Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) => Topic started by: getter77 on July 02, 2012, 11:35:43 AM
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http://www.indiegogo.com/resurrect-adom-development
After a a lot of discussion and preparation today is the day to throw the dice of Fate and see where they fall: Just seconds ago I activated the crowd funding campaign for resurrecting ADOM development on Indiegogo. Now please: if you ever loved ADOM and/or still love it - go there and pledge to get some of the cool rewards and help ADOM to step into the 21st century. Or at least spread the word! Now is the time!
The campaign will run for a total of 60 days as many fans already indicated that they right now aren't able to pledge as much as they'd like to and since times are pretty tough in many places I hope that the 60 day limit can help.
I also hope that the "Kickstarter vs. Indiegogo" discussion really is moot. My impression during the last days and weeks was that having access to a great community always seemed to be most important, far more than the actual crowd funding platform - and as far as I am concerned the ADOM community is the greatest of them all!
So if you care(d) for ADOM, please
-pledge as soon as possible. It seems to be highly important for crowd funding campaigns to get a great initial momentum and this also helps in getting featured on the front page of Indiegogo! You can upgrade your pledges later so there is no (?) reason to wait ;-)
-spread the word about the campaign and the link to the campaign. Talk to friends and family, blog, tweet, etc. Share this on Facebook, post on newsgroups and mailing lists and raise as much ruckus as possible to mobilize everyone who ever cared for ADOM and enjoyed playing it. (But don't annoy people ;-) )
I really really really hope that we make the campaign goal (and if we make it that we make it as soon as possible) as the true fun will begin with the planned stretch goals (new races, new classes, new corruptions, new items, new monsters, new artifacts, new quests [dare I say words like Scroll of Omnipotence or Red Rooster Inn]?), the ADOM pen & paper RPG, iPad and Android ports, an extendable and scriptable version of ADOM, more elaborate character generation options and maybe even open sourcing ADOM. And so much more I don't want to talk about right away... So let's have a go at it!
60 days for $48,000 for Biskup's 4 man team to pull a resurrection----I think this has got a shot! 8)
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It's got $1k in about an hour, so that's a good start. I've chipped in a fair bit myself (hurrah for the strong pound!)
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I'm in, too. Would be great to see some polish on an "ancient" roguelike. :)
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Donation on the way.. and thanks Getter for the heads up.
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Go Thomas ;D Hopefully the campaign is successful!
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What the fuck does he need $48,000 for?
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4 Man team with art/UI concerns, sound concerns, wrangling a variety of platforms, and all the coding needed to fix insane bugs and add new bits of content. In other words, a fair bit I'd reckon----and an easier target to hit in theory than the initial estimate of $60K
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Oh is this an expansion of the original ADOM? This is not for ADOM II?
EDIT: HA! If you pledge $50k he'll print and bind the source code and bring it to you personally. Then he'll hang out with you for a week. That's awesome...if I had a bunch of spare money to toss around I'd do it for the lols.
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Indeed, this is ADOM moving forward once again picking up from early in the milennium while ADOM II also continues to move forward in a general sort of parallel with some overlapping I'm sure-----probably the next big Alpha series of ADOM II will be released sometime soon in July even with all this to now spice up the mix.
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If he makes the amount, he'll also release the source code for ADOM. If he doesn't...
IMO spending any amount of money on a "sound guy" is a complete waste.
Dwarf Fortress, LambdaRogue... I always get the version without sound, to save on space and because I know I'm going to mute it anyway...
Anyway, good on him, but I've gotten sick and tired of this ludicrous crowdfunding fad.
I'm very happy for all the people who have money to spend on projects that may or may not turn out how they imagine they will turn out (or even see completion at all). I, for one, wouldn't put one damn penny into any project that doesn't show a gameplay video at least.
Call me cruel, but I'm just waiting for all the crowdfunded games to finally release and turn out to be shit, just so I can continue being a cynical dick to people who've blindly thrown their money at [youtube video of guy explaining how the big bad industry won't let him make THE BEST GAME EVER].
As for THIS particular project, it's never going to happen.*
I doubt he'll be getting any money out of people who don't know ADOM.
I wouldn't feel the need to be such a negative asshole if it wasn't for all of you reacting so damn positively to this news. Not even surprise, just outright acceptance. Why?
*I'll write these words down on a piece of paper and eat them if I'm wrong.
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This is a bit different from other crowdsourcing campaigns because not only are there many gameplay videos available, there's a whole completable and immensely enjoyable game that thousands have been playing for years.
I agree that it'll struggle though - it's a high target, and though it's had a strong start that's mostly from the hardcore fans. Maintaining momentum will be very difficult, in spite of Notch's tweet (which doesn't seem to have had a major effect so far anyway). Thomas seems to be relying on the idea of many of the old fans (of which there were hundreds of thousands) coming out of the woodwork to throw a few dollars in. I'm not sure that'll happen so easily when so much time has passed.
Why the positivity? Because we love ADOM :P I remember the excitement I got when each gamma was coming out. This is like that times a thousand! And if it doesn't get funded I get my money back, so though it'll be disappointing I'll not be losing out financially. If it does work and my money goes towards TB then great - he deserves it for all the joy I've had from ADOM in the last 14 years. Plus I do trust him to deliver on his promises. I understand the cynicism, but in this case I take him very seriously. It's something he's been talking about for a while (which is why it's no surprise), and in spite of the years of no ADOM releases he's never dismissed the idea of picking it up again.
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But we should link to the other thread (http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=2506.0).
And for completeness this thread should link back (http://roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=2508) as well.
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Why the positivity? Because we love ADOM
I think die hard fans are willing to give their money, but is this really the way developers should act? I mean, it wasn't really nice from Biskup to forget ADOM for years with some critical bugs and only now when people are willing to pay he is thinking to continue development. It just isn't right. But what the hell, if fans are crazy enough to pay for that, you know.
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Just as a further note... Rock Paper Shotgun wrote an article on this thing too... so that's going to be a huge deal for ADOM's chances here. Just saying!
