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Another Kickstarter?
Is there any likelihood of VO having another Kickstarter (or similar) attempt?
I knew nothing about VO until a few months ago (came across it while scouting for news on Elite Dangerous in truth), and was quite disappointed when i found that you had tried but failed a kickstarter as i had already read a lot about the game and started on android by then ( about 9 months too late).
I`m sure the kickstarter publicity would have helped bring VO to more peoples attention by now, as will the upcoming Elite and Star Citizen etc - the genre is starting to take off properly! I am in fact very surprised that i had not heard of VO before - i am in my 40s and grew up(!?) on Elite & its sequels and have been waiting for something like this for years. Decades even. I still have an 2 Eve Online accounts ( that pay for themselves mainly with PLEX) which i log on every now & then to learn skills and check on Corp stuff but i miss the dog fighting type of combat so the search continues.......VO is very, very good but i think you guys are suffering for your `off the radar` status that as developers you have been very proud of and that a lot of your core members seem to like.
I personally believe you have an incredible game which could maybe do with a little polishing (for people who like that sort of thing - even phone games today are so visually impressive that people expect a lot) - and a little padding out (more variety) of content, but basically you have a full package to rival almost any game out there (and real combat too!). This combined with the multi-platform (which needs to be highlighted in advertising even more as phones are an easy entry level even for time restrained people) gives you something unique to offer to people who have been starved of good space sims for too long.
Thank you for a great game and if you do go Kickstarter again then count me in.
I knew nothing about VO until a few months ago (came across it while scouting for news on Elite Dangerous in truth), and was quite disappointed when i found that you had tried but failed a kickstarter as i had already read a lot about the game and started on android by then ( about 9 months too late).
I`m sure the kickstarter publicity would have helped bring VO to more peoples attention by now, as will the upcoming Elite and Star Citizen etc - the genre is starting to take off properly! I am in fact very surprised that i had not heard of VO before - i am in my 40s and grew up(!?) on Elite & its sequels and have been waiting for something like this for years. Decades even. I still have an 2 Eve Online accounts ( that pay for themselves mainly with PLEX) which i log on every now & then to learn skills and check on Corp stuff but i miss the dog fighting type of combat so the search continues.......VO is very, very good but i think you guys are suffering for your `off the radar` status that as developers you have been very proud of and that a lot of your core members seem to like.
I personally believe you have an incredible game which could maybe do with a little polishing (for people who like that sort of thing - even phone games today are so visually impressive that people expect a lot) - and a little padding out (more variety) of content, but basically you have a full package to rival almost any game out there (and real combat too!). This combined with the multi-platform (which needs to be highlighted in advertising even more as phones are an easy entry level even for time restrained people) gives you something unique to offer to people who have been starved of good space sims for too long.
Thank you for a great game and if you do go Kickstarter again then count me in.
I think people were really suspicious about the prominence of the iPad port on our last kickstarter. The reason the community rallied around the kickstarter was because we were desperate for new content life to be breathed into the game, and this was our chance for that to happen.
If we do have another kickstarter, I will say this much: Give us notice. I managed to rush out my kickstarter player's perspective video in time for inclusion in the campaign, but I could have done a lot more at the time, and I would have. Phaserlight could have done a video, as he has done many, and a number of other users are starting to get setup with video recording. We could have run an amazing grassroots gameplay footage campaign alongside Guild Software's official kickstarter, and I hope we are given the opportunity to do that one day in the future.
If we do have another kickstarter, I will say this much: Give us notice. I managed to rush out my kickstarter player's perspective video in time for inclusion in the campaign, but I could have done a lot more at the time, and I would have. Phaserlight could have done a video, as he has done many, and a number of other users are starting to get setup with video recording. We could have run an amazing grassroots gameplay footage campaign alongside Guild Software's official kickstarter, and I hope we are given the opportunity to do that one day in the future.
Welcome!
I don't think you entirely understand Guild's history, efforts, or outlook.
