Originally posted by Dantae87
MMO players will fund anything they think is good even though in the end it will either turn out like shit or end up having to pay a sub fee even if they donated 5000 to a company to get them going....kickstarters r all scams to me. If you cant come up with the money like every other gaming company did in the past then dont bother trying to produce a game....

I would not be so hasty to call them all scams. There are quite a few out there that have unique ideas, skills and already polished games. 

But to sort the dirt rom the diamonds is not easy sometimes.

Originally posted by JayFiveAlive

Originally posted by taus01

I still don't like how Pathfinder tries to squeeze more and more money out of Kickstarter capmaigns essentially saying: "If you do not fund this next campaign all the money you already gave us is gone since we won't finish the game".

I am as skeptical as you, but Pathfinder never said that they wouldn't finish the game if it doesn't get backed/succeeds. They claim this 2nd kickstarter is simply to help them get extra funds to finish the game a year and a half-ish early. They have said over and over again that they will make PFO no matter what happens with their KS... just thought I should point that out :P

Yeah, good point. I remain skeptical though. Promises are broken as often as they are made. I think that the whole crowd funding is still in its teething process and it needs time to be refined. Kickstarter already changed some things and its surely not the end.

It's not only games, mind you. There are a lot of Dead on Arrival ( or even before ) hardware projects like the Ouya, that still have to proof that the trust given to them was not in vain.

Originally posted by Dantae87
MMO players will fund anything they think is good even though in the end it will either turn out like shit or end up having to pay a sub fee even if they donated 5000 to a company to get them going....kickstarters r all scams to me. If you cant come up with the money like every other gaming company did in the past then dont bother trying to produce a game....

Well i think the climate is a lot different than it used to be. You can't wow investors so easy by just saying "Massive Online Roleplaying Experience!" anymore. The market is a lot bigger, and the economy isnt the best. So naturally investors aren't taking risks.

Kickstarter is great for letting the fans decide if they want to take the risk. If one investor wont give them a million dollars on a chance at making more. But a million fans will give a dollar for the hopes of a great game. Then that is their risk to take and pretty cool if it actually pans out.

I do think there is a lot of abuse though, multiple kickstarters for one, and just everybody looking for a cash grab now.

I wouldn't mind seeing fans starting their own kickstarters. "Raise a million dollars to get housing in WoW" that would be priceless. Here you go Blizzard, now you can afford it.

Humm.. OK so you had Unity and went and bought a 99 dollar Hero Engine. WHY?

Now I suppose you're going to make this what seamless open world or something?

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by Fendel84M

umm...correct me if I'm wrong. But the guy who you are quoting isnt Jason Appleton...his username is JamesP suggesting his name is at least James.

I don't know because during the kickstarter campaign he used different alt accounts. Also he did not identify himself as to who he is. He might be one of the Developers, or an alt, or someone random. Who knows really...

Seems like a different guy, one of the coders on the team. Thats why he actually knows code...at least that does make sense.

If this game actually comes out, and all the land isn't already owned from IRL money. I might give it a shot. But it sounds like it might just be a bunch of people paying real money for in game land. Which doesn't sound like much fun.

I do apologize if it is a different guy, just ignore it and take it as a nice little information about your employer.

The only concept this game has is to sell land, much like Project Entropia which is a pyramid scheme game. New players feed the rich players and eventually quit after spending a few bucks because you can never reach the top or even profitable areas anymore.

People in games like that can only make money if someone else looses money. With the proposed 15% tax the developers want from re-selling property, they have to sell a lot of land plots and also tax crafting and items to make this even remotely profitable. It's simple math and if you would make a business plan you see very quickly that this revenue stream is very hard to establish and maintain.

wait so they switched to hero?? from unity which is a tad more easier to use if i understand it right O-o

i must wonder why switch the eng... :/ thats like starting out with unity and going to java... kinda silly to do but i guess as they dont really have much coded up its easier 

So clearly you don't like Jason Appleton or whatever his name is, which is fine. Noone said you had to. He apparently is not a programmer, and never claimed to be that I can see. Watched a couple of interviews - and he seems to be pretty open about his plans. 

