Mustawd
Guest
Making what decisions?
The meme is “bean counters decide on what games should be made”.
And we should go back to arguing about something we all agree on - like your shitty taste in rpgs.
Sure. Whatever.
Making what decisions?
And we should go back to arguing about something we all agree on - like your shitty taste in rpgs.
I rarely check the refund data because
Have you ever received good input from this? I'm wondering because historically I have taken the time to explain why I refunded a product and it usually boils down to me explaining why their product was mislabeled as an rpg or my having a hissy fit over how savage their UI and controls where. Is there a chance a dev would read it and be like, "yeah, of course we have to add in rebindable keys! This isn't 1982 and we aren't filthy savage animals. We are human beings for crying out loud! Our control functionality is the like having ASCII graphics. He's right! Let's fix this STAT" Or are the like - "My control scheme is the best ever and there is no reason anyone would ever want to change it!" I've also returned games that were borderline but them including the "Check this out something retarded with the Steam controller picture" on their store page and promoting the uncivilized savageness of using a controller on a PC game caused me to refund. I just don't get it. Its like a hot dog stand advertising they have mustard, ketchup, and feces as toppings. Who the fuck would want to put feces on a hot dog? I honestly can't imagine why someone would do it or that they have a big enough population to cater to, especially considering all the normal people that will walk by their stand because they are advertising shit as a topping.
The game isn't for them, that's all there's to it.
These are full-scale games sold at full price. We're talking about a $5 game put together in 10 months. I'm not asking if it's a great game (it's not) or how to sell a million copies (you can't), I'm asking if there's a 100k copies market for such games.
It's complicated.
First, each game has an expiration date (at which point it's mostly forgotten and no longer being talked about, which is the most vital aspect). For many indie games it's about a year or less. We managed to stretch it to 2 years, which is quite a feat, but this period ended 5 months ago. I believe that discounts will be less effective after the 'expiration date' so waiting until people stop talking about it and then offering deeper discounts to entice them is a losing strategy because your game will be invisible by then. So like it or not, we have to go through the full discount cycle while there's still some interest.
We ran 15% off 3 times. The first sale was ok, the second kinda ok, the third sale wasn't very effective at all. So we moved to 25% off, rinse and repeat.
Second, we didn't go overboard with YT-bers, we gave away maybe 50 keys, which cost us nothing and not a lost sale. If a YT-ber has even a 1,000 subscribers and only 50 people would watch his/her AoD video and only 1 person would buy it, it's already more than we would have had otherwise. If anything, maybe we were too conservative there. Essentially, it's free publicity no matter how you look at it.
Edit: Just got a notification that 6 games I once wanted to buy are on sale now, 50-75% off discounts. It's nice but I've already moved on, have other games I bought but didn't have a chance to play much yet, or games I'll definitely buy in the near future. So, not too little but definitely too late.
So the only question here is do we spend 12 months on a tactical game or switch to the next full-scale RPG right away.
I rarely check the refund data because... well, see for yourself:
Combat is impossible, if you can't even survive the first encounter after trying it multiple times then whats the point in even playing the game.
I didnt think you'd be force to fight people in this game, i chose a loremaster expecting to not have to fight people, but i have to and end up dying everytime i try to complete the main quest.
i dont have the brainpower for this game
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It doesn't work when you do it as your first game but it can work as a follow up. We just need to tweak the formula.Going back to my other post I mentioned I had seen people try what you have done by making a game, so they could make the one they really like, and all it got them was poorer and older.
The press isn't a factor, although getting 4 reviews to get a proper rating on metacritic would have been nice. We only got 2 for DR so the game shall remain in rating limbo for eternity.You want to get more out of your existing investment and give the press reason to report you.
Jeff is a one-man band. Like Rambo he can survive where others can't.Also would Spiderweb still be around if he followed the AAA way and made new assets for every game? I don't think he would and he's said as much in the past.
Yes, same model as AoD: combat demo, full demo, early access when have 50% of the content until all content is added, final release, 6 months of post-release support and extra content.Btw. are you considering some kind of early-access backing-beta for The New World (similar to AoD)? I would like to pay in advance and get to try builds/demos to track the progress until the final release.
Thus moving to a brand new setting with different systems is the safest bet even though it looks like the riskiest.
Change the names why? Because playing as Tough Bastard instead of Murderous Psychopath was so humiliating? There is a reason why games keep getting easier, why Hard became the new Normal and it has nothing to do with the naming conventions.
Storyfags.And what is this reason?
Because players want to play a badass (heroic fantasy) but playing a badass on Easy feels wrong. So it has to be on Hard but without any real effort.Change the names why? Because playing as Tough Bastard instead of Murderous Psychopath was so humiliating? There is a reason why games keep getting easier, why Hard became the new Normal and it has nothing to do with the naming conventions.
And what is this reason?
Because players want to play a badass (heroic fantasy) but playing a badass on Easy feels wrong. So it has to be on Hard but without any real effort.
Since AoD's #1 complaint was difficulty, we added 3 difficulty modes in DR to see if it solves the problem. To be honest, I was pretty sure it would but I had many conversations with very upset people who showed me the error of my ways.
One person was convinced that we made Hard and Normal too hard on purpose, to humiliate players and force them to play on Easy (as if we have nothing better to do). I tried to explain that Hard is for people who like challenging fights but that upset him even more, as if he wasn't good enough. So he couldn't play on Hard but refused to play on Easy or Normal. Oddly enough, quite a few players felt they were humiliated.
Another person felt that he deserved to win because he was a veteran player who beat Dragon Age on Hard (usually people namedrop Baldur's Gate to impress me with their credentials) and he shouldn't have to give enemies penalties (that's how the lower difficulty modes work) in order to beat the game. So again the reason is that the victory didn't feel so good if you know that you had to cripple the enemies. It has to feel real so next time we'll go with these difficulties: Hero, Great Hero, the Greatest Hero. No penalties to enemies, that's just wrong, but your super saiyan powers will grow exponentially with each difficulty level. The harder the game, the easier it should be.
i thought that hard diffs are about exploiting game and its systems, not being good.
Like in old arcades where beating bosses was about finding loop holes in their AI
Good point.Dungeon Rats had some really cool parts. The big battles with human enemies, the ancient high tech area with the robots, they're all pretty cool.
But you need to have a good start to grab people. When the very first thing you have to do is hunt ants, that's not really exciting, especially when you're promised a big prison break right from the start.
Pacing at the beginning is important.