You should probably read this: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/27227
And you might have missed the almost inescapable national Motorola Xoom commercial heavily featuring vendetta: https://www.google.com/search?q=vendetta+motorola+xoom+commercial&client=firefox-a&hs=Xay&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=fflb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=SOjJUrDAJcSA2AWylYHoAg&ved=0CHoQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=768
(Motorola has marked the video private - they do that)
I don't think they've indicated being "proud" of being "off the radar".
I don't think you entirely understand Guild's history, efforts, or outlook.
You should probably read this: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/27227
And you might have missed the almost inescapable national Motorola Xoom commercial heavily featuring vendetta: https://www.google.com/search?q=vendetta+motorola+xoom+commercial&client=firefox-a&hs=Xay&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=fflb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=SOjJUrDAJcSA2AWylYHoAg&ved=0CHoQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=768
(Motorola has marked the video private - they do that)
I don't think they've indicated being "proud" of being "off the radar".
With friends like TRS, who needs enemies?
@Whistler
I am a fairly new guy here and not out to make enemies etc but i`m not sure which bits of the first link you wanted me to take on board? I am very aware i believe of Guilds history from reading so many old posts and archived stuff - small indie, 4 man self funded team etc from the start, competing very well (in terms of how good the game is) with the `big boys`. I`ll have to go look for it again some time but in an official Guild `about us` piece where they were explaining their ideology etc i`m pretty sure they used the term `off the radar` themselves! :) I guess this is something that has needed to change when building up to going more high profile and seeking funds for expansion. Again the Motorola stuff is more recent, i just believe that VO has been happy to be less commercial in many ways for most of its life.
As for effort it`s amazing how they have done so much and how they have incorporated such a good player contribution system too, i don`t know how much any of the other devs get involved with player questions or issues but Incarnate seems to be on the forums plenty and i appreciate that must take a lot of time too.
The kickstarter looked good to me and if i had seen it earlier i would have been on board, i guess it is easy to point out failings in hind sight but i think it was a good enough job to have had my money so no complaints from me.
TRS said
> 'In either case, it was good exposure and it forms part of the VO online profile of media which is > actually a good thing, the more stuff you have online about your product the better.
> GS should revisit crowdfunding locally, with no time limits and in smaller blocks'
and i have to agree - if at the start of the kickstarter more people had known about VO maybe things would have been different but to me VO just seemed to come from nowhere, just a few years ago it was Eve or (almost) nothing available when i went looking.
Anyway time for work for me, thank you for the replies.
I am a fairly new guy here and not out to make enemies etc but i`m not sure which bits of the first link you wanted me to take on board? I am very aware i believe of Guilds history from reading so many old posts and archived stuff - small indie, 4 man self funded team etc from the start, competing very well (in terms of how good the game is) with the `big boys`. I`ll have to go look for it again some time but in an official Guild `about us` piece where they were explaining their ideology etc i`m pretty sure they used the term `off the radar` themselves! :) I guess this is something that has needed to change when building up to going more high profile and seeking funds for expansion. Again the Motorola stuff is more recent, i just believe that VO has been happy to be less commercial in many ways for most of its life.
As for effort it`s amazing how they have done so much and how they have incorporated such a good player contribution system too, i don`t know how much any of the other devs get involved with player questions or issues but Incarnate seems to be on the forums plenty and i appreciate that must take a lot of time too.
The kickstarter looked good to me and if i had seen it earlier i would have been on board, i guess it is easy to point out failings in hind sight but i think it was a good enough job to have had my money so no complaints from me.
TRS said
> 'In either case, it was good exposure and it forms part of the VO online profile of media which is > actually a good thing, the more stuff you have online about your product the better.
> GS should revisit crowdfunding locally, with no time limits and in smaller blocks'
and i have to agree - if at the start of the kickstarter more people had known about VO maybe things would have been different but to me VO just seemed to come from nowhere, just a few years ago it was Eve or (almost) nothing available when i went looking.
