Thx for the answer. That cleared up alot for me. I was just hoping, since I've kicked in almost 200 bucks to the game, that I would have had access to at least test it by now. But I guess I just have to wait alittle more. There's nothing else out there that interests me as much as Repop. Therefor it's quite frustrating to not be able to taste it. Maybe Santa comes with a invite. Who knows. :P And good luck, keep it up and merry christmas!!!
*waves* hey guys, havent stopped by in a few months, but was planning on catching up with you after the first of the year now that my promotion has settled down.
I have been out of the loop for the past few months due to taking a promotion that required moving half way across the country,,... but
The Repop Devs are very responsive and are not being bashed over the head by suits in the back ground, so if you're looking for a indie game that shows promise and can fill that sandboxy feel for ya with a peppering of themepark, I'd keep an eye on Repopulation (thier devs actually know what those two terms mean)
The bottleneck for Repop right now is content. It's a huge world, and while a lot of generation is in place, a lot of things still need to be done by hand to get the most out of them. Tihs process has gone slower than expected because we've found that writers and content people have struggled to understand how to use the mission, engagement, world event and den systems correctly.
If you pay attention to the stretch goal amounts once this campaign goes live you'll find that the money for most of the attainable stretch goals is split in a way that it allows us to bring on additional hands. Much of that will be used for the stretch goal itself, and the rest will go into content. They won't slow down development at all. If anything they'll speed it up because while part of those funds are going to hire programmers or artists to work on the stretch goals themselves, the rest is going to the content of the existing game.
That having been said, I'd like to address the 2013 release talk. This all stems from the 2012 Kickstarter. Kickstarter requires you to give an estimated delivery date. This isn't a set in stone date, but it's your best guess. At the time of the Kickstarter we felt about this time of year the game would be complete, so that was the estimated period. But when asked about it we always mentioned that it would be ready when it's done. That was our estimate of when that would be. It was obviously off by quite a bit, and there's numerous reasons for that.
There are some situations where things that sound good on paper don't work out as well when it comes to testing. We had certain features that we polled players about and that we gave lots of discussion to and seemed like it was the right approach. For example, the mission system. Many MMO players have grown tired of the theme park oriented treadmill of leveling. They complain about quest markers, and missions being too easy in general. I know I'm one of them. Our original mission implementation was very much a throw back in that regard. Very few markers, often giving players very subtle clues and expecting them to solve it. Then you add things like day/night NPCs, etc. The problem is that most players are now conditioned by the easier missions. And slowly over the course of testing we began having more easier missions, more markers, etc because we found that even many of the players who said they didn't want those things, realized that once they had become conditioned to use them when they were taken away. So our concession was to mix it up, a mixture of easy and more complex missions, and a slew of usability features. To someone just reading the monthly reports, they might look and see these improvements one month and think that we're getting feature creep. But the reality is that the majority of the games additions in the past year have been a direct result of tester feedback. Sometimes that means that you may lose weeks or even months doing reactionary changes, and that also sets you back. The entire world was also rebuilt during the course of alpha testing, as we were running into performance bottlenecks caused by memory consumption and larger numbers of players causing older boxes to run into 2 gig memory limits. That probably set us back about 6 months, but it needed to be done. Those type of situations will sprout up from time to time, and they happen to everyone, from the largest teams to the smallest. The alternative would have been to stick to the previous specifications and launch the game before its ready, but the result would have been a bunch of disappointed players and a product that would spend the next year trying to undo some of the things post-launch and never reach its potential because it already had lost many of its followers due to the launch issues. That benefits nobody.
Most of our staff is unpaid, and the paid staff is all paid well below market value. They work on the title because they believe in it, and it's a labor of love. The problem with this type of set up of course is that sometimes people's situations change and they lose much of their free time. Sometimes they get a great job offer which has a no-compete clause and they have to move on. Over the years Repop has had roughly a $250k budget spread over a few years, and a sizable amount of that from our own pockets. Your average AAA MMO staff would go through that in a month. I'd say that we've been pretty efficient. But a lot of that efficiency comes from the fact that people are working for free or for cheap on often erratic schedules, and sometimes you need to deal with the fact that you may lose a key member for months at a time. We've had some a couple of setbacks as a result of that, but certainly nothing out of the ordinary for an MMO. EQ: Next for example was announced before Repop, and will ship after it. Wildstar was also announced before Repop. Those are larger studios with deep pockets, but you don't seem to hear the same complaints that they are taking too long to reach market that we've seen from a number of people on here. It's been 18 months since our Kickstarter campaign, that seems like a long-time, and we understand the feeling. But it should be noted that most MMOs don't hit their initial projection dates, it's tough to estimate with all of the moving parts and separate teams.
Obviously having a larger budget helps with this, due to being able to keep key staff under contract. This is where the Early Adopter programs and upcoming Kickstarter come in. This has been pretty par for the course for other crowd-funded titles in the past couple years. Many players were not exposed to the game during the initial Kickstarter. In the couple weeks since we closed our internal store in preparation for this campaign, we've had many posts, facebook messages, or emails asking when the store would be reopening. So there are people out there who would like to back the project. Running these campaigns allows them to do so, which benefits the game as a whole because that money all goes into development.