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/03/roguelike-resurrection-adom-seeks-funding/
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And I won’t get into the “open versus closed” source discussion here ;-) That has been done a couple of times in other places (once again) a lot of times. But the highest stretch goal is to release ADOM as open source. I personally doubt we’ll get there but it will have to be seen… exciting times and scale effects on Internet are something hard to guess beforehand.
I like how he continues to hold his source code hostage. I like how it's "the highest stretch goal". Classy.
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Is there any way to see the older comments on the campaign? I seem to be able to see only the most recent 19.
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It seems not, which is a shame. Also bugs out if you try to look at too many of hte donators. IndieGoGo seems to have a few bugs in general.
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And I won’t get into the “open versus closed” source discussion here ;-) That has been done a couple of times in other places (once again) a lot of times. But the highest stretch goal is to release ADOM as open source. I personally doubt we’ll get there but it will have to be seen… exciting times and scale effects on Internet are something hard to guess beforehand.
I like how he continues to hold his source code hostage. I like how it's "the highest stretch goal". Classy.
I wish Biskup and his team all the best with this funding project, and I think ~50k would be more than well earned (even if seen in part as "retrospective" payment for developing ADOM). But the "[holding] the source code hostage" bit I actually find quite dickish.
If that was really what he wanted, Biskup could release the sources, and I don't think he would regret it. Being coy about it (as in stating that he'd "need" half a million bucks to do it) just comes off as miserly, IMHO. It would be much more sympathetic if he just openly said he's not releasing the sources in any foreseeable future – end of discussion.
Sorry. Just letting off some steam :P I sincerely hope for Thomas B. and ADOM that the fundraiser will be a success. Maybe I'll even chip in a tenner.
As always,
Minotauros
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I was thinking that maybe his sources are a resource with which he hopes to one day make a living. He figures they may be worth half a million over his life time?
Surely I speculate, but it's probably something a bit like that. His work. His game. His baby. His cash cow. Something along those lines.
EDIT: The cat and mouse game he plays with his sources I put down to sheer eccentricity. His way off getting LOL's. I think we all understand why he ultimately doesn't release.
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Is ADOM II going to fall by the wayside because of this?
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I think he talked about it on Roguelike Radio. He can do a bit of both if he gets the money, if I remember right.
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He's said that most of the ADOM work will be done by Jochen, not him, so ADOM II development will continue.
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Yep, next major ADOM II release should be coming up any week or so in July now even.
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Poll now up on the official ADOM site to get a community feel for some of the most sought after things, out of a selection, for the initial wave of stretch goals beyond the 2 new races/professions should all continue to go well.
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I don't mind if Biskup wants 48k to continue the project. If he requests money to be motivated, he can have mine and I'll not judge him for doing so.
My only concern is that even though cash is for sure a big driver for humans, it isn't even distantly comparable to how strong is that other special inner motivation that just comes by itself, making you put hours and hours of energy into a project.. spending endless nights without even knowing what the result will be. I think when we follow that kind of motivation something magic happens, and all humanity biggest achievements have been produced under its effect (Adom included of course).
So I just hope that under his desire of financial gratification, there still is some of that special fuel that definitely made him begin the project.
We'll see.
I am usually cynical but he earned my trust showing the world what he's capable of, so I believe he will do a great job.
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I'm thinking that spark is there, since just prior to this funding drive, and with still no commercial apparatus in place after several months now even with it taking awhile to even mention the Deluxe notion, he's been hard at work on ADOM II and banging out releases----so much so that he went so far this time as to seek out the Music/Sound and Visuals/UI fellows to enrich the game in ways that he knows to be beyond his own skills and aptitudes, which ADOM never got even back in the heyday all those years ago.
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After almost ten years of inactivity on a roguelike to which he himself admits has critical bugs...
I don't think that anyone thought "If only this game had some immersive music, like Skyrim! Or tiles!".
(Ok, someone may have thought about tiles, but feh.)
There's plenty of things I outright dislike about Mr. Biskup that would immediately go away if he was just honest with himself. Just say you're not going to release the source, don't be a tease, don't shroud your shit with "maybe, but I doubt we'll reach that goal".
If he wasn't so dead set against people maybe modifying his game (adding races and classes, just like he's planning to do now if he gets more money than he wanted) this game would have remained a major roguelike, and it would have had its bugfixes 9 or 8 years ago.
I can understand full well (and respect) that it's his game, and it will be developed according to his vision, but it's just such a weird vision!
If you KNOW you might not make your 48k goal because your "loyal following" is "out there, unaware", and if you KNOW you're not going to do ANYTHING to the game if you don't make the goal,
*inhales*
why not just cut out the MUSIC and VISUALS guys and turn THEM into stretch goals, since they're un-needed extras? If there's anything people who like ADOM want from Biskup it's to fix the bugs already and make sure it runs on modern systems. Not MUSIC, not TILES, not extra races and classes, NOT STATUES OR A DONATORS' TOME.
Maybe, just maybe the goal would be LESS than 48k if he didn't have to pay sound-n-visuals' salaries.
Maybe it'd be around 24k, and he'd be well over halfway there already off the donations of what little fanbase he has left after 10 years of silence. (Completely disregarding JADE)
This crowdfunding campaign just rubs me all the wrong ways because he's dangling a bone in front of whatever fanbase he has left, when he should know the goal could have been more realistic if he had a more humble project in mind. (Ie just fixing the bugs, and not adding sound, tiles and additional platforms to it)
And as a mostly unrelated side note, concerning the people in the RPS article's comments section who ask "Does eeeeeeevery roguelike HAVE to be open source?"; Well, no I guess not. But if you've made a game for free, and it has glaring bugs, and you're not planning to work on it ever again because you've already moved on to your NEXT game, why not just release the source code so other people can learn from it and maybe fix your errors. Worst thing they can do is release a fork/variant/branch oh no.
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Worst thing they can do is release a fork/variant/branch oh no.
It can be a bad thing. Angband is a proof that bad things can happen. If I understood it right Biskup will get his money only if 48k is reached during that time. It's dumb if you ask me, but it makes everyone who didn't donate feel bad. Such an evil plot. And then Biskup can blame it all on them.
