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Finally got around to backing them, looks like there still far off but a lot can happen in 9 days. Hope they can pull through!

Thanks for the well-wishes, guys, and the show of support. Always appreciated.

To-date, while we've only had 174 people back us, we've had more than 17,000 unique visitors to our Indiegogo campaign page!

Given the general lack of exposure in the media (lots of reservation about covering a crowd funding campaign since the Penny Arcade article), our analysis suggests the bulk of these visitors are wargamers—many of whom are from Dakka Dakka thanks to yakface's encouragement and support—so we remain hopeful that, by posting on Dakka Dakka and other forums, we can convince at least a percentage of those gamers to back us.

After all, we really only need 15% of those visitors to get off the fence and support us and we'd hit our target. Surely we as a community can achieve that? We remain hopeful.

Worth mentioning that there is a very positive flip-side to those visitors not getting off the fence, of course, which is that, once the game has been made and is available for sale, there are more than 17,000 people out there interested in playing EW:FE who would be paying full price. That means more revenue than that received from the crowd funding campaign, given the $10 price point to get the game, which means more money we can pour into on-going development of the game! YAY!

Certainly, I'd say it's an axiom that we can expect much greater take-up of the game once people can buy it and play it same-day.

I gave my $10, looking forward to playing it when it does get released. Crossing my fingers for more backers.

Yay more backers! In all seriousness this game looks awesome and I really like the idea. There really is NO reason not to support this game, even if you aren't big on the plot or setting. If you are a wargamer, this is a must!

Look at it this way, if this isn't "your kinda game" but you wish something similar was made for your game? Donate! This will show support for this style of game! Maybe it will catch on and companies will start producing off this model!

Plus look at the price..... It's $10 stinking dollars! I mean come on people, can you really deny the cheapness of it? If you step back and looks at your budget, I'm pretty sure $10 won't break the bank (if it does there might be something wrong) I mean seriously, would you rather spend the $10 now and wait, or wait and spend more ($20 or $30 maybe?) I think it pays off now to get the jump on it and help make it come out sooner!

So Sayeth Prophet Ben

I wanted to back this at the $10 level for a digital copy of the game, but when I go to check out via PayPal, while the $10 amount is correct, it keeps saying I've selected the "4x copies of the game + Alpha testing" perk - huh?

Has anyone had a similar problem?

I had it pop up too, I thought its was just me though.... From what Mark has told me it just goes into a pool under your name then you can delegate it out. It fixed itself after I refreshed though....

Ben

I think the perk levels might be to blame, hard to justify contributing much more than the "get the game" levels.

What penny arcade article are you referring to?

NEW VIDEO RELEASED: GAMEPLAY EXPLAINED — PART 2!
http://www.indiegogo.com/EWFracturedEmpire
While the game is still a fair ways from what you could reasonably call "stable" (it's pre-Alpha, which means it's not fully featured or properly playable just yet), we have been able to edit together a sequence of play (Turns 2 and 3, on the larger Desert map) in a new video, which is at the top of the list of videos on the campaign page. The new video demonstrates a combined assault by Guild forces against a REM position. Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire's gameplay has been edited together with explanations of what is happening and why to give you a feel for how it plays.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions about the game mechanics shown or anything else to do with the game!

I was just thinking - what's the DRM for this going to be?

Alpharius wrote:I wanted to back this at the $10 level for a digital copy of the game, but when I go to check out via PayPal, while the $10 amount is correct, it keeps saying I've selected the "4x copies of the game + Alpha testing" perk - huh?

Sounds like a bug with Indiegogo. Irritating. Apologies for the inconvenience and we'll look into it some more, but there's probably not much we can do as we have no control over Indiegogo's codebase—sorry. :(

GR00V3R wrote:

Alpharius wrote:I wanted to back this at the $10 level for a digital copy of the game, but when I go to check out via PayPal, while the $10 amount is correct, it keeps saying I've selected the "4x copies of the game + Alpha testing" perk - huh?

Sounds like a bug with Indiegogo. Irritating. Apologies for the inconvenience and we'll look into it some more, but there's probably not much we can do as we have no control over Indiegogo's codebase—sorry. :(

Go ahead and back it at the $10 amount. I did the same and got the "you selected alpha blah blah" message. The confirmation on the next page had the correct $10 perk.

scipio.au wrote:I was just thinking - what's the DRM for this going to be?