If you are not interested in backing, that's understandable. We can understand people being skeptical about spending money on an unfinished product. Especially an indie one. But it would be foolish of us to not allow those who want to back to be able to do so. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, their contributions allow us to deliver a better game which benefits everyone (backers and non-backers alike). Without any backers, this game would have still been completed, but it would not have been the game that it has evolved into. Most likely it would have shipped with a trimmed down world and features, and attempted to implement most of those things post-launch. There is certainly some merit to that approach, but in today's competitive MMO market many players will only give you one shot. So the better you can be at launch, the healthier your game will be long-term. That's our primary concern. We'd rather deal with complaints that the game is taking too long to market, than complaints that the game rushed to market, because in the longrun it will be better for the title. But that certainly doesn't mean that we don't want the game out as soon as possible. But we'd rather trade the short-term for the long-term. Three years down the road people won't care if the game shipped today, or a year from now. They'll either still be playing it or they won't. It's readiness at launch will be a large factor in all of that. We certainly don't want to pooch that.
I can see you giving people that didn't know about the game a chance to back it. If you want sympathy for your staff being unpaid or paid very little, or those leaving for greener pastures, I have none.
You should know going into a huge time invested, money invested mmorpg project with your own funding, it is going to be that way, If you didn't you're naive. You stand to make millions once the game is released because of the cash shop, (there is no free to play), you know it will payoff in the end. It's a problem with any kickstarter project that has a successful funding then goes back a year or so later to beg for more. Makes a person not even want to give to a kickstarter project again seeing how a small company will come back for more over and over. It starts a chain and once one company succeeds this way, they'll all know they can just come back for more, because customers are starving for a good sandbox game.
Originally posted by Retired Lets not forget first and foremost they announced Beta to starts in March. Also don't forget Star Citizen, Shrouds of the Avatar, Trove and Landmark still are having a self Kickstarter running on their websites. Not sure why The Repopulation having another one is a big deal. This is how they are kicking off their "Round 3" of pledges, they ended Round 2 and their shop has been closed for like a month. Some act as if they would rather get some rushed garbage like TOR and TESO, be patient.
I can see you giving people that didn't know about the game a chance to back it. If you want sympathy for your staff being unpaid or paid very little, or those leaving for greener pastures, I have none.
You should know going into a huge time invested, money invested mmorpg project with your own funding, it is going to be that way, If you didn't you're naive. You stand to make millions once the game is released because of the cash shop, (there is no free to play), you know it will payoff in the end. It's a problem with any kickstarter project that has a successful funding then goes back a year or so later to beg for more. Makes a person not even want to give to a kickstarter project again seeing how a small company will come back for more over and over. It starts a chain and once one company succeeds this way, they'll all know they can just come back for more, because customers are starving for a good sandbox game.
Lol.. seriously? Cause their first Kickstarter raised soooo much money. [mod edit]
I didn't hear anyone bitching about them fund raising through their website... but them starting a new KS because people have been asking for it.. well, that's just so horrible.
If they made a killing in their first KS, or if they had a publisher that was helping to fund them.. I could see you point.. but they don't.
I can see you giving people that didn't know about the game a chance to back it. If you want sympathy for your staff being unpaid or paid very little, or those leaving for greener pastures, I have none.
You should know going into a huge time invested, money invested mmorpg project with your own funding, it is going to be that way, If you didn't you're naive. You stand to make millions once the game is released because of the cash shop, (there is no free to play), you know it will payoff in the end. It's a problem with any kickstarter project that has a successful funding then goes back a year or so later to beg for more. Makes a person not even want to give to a kickstarter project again seeing how a small company will come back for more over and over. It starts a chain and once one company succeeds this way, they'll all know they can just come back for more, because customers are starving for a good sandbox game.
Um... Pathfinder Online did two Kickstarters as well, may want to go over to their mmorpg forum and complain as well.
Nobody is forcing you to pay. Being a backer is essentially the same as taking the money and donating it to your favorite charity. Or if you're of the more cynical mindset, throwing it out the window. Don't like it - don't donate. Personally, I'll never donate my money to some Kickstarter dude promising this and that. Been there, heard the sale pitch, multiple times. But that's just me, there's plenty of people willing to jump on the granades out there.
But as I've said on Repop forums, Kickstarter and especially Greenlight are very good things for the game because of the exposure they bring and attract new players. If you've ever played any of the indy sandbox with 10-20 players online circle-jerking about "potential" and "steam", you know how important it is to have a constantly rolling marketing campaign to bring new players in.
So ultimately it doesn't matter, it merely increases the chances they'll get a few bucks and get by long enough to deliver a good game that will have lots of people playing.
Not willing to pay 250 to be able to test in late March assuming everything goes smoothly. I would have preferred they waited until there was more information coming from the test in regards to media scrutiny or even a large testing phase. Maybe I'll have a chance to back on their website at a later date once I get some reliable third party information about how functional this game really is. Hope it turns out to be a good game when it finally hits regardless though.
Just a bit annoying to me. So they've went through their funds already and have new ideas, and wanna have a new Kickstarter?
Doesn't seem very focused and managing well to me, and that's concerning if I decided to play the game. Why are they not polishing the the game they have with the money they got from people already, get revenew coming in and then add more things? Just seems a shady way to start out and the game isn't even going to be released for years now if they keep begging for more money and trying to add more stuff.
No they havent burnt through all their funds and if you have ever read through even ONE of their Monthly Updates, you would clearly see that they are VERY focused and managed quite well.
There have been alot of posts on their forums from people ASKING when they are going to open up another KS Round so they can donate.
KS Rounds have a limited time to donate before they close.
And how do you know that a game is focused and managed well when it's still in alpha? I'm not saying that they aren't (or that they are), but the proof comes when a polished game is released. Even having most features in place and mostly working can easily be a long, long way away from launching a polished game. Even if you demonstrably have done the former, it doesn't prove that you can deliver the latter.
the thing about kickstarters, is they can take your money and there is NO WAY YOU CAN EVER GET IT BACK. Due to the legales, if they take the money and run you can do nothing, because you gave them money out of your own free will, and acknowledge this in the disclaimer. ........