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why not just cut out the MUSIC and VISUALS guys and turn THEM into stretch goals, since they're un-needed extras? If there's anything people who like ADOM want from Biskup it's to fix the bugs already and make sure it runs on modern systems. Not MUSIC, not TILES, not extra races and classes, NOT STATUES OR A DONATORS' TOME.
Don't underestimate the value of a "shiny" production (especially tiles). Not concerning gameplay, but accessibility and therefore financial aspects. Just wrote a comment about that in Biskup's blog (http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/07/pondering-stretch-goals-for.html?showComment=1341509648674#c1998248212499227160).
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Indeed, I don't believe in the odd self-defeatism that seem to pervade much of the Roguelike community that reckons it somehow awesome to literally flee from adding proper attributes like visuals and sound to the games outside of deliberate artistic wranglings. In terms of historical claim, Roguelikes have been with gaming since very nearly the beginning---so too should it be perfectly acceptable for it to experience growth on all fronts same as the rest. I mean, where would the basic RPG genre of old have gone if they'd also decided to eschew such nice elements, or pretty well other types of games? There's no downside to ADOM getting some visual/UI polish alongside a potentially spiffy official score as it isn't a zero sum game where there's either "gameplay" and "all else/fluff".
Roguelikes can have quite a lot, if not it ALL---just a matter of doing and circumstances. We have literally never been in a more vibrant, lively, and varied time as we have these past few years and it stands to only become better as we go with due diligence, cultivation of newcomers seeing what all the fresh fuss is about, and a bit of luck.
Nobody is stating seriously that ADOM on the whole with Biskup in tow hasn't taken a strange and meandering path to get to this junction, as that would just be flat out ignorance in terms of history. It is what it is though, and polarizing figure or no the best of it is to be made from the lot of it----can't go back in time so we might as well contend with the present so as to strive for a richer future. Afterall, there is literally no other potential past that would've led us to the particular set of outright good in the situation that is above dispute, like Biskup not trashing the source code and his excellent work this far on ADOM II----there are no guarantees of order of events even beyond logic.
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Those interested in more info might want to check the latest podcast:
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/07/special-on-adom-indiegogo-campaign.html
Thomas gives some extra details about his plans for the content additions and the pledge rewards, amongst other things.
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New power pledge drive afoot and a new "classic" build with some degree of various fixes inbound at some point:
As pledging for the ADOM crowd funding campaign has slowed down to a trickle a new power pledge drive has been announced!
The ADOM crowd funding power pledge drive #2: Monsters & items is all about those! For each $300 collected until the end of July one new item will be added to the next release of ADOM (as of today we start at $22.601... so raise that!). Additionally for every day in which we manage to collect multiple of $1.000 three new monsters will be added to the next release for each such multiple!!! (and if we manage to pass that mark by quite a bit on any given day there will be an additional new monster and item for every $500 past $1.000 on that day)
Example: We raise $2.150 on a single day. That makes for 7 new items ($2.150 divided by $300) plus six new monsters ($2.150 divided by $1.000) plus yet another 2 new monsters and 2 new items (passing $1.000 by $1.150 on a single day, $1.150 divided by $500). Thus pledges of $2.150 on a single day yield a total of 9 new items and 8 new monsters!!!
So how's that? This is your best chance to up the number of items and monsters for the next release by a huge margin (as I had no specific plans for them).
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It doesn't look good, the funding seems to have stopped on halfway. I think it's revealing how limited interest there is for roguelikes.
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It doesn't look good, the funding seems to have stopped on halfway. I think it's revealing how limited interest there is for roguelikes.
I'd say it's more so the limited interest in ADOM. Or maybe $48,000 is too much for the roguelike community.
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I think it was the high number. I understand that he claims that it is how much he needed but I just don't see it justified. You can't argue with me that you don't have time when you're already busy making another game. Clearly he has time, and anyone who is a hobbyist developer knows that setting aside time is just a matter of discipline. He had plenty of time to set up this campaign when there was the potential of profit/
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Well, his last power pledge initiative netted it several thousand dollars---and in the week or so since then he was unable to log into IndieGoGo to manage, update it, or read messages left to him until just a day or so ago. If he can manage about the same sort of performance on the KS for the second month as he did the first, the numbers should pretty much make it, a new interim release should help a bit versus the "he'll never release ANYTHING" detractors not unlike how a new ADOM II release should help via general audience spillover as well as a bit of proof that he can deal with both projects in tandem. The funding amount would be a bit "premium"(Ie you still get to be poor as shit after the processors and IGG get their cut by a country mile) by most standards for a solo operation, but given there is essentially 4 guys involved? Not so much.
In terms to time to set up a campaign, eh, it is more of a living animal I'd reckon. You can plan out duration, and tiers to large degree, but time and again many Kickstarters and whatnot spiral out strangely one way or another and you'd best be able to react to them swiftly and deftly---even if he couldn't log in this past week to do just that he'd have been far better served to keep it going on the official ADOM blog as if he'd not had interrupted service and then catch up the IGG page ASAP. Time in terms of work done is also a bit off in this case, as he is using an entirely different design and language paradigm this time around for ADOM II's "hobby work" versus ADOM's ungodly mess of 150K lines of incredibly hacked together old C code----even my own programming ignorance that persists knows to cringe when I see mention of " tons of hacked old C code".
So much so does this complicate matters:
Sometimes conference talks really are fun. The next one that is going to be big fun is my talk about
Event driven architectures and concern driven programming in roguelike computer gaming
at the ICT Innovations Conference 2012. Here's the abstract and the keywords:
Abstract. Roguelike games are challenging single player games driven by a multi-agent environment. The game complexity stems from a mostly randomly generated world interacting with potentially thousands of independent agents trying to simulate a believable world. Traditionally roguelike games use REPL (read-evaluate-print-loops) as the standard architecture in order to handle the turn-based game approach.
