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Exalted 3 - What the hell?

Started by DisgruntleFairy, February 24, 2014, 01:51:28 AM

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DisgruntleFairy

So I've been thinking of Exalted 3 again. I think its time to say that the whole thing was a failure. There maybe a game published at some point. It may even be a good game (I doubt it thought) but the kickstarter/project has failed.

The developers utterly bungled the games PR and relationship with the backers. The companies hands off attitude really has shown the weakness of Onyx Path as a game development company. Admittedly they seem to be changing course on this to a degree, so good for them. No amount of good game will undo the bad press that the lateness, poor communication, and general jackassery from the developers has done to the line.

Even if a game is delivered (and frankly I'm not sure it will be anymore) it will be doa. Only the most hardcore of fans will follow the line after this.

That's before we even get into discussion of the mechanics.

Kaiu Keiichi

I wonder what the contractual obligations are, after the products listed under their license are delivered? What would it take for Rich Thomas to say, "enough of this shit" and hand it off to someone other team?

EDIT: It is kind of liberating to be banned.
Rules and design matter
The players are in charge
Simulation is narrative
Storygames are RPGs

Orphan81

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;849883I wonder what the contractual obligations are, after the products listed under their license are delivered? What would it take for Rich Thomas to say, "enough of this shit" and hand it off to someone other team?

EDIT: It is kind of liberating to be banned.

I like to pop in to their infraction forum once a week or so, and see how many people have been banned, warned, thread banned and the like. It's fascinating really. I can't think of any similar hobby forum that takes pride in giving out that many infractions in such a short period of time. It seems there's at least one permaban going a week now.

As for Exalted, 1e kinda remains the best iteration, which is really saying something. But I've got my own method using Mutants and Masterminds now.
1)Don't let anyone's political agenda interfere with your enjoyment of games, regardless of their 'side'.

2) Don't forget to talk about things you enjoy. Don't get mired in constant negativity.

Nexus

Quote from: DisgruntleFairy;849842So I've been thinking of Exalted 3 again. I think its time to say that the whole thing was a failure. There maybe a game published at some point. It may even be a good game (I doubt it thought) but the kickstarter/project has failed.

The developers utterly bungled the games PR and relationship with the backers. The companies hands off attitude really has shown the weakness of Onyx Path as a game development company. Admittedly they seem to be changing course on this to a degree, so good for them. No amount of good game will undo the bad press that the lateness, poor communication, and general jackassery from the developers has done to the line.

Even if a game is delivered (and frankly I'm not sure it will be anymore) it will be doa. Only the most hardcore of fans will follow the line after this.

That's before we even get into discussion of the mechanics.

I am really curious what the reaction to full and final mechanics will be. There are quite a few hardcore fans that are going to accept anything and praise its genius and the rules were written to appeal to certain tastes but still I wonder how many are going to be disappointed. "I didn't read the leak" has practically become a loyalty oath and supposedly that leak wasn't "anywhere close" to the final product. So we'll see.

I'm a little surprised how truly hardcore fans their seem to be after how this has been handled but Exalted has always generated allot of passion.
Remember when Illinois Nazis where a joke in the Blue Brothers movie?

Democracy, meh? (538)

 "The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it."

Nexus

Quote from: Orphan81;849926I like to pop in to their infraction forum once a week or so, and see how many people have been banned, warned, thread banned and the like. It's fascinating really. I can't think of any similar hobby forum that takes pride in giving out that many infractions in such a short period of time. It seems there's at least one permaban going a week now.

Its like they have a quota system like traffic cops and tickets. It really goes up when someone starts a thread that's the equivalent of Speed Trap.
Remember when Illinois Nazis where a joke in the Blue Brothers movie?

Democracy, meh? (538)

 "The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it."

Armchair Gamer

#1145
Quote from: Nexus;849938Its like they have a quota system like traffic cops and tickets. It really goes up when someone starts a thread that's the equivalent of Speed Trap.

  I think it's more that they're pushing harder and harder for conformity with the site's "culture" (read: ideology) and are become more and more willing to exclude those who don't fit in. The general tone in the past year or so has really become 'we are who we are, and if you don't like it, we don't want you anyway'. Not necessarily a bad thing for a community (abstracting from the nature of the ideology itself, which in TBP's case ranges from well-intentioned through wrongheaded to Hellish), although somewhat disruptive for one that's been around for 15 years and has only now started to adopt party discipline ...

DisgruntleFairy

Quote from: Nexus;849937I am really curious what the reaction to full and final mechanics will be. There are quite a few hardcore fans that are going to accept anything and praise its genius and the rules were written to appeal to certain tastes but still I wonder how many are going to be disappointed. "I didn't read the leak" has practically become a loyalty oath and supposedly that leak wasn't "anywhere close" to the final product. So we'll see.

I'm a little surprised how truly hardcore fans their seem to be after how this has been handled but Exalted has always generated allot of passion.