I generaly don't do kickstarters because there's no warrant for my money. And while giving money through a Kickstarter is esentially the same as giving a few coins to a beggar on the street, I don't really look at it the same way.
Since I aproach it from a standpoint of sort of an investment, I just can't dig into throwing (away) money into pure ideas. If I really wanted to do that I'd want more warranty.
Which I essentially get in the case of Repopulation today. You can see a lot of work already, game is nearing it's final year of development so it's far far away from backing up just ideas. Sure it's still a gamble, but when is it not?
I can see you giving people that didn't know about the game a chance to back it. If you want sympathy for your staff being unpaid or paid very little, or those leaving for greener pastures, I have none.
You should know going into a huge time invested, money invested mmorpg project with your own funding, it is going to be that way, If you didn't you're naive. You stand to make millions once the game is released because of the cash shop, (there is no free to play), you know it will payoff in the end. It's a problem with any kickstarter project that has a successful funding then goes back a year or so later to beg for more. Makes a person not even want to give to a kickstarter project again seeing how a small company will come back for more over and over. It starts a chain and once one company succeeds this way, they'll all know they can just come back for more, because customers are starving for a good sandbox game.
Um... Pathfinder Online did two Kickstarters as well, may want to go over to their mmorpg forum and complain as well.
You and Boogie are clearly on the defensive and are just blindly lashing out so I stepped away from the conversation entirely, but your snarky "Um... here's something I think I have a clue about post" was too tempting not to reply to.
Um... the first Pathfinder Kickstarter was for a tech demo and was clearly stated as such.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It's not like they are asking for a ton of cash... they are only asking half of my personal salary per year. That hardly pays for a ton of development work, software licencing, artists, designers, etc...
So... like anything else, if you don't agree with it, don't support it.
Freaking Star Citizen ir raking millions after millions in continued long term crowfunding campaigns but when a small indie studio asks for far less money to expand on the initial concept it`s suddenly somehow unacceptable. You people really are sheeps controlled by marketing.
Originally posted by Garainis Freaking Star Citizen ir raking millions after millions in continued long term crowfunding campaigns but when a small indie studio asks for far less money to expand on the initial concept it`s suddenly somehow unacceptable. You people really are sheeps controlled by marketing.
The issue is not that they are asking for more, thats fine. The problem is that they are doing it before delivering what they promised to deliver after the first one, EVEN IF IT FAILED!
People handing off mony to Star Citizen just shows how little people knows about what is hard about making games. It is not hard getting good ideas, everyone has those, it is hard making said ideas WORK.
I want to see and prefereably play working prototypes that proves the ideas translate into actual gameplay before touching Kickstarters in the future.
I really have to laugh at some people and how they justify thigngs.
"But they only asked for XXX in their first KS... MMOs take waaay more money than that to make."
Yes. Yes, they do. And this is a problem with KS. If the devs do not realize "how much money an MMO takes to make" during the first KS, and continue to add more and more- They are kind of clueless , huh? OR (much more possibly) they always intended to do multiple Kickstaters and started very low so people would throw money at them thinking "they are not asking for that much..." and then those people have a vested interest in the game coming out (or they get nothing) so they are easy targets to keep begging for even MORE money .
If anyone thinks they can make an MMO for under 100K- They are fools. And I do not trust them with a dollar. If they knew they could not make an MMO for what they asked originally and always intended to come back begging foor more (the likely scenario imho) they are dishonest and I do not trut them.
Either way- They are clueless or dishonest, right?
If this game got 200% funding on the first KS it shouldnt need another one, right? It got double the money asked fr? AND if the devs can not produce with double the money asked for, what would have happened if they just made their goal?
-=And this is becoming commonplace with KS. Low ball the initial amount to get people vested. This is going to make regular rabid fanboys look tame once someones money is tired up in an unfinished idea . I already seee "salesmen" all over the place (not just here) pimping the game they have backed and justifying everything the company does.
Originally posted by Garainis Freaking Star Citizen ir raking millions after millions in continued long term crowfunding campaigns but when a small indie studio asks for far less money to expand on the initial concept it`s suddenly somehow unacceptable. You people really are sheeps controlled by marketing.
The issue is not that they are asking for more, thats fine. The problem is that they are doing it before delivering what they promised to deliver after the first one, EVEN IF IT FAILED!
People handing off mony to Star Citizen just shows how little people knows about what is hard about making games. It is not hard getting good ideas, everyone has those, it is hard making said ideas WORK.
I want to see and prefereably play working prototypes that proves the ideas translate into actual gameplay before touching Kickstarters in the future.
The Features promised in the first KS have been developed and are implemented (or are very close to ready) into the Alpha. Just read their Patch Notes over the last 6+ months. They specify what has been put in. Now its all being tested.
The second KS is offering some new things that can also be implemented should it hit the Stretch Goals.
There is a working prototype. Its been at quite a few Cons including PAX.
There is also an ongoing Alpha with Beta coming soon.
Bringer of Eternal Darkness and Despair, but also a Nutritious way to start your Morning.
I really have to laugh at some people and how they justify thigngs.
"But they only asked for XXX in their first KS... MMOs take waaay more money than that to make."
Yes. Yes, they do. And this is a problem with KS. If the devs do not realize "how much money an MMO takes to make" during the first KS, and continue to add more and more- They are kind of clueless , huh? OR (much more possibly) they always intended to do multiple Kickstaters and started very low so people would throw money at them thinking "they are not asking for that much..." and then those people have a vested interest in the game coming out (or they get nothing) so they are easy targets to keep begging for even MORE money .