This practice talk shows how the combination of event driven architectures with a variant of aspect oriented programming (called concern driven programming) simplify the architecture and allows to reduce many complex programming challenges to very simple and locally manageable tasks. This allows for much more complex game designs and reduces maintenance costs. The talk will illustrate the concepts with examples using two real world game designs that highlight the different architectural approaches (the hugely successful game ADOM using the REPL-approach and its successor ADOM II using a much more efficient event driven architecture).
Keywords: event driven architecture, aspect oriented programming, EDA, AOP, concern driven programming, roguelike, ADOM, ADOM II, software engineering
It's from 12-15 of September in the beautiful town of Ohrid in Macedonia. If you by chance happen to be there I'll be happy to meet with you.
Sometimes you are lucky when submitting conference papers and this time I'm very much looking forward to preparing the slides :-)
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Latest grand pushing: Artifacts and Tile considerations at the forefront
http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/the-last-and-final-power-pledge-drive.html
I've just started the last power pledge drive that will happen during the ADOM crowd funding campaign: Artifacts! For every $500 donated starting at the current level of $31.468 a new artifact will be added to the game. For every day in which which manage to collect a full $1.000 amount, 2 new items will be added to the game! (Multiples count, yes) This power pledge drive is going to be the longest running as it will be up for a full 14 days and end on the 24th of August. This really is going to be the last power pledge drive for ADOM - there is nothing else to save for, so if you haven't pledged yet, now is the perfect time!
-Tiles would be an extra. You always will be able to play ADOM as ASCII-only and thus it would continue to run on older systems. We haven't yet decided on whether it would be one binary with options for both or two distinct binaries but currently we lean towards the latter as that would allow a much smaller download for the ASCII version.
-Tile development would happen in parallel to the other planned features. Thus there would be continuous updates for all donors. Depending on the parallel development speeds and challenges we can't foresee today we even might consider releasing ADOM 1.2.x and ADOM 1.3.x in order to get all things done. This is yet another detail we so far haven't discussed.
-Tiles will be 64x64 to ensure a decent quality for the custom built set. It is possible to support other resolutions (like 32x32)rather easily because NotEye is very flexible in this regard. We are going for 64x64 as Krys is actually drawing the tiles at much higher resolution and downscaling them and I learned that downscaling works almost perfectly until you reach that 64x64 limit. 32x32 requires a lot of manual repairs and as computer resolutions seem to be increasing all the time (and things like Retina and its successors are going to be standards soon) we'd love to have a beautiful tile set for the custom variant. But as several resolutions could be supported bot community built sets and my preferred set by Krys are an option.
-Regarding Steam and others. Yes, it might be an option to position ADOM (Deluxe) on Steam in order to finance both the continuous future development of the free and the paid version - but this requires the game to be beautiful.
-There won't be any facings. The whole ADOM engine doesn't have any notion of facings and thus there is no need for that.
-Right now we are not planning to do images for the individualized parts of a characters equipment. IMHO this is so much work that we'd probably need another $10.000-$20.000 for just that feature. Which is too much as far as I am concerned.
Right now I'd like to pose a purely theoretical question: Some of the goals of the ADOM crowd funding campaign have been pretty personal (improved manual, in game graphics) and I know they didn't meet that much enthusiasm. One other goal - tile support - didn't meet much enthusiasm on my behalf as I didn't see a viable way of doing it. So far. This has changed.
Jochen, Zeno and Krys seem to have come up with a very decent approach to be able to integrate NotEye into ADOM to support graphical tile support (thanks again to Darren Grey for bringing it up).
The final tipping point for me was to see how amazing the tiles look that Krys created so far for demo and testing purposes. Beautiful. As far as I am concerned the most beautiful tiles I ever have seen in a roguelike game. But that's my opinion (and the reaction of a few people I showed the demo sketches to - they were... amazed... to put it carefully).
So I finally am changing my mind:
-Tile support for ADOM seems to be possible with reasonable effort (kudos to Zeno for the flexible way in which NotEye integrates into other games!).
-Tile support can be beautiful. Having seen Krys' demo tiles so far I'm for the first time ever willing to leave ASCII characters behind me and play with tiles. And that for sure means something.
-I now think that ADOM should have tile support.
But the question is: How to do it with out limited resources? Basically there are three approaches:
-Define stretch goals for the campaign. I'd guess right now (we are still crunching numbers) that the effort mostly lies with Krys who'd have to draw an amazing amount of tiles and to a lesser extent with Jochen, Zeno and me to integrate NotEye into ADOM and maybe also port it to the Mac. Seeing that right now we'll be having a tough fight to reach the funding goal stretch goals do not really seem too realistic... even if it just were something like $4.000-$6.000 extra (uneducated guess - don't hold me for the numbers... as I said... we are number crunching right now... it might be less, it might be more, don't know yet).
-Change some campaign goals of the existing campaign - at the risk of alienating existing donors. The way I'd go would be to drop the "restructure the manual" subgoal, change the "Exciting new graphics for the title screen and some quest-related events" subgoal to "Create the most awesome tile set ever" and see how Jochen, Zeno, Krys and I can get by with that.
-Do a mix of the two. Try to get some work done with minor changes to the goals defined but define one stretch goal for a really beautiful tile set (e.g. integrate NotEye in a way that would allow for a community effort and then see if the stretch goal is met). Personally I'd love to have a unified tile set from Krys as his demo is the most beautiful tile set I so far have seen for any roguelike.
So there we are. How do you feel about minor alterations to the campaign goals (exchanging static images for tiles, not revising the manual) in exchange for at least a minor NotEye integration and maybe more? Please give feedback as I don't want to hurt any feelings :-) Sadly we didn't have the knowledge we have now when we started the campaign - so that's evolution.
BTW, there would be an extra benefit of this: ADOM II could make use of the same tile set and if we can make this happen for ADOM I hereby promise to integrate tile support into a future ADOM II version :-)
Please post to the comments and I will consider your opinions carefully! Oh, and please spread the word regarding this discussion on Reddit, Facebook and wherever else you feel it might be well placed ;-)
With a sample pic there within.
