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Dominic White posted:That seems unlikely. The entire business concept for Spacebase DF-9 was a self-funding game in the style of Dwarf Fortress. It would continue to be developed so long as people bought it in Early Access. Problem is, people just didn't buy it, and there was no kickstarter to provide an initial budget and/or indication of the potential market. Perhaps people (like me) didn't buy Spacebase DF-9 because they were waiting for it to not to be a buggy, basically alpha concept of a game. In a way, I guess it proves what everyone was saying about early access-only buy the game if it seems like something you want RIGHT NOW, and not on the promise of what it could be. The problem is that DF decided to just shove it out, call it complete, and do nothing more. Maybe Valve has rules about it or something, but I think it would have been better if DF had just pulled the game, or made it free, rather than announce it was leaving early access when it obviously shouldn't be. Early access can work, we've seen that with a number of games, but this is not how.
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Oct 29, 2014 14:27
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Yeah, what i'm getting from most people I know that's tried Lords of the Fallen is that they were pleasantly surprised. The similarities to Dark Souls are undeniable, but I don't feel like that's necessarily a negative. There seems to be some technical problems with AMD cards though(as usual), and the console versions apparently have performance problems in some of the bigger fights.
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Oct 29, 2014 14:27
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Yeah Lords of the Fallen is a competent but in some ways lacking first attempt at turning Souls into a genre. While I might eventually recommend it to people, even if that seems like your bag at this very second, there's a decent chance you couldn't play it depending on your computer and the phases of the moon. Hold off.
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Oct 29, 2014 14:36
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I think that it's good to point out when someone who bases their business model on being likable do lovely things
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Oct 29, 2014 14:42
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The only difference between Double Fine and the other 80% of production teams who also can't manage a game correctly is the transparency. I guarantee that if a developer like Team Bondi had a documentary crew follow them it would be Lord of the Flies compared to Tim wait-the-creative-lead-and-sole-writer-has-to-actually-write-in-order-to-finish-a-game?? Schafer.
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Oct 29, 2014 15:02
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Team Bondi's game development documentary directed by Lars von Trier.
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Oct 29, 2014 15:13
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I was totally stoked to buy Spacebase DF-9 once it was out of early access. But since they decided to just flip the tables and run off with the money, now I don't plan to buy it at all. Or at least, not until I randomly end up with it as part of the inevitable 3 dollar bundle. If they quit because they weren't getting enough money from people buying their unfinished game, then they shouldn't have been making the game in the first place. You can't just throw a half-assed concept up on early access and hope people will drown you in funding. I'm sure a lot of people are like me, with a firm wait-for-release rule, probably more and more people like this as the EA horror stories continue to crop up. It's just not a smart funding model to hope that pre-release sales will provide a constant revenue stream. Unless you're making the next Minecraft that people are happy to lap up in a half-finished state (hint, you're not), then just don't do it.
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Oct 29, 2014 15:20
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Dominic White posted:Problem is, people just didn't buy it, and there was no kickstarter to provide an initial budget and/or indication of the potential market. Bullshit. There was no kickstarter, but no indication of potential market? Also bullshit. Dog Fat Man Chaser fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 15:21
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Keep in mind they also had $50, $100 and $200 tiers that they kept up the entire time, while they delivered six meagre updates in the span of an entire year. Which leaves two options, either the project was an off-hours thing for a couple/few people that they were accepting plenty of money for, or it was a project they were accepting money for that got an amount of updates equivalent to what many one and two man teams have done in a month or two.
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Oct 29, 2014 15:28
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Yep, Dominic White is totally wrong on this one. DF-9 should absolutely be pulled from Steam or made free, selling it after all this poo poo is just plain dishonest. Same thing with Towns. There seems to be more failed Early Access games than properly developed ones. Like the devs who have no deadlines to meet just feel tired and decide to make beta or alpha the release version. As much as I hate to admit, it seems that many devs require publishers to make an actually shippable version. Instead we get poo poo like failed (or failing): Planetary Annihilation Carmageddon Towns Jagged Alliance Spacebase DF-9 Infinite Space 3 Castle Story Most of the above were also kickstarted. I'm not sure if Next Car Game won't fail as well because the development is so slow. People who said that most of the failed KS/EA games would be scrapped during the pre-production phase are absolutely right. Steam is selling early tech demos basically. Ask in PA thread. It's so simplistic it's basically a tech demo. \/\/\/\/\/ Terminally Bored fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 15:36
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Terminally Bored posted:Planetary Annihilation I'm not sure how a game that is finished and released counts as "failed early access." 
