Two Shadowrun games in the pipe, and I've already paid for both of them
Now I just have to wait. I've got 2 words for you guys: "Hurry up!"

SR:R=190$
SR:O=275$
-------------
so its' 465$

For two games . . x.x



I have to check what kind of SWAG i am going to get from them some time . .

Glad it made it. Thought for a while there it wasn't going to happen. I might be out of pocket but like others, I now have two shadowrun games to look forward to. So yeah, get a move on you guys. Where's my swag and my beta invites!?

SR:R = 15$
SR:0 = 0
--------------
Final cost : 15$

Difference of 450$.

Giving a cost of 2$ pints, and a 25% tip for the bartender, that's a net profit of 180 beers in my book. The only swag worth 180 beers is 180 beers.

i am german, so this will shock many people:"Beer is yucky/icky and leaves stains"

I used to like you, too.

Many People do. I do not understand many People.

I think you miss the point. For some fans of the game, the ability to invest in the future of the game is more than the face value in dollars. Given the idiot decisions when knot-headed bean counters and suits call the shots on development, the ability to fund someone(s) who is(are) passionate about the game is a worthwhile investment. For me, the dollars to both Kickstarters is about more than just the swag (don't get me wrong, I love SR swag), its also about insuring that the game continues to thrive. Three companies actively developing for it, two funded by Kickstarters, says a lot about what the fans want and are willing to pay for.

SR:R=$60
SR:O=$66 (I had selected the co-op pack, but dropped a level, but was willing to let the extra buck slide)
-------------
so it's $126

For two games (and a t-shirt, sound track, and possibly a PDF book*).

You know what? I'm ok with this.

*I offered to forgo the three miniatures in exchange. I don't really want them, and it'll save on shipping.

I agree, to a limited extent. To me, Kickstarting in general feels an awful lot like taking advantage of fanboys with too much cash. If I invest in something, I expect something out of my investment. A shirt isn't a good return on 100 dollars, and you admit as much.

I almost feel like the only possible way Kickstarting works is if they'd give you your money back at higher tiers after the product went to market. 15 bucks for a game? Reasonable. 150 bucks held onto for a year and a half, then given back to you with a game and a shirt? Reasonable. A shirt and a game for 150 bucks? Not so much.

I really get the whole showing support thing, but the way *I* do that is by getting into it, and getting friends into it. I've gotten good deals on the SR4a rulebook and sold them for cheap to friends. I've gotten other friends to buy into Eclipse Phase. In these cases, everyone wins. In the other cases, I feel like if I'm just going to needlessly throw cash at something because it says Shadowrun, I'd be better off signing checks over to Critias, or Patrick Goodman, because their quality is already proven, and I'd rather encourage them then support SR360 : 2.

While your numbers are obviously an exaggeration, perhaps it is my personal experience in custom development costs that causes me to understand economic dynamics. To be honest, given the amount of swag that will be going out with the SRO Kickstarter and the upfront development costs that the team is facing, I still have concerns about their model. From one perspective, I see your point about investment vs. donation. On the other, I don't think Jan will be getting rich anytime soon from this. I got in at level that I felt comfortable with.

I'd rather not debate the various product pipelines, but rather focus on what we've seen from the prototypes here and the stated end goals of the project. In that case, I see something new. I see something that is in line with a Shadowrun game most of us would like to play and in the end, the only way that might get started.

While I appreciate the compliment you paid me in a later post, I've got to say that there's just something perverse about showing up in a thread about a kickstarter and, essentially, bragging about having not contributed to it. What do you want, a pat on the back for not helping the video game get made? Some weird sort of indy-geek cred for not being interested in something other people like?

If you're so very disinterested and pessimistic about the game, why not just avoid this thread instead of crapping in it?

... an average of $93.10 per backer. Not bad.

That kind of pricing is about thirty years out of date. PC games nowadays bear an industry-standard MSRP of $60.

(Obviously, Indie games, some digital-only games, and older games sometimes come in lower than that ... but the standard MSRP for a big, new title is still what it is.)

Only bronies....

