Read at your leisure.

[Farrix]

Listen man, this is great. It really is. Our community though, does not have the resources to put forward 130k to pay for the game. You guys wanna get an office and get to some real, guided work done developing the game. That's awesome dude and I love the idea. You gotta keep in mind though, this is such a niche community... There's maybe,...maybe...130 of us playing relatively regularly. That's a thousand bucks apiece man. I and I think most of the community want to see this dream move forward but we gotta have ways to help that we are actually capable of achieving. My advice man, would be to start sending out some feelers to taleworlds or another, established, company that you could work with to see this progress. You can put your heart and soul into it and make an excellent game and I am sure you will. The question is whether 1000 people know of it or 10000 people know of it. You need marketing resources, you need connections. Maybe ya'll have already been doing this. Maybe I just sound like a fuckin idiot to ya'll...I don't really know. I do know that I would like to help you. I just can't pay for it. But there's my two cents for you. If you wanna talk business, you may get some good ideas in these forums.

[Horns_Archive]

Probably would have helped if cRPG wasn't going to shit. The "patch of destiny" was more like the "patch of last ditch effort". Hasn't been an update since. RIP in peace.

[Sigibert]

Melee Battlegrounds isn't only interesting for cRPG players, though... but for Warband players in general.

[Umbra]

Warband players in general have an irrational hatred for crpg

[Teeth]

Don't forget that cRPG is a 4 year old mod and that over the course of those years many people thoroughly enjoyed it, even if they do not play anymore. The relevant 'cRPG community' for something like Melee is a lot larger than the people that are currently playing. The glory days of cRPG had 500 players active at the same time. You are probably talking about like 2000 people who have breached 1k hours at some point and 5000 who played it actively and remember it fondly and could be interested in a spiritual sequel. 

That said, many of these people are not around anymore or are hard to reach. Which is also why the interest in the announcement of 'Project Asinus' in the beginning of 2013 seemed rather large compared to the lack of buzz now, with like a peak of 800 active forumusers on the day this game was originally announced in 2013. Lots of old my old friends were still somewhat around and reachable and came back to have a look. Not so much now. The point of this game anyway, is to appeal to a larger audience which I can see happening if the game gets more finished, so nobody expected the 130k to come from only the cRPG community.

Probably would have helped if cRPG wasn't going to shit.

I really think that is nearly entirely inconsequential. cRPG's death has been clearly underway since mid 2012, while the mod has continously improved.

[Leshma]

It's not exactly irrational. Just because we went through "rite of passage" to get where we are now, doesn't mean their complains have no basis in reality.

If cRPG leveling was from the beginning like it is now, if there weren't grinding for looms, if builds and weapons were even slightly balanced and not modeled after typical P2W business model (you don't pay real money, but better weapons are better in every way), then we could say their complains are bollocks. But that's not how it went.

Also, this community degenerated into 'something' that isn't easy to explain... I'm fairly sure most of us, when arrived here as new players didn't have the same fucked up mentality we have now. So yeah, this community isn't plus for potential backers either. It feels natural and cosy for us veterans, but to complete outsider this is looks like an asylum. Proof of that is Kickstarter and how badly those inside jokes failed.

Ranged in native is very strong but melee classes are well balanced between each other and heavier armor doesn't mean much like it does in cRPG. But you have to carry a shield, because it is medieval sim you know... unlike cRPG which feels like renaissance faire.

[MeevarTheMighty]

I really think that is nearly entirely inconsequential. cRPG's death has been clearly underway since mid 2012, while the mod has continously improved.

For a lot of us, c-rpg died completely with the upkeep patch and has gotten steadily worse since. I don't think it's a major reason for people not backing the game though. Anyone who had good times with c-rpg at any point is likely to befairly keen to see the game come to fruition.

I think in general, the major factor is that people have the attention span of a goldfish and the game hasn't been successfully presented as something they need. Most of the current playerbase seems to be in financial turmoil or too young to have a bank account and the campaign hasn't had enough polish to convince outsiders that it's the next big thing.

[Inglorious]

Honestly... It's a few things that are making all our dreams for this game come to a halt.

The timing.
It's the end of the year. Holiday after Holiday when people do nothing but spend their money on family and friends. Bad time to ask for money. The Salvation Army doesn't even get much, and that's a heart-felt association. The timing could have been better, perhaps in march when people are back to their normal lives and have been done spending for a month finally. You maybe even could have used the month as a slogan, M:BG Marches out to you , coming 2016. Still, the point is, bad timing. Also, you hit everyone at a low point in the c-RPG community. A very many people have dropped from c-RPG lately. Perhaps if this had been let on sooner, and not been kept under wraps so much with all this hush hush and secrecy, the common player might have been here today still cheering you all on like most of us who are still around.

The lack of preparation.
Videos are being made after the fact. The hype only lasts so long, and those first few days are crucial to draw in as much revenue as you can, despite everyone's suggestives that KS picks up at the end of the countdown. The videos that are being put out now could have attracted more people to donate just 'that' much more to help out with, if they had more criteria to put their mind and their wallet too possibly if they had been there from the start.