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Oct 29, 2014 15:40
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Yeah despite being A Bad Game PA seems to me like at least a decent example of a complete EA. Did they deliver what they said? I thought so, but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. vvv I seem to remember people being kinda upset about them for NS2, I thought it was terrible, but the PA tutorial videos are ludicrously bad. Dog Fat Man Chaser fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 15:41
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Planetary Annihilation is feature complete though? Sure it is badly designed, but it is nowhere nearly "early tech demo". I don't remember people criticizing Natural Selection 2 for using youtube videos instead of a proper tutorial. Good luck with convincing Valve to cut off the sucker money stream.
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Oct 29, 2014 15:43
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Just wanted to pop in and say Kinetic Void just got a massive update today, including tutorials, an update to Unity 5 and a whole swag of gameplay and visual updates. If you own it, you should check it out again and if you don't, keep an eye for it in the next few days  Patch changelog: http://steamcommunity.com/app/227160/discussions/11/619569608763299926/
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Oct 29, 2014 15:51
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PC Gamer's offering free Steam keys for Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space in return for your undying love (or at least a follow on Twitter).
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Oct 29, 2014 16:13
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3 games that popped up on the New Releases list that might be interesting: BlazeRush - sci-fi Micromachines racing with guns. It looks satisfying.  Daedalus - No Escape - Alien Breed-like arcade shooter.  The Detail - a noir detective adventure game.  Anybody tried those? I'm mostly interested in the racing one.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:21
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Another month, another Rock n' Roll Racing ripoff.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:23
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Palpek posted:3 games that popped up on the New Releases list that might be interesting: Holy poo poo it's a modern Rock n' Roll Racing Edit: Beaten - but apparently I am not familiar with a new one coming out every month? Ragequit fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 16:24
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Infinite Space 3 has been updating at least once a month since it went up on Early Access. I'd hesitate to call that failed or failing. Castle Story, on the other hand... months without news, then a huge refactoring effort, and now months without news, aside from a lone Kickstarter update the other day that pointed readers at the company blog. It seems obvious to me that Doublefine isn't just experimenting with genres and presentations, they've gone on to experimenting with funding solutions. I think that's fine. Kickstarter, Patreon, competing services, whatever gets you through the crunch. What frustrates me is that people are obviously going along for the ride without reading everything they should, and that developers aren't sharing what they take away from the process. Relying on a steady stream of new buyers to finance development or patches is forgetting-to-breathe stupid and grossly irresponsible, and the quicker that gets through starry-eyed devs' skulls, the better... no, they'll still think they've built a better mousetrap.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:24
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Does the Steam sale start tomorrow or something? I gotta prepare myself.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:24
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Tomorrow until the 3rd, I think. Brace yourself.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:26
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What's the current opinion on Plague, Inc.? Worth 14€ for an overgrown flash game about Madagascar closing its airports?
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Oct 29, 2014 16:28
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Cardiovorax posted:What's the current opinion on Plague, Inc.? Worth 14€ for an overgrown flash game about Madagascar closing its airports? It sells on phones for $1.99 and is about deep enough for that price. It's not a bad game, but it's not what I'd consider a rich title.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:47
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al-azad posted:You're right, Costume Quest 2 just came out with zero launch related issues. Was this game any good? Did it do anything about how tedious and repetitive CQ1's gameplay was (despite being a very charming game overall)?
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Oct 29, 2014 16:54
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Divine Divinity was early access, so was Might & Magic X. And it's not like Double Fine can't put out a complete product drama free (Costume Quest 2). I wish Valve had a way of holding people accountable. I've been satisfied with EA games (Sunless Sea is great to) but whenever I see a Minecraft derivative I immediately ignore it. Minecraft was developed over a period of almost 4 years but had a constant revenue stream, a free browser based player for a while, huge word of mouth, and wasn't being sold for full price.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:55
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^^^ Divinity also had the backing of other money'd interests. Kickstarter gave it what, 1/10th or less of its overal budget? The game was well* on its way to being complete when they were running the Kickstarter.GrandpaPants posted:Was this game any good? Did it do anything about how tedious and repetitive CQ1's gameplay was (despite being a very charming game overall)? Literally the same, if not slightly more simplistic. more characters, though, I think. *likely process Drifter fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 16:56
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Anonymous Robot posted:It sells on phones for $1.99 and is about deep enough for that price. It's not a bad game, but it's not what I'd consider a rich title.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:57
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al-azad posted:And it's not like Double Fine can't put out a complete product drama free (Costume Quest 2). An argument could be made that Costume Quest is not actually a complete game. 