The good news is they're building on an engine that already exists and works, so a lot of the development has already been done.

I'm still butthurt over the rise from $50 to $60, as it all has to do with the blu-ray transition. My PC games aren't subject to this material cost (as they still come on DVDs when I don't buy digital) but I still have to pay for it.

Those are easy enough to understand.
Fans of a wonderfull fun little TV Show.

Kickstarter by nature only funds indy games, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

And most games on Kickstarter you can get "the game" with no frills from between 15 and 30 bucks.

I fail to see what your issue is.

(Board games being an exception, due to the cost of producing the physical materials).

Earlier I'd mentioned that if the game was close to being funded within 12 hours, but not quite there, I'd chip in 50-60 bucks for the cause, if only as a show of solidarity with other like-minded geeks, and I'd get the chance to prove myself right. In hindsight, it was a stupid thing to say, but I would have stuck with it.

I get the sentiment of 'If you don't have anything nice to say...', but I've been on this boat for a while. With licensed products, there's only four ways this goes.

Rapes setting, Is Successful (Fallout 3)
Rapes setting, Is a flop (SR 360)
Sticks with setting, Is Successful (WoW, FO:NV)
Sticks with setting, is a flop (EQ2, ST:O, SW:TOR)

Personally, I see SR:O ripping out the SR universe and game engine where inconvenient to make the easiest, dumbest game to appeal to the most amount of people, and nothing I've seen has shown me otherwise. There would be no better time or place to talk about my thoughts on this then a Shadowrun Forum, in a thread about the game, when it's still relevant. Your agitation is unwarranted.

Uh, correct? You fail to see what my issue is, because I don't have one. In reference to kickstarting games, I mentioned a 15 dollar price point. Pax chimed in with 'NO. GAMES PRODUCED BY LARGE CORPORATIONS COST 60.' Which is like saying a Honda costs 20k, but to be told you were wrong because a BMW costs 55k.

What have you seen that leads you to believe this?

You're kidding ... right? ... right?!?

I mean, seriously. Video game prices have been rising SLOWER than, well, the price for just about everything else on Earth.

I'm not kidding. And it's not just MY opinion.

Oh sure. But I can still bitch about the fact that the reason the price went up was because of consoles underselling the machine and then having expensive distribution medium (i.e. blu-ray which costs like $1 more to make than the equivalent space in DVDs) and charging more for the XBucks/PS3 games than the same game on the PC.

Except that they can't underprice the PC game. So the same game costs the same price, regardless of platform.

Then all the PC game makers go "wait, we can get 10 extra bucks and otherwise do nothing? COUNT ME IN."

It's that last step I object to.

... except you'd be 100% wrong.

The price went up for the same reason that a gallon of milk now, costs more than a gallon of milk in 2002: inflation. Prices rise. ALL prices.

Stop being, in your own words, "butthurt" that video games are included in that "all", and instead be thankful that video games (console, PC, or otherwise) have gone up SLOWER than everything else. Because, PC or not, if game prices had simply kept pace with inflation, they wouldn't have an MSRP of $60. They'd have an MSRP of $100 or more.

...

To borrow a phrase from Mark Twain: "Please get your facts straight first, Sir; then you may twist them to your heart's content." BEcause compared to inflation, PC game prices have gone DOWN relative to their prices twenty years ago.

Causation and correlation, my friend, are not one and the same.

I wouldn't worry about that, the last step barely lasts a few months, then before you know it there are deep cuts into the titles on PC in the form of sales and regular price drops if the publisher has any sense, especially if its a multiplayer title. Valve and Steam pretty much wave their massive profit dick in their former publisher's and competitions' faces because they heralded that practice and continue to lead on it.

The only remaining publishers that basicly still try to charge $60 on the PC are EA, Activision, and Ubisoft - all publishers who have pretty much come out as giving PC gamers the middle finger on a whole host of issues. Its enough of an issue that personally, they could release The Best Game Evar and I would still think its crap. As Indie Developers demonstrate, they cut out all that middle man bullshit, sell for a lower price point with the lower costs on distribution, don't have to ship as many copies and still make a tidy sum provided their game is good enough to spread by word of mouth / twitter / youtube vid / blog / etc. And many Indie Devs used to work in under Publisher gigs, so I would say that is evidence that "PC game makers" want the lower price point and the freedom to design a game without having to consult the Marketing department suits first.

