Rough draft for our Kickstarter reward tiers

Battlescape
7

My income tax refund was higher than I expected this year, and this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to spend it on…

Also, a viable $10 tier might be either the Bronze Supporter badge without receiving a copy of the game, or an uncoloured Supporter badge sans game copy. Also, all tiers at the $10 level or above could gain access to a special Supporters section of the forums.

I think you’re missing out on the magic of round numbers, too, by skipping $100 and $1000.

The reward at the $500 level also seems to be a little lacking relative to the $250 level. It doesn’t feel like much of a step up for double the money. I think most of the community die hards will get what they want at the $250 level. I’m all for sparkles and stuff, but that extra $250 is 10 Bronze Supporter tiers (i.e. 10 additional copies of the game).

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8

Looks pretty good. Have to agree with what the most said.

It looks a little sparse though. Makes it easy to decide … maybe a little to easy.

I can see how it can be hard to add even more. Though the tiers up to 85$ seems to be pretty good.

You should really fill up 1000$ though …

9

How about these?
10$ - same as above + beta forum access
100$ - same as above + special edition set of weapons
150$ tier becomes 200$
250$ tier becomes 500$

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10

Well the “main” tiers seem to be.

  • $20 Copy of finished game
  • $50 Beta Access
  • $85 Alpha Access
  • $250 Developer Access

Everything else seems to be a filler, I’m wondering why the Developer Access is such a huge jump from Alpha Access, it should only be a difference of a few months…

Also why is there no MOD Creator tier and no mention of delivery dates?

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11

Because it’s a rough draft of the tier ideas.

In our estimation it is a difference of about 6 months. Developer access means when the dev’s start playing, so do these pledgee’s. It likely won’t be access immediately after the KS finishes, there might be a couple months lag in order for us to setup shop. Alpha could be 6 months or more after this developer access.

As I explained before, modding will be a stretch goal, not a pledge tier.

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12

Modding will be a stretch goal. So adding a reward/pledge tier for it doesn’t make sense if we only raise the minimum target, cause we wouldn’t be able to deliver.

As for delivery dates, this is just a rough draft, and we don’t want to announce anything officially yet.

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13

Alright, I wasn’t asking for specific dates, just estimates, as most KS projects include, I suppose 6-months after 3-months for alpha is more than good enough as that estimate.

Not sure if this is because this is a draft, but the forum access tiers are missing and so are the “development” tiers, design decision and things like that?

14

Right now I’m inclined towards the 500 dollar level. There should be more options in the 100-1000 area, though.

15

Looks fairly good! Only things i can think of to improve it would be:

  • A limited early bird below the 20$ game tier. I’ts really important to get an early impulse into funding and somthing like a 18$ early bird would definitely help.

  • More graduation of tiers above 500$, then jump from 500$ to 2500$ is enourmous and some of the long term supporters would want to pledge in that area.

Beyond categories: Make sure you get your PR / Press releases in order and ready to go, getting in magazines and forum posts is paramount!

16

The weapon effects thing could potentially hurt gameplay, if they are too different. In space arena games often you need to use the effects to tell whats being fired at you. Something to consider.

Im wondering about the 2500 and 10000 tiers though, a custom ship skin is far more difficult to create than a custom billboard. You may want to swap them or even put the billboard on something more like a 1000$ tier(also, i would include a clause that ultimatly the skin art decisions can be overridden by you to prevent people paying for a skin that is 100% black or something that could potentially impact gameplay,) . Also, you dont have any naming scheme things up for sale. If there are NPCs planned in battlescape, maybe include a tier that lets players submit names to be added to the name generator. Elite dangerous did this for their npcs.

Otherwise, looks good.

17

There won’t be any design decision tiers. When you’re in alpha, helping us to test the game, your feedback will ofc change the course of the game design. I believe we intend to have forum sections for this feedback. Any “design your own art” stuff ofc would have the disclaimer that it must be approved by the dev team, etc.

18

Hmmm … That does ring a bell …

6 Likes
19

More seriously, what will the tiers be in euros ?
Also, I agree that there could be maybe some more tiers between 500$ and 10.000$. I certainly would have pledged around 1.000$, but 2.500$ is a bit too much at the current moment for me.

Out of curiosity, why did you rule out the friend’s pack ? Surely you could throw in extra game copies for the 100$+ tier (not necessarly with alpha or beta).

20

This proposed list is, IMHO, missing a very important opportunity: 4 packs. 4 packs have been a great success in the gaming community i am a part of, and bringing friends along into the game should be made as easy as possible, you need every player you can get to be successful, and every backer you can get too. The proposed list of rewards as in the OP, only offers additional copies of the game at a pricepoint of 2500$. This is far above a realistic number for someone like myself that is looking for a 4-pack option, without the need to include fancy skins or forum badges.