If anyone thinks they can make an MMO for under 100K- They are fools. And I do not trust them with a dollar. If they knew they could not make an MMO for what they asked originally and always intended to come back begging foor more (the likely scenario imho) they are dishonest and I do not trut them.
Either way- They are clueless or dishonest, right?
If this game got 200% funding on the first KS it shouldnt need another one, right? It got double the money asked fr? AND if the devs can not produce with double the money asked for, what would have happened if they just made their goal?
-=And this is becoming commonplace with KS. Low ball the initial amount to get people vested. This is going to make regular rabid fanboys look tame once someones money is tired up in an unfinished idea . I already seee "salesmen" all over the place (not just here) pimping the game they have backed and justifying everything the company does.
-Oh well. Not my moneys.
How do people like this form such a strong opinion on something that they have no clue about? Honestly, I'm not going to refute your points since it's a waste of time on people like you....so I'll just ask anyone who has an open mind to do some actual research before posting crap like this. It's not constructive, it's inaccurate, and it's disruptive.
@Jacxolope: Most of the things you have said have been address previously but here goes:
- The Repopulation was designed using heavy use of generation and funded it all out of our own pocket initially. It was certainly a smaller scale project at the time, but players liked the ideas and it started receiving interest. We had a good team but everyone was working day jobs. Kickstarter at that time was brand new, and we never really even considered using it. A few months before the first Kickstarter (18 months ago) users started a thread on our forum and kept suggesting it. They basically sold us on the idea. We figured whatever amount it brought in could be used on contractors to help bring the game to market more quickly. It wasn't about give us $25k and we'll make a game. It was about whatever money this does generate will be spent to beef up the games team so that we can build a better game.
- The years of the engines costing you a million up front are gone. There are indie programs for everything nowadays that allow you to minimize your start up cost. A lot also goes on officers, power, and hardware. For an indies, working on their own computers in their own homes though, the cost is largely based on salaries or contractors. If your team is working for free or for cheap, as most of our team is, that significantly lowers the cost. Nobody makes fair market value on our team, and much of the team is foregoing pay. In some cases so they do not violate no compete clauses, and in others because they simply believe in the project and want to see it completed, knowing that there are budget constraints that simply won't allow it.
- This project has been in full scale development since 2011. Though we dabbled with other engines before that, we didn't go into full scale production until 2011 when Hero Engine became available and after having a few months to familiarize it ourselves with it (at the end of 2010). I'll give you a fun fact. It was announced months after Everquest: Next, which will ship after The Repopulation. And it's had a smaller budget in that time than EQ: Next probably spends in a month. If you try to go by traditional MMO budgets, that should not be possible. You'd be hard pressed to find any MMO which started development after us and has already shipped, or which is significantly further along than we are. You can't think in the same terms money wise when your talking about indie developers. A little bit of money can stretch a long way. We certainly may have been overambitious in our initial time frame, and we apologize for that. But in general development has gone on at a smooth pace, minus a couple of setbacks.
- We don't expect anyone to pledge. When there isn't an option available though, players request it. The features from this Kickstarter are largely in part player requests. There's threads about them on our forums, and emails to our staff, as well. We for example planned to ship with vehicles only. Users want mounts, they add some value to tamers and have a coolness factor. They've asked repeatedly about this over the years. We agree, but since the functionality is covered in vehicles it's hard to pull programmers and artists off other stuff that is needed. This handles that problem and allows those features to get in game. That's what this Kickstarter is all about as we've stated before. If people want to pledge, the option is available. If they don't feel comfortable pledging or don't think the game is worth pledging to, we'd invite them to apply for beta or check the game out when it launches.
- The $50k isn't enough argument is common, but it's not a valid argument. The reality is that setting a goal too high is counter-productive. For one, if it looks like your project is falling behind and won't hit it's goal, people stop backing, which makes it impossible to reach. You need to set a goal that you are pretty confident you will reach. It's not uncommon for games to reach that goal several times over in the campaign, much of it is momentum based. If a project needs $100k or it can't be built, it makes sense to set a $100k goal. If you don't reach it you scrap the idea or go back to the drawing board. Repop isn't a project like that. If we never reached our goals the project wasn't going to cancel. It would have just taken longer to build and not been nearly as good of a game as it is becoming. So for us it would have made zero sense to set an high goal in either campaign. The pledges help us immensely, but we'd find a way to moonlight the game to launch no matter even in an apocalpyse. Too much time has gone into this project and it's too far along already to even consider otherwise.
- To say that a second Kickstarter is not okay, but an ever-running online store accepting the same pledges for the same thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most of the upcoming crowd-funded titles have on-site stores where players who missed the Kickstarters can continue pledging. Over time those will make more money than the shorter Kickstarter campaigns, though less per month. They don't really obsolete what Kickstarter does though. Kickstarter is also a promotional tool. It's easier for some people to use, and it's shorter windowed approach is ideal for something like our current stretch goal campaign. It makes a lot of sense given it's intended goals. And it's helped introduce the game to new players, which also benefits existing players.