Lower price points, alphafunding, Kickstarter, bundles... all responses of Game Devs in opposition to Publisher fuck ups that don't benefit themselves or their customers.

Actually, that phrase is one you should be looking at yourself. Sure, there's a correlation between the price of console games, and the price of PC games. But with only that correlation to go on, you're making the leap to assuming that there's a causative link.

...

And hell, even if there was one. In the end, PC games are still half as expensive as mere inflation would otherwise suggest.

There's far more I want to say, but I'm trying to be nicer around here. I'll simply state that inflation has little to do with actual cost increases for households, and that if you want to use actual facts to support an argument, it'd be wise to use the right facts, in this case, the CPI.

Yep. I pretty much only buy games on Steam sales these days.

And still regret half of them.

I got Civ 5 off the summer sale. Played it for 5 minutes and never again.

Got Crusader Kings 2 off the sale. Never heard of it beforehand. Probably put 100+ hours into it over the last month or two.

Wierd how that works.

Skyrim here.

I've sunk 9 hours into it, and I've done buggerall. All my open quests seem to have a level requirement higher than I currently am, leading me to assume that either a) there are some more quests I haven't found yet or b) they expect me to go out and kill Giant Rats for fourteen hours before coming back. I have no pressing desire to play any more of it.

The few recent quests I completed involved a lot of abuse of the AI. Such as taking pot-shots at a "ghost" from around a corner (where I could see him, but he couldn't see me, because of the center-center AI sight line) until he went into his "oh god oh god, I have no health, plead for mercy and heal myself" routine, whereupon I jumped out of hiding and flameblasted him into a nice steak.

Because if I didn't, he'd heal up and I'd be out of mana.

(Speaking of, why do enemies beg for mercy if they're just going to get up again and keep fighting? Seriously, I thought it was pretty cool of the system to have the NPCs surrender. For about eight seconds when she stood back up and stabbed me again, whereupon I said, "Bitch" and kicked her in the crotch for her last hit point).

Or the dragon I didn't fight, but instead ran like a scared little girl while casting "Heal Self" until I was able to hide under a bridge and watch a no-name NPC shoot it with arrows until it died. Said NPC took no damage during this escapade.

I liked Skyrim. As far as AI glitches, it's only abuse if you take advantage of it. If you want to do it, go for it. to me, it's the same as cheating, and if it will make you enjoy the game more, go you.

I liked the wide open world, and that I could decide to just go exploring for a few hours and be rewarded with fun. I think magic is a bit underpowered, and I don't like that they keep dumbing down the game engine and its skills each iteration, but all in all, it was good adventure fun for me.

Sound like a lot of friends I have that bought Skyrim. They all got suckered in by the pretty pictures and found out the game was unplayable.

I intensely dislike it, but it appears that it is the only way to avoid dying. I'm level 9 and somehow can't even fight a single wild cat on open ground. I'm not sure I've found anything that is "level appropriate" since, oh, leaving the first town (the one that wasn't on fire). Wolves I can kill in one hit, and only take damage because there are three of them at the same time.

Wild cats, which appear to be the next highest level wandering mob, murder me in under 4 seconds. Same with giant spiders.



I like the wide open world, if it wasn't for two very critical flaws:

1) walking anywhere farther than "what I can see"
2) not being able to fight from horseback

Point 2 is highly important, as the time it takes to dismount the horse is greater than my time-to-death from wild cats. Also the fact that said horse has fewer hit points than I do, less armor,* and is unhealable (at my current point in the game, as I've found no healing spell that targets another being, and have yet to find a way to use any inventory item in more than two ways: drop and eat)

*I'm in god damn heavy armor! WTH! Still two-shot by wild cats.

