[color=#0066ff]Friends! Dearest friends. I’m so excited to show you our Kickstarter page in its draft form for your reactions.[/color]
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[color=#0066ff]Because this is quite sensitive, some house rules for the discussion before we get started:[/color]
[color=#0066ff]This is aDRAFT. Anything can change. No information on the page should be treated as canon until it goes live.[/color][/li][li][color=#0066ff]Please don’t share the link outside the forums. (We will cancel the link if this happens.)[/color][/li][li][color=#0066ff]That includes the IRC; if IRC people want to have a look, please send them to this thread, not to the page.[/color][/li][li][color=#0066ff]We will take feedback here or via the form on the page, please keep it in those two places.[/color]
Very exciting! I’d love it if the world wasn’t static, and honestly I’m about to go on a rant but it looks like everything I disliked about SS is being fixed.
[quote=Robin Alexander]
Edit: Hope stuff that relies on social media, but rewards with things like Masters secrets, will be available to everyone . . . seems a bit mean to lock people out of FL lore, especially if it’s not money dependent. edited by Robin Alexander on 1/18/2017[/quote]
[color=#0066ff]Thanks for the feedback! Everything in social rewards would be released to all players. Is there anything specifically in the copy which makes you think otherwise, or is it just not stated precisely enough?[/color]
I was hoping for a possibility of more FL-related content, but it seems like there won’t be any of that in the backer tiers. Which is a good or a bad thing depending on your outlook on things.
I adore the seemingly increased captain customization shown in one of the pictures. Is a separate captain portrait editor a possibility at some point?
The Facet system looks promising, if somewhat likely to make SS the S characters somewhat repetitive. But I like the idea a whole lot.
All the lore + descriptions are v tempting in general, and I might donate a small amount just to further the Royal Society & get the game later on.
Seems to be an oversight, but some of the higher tiers only have one copies. Might want to fix that!
Some people might not like having a second copy attached to their bundle of game and lorebook and soundtrack. Possibly? But the price is pretty nice, with or without the second copy, so no complaints from me.
Suggestion:
For the social goals, you might want to reveal one goodie for Sunless Sea players as well. Right off the bat, there’s a goal for content expansion in Skies, and some coffee in FL, but nothing directly relate to the players of Seas (and some of them might not come for a return visit if they don’t see something for them.)
Best to clarify that the Backer DLC Reward is purely cosmetic and not something that will make your friends feel missing out if you are gifting them a copy.
As for the draft, so far everything looks really cool! I’ll definitely set something aside for this. The pictures of people dressed as masters and correspondence on skin is really cool as well!
One thing I would have preferred Sunless Sea to have was more customization, both for character portraits and for the ships, so if more of that is included here, along with everything else revealed so far, this will most likely be one of my top games ever! edited by Swinging Dove on 1/18/2017
If my former captains are indicative of anything. No, no she will not.
I have a friend who would more than happily get a permanent tattoo of a correspondence sigil on his body. Shame that he doesn’t care for any of the current ones and I’m not creative enough to make one.
I’m a little disappointed there’s no backer tier (around 50 pounds I feel) giving something cool in FL. My wallet thanks you, though :P
I do hope that if some stories impact later captains, there will still be a way to restart those stories without creating a completely new lineage. I do like being able to see all the possibilities, and being locked to one outcome would be annoying for both the story and trying to optimize.
Are there any plans to give people who pledge a unique Fallen London companion, like with the other games? I missed out on the Panther and Falcon because I was unaware of the existence of FBG at the time of those kickstarters, but have vowed not to miss out a third time :P
Heck, I don’t even have any interest in the game since my old dinosaur of a computer would probably explode if I tried to run it, but will still pledge if there’s a unique FL companion offered.
(Apologies if this is already explained in the link…I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere, but I was reading pretty fast ;) )
I’m sure you’ve thought about this, FBG team, so I would like to hear your thoughts on this:
What about a small prize for the FL browser/iOS/Android game? Just like the Panther or Temple club.
Would really like those, as FL is still my main game, played every single day, long after I’ve stopped with SS.
I’m assuming a great portion of the fund raising will be from your fan base.
Page looks great, concept is awesome. I’m kickstarter-convinced. Good luck! edited by Gonen on 1/18/2017
Chiming in with the people missing a London-related backer bonus here; Companions or maybe Ships are an obvious choice but no doubt you could be creative.
Also, this seems like the place to ask: any plans to enable backing from within FL with fate, like it was back with Sunless Sea? If I remember the numbers correctly that was only a small minority back then but if it’s not too much of a hassle to set up…
[quote=Kukapetal]Are there any plans to give people who pledge a unique Fallen London companion, like with the other games? I missed out on the Panther and Falcon because I was unaware of the existence of FBG at the time of those kickstarters, but have vowed not to miss out a third time :P
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[color=#0066ff]We recognise how much it sucks to find out about a Kickstarter bonus after the Kickstarter, and we didn’t want to perpetuate that by offering something similar again.
