Yea we should pick a thread or ask a mod to lock one of them.

Just lock the other one. This one has been around longer and has more posts, and Corey Cole has posted in this thread.

Posted this in the other thread but repeating here. What I said before the project began:

"I think something like $150k and 3500 first day backers would be a good start, just based on how other similar projects have done."

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/quest_for_glory_kickstarter_maybe_coming/post90

So, after about 30 hours, we're at 1300 backers and $85000. I think the project is in good shape overall, but given the expected mid-campaign slowdown that every kickstarter sees, I'd feel much better being at $150k right now.

As they reveal more details about the game with art concepts and such, I think the influx of new backers will pick up.

I have been surprised with each ex-Sierra game, how slow the campaigns have gone. I guess most people don't have as fond memories of those games as I do, plus I expect it doesn't help that this isn't a straight QfG 6 game. (for example I would have thought everyone who back Quest for Infamy would jump at this)

Hopefully, they will keep getting coverage and there will be some consistent increases in funding over the coming weeks.

Kotaku has just released a very good interview:
[url=http://kotaku.com/hero_u|-rogue-to-redemption/]The Creators Of Quest For Glory Want To Make A Western Version Of Persona[/url]

Highlights from the interview:

"While the Quest for Glory series was about 70% point-and-click adventure and 30% role-playing game, Corey added, Hero-U will be more like 60% RPG and 40% adventure."

"You're going to a new school; you get to interact with your classmates through dialogue that advances the story and so on. So at night, you can go to the catacombs below school to try to make money, go on quests, and fight monsters. And during the day, you can select from dialogue trees, explore the school, meet new people, compete with those people... and piece through the many strange events surrounding Hero University and its neighboring areas..."

"There are a lot of mysteries going on in the school... Part of it is mysteries in your own past: You're going to get hints and things of something you didn't know, and your character doesn't even know about. He's trying to figure out who it is that's doing this and what happened. And then there's the mysteries of your classmates—cause everybody is a very complex character."

(Hm. Reminds me of Harry Potter and Hogwart.)

"So if this Kickstarter is successful, Corey and Lori say they have four more games in the cards, all based on Quest for Glory classes: the second will star a wizard; the third will star a fighter; the fourth will star a paladin; and the fifth will star a mystery character."

I think the old Sierra adventure fans expect to see games exactly like the classic ones by the developer of the project, and when it's something different they get turned off.

Ignoring Tim Schafer, adventure devs have not had an easy time on Kickstarter. The Tex Murphy guys had an awesome campaign, but it wasn't until their weird thing with the super backers that they really got going. And they still ended up with a somewhat underwhelming budget considering their plans for the game.

The same with Jane Jensen. Things looked pretty bad, until she announced that $50 level backers would get two big adventures instead of just one. So everyone upgraded to that tier, and that sorted things out. And let's not forget just how poorly the SpaceVenture-campaign was doing. It's still a miracle that it pulled through.

These guys all had the advantage of making a game that the people who loved their previous output immediately knew they wanted. Lori & Corey Cole don't really have that advantage. They want to make something new, so it's essential that they present their new project in a very clear way. It's not enough to get coverage on Kotaku, they need to make sure that the hits that Kotaku generate are turned into pledges.

The Kickstarter backers that this project needs aren't the people who read this thread or follow the Hero-U blog, they're much more casual than that, and you only have their attention for a few minutes at best.

To that end, I repeat that it's essential to offer a better idea of the visual style of the dungeon crawling. I know I sound like a broken record, but if it's supposed to look more like Bastion, then show something that looks more like Bastion asap. Even if it's just a mock-up. Because people really like Bastion.

Jane Jensen's Kickstarter was using Kickstarter to try to start a company/studio instead of a game/project. That's a violation of a Kickstarter rule: people are not supposed to ask for money to fund or start up a company. Jane Jensen added the project later when people complained, but then a lot of people were already turned off by her pitch to fund her company/studio.

First impression is important. When a Kickstarter screwed up the first pitch or conveyed the impression that the people behind it were using Kickstarter as money grab, it is very difficult to come back from it.

That debacle actually got me thinking of where the crowdfunding model for niche video games might actually go in the future. Obviously we're someway off this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if a subscription game company system popped up in the future. Whereby you pay a monthly or quarterly fee to keep a small company afloat and making a specific type of games, in exchange you get every game/expansion they make.

It would be a way to cut out the publishers, but without the insecurity and high-fees of the Kickstarter system.

Um, no, I would not give a dime for that kind of thing. I would not fund someone else's company unless:

(a) I know her personally, i.e., she's a friend or family, and I'm giving money to a friend or family to start a business; or,

(b) I will get a cut of the revenue/profit, i.e., I am investing in the company as a investor or stakeholder.

Why would I want to give money to someone I don't know and doesn't know me, without any possibility for return-on-investment or profit participation? (That's why Jane Jensen's Kickstarter turned off people.)

Which is why I said "niche", and yes it would have to have a great deal of trust involved, and the devs would have to really be in-tune with their fan-base and exactly what they want to keep subscriptions not being cancelled, to not offend anyone.

FYI their are plenty of small indie companies which have done this for years (at least informally), that is the same few hundred or so people buy their games every time.

All I was saying, is that's one of the many ways to cut out publishers, and in my opinion any way to cut out publishers and make it so that developers can fund their games and make them exactly how their fans want them (without needed to streamline them to make them accessible for a bigger audience) is a good thing.

Untrue. Jane's project said people would be "CSG supporters", and a game was always part of the rewards. She was simply giving the community the option to vote which game it was, which they did during her campaign.

The studio membership was on top of the game reward. She didn't merely "add the game" later on.

I pledged, even though I made a big deal about not being excited about this earlier, because I am a filthy hypocrite. I'm concerned at how quickly the pledges have slowed down, though.

I can't remember any controversy about this at all, and I don't think you're describing her Kickstarter-project correctly either.

She had a very clear project for her Kickstarter. She wanted people to fund a year worth of adventure game making, and take part in the actual development. This included choosing what game she should make first. As a part of that, she asked the backers to vote for a concept, from a selection of three. This was always the plan, but she started the vote a little earlier than planned because many people understandably wanted something more concrete before forking out.

Her initial pitch was no less detailed than the one Double Fine gave. They basically said "give us money and we'll make a point & click adventure", and that was pretty much her pitch too. DF didn't start work on the project until after the Kickstarter - they didn't even have a concept planned. She at least had three pretty clear and well developed game concepts that the backers eventually got to vote on.

But you are right that first impressions matter, and that she probably would have gained more support if she had come to Kickstarter with _one_ of her three concepts instead of wanting players to choose. Tex Murphy also got a really bad start due to first impressions; they weren't clear about the DRM, and this caused a lot of anger and negativity from the DRM-free crowd. I think that outburst of anger really hurt the project, as everyone took note of the early negativity.

Sadly, Hero-U seems to have hit the same problem with first impressions. It does seem like the money's stopped flowing in, and from here on and in it needs at least 10k per day to reach its target. That's A LOT of money.

Hero-U is doing okay. This morning it had $89k. Now it has $93k. It should reach $100k by the end of the day, 1/4 of its target by the first/second day. It will likely reach its goal. The question is if it will go over the goal by a little or by a lot.