deanb

FTL guys were in an similarly equal position where gaining excess money meant they could have gone above and beyond their initial scope, but they stuck to what the needed. DF has over a decade of experience (and even more so taking on board the individuals involved) to be able to gauge prices, enough so they figured $400K was good enough to make a small game and video in 6-8 months with a small team. I generally refuse to believe that a game goes nearly 20 times over budget too and is normal to do so, even with the infamous Double Fine. If Double Fine is unable to secure the further $4million through Steam early-access then you're only going to get half a game, which is vastly compromised over the finished game that $400K was meant to get. What was the plan if they'd only gotten $400K? Come out a few months down the line and go "woops, we need another $7.5million more than we thought we did"? @GOH: Given it's a kickstarter I'd take the assumption a studio/company is unlikely to ever come back if they're successful (since they've been kickstarted..if you get me). However with DoubleFine we have the ability to know from them being an established studio what they're like with past projects. Which brings us to Ethan being that DoubleFines issues with budgeting and publishers isn't exactly state secret. Even Schafer, as already linked, is quite open to the fact they frequently go over budget. Hence their shift to self publishing and crowd funding and their last AAA tier game being Brutal Legend (which wasn't entirely thier fault going a bit tits up). In fact if you go through their games, THQ (who I think ordered Costume Quest and Stacking as a combo) and Microsoft are they only publisher they've had more than once. Been with Majesco, Activision/EA, THQ, MS, WB Interactive, and Sega. Rest being self published or financed by Dracogen (which essentially a really rich Kickstarer backer).

It had a top-down view that was lacking in the console version, as well as hot bar bells and whistles.

Double fine has been around since 2000, so it does have quite a long history with which to gauge success and failures, unlike newer indies and random roving bands of veteran devs that've formed. I see TN's point (but likely because I've made similar already). Folks backed a $400K game and video project, and instead of receiving that they're getting word that a $4million project that isn't what they backed is struggling and there's a chance they'll have a compromised game as a result. Maybe it's just the tutor I had, but we were taught to not splash out with a windfall just because you have it, but put it aside until you either super dooper need it. Just because you got a few grand in extra doesn't mean you need to spend it on unnecessary things beyond your original business scope. i.e you need a PC to do editing on, you end up with a bit extra from your first few contracts, don't spend that getting a PC in excess of what you need, or getting extra monitors/overly fancy kb/m etc. It's why I mentioned the FTL guys. They needed $10K to do up the finishing touches, they got $200k. So they used $10K of that to do the finishing touches, and put the rest aside for future projects.

#1341?

I'd not gotten to the dwarves mission in my first run. The dwarves I found decent enough, though yeah kinda dragged on in the various stages. Even more annoying that you get so much loot, having to go back n sell./test a bunch lest you be unable to pick up some sweet gear at the end. The mages tower was an issue because when you're in the fade it takes a while of going back and forth between realms, bunching into barriers, until you eventually start acquiring the specific powers to pass the barriers, so you're left with a lack of progression and no seeming advance for a fair chunk of that segment. Kinda drains you. Especially as you can't go back either unlike 99% of quests, so you'd have to jump to a much earlier save. One issue I'd say that was continuous throughout, more with the side-quests, is the lack of proper quest updates. You'll have a mission like distribute a letter to three folks in blah town, bluh town, and bleh forest. And it won't update with "you've given a letter to mark in blah town, still got bob n john in the other two spots". Lack of proper quest markers too. I know breaks immersion blah de blah, but these are big places, and even quests with quest markers they only pop up once you're in the same area as them so it's a case of wandering around huge cities and forests till you're in the right section or store. Doubly annoying that a lot of quests don't even tell you where they are in the quest text.

Given I got pretty miffed when the boyfriend tried that a month or so back it'd be a tad hypocritical of me. There's in general no quota or what not to hit, just a case of everyone pulling their weight and doing what needs to be done.

Doesn't really solve anything for anyone. Especially as I actually kinda enjoy doing the dishes, popping on a playlist n just blasting through a bunch of pots. I don't think it has been fully grasped that having boyfriend over for a few days adds quite a bit (given fuller meals tends to be cooked with multiple pans, let alone the extra crockery and cutlery) and there's a third housemate (we spent a fair while with just two of us as mentioned above). We kinda banned Nick from washing up as he wasn't overly good at it, but that didn't mean he making meals. As for talking about folks, we're generally pretty open with folks. I guess part of my annoyance is we've been living together for most of the year now and it has not once being something that has been brought up. I'm kinda thinking it's the boyfriend trying to score vague brownie points (he was washing up for the 4th time this year at the time). At least (As best I can tell, it's past the half way mark now) he has stopped using my toothpaste.

http://wearedata.watchdogs.com/start.php?locale=en-EN&city=london Some game marketing stuff. I assume this is how the in-game map will look/work. Neat to see the trains going their merry way.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/homer-simpsons-perfect-car-comes-to-life-at-24-hours-of-lemons/ "The Homer" created IRL for racing at LeMons.