Skyrim quests aren't levelled. At all. In fact, if you do the same quest with the same character - but, relying on savegames, do it once at level 5 and once at level 35? The opponents will be tougher for the L35 run, than they were for the L5 run. The loot will be better, too.

From the start of Skyrim, you escape Helgen and wind up in Riverwood. If you explore Riverwood a bit before leaving, you can find a quest to recover the Golden Claw from Bleak Falls Barrow (the town merchant offers it - you walk in on him arguing with his sister about HER going after it). Getting it back is pretty straightforward - you'll encounter 3 or 4 bandits on the road, another 3 or 4 outside the Barrow itself, and two just inside. Then some skeevers (yes, "giant rats") and a BIG spider ... chase a guy past/through some draugr ("zombies"), and if you don't turn back immediately upon getting the claw, a tough fight against a Draugr Overlord ... but, importantly, your reward for that fight is learning your first Thu'um (though it's not unlocked yet).

Also, of course, you get sent to Whiterun to deliver word of the dragon attack to the Jarl. If you did the Bleak Falls sidequest before doing this, you can complete another quest (retrieve a stone tablet that the Draugr Overlord is carrying) without taking a single step. Then you go rushing off to face a dragon - and, with help, make your first dragon kill (of very very many).

By this point, you should have 1K to 2K coin if you've been looting intelligently and thoroughly. You should also be level 4 to 6. Proventius can give you a bounty quest; you can get another from each of the two inn/tavern keepers in Whiterun. Probably another from the innkeeper in Riverwood. You can also stop by the Halls of the Dead, and do a very quick, very simple job for the pries of Arkay there. There's a fellow and his wife arguing near the big tree in Whiterun - there's a quest available there, too.

...

And, you know, there's always just wander around and explore. You don't HAVE to have a quest, to go somewhere.


Because they're lying scum? ^_^ Otherwise, I agree with you on that point.


... seriously? That first dragon is a pushover. O_o

I *love* that. I hate games that pander to the player. Tigers are pretty freaking hard until you get good enough. My mage actively avoids them, which is as it should be. Different choices present different challenges.





I dont understand the first point, and they added fighting from horseback in a patch recently. Personally I never do it, since I like my stupid horsey too much to risk his hide. There's also heal other spells, but I figure you knew that, just haven't found one yet. Which I also like. (That everything isn't available just because you want it, I get no particular joy from you yourself not having the spell.)

Did all of that with few problems. The dragon took a few tries (I was primarily melee spec'd at the time, and while I had a bow, I wasn't very good with it). So it took a lot of trickery.



"Go to this island and kill three wights. Then come back. If you survive then you're valuable to me, otherwise, well, I have no use for a corpse."
Me: "Fine, whatever"
*Walk towards quest location. Encounter wild cat. Die*
*Respawn back inside the city. Walk towards quest location a second time. Encounter the same wild cat, and run like hell this time. Die*
*Respawn back inside the city. Get a mother fucking horse to move faster, this is getting annoying as FUCK. Encounter wild cat, horse dies.*
*Reload the game. Get a horse. Encounter wild cat, and run like hell. Die*

Fuck this, let's go here instead.
*Walk towards the temple on the mountain where the graybeards are. Find the city below the steps after three hours of walking. Kill the "haunted" barrows through AI abuse. Attempt to climb the stairs. Encounter a wild cat AND a giant spider. AT THE SAME TIME.*

Every single quest in my quest log has a number of notches next to it indicating the number of deaths I've had attempting to either do the quest or even get to the quest location.



Did a fair amount of that. Died to wild cats four times, a spider twice, and almost to a dragon. But I hid under a bridge.



Not him, the second dragon I encountered.

.... please note, that's not just "a wild cat", that's a frelling SABERTOOTH TIGER. It weighs at least twice as much as you do, I guarantee it - and that weight is all muscle, sinew, and TEETH. Even at level TWENTY, you should take those cats very seriously.

