http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2

1.621.000 already and 20 days to go!

Wasteland 2 over 2 million, nearing 2.1 million. They will bring aboard some Obsidian key members (Avellone etc) if they hit 2.100.000 and that is only 30 k away. So yeah, this is gonna be a star-studded project. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inx ... 2?ref=live

The devs of the original Shadowrun tried to kickstart a true-to-the-original shadowrun sequel and asked for 400k. 28 hours later, they were fully funded and a day later they're at 530k. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/161 ... s?ref=live

Spaceship-roguelike FTL asked for 10k to finish its indie project, got 200k (!!) http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/644 ... t?ref=live

Yeah this Kickstarter thing is really taking off. Join the revolution!

making software is hard. Making games is hard. I want to see how many of these projects actually are finished and are good before I invest in any. I may be jaded... but I think this is a bubble that'll take a year or two to pop.

Yeah, but most of these people are industry veterans (at least for the big budget stuff like the Double Fine adventure, Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun). They know how to make and deliver games, they're just cutting out the people lending them the money to do so. But true, some 'new' developers (like the FTL ones) may still hit the wall. And I'm sure there's bound to be a project that will fail miserably or isn't even finished at all, but eh, it's only 15 bucks.

I've been following kickstarter pretty closely and I find that most 'BS' projects get weeded out pretty easily by the investors themselves tbh. The fact that the money only goes to the devs/people asking for money if they actually meet their funding goal makes it so that IF you get scammed you at least won't be alone, haha!

I'm looking forward to the Shadowrun game. The thing is, the really cool projects inevitably seem to get funded, so there's no real reason for me to put my money up front... I can just sit back and wait for the finished product. Of course, if everyone thought as I do, nothing would get funded, but we won't go there.

yeah, and as I said in the Pebble thread you do get a (pretty substantial) discount on the final product. A lot of these products are gonna sell in the range of 30-50 so 15 is a pretty sweet deal to get the game on release with some extras like updates, access to beta etc. But yeah, if you're not that bothered about it the 15-30 bucks aren't gonna make too much of a difference anyway.

Hypothetical question: would you fund a project that you really believed in/wanted to see if it wasn't reaching its goal? Just wondering.

Yea, I would. Or if there's money to be made. There's a business coming up with a plan to use kickstarter to fund solar panel installations, where you then get money back from the installation once it's done. Eg, some company wants solar panels, pays a company to install it, that company uses kickstarter to fund it, and charges the original company a monthly fee for electricity. Part of that fee goes to the people that funded the kickstarter. They're looking at about a 6% turnaround, and it's a very stable investment.

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/the-kicksta ... is-summer/

this is something I could definitely get behind.

That's pretty interesting. How are the government subsidies on solar panels in the States btw? I have a friend who installed solar panels a year or 3 ago when the governemtn was still offering very generous subsidies for them and he's making pretty big returns on them. His bills are lower (obviously) and he's getting money for excess energy he's putting back on the grid from the provider. And a yearly tax break that's in the several thousand euros! He says it's one of the best decisions he's ever made in terms of financial investments and it would very much appear so.

Of course, I don't even own a house so solar panels aren't for tomorrow.

There are tax breaks, but I'm not familiar with them. Knowing our government, you probably get a tax refund for the year you install them, but not year after year.

First look at the Wasteland 2 inventory system



Not perfect, but definitely more promising than all the consolified shit we've seen the last few years.

Dude, stop this sh't. I have like 100 games i haven't finished and they are all pretty much crap and then you tease with this. Wish i could bitch slap you over the internet.

Haha!

Yeah I'm in a bit of the same position...I have all these games and can't really get super excited about them, especially when I know what is coming. So many back-to-basics pc-only only gaming goodness coming up!

Wasteland 2 will be out in about 10 days, in case anyone forgot. Looks great.

SO quick update....Wasteland 2 was released, and I spent a lot of time binge-playing it in the last few weeks. I finished the about a week ago.

Thoroughly enjoyed it - it really is a return to the classic RPG's of the golden era. No dumbing down and lots of freedom (also to fuck things up), and great turn-based combat and generally fun interaction with the world. I also enjoyed the relatively deep character creation, took hours for that alone. I also made an effort to write the backstories as you might have seen on Steam.

The game isn't perfect, though. There were some bugged quests in the later part of the game, and the camera can get a bit fidgety at times. Those things will be fixed in upcoming updates I'm sure. I'm also not convinced by some less important game mechanics which (for me) can take the fun away a little by making you wait or backtrack a lot in certain areas. A lot of these things were implemented this way because of feedback the developers got from "old school gamers" on their forums, but I would argue that not everything that was old school was necessarily contributing to the gameplay. An example is the use of skills like lockpicking or demolitions etc. Each attempt will show as a bar filling up slowly, showing your character fiddling with a lock or disarming a bomb. It only takes a few seconds each time, but you have to kind of sit there and wait for it to finish to see if you were succesful or not. It's a bit of a pointless waste of time in the long run. Athough it does create a sense of suspense when you are low on skill and are hoping for a lucky break, it just isn't worth it at 70%+ chance levels.

The stats and skill system is also a little strange. While stats have their own direct influence on a lot of things and do affect most skills in one way or another, they are (to some extent) unrelated. You can be a 1 charisma character with 10 ranks in Kiss Ass (the 'charmer' dialogue skill) and do just as well as a 10 charisma character, and you can have one with 1 intelligence and 10 ranks in 'Smart Ass' (the 'clever' dialogue skill). You can see how that feels a little strange from a roleplaying perspective. I would argue that they should implement a system where you can only realistically reach a certain level in a skill based on your related stat. I think it already works that way for the 'surgeon' skill (you can't max it out with less than 10 intelligence), so it's strange it doesn't for the others.

Anyway, all of those are fairly minor problems. The game world creation and writing are solid, the characters are memorable and the combat feels really good. It's also a huge game, with around 40-50 hours of gameplay easily in one run, and offers lots of alternative solutions to most quests. Definitely recommended! If you're not in a hurry you may want to wait until they patch up some things a little bit more, but other than that I can't see any reason for not playing it.