Stretch Goals: Why are you hiding them? (and) Why I likely won't pledge toward them.

Not just offset; they don't want to have to push back the schedule... they don't want to have to continue to delay the release date just to make the stretch goals.

 

I see a whole bunch of speculation in this thread. I will go by what was said by Darkstarr and by what the Stretch goals state. Unless there is proof of cost all of this is a stawman argument. If you don't like the stretch goals, do not put money into them. And why would anyone try to discourage the funding of these goals, to the detriment of players that have donated? I would hope that everyone here wants these goals to succeed.

 

It did take MONTHS to make the male and female avatars.

With mounts, you're not just making horse/donkey/whatever mounts and animating them. You're also handling animations for how male/female Avatars of different heights will look riding them. You keep making this sound trivial. It isn't.

 

And the proportions still aren't right.

 

Again, I never said "trivial". Just like I never said a model could be made in a few hours. Please stop twisting my words.

It isn't trivial, but it also isn't hard. It certainly shouldn't take more than a couple weeks, tops. Certainly not the six months you quoted.

And just because it took months to create those characters, doesn't mean it should have.

 

Yes, it did. And in just about any studio around here, you'd be moved to another show, or let go for taking that long.

There is some level of "guidance" -- to help an artist if something is taking a while, of course.

But taking months and months for something that is week(s) at most, is ridiculous given the amount of re-work time spent to "get it right again".

This is, unfortunately, some of that good old "You get what you pay for" adage.

Nothing beats experience; experience can cost much money.

 

I think the artists who are working on the avatar models are also working on other things. So its not a matter of it taking months, its a matter of them being diverted and then coming back to it.

 

I dont think it took that long at first, its the community that pushed them to change some of the features and they redesigned them because of it. All the threads about char appearances and such.

 

True. But that only proves the point that those project(s) should not have an exorbitant budget.

 

Argument has become circular and slightly offensive.

 

what have you been offended by?

 

I didn't say i was the one offended. People get a bit passionate.

 

Are you taking into account the testing as well? You don't want to bring someone in to code a specific part of the game and then let them go as soon as he's done. Since he knows the code personally, you'd want to keep him around to fix the bugs that will pop up.

I don't think it'll take that much time to actually do each one but I think it's the number of avatar variations/horses they have to do? After all, every horse they make requires you to spend some time on it, I assume?

We are also assuming that horses are the only mounts in the game they want to add. I, for one, would like to be able to mount other creatures as well.

Well I can't say it will cost more or less. All I know is that's what they want to start working on it now. But I don't know why they would bother to set up stretch goals they never plan to meet.

 

Offended might be too strong a word, but you have called the integrity of the devs into question without proof or cause.

That isn't cool.

Starr is well established as a game producer. If he says these are the costs they need to work it into their plan and not delay the game, that is what he means. Does it mean he explored every single possibility and mapped an exact budget? No. But he feels comfortable with the guess that he can deliver with that budget, and that is what really matters.

 

Ah, so we live in that world do we? I'd love to take people, with experience, at face value.

Life's ^^^^ experience tells me that is not always the case, nor the whole truth.

If this were the start of the project, yes, we'd have nothing BUT that to go upon.

We now have 20 months of actual to compare that with, along with other tangential projects for the overall project, to compare it.

What you are describing is trust and faith. Those are great things.

But they do not paint a whole picture.

 

Really.

I'm going to go ahead and quote myself here:
"When I say I believe they never intended them to be met, I believe they realize the numbers are so high they will never be reached before launch."

How, exactly, is that calling anyone's integrity into question? I'm an avid supporter of this dev team and this project and have been since day one. Please back off with the accusations.

This is like the 3rd post in a row now where you have tried to deflect attention from the fact that you originally refuted my belief of the goals being too high by giving crazy inflated estimates of how much things should cost (which is what kicked off this entire forum argument), entirely by twisting my words.

That isn't cool.

Of course he can deliver mounts with that budget. It's a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS. My whole point.

 

Common sense also backs up these values as I've already made clear.

You've REPEATEDLY called out the devs and said you don't believe or trust their claims, and not once have I seen evidence that they have been anything but entirely honest and transparent.

If you'd like to point to a single time your claim was correct and the devs weren't honest, I'd love to see it. Otherwise, yours is a rather empty strawman and deep down I suspect you know it. You're claiming that anyone who is positive or supportive of the game is only doing so out of blind trust, with no actual facts to support that trust. And yet you constantly claim that your professional experience alone validates any opinion of yours, while the professional experience of the Portalarium staff means nothing. BTW, you're far from the only professional developer on the forums.

Congratulations. You've made my ignore list.

 

Seems like you are the only one accusing people of anything around here. Please feel free, if you ever see this, to point out my "accusations".

And it seems kind of strange, that someone like me, pledged to the high hills, and making assets and code and spending time on submission projects for THIS GAME, take it upon myself to tell everyone how crap it is, and how they shouldn't contribute.

Sorry, I am all for crazy, that is flat out nuts.

Thank god. Finally.

 

There is a point where a conversation makes no progress in either direction but it plows forward anyway upsetting people. This is a community where people are so passionate about the project that they DO have faith (with no reason not to) and in more than one case contribute their time and talents for free. Of coarse it is going to end like that when you question peoples faith in people like Richard and Starr, whom we already have established... are wizards.

 

This went all sort of crazy.