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jesus maybe they don't want to work that hard. you aren't entitled to what you think you are. relax
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Aug 17, 2021 01:41
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another flash in the pan game, oh well
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Aug 17, 2021 01:43
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As we all know, development is linear. If you double the programmers you get double the game so clearly if they had hired 1000 programmers they'd have finished their entire roadmap by now. The hundred million dollars or whatever they made on sales entitles us to this.
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Aug 17, 2021 01:44
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xzzy posted:As we all know, development is linear. If you double the programmers you get double the game so clearly if they had hired 1000 programmers they'd have finished their entire roadmap by now. The hundred million dollars or whatever they made on sales entitles us to this. I work for a big software company and they think exactly that. Of course, it's run by business executives and routinely refer to their developers as "human capital".
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Aug 17, 2021 01:56
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pik_d posted:They were simply woefully unprepared for the success they had. Small studios like them just don't have the ability to churn out updates on the scale you want them to. Waiting and coming back to the game later is the best thing to do right now. The other option for them was to try and keep up with it and completely burn themselves out, which would be even worse in the long run. That 2-handed staff in the middle of the video looks interesting and I really like blocking not draining your stamina. Text on the stamina bar is nice to have. Not so sure about the stagger meter cluttering up the screen some though.
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Aug 17, 2021 02:52
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Fifty years later, Fred Brooks is still a voice crying in the wilderness
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Aug 17, 2021 02:53
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Floppychop posted:I work for a big software company and they think exactly that. Of course, it's run by business executives and routinely refer to their developers as "human capital". No small team believes this. They hit the jackpot and now they're probably paralyzed with the knowledge that they almost certainly can't manage the same feat twice and any update could ruin the magic that was. That's probably terrifying. What we get will be pretty cool in subtle ways, but not meet the needs of a vocal contingent who's like "we waited for this?!" which will just make part of the team take their money and enjoy a few years on an island or something.
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Aug 17, 2021 03:56
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IMO Valheim's wild success was based mostly on a feeling of "finally, this, THIS is the Next Gen Minecraft I've been waiting ten years for." If they want to be multibillionaires they'll lean hard into that, by way of lots more biomes and making it easier to mass-modify terrain and build huge, complex constructions. (That last part might be impossible with this engine, I dunno.) The stuff they're doing in H&H (adding more fine-detail options for builds) is cool and good, but probably best left to the modders while the team concerns itself with adding more biomes and explorable constructs.
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Aug 17, 2021 04:07
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Eric the Mauve posted:IMO Valheim's wild success was based mostly on a feeling of "finally, this, THIS is the Next Gen Minecraft I've been waiting ten years for." If they want to be multibillionaires they'll lean hard into that, by way of lots more biomes and making it easier to mass-modify terrain and build huge, complex constructions. (That last part might be impossible with this engine, I dunno.) Yeah this was exactly the itch that it scratched. It was so god damned fun going out exploring with bros, and then setting up covert mining ops so you could beat them to the next tier of stuff  Which sadly does lead to a rapid consumption of content. And while it's not really fair to compare it to Minecraft and it's 10+ years of development lead, it's sad realizing that this probably won't be that game. Which again I'm not blaming them for, I would take the money too, but as a consumer of said game, 
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Aug 17, 2021 04:22
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:The game is pretty clearly dead. They haven't even talked about finishing the biomes or adding anything substantive. They made 9 figures from the game and have farted around for 6 months fiddling with food recipes.
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Aug 17, 2021 04:46
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boloney posted:jesus maybe they don't want to work that hard. Yeah, I feel like it ultimately boils down to this. They have absolutely zero need, let alone obligation, to be working at maximum effort to churn out as much more content as possible to MAXIMIZE PROFITS or whatever. But that doesn't mean they're gonna drop it. This game is clearly a labour of love, and they're free to work on it at whatever pace they're comfortable with.
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Aug 17, 2021 07:51
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Yeah, I missed the initial wave of fervour for this game and only bought it a month or so ago, but have managed to sink a ton of hours into it playing multiplayer with my wife and some friends. At least 100 hours so far, so for the low price I paid for it I absolutely got my money's worth and do not grudge the slow pace now. I've had a blast and can see playing for another 100+ hours easy even if nothing is added, I haven't even explored the plains yet - we are still busy gathering iron at a swamp so that I can build a castle. Yes, there are less people playing the game now than there were before, and the next update seems to be coming slowly, but it is still coming. I've paid more for AAA games that were abandoned much faster after "release" and which had less content (measured in hours-played), and that's OK too. I find it kind of aggravating that so many people have this attitude of "they owe us more" when they owe nothing. On the other hand, I am really pleased with how the team seems to be thinking about their next steps and growing in a manageable way, it shows a lot of maturity in project management and hopefully good long-term vision for where the game will go. The team that built it originally are hopefully filthy rich now and can basically work on this for as long as it makes them happy, and I hope that is for many years to come - but if not, I hope their next game is also this good.
