Wow, so Goblinworks, whom I hadn't heard much about recently, is now doing its own Kickstarter for the Pathfinder MMO project. The Kickstarter phenomenon, which unless you've been living under a rock* with no internet access is something you should have been hearing about by now, is apparently turning into the new cool way to suss out extra funding and support for a project while also demonstrating general interest in said project. Steve Jackson Games just recently knocked one out of the park for the new Deluxe Anniversary Ogre edition, for example, and of course there was the recent Wasteland 2 event.
I admit, I am not sold on the vision of a Pathfinder MMO as being described by Ryan Dancey and the rest on their web page....it sounds very much like an MMO in Pathfinder name only, and the idea that the Pathfinder ruleset can't translate well to the medium seems ludicrous to me, given that we have a very healthy (and entertaining) D20-system RPG out there already in the form of Dungeons & Dragons Online.
That said, the Kickstarter's barely begun and they've already almost met their base funding level (the enormously modest $50,000 sum, of which they probably can't even afford to pay a year's salary to one programmer). So presumably they're hoping for a runaway success ala Wasteland 2...
Myself, I admit that I'm having a hard time seeing how they will pull this off, still. I want them to, I think a Pathfinder MMO could be a lot of fun....but that said, they've got some stiff competition out there. This year alone has Tera and Guld Wars 2, as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic and probably the WoW expansion Mists of Pandaria looming. Admittedly those are all "here and now" and I would be surprised if we see a working Pathfinder MMO before 2015, but I still don't know how Pathfinder will distinguish itself sufficiently to gain traction in such a volatile market.
Plus, attracting Pathfinder fans is not their problem; attracting the entitlement-minded prima donnas that are the MMO crowd in general will be the real challenge. Browse through the forums at mmorpg.com sometime, and you'll see what I mean; these people will condemn a game with all the vitriol and venom they can muster if they so much think the game made them sneeze or something...!
*In which case, stop reading my blog and go watch Avengers, you rock-dwelling loon!!!!
YOu know, as a total aside, who ARE these people who can dump money into a kickstarter, anyway?!?!?! I do reasonably well, but I simply don't have the sort of disposable income that I might like to throw it away on a chance project. I can see putting funding into something like the Deluxe Ogre set where you're both supporting a game you love and guaranteeing you get a retail copy (and also, the fact that SJG is a proven producer of quality products), but the idea of chukcing money into a hypothetical proposal, or...like with the Pathfinder MMO here, where you don't really get a lot of tangibles out of the deal...or pretty much to any Kickstarter that's not backed by a known entity or entities who can be trusted--the idea is just crazy that someone would risk their cash like this.
ReplyDeleteAh well...obviously there are many people out there with money to burn, I guess!