My Thoughts On The Wayward Realms Kickstarter
Vložit
- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- Renfail offers his thoughts on The Wayward Realms Kickstarter project.
-----
Join as a member to support and get access member-only videos and perks: / renfail
We're multistreaming now on CZcams and Twitch: / renfail
Get my latest book in Kindle, Paperback, or Hardback here: www.amazon.com/Rising-Storm-W...
Socials!
Twitter - / renfailsol
TikTok - / renfail
Facebook - / renfailsol
Don't forget the Discord! / discord
#daggerfall #thewaywardrealms #renfail - Hry
We appreciate you looking at our project and understand the hesitancy. We have tried to be very upfront with our plans. Something you might not know is that we have been working on the game as a volunteer team for the past 4 years and have first passes done on several systems like the weather, sailing, combat, dungeon/city generation to name a few. We have shown glimpses of them in our two Devlogs that we put out over the last two years.
The Mass Crowd System is one we are still working on, but our tests have been capable of placing half a million NPCs in motion without any issue, so the thousand of NPCs is something we are confident we can pull off after having run those tests. Once again, you can catch glimpses of these tests in our Devlogs.
We are bringing it to Kickstarter because we are confident we can deliver on the Early Access build which is meant to be its own self contained prologue chapter which we think will will offer folks enough competed gameplay and narrative elements that it could count as a smaller scaled game on its own.
That being said, the game is meant to be a spiritual successor to The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, which both our founders were lead developers of, so the scale is important to us, and something the team has experience in producing, albeit a couple of decades ago. This type of scale might not be for everyone though and that is perfectly fine. There are players who are looking for a game to fill that Daggerfall niche.
We don't fault anyone for being cautious, and understand any hesitancy when it comes to crowdfunding or enjoying this type of game. Once again, we thank you for taking a look at it, even if it is not something you will be contributing to.
Can you please provide video proof of your internal tests placing half a million NPCs into motion without any issue? I will happily do a follow-up video reacting to said footage
@@Renfail We are working on a new video that will showcase that. Stay tuned!
@@OnceLostGames Phenomenal! Can't wait to see more.
@@user-ec4ze9yq5t Mate, learn who you are talking to before you make baseless comments. I've got 10+ years in game dev, have founded two studios, launched an MMORPG + tabletop RPG + a point-and-click game demo, and have worked in both Unity and Unreal. I've raised millions from investors and pre-order sales. I am intimately familiar with the topic at hand. So get your facts well in hand prior :)
@@user-ec4ze9yq5t Oh sweetie, you'll have to try harder if you want to budge the troll meter. Your clicks + views = my paycheck. Thanks so much!
The Thing is, those are the Fathers of Daggerfall, it wass like the pre Alpha Build for them, and now they want to bring it into the next Generation, in a more fleshed out form. In my opinion this is a really promising project.
Promising, perhaps. But without millions in funding, the vision promoted on that Kickstarter isn't gonna happen.
They should not scale this game down when it comes to world size. This is the spiritual successor to daggerfall. The world HAS to be big and there has to be 1000s of cities. I don't care how many other features they have to cut because I've been waiting for another big RPG world like daggerfall with predecidual generation for nearly 30 years.
uh huh, there haven't been any big games like it in generations /rolls eyes
@@Renfail I'm talking about a specific kind of WRPG. Medieval style focus on mostly procedural generation on a sandbox instead of a lot of scripted content. I like the item of talking to millions of different npcs and hundreds of realistic sized cities. If you can tell me of any games that are exactly like daggerfall then I'm all ears.
@@beethovenlivesupstairs4182 That's nice and all but not feasible to do if you do not have the money. And they don't. And I am doubtful in the current game industry climate a super niche title like this will get greenlit by anyone and poured hundreds of millions into. Not to mention the pipe dream of LLM solving a lot of the issues these large worlds face. They should have scaled down the prototype immensely to make it more feasible and then see if they can turn that maybe into an early access story like 7DTD. This seems overly ambitious.