Downside of moving rooms and it being hot is we have the windows wide open and now I'm in the room near the kitchen. So I hear all the comments of them talking about me supposedly never doing the washing up*. I'm the unemployed person that's in all day. I do most of the washing, and certainly far more in excess of the amount I actually produce (given I have no boyfriends to invite over and can't really afford to make huge extravagant meals, and make a habit of using one cup through the day instead of a fresh cup for each drink, so on so forth). Confronted them, made it worse as then the BF even claimed to wash up more than I do (he hates washing up so much that he's traded dinner out in return for me doing their washing up, and also he tends to flee in the morning leaving their prior nights meal unwashed). I had suggested today for a impromptu board game session, but not quite in the mood now. Especially as windows have now been closed, gonna make it a toasty day which can only lit spirits. *"but at least he can do tech stuff".

You posted this on FB. What is it? All I could identify last night was what I assume is a slice of boiled egg, bean sprouts, and pork of sorts, along with black stuff in a random white soup/sauce.

Yeah but that means going into the tactics menu, then individually setting everyone up. I'm meaning like a toggle beneath the portraits alongside move freely and whatever the other button was.

Dragon Age: Origins After having it for 4 years (and buying it twice due to lack of DLC price drops) it is finally done. End get's a fair bit harder than the rest (it can be a bit too fast, and a few too many folks at once). I opted for Morigan to have my baby. Kinda bummed that only a few of the "loyalty" missions kicked in, not sure how you do it for most of them. Also it's a bit balls that you pretty much need a Rogue with you most times to deal with traps and locks and can't have it taught as a general skill (or even a spell of lockpicking or something TES-style). Quick party controls or something would be neat too, like "Ranged/Close" or something instead of having to tweak all the tactics. Overall though pretty neat game, will potentially replay few years in the future. Gonna do Awakenings and the others next.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-05-miyamoto-we-underestimated-cost-of-hd-development So they're having issues that Sony and MS had 7-8 years ago. Are they trapped in some kind of time bubble?Part of their advantage in being a bit behind the curve is to learn from the mistakes of those rushing ahead, but they're not even doing that. Maybe Iwata should resign?

Remember a few years ago that company tried to come up with a sarcasm mark (and charge for it?). That became super useful and popular didn't it.

There's a statue of "Somni", she's korean not a buddha though. No robots, but there's future soldiers in full gear with helmet n all, and guess they do move kinda fast.

Cloud Atlas Probably a film that'll need a few repeat viewings, but yeah was rather well done. I'd say my only major issue with it is it takes about until half way through (hour n half, when most films are starting to wrap up) before it started to pull you in and the stories crossed over. And also that some parts of it the accents were a tad strong or the slang too weird to follow. I'll probably see on hunting down the book though. Hugo Weaving in his various incarnations is fun though, especially in the old folks homes. And in the 70's when he's hunting down Keith David. Aka Agent Smith hunting down Captain Anderson. It's one of those thinking films I guess. Gonna be mulling in the back of my mind for a while.

Well there's going over budget, and then there's going 1,600% over budget. Which is quite a feat (And that's only going off the base KS amount raised, never mind how much extra they've put into the project from DF's own money). The process should have been "We're doing a $400K game/film project and gotten $3.8million. That gives us wriggle room of 700% over budget. Which is silly amounts. But let's assume the choice now is that we'll spend right up the upper limits instead of sticking to the original $400K game we got folks to back. Looking back on previous projects, an indulgence we have over indies, we usually go ~20% over budget so to be safe we'll budget $3million to the game, with $800K as "whoops, went a little bit over", and if it's left then it's profit or something extra to go in at the end." Instead they went...fuck I honestly don't know their line of thinking beyond Schafers: Anywho here's how FTL dealt with getting 10 times more than asked: http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/two-men-200000-and-a-successful-kickstarter-how-ftl-did-everything-right

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avjOglJu-Y4 Un gameplay video. It seems like it plays like a cross between FFXV controls, and X-2's dressgrid system.

You're quoting Tenshi, not me. The post from the Banner Sage is about on par with how I've seen many devs react to the reaction to the DF issues. None of them are making a good case with the "hey, to completely fuck up project management and budgeting is the norm". Also coming from Banner Saga, the guys who used the funding to make a surprise F2P game to fund the game the KS was meant to fund in the first place are also maybe not the guys you want defending you. They've probably miffed off a few indies with thier "$20K isn't enough for a game" comment too. Also from what I understand his rough guess of COD is mainly marketing, it'll hardly cost $150million for the year updates. $100million in actual production costs is usually in the realm of MMOs and iirc GTAIV. The reaction from a few of the KS-using studios is actually pretty bad. They're using KS and being all "wooh, new funding" but still using it like they would if they had a publishers bank account to suckle on for further funding. With KS what you get, be it $20K or $4million, is all you have (well, apart from previously mentioned cases where they've had further angel funding, or had a publisher come on board, but that's stuff you should have planned out ahead of the KS. If not, then yeah WYSWIG)

http://theknightshift.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-titular-dilemma-of-new-star-wars.html

http://www.zdnet.com/eu-votes-to-support-suspending-u-s-data-sharing-agreements-including-passenger-flight-data-7000017677/ EU parliament have voted to back dropping data sharing schemes with US (as in the ones that are legally set up, not the NSA-type). tbh I'm kinda surprised we have these kind of one-way data sharing schemes set-up. UK also in a massive boo-boo too with the GCHQ involvement. Gotta say though, hell of a day to carry out the vote.