Lack of information.
We all see that the Donkey Crew, mainly chadz has tried hard to keep in touch with the KS page. But very little else was done. A few answers on the forums here and there. Some trolling of questions done by the community and surprisingly by some of the developer 'overlords' that raised up my neck hairs, making me believe that we are not in the 'need to know', however serious the question that was asked by so many enthusiastic people here.  PR may not be y'alls strong point, but damn do you need it, or someone to handle it better than what I've seen over the past 3 years.



This is all just my fix on this. I've put down a large pledge. I want to see this through, like a very many people. Perhaps we all can have better luck next time, with a few changes.

[Banok]

Terrible timing

If they put out this kickstarter when it was all the rage not only would people be more willing to donate money. but also the gaming press would probably have given it cover.

whereas now I think the media is less inclined to give kickstarters traffic, and people are less inclined to fund kickstarters.

people are stupid and funded alot of really shit projects, got burnt out and now will pass on the good ones.

The future

Well if they can get to a point where its fun and put in on early access, I think they will be fine. Look at life is feudal, gloria victis, etc.

[Teeth]

I hope they eventually manage to tap into the Rust, DayZ, etc. audience with a big open map where you roam around and are able to perhaps build some stuff. It seems there's quite a big audience that is more casual that likes to mess around with friends in open map adventure type games. That type of gameplay has two advantages, it has a very low bar to get into as it needn't be combat heavy and it is best enjoyed with friends, leading to people bugging their mates to throw down 20 euros for some fun. Coincedentally I think a Medieval setting offers a lot of sensible possibilities for that.

For a lot of us, c-rpg died completely with the upkeep patch and has gotten steadily worse since.

There were a few that got turned away by that patch, but the mod was most certainly more popular for at least 1,5 years after the upkeep patch than the half a year before. Even if you disliked the change of system, the mod has gotten objectively better as far as stability, balance and features go. The death of cRPG is not due to a lack of dev content recently and if you feel like cRPG dying is a good reason not to support the new game you are objectively a twat. 'Fuck you devs for not keeping the mod I played 3000 hours interesting to me', give me a break.

[Switchtense]

I started playing about 1,5 years ago. I still find cRPG quite entertaining.
The majority of people who are bored of it now, are the ones who have been playing for several years. There are only very few games which can be played for several years straight and still offer many entertainment possibilities. cRPG is nothing but a mod. You did not pay for it. And you seriously expect devs to drop everything and release another patch just cause you say that rain spoils your fun after so many years, or that one map? Get a grip.

The revival patch definitely took some of their attention away from M:BG. It was a huge patch, yes it needs further tweaking, but after all the devs are insanely busy with M:BG, so why does everybody keep complaining that the support for it will be shit or non-existant because 'nothing' is being done for cRPG?

[MeevarTheMighty]

There were a few that got turned away by that patch, but the mod was most certainly more popular for at least 1,5 years after the upkeep patch than the half a year before. Even if you disliked the change of system, the mod has gotten objectively better as far as stability, balance and features go. The death of cRPG is not due to a lack of dev content recently and if you feel like cRPG dying is a good reason not to support the new game you are objectively a twat. 'Fuck you devs for not keeping the mod I played 3000 hours interesting to me', give me a break.

I'm not sure what this tirade is about; a lot of people, myself included, backed the project even though we don't enjoy playing c-rpg anymore... and you have to face it, at this point, most people don't enjoy playing c-rpg anymore.

As for "objectively better", don't you think it might make sense for one of the handful of remaining regulars to think so? I really can't tell if you're serious.

Regardless, I think everyone agrees that c-rpg's performance has little to do with the Kickstarter progress. It's about advertising and projecting the right image.

[Teeth]

It was directed at people that do relate cRPG's performance to the Kickstarter or people even going the 'I won't pledge because this is wrong in cRPG' route. I've read quite a few posts spread out here and there that did express such sentiments.

As for "objectively better", don't you think it might make sense for one of the handful of remaining regulars to think so?

I don't know if you recall the state of the mod in 2010 and 2011, it is very easy to forget the horrible things that still existed or the great things that didn't exist yet, but if you can say with a straight face that early 2011 cRPG was a better mod than cRPG 2014 when it comes to design, you need to take off your nostalgia glasses. Perhaps your enjoyment faded and there might have been a few changes you disagreed, but the mod itself did not get steadily worse by any design standard.

[Leshma]

It was better mod because community was larger and people played the game, not fooled around with e-friends.

[Frell]

Melee Battlegrounds isn't only interesting for cRPG players, though... but for Warband players in general.

Not really. cRPG and Melee both up the difficulty ridiculously compared to the standard melee-based game. This puts into a very tight niche like Farrix said.

From my experience the more realistic (gameplay wise) you go the less players/interest you get, even in my own projects we've gotten better reception after things were dumbed down. It's the reason Chivalry sold 200x more copies than Warband (from the stats I've gathered, could be wrong) and why BF/COD will always outsell great games like Red Orchestra and Insurgency, but this is also comparing AAA games to Indie titles which isn't fair.

With that said I think if Melee is very fluid it could possibly become an eSport type game. People love getting better and challenging themselves, like the headshot fanatics in CS. But your average player (like the friends I made try cRPG) will just get frustrated and not want to waste time becoming more skilled. One told me they want to come home from work and play games for fun, not to be frustrated. But this was in ~2011 so things may be different.