We know the large scale is not for everyone, but we absolutely plan to stick with it for Daggerfall fans like you that have been waiting for this type of game.
@@chaosmeisters6781 We are definitely not relying on solving issues with an LLM. We have also been working on the game without funding for several years, so the KS amount is just to help us finish up our Early Access build.
I think the virtual game master sounds really interesting and I backed the project because it sounds like how I make quests for my players in dnd and if that can pull something like that off I’d like to see it.
You use AI to create quests for your players in D&D?
@@Renfailno I try and look at what my players like to do and I make quests revolving around that. I know ai isn’t perfect far from it and I’m skeptical if these quests will be interesting or just copy pasted daggerfall style, but I think the concept is rad
The thousands of NPCs is what I call BS on, but everything else just sounds like Daggerfall 2. Daggerfall was 99% procedurally generated content. Graphically It could look like Morrowind and I'd still be hyped.
Ayep pretty much
It is based on tests we have run, rendering half a million NPCs at once, so we are confident in being able to pull it off with simple thousands. Which is usually much higher than we will need to as most towns are not that big.
@@OnceLostGames We look forward to seeing some video proof on your CZcams, Kickstarter, or etc., showing the rendering of half a million NPCs at once! It'll help with skeptics like me :)
@@Renfail (This is Ted): I respect skepticism. But I’m also on the inside on this so I know how much more we’re delivering versus what we’re promising.
@@OnceLostGames Awesome. I look forward to seeing some additional footage on your Kickstarter and CZcams page showing off the things you are claiming in the video comments here, at which point I will happily do a follow-up video
I don't know how important it would be to have thousands of npc's "on screen" at once, but inside of any said city would be totally believable, because it's aalready been done with the gta games. If their cities are of similar size, they would surely have thousands of npc's, and it's not like they would have to render them all or even keep track of them all to make it believable from the player's perspective.
You've clearly never played GTA games if you think there are thousands of NPCs being rendered on screen at the same time
@@Renfail did you read my comment? I said exactly the opposite of what you just said. I said that there is no reason to have thousands of NPC's rendered at the same time if you have a similarly sized city.
@@user-mj4cp4li2w Yep, I mis-read.
I totally believe in this!
If you buy into hype, ok? So far they haven't built anything, they are simply pitching you an idea that won't be realized unless they get publisher funding.
@@Renfail Who says they won't get a publisher. This is a very fun sounding POTENTIAL game. I really like the way they are approaching it...few to no main quests, just a ton of different factions.
@@BlottyWellRite The world of publishing is about risk versus reward. Finding a company willing to risk a few million, let alone tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, to build a game, is like finding a needle in a haystack. "Fun" doesn't = sales, necessarily, and they have to have far more than proof of a fun game. They need to have proof of a game that will ship the hundreds of thousands to millions of units required to generate an ROI. If you are willing to throw money at the kickstarter without ever anticipating more than the prototype they are claiming they will have ready in a year, that's fine, but do your due diligence in terms of game publishing.
I can accept that they can generate thousands of NPCs, but to have them all displayed on screen at the same moment? I've only got a 27" monitor. It's going to get crowded.
hahahaha epic reply :)
All games have AI in them. This is just a new and more advanced kind of AI, and sounds like a great use of it to me.
If you buy into hype, ok? So far they haven't built anything, they are simply pitching you an idea that won't be realized unless they get publisher funding.
@@Renfail Having played with various machine learning AIs for the past few months, I can see how it would be pretty easy to feed an AI some basic info about your character and have it generate quest data accordingly. Not much of a programming challenge at all.
@@sechrima9998 I look forward to your upcoming game showcasing how easy programming and AI are to get working perfectly for a game.
