Anyone visiting their Kickstarter forums

[Rxanadu]

I've been unable to visit a forum for a Kickstarter game for about 6 months now, and despite asking for help with getting my login information, I can't even get the creators of the game to respond to my requests. The main reason I'm so invested in getting access into the forum is because I spend $15 when backing it. I know I shouldn't expect much in regards to getting a game, but I should at least be able to access the forum to discuss the development of said project.

 

However, I actually want to know from everyone if they've visited the forums for Kickstarted games before, and if so, continue to visit them occasionally. I just wanted to know in the event that I'm never able to get access to the forum.

[prettyunsmart]

I was a slacker-backer for SportsFriends and was told to email a dev or community manager to get forum access. My message never got answered, so I never got any updates about the project, though from news around the internet it should be releasing soon.

 

Not sure what to tell you, since I'm in the same situation without any real solution.

[N1njaSquirrel]

I got forum access to the (then) Double Fine Adventure. It wasn't all that. There were some polls which didn't seem to affect the game, like one about art-style, another about music, but most were just threads which seemed irrelevant and not interesting. Plus their page count was too ridiculous to be bothered to read through it all, and I got access pretty early. I read a couple of dev posts which were interesting, but stopped after my third visit and waited for the episodes to come out instead.

[Chris]

I got forum access to the (then) Double Fine Adventure. It wasn't all that. There were some polls which didn't seem to affect the game, like one about art-style, another about music, but most were just threads which seemed irrelevant and not interesting. Plus their page count was too ridiculous to be bothered to read through it all, and I got access pretty early. I read a couple of dev posts which were interesting, but stopped after my third visit and waited for the episodes to come out instead.

Not that it matters much, but just to set the record straight slightly: if you're talking about the actual "From Double Fine and 2 Player Productions" forum (as opposed to the general discussion forums for backers), threads soliciting input definitely affected the game. There was a thread asking for location ideas, and the artists mocked up a ton of those ideas and then several went into the actual game. And Tim polled the userbase on things like the female character design and the name of the game, and both of those had a significant impact on his decisions. If you mean polls that were just started by other backers, then yeah there's nothing binding about those.

Anyway again it doesn't matter one way or the other at this point, but I had to point it out!

[TheLastBaron]

I browsed the Massive Chalice forums a fair amount for a while, but now I'm so out of the loop due to being busy with school that if I have the time I watch team streams. Speaking of which in the forums it seemed like there were a lot of DF guys posting about ideas they liked that they were forwarding on to other guys, but the team streams especially seems also always have a great level of direct communication with the guys on the game.

I'm also in the backers forum for this other thing I backed on Kickstarter, but it's kind of a secret.

[Apelsin]

Same here, haven't had much time to frequent even more forums.

 

I'd much rather just get a condensed newsletter every few months or so telling me what's up. Preferably written by an ombudsman!

[Rxanadu]

I'm somewhat glad to hear most people are content with just getting the occasional newsletter for their Kickstarted games. I was wondering if I was missing out on some odd influencing for the game. However, this begs the question for why these forums are established to begin with. The game I Kickstarted had plans for some internal game testing among the forum members, but it seems as though that's a rarity or not used that often in other KS forums.

[Gormongous]

I'm somewhat glad to hear most people are content with just getting the occasional newsletter for their Kickstarted games. I was wondering if I was missing out on some odd influencing for the game. However, this begs the question for why these forums are established to begin with. The game I Kickstarted had plans for some internal game testing among the forum members, but it seems as though that's a rarity or not used that often in other KS forums.

 

I think the forums for most Kickstarted games are meant to be a bottle for the developers to catch the lightning of their Kickstarter. Whether they succeed in that is something I don't know. I'm a member of the forums for every game that I backed, but I haven't really found them to be very congenial places to frequent, because they're typically full of people with nothing else in common besides a shared sense of entitlement for and ownership of a thing that doesn't yet exist. The fifth thread addressed to the devs to the tune of "here's how I would design your game for you based on the Kickstarter video and your list of influences" was enough to get me to scale back my involvement across the board.