- The logic of sucking your older backers out of money because they have to help it get done, isn't accurate. To give you a good example of that, under 12% of this campaign's backers are bump ups who pledged to previous campaigns. The bulk of those are new players who weren't around 18 months ago, or didn't feel at that time that the game was worth backing. We do get bump ups from previous backers, but in general people back and then just wait for launch or their testing invite (quite a few are already testing). Our backers don't need to have any concerns about the game getting built. They should welcome these types of campaigns because it helps us build a better game at launch. If our goal was simply to push the game to market, we could likely have the game ready to ship in under two months. Our goal isn't to put out a buggy and incomplete product though, it's to carve ourselves a nice space in the MMO market. Rushing to launch does not accomplish those goals. We'd much rather deal with some players being upset that it took us longer to get to market than they had hoped, than to deal with players not playing the game after it launches because it needed more time in the oven.
Originally posted by JC-Smith @Jacxolope: Most of the things you have said have been address previously but here goes:
- The Repopulation was designed using heavy use of generation and funded it all out of our own pocket initially. It was certainly a smaller scale project at the time, but players liked the ideas and it started receiving interest. We had a good team but everyone was working day jobs. Kickstarter at that time was brand new, and we never really even considered using it. A few months before the first Kickstarter (18 months ago) users started a thread on our forum and kept suggesting it. They basically sold us on the idea. We figured whatever amount it brought in could be used on contractors to help bring the game to market more quickly. It wasn't about give us $25k and we'll make a game. It was about whatever money this does generate will be spent to beef up the games team so that we can build a better game.
MY RESPONSES WILL BE IN 'EYE BLEEDING' RED =D
-First please nderstand that even though this thread is about 'your' game- I am generalizing far more than trying to be specific to your particular situation. It just so happens that your game is following the exact same pattern that I am seeing with the few MMORPG's I am seeing being Kickstarted.
In every case the Develpores seem to "change their mind" either during or after getting funding (always based on "user feedback") which changes/delays or otherwise slows develpoment through additional things not originally discussed during the first KS.
"Greed Monger" (another game I have been following) has said almost the exact same thing- Jason Appleton didnt 'need' the money since he was funding what wasnt reached "out of pocket". After getting over twicce the money asked for the team changed everything (including the scope of the game) and essentially said "the community asked for this" so here come the delays and another KS needed to "add these features YOU wanted"... The problem is, this shows a lack of planning since the 'game' itself was kickstarted promising X and no matter the reason (sure...Its always for the 'fans' and 'backers') the bar keeps moving.
-This could happen forever.
Not saying this is intentional or even the case here (I dont know ...) but it seems to be what is happening with every MMORPG I am seeing on KS.... There is not one (I have seen) that has stuck with the original plan and followed through (on time) but instead things keep being added, changed and the bar keeps moving . This could potentially go on forever.
- The years of the engines costing you a million up front are gone. There are indie programs for everything nowadays that allow you to minimize your start up cost. A lot also goes on officers, power, and hardware. For an indies, working on their own computers in their own homes though, the cost is largely based on salaries or contractors. If your team is working for free or for cheap, as most of our team is, that significantly lowers the cost. Nobody makes fair market value on our team, and much of the team is foregoing pay. In some cases so they do not violate no compete clauses, and in others because they simply believe in the project and want to see it completed, knowing that there are budget constraints that simply won't allow it.
Thats good- Thats how most people start a business. When my Cousing started his Construction company not only did he work for free (for years) but also went very far into debt and funded everything on his own. Nothing unusal or noteworthy here.
IF this is a success you stand to make Millions. Figuring that this was primarily fan funded your risk is very low and there isnt much 'loss' other than time and effort.
You also are gaining equity in (I am being general here0 an Engine and assets. Rather than doing what most small business owners do and plunging yourself deep into debt, you are starting near or close to even, equity already there and very low overhead thanks to the fans who funded this. Most Millionaires who start their own business work for free for YEARS while building the company and the equity in it. If someone provides THAT part of the business and its a success you stand to start making pure profit almost immediatley after launch. This is unheard of and the biggest part of your risk is only in Labor. Sounds like a good deal to me...
- This project has been in full scale development since 2011. Though we dabbled with other engines before that, we didn't go into full scale production until 2011 when Hero Engine became available and after having a few months to familiarize it ourselves with it (at the end of 2010). I'll give you a fun fact. It was announced months after Everquest: Next, which will ship after The Repopulation. And it's had a smaller budget in that time than EQ: Next probably spends in a month. If you try to go by traditional MMO budgets, that should not be possible. You'd be hard pressed to find any MMO which started development after us and has already shipped, or which is significantly further along than we are. You can't think in the same terms money wise when your talking about indie developers. A little bit of money can stretch a long way. We certainly may have been overambitious in our initial time frame, and we apologize for that. But in general development has gone on at a smooth pace, minus a couple of setbacks.
- We don't expect anyone to pledge. When there isn't an option available though, players request it. The features from this Kickstarter are largely in part player requests. There's threads about them on our forums, and emails to our staff, as well. We for example planned to ship with vehicles only. Users want mounts, they add some value to tamers and have a coolness factor. They've asked repeatedly about this over the years. We agree, but since the functionality is covered in vehicles it's hard to pull programmers and artists off other stuff that is needed. This handles that problem and allows those features to get in game. That's what this Kickstarter is all about as we've stated before. If people want to pledge, the option is available. If they don't feel comfortable pledging or don't think the game is worth pledging to, we'd invite them to apply for beta or check the game out when it launches.