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Final super drive:
http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd-funding-lets-get-over-with-it.html
Ok, today so far has been a totally awesome day for the ADOM crowd funding campaign: We had a new record pledge level for recent weeks, there is a new audio demo by Lucas Dieguez and the stretch goals have been announced. Now I'd like to try to get over with it by passing the $48,000 goal for successful funding as soon as possible.
In order to try this we'll be now doing a kind of Dutch (reverse) auction (only kind of):
-If the ADOM crowd funding campaign is successful within the next 24 hours (until 10:04am, August 22nd, GMT+1) I will add an extra special new boss monster with a special new map, 2 new artifacts, 4 new minion monsters for said boss and 16 new items that only will be recoverable on said special level.
-If the ADOM crowd funding campaign is successful between 10:05am, August 22nd, GMT+1 and 10:05am, August 23rd, GMT+1, one new artifact on a special new map, 2 new minion monsters and 8 new items recoverable only on that map will be added. And a note somewhere on that map saying "Away for treasure hunting. Will be back soon." (to explain the missing boss monster).
-If the ADOM crowd funding campaign is successful between 10:05am, August 23nd, GMT+1 and 10:05am, August 24th, GMT+1, 1 new minion monster and 4 new items recoverable only on that map will be added. And a note somewhere on that map saying "Gone for artifact creation."
-If the ADOM crowd funding campaign is successful between 10:05am, August 24th, GMT+1 and 23:59pm, August 24th, GMT+1, 1 new minion monster and 1 new item will be added as a wilderness encounter.
So if you have been waiting to donate, do it now - it will get you extra free content :-)
And remember that the power pledge drive: artifacts also still is running!
Final stretch specified: http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd-funding-stretch-goals.html
At $48,000 we just will have reached the minimum funding goal. If we don't get there all is lost, all the money is returned to the donors and the future for ADOM Classic looks pretty bleak. So please keep the excitement up and tell more people about the last 10 days of the campaign (and don't wait too long - the occasional technical problem we had so far doesn't give me a good feeling about the final days ;-) ).
At $50,000 Jochen, Zeno and I will be doing a basic NotEye integration in ADOM. This will be sufficient to allow the community to define their custom tile sets but we won't be able to provide one by ourselves.
At $55,000 I will be able to pay Krys (our artist) for six months or more (adding part of the basic art budget from the basic funding goal) in order to produce a totally awesome and beautiful tile set to make ADOM Classic the most beautiful roguelike game ever created.
At $60,000 we will add ratlings and mist elves as new races as well as duelists and chaos knights as new classes. This stretch goal will cash in on ancient promises I gave lo so many years ago.
At $65,000 we will create a Steam version of ADOM - the ADOM Deluxe promised so long ago (EDIT: And we'd try to do our best to also support other platforms like Gamersgate and Desudura). Every donor of $50 or above (and all who pledged for the ADOM Lite RPG) will receive a free license for ADOM Deluxe. ADOM Deluxe will add a more detailed character generation process, restorable save files, challenge games and some other neat details for paying customers. Why paying customers you might ask? Because it's all about a sustainable lifecycle model for ADOM. As has become clear from the campaign we'll be able to fund some ADOM development - but we still are looking for a sustainable model. I believe that with the addition of tiles and audio tracks ADOM has all the potetial to become a tiny mainstream success - and that's why I have defined this stretch goal despite other voices from my call for votes to the right of this blog. Because I believe that this might be the one chance to earn some continuous income from a much larger audience which in turn would allow the continuous financing of the free version of ADOM as well as the commercial Deluxe version. So it's a gamble but it seems to be a good one to me.
At $70,000 we will be adding achievement systems and global highscores - again extending the ideas behind the $65,000 level.
At $75,000 we finally get to the vote results to the right. A special and long volcanoe quest will be added to the game. Just a boring variation of the tower of flames you might think? By far not, be assured!
At $80,000 a new extensive quest regarding Rolf (you know him?) will be added. It will offer quite a number of new levels, challenges, monsters and items and will answer some of the unanswered mysteries of ADOM.
At $85,000 we will add two more new quests.
At $90,000 we will add three more new quests.
At $95,000 we will add four more new quests (for a total of 11 new quests by now).
At $100,000 we will produce the ADOM Lite RPG in full cover and distribute the upgraded version to everyone who pledged for it for free.
Additionally the initial pledge levels at $55,000, $60,000, $65,000 and $70,000 each will upgrade the quality of the music included with the game.
So that's what I got. I hope that you like some of the ideas even if I again decided to not totally comply with majority votes. But I believe this order to be the best for the game. Now let's just hope that some rich person picks up the $50,000 level (warning: I have learned that this probably won't work directly through Indiegogo - it seems that you need to contact them and arrange some kind of bank transfer... don't ask why I learned that ;-) But you don't want to wait until the last moment if you are either a very rich or a very generous person ;-) ).
Cheers
Thomas
Less than 4K to go until the minimum funding target is reached and 9 days outright left in the campaign. :o
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I like how he continues to hold his source code hostage. I like how it's "the highest stretch goal". Classy.
I agree. I'm one for open source code (unless your code is horrible-looking, then hide it on your hard drive :P). Of course, people need to eat, but he's obviously been doing fine all these years.
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I just can't see it as a hostage situation unless the pledge level was to keep him from destroying the only copy live in a video with acid and fire or some such---otherwise just a sort of tongue-in-cheek pledge level as a crazy attention grabber more than anything else.
Open source can have upsides to it, but there's something to be said for the classical personal project still having a place at the table here in 2012 and beyond.
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There are 3 people giving $1000. That's amazing.
-JO
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It looks like it'll hit the goal in the next few hours...
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It's done. ;D
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Well, his reverse Dutch auction thing paid off in spades it would appear----best version of that event is now a lock and we shall see what stretch goals may come. 8)
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As for THIS particular project, it's never going to happen.*
I doubt he'll be getting any money out of people who don't know ADOM.
[...]
*I'll write these words down on a piece of paper and eat them if I'm wrong.
;D
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As for THIS particular project, it's never going to happen.*
I doubt he'll be getting any money out of people who don't know ADOM.
[...]
*I'll write these words down on a piece of paper and eat them if I'm wrong.
