Heya,
with all the kickstarter hype going around I am wondering if Spiderweb already considered the thought of using kickstarter to "expand" their games.
From other threads in this forum I already understood that Jeff's ambitions to work with other people are rather small.
However I don't think it's even necessary to add in additional people - at least not permanently.
While Kickstarter is no way to "print money" I think it's a good way to motivate people to spend additional money to a project than which is necessarily needed. And with a company as Spiderweb every additional Dollar can be efficiently invested into additional components to improve the game while not touching the core game or use too much money for "management" or "expensive names".
Once these investment was made, the stuff bought could also be used in future projects of course.
If I am looking at Avadon and the new Avernum I see two great games which lack 3 things to elevate to the next "level" I'd say. These things were used before and will also be used in future games I guess.
The two things which are the easiest things to upgrade via outsourced material are:
-Sound
Let's face it. The sounds in Avadon and Avernum are horrible. I also bought Geneforge a few months ago and one of the reasons I didn't feel I could play the first parts was that the sound there was even worse.
After playing Avernum for a just a few hours I had to disable the background sounds as I just could not stand it anymore. The sound in the city where you could a very short loop with some kind of arab child voice in the foreground is deadly - and doesn't work as "background" at all.
What I did instead is playing Avernum while listening to a self made playlist from music I bought from Nox Arcana some years ago.
If you want to check it out, try this Youtube Playlist for example.
They got awesome music, also more calm "background-style" music than the linked ones.
I especially mention Nox Arcana not just because they do awesome and very fitting music, but also because Nox Arcana's Music is also used by the Fan Made Civilization 4 Mod called "Fall from Heaven 2". They agreed that the music can be used in this non-commercial product.
So while Spiderweb will probably not be able to aquire the "full rights" in the already published music, it's maybe possible to require partial rights so that the music can be used in the game. Or, if a kickstarter project provides enough money, even new music for the game (also by other artists of course, just giving an example).
Also the sound effects could use an overhaul. While some sounds (e.g. monster sounds) are pretty decent, other sounds, e.g. item sounds within inventory, could really need a replacement.
-Graphics
According to the Spiderweb homepage, Spiderweb is looking to buy Sprites and Grafics from other sources anyways.
I am not talking about "making avadon a 3D Realtime shooter with RPG/Story elements" but about improving the quality and quantity of graphics. More Sprites for characters for example, additional item graphics and so on. Also having more portraits for your party and for NPCs would be great. Also something like the skill-description pics in Avernum right now look rather unprofessional.
If you want to do even bigger chances of course an engine upgrade would be needed, but I guess I would not go further than the Graphics of Eschalon (which however looks amazing compared to Spiderweb games - not talking about the content).
The one thing which is probably not as easy to add to:
-Interface/ Controls /AI
The Interface could get some serious improvements (on PC at least). I don't think it's hard to make small changes which would have a big impact. I am not sure how good you can "oursource" this kind of work.
So what exactly I am talking about here?
Right now you only have 4 abilities/char in your hotbar, though a lot more are needed.
But what is especially annoying when getting into the game is the AI during the controls: You move a character with one single click. After this click the character uses the most direct way to reach the destination. If this "most direct" way leads right into the "red zone" of an enemy by which he is slowed down/can't continue the character doesn't care. Especially with the "you need 1 action point left to do anything"-mechanic this is extremely annoying until you get used to it.
So what I would suggest are two changs here:
A two click system ala Jagged Alliance: First Click: Route the character will take is displayed. Second click: Character moves.
A better AI: not using the "most direct" way but the most efficient way.
Well, that are my 2 cents about Spiderweb and Kickstarter.
I don't want the the whole game to change. But I think with very little additional money the games from Spiderweb could be improved a lot.
This should of course not be compared to the DoubleFineAdventure or Wasteland2 - which both looked for hundreds of thousands of dollars and ended up with millions.
Originally kickstarter was used for rather small projects and I think these also profit a lot from it. Look for the "The Dead Linger"-Project for example. And they have even less to look back at while Spiderweb seems to have a very dedicated community already.