- The $50k isn't enough argument is common, but it's not a valid argument. The reality is that setting a goal too high is counter-productive. For one, if it looks like your project is falling behind and won't hit it's goal, people stop backing, which makes it impossible to reach. You need to set a goal that you are pretty confident you will reach. It's not uncommon for games to reach that goal several times over in the campaign, much of it is momentum based. If a project needs $100k or it can't be built, it makes sense to set a $100k goal. If you don't reach it you scrap the idea or go back to the drawing board. Repop isn't a project like that. If we never reached our goals the project wasn't going to cancel. It would have just taken longer to build and not been nearly as good of a game as it is becoming. So for us it would have made zero sense to set an high goal in either campaign. The pledges help us immensely, but we'd find a way to moonlight the game to launch no matter even in an apocalpyse. Too much time has gone into this project and it's too far along already to even consider otherwise.
Thats a good answer and I am agree. Its far easier to ask for 20K and come back 3 times rather than asking for 60K right off the bat.
I am glad that isnt what you guys are doing and I want you to also understand I really wish you luck (game sounds good) The problem I have is that this seems to be happening with may, many projects and tehey are still not released. It seems to be the norm and not the exceptions.
- To say that a second Kickstarter is not okay, but an ever-running online store accepting the same pledges for the same thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most of the upcoming crowd-funded titles have on-site stores where players who missed the Kickstarters can continue pledging. Over time those will make more money than the shorter Kickstarter campaigns, though less per month. They don't really obsolete what Kickstarter does though. Kickstarter is also a promotional tool. It's easier for some people to use, and it's shorter windowed approach is ideal for something like our current stretch goal campaign. It makes a lot of sense given it's intended goals. And it's helped introduce the game to new players, which also benefits existing players.
I agree.
- The logic of sucking your older backers out of money because they have to help it get done, isn't accurate. To give you a good example of that, under 12% of this campaign's backers are bump ups who pledged to previous campaigns. The bulk of those are new players who weren't around 18 months ago, or didn't feel at that time that the game was worth backing. We do get bump ups from previous backers, but in general people back and then just wait for launch or their testing invite (quite a few are already testing). Our backers don't need to have any concerns about the game getting built. They should welcome these types of campaigns because it helps us build a better game at launch. If our goal was simply to push the game to market, we could likely have the game ready to ship in under two months. Our goal isn't to put out a buggy and incomplete product though, it's to carve ourselves a nice space in the MMO market. Rushing to launch does not accomplish those goals. We'd much rather deal with some players being upset that it took us longer to get to market than they had hoped, than to deal with players not playing the game after it launches because it needed more time in the oven.
I hope this is the case.
The problem (as I see it) is that talk is cheap (no offense towards you) and very little is actually forthcoming. I cannot wait to see this game released with working features and not a buggy mess- It will be the first "sandbox' in years that has done that. Most of the "sandbox" games out there are STILL buggy messes after years and years and funding and funding and funding.
In my line of work when we get funding (from anywhere) we have to answer for our descisions and have a ton of oversight. We could clam anything we wanted but there are people watching the books. If we get funding and then change or add anything we coould potentially face lawsuits and/or having to return that money. And changes we make must be approved even if our changes are great ideas.
So yeah- My problem (at the moment) is that this seems to be following the pattern of the other MMORPG's I a seeing doing crowd funding and unttil something is actually produced- I have red flags all around (right or wrong) and since every MMORPG on KS seems to be doing the exact same thing, using the exact same talking points etc... Its not something I can believe until I see it.
-And this isnt your fault either. You are probably 100% sincere. I hope so. And I hpe you can do this.
-No offense. When I am talkng here I am tarring all of you with a broad brush who is KSing an MMORPG (yes..Its unfair) but I cannot wait to be proven wrong and have a great sandbox to play in.
Just a bit annoying to me. So they've went through their funds already and have new ideas, and wanna have a new Kickstarter?
Doesn't seem very focused and managing well to me, and that's concerning if I decided to play the game. Why are they not polishing the the game they have with the money they got from people already, get revenew coming in and then add more things? Just seems a shady way to start out and the game isn't even going to be released for years now if they keep begging for more money and trying to add more stuff.
Not sure it bothers me but I am surprised it's allowed by the Kickstarter rules. What's to keep a "company" from just continuously having Kickstarters every 1.5 years? Are three Kickstarters for the same game allowed? Four?
It's not like they are asking for a ton of cash... they are only asking half of my personal salary per year. That hardly pays for a ton of development work, software licencing, artists, designers, etc...
So... like anything else, if you don't agree with it, don't support it.
Yup, it's this simple. Some of you should stop trying to be the wise sage and mange how other people spend their money...
Comments
Thx for the answer. That cleared up alot for me. I was just hoping, since I've kicked in almost 200 bucks to the game, that I would have had access to at least test it by now. But I guess I just have to wait alittle more. There's nothing else out there that interests me as much as Repop. Therefor it's quite frustrating to not be able to taste it.
Maybe Santa comes with a invite. Who knows. :P And good luck, keep it up and merry christmas!!!
To those that may not know,
JC and Joshua are both Dev's/Leaders for Repop.
*waves* hey guys, havent stopped by in a few months, but was planning on catching up with you after the first of the year now that my promotion has settled down.
I have been out of the loop for the past few months due to taking a promotion that required moving half way across the country,,... but
The Repop Devs are very responsive and are not being bashed over the head by suits in the back ground, so if you're looking for a indie game that shows promise and can fill that sandboxy feel for ya with a peppering of themepark, I'd keep an eye on Repopulation (thier devs actually know what those two terms mean)
Ziegler
I can see you giving people that didn't know about the game a chance to back it. If you want sympathy for your staff being unpaid or paid very little, or those leaving for greener pastures, I have none.
