"Old School RPG" Kickstarter: Canceled (for now)

aaronmills

aaronmills

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For those classic RPG gamers out there, I thought it would be worth mentioning that Tom Hall (creator of Anachronox) and Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry 8) are teaming-up for an "Old School RPG" through Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...g-by-brenda-brathwaite-and-tom-hal?ref=search

$15 gets you a digitalcopy of the game with higher tiers for things like boxed copies, signed copies and even a personally hand-delivered copy. They will release it DRM free and also through Steam.

They're at about $200,000 with 27 days to go to reach their $1M goal. If they reach $1.9M they will make 2 games. Funding ends Nov. 4th at 9:15 EST.

I felt that this belongs here more than in the deals thread since it isn't exactly a "deal". If it doesn't belong here, please move or delete it.

UPDATE (10/19): Unfortunately, Loot Drop decided to pull the plug on this Kickstarter. They had a shade over $250K after about 10 days or so, but decided that it would be best to regroup and most likely try it again later with more info and details for people at launch.
 
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Wizardry 8 was the last retail PC game that I respected in so many ways. I may support.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']man their kickstarter video was terrible. it said almost nothing useful.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I agree. They put together the video to launch it, then released all the details on the page in updates a day or two after it started. They've got a pretty good plan going now if you read through it.

Also...I'd suggest scrolling all the way down the page to where it says "Game Developers Support Us". It has a bunch of quotes from well-known people in the gaming world, but the real reason to check it out is for a pretty funny video endorsement from David Jaffe. :lol:
 
[quote name='aaronmills']For those classic RPG gamers out there, I thought it would be worth mentioning that Tom Hall (creator of Anachronox) and Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry 8) are teaming-up for an "Old School RPG" through Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...g-by-brenda-brathwaite-and-tom-hal?ref=search

$15 gets you a digitalcopy of the game with higher tiers for things like boxed copies, signed copies and even a personally hand-delivered copy. They will release it DRM free and also through Steam.

They're at about $200,000 with 27 days to go to reach their $1M goal. If they reach $1.9M they will make 2 games. Funding ends Nov. 4th at 9:15 EST.

I felt that this belongs here more than in the deals thread since it isn't exactly a "deal". If it doesn't belong here, please move or delete it.[/QUOTE]

John Romero is part of the team too.

I feel their timing was poor. Project Eternity is overshadowing this completely right now. Hopefully funding will pick up some steam once that Kickstarter is over.
 
[quote name='JasonTerminator']John Romero is part of the team too.

I feel their timing was poor. Project Eternity is overshadowing this completely right now. Hopefully funding will pick up some steam once that Kickstarter is over.[/QUOTE]

Romero is a co-owner of Loot Drop along with Brenda Brathwaite, but is busy doing another project and won't be touching the game for whatever that's worth. This will be all Tom & Brenda and their team's doing.

They just crossed the $250,000 mark and have been rolling-out tons of updates on this thing, so be sure to check it out if you have any interest in it. 24 days left to back this thing. We'll see if they reach their goal.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...rpg-by-brenda-brathwaite-and-tom-hal?ref=live
 
[quote name='aaronmills']Romero is a co-owner of Loot Drop along with Brenda Brathwaite, but is busy doing another project and won't be touching the game for whatever that's worth. This will be all Tom & Brenda and their team's doing.[/QUOTE]

And for most PC Gamer that is enough to stay away his name alone brings some much derision and loathing that people can't get past that. And honestly "old school RPG" that was condescending in it's own right there. (considering 3 of the last major kickstarters have been for true old school rpg's...:roll: )

I've owned Anachronox since launch (and honestly never got around to playing it) but I bought it on two things Deus Ex (being made by Ion Storm) and they said it was the American FF7, which was enough to sell me on it.

Sadly Tom Hall isn't enough of a luminary to sell me on it (industry vet that he is) and neither is Brenda. They don't have enough pedigree behind them to get this thing going, (just look at Chris Robert's kickstarter, he's almost matched them in what 2 days, and has $1 million pledged from his website as well)

Unless a miracle happens, I see this one failing pretty hard, let alone them getting anywhere near to be able to make two games. They should have had a better sales pitch, a video to sell it, and more concept art and story. Plus not mentioning John Romero (AT ALL) would have helped too.

If some of you are interested in it, good luck, but I think this one might be a loosing battle at this moment.
 
[quote name='JasonTerminator']So, uh, they basically made an update today saying they give up, with half the time remaining.

