AOD Release Date and the nature of Indie Projects

[betamin]

Pero, pero, lo quiero ahora mismo. Coño, que lo termine así como esta. Aunque sea una miarda, sera una miarda del tipo bueno, y cuando pasen unos años estaremos diciendo "remember that AOD game? That was some good shit. Flawed, but good". Son las pequeñas imperfecciones lo que hacen el juego bueno.
Por el tiempo que esta tardando, cuando salga mas vale que sea mejor que una mamada de verga.

Miarda? Jajajajaj parece uno de esos gringos de Lavalle

 

[Damned Registrations]

What I've learned in two decades of "following games" is that taking time to do it right is an important step. Blizzard demonstrated it many times, yet most companies refuse to take notes and insist on fast development cycles and "in 5 years we can make 3 games!" mentality.

What I've learned in sales is that you have to have a good product. Quality is the last thing you want to fuck with if you're planning to stick around for awhile.

While I certainly agree with this, characterizing the change from 2D to 3D halfway through a project and wasting all those resources as anything but gross mismanagement is absurd. Blizzard fucked up when they had to dick around and change the graphics, but at least they didn't have to scrap the entire engine they were working with and learn a new, more complex one.

As for the OP, not having a publisher to breathe down your neck doesn't mean you're doomed to halfass your way along. Take a look at the dev work on Dwarf Fortress. That guy is a fucking machine.

It all comes down to who is doing the project. Lots get screwed over because only part of the team is really motivated, or someone gets sidetracked by other things, like their real job or family or something. I don't know anything specific about Iron Tower's history over the last few years in that regard, but for it to be taking this long, either some people have been spinning their wheels a lot, or their goals were too ambitious to begin with. The latter seems to be a major pitfall for a lot of indies; having no idea how much work feature X is actually going to be. Implementing halfassed ideas is a bad thing, but spending 2-3 years developing and polishing a feature 2% of your target audience will give a fuck about instead of cutting it is a major mistake.

 

[Knightrider]

Todos en esta thread son unos cabrones. Seriamento les digo que solo estan hablando mierda y pendejadas y deben callarse.

But seriously people, still talking about this crap? This is not a good game. Go play Fallout 3 and it's expansions or wait for new Obsidian games. As far as indies go , there's no tomorrow.

There were good projects, such as my "American Hare", Cleve Blakemore's "Wake of the Comet" and Jim Kata's "Age of Ass", but you guys didn't pay them no mind. And now they are gone. Forever. All you have is this shitty post-apoc roman wannabe fallout with Nintendo 64 graphics.

Plus, VDWeller is leading the project. Everybody knows he is a pretentious jackass who liked to roleplay Adolf Hitler around these boards. The fake Cleve is cooler than him.

 

[Hobo Elf]

lol

 

[Silellak]

All you have is this shitty post-apoc roman wannabe fallout with Nintendo 64 graphics.

I thought everyone knew AoD was the spiritual sequel to Quest 64?

 

[St. Toxic]

Indie teams shouldn't do projects bigger than 1-2 years tops.

Sarcastic response misses the point.

Of course it misses the point. The point is moot. If VD is after the big bag o' cash, he's in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time. The basic premise is that he's making the sort of game he himself would like to play and considers himself a representative for a virtually untapped market of gamers, rather than being "special", as a means to keep his relative sanity, thus expecting a cash "bonus" as a compliment to an accurate deduction less than payment for what is otherwise a labour of love. Pointing out marketting flaws at this stage, is like pointing out a profit loss in the base act of giving: like, yeah, no shit.

 

[Melcar]

This game should have been out a year ago. I agree that there is little point for indie games to have such a long dev. cycle; 1-3 years tops I think is adequate. Unless the game is supposed to be the new shit and dumbfuck us with awe, the delay is either mismanagement or the dev. team is simply trying too hard to prove a point. The game itself looks alright and the premise seems entertaining, but all this wait and delay is seriously fuck up man.

Saca un pinche demo coño.

 

[asper]

Take a look at the dev work on Dwarf Fortress. That guy is a fucking machine.

DF is just about the worst example you could have chosen to make your point. That whole game has seen overhauls ten times as drastic as AoD going 3D. Lists of features were canceled, re-written, it went from 2D to 3D, an insane amount of things have been scratched. Just recently there was a major overhaul of the system of describing entities, with the developer spending several months only on getting a system in place that will give patches of hair with individual characteristics to every dwarf in the game.

There hasn't been an update since a year, and the fans are raging, because when the update comes, most of the changes will be invisible for the player. Most additions are meant to be influential on the gameplay when shitload of other stuff is added (read: in 4-5 years), when at the same time, the game has glaring flaws (no challenge, interface, etc).

Also, the project is sickeningly ambitious, and it is pretty clear that it will never be finished. Oh, and it is in development since 2002, and still in early alpha stage.

