Project Eternity - Sorcerer's Place Fundraiser?

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It's a nice idea, but we should also be realistic.

The current total of this poll is $828 (lower bound) - $1087 (upper bound).

This suggests that one of the $1000 tiers should definitely be reachable, but the new $5000 tier that's specifically targeted at forum communities is probably out of reach. (PS: Especially since there are only 6 of those available, and 5 are already taken. Although I guess they may add a new tier for that price range if the existing one runs out.)

So, focusing on the $1000 tiers, the choices are:

1. (limited to: 200, already taken: 55)
   • Name & design an NPC
   • 6 copies of the game (1 boxed, 5 digital downloads)
   • a bunch of physical rewards
   • a bunch of digital rewards
2. (limited to: 50, already taken: 24)
   • Name & design an epic weapon, armor, or artifact
   • 6 copies of the game (1 boxed, 5 digital downloads)
   • a bunch of physical rewards
   • a bunch of digital rewards

Things that are noteworthy:

1. From the sheer number of times they're giving out that tier, we can deduce that the NPC we would get to "name & design" would not be a very large or prominent part of the game, nor will they in all likelihood be allowed to have a properly fleshed out back-story.
   Speaking in BG2 terms: Probably more like that Neeber guy in Trademeet, not like Renal Bloodscalp.
   
2. The expected delivery date of the rewards is May 2014. That's a pretty long wait, especially for planning purposes among forum communities that are relatively loose groups of strangers who may come and go.

I'm not trying to detract from the idea, and I'll definitely chip in my $15 (or more) if we decide to pull this through, but those are things we'll have to keep in mind.

 

Wouldn't that money be better paying to cover hosting expenses for a year, or some such?

 

Well, if you donated money to SP with the understanding that it would go to Project Eternity, then it didn't, wouldn't you be a rather unhappy about that?

 

Well of course that'd have to be decided beforehand. But I agree with Rotku. Either you have one or two probably pretty forgettable NPCs, or you can keep SP running for however many months again.

 

But this does not actually seem to be a real choice that presents itself.

It is not like a pre-existing fund of money is being allocated by SP towards this specific purpose, but rather that fund will only come into existence in the first place in connection with this specific-purpose fund raising drive.

Of course, it is conceivable that it will have the side effect of less money being donated to SP itself. However, that is all but certain, and in fact it might just as well have the opposite effect. And one thing's for sure: It wouldn't be a 1:1 mapping between what will be donated to this specific fund-raising drive, and what would have been donated otherwise donated to SP. (In my case, for example, the money I'll donate to this I would have otherwise pledged to Project Eternity directly.)

So, the choice you present is merely of the hypothetical "what if?" variety, and not a real choice presented to SP that would call for an actual (collective) decision.

The choice whether and how much to donate (and which donation to hinge or not hinge on which other donation) should remain with each individual.

The option to donate towards SP's general expenses is there, and those that want to make use of it do.
If enough of us want (additionally) the option of donating towards putting the particular idea presented in this thread into practice, then I'd say let's make it happen!

 

Did you decide what will happen with the rewards?

For each of the $1000 tiers, the following two "main rewards" can be enjoyed by the Sorcerer's Place community as a whole:

• Name & design an epic weapon, armor, or artifact or an NPC
• gold pledge special thanks in the credits

However, it also includes the following physical rewards:

• 1 collector's boxed version of the game (signed)
• 1 cloth map of the game world
• 1 elite cloth patch
• 1 printed manual
• 1 printed collector's book (hard-cover)
• 1 T-Shirt

I guess to avoid shipping costs and organizational overhead, it would be easiest to just let the admins/mods have those. (Btw, how many active admins/mods are there, besides Taluntain?)