It will be interesting to see how it goes over when and if it is ever released. Honestly, at this stage, I'm not entirely sure there will ever be a release. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the project is utterly abandoned by the developers. Or if it is put on indefinite hold.

Orphan81

Quote from: DisgruntleFairy;849944It will be interesting to see how it goes over when and if it is ever released. Honestly, at this stage, I'm not entirely sure there will ever be a release. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the project is utterly abandoned by the developers. Or if it is put on indefinite hold.

Didn't the latest update say it's in Layout now? With that art sample and everything? I thought I read it would be ready in pdf in why...just a few short months!
1)Don't let anyone's political agenda interfere with your enjoyment of games, regardless of their 'side'.

2) Don't forget to talk about things you enjoy. Don't get mired in constant negativity.

Warboss Squee

Quote from: Nexus;849938Its like they have a quota system like traffic cops and tickets. It really goes up when someone starts a thread that's the equivalent of Speed Trap.

I particularly liked the thread ban for burnout02 in the Gamergate SPJ bomb scare thread.

Anglachel

I guess i now have a good idea why the new mechanics suck. For the last 2-3 months i have read lots of different rpg-games that fall into very different categories, designwise and crunchwise.

Exalted's problem (3e's but i guess also the older iterations) is that it's neither here nor there, mechanics-wise.

What do i mean:

On the one hand, It somehow wants to be a game with lots of stuff, fiddly-bits...it wants fine detail and different "things" for every part. So kind of high crunch. Problem 1) : they have no designers on board that can handle something like that. Most probably because none of them has any grip on probabilities and mathematics. This will inevitably lead to another game with extreme "optimal build" and "Oh, i broke the game by accident" stuff.
If they wanted something like high crunch with a lot of modification-screws they should have hired some of the Hero System or GURPS pros to do such a game. They have proven that they can provide high crunch stuff that has at least some kind of internal consistency and mathematical strength.

On the other hand, they want it also to be about storytelling and "handwavium" (they're quite proud of that). Again, they have no designers that seem to be able to really "get that into mechanics cleanly". So you have some half-assed ideas and "stuff" that is kind-of-narrative but with rules (Nexus had some nice descriptors for that in one of his last posts).
Again, if they wanted something like this, they should have hired some of the cracks from games like Heroquest or Other Worlds. Games that can elegantly model narrative play via relatively simple mechanics but that make the games still feel quite mythical and powerful.

So in short - they have two goals for Exalted 3e...and they fail spectacularly at implementing both of them. In effect - the team is just very bad at game-design.

From now on, i guess it'd be appropriate to put Devs or developers into " " whenever you're talking about the folks that "design" Exalted.

Nexus

Quote from: Warboss Squee;849950I particularly liked the thread ban for burnout02 in the Gamergate SPJ bomb scare thread.

I just don't get the insane levels of hostility the GG/Anti-GG/whatever thing generates.
Remember when Illinois Nazis where a joke in the Blue Brothers movie?

Democracy, meh? (538)

 "The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it."

Simlasa

Quote from: Nexus;849967I just don't get the insane levels of hostility the GG/Anti-GG/whatever thing generates.
Neither do I... I've got a local friend who's ranted at me about the GG folks and there's just no way to talk to him about it. As soon as I brought up that neither side has the high ground he announced his shock and dismay that I was a 'Gamergater'. It's a toxic subject.

Christopher Brady

Quote from: Nexus;849967I just don't get the insane levels of hostility the GG/Anti-GG/whatever thing generates.

The issue is that both sides are arguing two separate things.  One is against GG because it's seen as another MRA/Rape Apologist mob.  The other want something that they never will get, Video Game 'Journalist' accountability.

And because of the current political climate whenever you're dealing with women's 'issues' (some of which are warranted, Death Threats in any form, to anyone, is just bad form of the worst order), the whole GamerGate devolved into what another loud voice for the militants (of all sides.)
"And now, my friends, a Dragon\'s toast!  To life\'s little blessings:  wars, plagues and all forms of evil.  Their presence keeps us alert --- and their absence makes us grateful." -T.A. Barron[/SIZE]

Snowman0147

Well when you are friends with the news media you can say whatever lies and bullshit you want.  So no wonder gamergate looks bad because the sheeple got fooled again.  Seriously people when are you going to wake and see that all news media is as fuck up as Fox News.

Christopher Brady

Quote from: Snowman0147;850035Well when you are friends with the news media you can say whatever lies and bullshit you want.  So no wonder gamergate looks bad because the sheeple got fooled again.  Seriously people when are you going to wake and see that all news media is as fuck up as Fox News.

Like I said, not ever going to get what they want, simply because NO ONE is unbiased.  NO ONE.

However, that is all I will say on this topic.

Other than Ex3 is a disappointment from what I'm hearing.
"And now, my friends, a Dragon\'s toast!  To life\'s little blessings:  wars, plagues and all forms of evil.  Their presence keeps us alert --- and their absence makes us grateful." -T.A. Barron[/SIZE]