Oh well.[/QUOTE]

Wow, giving up with over 2 weeks left--glad I stayed away from this turkey since that doesn't say much for the game ever getting done even if they DID get the funding they wanted!
 
Definitely bummed that this one isn't getting funded. Full disclosure: Tom Hall is my uncle so I really wanted this to get made.

uncle5555 made a lot of good and valid points in his post above, and having spoken with Tom a few times since the Kickstarter got going, Loot Drop would agree with pretty much everything he said.

With this being their first attempt at a Kickstarter, they didn't realize just how much detail people would want from the start. But given the fact that they don't have a big name like Bethesda or Tim Schafer attached to it, and Tom and Brenda haven't had a big game for a decade or so, it's understandable to want a lot of info.

While they had a lot of big names from the video game world like David Jaffe and Notch saying, "Hey, support these guys, they're awesome!", and Loot Drop also did a solid job of updating people nearly every day with new details on the game, not having specific game-related info at the start was probably their biggest downfall.

I don't know if they're completely giving up on the concepts they came up with for this one, but they do plan to do another Kickstarter in the future. They're still excited to to a game they're really, really passionate about and I'm excited to see what happens in their next attempt.
 
[quote name='aaronmills']Definitely bummed that this one isn't getting funded. Full disclosure: Tom Hall is my uncle so I really wanted this to get made.

uncle5555 made a lot of good and valid points in his post above, and having spoken with Tom a few times since the Kickstarter got going, Loot Drop would agree with pretty much everything he said.

With this being their first attempt at a Kickstarter, they didn't realize just how much detail people would want from the start. But given the fact that they don't have a big name like Bethesda or Tim Schafer attached to it, and Tom and Brenda haven't had a big game for a decade or so, it's understandable to want a lot of info.

While they had a lot of big names from the video game world like David Jaffe and Notch saying, "Hey, support these guys, they're awesome!", and Loot Drop also did a solid job of updating people nearly every day with new details on the game, not having specific game-related info at the start was probably their biggest downfall.

I don't know if they're completely giving up on the concepts they came up with for this one, but they do plan to do another Kickstarter in the future. They're still excited to to a game they're really, really passionate about and I'm excited to see what happens in their next attempt.[/QUOTE]

Aaron, thanks for the news, I wasn't trying to go out of my way to dismiss their project, just calling things in my arm chair QB position (but as you see I wasn't far off the mark) I know they have a lot of passion for the work and the project, but they have a lot to go to get over that hump to get people excited. (every veteran creator who launched a KS has had a successful KS as far as I've seen) except this one, and one had to wonder why, taking my points into account, well that's some for them right there.

I know JR still wants to do games, but sadly he has very little good will left in the PC community and even though he was pretty much in the background for this KS, even with that little bit of involvement their, he poisoned the pot, plus as I said, some major conceit towards the audience, not respecting them. And then the final reveal, I was less than thrilled with what I saw, it looked poor (the concept art) considering the project looked pretty neat and sounded cool from the initial concept, but then they showed the main character and the name, Shaker....yeah, even worse than the condescending one. All you can do is laugh :lol: And two strikes down.

Anyway I don't want to sound like a fuss bucket, I wish them luck and they might actually get me to back them next time, with the stronger PR campaign, some in game art, a really GOOD name **wink, wink**, and little to no JR involvement, I know he runs the place, but think about the big picture. Tell Tom good luck next time and I still think Dopefish is still cool. :D

Oh and lastly tell'em to start small but think big, only a very few of the really successful KS's asked for a large amount at the start Loot Drop was the only one asking for $1 million up front, a big no-no right there. Be more modest, humble and show an exciting project and the people will flock to it. Just ask Fargo, Lowe, Jensen or any of the other ones that made it, (and shows you, you don't have to be Tim Schafer to do well, and for the record I didn't support his only because I don't care for the adventure genre) but that started out heartfelt and didn't ask to fill Uncle Scrooge's money bin with pledges. Just a few words of wisdom that might help them out next time. ;)
 
A poorly made and horribly timed pitch. A shame. Anachronox was a pretty amazing thing.
[quote name='uncle5555']
Oh and lastly tell'em to start small but think big, only a very few of the really successful KS's asked for a large amount at the start Loot Drop was the only one asking for $1 million up front, a big no-no right there. Be more modest, humble and show an exciting project and the people will flock to it. [/QUOTE]
Obsidian's initial goal was $1.1 million.
 
Not surprised, I'm sure a good number of people heard "Romero" and ran in the other direction.
 
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