@@Renfail it sounds like your trying to make all of what they're doing fit into the umbrella term of AI to make it seems scary, when the VGM just sounds like a more advanced version of Bethesda's radiant A.I system they use for procedural quests. They've described how the mass AI system would work, which looks very similar to AI systems in AC or GTA. alot of the systems are already layed out in Daggerfall. The only worry people who looked into the project should reasonably have is if they'll get a publisher or not.
Ren, I'm a subscriber to your channel and enjoy your content (and perspective) 99% of the time. This is one area where I respectfully disagree.
For starters, I don't believe the team has been misleading or vague about anything. There's an exhaustive amount of information on their KS page - detailing both what is planned for early access, and what *isn't* . The $500K goal criteria spells out exactly what backers (like myself) can expect: a 140km2 island, two playable races, a couple varieties of ships and horses each, a handful of joinable factions, etc. Judging from the conversation around the project and backer comments, I don't think *anyone* is expecting a full-on 'Daggerfall 2024 kitcken sink' experience based on raising $500K. 😅 I've been following Wayward Realms' YT channel for years, and they've always been forthcoming, transparent and communicative about the project, it's progress and 'next steps'.
Secondly, a philosophical argument - we, as passionate gamers, can't bemoan the state of the industry - the corporate greed, the dumbing-down/homogenizing of RPG mechanics on one hand - while dismissing efforts such as this, with aggressive skepticism on the other hand. We have to be (or in this case, support) the change we want to see in the industry...putting our money where our mouths are, etc. In my view, if efforts like this aren't backed and supported on a grassroots level, it's s self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, these types of things can be a gamble; but isn't almost everything in life, to some degree? If the worst that happens is OnceLost can't find a publisher and we end up with a prologue chapter with features as-promised (or 'prototype' as you call it), I'll be perfectly fine with my decision to have backed the project.
Having purchased/backed a couple of incomplete, early access games on Steam (notably the fantastic Stellar Tactics and Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon)), I have no problem with the idea of a game being 'feature incomplete'. The whole premise after all, is allowing the early-adopter player base to experience content as it improves and expands, enabling those players to pour their suggestions, feedback, and even ideas, back into the game's development process.
If you are comfortable yeeting money into the void, that's a personal decision :)
Or you could, and hear me out here, support projects with reasonable, achievable ambitions, made by teams that have demonstrated the ability to ship a product, not a team of formerly-retired devs you haven't worked in the industry for 20 years trying to recapture their glory days by riding their old game's recent(ish) CZcams popularity.
@@RunePonyRamblings It's been a hot minute since they did anything, and it sure seems as though they are doing just that.
Thanks for this. I wasn't aware. I just got hyped and jumped the wagon 😀 I did find it odd that a game of this scope could be funded with 3,5 k US Dollars and the the low sys req were strange too. I have no regrets though. I have paid 40 Dollars in the hope of making an old gamers dream come through. With that said, I think they could have been more clear about what the money really was for. I know I have been naive and should have been more thorough reading everything. But I'm sure I'm not the only one, and I'm also sure they know. And I find that a bit too clever.
But done is done, now I'll cross my fingers and hope for greatness.
Due diligence ftw
Am I the only one that is looking forward to a game utilising a "modern AI"?
Probably
You are not. I believe there is great untapped potential in proc gen content. It all really just boils down to the amount of art assets and parameters to achieve a natural looking result, in a game of this scale.
@@solid_snek and with a budget of 500,000, that ain't going to be a lot, because most of it's going to be going towards the programmers
@@Renfail The devs have also already worked 4 years or so, on this game unpaid. Daggerfall was developed in a year, and in my opinion, if they can achieve a Daggerfall with more natural looking environments, it's already good enough. The trailers shown so far look great at any rate.
Ya so it's a kickstarter to kickstart a kickstarter...well good luck to them...or in the immortal words of Jim Carrey aka Lloyd:
"So you're saying there's a chance!"
