Well we’re not trying to hide the fact we want to make an MMO someday. We will make it clear the KS is for Battlescape only. That is being honest…
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I agree with you. But I think to not evoke QFE is a big mistake. Maybe the video of KS launch will convince me that BattleScape can fly by its own.
This has been discussed before:
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I think a nice mid-tier reward would be to invite pledgers for a monthly Q&A session with some of the developers (suggest rotating each month to prevent fatigue).
Restricting it to a tier level naturally reduces the audience size, which makes organising easier. However, you’d have to have decent rules for what discussion’s actually on the table and how long these sessions would go on for in order for players to see the value of it
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Evoking the MMO could be a double edged sword. On the one hand, it shows the ultimate ambitions for the dev team. On the other hand, it puts the long history of non-delivery right there. It needs to be addressed very carefully.
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Also, as has been pointed out, mentioning the MMO potentially undermines the Kickstarter for the project on offer by calling in to question the developer’s commitment to it.
I don’t know about you, but if I were looking at this as a new potential customer (which presumably will have to make up the large portion of the required backers for this project), if too much of the pitch was describing the next project they wanted to work on, I’d be less keen on committing to something that it appeared they intended to just ship out and discard for the next shiny.
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Exactly. There’s saying “we’re dedicated to world building and developing a franchise,” and then there’s saying “we’d rather be doing something else”. Most of us here, I assume, trust the dev team to stand behind Battlescape, but someone looking for a shoot-'em-up space game that they can play for 12 to 24 months, if not more, is going to want to know that the game will be supported long term by I-Novae. Focusing on the next game when they haven’t even made this game isn’t really the way to do that.
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Taking some ideas from star citizen, have a certain tier of donations able to give you a question to be answered in a Q&A video.
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as far as im concerned, you’re now legally and contractually obligated to make this happen…
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11/10 do recommend
Live Q&A with groups of randoms is going to be far less productive than curated Q&As like most developers do.
You can filter out nonsensical and off-topic questions and provide a carefully considered answer, perhaps after discussing what they are and aren’t willing to reveal at that time.
These can then be published as a video and it stokes the train.
I think private Skype sessions are viable only for groups of less than about 8 so there is enough time for everyone to talk within a reasonable time frame.
Regarding the MMO, I think it could be mentioned by Flavien at the beginning of the spoken section… “In 2005 (or whenever it was) I started working on the I-Novae engine in my spare time. I wanted to produce the ultimate space MMO - A whole real-scale galaxy, seamless planetary landing, no instancing, freeform FTL rather than jumpgates… However, since teaming up with Keith in 2011 we’ve decided that to be able to deliver the quality of game that we want with a modest budget, we need to … bla bla bla Battlescape.”
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Agree with prepared Q&A. A reason I have also started to watch Podcasts at 1.5x speed due to them being unprepared or attendants talking slowly.
MMO: Complexity of creating an MMO with an indie developer team and custom engine should be heavily noted in the newsletter for the emails gathered from this and the old forums. As I bet quite a lot of people will be excited in receiving the first newsletter from I-Novae and ultimately disappointed after reading that it is not(directly) about the MMO, rather the Kickstarter announcement for Battlescape.
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@Topperfalkon & @Kichae, I don’t see anyone suggesting they make a big deal of the MMO. I think it would be unwise to not mention it at all though. I think that would lend ammunition to the accusations of vapourware - “They said they were making an MMO but now there’s no mention of that and they’re trying to get money for their next vapourware project”.
In addition, for some people to whom an MMO is more attractive than an arena shooter, the fact that an MMO is in the back of I-Novae’s mind (however far back) may tip their decision to pledge or not.
Obviously it should be absolutely clear that Battlescape is I-Novae’s sole focus, but for the above reasons I think the MMO should at least be mentioned.
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That is exactly what I tried to say : to not talk about it in the video is (IMO) a big mistake… this doesn’t mean “focus on”, but you could for example prepare a second announcement video, not directly related on KickStarter campaign, but present on your YouTube channel, witch presents Infinity QFE, with Keith and Flavien, and the rest of the team presenting story, gameplay, etc… you could use art images, development sessions plans, etc…
I really hope you will become a famous studio, but I can’t imagine that it could happen just with BS (even if I hope so)
PS : in fact, the main video can be like you said, but the real question is : “and after” ? I follow FF15 since the 2006 E3, and I hated their communication because of these long periods of nothing… I think the Kickstarter must be for you the begining of a more important communication (with videos, etc). I love the fact that Hutchings give us weekly screenshots, but people will want game infos too, about BS AND QFE
No! There is a massive difference between a simple acknowledgement that QFE was the original goal back in the past, and making a video dedicated to it.
There is no “story, gameplay, […] art images, development sessions plans, etc…” to present.
QFE simply doesn’t exist currently. It’s not a project that was started and then shelved - it’s an idea that was shelved before it was started.
Sorry kamul, but that just breaks the idea of Kickstarter.
Kickstarter should and must focus on a project. Only projects can be funded.
Mentioning the QFE idea is ok to show where they came from. But what you propose is something else, a duality, and that definitely isn’t sensible.
I for one don’t want to hear anything about QFE except a short statement. Because there is no point in it. I-Novae needs to grow to a level where it makes sense for them to pitch an MMO like they grew to a level where it makes sense to pitch this smaller game.
But QFE is at best another decade away from release, and that only if Battlescape is successful. People need to accept that…
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I thought QFE was more in Inovae’s heads (and I thought it was more real than hroberston said)… it makes me sad 
to come back to the pledge rewards question, it seems difficult to my point of view to see a reason to invest 10k$ on a “simple” arena shooter. I know that the engine is crazy and the graphics quality is amazing, but still… I think low and middle pledges will be the most important ones that will make I-novae reach their goal… Does I-Novae communicate on the lower and higher pledges they plan to give ?
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I think INS is praying that not many people with your assumptions find out about the KS and voice their concerns. Ultimately 90% of everyone that knows about Infinity at this time, knows about it from the MMO/QFE days and as sad as that might be, this KS is not about that game…
Of course it’s very unlikely that anyone’s going to give £10k. Looking at the tiers over £1k for Elite and Star Citizen, there are no equivalent things that I-Novae can offer without producing expensive physical rewards such as models of all the ships in the game.
Elite’s highest tier was £5k .
More than 95% of the funding will come from pledges under £1000.
Lets hope it gets like something like this …
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