You should know going into a huge time invested, money invested mmorpg project with your own funding, it is going to be that way, If you didn't you're naive. You stand to make millions once the game is released because of the cash shop, (there is no free to play), you know it will payoff in the end. It's a problem with any kickstarter project that has a successful funding then goes back a year or so later to beg for more. Makes a person not even want to give to a kickstarter project again seeing how a small company will come back for more over and over. It starts a chain and once one company succeeds this way, they'll all know they can just come back for more, because customers are starving for a good sandbox game.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
If everybody kills doesn't mean its right!
Lol.. seriously? Cause their first Kickstarter raised soooo much money. [mod edit]
I didn't hear anyone bitching about them fund raising through their website... but them starting a new KS because people have been asking for it.. well, that's just so horrible.
If they made a killing in their first KS, or if they had a publisher that was helping to fund them.. I could see you point.. but they don't.
Um... Pathfinder Online did two Kickstarters as well, may want to go over to their mmorpg forum and complain as well.
Thing to always remember:
Nobody is forcing you to pay. Being a backer is essentially the same as taking the money and donating it to your favorite charity. Or if you're of the more cynical mindset, throwing it out the window. Don't like it - don't donate. Personally, I'll never donate my money to some Kickstarter dude promising this and that. Been there, heard the sale pitch, multiple times. But that's just me, there's plenty of people willing to jump on the granades out there.
But as I've said on Repop forums, Kickstarter and especially Greenlight are very good things for the game because of the exposure they bring and attract new players. If you've ever played any of the indy sandbox with 10-20 players online circle-jerking about "potential" and "steam", you know how important it is to have a constantly rolling marketing campaign to bring new players in.
So ultimately it doesn't matter, it merely increases the chances they'll get a few bucks and get by long enough to deliver a good game that will have lots of people playing.
And how do you know that a game is focused and managed well when it's still in alpha? I'm not saying that they aren't (or that they are), but the proof comes when a polished game is released. Even having most features in place and mostly working can easily be a long, long way away from launching a polished game. Even if you demonstrably have done the former, it doesn't prove that you can deliver the latter.
over 20 years of mmorpg's and counting...
I generaly don't do kickstarters because there's no warrant for my money. And while giving money through a Kickstarter is esentially the same as giving a few coins to a beggar on the street, I don't really look at it the same way.
Since I aproach it from a standpoint of sort of an investment, I just can't dig into throwing (away) money into pure ideas. If I really wanted to do that I'd want more warranty.
Which I essentially get in the case of Repopulation today. You can see a lot of work already, game is nearing it's final year of development so it's far far away from backing up just ideas. Sure it's still a gamble, but when is it not?
You and Boogie are clearly on the defensive and are just blindly lashing out so I stepped away from the conversation entirely, but your snarky "Um... here's something I think I have a clue about post" was too tempting not to reply to.
Um... the first Pathfinder Kickstarter was for a tech demo and was clearly stated as such.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
How can any kickstarter developer look on at star citizen and not want some of what they're getting. In many ways it's wow all over again.
When one company gets so much it inspires others to do the same. Multiple kickstarters will become the norm because precedent has been set.
It's not like they are asking for a ton of cash... they are only asking half of my personal salary per year. That hardly pays for a ton of development work, software licencing, artists, designers, etc...
So... like anything else, if you don't agree with it, don't support it.
-Trekkan
Just For Fun Gaming
WWW.JFFGAMING.COM
I'm still 100% behind this game, and excited to play it whenever I get the chance.
Heck, just reading their design ideas is more fun than playing almost every MMO on the market today.
The issue is not that they are asking for more, thats fine. The problem is that they are doing it before delivering what they promised to deliver after the first one, EVEN IF IT FAILED!
People handing off mony to Star Citizen just shows how little people knows about what is hard about making games. It is not hard getting good ideas, everyone has those, it is hard making said ideas WORK.
I want to see and prefereably play working prototypes that proves the ideas translate into actual gameplay before touching Kickstarters in the future.
I really have to laugh at some people and how they justify thigngs.
"But they only asked for XXX in their first KS... MMOs take waaay more money than that to make."
Yes. Yes, they do. And this is a problem with KS. If the devs do not realize "how much money an MMO takes to make" during the first KS, and continue to add more and more- They are kind of clueless , huh? OR (much more possibly) they always intended to do multiple Kickstaters and started very low so people would throw money at them thinking "they are not asking for that much..." and then those people have a vested interest in the game coming out (or they get nothing) so they are easy targets to keep begging for even MORE money .
If anyone thinks they can make an MMO for under 100K- They are fools. And I do not trust them with a dollar. If they knew they could not make an MMO for what they asked originally and always intended to come back begging foor more (the likely scenario imho) they are dishonest and I do not trut them.
Either way- They are clueless or dishonest, right?
If this game got 200% funding on the first KS it shouldnt need another one, right? It got double the money asked fr? AND if the devs can not produce with double the money asked for, what would have happened if they just made their goal?
-=And this is becoming commonplace with KS. Low ball the initial amount to get people vested. This is going to make regular rabid fanboys look tame once someones money is tired up in an unfinished idea . I already seee "salesmen" all over the place (not just here) pimping the game they have backed and justifying everything the company does.
-Oh well. Not my moneys.
The Features promised in the first KS have been developed and are implemented (or are very close to ready) into the Alpha. Just read their Patch Notes over the last 6+ months. They specify what has been put in. Now its all being tested.
The second KS is offering some new things that can also be implemented should it hit the Stretch Goals.
There is a working prototype. Its been at quite a few Cons including PAX.
There is also an ongoing Alpha with Beta coming soon.
Bringer of Eternal Darkness and Despair, but also a Nutritious way to start your Morning.