;D
It's a good thing I'm used to eating paper...
(It's not cheating if I only wrote down "It's never going to happen.", is it?)
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It's really easy to get money these days don't you think? 48K from couple of bug fixes in a roguelike game. Not bad.
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It's really easy to get money these days don't you think? 48K from couple of bug fixes in a roguelike game. Not bad.
First you need to create a roguelike game that a couple of users will desire bug fixes for. And this is the single reason I still admire Thoma$ Bi$kup. It is not uncommon these days to see guys demanding money for games that have not been completed yet, which is much more disgusting in my opinion.
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I think it's worse to ask money for bug fixes, because they should be covered in new releases without payment. It's like betraying the players which TB really did.
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I think it's worse to ask money for bug fixes, because they should be covered in new releases without payment. It's like betraying the players which TB really did.
He could as well say "Sorry guys, I won't support that old stuff anymore" like many do these days. Several months ago I wanted to purchase Diablo 1 and realized that nobody sells it anymore. Why? I guess that for a company as big as Blizzard it's not a big deal to delegate some employees for supporting legacy products, but for some reason they don't want to do it. That's why the game industry sucks and I respect anybody who doesn't follow this way.
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Well, it IS bugfixes, balancing, now a fair heap of new content, and original musical score, and tileset support with an official tileset being created also looking pretty hopeful at this point---a fair accomplishment for 4 guys even if it took years and all sorts of strange detours to get here.
Honestly, aside from the money aspect, it raises a bit as to what a "team" can affect in terms of the Roguelike world as opposed to the classic individual or the loose "group" such that is common with some of the open source ones that are at least somewhat actively maintained. There are certainly others currently and some in the past----but really it isn't a common expectation.
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Am I the only one here drooling over the stretch goals? I mean, ratlings and chaos knights? Take my money!
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I've never played the game, but this is definitely exciting.
The usual suspects (I'm looking at you Krice! ;-) ), they might want to shit on this effort, but enough people want to support the game that this Biskup guy made his goals.
I dig it. Whether it's all about bug fixing or not. The community voted with their dollars. That's great. Just great.
Think about this. A text game just made tens of thousands for an update.
Sometimes the world makes me smile.
JO
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Think about this. A text game just made tens of thousands for an update.
Sometimes the world makes me smile.
Thanks for putting it into these words. Interesting view. I never had thought about it from that angle. Now I'm gonna smile for the rest of the day, too ;-)
BTW, only $407 and Krys will be having several months of work ahead of himself working full time on an awesome tile set for ADOM. Not to mention improved audio and eventually tile support for ADOM II :-) Oh beautiful world, this is really going to be a lot of fun :-)
Cheers
Thomas
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Exclusive 64x64 tileset stretch goal has been cleared---to the substantial benefit of ADOM and ADOM II. :)
Next target nets a pair each of new races and classes.
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Now apparently a final, final, final gambit for the last few days has been unveiled----a mini quest quest.
Yeah.
http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd-funding-mini-quest-quest.html
Hi everyone!
For the final five days of the ADOM crowd funding campaign I'm hereby announcing the
mini quest quest
Yes, the name is correct. The quest for mini quests. The quests already defined as stretch goals are complex quests (e.g. multi-level quests with interesting dependencies and secrets). To keep the momentum of the crowd funding campaign the mini quest quest is designed to allow for the addition of so-called (surprise!) mini quest.
A mini quest is defined as a quest that will add one new special map to the game, probably with new monsters, items or other special features to make for an interesting experience. Many of those will be added as side levels to existing dungeons, to further the chance of more variations in play. None of those mini quests will have non-local effects, e.g. they are just interesting and challenging extra locations to spice up the overall game.
How can mini quests be added to the free content of the game?
These are the rules:
-There are daily pledge level brackets defined which are used to count the number of mini quests gained.
-Pledge level brackets are $1,000 (for August, 26th), $2,000 (for August, 27th), $4,000 (for August, 28th), $8,000 (for August 29th) and $16,000 (for August, 30th - the final day of the campaign).
-For every full multiple of pledges of a specific bracket, one mini quest will be added to the game (in addition to whatever stretch goals might be unlocked).
-No more than 10 mini quests can be added for one single pledge level bracket. If enough donations are accumulated for a single bracket on a single day (example below), the next mini quests are figured out according to the next higher pledge level bracket (and so on).
Example: On August, 26th, a total of $3,248 are pledged. This would make for three free mini quests to be added (three multiples of the pledge level bracket defined for August, 26th, were donated). On August, 27th, someone pledges for the $50,000 demigod level. Additionally another $3,450 are pledged by other people for a total of $53,450 (yeah, dreaming here - that really would alter the future of ADOM ;-) ). First of all ten mini quests would be added as there is a maximum of ten multiples of $2,000 (the pledge level bracket for August, 27th). This leaves $33,450 in donations unaccounted for. They are handled according to the next higher pledge level bracket ($4,000 for August 28th) adding yet another eight new mini quests (eight additional multiples of the pledge level bracket of $4,000). A total of 18 (!) mini quests thus would be added to the game.
Yes, it's quite costly to get one free mini quest (but I guess, we'll see a couple nonetheless). That's because it's also quite a bit of dangerous work to add them to ADOM (it's complex and the code for that is pretty fiddly and ancient). And yes, it's worthwhile to pledge as much as possible early on :-) Later on less mini quests will be added.
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Did Notch already donate? I hope he is going to surprise us in the last 36 hours :)
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I don't think anybody knows for certain yet, or at least if he has if he'll be doing any upgrading or not.
Anyhow, a new wrinkle emerges alongside a good mistake Biskup made which means a Mini-Quest was unlocked afterall:
http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd-funding-37-hours-and-1078-to.html
Hi everyone!
So the final hours finally have begun and its less than 37 hours till the end of the ADOM crowd funding campaign (37 - my magic number :-) ). Currently $1,078 are missing to get us trying to have ADOM Deluxe on Steam, Gamersgate and Desura (and maybe others), the pace again has trickled down quite a bit but I'm more than happy as we achieved so much more than I ever expected - so this will be a glorious end in any case.