While it is true that the devlog is filled with a lot of stuff that is being done, as has been said before in this thread: getting a lot of work done is not an indication of progress. The DF developer may be a machine, and he is doing a lot of work, but Dwarf Fortress is not a good example of productive management of an indie project.

 

[Castanova]

getting a system in place that will give patches of hair with individual characteristics to every dwarf in the game.

Dwarf pubes?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Plus, VDWeller is leading the project. Everybody knows he is a pretentious jackass who liked to roleplay Adolf Hitler around these boards.

I tempo-banned 3 people in 4 years. You call that Hitler?

While I certainly agree with this, characterizing the change from 2D to 3D halfway through a project and wasting all those resources as anything but gross mismanagement is absurd.

The joy of internet. Everyone's an expert.

We HAD to change the engine because the 2D graphics weren't good enough.

... but for it to be taking this long...

This long? Ultima 5 remake was 5.5 years in development. They had the engine, most assets, and game mechanics. That's how long part-time work takes.

Implementing halfassed ideas is a bad thing, but spending 2-3 years developing and polishing a feature 2% of your target audience will give a fuck about instead of cutting it is a major mistake.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

This game should have been out a year ago. I agree that there is little point for indie games to have such a long dev. cycle; 1-3 years tops I think is adequate.

1-3 years part-time is 3 months to a year full time. I wonder what kinda awesome game a team of amateurs can do from scratch in 3 months.

 

[Damned Registrations]

We HAD to change the engine because the 2D graphics weren't good enough.

Better switch it to a new engine again. These graphics still suck. The 3D parts anyways. Inventory looks good.

What were the graphics not good enough for exactly? Could you not distinguish between the sprites or something? Not enough IMMERSHUN? Were babies spontaneously exploding in the vicinity of the monitor?

Next thing we'll hear it's going to be in dev for another 7 years because you HAD to do voiceovers for all the dialogue as part of polishing the sound.

Just ask yourself this: If you HADN'T switched engines, would you have been done by now? (And presumably flopped because it's not 3D.)

Ah but don't listen to me. Take advice from someone with some experience, like Todd Howard or Molyneux. Experts are ever so perfect.

 

[Melcar]

...

This game should have been out a year ago. I agree that there is little point for indie games to have such a long dev. cycle; 1-3 years tops I think is adequate.

1-3 years part-time is 3 months to a year full time. I wonder what kinda awesome game a team of amateurs can do from scratch in 3 months.

You should try it and tell us about it.

We HAD to change the engine because the 2D graphics weren't good enough.

Better switch it to a new engine again. These graphics still suck. The 3D parts anyways. Inventory looks good.

What were the graphics not good enough for exactly? Could you not distinguish between the sprites or something? Not enough IMMERSHUN? Were babies spontaneously exploding in the vicinity of the monitor?

Next thing we'll hear it's going to be in dev for another 7 years because you HAD to do voiceovers for all the dialogue as part of polishing the sound.

Just ask yourself this: If you HADN'T switched engines, would you have been done by now? (And presumably flopped because it's not 3D.)

Ah but don't listen to me. Take advice from someone with some experience, like Todd Howard or Molyneux. Experts are ever so perfect.

I really don't get what the point of switching the graphics engine was, other than to keep the game relevant because of the delays. Honestly, if the game had kept the 2D engine and had been released already (what is it now? 1, 2 years ago?) VD would have already had an innovative indie RPG under his belt, and who knows, by now he may have been working on another RPG with modern 3D graphics.
The point is that if the game keeps getting reworked because new and better shit comes up, it will never finish.

 

[bhlaab]

I see absoloutely no problem with an indie game taking a long time, especially a fucking fully-realized RPG.

What I think is a bad thing is when the indie developer takes a long time and meanwhile falls off the face of the Earth leaving everyone to wonder whether or not the project is dead (ex: Afterfall)

Something like this needs a lot of small updates here and there just to say "Hey, we're still alive!" and from what I've seen VD has been doing that.

 

[Knightrider]

LOL, the "ubersturmfuhrer" is the king of excuses. You really think anyone is buying that shit VD? face it, you and your team are an incompetent bunch who after over 5 years doesn't have too much to show, except a whole lot of hype.

The excuses on the graphics are the lamest of all. I've seem mods with 2 artists working part-time that had graphics at least 3x better than AOD's. You also refuse to admit the engine played a part on it, but it did. You guys picked a notoriously shitty and outdated engine.

Don't forget the fact that you missed some very important features such as party combat on the excuse that it was "too hard" to implement. Damn, that was weak. It made me feel sorry for you.

Honestly, I don't think this game will be released in the next 3 years or so. Remember even the fucking combat demo is being delayed so much. American Hare will get finished first if you keep dragging your tail 5 mph and spending half your energies making excuses as you go.

 

[Seboss]

nvm

 

[Kingston]

You can't win against Chefe, VD. If you argue well enough Chefe will just say "I WAS JUST TROLLING I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU FELL FOR THAT LOL XD".