Hi Scipio,

In terms of DRM, it will be the minimum required on the target platforms (e.g. platforms like Apple and Steam have requirements for DRM).

You will also need to create an account for online play. We will (leniently) restrict the number of IPs that can use an account.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RiTides wrote:I think the perk levels might be to blame, hard to justify contributing much more than the "get the game" levels.

Thanks for the feedback, RiTides, and I take your point. We spent a lot of time trying to develop meaningful perks that would appeal to people and that wouldn't break the bank trying to service them after the campaign ends—you may have seen articles by other teams lamenting the cost burden of providing the perks promised to people once postage comes into it, which is why we kept physical perks like the new Behemoth super-vehicle model to a minimum. We did revisit the perks several times throughout the campaign, though, and our changes (based on community feedback) were generally received.

That's good, and I meant it more generally... it seems hard to offer great perks for a software Kickstarter, as opposed to a modelling one where more models / painted models / etc are easy to add for higher levels.

I think the perks you came up with are a good attempt, but most people would go for the lower ones, so even with around 200 contributors, the average contribution isn't high enough to look like it will reach the goal.

I didn't have a solution, it's just a bummer because obviously lots of people are interested. If nothing else, it's getting you tons of exposure!

RiTides wrote:...it's just a bummer because obviously lots of people are interested. If nothing else, it's getting you tons of exposure!

This is absolutely true!

We're of course bummed that it's looking unlikely we'll hit our goal of $35,000...but we're also MASSIVELY PUMPED because of the profile the game has achieved in a short period of time. (Much of that is thanks to yakface and the Dakka Dakka community—so thank you all again.)

As a case in point, here's an extract from a draft for the press release we're sending out Monday morning:

Membraine's campaign to crowd-fund Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire has raised less than $7,000 so far from its $35,000 goal, and is unlikely to hit the target with just 5 days to go. Membraine is upbeat despite this, though, saying not only that it will still ship the game—albeit at a much later date given it won’t be able to focus on the game full-time as hoped—but also that it has obtained other valuable information from its campaign that gives the team hope for the future.

Mark said, “Right now, we’ve raised $6,885 from 184 backers...but that’s with just 17,600 unique visitors, so an average of $0.39 per unique visitor. Very high by crowd funding standards.”

Development Lead Josh Anderson added, “We believe that’s a reflection of two things: that gamers want to play a tabletop-style, turn-based strategy game on the PC, Mac and iPad as much as we do; and that, even though it’s early, pre-Alpha imagery, what they’ve seen so far of Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire’s gameplay is of sufficient quality that gamers believe we can deliver on the promises we've made.”

“These things give us great hope for the game’s sales once it’s released, or even for its pre-sales once we have a playable build,” Mark added.

So don't be too bummed out—this cloud definitely has a silver lining.

GR00V3R wrote:

scipio.au wrote:I was just thinking - what's the DRM for this going to be?

Hi Scipio,
In terms of DRM, it will be the minimum required on the target platforms (e.g. platforms like Apple and Steam have requirements for DRM).
You will also need to create an account for online play. We will (leniently) restrict the number of IPs that can use an account.

Unfortunately, that's a bit of a non-answer.

For the PC version, what will the DRM be? Unless you have an exclusive deal with Steam for PC distribution (which is not especially common for indie games) then your PC version will be in the wilds of the PC space, which doesn't require any DRM.

If you're talking about stored, limited IPs, then you can kiss any chance of me ever buying or supporting you goodbye, as it'll mean that I hit my limit very quickly due to my dynamic IP (reset by my ISP occasionally, or whenever I reset my modem). Not to mention installing on my laptop and playing from anywhere other than home. Could you elaborate, please?

In the case where there is no third party requirement for DRM, then:

We do not intend to add DRM for offline play.

For online play, I know enough to say the methodology is more lenient than stored, limited IPs, but I'll need to defer to our development lead for a deeper answer than that; I'll touch base with him and come back to you shortly.

Thank you.

I'm interested, as DRM can very much affect the longevity of a game. There can be a big difference depending on if you intend to maintain something like a central server like Cyanide and BB (and if you ever go out of business, the online game ends forever) or if people can connect directly - either IP to IP or via a LAN.

If you can elaborate on LAN play as well, that would be great. Not a big fan of online-required to play with the person sitting next to me (D3, many XBL games).

I relayed your query. I've cut-and-pasted Josh's response below in its entirety.

