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Game Date?

John Yossarian

Magister
Joined
May 8, 2006
Messages
1,000
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Pianosa
Now I feel bad about nagging you guys on the video.

Let's say it sells few enough copies (knock on wood) for you to call it a failure. Would you call it quits because you consider AoD type games won't interest enough people, or because you wouldn't be able to/want to keep/recruit a team?

I'm pretty confident it will do well though. Not well enough for VD to quit his day job, but enough for them to continue.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
John Yossarian said:
Let's say it sells few enough copies (knock on wood) for you to call it a failure. Would you call it quits because you consider AoD type games won't interest enough people, or because you wouldn't be able to/want to keep/recruit a team?
Both. If AoD turns out to be a good game that didn't sell enough, that would mean that the publishers did know better and nobody's interested in games like that. There would be no reason to continue then. If AoD turns out to be a crappy game, well, then there would be no reason to waste anyone's time making another crappy game.

I'm pretty confident it will do well though. Not well enough for VD to quit his day job, but enough for them to continue.
Let's hope.
 

Hümmelgümpf

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
2,949
Location
St. Petersburg, Russia
The worst scenario hasn't been described, though.

AoD may do too well. Iron Tower may earn millions of dollars. And it would be their doom. Cars, women, luxury - there would be no point to continiue, for the team members would have everything they could possibly dream of. But the fans would demand more AoD goodness. And Vince would make the only logical decision - he would sell the AoD license to Bethesda.
 

MountainWest

Scholar
Joined
May 29, 2006
Messages
630
Location
Over there
Elhoim said:
4. What's your conditions, Elhoim, to work on a second game?

Like you all know, I started doing this just because I love this game, not as a way to get rich. Now I have the opportunity to make a living out of this, but my conditions are simple: To get enough money to live until the next project comes out. The good thing is that the exchange rate benefits me. :)

Heh, well, you know, even if AoD bombs sales wise - the RPG Gods forbid - you'd have a very nice feather in your hat if you were to approach another studio.

VD said:
Depends on different factors. I'd say selling 5,000 copies won't be bad for the first game. Mount & Blade sold more than 10k, but that's an action game. If we are talking about the money, depends on the distribution costs. If we go through portals, that would cost us 30-40%. We'd also advertise, that would cost us too. Etc.

It's funny how '5000' at the same time can sound as such a small number and as such a huge fucking gigantic number. I see the same small group of people discussing the game every week - hardly a base big enough to infuse a sense of "AoD will sell like motherfucker" - but there must be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousand people out there sufing the waves who'd love an intelligent RPG. Even starving for a good TB RPG. In the light of the latter 5000 sound like a drop in the ocean.

I guess in the end, presupposing the game's good, it all comes down to how many people you can get to know the game even exists. Well, there's also the possibility that the world actually is right and that we truly are a select group of grumpy blind bastards clinging to an idea that utterly sucks. Mayhap we are the creationists of gaming.

They are interested and they have no conditions. They are very passionate guys and they don't look at it as an opportunity to make money. Take Nick, for example. He works on the game each day until 2am. His university exams start this Friday and he didn't have time to study properly. That's some serious dedication and I doubt that he would want - be able to - do it all over again for a symbolic fee of 1,000 dollars for each year spent.

Yeah, I didn't mean "conditions" as the team demanding anything. More like their own idea of what constitutes a minimum quality of life getting in the way. As you said (with other words), there's a lot of fun stuff to do with your days, but you can't escape the fact that at the end of the month the bills have to be paid.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
28,024
MountainWest said:
It's funny how '5000' at the same time can sound as such a small number and as such a huge fucking gigantic number. I see the same small group of people discussing the game every week - hardly a base big enough to infuse a sense of "AoD will sell like motherfucker" - but there must be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousand people out there sufing the waves who'd love an intelligent RPG.
Well, PST and Arcanum sales tell me that this group is very, very small. Arcanum sold what? 80,000 copies? And that was a properly published and advertised game.

Even starving for a good TB RPG. In the light of the latter 5000 sound like a drop in the ocean.
I track AoD's reaction and see what people think and the results aren't in my favor. The graphics seem to be the deal-breaker for a LOT of people. Even NMA - a bastion of die-hard Fallout fans - is following the trend:

"i dont like the playmobil-ish graphics style...

just look at the characters, they look very amateurish.

the whole game looks amateurish... but it still could get a really cool game. looks like the gameplay will be good and that's an important point."