Two exciting things have happened:
One of the legend level donors - Andriy - just promised that he will donate $2,500 if the pledge level reaches $67,500 (see the image below with my marker). Now I wouldn't ever hold Andriy responsible for that promise but seeing that he is a legend level donor he surely is someone to be taken very seriously. Which raises the interesting question: Do we manage the $67,500? Because then we might have a pretty serious chance of getting to $70,000 - stretch goal #5 - which means an achievement system and global highscores :-) Exciting times. And try to see it like this: We'd need less than $97 per remaining hour to get there. Truly exciting times :-)
I'm still betting on making stretch goal #4 and then the work will start... this probably is one of my last posts here before the end of the campaign... as I'm watching exhausted and elated.
BTW, as the mini quest quest is running I'm happy to state that we actually scored one new mini quest. I'm not sure why I reported something different earlier but the latest fund balance from Indiegogo indicates that we scored $1,455 (easily surpassing the required $1,000 on August, 26th), $1,890 (sadly failing the required $2,000 on August 27th by a slight margin) and $3,269 (again failing the required $4,000 on August, 28th by a little more).
So here's the deal I offer as the hopefully second exciting thing to happen:
If we make the $67,500 and if Andriy really meant his promise seriously I'll add the two missed mini quests for free as we both times had amazing pledge levels and missed by only a little bit - and I will add a third one just for the sake of it! So that's the final and ultimate chance to procure more free content from the campaign. Wanna try your luck or get others to pledge? And you probably need to act fast as Andriy might need time to act, too :-)
Cheers
Thomas
P.S.: Sorry, Andriy, but that was just to tempting not to mention ;-) And if you don't do it I won't hold it against you - you already have pledged so much as a legend (and beyond) that I'm close to being totally ashamed :-)
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Notch hasn't donated. Hopefully he'll chip in with a significant amount very soon.
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Notch hasn't donated. Hopefully he'll chip in with a significant amount very soon.
That's the Minecraft guy right? He follows ADOM? Of course he does.
EDIT: Pushing hard past 65k. So that means a fully graphical steam release? That's awesome. I might have to delve into this one when it comes out. Is it hard? Probably. They all are. ;-)
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So that means a fully graphical steam release? That's awesome.
So, crowd funding AND making it a commercial game through Steam. Not cool.
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So that means a fully graphical steam release? That's awesome.
So, crowd funding AND making it a commercial game through Steam. Not cool.
I can't believe that he actually is making it a stretch goal. Like we have to give him money for the courtesy of letting us purchase it :P
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Like we have to give him money for the courtesy of letting us purchase it :P
Maybe it's just ADOM Deluxe (whatever it is). Something good in this is that I think ADOM (both 1 and 2) are my main rivals and I want badly to show how much better roguelikes can be, when you don't limit the design to old school ideas. I want to make ADOM look poor.
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-ADOM Deluxe will be a separate entity to ADOM itself though on parallel----pretty much the only differences will be the sorts of things he's already roughly outlined for ADOM II Deluxe, alongside things like the game actually being able to function via Steam/Desura clients and that sort of stuff. Not as dramatic a difference in terms of content as per how Epilogue provides excellent value for the free version and then heaps upon yet more for the commercial, but it is just a different way of going about it.
-The Deluxe version will be yet another free perk to all those who have donated at least $40 however you slice it to the IGG campaign---which will probably be the majority by the end of things if not already. That said.....there's been no indication as to what the actual cost for the eventual ADOM Deluxe will be on these services...
Some major pact pledging is happening, which in the time since it was posted it may well have now cleared past $70K considering the pacts currently known:
http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd-funding-final-race-towards.html
Wow, wow, wow. I'll need to recover for days from the excitement. The ADOM crowd funding campaign is entering the very final hours - 27 to go at the time of this writing.
We made it yet again.
Stretch goal #4: Steam (& co.) support has been unlocked!
And now more exciting things are happening... that might allow us to get to the next stretch goal #5 (achievements & highscore server at $70,000) and even towards the $75,000 (stretch goal #6: the highly elaborate and detailed volcano quest). The following facts will make the remaining 27 hours a hell of an exciting race towards the end of the campaign:
-Currently we are at $65,907, a mere $1,593 away from the magical $67,500. Andriy has put up a promise to donate another $2,500 if we make that margin so that he pushes us to the $70,000 stretch goal mark and will unlock stretch goal #5: achievements and the high score server. @Andriy: You'll get a very special extra in the game if we really manage that - promised! If we manage to pul this off I have promised to add an extra three mini quests to the game (one level maps with special challenges). So there's the possibility of getting a load of extras with $1,593 in pledges!
-Jeff Royle just took up Andriy's generous offer and (read comment #8 here) offered to chime in an additional $2,500 if we manage to get to $70,000 in this way and then up to $72,500 by community pledges (my interpretation - Jeff, please correct me if I'm wrong - again, you won't be held responsible for that ;-) ). He'll in that case put us at the $75,000 mark. @Jeff: As for Andriy - if that is to happen something truly special will be added in-game for you, too.
-Now that we have gotten to the $65,000 everyone who pledged at least $40 (no matter in what combination) will receive a free license for ADOM Deluxe!!! So far this leaves about 259 folks at the $10 and 426 people at the $25 level without a free license for ADOM Deluxe (the numbers are not exact as a number of them pledged more than once or upgraded behind the scenes but they are a good estimation). Now imagine this: If 259 people were to pledge an extra $30 (and you are not forced to upgrade to the RPG level if you don't want that) they'll get a free license and the roughly estimated $7,500 extra would put us even beyond stretch goal #6: The Rolf Quest (with the special pledges above added it)!!! And if the 426 people at the $25 level were to add another $15 (again without being required to buy the RPG) we'd have another $6,000 that might even unlock yet another two mega quests beyond the Rolf quest!!! How awesome is that? While I don't believe that this is very likely to happen it's totally amazing to see that there is a slim fighting chance to unlock stretch goals #6 and #7. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
I've already vowed to make the volcano quest very special - I'll now add that I'll make it a world shaking event if we get that far.