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Aug 17, 2021 08:09
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i just started playing this game with a bud and we're just now pulling in large iron hauls. IDK what else is gonna happen with this game but I've definitely got my 20 bucks out of it after obsessively staying in a discord voice chat with an old friend for two weeks. We'll probably get through to the end of the current content in a few more weeks and then revisit it in a few years once its more filled out. Lots of stuff to do between now and then.
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Aug 17, 2021 08:18
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I grabbed this game with a mate and we started playing, then a bunch of other mates jumped on board. I remember one of us saying "I don't think I've had a full night's sleep since this released" and we laughed and laughed because it was true. I'll probably wait a year or two after the Hearth and Home update to jump back in. This game cost $20 and I've more than got what I paid for.
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Aug 17, 2021 08:30
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Yeah it was a fun romp with friends and it somehow did enough things right to make it feel very compelling to build your viking houses and defend them from monster raids and if the game didn't have uncomplete biomes sitting empty it'd probably feel like a more finished experience. I wonder if in the future their engine would be able to handle water at different elevations then sea level without losing the ocean waves, especially the tidal waves during storms, would add a lot to have randomly generated waterfalls and mountain lakes half frozen.
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Aug 17, 2021 08:35
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:New hires will not be "splitting the money" they will be hired on for salaries. The money has already been had and the 2 or 3 new people won't be getting a cut. Depends on the Company. Everyone who joined the Fall Guy's team after that game released got a giant bonus this year, even if they weren't on the team before the initial wave. But yeah, in general I agree with the sentiment that they can work on this at whatever pace they want. They're actual people, there is absolutely 20 bucks worth of content in there already, they're not going to slave away because some rear end in a top hat at home wants them to.
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Aug 17, 2021 12:19
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Flesh Forge posted:another flash in the pan game, oh well I dunno, ROI of this game is pretty damned solid. I agree that some fleshing out would be nice, and more minecraft type development, but come on, did you not get your monies worth?
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Aug 17, 2021 13:32
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No one is saying the game isn't worth $20. Not one person has made that claim in this entire thread. So when someone rightfully points out that the game is unfinished, i.e multiple empty biomes and a placeholder item from the final boss, "why are you complaining, this game is $20?" isn't really addressing the point being made, at all. It's a great game- maybe the game of the year. At $20 it's an insane value. That doesn't mean people can't express disappointment at the huge revenue not translating to a reasonably speedy completion of the game, or the addition of any substantive content at all.
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Aug 17, 2021 14:35
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But you gotta admit the undercurrent of "ugh another abandoned early access game, why do I buy these things" is a bit tiring.
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Aug 17, 2021 14:38
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To 'satisfy' me that progress is getting made I don't even need ALL THE BIOMES, NOW. I'd just like some communication outside of a screencap with a few new decorations and a video showing they've changed the HP/Stamina values of food a little. I know it's a dangerous thing for them to say "our plan for the mistlands is ____" because a sizable portion of the playerbase will be pissed that those changes don't happen within a week. But people like me just want to know they have a plan going forward even if it will take 18 months, I have plenty of other games to occupy my time until then. edit: xzzy posted:But you gotta admit the undercurrent of "ugh another abandoned early access game, why do I buy these things" is a bit tiring. I supposed you're probably lumping me into that, but my thoughts are "Another early access game spinning its wheels, but at least I got $20 worth out of it. Bummer, because I'd like to see it finished" Floppychop fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Aug 17, 2021 |
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Aug 17, 2021 14:41
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:That doesn't mean people can't express disappointment at the huge revenue not translating to a reasonably speedy completion of the game This isn't how software development works. More money and more people for proprietary software means you need to spend time getting those people up to speed. If anything it slows down development initially.
