Hero's Song by John Smedley - ARPG/MMO Lite

Mughal

Bronze Knight of the Realm
279
39
Why crowdfund what will be available in less than two months? There's not a lot of incentive to risk money on a game that'll go up in Steam so soon.

Because they are running out of money. They raised $2.8m from private investors last year, they have over a dozen people full time plus consultants and various sycophants. Basically 2/3rds of the money is gone already and they need more if they want to survive beyond the March release.
 

zero_name

Golden Knight of the Realm
165
166
Because they are running out of money. They raised $2.8m from private investors last year, they have over a dozen people full time plus consultants and various sycophants. Basically 2/3rds of the money is gone already and they need more if they want to survive beyond the March release.

I'm speaking from the side of potential backers, not an insiders look at their finances though the red flags are everywhere. If they're so hard up for cash that they need to scrounge up some spare change before they launch in a month or two, they really fucked up hard. For starters, their info is better on the page but the video is atrocious and boring and not something that will get people interested. It should have been a secondary, deeper look into the game on a Twitch stream or something. Also, I'd reiterate that I can straight buy this fucker in a couple of months with no risk.

What are the effects on their investors if they bomb out of their first Kickstarter and then get less than half (of a lesser amount) on their second Indiegogo? The interest obviously isn't there. I think that's less the fault of the genre and style of game their pitching, and more how awfully it's been pitched (coupled with the baggage of a failed first Kickstarter). I think conceptually the game sounds really cool.
 

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
6,662
4,506
I don't know how the consoles treat Indies these days but if they require them to go through the whole certification process before release that is expensive as shit. Maybe he just didn't have the cash.
 

Mughal

Bronze Knight of the Realm
279
39
I don't know how the consoles treat Indies these days but if they require them to go through the whole certification process before release that is expensive as shit. Maybe he just didn't have the cash.

TLDR: you are correct, it's about cash and priorities

At SOE there was a team of people dealing with console and it was not indie friendly. Pre-PS4 launch Sony Playstation had a few people whose job was to help indies achieve certification so they could have some quirky games. I went through part of that process and it was basically dealing with lawyers and regulations designed to keep you out. Once it became clear that the PS4 "won" the console race those guys were either fired or reassigned.

Not a hater on the game and I'm sure it could be good if they had someone else managing the roadmap and finances of it.
 

yamikazo

Trakanon Raider
1,361
546
Lots of great concepts here, deployed at a manageable level and on a game they can put out quickly and cheaply. Not sure if the game will be fun, but looks like a neat proof of concept for their world building and AI to build a future game on a bigger scale.

Crowd-funding for this type of thing is a cash grab, and clearly the market sees through their tactics.
 

Needless

Toe Sucker
9,172
3,268
I like following smedley on twitter... the shit this guy eats every morning is comical. Mmm 3 pieces of pizza and a litre of mt. dew for breakfast $$
 
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Fenz

Silver Knight of the Realm
95
7
New info (Source: Interesting new infos from the 9/23 stream • /r/Herossong):


Mod support: not planned, at least not for release.

Male/female genders available for all classes.

Group/party: yes, traditional group system (but not for early access).

No more "XP" item dropped on the ground. They decided to remove it.

Dwarf Fortress, Zelda, Diablo are the main inspirations of Hero's Song. (The quest system is closer to Zelda than World of Warcraft.)

Server maximum capacity could potentially surpass 200 players. "200" is not a hard limit, it will depend on hosts and how things run.

They want crafted items to be just as hard to craft and just as effective as the best dropped items.

All items are hand crafted by the devs. No randomly generated items.

Crafting items get a separate, near infinite inventory.

17 different weapon categories.

Skeletons have huge piercing resistance "there is nothing to stab in a skeleton". Paying attention to damage types is very important.

8500 items so far. There are set bonuses.

Weapons have specific reach.

Classes have weapon and armor restrictions.

Players will be able to set up shops, but not during early access.


No NDA for alpha 3 or early access. You will be free to stream the game.

Any god can be chosen for the underworld.

Revamped the World History logWizard skills were revealed.

NPCs don't respawn. Technically possible to kill everything in the world, but could take forever (8~9 figures population for the biggest sized worlds).
 

Fenz

Silver Knight of the Realm
95
7
What is that supposed to mean? Zelda doesn't really have "quests."

Never played Zelda but what I saw in a stream is that you "see" (textballoon) townsfolk talk about trouble with gnolls in the south. Smedley called that signposts. When he went south he saw people fighting gnolls.

Source in this stream at around the 15th minute:
I hope this game delivers on what it promises. I like it so far.
 

Needless

Toe Sucker
9,172
3,268

why even live? the one reason i followed his twitter was for his dope ass 7-11 breakfast tweets.
 

KCXIV

Molten Core Raider
1,456
180
im buds with one of the dev's on this game and today the game made it to steam. Says he's playing hero's song.