However, there are future social rewards which you’d be very interested in. If they’re unlocked by the community during the Kickstarter then they will be available to everyone - no more locking off of content-based exclusives.[/color]
[color=#0066ff]Unfortunately not. It was about 3% of pledges last time, which means it would likely be <1% this time, but the administration burden of maintaining two backer lists would be the same. All pledges will go through Kickstarter, and if you can’t back that way, the social goals mean you can still get involved! [/color]
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[color=#0066ff]Edit: forgot to be blue[/color] edited by h4nchan on 1/19/2017
I don’t know whether to be annoyed or amused that I was also very invested in keeping an eye on Sunless Skies in part to try and not be locked out of interesting things in FL forever because I didn’t know of the Kickstarters in time.
There are rewards from the Silver Tree kickstarter I would have liked to have, had I known about the campaign at the time. But this never caused me to resent the fact that these exist.
I very much liked the type of rewards in the Sunless Sea kickstarter - I thought they were well balanced, and provided incentives both in SS and in FL. I definitely chose my level of contribution then based on the expected FL rewards, as well as participating in the closed Beta.
The rewards listed here for Sunless Skies do not speak to me as much. I have no need for a second copy of the game, for example. And I won’t pay 45 extra pounds just for a T-shirt (the diff between the 30 pound and 75 pound tiers).
This might not be a fair comparison, of course, as I can’t know the impact the old Sunless Sea rewards had on the campaign and how feasible such would be for FBG to implement/support, but here’s a quick comparison of some of the lower tier rewards:
[spoiler]
Sunless Sea:
10: Game + credits + digital map[/li][li]15: + lore book[/li][li]20: + closed beta[/li][li]30: + Parabolan Panther in both SS and FL[/li][li]50: + Pirate Poet in SS + Dadd Wing in FL[/li][li]80: + The Cladery Heart in SS + the Surgeon’s Child in FL
Sunless Skies
15: Game + DLC[/li][li]30: + extra game copy + credits + lore book + soundtrack[/li][li]75: + T-shirt
I’ll almost certainly donate at some level (because I want to support such projects by FBG), but I haven’t seen any reward listed (yet) which seems right to me.
Let me start by saying that the overall presentation of the game, rough and unfinished as the description is, makes Sunless Skies sound fantastic! I really enjoyed reading it. I think it’s better than the Sunless Seas kickstarter description, which was also pretty cool.
Tiny suggestion, how Facets impact skills could use some minor clarification.
[quote=Hannah Flynn][quote=Kukapetal]Are there any plans to give people who pledge a unique Fallen London companion, like with the other games? I missed out on the Panther and Falcon because I was unaware of the existence of FBG at the time of those kickstarters, but have vowed not to miss out a third time :P
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[color=#0066ff]We recognise how much it sucks to find out about a Kickstarter bonus after the Kickstarter, and we didn’t want to perpetuate that by offering something similar again.[/color][/quote]
I was looking forward to some unique items too, but I understand what you’re saying. That doesn’t really match my experience though, as I never felt resentful over missing out on the Kickstarter content. It actually made me enthusiastic for any future kickstarters as they would give me the opportunity to join in and get something special too. It’s similar to how missing out on previous things in Fallen London actually makes me more interested in future developments.
If I might be cold blooded however, with no Fallen London content the offers between 30 pounds and 100 pounds seem a little weak to me, you know? Like, I’m not really much of a t-shirt collector… So if I wanted to go over 30 pounds but had a ceiling of 100, any contribution would just be to give you guys more money to make the game, regardless of the backer benefits. And the backer benefits are about getting money, so if I’m kinda left cold by what’s on offer between 30 and 100, other people might be as well and that might reduce contributions.
The social rewards are really cool though! I particularly like the whole Royal Society recruitment drive! I’ll definitely do my part to help you guys get as many backers as possible, because I really want to see how opulent we can make the place. Do you guys have some kind of plan or equation for how 2000 + X backers will translate into such and such levels of opulence? edited by Anne Auclair on 1/19/2017
I will back this because I love Failbetter’s work and Sunless Skies sounds amazing but none of the backer rewards are appealing to me. So I probably won’t be giving a lot, unfortunately.
Are you going to use Humble Bundle again? It is not mentioned in the preview
Oh no, that’s not what I meant at all! I’m not angry at FBG for offering the panther and falcon as kickstarter rewards. I’ve only been playing for a year and a half, and so I simply missed those kickstarters because I didn’t know of their existence (and probably wouldn’t have cared at the time if I had because, like I said, I didn’t play FL back then). That’s just the luck of the draw and I’d never hold it against anyone who did get them because they were around for the kickstarter and I wasn’t. All I meant was that their existence gave me incentive to want to contribute to any future FBG kickstarters and so I was eagerly looking forward to supporting this one.
I see nothing wrong with offering a single, unique item to FL players who backed the kickstarter. It’s a reward, like any other, and is no more unfair than any other reward offered through the kickstarter. And it’s a great incentive for people who only play FL (like me) to still want to support Sunless Skies. Like I said, the previous two companion rewards made me downright eager to support this kickstarter (and indeed, any future FBG kickstarters).
I do hope you’ll reconsider. I’m a FL only player, but I’ve still got money I’d like to give you. And I know I’m not the only one :) edited by Kukapetal on 1/19/2017