Company News Taking Care of Business - Iron Tower Studio 2021 Business Diary

[Thonius]

Oh yeah, dialog window NWN style is uh... not my style. And if you got a big 4k monitor... rip. That's the only valid refund IMO.

 

[MurkyShadow]

There is one big problem with Colony Ship for me personally,
I couldn't care less for other games that do whatever they think a RPG is.

Godspeed gentlemen, I like what I see.

edit:
Got a friend who never played a Black Isel/Troika game hooked with Fallout 1&2.
He just finished Planescape Torment. Now that he's seen the light it's time for
the next step, Underrail and Age of Decadence. And finally then, Colony Ship.

 

[Mordru]

Are there stats on people who wanted a refund, but procrastinated submitting for one?

 

[thesheeep]

Vault Dweller
Does Steam show you a number of refunded copies?
If yes, how CS compares on that front with AoD?

About the same. Last 10 refund reasons:

- The writing is poor. 20 words are used where 5 will fit better. This makes every interaction with an NPC feels like I needed to take notes to make informed decisions. Instead it's slog of boring text after slog boring of text.
- this game came out early access but it literally has 00.1% content
- The text is way to small and hurts my eyes to read
- think a book will replace the game just fine.. There is no voice acts its all text to read ... It will give me a headic in a few hours of this.
- The overall visuals of the game gives me a headache and it's difficult to figure out the different places you can walk. On top of it the fact that there's no voice overs further adds to the headache as you're having to read a novel. Mechanically and story wise, seems interesting but just can push through the visuals and need to read everything
- Thought it would be more like Shadowrun. gameplay was slow and difficult
- I understand its early access but not even having partially voiced dialog makes the game world feel empty.
- point blank and i miss with a sub machine gun? Come on this is just stupid mechanics. This game is not fun at all to me, too archaic for this genre.
- Game too hard. Unable to progress through the game
- The game is an early access, but i died way too many times for the tutorial section, or beginning, for me to have any type of fun. Needs lots of work and balance fixes

#VDPostingGamerLs

Seriously, though, beyond the comedy gold there are a few valid criticisms there.
Or at least understandable reasons as to why one wouldn't like/refund the game.

 

[jac8awol]

Text size and being able to see what's what sound like valid points.

Vince, you are a god damn hero. Stick to your guns, don't bend the knee to pointless voice acting.

 

[Daedalos]

Don't knock good VO, please. Good VO is absolutely able to take a good game into greatness.

Bad VO can do the reverse as well, of course.

Fallout 1+2 would not be as great to me, had it had no VO work at all. That's just a fact.

 

[deuxhero]

Would it be possible to have a publisher that translates the game in exchange for a cut of sales from countries where that's the majority language?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

- point blank and i miss with a sub machine gun? Come on this is just stupid mechanics. This game is not fun at all to me, too archaic for this genre.

Someone never played Fallout

In fallout your companions didn't miss altogether, they usually hit you, or your other companions, with their trusty submachine gun.

I wonder if Ultima 5 influenced that idea. Damnit MOVE!!! (Watches as npc is chunkified by shotgun.). :/

 

[luj1]

About the same. Last 10 refund reasons:

- The writing is poor. 20 words are used where 5 will fit better.

Classic

 

[Kalin]

Vince: God isn't real that's silly this is a *serious* game OK.

Also Vince:

So here's this giant enemy frog...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It will give me a headic

 

[Jaedar]

Vince, you are a god damn hero. Stick to your guns, don't bend the knee to pointless voice acting.

This is very true, but one or two lines voiced for important characters would be a nice boon for atmosphere. Think PS:T.

And yeah, it can be a bit hard to tell where you can and can't walk sometimes, or what thing are intractable and what aren't.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm all for adding voice overs, even a few lines to define characters, but it's a major project that requires a publisher.

 

[Daedalos]

I'm all for adding voice overs, even a few lines to define characters, but it's a major project that requires a publisher.

