.  i dont like it either.

saying that- both smite and path of exile, which i paid for beta access, within a few weeks of registereing with alternaive accounts, i got into beta for free - it does seem like once you register for beta, you will get in eventually - but instant access might cost a few bucks.  sounds fair, right ?  maybe.. ? 

Originally posted by Legere

a lof of companies are charging for beta access these days.  i dont like it either.

saying that- both smite and path of exile, which i paid for beta access, within a few weeks of registereing with alternaive accounts, i got into beta for free - it does seem like once you register for beta, you will get in eventually - but instant access might cost a few bucks.  sounds fair, right ?  maybe.. ? 

No.

A beta testing is a service we as gamers provide to a developer in return for a sneak peek at the game.

The VAST majority of mmo 'betas' have been either a marketing stunt or a scam.

I for one, put the '3rd party funtimes development' hatchet down, but its shit like this has got me thinking I might pick it back up again to teach the ever growing cancerous money grubbing usurpers that this shit wont fly.

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by Legere

a lof of companies are charging for beta access these days.  i dont like it either.

saying that- both smite and path of exile, which i paid for beta access, within a few weeks of registereing with alternaive accounts, i got into beta for free - it does seem like once you register for beta, you will get in eventually - but instant access might cost a few bucks.  sounds fair, right ?  maybe.. ? 

No.

A beta testing is a service we as gamers provide to a developer in return for a sneak peek at the game.

The VAST majority of mmo 'betas' have been either a marketing stunt or a scam.

I for one, put the '3rd party funtimes development' hatchet down, but its shit like this has got me thinking I might pick it back up again to teach the ever growing cancerous money grubbing usurpers that this shit wont fly.

i hear what youre saying, and a decade ago, maybe even half that, betas whas exactly that. however, in modern games, with the exclusion of the big shops lik blizzard, ncsoft etc, betas are being used as cash cows for early access