Incline Colony Ship RELEASE THREAD

[xuerebx]

Did ITS issue any recent statement about no longer being in operation in the near future?

Edit: thanks Vault Dweller.

 

[Ol' Willy]

The main weakness of Colony Ship's narrative is that it lacks the intrigue.

Intrigue is one of the best tools to keep the player engaged with the narrative. KKKODEX's own N1 RPG, Planetescape Tournament is all about the intrigue. Who you are, what happened, how to fix it, and it keeps the intrigue well over to the end. Fallout 1, yet another great example, intrigues you with the world which you, as a Vault Dweller, never seen. Are there even any people? How do they look like and how do they survive? Who are the supermutants? And so on, the examples are numerous.

Compare it to AoD, where you have the entire hidden level of pre-war history and what actually happened during the Great War, who are the void dwellers and do they really exist? Who started the war and why?

Colony Ship lacks this angle. You are on the ship. What was before? The same ship, only it looked better. What happened? Mutiny and civil war. What is the status of the mission? Nobody knows and nobody cares.

This is really bad for the narrative, it doesn't engage the player with it and with the setting. Why not start telegraphing the intrigue right from the Pit?

Some people would outright tell you that you are not on the ship, but in some kind of penal colony where inmates took over control (hi Gothic), or maybe the ship is the space penal colony. Others will tell you that the mission is hopeless and the ship is lost in the space forever. Others will believe in the mission and will claim that the ship is close to destination.

While exploring, you will find bits and pieces of information which would slowly uncover the real state of affairs. And the plot McGuffin will be the thing that could radically change everything.

Let's say, you uncover the fact that just before mutiny the ship came really close to its destination, but someone sabotaged the nav equipment and now ship is just circling around. Your McGuffin is the replacement navigation supercomputer, which could put ship back on track. Then we add a second variable - Proxima is still the closest planet, but it may be not well suited for colonization because aliens, climate or somesuch. Meanwhile, the onboard surveillance equipment detected another planet farther away, which seems like a perfect choice for settling. The catch is that your ship may not make it there. We could even add the catch that landing on Proxima is possible in just years, while journey to another planet will take some more generations.

This is where the factions come in, and it's the second major flaw in the CS' narrative. The factions in Colony Ship are just bland. Brotherhood is vaguely socialist, Protectors are "fascist", and Church is just hardcore Christians. What are their goals aside from powermaxxing? How they come into the bigger narrative? They barely influence it at all.

Compare it to AoD.

Antidas is idealist and wants to restore the empire to its former glory, whatever it takes.

Gaelius is pragmatic powermaxxer, and he considers old technology to be too dangerous, thus, it should be destroyed. Humanity should rebuild civilization from scratch.

And Meru is a fanatic who wants to bring Gods back - and you don't know from the start if Gods really exist, is Meru just a nutcase or he really has a link to the other side.

New Vegas is another good example, every faction has something to say. NCR is soft, but corrupt and ineffective. Legion has its own idea of order, but it works - no crime, no raiders, no drugs. And House doesn't give a fuck, he is interested only in his little domain. This works despite the fact that basegame New Vegas has very little intrigue (the past of the Courier is a matter of interest only in DLCs).

We could flesh the factions the same easy way. Brotherhood would want to travel to better planet. Protectors want to land on Proxima. And Church would be fine with either choice as long as people have the faith. Cyborgs could be the Yes Man option if you don't like either of the factions.

Comparison with Underrail can't be avoided since it too has the mandatory three factions fork to progress. Yes, the three factions in Underrail are likewise not really fleshed out and you pick one mostly based on your build and what gear you want. But they don't really matter much because Underrail has the overreaching intrigue with Tchort, Faceless and demigods of Six and Tanner; also Shadowlith and other supernatural stuff. Then, in Colony Ship the large part of the story revolves around the factions.

So in the end we come to the fact that Colony Ship has little overreaching intrigue coupled with bland factions, which hurts the narrative a lot.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Assuming they were even aware of these games, I assume most people find the binary success/failure structure of the games as well as the bleak, "literally everyone is a piece of shit" characterizations off-putting.

New Vegas is very popular even among normies, and it's the prime case of "no good guys, no bad guys". Every faction is shitty in some ways - Legion is brutal, NCR is corrupt and ineffective, and House doesn't give a fuck about the rest of the wasteland

 

[flushfire]

Assuming they were even aware of these games, I assume most people find the binary success/failure structure of the games as well as the bleak, "literally everyone is a piece of shit" characterizations off-putting.