I can't seem to bring myself to trash talk a guy who is trying to develop his dream game. I've always wanted to do the same thing and I am not a programmer. If I ever won the lottery, you can bet that i'll be creating my dream game as well. I would not learn programming to do it either. I would hire a staff to create the game world and lead the design team towards my creative ideas. 

You also complain about him buying up assets, likes on FB, and a game engine. I think it's important that you understand that these things are available for a reason. Hiring a graphic designer, level designer, etc is not even remotely cheap. Not to mention you're most likely going to need many of each. Is he trying to cut corners? Sure seems like it. My guess is he probably didn't win the lottery.

All I get from your rant is that you don't like this person. You have yet to show how this is a scam. If he is trying to bring in games that are influenced by games like Ultima Online.. then more power to this guy. I don't care if he can't program his remote control. All you really need is a good idea, and people to help you bring it to fruition. So while you continue to be a hater because you don't trust someone - I'll continue to support projects that people have dreamed about creating for years, and are now trying to make their dreams come true. 

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by Fendel84M

umm...correct me if I'm wrong. But the guy who you are quoting isnt Jason Appleton...his username is JamesP suggesting his name is at least James.

I don't know because during the kickstarter campaign he used different alt accounts. Also he did not identify himself as to who he is. He might be one of the Developers, or an alt, or someone random. Who knows really...

Seems like a different guy, one of the coders on the team. Thats why he actually knows code...at least that does make sense.

If this game actually comes out, and all the land isn't already owned from IRL money. I might give it a shot. But it sounds like it might just be a bunch of people paying real money for in game land. Which doesn't sound like much fun.

Yes I am NOT Jason. My name is James Proctor and I am the Lead Programmer on the team. 

Double post...

Originally posted by JamesP

Double post...

Lead Programmer double posting like a baws!

Originally posted by mcrippins

So clearly you don't like Jason Appleton or whatever his name is, which is fine. Noone said you had to. He apparently is not a programmer, and never claimed to be that I can see. Watched a couple of interviews - and he seems to be pretty open about his plans. 

>> I never even so much as hinted that i don't like him. I merely posted links to his own posts and blog entries, you make your own decision what you think about him.

I can't seem to bring myself to trash talk a guy who is trying to develop his dream game. I've always wanted to do the same thing and I am not a programmer. If I ever won the lottery, you can bet that i'll be creating my dream game as well. I would not learn programming to do it either. I would hire a staff to create the game world and lead the design team towards my creative ideas. 

>> Nothing wrong with being ambitious but if i read a sentence like this: "I’m opening a huge MMA & Fitness gym, I’m about to become a distributor for some Sexual Enhancement pills that work like crazy! I’m also teaching myself Objective-C programming while learning the Apple SDK and Interface Builder to create my own iPhone apps." I do start to wonder if this person is not over extending himself just a little. Especially if your one and only solution to all your ideas is: "I would like to establish a team of the most intelligent and moral people I can find, lock ourselves in a room and not come out until every major issue has been addressed and resolved and turn the world around".

Sure you can just go, hire a bunch of people to do all the work for you, however that rarely if ever works if you have no experience or prior knowledge in the field. It's just not going to happen.

You also complain about him buying up assets, likes on FB, and a game engine. I think it's important that you understand that these things are available for a reason. Hiring a graphic designer, level designer, etc is not even remotely cheap. Not to mention you're most likely going to need many of each. Is he trying to cut corners? Sure seems like it. My guess is he probably didn't win the lottery.

 I am not complaining, again i am just pointing out that all he showed was premade assets and that he had no knowledge in game design, showing posts of him asking the most basic questions in the Unity Forums. He has no knowledge about the Unity Engine or anything remotely connected to gaming except that he plays games. He clearly has no knowledge about game design or how to setup a distributed development environment.

He also decided just recently to throw away all the Unity assets and licenses that he bought with Kickstarter money and go with the inferior Hero Engine that is even harder to manage.

I wonder what is going to happen if he discovers Github or any other revision control system, build scripts, asset pipelines and art repositories are required to even start a project like this.

