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Quartertothree Discussion on Xenonauts


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I haven't seen any indication that they'd certainly be left out if the goal isn't met, but the goal is a way of raising the necessary resources. For better or worse, it's been made clear that additional tile sets or mission types cost money, and without that money it's unlikely that they'll be in the game.

I think, typically, gamers buy a game AFTER it's released, so those tile sets and mission types would ultimately pay off for Goldhawk --- if they did them right. That's a BIG IF, since the alpha, as-is, is not so good.

I fear they now have lost much of the incentive to produce a great product. That's a more general problem with Goldhawk's pre-order/Kickstarter model, but it's a very real one, given the poor quality of the alpha.

I'll address the "stretch goals might be included anyway" point below..

They've already been clear that despite that the female troopers and mac support were rated low on surveys, they would add them anyway BECAUSE they found a way to add them without much expense. So evidence suggests your implied concerns are invalid.

Note that mac/linux support female soldiers were NEVER listed as stretch goals. They were SUGGESTIONS for stretch goals. So no, you have not refuted my point with "information, evidence and commons sense." It's still not clear if Goldhawk will withhold features listed as stretch goals, if the funding is not attained.

But I am curious: what's the point of the stretch goals, if as you and the above poster suggest, they may be included anyway? Are they just guesses about what they'd throw in at certain levels, without any concern for whether they might do it anyway and it won't be that expensive?

Bizarre. OF COURSE Goldhawk should include what it thinks it can, given its costs and the potential profits. That's exactly why stretch goals are useless and, again, send the wrong signal to gamers. The message seems to be, pay up or you don't get X!

Edited by wiglafman1225
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Note that mac/linux support female soldiers were NEVER listed as stretch goals. They were SUGGESTIONS for stretch goals. So no, you have not refuted my point with "information, evidence and commons sense." It's still not clear if Goldhawk will withhold features listed as stretch goals, if the funding is not attained.

That's incorrect. I think you missed this update

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/69341191/xenonauts/posts

A qoute about a relevant part, but really you need to read the whole thing.

"Ironically, the two features that had the most vocal supporters did not do very well - the female soldiers came 6th and Mac / Linux porting came dead last. A victory for the silent majority?

Actually, it’s a victory for everyone. We’ll also be putting female soldiers into the game, and providing a Mac and Linux version of the game too."

"These two items have therefore been taken out of the stretch goals"

The survey was sent out to decide the stretch goal based on funder feedback. The respective female and Mac/Linux support were included because they found a low cost solution and if i recall another post the porting wouldnt be as heavy as initally thought. I could see how you might think otherwise if you hadn't read this though.

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That update shows suggestions for stretch goals, not actual stretch goals with dollar amounts attached to them. It's a minor distinction but important. There's nothing to suggest we'll get anything that's been published as a stretch goal with a dollar amount.

Again, though, I just don't understand any of this from an economic standpoint. Judging by the stalled out donations, it seems most people don't, either. Goldhawk wanted $50,000 to bring the team together and quash bugs. Done. Now Goldhawk wants tens of thousands more for...a certain type of mission and a few new tile sets? People are seeing the declining marginal value of future contributions and stopping their contributions.

This shows two things: Goldhawk, putting it mildly, is not marketing savvy, and really should not have tried to sell specific features. It's a turn-off. Just include what works.

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But I am curious: what's the point of the stretch goals, if as you and the above poster suggest, they may be included anyway? Are they just guesses about what they'd throw in at certain levels, without any concern for whether they might do it anyway and it won't be that expensive?

I think it's an issue of "will" as opposed to "may". I don't think anyone other than your posts above has stated that these items will categorically not be included. However, looking at costs and priorities, it is likely that they will not unless the team raises sufficient resources to permit them to be added on. If people donate to help with those costs, they "will". If not, they "may" - but in the current scheme, they pretty clearly won't (unless there's a way discovered to get them in more cheaply or leftover resources, etc.). I'm not sure how that's a contrast. Sure, it'd be great to have them included and if there's a way to do so, they will be, but they weren't planned for inclusion for resource reasons and thus may not make it in.

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I wouldn't say guesses, more examples of what could be included :P

I don't see this kickstarter as any worse than many others.

Maybe not as smooth as some though and definitely not as well planned as the best of them.

As someone said above (sorry lost track of who) Chris was probably unprepared for the success of the kickstarter.

I can see how people who haven't gotten used to the team might be misled into feeling concerned as some of the posts on various forums suggest.

I still say if you are concerned just don't pledge, no one is forcing you to.

