Development Info Dead State Design Update

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Dead State; DoubleBear Productions

<p>This Monday Brian shares <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2293.0.html" target="_blank">some examples of </a><a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2293.0.html" target="_blank">scavenged info</a> (journals, data items) you might encounter in-game.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>Two weeks ago we had a poll where everyone voted on what they wanted to see in last week's update. This being the internet, cats inevitably won. So, as promised, this week we're posting a bit of game fiction, which came in second in our poll. This piece you're about to read was used as the original vision doc to help visualize the gameplay. It's not spoiling anything, so don't worry about it giving away any plot points. It's more indicative of scavenged info (journals, data items) you might find in the game than dialogue, but it should give you a bit of a window into our day-to-day approach and morale system.&nbsp;</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2293.0.html" target="_blank">Read the rest here.</a></span></p>

 

[Oriebam]

Have the feeling they may do derpy forced artificial shit to try to make the game grimdarker and srs bsns and shit, not that this is a big deal

Still looking forward to it

also what the fuck, firefox glitched the forum text box and O. Post is showing code in the topic review thing

 

[villain of the story]

Meh. Nice read but it felt a bit too "perfectly written" for a character going through motions.

 

[Krash]

One of the few games I'm look forward to atm. Brian and Annie

 

[Trash]

This game sounds way too good to be true. Some more real info on gameplay mechanics would be nice.

Still, together with AOD these are the only games I have any hope of being a throwback to the golden age of rpgs for.

 

[Mortmal]

Yes too good to be true, its nice ideas on paper nothing more.It will drag on years and years and still you wont see any gameplay video.I have not yet seen announcement they found their team of scripters. No need to hype this .

 

[Menckenstein]

What's the over/under for this ending up as vaporware/unfinished&broken?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yes too good to be true, its nice ideas on paper nothing more.It will drag on years and years and still you wont see any gameplay video.

And you know that because ... ?

I have not yet seen announcement they found their team of scripters. No need to hype this .

What does a team of scripters have to do with anything?

 

[sgc_meltdown]

haha yeah one of the rare cases where perfect english can be detrimental to immmersion

just blogpost the heck out of most entries and leave the smart talky stuff to actual writer characters and perhaps certain scientists

 

[Davaris]

Yes too good to be true, its nice ideas on paper nothing more.It will drag on years and years and still you wont see any gameplay video.I have not yet seen announcement they found their team of scripters. No need to hype this .

Antidepressants
http://helpguide.org/mental/medications_depression.htm

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I really do wonder this, how can just one guy and a few associates make such an intricate system with so much depth without ultimately taking on more than he can chew? My guess is that it's going to end up either terribly unbalanced or unfinished.

 

[Marobug]

Yes too good to be true, its nice ideas on paper nothing more.It will drag on years and years and still you wont see any gameplay video.I have not yet seen announcement they found their team of scripters. No need to hype this .

You based all these assumptions on the fact that they are indie developers ?

In other news, I liked the writing.

 

[Mortmal]

No because its always the same thing repeated ad nauseum, the idea is brilliant, sometimes too ambitious, but in the end there's nothing to show, for example the broken hourglass, purgatorio, the black hound , cyclopean, grimoire, etc etc.... I base my asumptions on the fact they required ton of help , almost a whole team without offering payments, its hard to have faith in something you can sum up as a few designs docs and 3D renders.I seems at the stage of a guy posting some cool idea on forums.
The fact they are indie doesnt matter you can be indie and still delivers something good, although rarely.
Have they solved that minor problem ? If not he can post his nice updates all his life and achieve nothing, as nice the writing is thats just a few % of the total work.

 

[Surf Solar]

So now we bitch and moan at any given opporturnity at some rare occasion where someone is actually doing a proper cRPG, instead of having a bit more hope and/or even giving proper feedback? And then we can even bitch further that cRPGs are dead? Wow, Codex.

 

[villain of the story]

You're reacting like a raging emogirl. Mortmal has a point. They asked for a shitton of help basically for free. Reality check: when you're asking for a shitton of help, it's because you really do need a shitton of help. It's not like saying "oh we don't really need all of this and that and more but it wouldn't hurt, you know?". And when you're asking for it free... well...

Project sounds awesome and all that and I'm looking forward to it more than AoD but yeah, its current development process (or how much of it is being reflected on us) is far from reassuring and has every reason to be called a vapourware at this point, regardless of how many snarky comments VD fancies to make instead of explaining shit and let's not forget VD's own miscalculated estimations in the past regarding AoD so I'm taking his omissions as a lesson learned.

And they're already getting a huge free pass in the sense that people believe and expect they will pull this because it's Brian Mitsoda and Annie Carlson; two game developers with years of experiences in the industry instead of bang-up indie start-up nobodies and they supposedly got a fast start with help from VD & co.

Plus the retarded concept art depicting physically challenged people isn't helping either

So, let's drop some sand before posting the next time, mmmkay?

 

[Excidium]

I don't blame people for not having much hope. People want to see the actual game, short quest walkthroughs, screenshots, etc. Shit that shows this really IS a CRPG and not only a bunch of cool ideas.

 

[commie]

Too bad that the setting sucks arse. Fucking zombies yet again...what a waste.

 

[Surf Solar]

I don't blame people for not having much hope. People want to see the actual game, short quest walkthroughs, screenshots, etc. Shit that shows this really IS a CRPG and not only a bunch of cool ideas.