New Vegas is very popular even among normies, and it's the prime case of "no good guys, no bad guys". Every faction is shitty in some ways - Legion is brutal, NCR is corrupt and ineffective, and House doesn't give a fuck about the rest of the wasteland

I liked CS enough to think it was the best CRPG I've played around the time of it's release but come on, no need to be disingenuous with this. Just comparing the starting area of NV to that of CS, the people of Goodsprings are clearly decent people the player can sympathize with, what about The Pit? Both Jonas and Braxton are total dicks from the get-go, they don't even give you an ounce of respect as you complete missions for them. You get to the factory and Stanton is no different. The Grangers' Carlos is the only non-asshole leader I can think of at that point, and they only play a minor role.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Assuming they were even aware of these games, I assume most people find the binary success/failure structure of the games as well as the bleak, "literally everyone is a piece of shit" characterizations off-putting.

New Vegas is very popular even among normies, and it's the prime case of "no good guys, no bad guys". Every faction is shitty in some ways - Legion is brutal, NCR is corrupt and ineffective, and House doesn't give a fuck about the rest of the wasteland

I liked CS enough to think it was the best CRPG I've played around the time of it's release but come on, no need to be disingenuous with this. Just comparing the starting area of NV to that of CS, the people of Goodsprings are clearly decent people the player can sympathize with, what about The Pit? Both Jonas and Braxton are total dicks from the get-go, they don't even give you an ounce of respect as you complete missions for them. You get to the factory and Stanton is no different. The Grangers' Carlos is the only non-asshole leader I can think of at that point, and they only play a minor role.

Goodsprings is not a faction, just a location. It's a nod to classic Fallout location design where you have a place with generally likeable people; you can help them or fuck them over because you feel contrarian today. There is no practical interest in siding with convicts, it gives you no benefit and the game strongly urges you not to do so. Convicts also not fleshed out at all, just a bunch of retards who want to fuck up the village, all the while the people in Goodsprings have literally saved your ass. New Vegas fleshes out proper a bit later

 

[Nikanuur]

Tbh, I'd like to hear from Vault Dweller if all this recent constructive criticism did twist the knife in the wound, indeed, or if it provided some substantial feedback.
No matter the situation with the Colony Ship, I don't think his days as a developer in general are over.
His games show that he is a man of vision.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What wound?

 

[flushfire]

Assuming they were even aware of these games, I assume most people find the binary success/failure structure of the games as well as the bleak, "literally everyone is a piece of shit" characterizations off-putting.

New Vegas is very popular even among normies, and it's the prime case of "no good guys, no bad guys". Every faction is shitty in some ways - Legion is brutal, NCR is corrupt and ineffective, and House doesn't give a fuck about the rest of the wasteland

I liked CS enough to think it was the best CRPG I've played around the time of it's release but come on, no need to be disingenuous with this. Just comparing the starting area of NV to that of CS, the people of Goodsprings are clearly decent people the player can sympathize with, what about The Pit? Both Jonas and Braxton are total dicks from the get-go, they don't even give you an ounce of respect as you complete missions for them. You get to the factory and Stanton is no different. The Grangers' Carlos is the only non-asshole leader I can think of at that point, and they only play a minor role.

Goodsprings is not a faction, just a location. It's a nod to classic Fallout location design where you have a place with generally likeable people; you can help them or fuck them over because you feel contrarian today. There is no practical interest in siding with convicts, it gives you no benefit and the game strongly urges you not to do so. Convicts also not fleshed out at all, just a bunch of retards who want to fuck up the village, all the while the people in Goodsprings have literally saved your ass. New Vegas fleshes out proper a bit later

"no good guys, no bad guys" isn't exclusive to factions. Jonas and Braxton's groups are similarly not major factions to end the game with. My point is that the difference is indicative of the entirety of both games.

 

[Pink Eye]

I'd like to hear from Vault Dweller if all this recent constructive criticism did twist the knife in the wound

I mean. Colony Ship is still *my* favorite RPG, criticism notwithstanding. I think VD and team did a good job in improving upon the formula by introducing a feat system, implants, interesting companions, mutations, and overall tighter writing. Obviously Age of Decadence is still better in regards to writing, setting, and narrative; but Colony Ship does things better in other parts, like the combats, builds, and companions - which are the parts I care about the most. The feat system for instance, allows for so much creativity in build making:

^a Faythe that can break into the 100+ threshold for Critical Strike

^a tank Faythe

That's just the companion; that also doesn't include main character builds either. There's so much you can do with the feat system.