"Well....yea, it looks amateurish. They're using an engine that hasn't been updated since about 1996. Even by the graphics standards of two or three years later, it looks pretty crappy, and they acknowledge that in one of the sections of AoD's website.

Regardless of the graphics, it looks great, and I really do hope they pull it off. If they do, I'll buy a copy. Despite the fact that I've got a Mac. It's just a good idea to help out people who are actually trying to make interesting turn-based RPGs."

"While I don't think the 3D is that bad, the interface designer certainly needs a little bit more education when it comes to graphical contrast.

Intentional or not, the lack of visual distinction between some of the interface elements and the background is an eye-sore."

"These screenshots look like they could benefit from pure renderer improvements,i.e. shader effects. "

These are not bad comments, but the question of graphics is there. And that's NMA, like I said. So, overall, I think I can count on 500-600 orders. Anything above that is...
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
I heard the engine was easy to port to the Mac, have you guys thought about doing that? The Mac market has been a pretty decent one for indies, I know Vogel makes a good deal of his money there, and I think a game like this would probably get a wamr reception. If it'd be easy to do, it's a thought.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
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Oct 27, 2006
Messages
2,878
Location
San Isidro, Argentina
almondblight said:
I heard the engine was easy to port to the Mac, have you guys thought about doing that? The Mac market has been a pretty decent one for indies, I know Vogel makes a good deal of his money there, and I think a game like this would probably get a wamr reception. If it'd be easy to do, it's a thought.

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/in ... topic=37.0

"Well, GarageGames guys claim that TGE 1.3 can be compiled under Mac. And though we didn't try, that means yes - there is a good chance."
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
No idea.

One of the most amusing comments I've seen was that AoD looks like a Diablo rip-off. I wouldn't even know what to say to that.
 

Serious_Business

Best Poster on the Codex
Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Messages
3,904
Location
Frown Town
Depressing.

"These screenshots look like they could benefit from pure renderer improvements,i.e. shader effects. "

I don't even know what the fuck this means. "Pure renderer improvements", i.e. "shader effects" (that's supposed to be helpful right?). I hope he would choke on his pure renderer improvements, seriously.
 

Zhirzzh

Scholar
Joined
Nov 24, 2007
Messages
191
Vault Dweller said:
So, overall, I think I can count on 500-600 orders. Anything above that is...

Doesn't Vogel sell around 5k? His games have awful graphics, so your game should be able to do better on that front.
 

Amasius

Augur
Joined
Sep 24, 2006
Messages
959
Location
Thanatos
Zhirzzh said:
Vault Dweller said:
So, overall, I think I can count on 500-600 orders. Anything above that is...

Doesn't Vogel sell around 5k? His games have awful graphics, so your game should be able to do better on that front.
Yeah, but Vogel also has an established and loyal fanbase, something Iron Tower has yet to achieve.

But VD already has an exfanboy who goes nuts periodically because VD didn't caress him enough. (He's on a rampage right now and tries desperately to get banned! Yeah, fun for the whole family!) That should count for something... :lol:
 

Amasius

Augur
Joined
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Messages
959
Location
Thanatos
Who cares about truth when there is free entertainment. At least your are much more entertaining than all the wannabe trolls and lulz-kids because you are really cuckoo. :D
 

MountainWest

Scholar
Joined
May 29, 2006
Messages
630
Location
Over there
Vault Dweller said:

I myself voiced some complaints against Elhoim back in the big "new interface"-thread. However, since then he's just become so much better in my opinion. Hell, he became better during the interface thread. And the latest batch of work, the armors he's done, is outstanding. Mayhap he just needed to settle into the role. Mayhap he just needed to master the tools. Mayhap he was a dirty diamond lost in a puddle of mud, now cleaned up, put in a dress and allowed to shine. Who knows? It's a mystary as deep and intricate as if vowen by the vivid imagination of dear old Doyle.

Point is, I know he's become a hella better. Others don't.

With that said, anyone not buying a game because he thinks the "interface looks amateurish" can go fuck himself.

Saw the new video over at the ITS forums, by the way. It lacks in length obviously, but the speed increase in combat makes it look a lot more fun than it did the last time around. Good work.

Oh, Jedi seem to be crazy aga... as usual. Good fun.
 

Zhirzzh

Scholar
Joined
Nov 24, 2007
Messages
191
Jedi_Learner said:
You are so wrong Amasius about me, but the truth won't matter tomorrow.

You're going to kill yourself? Again?

Anyway, VD has the Codex, and I'm sure some Spiderweb fans would come over.
 

pkt-zer0

Scholar
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
594
Serious_Business said:
I don't even know what the fuck this means.
Stuff that would take little effort to implement (no extra content creation needed), but improve visuals. TGE lacks shader support as far as I know, anyway.
 