 

[Vault Dweller]

Better switch it to a new engine again. These graphics still suck.

In your irrelevant opinion.

What were the graphics not good enough for exactly? Could you not distinguish between the sprites or something? Not enough IMMERSHUN?

The game simply wasn't and wouldn't have been given a chance. The graphics were good enough for me and a hundred or so Codex members. I'd like to be able to sell at least 5,000 copies. The switch gives us a chance to do that.

Next thing we'll hear it's going to be in dev for another 7 years because you HAD to do voiceovers for all the dialogue as part of polishing the sound.

You either don't understand my point or trolling.

Just ask yourself this: If you HADN'T switched engines, would you have been done by now? (And presumably flopped because it's not 3D.)

Yes. We would have been done by now. Both with the game and game development.

Ah but don't listen to me. Take advice from someone with some experience, like Todd Howard or Molyneux. Experts are ever so perfect.

Are these my only options? Todd or internet experts?

 

[Vault Dweller]

You also refuse to admit the engine played a part on it, but it did. You guys picked a notoriously shitty and outdated engine.

We picked what was available. The engine does have a lot of limitations and I've never denied it. Why would I?

Don't forget the fact that you missed some very important features such as party combat on the excuse that it was "too hard" to implement. Damn, that was weak. It made me feel sorry for you.

I'm more than happy to provide you with excuses to do nothing and feel sorry for this or that, but the reason the game doesn't have party combat is because the game was not designed as a party game. For example, AoD is not class-based, which, in my opinion, is one of the requirements.

You can't win against Chefe, VD. If you argue well enough Chefe will just say "I WAS JUST TROLLING I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU FELL FOR THAT LOL XD".

Good point.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yo VD, if you're roleplaying Hitler anyday, call me! I can be Goering and then I can sit in a beachchair and when trouble comes, I can take a puff of my cigar, take a sip of vodka and then tell you to "leave it to my luftwaffe!" Then I can send my men to bombard the fuckers.

 

[MLMarkland]

If VD was Hitler, who were the other nazis, like Goebbels, Himmer, Goering, Bormann and Speer?

Yo VD, if you're roleplaying Hitler anyday, call me! I can be Goering and then I can sit in a beachchair and when trouble comes, I can take a puff of my cigar, take a sip of vodka and then tell you to "leave it to my luftwaffe!" Then I can send my men to bombard the fuckers.

I call Rommel.

 

[bhlaab]

Have the animations been spruced up any since the combat videos? They were pretty weak.

 

[Kingston]

The man just wants to release a game that fits as closely as possible what he has in his mind. It will never be as good as he wants it to be, but he can get a close match. He'll keep on making major improvements until there aren't any left.

There won't be another engine change for this reason: It wouldn't be worth the trouble, as he is already pleased with the current look of the game. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. It's all about compromises. 2D -> 3D was worth it because it brings in a lot more customers. To get the same exponential increase with a graphical update from now would require a lot more work than the conversion from 2D to 3D took. The target audience doesn't care about graphics that much anyway. The 2D looked ugly, but the 3D is more than passable for the majority of his audience. Even if the game had superb AAA graphics the game might not sell to the masses because it's isometric and turn-based or whatever.

It'd be stupid to spend 5 years making a game and then releasing something you're not pleased with because you couldn't work on it that one year longer. He's making the game for himself, not for us.

 

[Monocause]

Honestly, if the game had kept the 2D engine and had been released already (what is it now? 1, 2 years ago?) VD would have already had an innovative indie RPG under his belt, and who knows, by now he may have been working on another RPG with modern 3D graphics.

He wouldn't. Vince said many times that the level of success AoD achieves will influence if he'll be inclined to continue making games - and having a hardcore flop under one's belt isn't exactly a source of positive motivation.

The point is that if the game keeps getting reworked because new and better shit comes up, it will never finish.

Yes, that is correct. Anything that's constantly reworked isn't going to be released, because of the fact that it's constantly reworked. I don't see how this fits AoD however, since the project is making slow but noticeable progress over the years. It's not like it was restarted from scratch even once.

Food for thought regarding the "constructive criticism" thingy - it's constructive when it 'constructs' something. While someone might argue that saying "you should've done things differently in the past" is constructive in that it might influence someone to learn from his mistakes, it usually doesn't work that way.
An example of constructive criticism is the discussion of the combat system on the AoD forum. People criticise combat mechanics and persuade the team to look for better solutions. Which the team does, hence the "constructive" part is fulfilled.
Telling Vince that he fucked up something in the past (especially telling him the same thing repeatedly) isn't constructive.

To make it short - stop bitching repeatedly about things that have already been discussed to death if you know it won't change anything and can even be counterproductive. Unless you're on GD or you're Skyway.

 

[bhlaab]

What did the 2d graphics look like?

 

[Elhoim]

What did the 2d graphics look like?

The funny thing is that several textures from that picture are still being used in the game