Moving on, the following digital (downloadable) rewards are also part of the $1000 tiers:

• 5 digital copies of the game
• 1 digital copy of the soundtrack
• 1 digital copy of the collector's book
• 1 digital copy of the strategy guide
• 1 "digital fun pack" (whatever that is)
• 1 gold badge on the obsidian.net forums
• 1 beta tester key
• a special in-game item (not sure whether this is bound to the game copies which are part of this tier, or can be separated)

These could actually be distributed among all who participate in the fundraising drive. The option of having some sort of competition for them has already been mentioned in this thread. Other options would be to give them to those who donated the highest amount, or randomly allocate them among all participants.

My personal favorite solution would be slightly more complex, but imo achieve a higher amount of "fairness" :

1. Give the physical rewards to the admins/mods and let them allocate them among themselves however they see fit.
2. Take each of the 5 digital game copies one after the other, and give it to one of the participants who have not yet gotten one[1]. Who will be chosen each round is determined by random chance, weighted with the amount of that participant's donation[2].
3. Distribute the rest of the digital rewards among those who have not been picked for a game copy, using the same algorithm.

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[1]i.e., everyone except the admin who already got the boxed version, and the participants who already got picked in the preceding rounds.
[2]For those not well versed in mathematics, this means that anybody may get picked, but the mathematical probability of being picked is directly proportional to the amount of money you donated.

 

Seems promising. An IE-based CRPG, playable on the Mac (and no sign of being a multi-player only). That's something I'd like to have. Especially if some SP-material is in it.

Money is being transferred to my PayPal-account. I'll donate as soon as it's there.

Yeah! I thought of that too. But that depends on the amount of money we donate, I guess (SP might want to get some other stuff/npcs in, first) Also, I'm not sure what their families think of it...

 

As long as their real names are used (only their screen name, or some derivation of it) I don't see how this would be a problem. It would be meant as a tribute to those departed souls, and what they meant here in RPG land.

 

Yeah, that's true.

At the risk of sounding like a total newb: What does "Isometric" mean in gameland? Does it have something to do with a somewhat static top-down view?
Part of my very little Greek knowledge tells me it has something to do with equal (iso) measurements (metrics), but I'm not sure how that relates to games.

 

The old IE games are all isometric rpgs and so is the diablo series and its many clones.

 

Ah! Nice! Never heard of it before, but apparently it's my preferred kind of view/gameplay, at least for strategy and rpg (SC2000, Caesar III etc and the games Topken mentioned.) I don't know what the old adventure games would be called (LucasArts and Sierra), but that doesn't matter now. There's a new IE game in the making and that's what counts!

 

They won't be using the Infinity Engine, but rather implement a custom, more modern engine+game on top of the Unity engine (which despite its name is not itself an actual full-fledged engine for a particular type of game like the IE used to be, but rather a very flexible - and increasingly popular - game development platform which can be used to create pretty much any 2D or 3D game which the developers want to create).

Anyways, even though it won't technically be an IE game, they are aiming for it to be "in the spirit" of the IE games. Most notably:

• User interaction will be designed for PC and PC only, i.e. in a way that gets the most out of the mouse and keyboard combo, rather than bringing it down to the lowest common denominator of PC, tablet and console input devices.
• They will be using high-quality pre-rendered and retouched-by-hand background graphics just like all the IE games used (as opposed to live 3D rendered terrain like NWN and most modern games use).

However, the following major differences compared to the IE games have been confirmed:

• Combat won't use D&D rules, but a custom rule-set developed specifically for this game rather than for pen & paper (e.g. it won't be turn-based). It will "feel" similar to the D&D rule-set as implemented in the IE games though.
• Character animations and some effects will be implemented using live 3D rendered graphics.

All in all, I think it's a good thing they're developing their own solution rather than using the outdated IE, because this way none of the money will have to be given to Electronic Arts or Wizards of the Coast as licensing/royalty fees, and among other things it will hopefully allow the game to have[1]:

• native support for today's (and tomorrow's[2]) screen resolutions
• a more modern, customizable, and hopefully scalable interface
• support for zooming (within limits)
• better path-finding

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[1] the developers haven't officially confirmed these, but I strongly assume they'll be there
[2] think e.g. about Apple's retina displays