My proposal is therefore the following:
- Offer at least one option that serves as a no/few extras 4 pack in the low/medium price segment.

Personally, my ideal pack would include 4 copies of the game, that all include Beta access. No Skins, Badges or Artbooks. Currently, the first tier offering Beta access for one person is at 40/50$. This would place a 4 pack with Beta accesss in the region of 160/200$, unless one includes a possible small discount, as 4 packs often do. 160/200$ is something i would personally be willing and able to spend for a 4 pack with Beta access.

Of course, you could easily construct different versions of 4 packs if you wanted to.
At proposed prices of OP list, for example:

  • 80$ Barebones 4 pack, no alpha, beta, no extras.
  • 92/100$ Limited edition skin 4 pack, no alpha, no beta.
  • 160/200$ ± some dollars, Beta 4 pack ± extras
  • 300/340$ ± some dollars, Alpha 4 pack ± extras
    And so on.

Assuming the list of the OP to go unchanged, and no 4 packs to be introduced, my assessment would be this:
2500$ is way out of my range. Even if my goodwill was that large, my wallet is not. Therefore, i would look for what tier gives me the best value for a single person, myself.

And that would be the 75/85$ Alpha access tier. I do not need fancy skins and badges, and pre-alpha builds will be fairly bugged and unfinished anyways. Of course i will lobby in my gaming community to support the kickstarter, independant of how the final reward list will look like, and some might jump in and back the kickstarter. With a 4 pack, i could drag people over that are not ready to back the kickstarter themselves.

3 Likes
21

Long ago I stated that I would be willing to pledge £250 (~$380) and I’m still happy with that amount. I’m not exactly stretched for money at the moment so you might be able to persuade me to go up to a $500 tier but not with the current offering. It would be cool to show off with some nice blingy weapon effects but first there’s the point that Matt brought up about it possibly being detrimental to gameplay, and then there’s the fact that to me weapon effects wouldn’t be worth the $120 increase from what I’m already willing to pay, let alone the $250 increase from the previous tier.

With the current offerings you would likely find me pledging on two accounts (I’m assuming this is possible) in order to get the $250 tier for myself and then either an $85 or $150 tier that I would give to a friend ((although to be honest It is quite possible I would have a moment of weakness and just go for the $500 tier anyway for SPARKLE PEW PEW!)).

1 Like
22

1$ Tier: You have our eternal gratitude + access to the content of the old forums with your discourse/website login. (no search button)
obs: This would be a “read only” forum. The extra money brought by this tier could let us hire someone to make it happen sooner and to make it better.

5$ Tier: All from above, plus you can search the old forums and we put your name in the game credits.

…

350$ Tier: All above plus you get a vote on small polls to choose between x choices of names for some items(ships, weapons, maybe faction names, etc). Most voted option guaranteed to be used in the game.

750$ Tier: All above plus read-only access to a backup of the old contributions FTP.

1000$ Tier: All above plus you get a vote on small polls to choose between x variations of concept art for a couple of ships/stations/logos/etc that will be created.

5000$ Tier: All above plus you get access to a special hidden sub-forum where you can see early art drafts and discuss directly with the artists about possible design changes and suggestions. You basically get the chance to influence the game’s ships/items design before they are shown to the public. Guarantees that the artists will read all posts in this subforum. (Disclaimer: Final art decision done by the artists, no guarantees your suggestions will be implemented!).

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23

Keep the feedback coming, it’s all very interesting to read and gives us a better idea of your expectations !

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24

The old forums are mainly dealing with the MMO, not Battlescape. We will likely link up the old forums as a reference at some point in the future if/when we have the funds to develop the MMO.

Ship/faction names will not be left up to the community to decide. Though, naming entities in the game is a possibility, but not ship classes etc (Hellion SFC Corvette ex, that would be named by the dev team). I suppose if it is a vote of names the team comes up with and we can’t decide, this is a possibility. People do seem to want to name things, so yes, we do need to add this to tiers in some way.

There is no real reason for this IMO, the old ftp data is very outdated, and tbh, who but a few in the community would be interested in this? Newcomers won’t care about an old obscure ftp with meshes/textures/sound files that are no longer considered useable.

This might be a possibility for a select few assets, but for all of them, no.

.

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25

In addition to potentially causing confusion for other players, having very obvious bling effects would probably also be detrimental to me! I mean honestly who here wouldn’t focus target the “idiot” who spent a ridiculous amount of money on a video game? :sweat: I know I’ve done it in the past on other games… heh.

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26

Yeah, a couple different 4 packs is a very good idea, esp. for a game that is multi-player only. I don’t really see a reason to go above $85 at the moment, but if there was a 4-pack with beta access for $150-$200… that would help fill in tiers and be an attractive thing to get. A 4-pack for $60-$80 (maybe $75?) would be good too.

I’m curious, is linux development going to be considered at all? maybe a stretch goal?

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