I am happy though that the game is in good hands, I wouldn't have pledged into the ks if I wasn't after all.

It is not too late to pull pledges back out for people who aren't.

The internet is an odd place, there are always more unhappy people though.

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The stretch goals being laid out as they are were due to voting, so I have to give them a little slack on it. Personally I don't care about a soldier memorial screen, at least not enough to justify the effort that would go in to justifying those tens of thousands of dollars for it.

Most of the stretch goals don't excite me that much, but it's definitely not going to seem complete without a motion detector or proximity grenades which are quite far down the list. I think the 100K stretch goal of indoor missions is going to suck if we don't have motion detectors to help us search.

I think people should just fund the game based on what it is, the quality of work so far, and the promise of the finished game as a whole. I can't fault someone for obsessing over the stretch goals, and like I said I'm going to miss some of those things at the bottom of the list if they don't make it into the game somehow, but I'm not going to be mad about it.

edit: Basically, I think they'll make the vast majority of their funding from people who just want to buy the game, and are going to get the game. 20 - 30$ is a good deal in that regard. If they can't make some important stretch goals, that's unfortunate but we're still getting a good game.

Edited by Stromko
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This shows two things: Goldhawk, putting it mildly, is not marketing savvy, and really should not have tried to sell specific features. It's a turn-off. Just include what works.

I think on this we can see some common ground. Marketing savvy part mainly, I'm much more willing to give them the benifit of the doubt with the understanding, and presume (rightly or wrongly will be known in the final product) good faith despite the lack of marketing polish. If it was a establish team (like the Wasteland team for instance) i would have a higher bar in that regard, but this is a small indie team that includes some motivated programers/fans. So they get benifit of the doubt, IMO.

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I think people should just fund the game based on what it is, the quality of work so far, and the promise of the finished game as a whole.

I think that is right. Xenonauts' stretch goals seem to exist just for the sake of having stretch goals, since that's what all the cool Kickstarters are doing. They don't seem particularly well thought-out.

I would have been so much more comfortable with this game if they'd said, We'd really like $50,000, and donations over that amount will just help us move that much faster/more efficiently to attain our goal. I think that approach would have helped Goldhawk TREMENDOUSLY to get more donations.

Instead, they give off this impression of being a little clueless, are sending unclear messages about whether the stretch goals MUST be met to have the feature, and make it seem like this game is being designed by committee rather than driven by a coherent artistic vision.

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No one charged for joining the forum or for posting an idea to it.

On the contrary, Goldhawk previously did charge for access to the forums. Then, they abandoned that. Now, they are charging a la carte for game features, like we are in a deli and the game is some kind of sandwich that you can randomly throw features on top of at the last minute. And people are saying they might abandon that, too, and include some of the features anyway, because they are so benevolent.

Does not inspire confidence.

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They provided a private forum for people who had pre ordered to discuss pre alpha builds of the game without making that build available to everyone yes.

If you paid for a pre order then you could choose to access early versions and that forum was where they were distributed.

That is not the same as charging for forum access, especially as the rest of the forum was available for everyone.

I am sure you understand the difference and are just playing on it to try and strengthen your point.

I would suggest as you have clearly made your mind up that there is some kind of nefarious tactic going on that you should probably just avoid the game.

I think my interaction with this thread has gone as far as it can.

Hope you find something somewhere else to make you happy.

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I would suggest as you have clearly made your mind up that there is some kind of nefarious tactic going on

Typically, when people use the term "clearly" when making arguments, the thing is not clear at all. This is true here, as well. I do not think any 'nefarious tactic' is going on. Rather, I think Goldhawk is in over its head, and it's showing --- to the detriment of gamers, potential kickstarter investors, and the finished product.

Are you perhaps a glass half empty kind of person in other thigs as well or just Goldhawks kickstarter?

Ha. I guess.

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I think Goldhawk is in over its head...

LOL, to some degree thats true of most ambitous indie projects!:rolleyes: I think indie developers are akin to learning on the job. Which to Goldhawk's credit they been working on this for a few years, they've kept commited, sustained productivity, and done some impressive work and gotten over the major hump to where they are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. They dont have it all nailed down, but they clearly done work met their milestones semi timely and by all accounts are accelerating the pace this past year...so again lots of earned goodwill that allows me to have faith.

Edited by ender101
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That seems right. I am not a marketing wizard by any means, but many of my issues are related to how goldhawk is handling the marketing of this. Had they simply not introduced the possibility of Soviet tilesets, or a motion scanner, they'd be in a better position to get donations, I think. Stretch goals are more dangerous than they might appear.