As for combats, you have gadgets, implants, stims, guns, that all add to the depth of the game. Then you have companions which come with unique feats and specializations that add to the replaybility.

Colony Ship is a great game.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I don't have anything bad to say about gameplay either. The combat is interesting and challenging enough. Build crafting is flexible and well implemented. Exploration is rewarding. This is easily worth many runs

But narrative wise it's simply weak. Because of this, my perception of Colony Ship is as of excellent sequel to Dungeon Rats, which improves and builds massively on its foundation

 

[Pink Eye]

Vince had big plans for the sequel in regards of improving the narrative but sadly I don't think it's going to happen now - at least not on the scale that the team envisioned. Would have been awesome to see them improve upon Colony Ship's foundation.

 

[Beans00]

New Vegas is very popular even among normies, and it's the prime case of "no good guys, no bad guys". Every faction is shitty in some ways - Legion is brutal, NCR is corrupt and ineffective, and House doesn't give a fuck about the rest of the wasteland

In all those factions there are actors who want to do good, to go along with the bad. They are not uniform.


In CS(and aod), literally every character is mercy from the black company 'i burned this house down just to watch the fire consume my soul'. VD can't write any character beyond generic slav nihilism(probably why you and jackofshadows enjoy this shit).

 

[Nikanuur]

I'd like to hear from Vault Dweller if all this recent constructive criticism did twist the knife in the wound

I mean. Colony Ship is still *my* favorite RPG, criticism notwithstanding. I think VD and team did a good job in improving upon the formula by introducing a feat system, implants, interesting companions, mutations, and overall tighter writing. Obviously Age of Decadence is still better in regards to writing, setting, and narrative; but Colony Ship does things better in other parts, like the combats, builds, and companions - which are the parts I care about the most. The feat system for instance, allows for so much creativity in build making:

^a Faythe that can break into the 100+ threshold for Critical Strike

^a tank Faythe

That's just the companion; that also doesn't include main character builds either. There's so much you can do with the feat system.

As for combats, you have gadgets, implants, stims, guns, that all add to the depth of the game. Then you have companions which come with unique feats and specializations that add to the replaybility.

Colony Ship is a great game.

I am very glad to read this. I've also enjoyed the Colony Ship very much.

 

[Pink Eye]

I just hope that no matter what happens, Iron Tower continues being in business. They're the best developers I've ever interacted with. It was a pleasure being a part of Colony Ship's early access period, it really was. I've made so many happy memories from autism in Colony Ship - years of pure joy of posting, playing, sharing my thoughts, and making friends. Iron Tower is my favorite studio in the whole wide world, they really are. Also the friends I made because of Colony Ship was the best, all excellent people who'd go on to make guides for the game, videos, and overall do cool stuff for my favorite game, which would benefit the game - the community was great. Another thing is how respectful and professional the developers were towards feedback - it felt so rewarding when VD would take me seriously and engage with me on game design. I'd say a lot of dumb stuff but VD would still read it and engage with it. What made me so happy is how when I complained about my favorite companion getting nerfed, the devs would actually, seriously, put that into considerations for future updates. Any other developer would have told me to go fuck myself sideways on a frying pan; but not Iron Tower, they'd listen, and they'd care.

Iron Tower valued its fans, their feedback, their complaints.

Such a studio is rare.

I don't want to lose a precious game dev like Iron Tower that has given me so many happy memories. I really don't.

I hope the team sticks together and continues making games. If they can't afford to make their dream sequel, I'd still pay for Colony Ship 2.0 with recycled assets and Faythe being brought back as a cyborg goddess.

 

[jackofshadows]

Yeah I too remember the times on their own forum during beta. Such... elite, refined gentlemen were there among testers it's unreal even by Codex standards.

 

[Ol' Willy]

The problem CS has, is the writing is absolute shit quality, and the encounter design isn't much better.


Better posters than me argued this point for dozens of pages until this thread turned into me shitposting and 10 fanboys coping(with the occasional new player having mixed experiences).


As Jarlfrank said about VD "it's like he completely misunderstood what Fallout is about"

Butthurt retard, stop shitting the thread with your worthless bullshit. Go beg for more games in the according thread

 

[Beans00]

The problem CS has, is the writing is absolute shit quality, and the encounter design isn't much better.


Better posters than me argued this point for dozens of pages until this thread turned into me shitposting and 10 fanboys coping(with the occasional new player having mixed experiences).


As Jarlfrank said about VD "it's like he completely misunderstood what Fallout is about"

Butthurt retard, stop shitting the thread with your worthless bullshit. Go beg for more games in the according thread

I didn't like this game, and I'm going to post my opinions on its many flaws.