Hi mate,

- Where platforms/distrubutors require DRM, we will do as little as possible to meet their requirements.
- If we're self-distributing, for the offline game modes, we're currently not planning on having any DRM
- For online game modes, we will need players to create an account (to track achievements, Indiegogo perks, etc.). Our current thinking is that we should limit the number of IPs per user - this plan can change, but, to give you an idea of how lenient we're already talking, the number we're discussing right now is 10-15 unique (external) IP addresses per week. This could become 30 per day, or even never enforced -- we're not sure yet.

Our goal is "play anywhere". We want users to play a turn at home, a turn on their 3G device on the train, a few turns fom work, again via 3G, etc. If that means that limiting users by # of IP addresses doesn't work, we'll do something else (or nothing at all).

This is something we've planned to test thoroughly during Beta.

By my reckoning, the 10-15 IPs per week should be overkill, but, as Josh says, we'll be keeping a close eye on such things and sanity-checking our thinking at every step.

scipio.au wrote:If you can elaborate on LAN play as well, that would be great. Not a big fan of online-required to play with the person sitting next to me (D3, many XBL games).

I've forwarded this one to Josh as well. Let me know if you have more technical questions, and I'll be happy to act as relay with Josh again.

Thanks for the thorough answers!

i will be in for $25

i would like to see a unit that across between a Dreadnought and a Dreadknight

Thank you! - I appreciate the detailed replies.

pledged 60$.

A Sci fi turn per turn wargame would be great, specially if it corespond to something looking like 6mm scale.

I have to disagree with the OP. Personally, I really don't appreciate the fact that they're looking into a $35k goal.

There have been plenty of indie developers that have done incredibly good looking and, more so then merely good looking, even greatly better made games for much, much less money and resources. What's more, there have even been incredibly well polished and completed mods (modifications) developed with legitimate, bought software that have been released over the years, some of which have had even better resulting production value than actual commercial games; and some of them with six or more team members.

It feels, to me, that Membraine is trying to fund a whole studio with the monetary goal they're aiming for, not merely the developmental needs of this particular game, as is. Either way, it doesn't cost thirty five grand to make a game of that magnitude, especially by and through any particular indie developer to their scale.

I don't see the potential outweighing the facts enough for them to justify asking for any complimentary pledge of money for something that would (highly) more likely than otherwise, not take so much to produce what they're developing.

I appreciate their efforts and commend them for assuming the role of filling the video game world with such a game/genre, but, again, I can't find any justification for that kind of monetary goal needed for any such indie game and it doesn't feel right for me to pledge anything as of yet.

I also find it highly doubtful they have "invested more than $47,000 in the game from [their] own pockets" -- that is simply unheard of, especially in indie development, at least in regards to their claim in investing that solely into the game itself. All in all, it seems really fishy to me. Development of a product like this, especially for a "currently three-man team" to be the only ones developing it, doesn't take steady money-flow on that scale. That's a red-flag for their claim to have spent so much into this project, in and of itself.

Albeit their goals are high, it seems they're aiming a little too steep for everything they want to do, too, especially considering their team is so small and Exodus seemingly being their first foray into traditional development. It should be one step at a time, not all in one go (e.g. --"Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire, is now targeting Windows PC, Apple Mac and iPad, and Linux all on Day 1.. The plan is to initially launch on PC and Mac and .. mobile platforms like iOS and Android"). With that kind of ambition, it could even spell disaster for them altogether; though I truly hope that doesn't happen.

Salud to those more readily willing enough to help fund them. I wish only the best for the dev-team, too.


-P

...you do realize platforms like unity nowadays make it rather easy to develop for more than one platform at a time?

Proioxis© wrote:I have to disagree with the OP. Personally, I really don't appreciate the fact that they're looking into a $35k goal.

Hi Proioxis. Thanks for your feedback. I'll try to address your comments as best I can.

Proioxis© wrote:There have been plenty of indie developers that have done incredibly good looking and, more so then merely good looking, even greatly better made games for much, much less money and resources. What's more, there have even been incredibly well polished and completed mods (modifications) developed with legitimate, bought software that have been released over the years, some of which have had even better resulting production value than actual commercial games; and some of them with six or more team members.