Disconnected

Scholar
Joined
Dec 17, 2007
Messages
609
Man.. I can't believe I've gone out of lurking mode just to write this. But..

PS:T and Arcanum are great examples of games that every gamer I know own a copy of, and which none of us knew existed until one of us happened to get a copy by pure, dumb luck. I'd hardly call either "advertised". Still, you can chalk up some 15 copies of each to my peer group.

Unlike those games though, at least some of your audience knows AoD might go gold one day, have machines that'll run it even if the engine's a bigger hog than Obsidian's, and who're old enough to have our own credit cards. Best of all, you'll be releasing it into a genre vacuum - which is why even though AoDs setting doesn't strike a chord with me, it's still the game I'm most eager to get to play.

And for the record, I am a graphics whore. Barring one, as are all the gamers I know (and that one guy who scoffs at the pretties is unemployed, so I suspect he's just trying to convince himself, hehe). 8800GTX machine? Sure, I've got two. Pretty shooters? Fuck yeah!

But it's still AoD I'm anticipating, not CryBoooring, CODpiece No. 5 or gameplayFellOut 3. So take heart, yeh? You do have an audience. One that's pretty much dying to play something like AoD. Your biggest obstacle is getting word out so some other flock of gamers don't pick up AoD by accident 5-10 years from now, and wonder why nobody ever told them about that brilliant, timeless classic of ages past. Which is what happened to PS:T and Arcanum (Obscura.. heh, perhaps they jinxed themselves?).

.. I'll crawl back under my bridge now.

Or not. Just wanted to add you might want to heed the contrast comment. Colour is pretty critical for conveying information through icons.
 

El Duke

Novice
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
5
I don't think your lack of artistic direction ( or the quality of it ) is the cause for the pessimism about the graphics. The art direction and quality are fine, specially considering this is an indie game made on such a limited engine. It's just that the old Torque engine really does looks outdated and amateurish and most gamers are sensitive about the graphical aspect of a game. Nothing to really do about it.

Why didn't you guys used Torque game engine advanced or any other of the cheap modern game engines though? I understand at this point it's too much of a hassle to remake or upgrade most of the graphics, but TGEA was released a year ago ( if I'm not mistaken) and there's been recently notable upgrades for the standard Torque engine.. I don't really know what's the effort behind upgrading from Torque 1.3 to one of the new versions though. Was it because it's too time consuming/difficult to switch to Torque 1.5 or to TGEA?

I'm currently working on TGEA and I must say I'm impressed by it's graphic capabilities. It's already outdated( as it must be with such a cheap and acessible engine), but it holds it's own against most game engines from 2004-2005, and it obviously does much better because of the massive improvement on standard video cards. I deffinately reccomend it for future Iron Tower projects.

Anyways, best of luck. I'm deffinately getting the game when it's out.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
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Messages
2,878
Location
San Isidro, Argentina
When the switch to 3D was made, TGEA was too crude and unstable to be a viable choice. And even tough we are using the 1.3 version, our programmer included several enhancements from latter versions, making it more than a barebones 1.3

And yeah, the switch to TGEA would probably take more time that we can afford right now, while the only advantage would be a graphical one. The graphics right now are decent enough, or at least they won´t scare customers away, and that´s good enough.

But for future projects is a very nice option, especially considering the experience we have already gained with Torque.
 
Joined
Oct 8, 2006
Messages
172
Elhoim said:
The graphics right now are decent enough, or at least they won´t scare customers away, and that´s good enough.

If by 'not scaring customers away' you mean that the graphics aren't so bad that customers who are already interested in purchasing will be dissuaded, then yes that appears to be the case. However, your main problem will the game's graphics serving as a barrier to entry by additional customers. Personally speaking, I was impressed when VD showed off the 2d characters and animations a while ago; they looked fantastic for an indie project. My opinion of the state of the game in 3d as it stands is that it looks fugly. In terms of judging standards, a shift in paradigm occurs when you switch to 3d, and right now AoD simply looks too far behind the curve. You'd need to be confident that the gameplay will blast people's socks off.
 

Nick

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
Messages
317
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Over the hills and far away
El Duke said:
...from Torque 1.3 to ... Torque 1.5
For the sake of... what?

Too time consuming. If it was a first year of development, or at least a second... Now I prefer finishing the game faster to getting shaders, bump and trackload of new bugs.

Anyways, best of luck.
Thanks.
 

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