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Oct 29, 2014 17:12
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Bieeardo posted:It seems obvious to me that Doublefine isn't just experimenting with genres and presentations, they've gone on to experimenting with funding solutions. That's like saying that my wife likes to experiment with overdraft systems. Technically accurate, but entirely wrong. Everything circles back to 'fitness for purpose' which is entirely undefined in US law, and heavily defined under at least UK law, and mostly avoided by EULAs that absolve the publisher of literally anything. The UK EULA is completely different from the US because of the EU regulations. Lemon Curdistan posted:I'm not sure how a game that is finished and released counts as "failed early access." Goon hyperbole. It's not very good and there are a lot of rough corners on the game, but its not what I'd call 'failed'. Terminally Bored posted:Yep, Dominic White is totally wrong on this one. DF-9 should absolutely be pulled from Steam or made free, selling it after all this poo poo is just plain dishonest. Same thing with Towns. I think you're missing the point that there is a reasonable person's reaction to things, then there is the commercial reality. Spacebase DF-9 is _complete_, according to the developers. Any bunfight over that has to take place between the publisher and Steam, and they've not been shy about removing scammy things in the past. Earth 2066 springs to mind, and that zombie bullshit where the devs flatout lied. Terminally Bored posted:Planetary Annihilation You don't like the game or you're going on the thread for details? I personally don't like it, and believe the planetary stuff to be a gimmick that isn't entirely well explored, but it's not finished or failed. The thread was generally peeved with the lack of offline support, but they supplied that on October 9th. Terminally Bored posted:Carmageddon Again, still in development. I guess this is about them putting it on sale after saying that they wouldn't. Last update was July, but I'm waiting for Stainless to say that they're in trouble rather than inferring it. Terminally Bored posted:Towns Legit complaint. Terminally Bored posted:Jagged Alliance The latest one? People appear to be receiving it well, if a little lukewarm, but better than Jagged Alliance 2. Terminally Bored posted:Spacebase DF-9 I'd say a legitimate complaint, but only based on the endpoint being a completely unfinished product that shouldn't have been put on sale *unless* a specific point was being aimed at. However, "You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state."
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Oct 29, 2014 17:17
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Time for one last  BONUS ROUND before I wrap things up tonight. Honestly I had forgotten how many walking sims Captain Swing has streamed, and some of them started to blend together in my mind. I went back and edited my review of Doorways because I got its ending confused with that of Coma:Mortuary (Doorways is still conditionally good).P. Master Reboot    Apparently someone out there thought TRON would make a good horror setting, and they were half right. Master Reboot has you wandering around the Soul Cloud, a digital storage system for dead people. Something has gotten in there and is wreaking havoc, and you must pursue it through the memories of your dead friend. The digital aesthetic lends itself to clean, otherworldly graphics and a unique atmosphere. However, the puzzles don't follow much logic, there are some infuriating jumping puzzles, and the scares are all spooky little girl jumpscares. If you can stomach amateur hour game design it's a unique experience in terms of look and feel, but you're probably better off just watching a Let's Play. Q. Coma:Mortuary    Man, just look at those screenshots. Dark, moody, detailed. Doesn't that look like a game you want to play? Well, you've already seen just about everything there is to see in this one. Coma casts you as a dead guy roaming the afterlife, narrating his travels in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. You'll traipse through catacombs and dungeons and workshops and other horror standbys, R. Montague's Mount  For anyone curious, it turns out Dear Esther is NOT improved by adding vague puzzles and a spooky Poser model child. This one has you explore a dreary Irish island where something horrible killed everyone, but other than a teleporting tot there are no scares to be had here. Just empty shacks and awkward puzzles and lots of backtracking and a terrible, terrible tutorial bit at the beginning. Absolutely not worth your time. Too Shy Guy fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 17:21
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fatherboxx posted:Planetary Annihilation is feature complete though? Sure it is badly designed, but it is nowhere nearly "early tech demo". I don't remember people criticizing Natural Selection 2 for using youtube videos instead of a proper tutorial. The rundown on PA for anyone who missed it: -Ran a Kickstarter promising backers exclusive demo access. -Then immediately launched on Steam, at a much lower cost than you had to pay to get access on the Kickstarter (which was like $90?). Some people excused this as the Kickstarter people getting in early so "exclusive access" wasn't a total lie, but it's still sleazy. -At launch the game was only feature-complete in the pure "we're clearly just avoiding lawsuits" kind of way. For example, the planetary annihilation animation sometimes didn't work so you spend a whole game crashing two things together and they just disappear. Just you know, little oversights like the namesake of the game not being tested. I've heard it got patched up, and I'm not really mad because I got it in a flash sale, never spend more than you're okay with