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That seems right. I am not a marketing wizard by any means, but many of my issues are related to how goldhawk is handling the marketing of this. Had they simply not introduced the possibility of Soviet tilesets, or a motion scanner, they'd be in a better position to get donations, I think. Stretch goals are more dangerous than they might appear.

Out of curiosity, do you think that's more of the issue than the lack of higher-priced tiers at which to bid? I think the latter clearly plays a part in the slowing of the pledging, as does the fact that the goal has already been met. In all the Kickstarters I've seen, funding after the goal either depends on stretch goals or higher-priced tiers (often created after the start of the drive) to drive people to increase their pledges or get new pledgers involved. It's hard to get tons of new cash when most people are coming in at $20/30. But, back to my question - is your thought that just not announcing stretch goals would have led to more donations? From everything I've seen on Kickstarter, that's not the case. Also - rather than pointing out what you see as issues with the process, how about solutions? You seem to have ideas in mind - what would you do going forward?

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Ender101, could you ask scharmers if he has acctually asked for a refund? Or is he just assuming things? I don't think Chris is that opposed to giving refunds from what I've seen.

I was just assuming things. The assumption was based on the fact that most software folks are of the opinion that once a user has received their software, they never get their money back. If the folks at Goldhawk are different; well then: I want my money back and you can revoke my Desura key. I paid for a pre-order of a game that I expected to eventually end up as a modern X-COM clone created by enthusiastic professionals, and I expected a one-time payment. I do not want to participate in a "well, you know, for $xxK, we will put in something that should have been in Xenonauts in the first place".

I have no problem with Goldhawk making cash. I do have a problem with broken expectations and a moving target. Regardless of the various apologists involved, Goldhawk's decision to go the Kickstarter route and the actions since then have been unprofessional.

OK, there, said my piece, taking ball and going home. I'll be back if and when Xenonauts is released as a finished product, and not yet-another-pretender to the X-COM throne.

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Out of curiosity, do you think that's more of the issue than the lack of higher-priced tiers at which to bid? I think the latter clearly plays a part in the slowing of the pledging, as does the fact that the goal has already been met. In all the Kickstarters I've seen, funding after the goal either depends on stretch goals or higher-priced tiers (often created after the start of the drive) to drive people to increase their pledges or get new pledgers involved. It's hard to get tons of new cash when most people are coming in at $20/30.

But why the $100-150 pledge tiers not doing well? Those have been available since day one and they never got much traction.

But, back to my question - is your thought that just not announcing stretch goals would have led to more donations? From everything I've seen on Kickstarter, that's not the case.

I think, given the way the team ultimately did the stretch goals, they would be better off not having done any at all. But, done properly, stretch goals can be a big boost for donations.

The best stretch goals are the ones like the level designer --- I suspect that is why it did so well in the poll. That is because it does not disrupt the team's vision of the game, does not slow the development process further, clearly makes the process move faster, does not leave anyone feeling left out, and is relatively reasonably priced ($25,000 for a new hire seems fine to most people).

The worst stretch goals are ones like the motion scanner -- things that are really only balanced if you also have another stretch goal (indoor missions), obviously shouldn't cost $25,000, but yet sound like a cool feature, that we probably will now have to do without.

So, along those lines, good stretch goals would have been more sound people, more testers, a computer render farm to make animations more efficiently, etc. Things that enhance and quicken what is becoming a stalled development cycle. Instead, many of the stretch goals just create a lot more work, both in terms of balancing and design.

Also - rather than pointing out what you see as issues with the process, how about solutions? You seem to have ideas in mind - what would you do going forward?

Well, it's hard to fix the stretch goals now. Maybe they can add in better stretch goals like the ones above?

But going forward I would just like for the team to spend more time on the game and less time trying to play the Kickstarter game. They've made so much more work for themselves with the t-shirts, the portraits, etc., when people probably would have been just as happy donating their money to the game development. Not to some clothing.

I'd also love for them to definitively state that, even if their stretch goals aren't met, they still might implement those features later or in DLC. That's one way of undoing some of the damage.

Edited by wiglafman1225
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I should add this from the Kickstarter:

These stretch goals will raise more money than the actual cost of implementing each feature. The reason for this is our primary reason for raising money beyond the $50,000 goal is so we can form a physical studio.

The rewards from this are very real, but are things like a faster delivery of the game and better quality control - it's easier to fix a bug or implement a feature correctly if you're sitting next to the programmer, rather than exchanging emails from across the world.