I'll leave this open challenge here. If you, or jackofshadows wants to debate me and jarlfrank and tacgnol in a voice call, I'm more than ready to fucking destroy you and laugh that you can't pronounce W.


Also just so you know, I got this game for free in the gift thread.

 

[jackofshadows]

I'll leave this open challenge here. If you, or jackofshadows wants to debate me and jarlfrank and tacgnol in a voice call, I'm more than ready to fucking destroy you and laugh that you can't pronounce W.

You've posted your "priceless" opinion like 20 times over already. Unless you want something else to say get the fuck out already. Never reported a post in my life but I consider to make an exception for your ass.

Debating with you even remotely serious isn't worth a damn since you've played this game once on easy mode and don't even understand its mechanics. Which is a strong point of the game, clearly.

Like I said previously itt as a troll you're also worthless so be kind and fuck off for good. Change your tune or something.

 

[Beans00]

I'll leave this open challenge here. If you, or jackofshadows wants to debate me and jarlfrank and tacgnol in a voice call, I'm more than ready to fucking destroy you and laugh that you can't pronounce W.

You've posted your "priceless" opinion like 20 times over already. Unless you want something else to say get the fuck out already. Never reported a post in my life but I consider to make an exception for your ass.

I didn't beat the game on easy mode, I beat it with mixed difficulty settings.

 

[jackofshadows]

I'll leave this open challenge here. If you, or jackofshadows wants to debate me and jarlfrank and tacgnol in a voice call, I'm more than ready to fucking destroy you and laugh that you can't pronounce W.

You've posted your "priceless" opinion like 20 times over already. Unless you want something else to say get the fuck out already. Never reported a post in my life but I consider to make an exception for your ass.

I didn't beat the game on easy mode, I beat it with mixed difficulty settings.

Which is almost the same thing, also was it whole party? Which is an easy mode in itself.

 

[Beans00]

Which is almost the same thing, also was it whole party? Which is an easy mode in itself.

Ok, well lets be clear on 2 things.

1. very few people play games on hard/hardest their first time through. If I liked the game I would have replayed it on a higher difficulty, like I have done with many other games.

2. You can have a 4 man party, so the game is clearly designed with 4 people in mind. Saying this is easy mode is pure autism cope. Zero login and reasoning. Again, if I played with 1 character I would just make a diplomat character and talk or bypass every fight. So it's not necessarily more difficult.

 

[jackofshadows]

Ok, well lets be clear on 2 things.

1. very few people play games on hard/hardest their first time through. If I liked the game I would have replayed it on a higher difficulty, like I have done with many other games.

2. You can have a 4 man party, so the game is clearly designed with 4 people in mind. Saying this is easy mode is pure autism cope. Zero login and reasoning. Again, if I played with 1 character I would just make a diplomat character and talk or bypass every fight. So it's not necessarily more difficult.

Any non-random person should realize this is not a regular game. Especially on codex, AoD been discussed here for many, many years.

Again, not sure why it should be uncommon but I pretty much always start on the highest difficulty and only then if necessary lower it (which is very rare, rather quit the game in question entirely). Because normal is for "normies" and I am no normie as well as dare I say majority of people here (otherwise they wouldn't be here right?).

The game was clearly NOT designed with 4 man party in mind otherwise it would be undoable solo. This is a weak game spot actually, it's impossible to balance around both. Dedicated "consumable" guy alone makes a massive difference compared to solo. You don't know what are you talking about.

Diplomat playthrough... man that's some sad stuff. I agree with Ol' Willy that the narrative and other plot stuff is another game's weak point and especially compared to AoD. Doing that equals not seeing the game might to offer at all. You're very apparently no buildfag and no combatfag in general so you're unable to appreciate the game in its fullest. What can you do. Seek other titles that suits you.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I didn't like this game, and I'm going to post my opinions on its many flaws.

I don't see any "opinion".

I wrote a lengthy post to demonstrate my point why Colony Ship is weak in narrative aspect.

You post nothing but a butthurt screeching. Even spam in PMs. Not sure what is the reason of such anal fixation, did VD say some mean words to you or you try bait people here?

So I repeat - fuck off nigger

 

[Litmanen]

very few people play games on hard/hardest their first time through.

Only weaklings don't play on hard on their first time.

 

[Litmanen]

did VD say some mean words to you

That's almost the reason. He posted it here 7/8 months ago?! VD talked bad of something he likes. Maybe it was all about dicks. I'm not sure.