for the game at its current level of completion and so on, but the game deserves to be planted right on top of the poo poo pile for all people to see. Hav posted:The thread was generally peeved with the lack of offline support, but they supplied that on October 9th. People are saying it wasn't done at launch, and you're saying they patched it after launch. Those two things don't contradict each other. The purpose of going through Early Access and having a launch is supposed to be that it's done. It wasn't. And that's the third major strike for PA. In context, PA is a unique and useful entry into the list of bad Early Access games. It's from an all-star dev team, they had buckets of cash, and they still screwed up. That's a word of warning for anyone who's overly optimistic about Early Access. If you want to asterisk that it got patched, great. But the whole thing was still very sleazy.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:35
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revdrkevind posted:The rundown on PA for anyone who missed it: $90 was the Kickstarter alpha price, but it was also the EA launch price. In fact there was a reverse uproar because PA was the first EA game to hold to the Kickstarter asking price so as not to offend backers. Orv fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 17:37
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Anyone play Dungeon of the Endless on Steam? Haven't played a roguelike and the added tower defense elements make it seem more thrilling. Opinions?
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Oct 29, 2014 17:40
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Orv posted:$90 was the Kickstarter alpha price, but it was also the EA launch price. In fact there was a reverse uproar because PA was the first EA game to hold to the Kickstarter asking price so as not to offend backers. Yeah. People could at least try to get their facts straight.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:41
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revdrkevind posted:-Then immediately launched on Steam, at a much lower cost than you had to pay to get access on the Kickstarter (which was like $90?). Some people excused this as the Kickstarter people getting in early so "exclusive access" wasn't a total lie, but it's still sleazy. You've posted this twice in this thread now and have been corrected both times. The original price of PA when it launched on Steam matched the price of access from the Kickstarter. I don't even give a poo poo about PA but I very much remember the furor when it launched on Steam for $90 and people had to explain why it was marked up so high. If you're going to knock the game at least get your facts straight.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:42
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Yeah. People could at least try to get their facts straight. I'm not thrilled with the outcome of PA either, but it was pretty great to see their new attempt to fleece people fail miserably.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:42
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Hav posted:The latest one? People appear to be receiving it well, if a little lukewarm, but better than Jagged Alliance 2. I think you meant JA3 or Back In Action. Yeah, it seem better but only because BIA was complete poo poo. Carmageddon devs are cutting corners like crazy and they won't update the game until the release which is against the whole EA idea. I don't expect it to be as good as the original Carmageddon. Planetary Annihilation is even funnier in that the devs started another KS right after releasing the game and it failed miserably.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:43
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kidRiot posted:Anyone play Dungeon of the Endless on Steam? Quoting myself from earlier in the thread: Broken Cog posted:Can't speak of Coin Crypt, but Dungeon of the endless is a fairly solid roguelite. You start off with 2 members and have to explore a floor of the dungeon, using energy(represented by dust in-game) to power the rooms you pass through. Every time you enter a door to a new area, there is a chance for monsters to spawn in every unlit room, so you have to balance your energy to avoid getting overwhelmed. There's also resources you use for different stuff, like building modules in your powered rooms, level/heal your heroes, research new tech, or hire new members/buy equipment. The goal of each level is to find the exit, and bring the crystal from the beginning of the level there.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:45
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Sanitarium just showed up on Steam at the discounted price of $6. I actually have the CDs for this one from a bargain bin ages ago, but for some reason I could never get it to run on any of my systems. It's supposed to be a classic horror adventure game, so if this turns out to be a solid port of it I'll probably get it and (hopefully) be able to play it at last.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:48
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And Wasteland 2 launched without a hitch and I less trust in inXile than anyone because they hadn't done anything noteworthy in... well, maybe ever. I don't know how they survived Hunted, that game couldn't have made any money unless Bethesda seriously floated that game. But goodness, the difference between Wasteland's final version and the initial beta from last December (which was downright unplayable) is like night and day. Gives me hope for Torment and Obsidian's game. e: I wouldn't call Sanitarium a "classic" but it's certainly a cult game. It has its own issues but there's certainly nothing like it.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:49
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