Partly since the wild animals level with you (yes, there are L20 wolves and there are L2 wolves), and partly because those cats are just meant to be THAT badass ...? My current higher-level character - level 39 last I looked - has a bow that's been re-smithed to have a base damage rate of 95 (including the effects of my Archery skill, which is 100). Firing arrows that add +14 to that (dwarven or elven), those big cats are STILL taking 2-4 shots, if I don't get a sneak attack in. And they'd STILL tear me to pieces in ... oh, 4-6 attacks, given that I've got some pretty advanced armor, and a Light Armor skill of 80+. So even at nearly level 40, I don't take a cat on if I don't have the element of surprise, and the advantage of range. And even when I do, if it ever gets into melee range with me, I need to swig a healing potion or two afterwards.


Skeever >> Wolf >> Ice Wolf >> Bears >> those big cats >> Snow Bears >> big SNOW cats >> Troll >> Ice Troll

Spiders also come in multiple varieties - usually based on size. If they're bigger, body-wise, than a wolf? RUN LIKE BLAZES, until at least L15 or L20. Or until you have better spells than the starter Flames (which is like trying to fight a troll, wielding only a dagger ... at level 10).


.... um, what? How is that different from the real world??


Mounted combat was added in a recent patch.


"Healing Hands" targets other beings. Buy it from a wizard or merchant (takes a bit of luck for it to be on offer, like any other spell), under the "Books" category.

But, you know, when mounted and a big cat shows up? Hold down the ALT key and ride hell-bent for leather. Eventually the cat stops following you.

And that's an important point: in Skyrim, sometimes your best course of action is not "fight", but instead, "run like blazes". Kind of like real life, actually.


Yes, you're in heavy armor. What's your heavy armor SKILL, though? Without skill, the armor isn't worth enough to make you immune by itself.



The possibility of this is why you have so much help. It also lets you know, you should have some means of ranged combat - no matter how melee-centric you want to be, have a good bow. Always.


Did you ever think of trying to go AROUND that cat?


That's random. All wild animal spawns are random (and generated when you enter that "cell"). Also, the Throat of the World is a pretty tough, unforgiving place. There's actually a scripted Troll encounter, I died to it three times. The fourth time, I was on a horse, and just blew the f**k past it. Like I said, in Skyrim, sometimes descretion IS the better part of valor ... if you can outrun whatever wants to chew on you, anyway.


I don't know what you're doing wrong. But it has to be something.

You forgot the mack daddies.

Ice Troll >> Mammoth >> Dragon >> Giant



Preferably run to the nearest Giant camp. I wish I could forge an alliance with Giants. They saved my bacon many many times.

True enough.

Though, some Dragons outdo the Giants. And if you have Dawnguard, there's also Frost Giants to factor in.

And somewhere in there - toward theupper end, IMO - you have to fit Chaurus, Chaurus Reapers, and Chaurus Hunters (which bloody well FLY). Oh, and Falmer. Stone cold b!tch, those.

...

Me, I mostly sneak around, and shoot things in the face from halfway across the current map. Gotta love triple damage sneak attacks with a bow doing a base of 100+ ...

hehe...you may call me cheesy, but just wait. get your enchanting up there, and your alchemy, and enchant all the gear you can with +% of dmg to bows. My bow is upwards of 300, One shotting mammoths ftw

I just meant, the on-bow damage level. Until Dawnguard, I was using a mod that added (IMO balanced) Dragonbone weapons. My smithing is 100, I've got all the perks. So anything I wear or wield, gets reforged to (Legendary). So that Dragonbone Bow of mine, is rated for 95 damage, before enchantments.

Working THAT skill up (from current 50 to eventual 100) is my next goal. I'll probably have to enchant a bow with Soul Trap to make it work - then go out and massacre deer, wolves, foxes, and bunnies by the hundreds.

Here is a tip, just in case you didnt know, you get the same skill from enchanting with a petty as you do with a grand...

Meant to finish this up and post it a while ago. Heh.



Except that I can't go anywhere without running into at least two.



In the real world, I have a mother fucking car.



Not enough to get me interested.

Also:
Fighting underwater is an exercise in frustration. NPCs can't drown, and no one can make attacks while underwater.



I think that's the spell I have. I still haven't figured out how to cast it on anything but myself.



Yeah, I've done that. It doesn't help.