Anyway time for work for me, thank you for the replies.
Well, they did add the Long-Term Subscriber program just recently for people to show their support.
One or two of these guys shows up every year or so. It's always cute to see their clueless eagerness.
Welcome, Smith, and thanks for the interest. We are still looking at doing our own crowdfunding portal, potentially sometime in the near future. We're also expanding on the Long Term Subscriber program.
The Kickstarter was incredibly resource consuming, it basically took my every waking hour for about two months. We received quite a lot of press attention, I think the press outreach went about as well as we could have asked (TechCrunch, most of the gaming press, etc). But aside from confusion about the iOS vs gameplay changes and so on.. we heard from a lot of people that 1) they didn't want to support an MMO that was not "free to play", 2) the visuals didn't impress them like Star Citizen (of course, our videos were from a currently-live, shipped title).
I was also pretty realistic about what we could achieve, which I don't think resonated quite as well as those who are willing to promise everything and really seize people's imagination. There has been an odd reality to crowdfunding, that it tends to fortune the most optimistic.
There were many aspects of our Kickstarter that could have been improved, but it was the best we could make it at the time, and I don't expect to go down that road again in the near future. But, we are continuing to look at other options, including doing our own crowdfunding and other concepts.
FYI, here's an active link to the 2011 Verizon TV commercial that featured the game.
The Kickstarter was incredibly resource consuming, it basically took my every waking hour for about two months. We received quite a lot of press attention, I think the press outreach went about as well as we could have asked (TechCrunch, most of the gaming press, etc). But aside from confusion about the iOS vs gameplay changes and so on.. we heard from a lot of people that 1) they didn't want to support an MMO that was not "free to play", 2) the visuals didn't impress them like Star Citizen (of course, our videos were from a currently-live, shipped title).
I was also pretty realistic about what we could achieve, which I don't think resonated quite as well as those who are willing to promise everything and really seize people's imagination. There has been an odd reality to crowdfunding, that it tends to fortune the most optimistic.
There were many aspects of our Kickstarter that could have been improved, but it was the best we could make it at the time, and I don't expect to go down that road again in the near future. But, we are continuing to look at other options, including doing our own crowdfunding and other concepts.
FYI, here's an active link to the 2011 Verizon TV commercial that featured the game.
I doubt I'm alone in my willingness to drop money on an in house crowd-funding venture.
Just sayin'...
Just sayin'...
There's a commercial on for a phone in the UK that features about 1.5 seconds of VO, I think.
Thank you for the replies guys, i`m not a big fan of monthly subscriptions but the 12 month 1 off payment looks good to me, will take a while to get to know the game with my current time allowance anyway (2 kids under 3 years...) so expect to see more of my clueless eagerness for a while yet :P
As for Kickstarter et al favouring optimists.............i think this is where bigger, more commercial companies get the benefit of professional advertising teams (ie a bunch of people who will say whatever is needed to get the money regardless of the truth), and where hardworking but honest companies sell themselves short by being realistic or even conservative. To a large percentage of your potential customers - particualrly the mobile users - the promise of 'Shiny' is enough to gain their vote, and this genre is getting competitive right now with Star Citizen, Elite, Eve etc.
As for Kickstarter et al favouring optimists.............i think this is where bigger, more commercial companies get the benefit of professional advertising teams (ie a bunch of people who will say whatever is needed to get the money regardless of the truth), and where hardworking but honest companies sell themselves short by being realistic or even conservative. To a large percentage of your potential customers - particualrly the mobile users - the promise of 'Shiny' is enough to gain their vote, and this genre is getting competitive right now with Star Citizen, Elite, Eve etc.
We need a "donate" button.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What about a 'lifetime'* subscription option for something like USD 800? (paying 10 years at the 24 months rate). That way, you can 'donate' and show long term commitment, while actually getting something back if the game stays successful.
*) probably more likely VO's lifetime than yours
*) probably more likely VO's lifetime than yours