Quote from: Warboss Squee;838023What a bunch of crap.

I went through and read every thread related to the KS on rpg.net...pretty obvious the Exalted dev team has no idea wtf they got themselves into. And, instead of admitting that, they keep their cards REALLY close, lashing out at anyone who requests a shred of information. When you get that much money to produce a fucking book, and you literally tell people who funded you they're being unreasonable to expect any sort of legitimate update, that's when you've entered the realm of caricature stupidity.

I'm 99% sure that if the closed playtest leak was met with nothing but positive comments, they wouldn't have cared. Instead, a bunch of fans who care deeply about the product voiced their displeasure with how the game was shaping up, and of course the devs decided they were under personal attack. If you cannot separate professional from personal life, you have zero business doing anything that pays. Legit criticism = good product. Telling people who gave you a ton of money to essentially fuck off says a lot about their mentality...

So, anyway, I feel sorry for the people who funded the project, and actually pity the devs. They're simply delusional and are slowly but surely destroying their own careers and reputations because they refuse to acknowledge they might have fucked up.

Quote from: One Horse Town;838186What i would find hilarious is if they released a shitty b&w softcover. :rotfl:

Having figuratively run-off with that kind of money, folks are gonna be pissed if it isn't tip-top of the range.

From everything that's transpired, seems like they might just do POD at Drivethru and call it a day. "Due to the poisonous nature this project has ventured into, we no longer feel that we're able to produce what was promised." And then, blame the leak and the assholes on the internet.

Yep.

I don't get how after all the teasing and non information that kept bandying about while distributing things to dozens of strangers across the anonymous internet they thought there wasn't going to be  leak of some kind. I'm not saying its was right for someone to violate their agreement but its like walking through a bad area at 3 in the morning with Fifties hanging out of the pockets of your mink coat then being shocked, shocked I tell you that get robbed. Its seems very naive.

Quote from: Nexus;838193I don't get how after all the teasing and non information that kept bandying about while distributing things to dozens of strangers across the anonymous internet they thought there wasn't going to be  leak of some kind. I'm not saying its was right for someone to violate their agreement but its like walking through a bad area at 3 in the morning with Fifties hanging out of the pockets of your mink coat then being shocked, shocked I tell you that get robbed. Its seems very naive.

Victim blaming...stop triggering me.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;838185That is a lot of money for an RPG. Smaller companies like ours make games for a fraction of that. What I find interesting is if a typical company invested half a million dollars into a game book, it is doubtful they would make the money back.

Shit I don't think Sine Nomine gets that kind of cash in kickstarter and he makes good quality books.  Given black and white colors, but still high quality books.

I know some of you are sick and tired of me saying Sine Nomine, but there is a reason I keep bringing him up.  First off none of his kickstarters had failed.  Secondly he always let us see demos so we know what is going with his game.  Finally he doesn't act like Holden who is being a spoiled cry baby right now.  Seriously you can't find a more perfect contrast and the sad part is Sine Nomine is only one man.  He is literally shaming these guys and he is not even in his intentions which should make the sting feel more painful.

Sine Nomine had I think four kickstarters and they all came in on time and match up with expectations with his customers.  None of his kickstarters reach up to three quarters of the million dollars.  Sine Nomine works alone.

The Exalted devs have Onyx Path a full fledge company to support them.  Had three quarters of a million dollars from kickstarter.  They are also working as a team so work load gets spread around.  Their kickstarter campaign is a fucking joke and they had not release a damn thing since it started years ago.

I am just saying you can't find a better contrast than that.

If Kevin Crawford had made Exalted 3, though, there wouldn't have even been a Kickstarter until the game was done and he just needed art. That's the difference. OPP came begging for cash when the game was little more than a dream in their collective noggins.

I knew there was a problem early on when they missed the deadline they'd set to start the Kickstarter, for crying out loud. The delays started before anyone even had a chance to pledge. The first announcement I ever saw said the Ex3 KS was coming in December 2012 but it didn't actually start until May of the following year.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;838185That is a lot of money for an RPG. Smaller companies like ours make games for a fraction of that. What I find interesting is if a typical company invested half a million dollars into a game book, it is doubtful they would make the money back.

Oh, yes. I've backed a number of Kickstarters and all so far have come in on time or with only minor delays. The only one I expect will be significantly delayed will be Paranoia, but I suspected that going in so I'm not really upset about it.

But even the biggest companies I've backed like Pinnacle only have KS campaigns that pull in $70,000 or so. They usually only get that much because of extras that people buy: miniatures, posters, cards, dice, etc. The price of the extra goodies makes up a good portion of the money pledged toward the game. With Exalted, though, they didn't have extra widgets like that. Nearly all the money was geared toward a 'deluxe' version of the core book just for backers.

Quote from: Brand55;838182It was $684,755. Nearly three-quarters of a million dollars were handed to these guys, and so far they've thoroughly managed to screw things up.

What...?