LOL exactly :)
@sergiocortes86 until they actual release a game, it's not an actual studio. It's just a bunch of hobbyists working on something in their spare time. Anyone with 50 bucks can go form an LLC, but that doesn't make that company anything other than a title until they actually produce something. Have some of them worked at game studios in the past? Absolutely. But working unpaid on something just means it's your hobby until it becomes an actual product that can be purchased by the public
@@sergiocortes86 I would urge you to do some due diligence on business, finance, investments, game development, publishing, and etc. Let me know when you're up to speed, and we'll continue the conversation.
So after blowing the 8 million dollar publishing deal they’re crowdfunding and will be lucky to get 1/4 of what was offered.
Not familiar with the backstory; they declined an 8 million dollar publishing deal when? You got links to any reliable news sources on this?
@@Renfail CZcamsr Indigo Gaming was part of the project at first and published an article on Medium after he left. Article is titled "How I ALMOST Made the Game of my Dreams." Granted, that was four years ago and it looks like actual progress has been made since, but I'd still be cautious about donating money.
@lostinthegrave7462 ah so it was a Medium post as opposed to news articles. Gotcha
I do believe OnceLost has stated that they wouldn't accept a publisher if it compromised their vision of the game.
@@solid_snek Sometimes compromise is necessary if the vision wants to go beyond a pipe dream.
Totally agree with you. I would go so far that It feels scammy to me. 1000s of meaningful NPC on screen is not happening anytime soon with graphics like this. Using AI for NPC dialogue is super icky, I do not want LLM stuff in my games. HelloGames, the current masters of procedural generation in my opinion, cannot pull this off. And they have years and years of experience with NMS, and Light No Fire is not as ambitious as this one.
Hello Games is a great example to look at because no man's sky has massive planets and they can't even pull it off
We have run several tests rendering half a million NPCs, so we are confident in pulling off the 1000s of NPCs number with our Mass Crowd System. The system basically treats a crowd as a single entity, thus saving on processing power. As the player approaches individuals in the crowd, their individual AI packages (traditional videogame AI, not Generative AI), such as schedules, homes, work, etc. are loaded in and the player can follow them around seeing them go about their daily lives. As the player walks away, the packages are dumped and the NPC blends back into the Mass Crowd. A similar system was used in Assassin's Creed Origins.
As for the LLM, we are not using it to replace hand crafted dialogue or writers. The VGM uses it only to recognize what playstyle a character has, what they enjoy doing, who they have interacted with, and who their allies and enemies are in order to tailor quests and events around the player based on their character build. We have a team of around 10 writers and they are crafting the world, its inhabitants, and the major questlines. Quests are supplemented by procedural quests, but that is in the style of Daggerfall, with the use of templates and variables that are mixed and matched to fit, not being written by a Generative AI program.
@@OnceLostGames Internal tests are a far cry from the real thing, where you've got thousands of assets being loaded alongside the NPCs (or in this case, a claim of "half a million"), and while Unreal 5 can do a lot of the heavy lifting, again...internal tests are a far cry from the real thing. I'm sure your team knows this, with their decades of experience. Also, AC Origins (Odyssey/Valhalla as well) at no point in time had "thousands of NPCs on the screen" at any given time. If it's been tested, internally or otherwise, you should be showcasing that in your footage as proof of concept to counter skeptics such as myself who could otherwise be swayed. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Not the ingredients packet =P
I look forward to seeing some video proof on your Kickstarter page, CZcams channel, or otherwise, showing half a million NPCs being rendered without issue. More than happy to do a followup reaction video when said proof is posted!
@@Renfail We are currently working on a video addressing some of the bigger questions, the Crowd System being one of them. The tests are not for fully rendered NPCs as we haven't modeled those out. So the footage we have is using Unreal mannequins and some with skeleton enemies.
@@OnceLostGames Thanks for the transparency! For those who might not work in Game Dev, it helps to understand the difference between mannequins and fully rendered NPCs, so I appreciate you taking the time to make that clarification here in these comments