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Aug 17, 2021 14:49
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:No one is saying the game isn't worth $20. Not one person has made that claim in this entire thread. So when someone rightfully points out that the game is unfinished, i.e multiple empty biomes and a placeholder item from the final boss, "why are you complaining, this game is $20?" isn't really addressing the point being made, at all. Neither is anyone saying that the game isn't unfinished, nor that we wouldn't love to have more content already. I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread would be happy to already have a finished new biome to play in. The problem is when people start acting like whiny pissbabies about it, and doomsaying poo poo like "Ohhh we've heard nothing in so many months, obviously this game is dead and abandoned, hurr blurr", and don't understand that game development is some really complex poo poo and you can't just magically transform money into content immediately. They've already hired more devs (who, by the way, don't grow on trees, especially when your company is based in a small town in Sweden and there's a dangerous pandemic going on), I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be doing that if they were planning on abandoning the game.
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Aug 17, 2021 15:25
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From their last update they said: We’re also happy to share that we have three new vikings joining the Iron Gate team next month, a programmer, an animator, and a QA Manager, who we’ll introduce you to soon. I am actually really glad that those are the roles they filled, the fact that there's a QA Manager joining this small team already to me says that they plan to add a ton of poo poo that is likely to need QA. That (and the programmer+animator) probably means it's going to be complicated poo poo and not just more models of gold coins or whatever. If I had to guess I would say a lot of new creatures in the world need to be added to keep the animator busy, and that would also keep the new programmer partly busy. That probably wouldn't keep the QA person 100% busy so the existing staff will probably keep working to flesh out the game further. So the picture I see is that they plan to make the game more complicated over a longer period, and they're setting up the infrastructure to support that kind of development organization. As has been mentioned a few times already in this thread - and also in earlier posts (the AMA?) by the developers - you can't just grow a team or company by 3x in a month and expect to make a ton of progress. On the contrary that big of a personnel and culture shift is more likely to throw your plans off the rails and could potentially cause a whole company to fail.
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Aug 17, 2021 15:53
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Considering their wildly successful launch they could relaunch the game in a year or two when it's mostly complete and do really well. Maybe some other game will pop up in the mean time and be the next big thing but hey, they've made enough money to not care if they want to maintain the game for a smaller playerbase.
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Aug 17, 2021 15:58
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i'm looking forward to redecorating and killing yagluth when H&H comes out. if we get anything beyond that it's really just icing.
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Aug 17, 2021 16:50
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Nordick posted:whiny pissbabies lol the game is not your mommy dude, check yourself
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Aug 17, 2021 17:00
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Brandfarlig posted:Considering their wildly successful launch they could relaunch the game in a year or two when it's mostly complete and do really well. Maybe some other game will pop up in the mean time and be the next big thing but hey, they've made enough money to not care if they want to maintain the game for a smaller playerbase. Yeah re-release with a bunch of fanfare and all the people skittish of early access buy.
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Aug 17, 2021 17:13
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Ive learned long ago there's no way to comment on valheim's dev speed or communication on any forum. You just look like a dick no matter what you say or how you phrase it or how much you emphasize this doesn't mean you're ungrateful in any way to what you've gotten do far. I just leave it alone. You get lumped into the bottom of the barrel internet Karen group no matter how grateful or understanding you are.
Blaise330 fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Aug 17, 2021 |
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Aug 17, 2021 17:14
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dogstile posted:This isn't how software development works. More money and more people for proprietary software means you need to spend time getting those people up to speed. If anything it slows down development initially. But it’s a unity game? The solid community mod support kinda points at it not actually being that burdensome to onboard productive dev resources. If it’s not the direction they want to go in for how to manage their future that’s fine and their choice (id probably say gently caress it and take the money and chill too) but let’s not pretend like it’s absolutely impossible for them to have picked up the pace here if that was their goal.
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Aug 17, 2021 17:25
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I mean what is there even to say? "I wish there was more good stuff in the game " "Ok." "Boy game development takes time, huh?" "Sure does." It's mystifying.
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Aug 17, 2021 17:29
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causticBeet posted:But it’s a unity game? The solid community mod support kinda points at it not actually being that burdensome to onboard productive dev resources. If it’s not the direction they want to go in for how to manage their future that’s fine and their choice (id probably say gently caress it and take the money and chill too) but let’s not pretend like it’s absolutely impossible for them to have picked up the pace here if that was their goal. Being a unity game doesn't mean they haven't completely hosed around with the backend (although I doubt they've done that much). They probably could have picked up the pace by hiring people and telling them to have at it, but they likely have a couple of things in mind, none of which i'd blame them for. 1. They may want to stick to their rigid vision of the game, which discourages hiring just anyone. 2. They weren't prepared (i think it's this one) and are ramping up slowly while they decide how to proceed 3. They've gotten more than expected and have taken some time to change their strategy instead of pump out content All are fine, but then i've got about 1000 games to get through personally, i don't really mind.