I'm not sure how I'm going to concentrate on real life today. All this is just remarkable beyond any means. Keep it up folks, you are truly
CORRECTION: As per Biskup's comment in Facebook:
No DLC. I have learnt my lessons in that regard ;-) And no micro transactions as far as I am concerned. Too complicated. Just a flat price for a feature set that doesn't concern hard core roguelike players. And no, it won't be a $40 price... more casual in the $5-$10 range. $40 is the level I set for this campaign where you get the free license _in addition_ to whatever else you get. Yet another bonus.
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At least he isn't going the microtransaction route which is something, since he could put it on steam with a "Spend $1 to revive your character?" prompt upon death, not to mention the ability to purchase character boosts and such, which would be substantially more profitable for him I imagine :P
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Well damn, just crossed $75K for the big volcano quest----quite a final surge is happening indeed. 8)
Apparent final final final super stretch things:
http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd-funding-twin-mega-legends.html
Just in case... yet another wonder happens and someone picks up the Demigod pledge level, here's the next stretch goal list (we have no graphics for that and I don't think it's realistic - but I wanted to mention them just in case):
-$110,000 will be the iPad version and five new mini quests,
-$120,000 will be the Android version and three more mega quests,
-$130,000 will see the ADOM Lite RPG converted into the true ADOM RPG and expanded to 128 pages full-color hardcover splendor - at no additional cost for all the folks who decided to pledge for the RPG! (at this level I probably would consider selling it later - but I'd add some special limited thing for all donors to make your version different from the one available later... something like 16 pages of unique art).
Ok, just to have it mentioned in case you manage to surprise me beyond my wildest dreams ;-)
Cheers
Thomas
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In regards to Steam, you do realize you can post free games on it, right?
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/
I find it strange that people are trying so hard to find something to bitch about. I find all of this very exciting.
EDIT: MY GOD. 7 hours left and he's right under $85k. Baffling. Just baffling. I'm hoping it hits $95k, because that'll ensure all the actual game content is included. 4 people have made $1000 pledges. HA!!!!
EDIT2: I've not given any money as I've never really played the game, but when it comes out I'll buy it. Definitely.
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85k cleared with 5 hours to go....really have to wonder what kind of spectacle I'll get online to behold come tomorrow morning.
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Well I went ahead and threw in 10 bucks. Just to be part of something so cool.
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In regards to Steam, you do realize you can post free games on it, right?
I don't support things like Steam. It's too much like communism. I think internet distribution should be more like real shops, you can choose where you buy and then download the game without some spyware running on background all the time.
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I think steam is nice for easily interacting with friends while playing games. The problem right now is the monopoly it has, but for instance with Desura you can download standalone copies of a game and play them without having the client running (if the developer supplies them).
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Over $90k.
Hole.
E.
Shit.
I bet you Darren Grey is flipping the fuck out. I'm pretty pumped and I've never even played the game.
EDIT: Sorry for the profanity...but I'm leaving it for now. PUMPED!
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I'll say this much: I don't know that I've ever anticipated an episode of Roguelike Radio to come quite like the one for the aftermath of this little saga of a chapter in Roguelike history once Biskup gets everything situated enough to think and form sentences audibly again. 8)
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Maybe it's just ADOM Deluxe (whatever it is). Something good in this is that I think ADOM (both 1 and 2) are my main rivals and I want badly to show how much better roguelikes can be, when you don't limit the design to old school ideas. I want to make ADOM look poor.
Krice, in some ways I agree with you, and I really look forward to that day.
In the meantime, I'm eager to see what comes of this. Biskup's definitely earned some amount of kickback at this point, and I hope he's able to use this money in order to generate more appreciation for hardcore roguelike games.
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Heh heh...this is a truly historical moment for the roguelike community. That being said, the hardest part is upon us: waiting for all of this to be implemented! The DevTeam has a lot to own up to!
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Who is going to the ADOM Resurrection Virtual Party (http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/09/adom-resurrection-virtual-party.html)?
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I am absolutely thrilled that along with linux and windows 7...there's support for DOS and Amiga OS :)
I downloaded the new beta promptly to my Amiga 1200. Because rogue-likes run well on 56 mhz :)
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hell of money
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First backer-update!
Finally the time has come... due to Jochens tireless efforts we just managed to upload all the prerelease variants of ADOM 1.2.0 prerelease 4. This is the first closed prerelease for donors of the ADOM: The Resurrection crowfunding campaign who donated for the Wanderer+ levels (Seeker donors excluded - something I am cursed having to explain endlessly ;-) ).
ADOM 1.2.0p4 is the most available ADOM ever - 16 platform variants were compiled by Jochen (Windows, MS-DOS, 2 x OS X, 5 x Linux, 2 x NetBSD, 2 x FreeBSD, 3 x Amiga).
The access data was mailed a couple of minutes ago to everyone on my donor list who should be applicable. I repeat: Seeker donors are not applicable, Villagers neither.
To everyone else: If you haven't received an email by tomorrow with your access data get back to me at creator(at)ancientdomainsofmystery.com - hopefully the donor lists finally will be consolidated (man, did I underestimate the effort for that).
ADOM 1.2.0 Prerelease 4 Changelog (21 October 2012)
Feature 1284 - Add 12 new corruptions (actually 17 were added)
Issue 716 - another batch of typos was fixed
Issue 720 - Breakable/alterable artifacts
Issue 728 - 'your muscles bulge' message without strength gains
Issue 918 - +Crit armor doesn't increase critical hit rate
Issue 1245 - Altar changes to white instead of black(Mac OS X)
Issue 1246 - "u"sing a hatchet always advances turn
Issue 1252 - wrong list of artefacts in post-mortem info (see Issue 1265 and Issue 1268)
Issue 1254 - Burning Hands +modifier remains at 0
Issue 1272 - Hunger status doesn't change immediately with drakeling spit
Issue 1274 - Deciding not to attack a neutral monster increases energy cost of next action (see Issue 765)
Issue 1275 - ADOM crashes on launch after crash during play
Issue 1280 - Improve error handling on Windows and OSX