Bard's Tale Kickstarter

[rivethead]

I will fully admit I'm biased: I backed this project during the Kickstarter campaign and very much wanted it to succeed. What really sold me was the depth they described for combat. After seeing this, I think I'm going to be blown away:

https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/09/13/the-bards-tale-4-combat-overview

Game launches next week. Here's the launch trailer:

https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/09/13/the-bards-tale-iv-barrows-deep-launch-trailer ​

 

[paperfist]

InXile put out an update yesterday. They put in five times the money they said they would. By my math, this $3 million game is really a $9 million game (original plan was $1.5 million from backers, $1.5 million from InXile).

Talk about under-promising and over-delivering......

Wow what does all that money go toward, art work?

I remember playing this game as a kid, but I don't remember it being 'grindy'. I sort of remember you could have 4-5 people on your team.

So it's going to be a bit punishing/difficult like Everquest?

 

[rivethead]

I'm not sure about the level difficulty. In the original Kickstarter video, InXile CEO said, with some conviction, that this will not be an easy game. That, and the history of Bards Tale games being difficult, convinced me to spend an extra $12 during the kickstarter campaign and buy the Strategy Guide too. Turns out, I didn't need to as InXile is giving everyone who kickstarted the game the Strategy Guide for free. It's 138 pages long (per a Brian Fargo tweet....I haven't received it yet).

I think the game will be difficult in that you can go into areas you shouldn't belong in and get your ass kicked. Early in the development they talked about level gating by enemy difficulty. While it's a linear game, there is lots of choice. You can go down into a dungeon and find yourself overmatch by enemies. You might need to come back when you're stronger. Or maybe you get lucky (or are very skilled) and improbably win the battle. You'll get rewarded for that.

And there are also supposed to be challenging puzzles. The type where, the clues for solving are scattered around other areas and you have to pay attention to the pieces and put them all together to solve the puzzle.

Game releases tomorrow, but as excited as I am for it, I probably won't get to dive in until November (work/life gets in the way of fun).

 

[nakedfrog]

Just started the download now... 53GB?!?

Okay, now that it's actually on the download screen it says 23.6GB.

 

[rivethead]

Just started the download now... 53GB?!?

Okay, now that it's actually on the download screen it says 23.6GB.

Wow. Even 24 GB is bigger than I expected.

 

[Worthington]

I've got it loaded and ready to go but I have plans tonight so won't be able to check it out till tomorrow at the earliest. Looking forward to getting into it though.

 

[Feneant2]

Abysmal reviews on Steam so far. Hopefully I won't have the same issues- although I haven't received my key yet.

 

[Worthington]

You should have received your key.. did you go back in to CrowdOx and make your selection for GOG or Steam?

 

[Feneant2]

I had but hadn't actually saved it, got my key now and downloading

 

[Malogeek]

Installed and checked it briefly. Definite performance issues, running far slower than it should on decent hardware given the visuals. Also doesn't have ultrawide support, though devs have replied already that they'll try to get that fixed asap.

 

[kn51]

I can't even figure out how to get the key. (Note, I've done this before to get the remasters key.)

So I get the "click here" for the crowdox survey email to get the key and shows the package and that I haven't chosen a key. There are no tabs on top of the screen BTW.

What a convoluted mess.

 

[rivethead]

I can't even figure out how to get the key. (Note, I've done this before to get the remasters key.)

So I get the "click here" for the crowdox survey email to get the key and shows the package and that I haven't chosen a key. There are no tabs on top of the screen BTW.

What a convoluted mess.

CrowdOx royally messed something up. InXile won't say that, but you can read between the line. Hell there was a tweet from InXile CEO Brian Fargo last night that he was personally handling support tickets to help resolve this. If you go on the Bards Tale website there is a link you're suppose to send an email to to help resolve your key issues.

Having said that, InXile rushed this game out. I was hoping they would be a different developer. But nope...just like seemingly everyone these days, the game was rushed to market without sufficient testing. Disappointing. Having said that, InXile are being very transparent about it. They've already released a patch plan in the Steam comments. Patch #1 will be this Friday and address optimization issues, a FOV slider, widescreen support. Patch #2 will be released next Friday with more fixes. Patch #3 hasn't been scheduled...but more fixes.

If you're having performance issues now, it's most likely because auto-detect isn't working and the game is defaulting to Ultra settings....which causes issues on machines that can't handle Ultra.