Games Played: Too Many
How do people like this form such a strong opinion on something that they have no clue about? Honestly, I'm not going to refute your points since it's a waste of time on people like you....so I'll just ask anyone who has an open mind to do some actual research before posting crap like this. It's not constructive, it's inaccurate, and it's disruptive.
Waiting on: The Repopulation
- The Repopulation was designed using heavy use of generation and funded it all out of our own pocket initially. It was certainly a smaller scale project at the time, but players liked the ideas and it started receiving interest. We had a good team but everyone was working day jobs. Kickstarter at that time was brand new, and we never really even considered using it. A few months before the first Kickstarter (18 months ago) users started a thread on our forum and kept suggesting it. They basically sold us on the idea. We figured whatever amount it brought in could be used on contractors to help bring the game to market more quickly. It wasn't about give us $25k and we'll make a game. It was about whatever money this does generate will be spent to beef up the games team so that we can build a better game.
- The years of the engines costing you a million up front are gone. There are indie programs for everything nowadays that allow you to minimize your start up cost. A lot also goes on officers, power, and hardware. For an indies, working on their own computers in their own homes though, the cost is largely based on salaries or contractors. If your team is working for free or for cheap, as most of our team is, that significantly lowers the cost. Nobody makes fair market value on our team, and much of the team is foregoing pay. In some cases so they do not violate no compete clauses, and in others because they simply believe in the project and want to see it completed, knowing that there are budget constraints that simply won't allow it.
- This project has been in full scale development since 2011. Though we dabbled with other engines before that, we didn't go into full scale production until 2011 when Hero Engine became available and after having a few months to familiarize it ourselves with it (at the end of 2010). I'll give you a fun fact. It was announced months after Everquest: Next, which will ship after The Repopulation. And it's had a smaller budget in that time than EQ: Next probably spends in a month. If you try to go by traditional MMO budgets, that should not be possible. You'd be hard pressed to find any MMO which started development after us and has already shipped, or which is significantly further along than we are. You can't think in the same terms money wise when your talking about indie developers. A little bit of money can stretch a long way. We certainly may have been overambitious in our initial time frame, and we apologize for that. But in general development has gone on at a smooth pace, minus a couple of setbacks.
- We don't expect anyone to pledge. When there isn't an option available though, players request it. The features from this Kickstarter are largely in part player requests. There's threads about them on our forums, and emails to our staff, as well. We for example planned to ship with vehicles only. Users want mounts, they add some value to tamers and have a coolness factor. They've asked repeatedly about this over the years. We agree, but since the functionality is covered in vehicles it's hard to pull programmers and artists off other stuff that is needed. This handles that problem and allows those features to get in game. That's what this Kickstarter is all about as we've stated before. If people want to pledge, the option is available. If they don't feel comfortable pledging or don't think the game is worth pledging to, we'd invite them to apply for beta or check the game out when it launches.
- The $50k isn't enough argument is common, but it's not a valid argument. The reality is that setting a goal too high is counter-productive. For one, if it looks like your project is falling behind and won't hit it's goal, people stop backing, which makes it impossible to reach. You need to set a goal that you are pretty confident you will reach. It's not uncommon for games to reach that goal several times over in the campaign, much of it is momentum based. If a project needs $100k or it can't be built, it makes sense to set a $100k goal. If you don't reach it you scrap the idea or go back to the drawing board. Repop isn't a project like that. If we never reached our goals the project wasn't going to cancel. It would have just taken longer to build and not been nearly as good of a game as it is becoming. So for us it would have made zero sense to set an high goal in either campaign. The pledges help us immensely, but we'd find a way to moonlight the game to launch no matter even in an apocalpyse. Too much time has gone into this project and it's too far along already to even consider otherwise.
- To say that a second Kickstarter is not okay, but an ever-running online store accepting the same pledges for the same thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most of the upcoming crowd-funded titles have on-site stores where players who missed the Kickstarters can continue pledging. Over time those will make more money than the shorter Kickstarter campaigns, though less per month. They don't really obsolete what Kickstarter does though. Kickstarter is also a promotional tool. It's easier for some people to use, and it's shorter windowed approach is ideal for something like our current stretch goal campaign. It makes a lot of sense given it's intended goals. And it's helped introduce the game to new players, which also benefits existing players.
- The logic of sucking your older backers out of money because they have to help it get done, isn't accurate. To give you a good example of that, under 12% of this campaign's backers are bump ups who pledged to previous campaigns. The bulk of those are new players who weren't around 18 months ago, or didn't feel at that time that the game was worth backing. We do get bump ups from previous backers, but in general people back and then just wait for launch or their testing invite (quite a few are already testing). Our backers don't need to have any concerns about the game getting built. They should welcome these types of campaigns because it helps us build a better game at launch. If our goal was simply to push the game to market, we could likely have the game ready to ship in under two months. Our goal isn't to put out a buggy and incomplete product though, it's to carve ourselves a nice space in the MMO market. Rushing to launch does not accomplish those goals. We'd much rather deal with some players being upset that it took us longer to get to market than they had hoped, than to deal with players not playing the game after it launches because it needed more time in the oven.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
-No offense. When I am talkng here I am tarring all of you with a broad brush who is KSing an MMORPG (yes..Its unfair) but I cannot wait to be proven wrong and have a great sandbox to play in.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Not sure it bothers me but I am surprised it's allowed by the Kickstarter rules. What's to keep a "company" from just continuously having Kickstarters every 1.5 years? Are three Kickstarters for the same game allowed? Four?
Yup, it's this simple. Some of you should stop trying to be the wise sage and mange how other people spend their money...