Guns Of Icarus Online Q&A Stream

[Helmic]

I'm pretty sure most people understand that Adventure mode is going to be released in stages as funding permits, we're paying in advance for this so it's understandable that not everything can be done at once.  What would have been unacceptable would be being forced to pay for those stretch goals AGAIN as many of the original backers were made to pay for Adventure Mode again.  I paid for Adventure Mode, not stage 1 of Adventure Mode.  I get the whole deal whatever it may be, nothing's being cut out separately to be sold to me again.

[Pickle]

You're right.. if that happened it would kill the credibility of Muse for any future projects.  But if the current project came in at, say $110,000 that would be a "success" as far as KS goes, but would mean a lot of head scratching trying to figure out what to do next.  Fifty shades of PvE and Co-op would be the order of the day, at least for a time.

I suppose if that happened, one option might be to release a SDK.  There are off-the-shelf terrain generators (e.g. Terragen), and open source real-world mapping data.  User-generated Co-Op and PvP missions wouldn't have to be graphically perfect as long as they were interesting to play.

[Helmic]

That's all well and good, but that's not what I was originally asking about.  I just want to know how Muse is handling those original complaints about Adventure Mode turning out not to be included with the original Kickstarter as it does indeed kill their credibility if they didn't handle it properly.  I don't want to hear months down the line that I have to pay again for something that was originally promised to me in this Kickstarter and then being told I'm getting a free costume for my troubles.

[Pickle]

Reading the original project (which I hadn't done).. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/musegames/guns-of-icarus-online?ref=users

I can see how the original backers could have expected something more than they got, but at the same time it's also clear that PvP/Co-op was all that was offered.  The blurb conflicted with the promised delivery.  Very bad copy writing by Muse - possibly explained by the team sheet, all IT and creative types and no one with stated business skills (marketing, finance - they may have them, but they don't say).  And that is something that I do regard as a risk to the project.  Kickstarter is a very forgiving finding source, it doesn't require much of a business plan.

The poor copy control has spilled over into the game in several places - most obviously when achievement descriptions weren't matching the mechanic.  But the current build version displayed in the game isn't routinely updated, and elements of the forum and main website are out-of-date or incorrect.  This suggests weak or absent quality processes, and/or poor project team integration.

[Helmic]

It makes no mention that only PvP was going to be offered, it pretty explicitly lists "Campaign with mission, factions, trade, and crafting - dynamically affecting battlefronts and alliances" as a promised feature.  There's no lawyering out of that one and as far as I've seen Muse hasn't pretended that anyone is misreading that, they've been up front saying that's all on them (something a certain Big Rig Racing dev should emulate).  However, Kickstarter quite clearly warns that not delivering on those promises can result in legal troubles, it's up to Muse to make things right and I want to know how Muse is making things right in the event something like this happens again.

[Pickle]

Oh yup.. missed that one.. someone dropped the ball.  It's unclear how they went from promising all that on a shoestring $35k project to now realising that $500k is required on-top of that initial funding.  The three backers that dropped $500 and the three that dropped $1,000 should be particularly frustrated as Muse cannot have delivered their funding rewards as the required game features were never implemented.

[bubbalubber]

going live shortly guys

[bubbalubber]

vod will be up on my youtube channel tomorrw sometime, youtube.com/xbubbalubberx it will be in 1 long part sorry guys as ive had problems with both my recording and video editing software

[bubbalubber]

by the time most of you read the vod should be live. feedback greatly appreciated

[Captain Smollett]

Hyperlink?

[Shinkurex]

Here it be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69wAIS5w3dI

[bubbalubber]

hey guys hows everyone been?
got a pretty funny stream planned for tonight. going to stream a game called game dev tycoon where you play as an aspiring game developer starting a garage and working your way up. my plan is to stream it and base it upon muse games, so ill name the company muse games and my character howard tsao and see if i can successfully release guns of icarus online it will be tonight at 10 GMT over at twitch.tv/bubbalubber