Gross Receipts: $684,755
Kickstarter fees (8%): -$47,932
Remaining: $636,823

1 year dedicated salary: -$75,000
Big project; 2 people: (x2)
Remaining: $486,823

Instant price quote from a random vanity press, 30 seconds of search effort:

General Information

Number of pages:  400
Double Sided or Single Sided:  Double Sided
Finished Size:  8.5" x 11"
Bindery Style:  Case Bound - hard cover

Soft Cover Options

Outside Cover Color:  Not Applicable
Inside Cover Color:  Not Applicable
Lamination:  Not Applicable
Cover Stock:  Not Applicable

Inside Pages

Inside Text Color:  Color
Inside Text Stock:  Satin Text 70#

Total

Quantity: 25,000 units
Total: -$224,170

Remaining: $262,653

Random quote from UPS Shipping, 5 minutes of effort.
Domestic, Ground:
2 lbs. dimensional weight
Avg $8 / unit (AK, HI significantly more, Exports would require being clever)

Shipping Costs: $8 x 25,000 units = -$200,000

Remaining: $62,653

Art Budget: $-30,000 (Half-ish salary noted above)

Remaining: $32,653

Legal fees: 80 hrs x $150 / hr = -$12,000

Remaining: $20,653

Costs of bennies not factored in, but there are a whole lot of negotiations, cost savings, and other reductions, as well as overruns, not figured in.

What is the problem here?

Quote from: One Horse Town;838186What i would find hilarious is if they released a shitty b&w softcover. :rotfl:

Having figuratively run-off with that kind of money, folks are gonna be pissed if it isn't tip-top of the range.

Folks are going to be pissed off no matter what. I really can't think of a worse project to Kickstart than Exalted 3. It's a game with a large, fundamentally broken system. A big chunk of the fans want to keep all the moving parts but somehow make them work. Another big chunk wants the whole system smoothed down. With a Kickstarter, you already took the money from both these groups, so they feel you owe them what they want. There is no road to a happy ending. Without a Kickstarter, you still get a lot of fan rage whatever you release, but at least the people pissed at you don't have to pay you.

It's even worse than Kickstarting a new edition of D&D. That has serious factionalism going on its fan base, but at least all the editions are functional in a way that Exalted has never been, regardless of whether those editions meet your personal taste.

Personally, my rule on Kickstarters is that I only back them if I get some kind of rough draft immediately. I'm fine with it still being a work in progress, but if they don't even have that, they are not ready to collect money. I've never waited more than a year on delivery of anything.

There was no way the devs could please everyone with the system for that simple fact. Some people want a billion Charms, others like me want something that's much simpler and more GM-friendly. It's simply impossible to reconcile those two viewpoints. So there was always going to be upset people, and I think that was understood from the outset. It's one of the reasons I refused to back the KS; I knew that with the people who were making the game, there was no way I'd get the simpler Exalted I wanted.

What's got so many more upset is the silence and the way OPP has treated their backers. They're going to have something like 900 total Charms and abilities just in the core book. There's no reason they couldn't have been doing a preview showing one of those every week or two. Put up an update one week showing a Charm, then a progress update the next week or a map or something, then another Charm or something else related to the mechanics. Updates seriously don't take that long to put together, especially if the meat of them comes from work that's already been done by the developers for the game. The fact that OPP was too lazy to do even that much is understandably upsetting to a lot of people.

And while I agree that it would be hilarious if it turned out the deluxe edition was a black & white softcover, there's no way it'll happen. Exalted exemplifies the 'style over substance' approach to game design. The engine is utter crap, but the team is going to make certain the finished machine is really shiny.

Did I miss something, there was a second leak?

Quote from: Iron_Rain;838259Did I miss something, there was a second leak?

Yeah, a few months ago. The story had changed from it being an essentially completely version except for art and lay out to being an "obsolete" version that wasn't close to final.

Quote from: Baulderstone;838227Folks are going to be pissed off no matter what. I really can't think of a worse project to Kickstart than Exalted 3. It's a game with a large, fundamentally broken system. A big chunk of the fans want to keep all the moving parts but somehow make them work. Another big chunk wants the whole system smoothed down.

And apparently, despite almost total lock down on information the idea that Ex3 was going to be, well, what it is was so blindly obvious from the very beginning that to have even hoped for something different was incredibly stupid.

Just as an aside, anyone thinking that a full-time dev on a project like this is getting $75k a year is probably out by an order of magnitude. A few years back when FFG were looking for a new head of line for WFRP v3, they were offering the equivalent of £14k a year - about $22k...

Quote from: One Horse Town;838338Just as an aside, anyone thinking that a full-time dev on a project like this is getting $75k a year is probably out by an order of magnitude. A few years back when FFG were looking for a new head of line for WFRP v3, they were offering the equivalent of £14k a year - about $22k...

Yeah. I doubt even with the SE books being printed the entire thing costs more than 200k, and that being generous.

Quote from: One Horse Town;838338Just as an aside, anyone thinking that a full-time dev on a project like this is getting $75k a year is probably out by an order of magnitude. A few years back when FFG were looking for a new head of line for WFRP v3, they were offering the equivalent of £14k a year - about $22k...

Yeah I got to agree with that.  As little as the industry makes I would be shock if they were paid that much money.  If they were paid that much money, then I can see why people are loyal to Onyx Path.