I don't know how it is for Dead State, but I can speak of my experience that all attempts to capture quest gameplay etc is pretty much bound to fail. Ofcourse I lack experience in video making, but everytime I wanted to potray different quest outcomes it ended in a huge clusterfuck to cut the video later, due to the many variables etc. What I agree though that some small video of the combat system in Dead State would be great.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You're reacting like a raging emogirl. Mortmal has a point. They asked for a shitton of help basically for free. Reality check: when you're asking for a shitton of help, it's because you really do need a shitton of help. It's not like saying "oh we don't really need all of this and that and more but it wouldn't hurt, you know?". And when you're asking for it free... well...

Well what?

...regardless of how many snarky comments VD fancies to make instead of explaining shit...

Explain what? The obvious? That a few people working part-time is far from the optimal number of people? That they can't pay for help? That they are very serious about it because Brian isn't some kid with a dream and he's betting his professional reputation on it? That we *are* backing them up, which means that we *will* be able to get the game to the playable stage?

...and let's not forget VD's own miscalculated estimations in the past regarding AoD so I'm taking his omissions as a lesson learned.

Let's not forget that we did deliver a combat demo and are testing the full game as we speak.

Plus the retarded concept art depicting physically challenged people isn't helping either

No arguing here.

 

[curry]

You're reacting like a raging emogirl. Mortmal has a point. They asked for a shitton of help basically for free. Reality check: when you're asking for a shitton of help, it's because you really do need a shitton of help. It's not like saying "oh we don't really need all of this and that and more but it wouldn't hurt, you know?". And when you're asking for it free... well...

Well what?

Your project lacks resources, Brian?

 

[villain of the story]

...regardless of how many snarky comments VD fancies to make instead of explaining shit...

Explain what? The obvious? That a few people working part-time is far from the optimal number of people? That they can't pay for help?

Exactly my point. Exactly why Mortmal has a valid point. But the bit about you explaining stuff wasn't fair, I'll agree.

That they are very serious about it because Brian isn't some kid with a dream and he's betting his professional reputation on it? That we *are* backing them up, which means that we *will* be able to get the game to the playable stage?

And why the game's getting a free pass from most people, so to speak, ie. DoubleBear has the good faith of people who know who these people are and have your backing. Replace Brian and Annie with random nobodies and there would hardly be a few people who wouldn't cry vapourware. Case in point: Cyclopian and look how it turned out

All I'm saying is that if there are some people who think neither of those are enough to not be called vapourware, they have all the reasons.

...and let's not forget VD's own miscalculated estimations in the past regarding AoD so I'm taking his omissions as a lesson learned.

Let's not forget that we did deliver a combat demo and are testing the full game as we speak.

You've been saying more or less the same thing regarding "testing" and "polishing" for the last couple of years and it's already been two years since the combat demo

Nobody's trying to discredit you, to underestimate the time it takes to go through all these things or to criticise your decision to revamp several things in the game but to show that some healthy scepticism is... healthy.

Here's a more relevant question to you: can you put ZRPG on a stage of progress when you think of the development history of AoD, the amount of progress so far achieved on both games and compare the two?

 

[Vault Dweller]

...regardless of how many snarky comments VD fancies to make instead of explaining shit...

Explain what? The obvious? That a few people working part-time is far from the optimal number of people? That they can't pay for help?

Exactly my point. Exactly why Mortmal has a valid point.

He doesn't. Needing help doesn't mean or imply in any way that Brian & Co are unable to put together a game with what they have at the moment.

Replace Brian and Annie with random nobodies and there would hardly be a few people who wouldn't cry vapourware. Case in point: Cyclopian and look how it turned out

Cyclopean got good press and was fairly well received. Scott ran into some unrelated life issues and had to put the project on hold. It can happen to anyone and has nothing to do with the size of the team.

You've been saying more or less the same thing regarding "testing" and "polishing" for the last couple of years and it's already been two years since the combat demo

Testing and tweaking internally isn't the same as a proper beta test with other people.

Nobody's trying to discredit you, to underestimate the time it takes to go through all these things or to criticise your decision to revamp several things in the game but to show that some healthy scepticism is... healthy.

Healthy skepticism is healthy, I agree. I don't expect anyone to blindly believe "hey guys, I'm making a game!" posts, but it's kinda silly when people start interpreting "help wanted!" posts as "please make a game for me".

Here's a more relevant question to you: can you put ZRPG on a stage of progress when you think of the development history of AoD, the amount of progress so far achieved on both games and compare the two?

It's not my place to make comments about Brian's game. All I can tell you is that he has a lot more than just ideas on paper.

 

[shihonage]

Judging from how much of AOD engine appears to be completed, there's no way it's vaporware.

ZRPG's success depends entirely on how much of AOD gameplay engine they can reuse. If they're only sticking with AOD renderer/input, but writing all gameplay stuff from scratch (unable to reuse actor/inventory/item/dialogue system and the latter's editor), the chances of success drop.

 

[canakin]

Too bad that the setting sucks arse. Fucking zombies yet again...what a waste.

This, why the world needs yet another zombie movie?

 

[Excidium]

There are many games with zombies, but how many are about survival in a PA enviroment caused by a zombie outbreak, like Dead State?