Don't recall offhand. 30ish? It's not as high as it could be, primarily because...
1) the game starts off by tossing only light armor at me as loot, so I'd wear it. Better than my naked chest.
2) then the game starts throwing medium armor at me, and being better than my light armor, I swap out pieces as I find them.
3) only recently did I start finding any heavy armor. started with a helm, then some boots, then the gauntlets...hell, I don't even think I found a piece of heavy armor chest-slot piece until very recently. I think I'm still missing a piece, but I don't recall what.



Uh huh. And I have one. It hasn't helped me at all. Sure, I fire off and arrow and hit something that's about as far out as I can see, get a second one in while it's running at me, and I've done what, 30 damage? Swinging a sword/mace/one-handed weapon of current acquisition I do 60. All I've done is piss something off.



Yup. Didn't work either. There were other things over there. And that's assuming that the terrain is wide enough to allow me to perform such a maneuver. At the 7000 steps? It isn't. The path is like 8 feet wide and the cat's detection radius is like 100. Same in another spot where I found a place on a hillside the cat couldn't path too




I got the guards to kill them by running pellmell back down the mountain and only barely survived.



Yes. I'm clearly doing something wrong. That has to be it. Except that no one can tell me what that "something" is.

I don't mind enemies that level with the player, but seriously, there's a limit to which it's fun. If you're going to make wild cats stupidly dangerous, don't spawn them at random such that they appear ON THE ROAD when the loading screen hint-tips tell you to "stay on the road, as venturing too far off them will result in death from wild cats." (and then put all main quest destinations in the middle of bumfuck nowhere). If you're not supposed to be doing some quest until Level Y, then I shouldn't even be able to get to the quest giver until Level Y. If I've gotten to the quest giver and gotten the quest, then I should be reasonably safe traveling to the quest location and finishing the quest. I should not have to hide around corners making pot-shots at things because their damage is three times my health.

What's reasonably safe? Why, not having to run screaming every time I see a wild animal.

Hyperbole for the lose.


See, right here? This? Is a lie. I say that with confidence, because there's NO SUCH THING as "medium armor" in Skyrim.


... both Iron and Steel armor are classed as Heavy. Iron Armor shows up plenty early (I looted two sets of it, just clearing Bleak Falls Barrow ... at level 4 and 5.)


The only reason I can't tell you what you're doing wrong, is that I can't sit next to you and watch you try to play for half an hour or so. Otherwise, I guarantee I could.

That, and your hyperbole and outright inaccurate statements make it hard to parse what's REALLY going on while you play. I mean, you talk about getting "medium" armors. There aren't any such thing. So, when you did that, you made a claim about things happening in the game, which are physically impossible. Kind of makes it hard to figure out where you've gone wrong, that.

...

So, look. I get it, you dislike the game. But at least, dislike it for honest reasons. I have no problem with someone saying "X game isn't for me", or "I just didn't like Y game".

I do have problems when they add ""... because of <insert (lie)/(inaccurate misrepresentation) here>".

Man up. Don't add flaws to a game that don't exist, in order to "justify" your dislike. You should own your opinions - not try to sell them to other people. Especially not with lies. >:/

You should actually get the soul trap perk for enchanted weapons and use the bound bow. That way you swap to your real bow when you don't want to fill up soul gems. Also a great way to lvl up conjuring!

Also...

Sabrecats are mean s.o.bs. They pack hunt dragon frequently in my games.

In which case:
It sure as hell feels like it.



My mistake. I've still been replacing armor with better armor as I find it, and I still didn't find an iron/steel chestplate until level 8. I haven't played in three weeks and had other things on my mind, so my APOLOGIES if my MEMORY is INACCURATE.



Maybe you could Join.me later.



What part of "I keep dying and I don't know why, and this game is frustrating me" is not an honest reason?

You didn't stop at "I keep dieing and it's frustrating". When I put forth some pointers, you made excuses. Keep running into the same cat; run into multiple cats; "medium" armor; can't figure out how to heal others but are sure you have the right spell; etc.

Whatever. I'm done arguing about the game with you.