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Aug 17, 2021 17:30
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the changes they are making to blocking and food stats make a lot of sense though. i'm actually pretty positive about that last dev blog it looks really promising.
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Aug 17, 2021 18:23
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Again, I honestly think they could just: 1) Remove the unfinished biomes. 2) Make Yagluth the final boss. 3) Make some sort of end credits which tease future Forsaken. Then nobody would really have complaints about the current state of the game. It is essentially finished already; they only need to find the wherewithal to reduce scope and commit to future content being labeled "updates" or "expansions". I don't imagine the changes to do this would be difficult. They would free themselves to move at whatever pace they wanted while eliminating community concerns about the game being in an unfinished state.
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Aug 17, 2021 18:40
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PittTheElder posted:Yeah this was exactly the itch that it scratched. It was so god damned fun going out exploring with bros, and then setting up covert mining ops so you could beat them to the next tier of stuff Minecraft has also added surprisingly little in that decade and updates incredibly slowly. They announced the most recent update last year and it won't be until later this year that they actually release it. If it takes them a year for a small update and presumably were just as slow for previous updates, I have extremely slow expectations for Valheim progress.
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Aug 17, 2021 18:43
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HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:Again, I honestly think they could just: Yeah it's not that I'm trying to be overentitled or ungrateful but I'm running around whole rear end empty CONTINENTS, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Ashlands looks like some debug mode test zone.
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Aug 17, 2021 19:11
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Yeah. And like even finding the empty Mistlands and mostly empty Burned Lands or whatever they're called was cool as hell. It just seems like such a strange move not to prioritize finishing those.Khanstant posted:Minecraft has also added surprisingly little in that decade and updates incredibly slowly. They announced the most recent update last year and it won't be until later this year that they actually release it. If it takes them a year for a small update and presumably were just as slow for previous updates, I have extremely slow expectations for Valheim progress. Oh yeah Minecraft is a whole can of worms on it's own. Though I have to say, the Nether update was pretty great, and this summer's update with refreshed terrain and cave generation promised to be the best patch in years, right up until they took everything interesting about it and kicked it down the schedule six months.
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Aug 17, 2021 19:12
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PittTheElder posted:Yeah. And like even finding the empty Mistlands and mostly empty Burned Lands or whatever they're called was cool as hell. It just seems like such a strange move not to prioritize finishing those. They kinda need some new kind of gameplay hook. Mountains and Plains were a bit lacking aside from "go there and get your new upgrades while monsters antagonize you". I know they don't wanna put randomly generated dungeons in every biome but I imagine they might wanna have some extra "something" for the next 3 biomes that isn't just finding new plants and shiny rocks.
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Aug 17, 2021 19:19
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Blaise330 posted:They kinda need some new kind of gameplay hook. How about AI controlled forts/towns that you can attack and plunder in true viking fashion. The furling towns in the plains are a heap of fun to assault. Story wise it could be other dead vikings that Odin put here to clear out his enemies, and you have to demonstrate how you're more badass than they are.
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Aug 17, 2021 19:40
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I just popped over to r/valheim for the hell of it. Here's the current top post: My dreams of building a working canal has been ruined by this unbreakable mound of dirt About half the top-page posts are "check out my awesome megabuild." Speculating that the devs just want to take the money and run is silly, but I do feel like the game really really wants to be The New Minecraft and the devs' vision for it is "no no no this is definitely NOT MINECRAFT". Can't let players modify terrain as much as they like because (a) it makes the game too easy (definitely true, but who cares?) and (b) the realistic physics engine puts pretty severe limitations on what even high end hardware can handle, terrain mod-wise. They'd be better off ditching the physics and letting players go wild building cool poo poo. But that's probably not feasible at this stage and so we're probably talking about some future game we hope to get someday. Valheim is a cool and fun game but I think a lot of the frustration is from the fact it wants to be Minecraft, but it can't and won't ever be Minecraft. That particular itch is going almost-but-not-quite scratched and it feels so close it makes you ache.
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Aug 17, 2021 20:03
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Eric the Mauve posted:I just popped over to r/valheim for the hell of it. Here's the current top post: My dreams of building a working canal has been ruined by this unbreakable mound of dirt Personally I'm super glad that the game isn't Minecraft, because I strongly disliked Minecraft each time I had the misfortune of having some friends rope me into it, and had a ton of fun in Valheim. So I'd rather they keep bringing their own unique take to things instead of converging to some kind of perceived optimum. I'm confident engine kinks will get worked out as far as possible.
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Aug 17, 2021 20:56
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