However, they don't make very exciting stretch goals because they're not quantifiable. "If we reach $75k we'll make the game faster!" isn't as exciting or concrete as "If we reach $75k we'll add a new tileset to the game!"

So will it cost $25k to add any of these features? No. But you'll still enjoy the full rewards of the $25k that was raised. I attempted to explain that in my last update, but didn't do so in a very coherent manner. Hopefully that clears things up a bit more.

The problem with this reasoning is A) they implied they'd be able to form the physical studio with just the $50k and B) since it is likely they will not meet most of their stretch goals, what they are effectively doing is actually withholding features from users.

Much better to set the stretch goals to be realistic and transparent, rather than trying to make them look "exciting."

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That seems right. I am not a marketing wizard by any means, but many of my issues are related to how goldhawk is handling the marketing of this. Had they simply not introduced the possibility of Soviet tilesets, or a motion scanner, they'd be in a better position to get donations, I think. Stretch goals are more dangerous than they might appear.

I know i'm pushing it, since I agree with the entire post generally..except the Soviet tilesets, or motion scanner. On the motion scanner i do see your point, don't agree, but respect it.

However, I'm not sure I get the pain over "Soviet tilesets", they were not in X-Com (the original) in fact it was just a bunch of randomized tile configs with a couple of diffirent zone types. Why would a ALL NEW tileset with a russian theme cause concern? Think I'm missing something there...

Edited by ender101
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Just from a marketing perspective, it looks bad to introduce a new feature (Soviet tileset, motion scanner) and then not implement it for lack of funding. It's kind of a downer, and you always want customers to be happy.

I just think it's better to announce features that will be in the game, rather than announce something that probably won't be. That way, people don't feel they are missing out on features when they fall short of the funding tiers.

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Just from a marketing perspective, it looks bad to introduce a new feature (Soviet tileset, motion scanner) and then not implement it for lack of funding.

It wasn't introduced and then not implemented. Iirc it wasn't even mentioned before KS. It's like accusing Grim Dawn of introducing dual wielding pistols and then not implementing them (though they did reach that particular goal).

Soviet tiles are a fairly expensive non-essential feature. Their cost with the current funding cannot be justified over something else that's more important or more desired by the community so it's a stretch goal. By your logic every stretch goal ever posted by every KS is unfair because it's an "introduced yet non-implemented feature".

I mean no offense but seem to be growing increasingly irrational. Are you actually concerned about the quality of this game or just about making it look bad? Did someone here steal your money, what's eating you that much? If you have such grave misgivings withdraw your pledge (if you've made one in the first place) and come back at release like scharmers over there. This game is coming out either way.

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I mean no offense but seem to be growing increasingly irrational. Are you actually concerned about the quality of this game or just about making it look bad? Did someone here steal your money

My opinion isn't really that irrational --- it's actually the dominant one on some other boards. It is just that this is the developer's board, so everyone (including you, based on your post above) is being a bit defensive about it. I expected that would be the case, so I am not offended by your comment. I just wish you could be a little less biased and insulting about your differing opinion.

It wasn't introduced and then not implemented.

It appears as a feature in the kickstarter (introduced) and likely will not be implemented (because the funding isn't there). I'm not sure how this is controversial at all.

Soviet tiles are a fairly expensive non-essential feature. Their cost with the current funding cannot be justified over something else that's more important or more desired by the community so it's a stretch goal.

I cannot understand, though, why they bothered to mention Soviet tiles at all. Or the motion detector. Or any of that. Why not just try to raise money for things that will help them make the game the way they want it to be? Why do we have to get bogged down, and go line-by-line on all these features?

You say the tiles, the motion scanner, the indoor missions, etc. are non-essential. But they strike many as relatively important features for immersion and would enhance the final game's quality.

It hurts Goldhawk ultimately, to have features like this as stretch goals. It sends the signal that they are holding game development hostage. They should be asking for money to fund development in general, not specific features. We should be able to trust them to make a balanced, complete game by themselves --- and we could do that, prior to these stretch goals.

By your logic every stretch goal ever posted by every KS is unfair because it's an "introduced yet non-implemented feature".

Not true --- I mentioned above some stretch goals that are quite reasonable and would not rub fans the wrong way. The "level designer" stretch goal is quite reasonable, for example, because it promises to enhance an existing aspect of game development (speed and quality) rather than promising an entirely new feature that fans will lose if they don't cough up $25,000.

Edited by wiglafman1225
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