Forgive my complete lack of understanding of how the VO business side and publisher side of things work, but is it really such a big deal to find some reasonably talented people without spending shitloads of money?

I mean quality VO doesn't just come easy, but how expensive and time consuming would it be to find a few non AAA good VO actors to do a few lines for a few bucks but alot of prestige and rep?

Nobody would be expecting AAA VO anyway, just something half-decent would do imo.

Is the implementation of said voice work also time consuming as fuck to implement?`

I'm genuinely curious of how it works in games and how it gets "made"

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

So here's this giant enemy frog...

Needs an action shot of dude punting it for a field goal. My brother kicked a toad once I saw it sailing in the air back into the Missouri bog.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

is it really such a big deal to find some reasonably talented people without spending shitloads of money?

I mean quality VO doesn't just come easy, but how expensive and time consuming would it be to find a few non AAA good VO actors to do a few lines for a few bucks but alot of prestige and rep?

MRY could answer that one for you

 

[Daedalos]

is it really such a big deal to find some reasonably talented people without spending shitloads of money?

I mean quality VO doesn't just come easy, but how expensive and time consuming would it be to find a few non AAA good VO actors to do a few lines for a few bucks but alot of prestige and rep?

MRY could answer that one for you

I guess. I am really curious to know more about the VO business. Not alot of attention it gets imo.

Like I said, my feeble gullible mind would think it works something like the real acting business, where undiscovered or relative talented nobodies will work for free, or close to, just by the chance to get some actual work done on their CV.
I guess finding diamonds in the rough that will also work for free is a hard.

 

[MRY]

I think as with everything else, it's hard to find the right people. I believe for Strangeland, it was $200 per two-hour session. For FG, it's a more haphazard approach as we have only one voice actor and I don't direct him, so I'm not sure how much time he spends "in the booth" relative to output.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I don't direct him

Why not, if I may?

 

[MRY]

I don't direct him

Why not, if I may?

I provide extensive notes and he provides multiple takes, but we work asynchronously. As it is, both our schedules are very difficult, and trying to make them sync up would be even more difficult.

 

[Kalin]

Here's some top quality VA that's absolutely free:

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm all for adding voice overs, even a few lines to define characters, but it's a major project that requires a publisher.

Forgive my complete lack of understanding of how the VO business side and publisher side of things work, but is it really such a big deal to find some reasonably talented people without spending shitloads of money?

I mean quality VO doesn't just come easy, but how expensive and time consuming would it be to find a few non AAA good VO actors to do a few lines for a few bucks but alot of prestige and rep?

Nobody would be expecting AAA VO anyway, just something half-decent would do imo.

Is the implementation of said voice work also time consuming as fuck to implement?`

I'm genuinely curious of how it works in games and how it gets "made"

We tried it twice for AoD, both times the issue was that the characters didn't sound right. The second attempt was more successful, we got 2 out of 5 (Gaelius and Meru sounded right, Antidas, Lorenza, and the Zamedi demon were way off despite multiple re-takes), which wasn't close enough to move forward. The attempts wasted a lot of time: discussions, re-takes, searching for better references, etc. What we learned is that we should hire an experienced studio with a good pool of voice actors (or sign up with a publisher) or be prepared to spend a LOT of time ourselves.

 

[MRY]

Yes -- the designer/developer bandwidth issue is a real one.

You could probably outsource the whole process (I know WEG does that occasionally for adventure games), but that itself depends on finding someone who is going to take the source material seriously. When I worked for TimeGate, I believe their first fully voiced game was Kohan II, which I wrote the script for (subject to some fairly hilarious high level requirements along the way), and I remember they hired what they thought was a really good and fairly expensive studio that worked primarily in anime dubbing, and the results were somewhat predictable.

 

[lukaszek]

Goral can record half of the voice lines you need, he can do 9 various voices

Spoiler

for male ones contact warpig

 

[Daedalos]

Thanks for the insight, guys Sad, but understandable. Heres to wishing though