You can cut corners, but you can not build a car without wheels.

All I get from your rant is that you don't like this person. You have yet to show how this is a scam. If he is trying to bring in games that are influenced by games like Ultima Online.. then more power to this guy. I don't care if he can't program his remote control. All you really need is a good idea, and people to help you bring it to fruition. So while you continue to be a hater because you don't trust someone - I'll continue to support projects that people have dreamed about creating for years, and are now trying to make their dreams come true. 

Again, I have nothing against this person.

No you can not create a project like this with an idea and by hiring enough people and let them make it. Like i said before, setting up an infrastructure for your hired people that work all over the world alone is a task that needs prior knowledge on how to manage a software project. You probably don't know this and i don't blame you since most people that have never worked in software development can't imagine how much work needs to be done behind the scene to bring all the work from these hired professionals together into one working piece of software.

You can not just solve this by buying ready made software and assets.

Originally posted by Ekaros
There is nothing wrong with buying assets, it works great for outsourcing or crowdsourcing like Wasteland 2. But really you shouldn't dot that stuff untill you have your ground work done, stuff like parts of game engine and so on. Also from what I read here, the leader seems bit cluless...

That is correct. No one really goes out anymore and takes pictures of rocks, grass or trees. These are all bought assets because it is just cheaper.

Artwork for your game, however, something that sets your game apart from other games, gives it it's own style and feeling is usually done by professional concept artists.

I would be ashamed if someone would see that my main character is an asset from the Unity Store that everyone can buy and use for his own game as well.

This asset was on the Kickstarter Front Page

That is just... i am lost for words, really.

Originally posted by JamesP
I will never be in control of ElectricCrow gaming nor would I ever want to be in control. I've had my fair share of leading teams and it's nothing I want to take on right now. ElectricCrow Gaming WILL Survive with Jason as the lead!

Then get ready for the next kickstarter scam.

I'd really like to see this game to see the light of the day and succeed as it is based on some great ideas and concepts.

But those not only need dedication but also a clear course to be put into an actual game. What happened here until now lacks this last one.

Also I can understand the switch to HeroEngine from a beginner developers perspective, but he would have done good actually follow the warnings given. This is just my opinion, but for this project Unity seems way more fitting than HE for development.
This doesn't even take all the other (partially serious) issues HE has into consideration.

I'd say ECG should stop wasting more money with that migration and get this running with Unity as initially planned.

Originally posted by dextral

I'd really like to see this game to see the light of the day and succeed as it is based on some great ideas and concepts.

But those not only need dedication but also a clear course to be put into an actual game. What happened here until now lacks this last one.

Also I can understand the switch to HeroEngine from a beginner developers perspective, but he would have done good actually follow the warnings given. This is just my opinion, but for this project Unity seems way more fitting than HE for development.
This doesn't even take all the other (partially serious) issues HE has into consideration.

I'd say ECG should stop wasting more money with that migration and get this running with Unity as initially planned.

I kind of agree there but I may be biased based on all the issues I experienced with HE and trying to build even a small world. Then of course there is Unity EULA concerning gambling and streaming. Of course I am still kind of in the dark about what type of game Greed Monger is. (You know, massive open gridded world or instanced.) since I can't get the answer as above posted question I give my though here.

If it is massive open gridded world then it will fail hard in HE because the engine does not support gridding it has to be made in checkerboard or some sort irregular pattern because the loading of the areas in a 9x block will cause very poor performance on the client with players getting dumped into the abyss when they hit a boundary where collisions don't occur such as a steep incline. Placing objects to stop progress before hitting said location only creates another fail point on boundary collisions. I discontinued my project in Oct under circumstances I rather not relate more details in which some of my post in the HE forums were deleted.

They be better off to go to Esenthel Engine 2. Simply becasue it can do MMORPGs and it does have UNLIMITED land mass (well, up to reasonable level like hard drive size) Of course again that is only limited by the requirements of the client which could be stipulated as 1 to 10 tera bytes. :)

If it is a small instanced world HE will work just fine.