As excited as I am about this game (and initial reviews have been good...ignoring the user reviews from people with performance and key issues), I'm glad I don't plan on playing it until I get some free time over Thanksgiving. It just doesn't make any sense these days to play a newly released game.

 

[kn51]

Thanks.

My issue is I understand there may be issues...yet you know...holy heck...let's make what you bought a tad bit easier to acquire instead of clicking option tab #3, scrolling down two pages to make a selection, etc...

Where is that thread? Everytime I try the crowdox email BS it does nothing. And yeah, I've sniffed through the forums quite a bit. I just figure they are in meltdown mode.

 

[rivethead]

I've read that going to InXile directly (skip CrowdOx support...they suck) is what helps:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/the-bards-tale-iv/posts/2291620

(click on the support desk hyperlink....AT won't let me post the Zendesk link directly).

 

[rivethead]

There's also this tweet:

"If you backed on KS/CrowdOx, you should have all your stuff by now. If you don't, please let us know via support@inxile.net. We are also working w/Xsolla on remaining distribution issues. Thank you for your patience. We appreciate your support and are working hard on all fronts."

 

[Feneant2]

Crowdox is stupid, you log in and it goes to the 2nd page and not the first page. So I kept submitting my survey without having completed it because I didn't know I had to go a page to the left and that was were you picked if you wanted Steam or GOG, etc.

 

[Malogeek]

Patch #1 will be this Friday and address optimization issues, a FOV slider, widescreen support.

Awesome. I'm not going to bother playing till that patch then.

 

[rivethead]

Crowdox is stupid, you log in and it goes to the 2nd page and not the first page. So I kept submitting my survey without having completed it because I didn't know I had to go a page to the left and that was were you picked if you wanted Steam or GOG, etc.

Using CrowdOx was a horrible decision. I've not used Backerkit, but I hear it's better. But it has to be. There simply cannot be anything more unintuitive that CrowdOx. I hope that CrowdOx was incredibly cheap and InXile saved a ton of money using them (which they channeled into the game...but I doubt it).

Getting all the backer extras sent to us via email is stupid too. Those should have been delivered via the game platform selected (Steam/GoG).

 

[rivethead]

Awesome. I'm not going to bother playing till that patch then.

I think that's wise. I shouldn't have been lazy and just posted the link to begin with: https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1685925928806603042

 

[Malogeek]

I think that's wise. I shouldn't have been lazy and just posted the link to begin with: https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1685925928806603042

Thanks. Looks like they're getting the proper 21:9 resolution support in fast and then working on the UI in a following patch to address any issues. That's fine with me as I can live with possibly a skewed UI if the world is rendered properly for now.

 

[kn51]

There's also this tweet:

"If you backed on KS/CrowdOx, you should have all your stuff by now. If you don't, please let us know via support@inxile.net. We are also working w/Xsolla on remaining distribution issues. Thank you for your patience. We appreciate your support and are working hard on all fronts."

I'm letting it roll for awhile.

But my gawd, I appreciate you responding during this shitheap of an installation.

So in short, let me say thank you.

 

[rivethead]

I'm letting it roll for awhile.

But my gawd, I appreciate you responding during this shitheap of an installation.

So in short, let me say thank you.

Happy to help!

 

[kn51]

Ok, finally got the key.

What a god dang fiasco.

 

[Midwayman]

Having said that, InXile rushed this game out. I was hoping they would be a different developer. But nope...just like seemingly everyone these days, the game was rushed to market without sufficient testing. Disappointing. Having said that, InXile are being very transparent about it. They've already released a patch plan in the Steam comments. Patch #1 will be this Friday and address optimization issues, a FOV slider, widescreen support. Patch #2 will be released next Friday with more fixes. Patch #3 hasn't been scheduled...but more fixes.
...
As excited as I am about this game (and initial reviews have been good...ignoring the user reviews from people with performance and key issues), I'm glad I don't plan on playing it until I get some free time over Thanksgiving. It just doesn't make any sense these days to play a newly released game.

Ugg. Why wouldn't they just wait a couple more weeks? It's not like there is a major media campaign that they have to time the game to. That's the problem with big titles I've worked on. All the launch media has been planned 6 months ago and if you don't launch on the advertising peak, especially in fall with lots of competition, it hurts. Luckily I've back to the problem of having too many games I want to play coming out right now so this can sit on the backlog until they figure it out.

 

[kn51]

I understand random bugs on release but really...you didn't figure out ultra-wide support? Just stupid.

I'd be throwing them under the bus right now but...they really did a miracle on getting the remasters so I still have faith. That probably wasn't an easy transition.