With respect, I believe you're comparing a studio formed of three (what I'll politely call) "veteran" professionals (sounds nicer than "old dudes") against groups of talented youths. Glenn is an architect; when he's not making our game art assets and awesome 3D models, he does private jobs as a sideline so we can keep our overheads to a minimum. Josh is a experienced software engineer who Membraine now contracts out as a consultant to shore up its revenue. Both Josh and Glenn work on custom software projects when we're engaged to develop apps for clients. And me, I've been working in IT for near enough to 18 years now. ... Okay, so maybe "old dudes" was apt.

I certainly like to think we have all the talent of those groups of youngsters I mentioned—Glenn's designs often amaze me with their awesomeness, and Josh is hands-down the best software developer I've ever worked with—and I've worked with a lot in an almost 18-year IT career. Where we can't compare or compete with those teams is in terms of overheads. We need to pay for things like Josh and Glenn's salaries, and as such we have overheads that groups working in their spare time and living in Mum and Dad's house do not.

Bear in mind that Glenn, Josh and I all started out working on games in our spare time, so we know exactly what it's like to work like that—the only difference between then and now is that we have taken the step of trying to turn our passion for games development into a full-time business, which is something that only a few of the spare-time teams who mod or make stand-alone games actually try. (As an aside, I have no way of knowing or showing what the real stats are and there's no way to find out, but if there were...I would be willing to bet real money that the number of mods that actually get completed is less than 1%.)

If you want to compare us with other established studios with full-time, dedicated staff, I think you'll find that the $35,000 figure suddenly seems low.

Let's talk about that $35,000 figure, then. Membraine is in a good position to know exactly what our time is worth thanks to the consulting work we do, not to mention the custom software development projects we undertake for clients (for details, see our website: http://membrainestudios.com). As such, when we mapped out the schedule for Fractured Empire, we were able to identify the dollar cost of the effort required to make the game,end-to-end. Such things are only ever an estimate, of course, but it's a very well educated estimate, given we really know our stuff (and we really should by now).

So we started beavering away, and we got to where the game is currently, achieving something not-quite playable, but really only a few months off, and the dollar cost of that effort, between all three of us, was just over $47,000. We had, by this time, decided to run a crowd funding campaign in an effort to put together enough capital that we wouldn't have to pimp Josh and Glenn out anymore to corporate clients, and we agreed that the goals of that campaign should align with our major feature deliverables, so these became our funding target and stretch goals respectively, where the first goal at $35,000 provided for the basic infantry-and-armour game as described on our campaign page.

Proioxis© wrote:It feels, to me, that Membraine is trying to fund a whole studio with the monetary goal they're aiming for, not merely the developmental needs of this particular game, as is. Either way, it doesn't cost thirty five grand to make a game of that magnitude, especially by and through any particular indie developer to their scale. I don't see the potential outweighing the facts enough for them to justify asking for any complimentary pledge of money for something that would (highly) more likely than otherwise, not take so much to produce what they're developing. ... I also find it highly doubtful they have "invested more than $47,000 in the game from [their] own pockets" -- that is simply unheard of, especially in indie development, at least in regards to their claim in investing that solely into the game itself.

(Please forgive that I've merged a couple of your paragraphs together above for brevity.)

So it's doubtless obvious that I disagree with your reasoning and assessment, and I've tried to outline why that is; I absolutely respect your position, however. I only hope that, once the game is released, you and others who share your opinion will buy a copy to join in for a few games. Of course, you won't be getting the game for $10... *cough*

Proioxis© wrote:All in all, it seems really fishy to me. Development of a product like this, especially for a "currently three-man team" to be the only ones developing it, doesn't take steady money-flow on that scale. That's a red-flag for their claim to have spent so much into this project, in and of itself.

I've probably already addressed this sufficiently, but I had to call this statement out specifically in order to address the "doesn't take steady money-flow on that scale" comment: when you have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay, you absolutely need an income stream. Some seem to think that it's a good idea just to live off your savings while you make the magic happen—but trust me...that's a bad idea.

I reckon this is probably one of the most common mistakes that many start-up games developers make—they look at the road ahead, look at their savings, and say "Yep! I have just enough savings to get me there!" And then, when things don't quite go to plan (as they usually don't), they have nowhere to go because everyone costs money and they have none left. That's okay if you still live with Mum and Dad. When you are Mum and Dad...I'm sure you can imagine what a nightmare that would be.

Thankfully, the Membraine team does not need to worry about that because we're not relying on our savings; we are a real business that has alternative revenue streams and that enable us to pay salaries to our employees. The goal of our crowd funding campaign has been to enable us to not require those alternative revenue streams while we finish Fractured Empire full-time.

Proioxis© wrote:I appreciate their efforts and commend them for assuming the role of filling the video game world with such a game/genre, but, again, I can't find any justification for that kind of monetary goal needed for any such indie game and it doesn't feel right for me to pledge anything as of yet.

Again, thank you for your feedback. We genuinely want everyone to get the chance to enjoy playing Fractured Empire as much as we do, but we do understand that not everyone will want to back us in a crowd funding campaign.

Proioxis© wrote:Albeit their goals are high, it seems they're aiming a little too steep for everything they want to do, too, especially considering their team is so small and Exodus seemingly being their first foray into traditional development. It should be one step at a time, not all in one go (e.g. --"Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire, is now targeting Windows PC, Apple Mac and iPad, and Linux all on Day 1.. The plan is to initially launch on PC and Mac and .. mobile platforms like iOS and Android"). With that kind of ambition, it could even spell disaster for them altogether; though I truly hope that doesn't happen.

I can see this has already been answered above, but, just to provide further clarity, we are using the Unity middleware, which does a great job of facilitating multi-platform releases like Fractured Empire. Fundamentally, the major issues that face us in mutli-release are the disparate interfaces and platform-specific optimisations—luckily, Josh is a freakin' guru developer. (No pressure, Josh!)

Proioxis© wrote:Salud to those more readily willing enough to help fund them. I wish only the best for the dev-team, too.

Thank you. Your well-wishes are very much appreciated, and I hope my response above provides the information you were looking for.

If you're interested, you can see further background information in a blog post I wrote about Membraine that was featured on Gamasutra: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkSheppard/20120614/172339/Launching_a_Crowd_Funding_Campaign_When_Nobody_Knows_Who_You_Are.php

Thanks for reading. Apologies this was a long post, but your questions needed answering and there was a lot to cover.

It is a shame to read so many negative posts here, I think this is a really cool looking game and if they have aimed for a figure and taken some time to price it up then fair enough. Who cares if they are looking for $35,000 all they are asking from each individual is $10, or more if you want. Lets take the worse case scenario, it's all a scam and I lose my $10, big deal so I have lost the cost of a meal at McDonalds. On the other hand if they complete and release then I get a copy of the game for $10! I have helped to support an idependent rather than feeding a corporate giant like EA. I hope they do reach their target and I can't wait to play!

Thanks, Reaper Man. We very much appreciate the support and kind words.

We have just over 24 hours left in our campaign, so, to those of you who have remained undecided until this point: it's NOW OR NEVER! (We, of course, very much hope you decide to go with the NOW option.)

Thanks again to everyone that has supported us already, and to those that have actively engaged to provide your feedback (positive and negative). But we are grateful also to those of you haven't backed us but have considered backing us and talked about us with your friends—without the community looking at what we're doing and discussing it, we would never have even gotten this far.

To reiterate from one of my earlier posts, you've shown us that you want this game, and so WE ARE MAKING IT—it's just going to take us longer than we'd hoped to get it to you. The funds collected to date will be put 100% toward advancing the build as far as we can take it with those funds—hopefully getting it to a playable state so we can make it available to our Alpha testers.

As ever, please let me know if you have more questions, both before the end of the campaign and afterward. Thanks for reading.

Hi everyone.

So our Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo is finished, and it achieved just $7,430 of our $35,000 target. While we're of course bummed that our crowd funding campaign did not achieve its goals, nonetheless (and to reiterate from one of my earlier posts), the gaming community has shown us through its commentaries and questions that it really does want this game, and so we are committed to making it—it's just going to take us somewhat longer than we'd hoped to get it to you.

The funds collected to date will be put 100% toward advancing the Fractured Empire build, and we'll take it as far as we can with those funds—if possible, we want to get it to a playable Alpha state so we can make it available to our Alpha testers and the media people who expressed interest.

We'd like to once again thank each of our contributors for supporting us. And, of course, please feel free let us know if you have more feedback or questions for us on our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/membraine) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/membraine_ftw).

We hope you'll keep an eye on us, because this is not the end of the road—this is just the beginning.

Best of luck, I anxiously await the inevitable release.

Seems that indiegogo doesn't distinguish between successful and unsuccessful campaigns and reaching any goals, they collect the money in any case. Weird, but good to know.