Game News Dead State Kickstarter Update #51: Release Date Announced - December 4th, 2014

[Infinitron]

Tags: Dead State; DoubleBear Productions

Over the past couple of months, the Dead State Early Access beta has received a flurry of updates, gradually turning what initially seemed to be a bare-bones experience into a full-featured RPG. Today's Kickstarter update announces at long last the game's final release date - December 4th, 2014.

The DoubleBear team has some extra-special, ultra-awesome news for you to celebrate Halloween: Dead State has a release date!

That's right: on December 4th, 2014 - just over a month away - Dead State will emerge from the cocoon of Early Access and transform into a beautiful, fully matured game!

On top of that, later today we plan to release Patch #4 chock full of delicious, gooey content, features, and fixes, so keep an eye out for that. Pretty sweet Halloween treats, right?

Aside from Patch #4 going out later today/tonight, we plan to release one final patch before the launch; after that, we’re going to focus our full attention on fixing, balancing, and polishing Dead State until we run full speed across the finish line. All you have to do is keep playing, having fun, and sharing your feedback with us, and we’ll do the rest.

Please help us out by spreading the word about the launch date - take to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and your other social networks / forums of choice and give them the good news. After all, it's only decent to warn your friends about the coming apocalypse

Happy Halloween, everyone - may your undead slaying be merry!
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So, unless Cleve surprises us in November (fat chance), it looks like Dead State will be the victor in the Codex's great three-way vaporware war. Congratulations to DoubleBear. By the way, they've also posted a preview of the game's soundtrack on Soundcloud, so you might want to check that out.

 

[Infinitron]

Another update - Patch 4 Changelog: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70755535/dead-state-the-zombie-survival-rpg/posts/1036627

 

[Korron]

Does alpha state really count? Seriously though, this came out of nowhere. Has anyone played it and can give me a reliable accounting of how it is so far?

 

[Jaesun]

Does alpha state really count? Seriously though, this came out of nowhere. Has anyone played it and can give me a reliable accounting of how it is so far?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-in-beta-early-access-available.72705/page-52

 

[GlutenBurger]

Wow. Feels like only yesterday that people were bitching about sample designs of the game's menu screen.

 

[Castanova]

Looks like someone ran out of money.

 

[Roguey]

Looks like someone ran out of money.

Do you believe it's lacking in quality in a way that can be fixed by more time?

 

[taxalot]

This is like 1998 all over again.

 

[Grotesque]

What are those "Agenda" and "" and what do they do?

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

What are those "Agenda" and "" and what do they do?

It's cheap brofist substitutes.

 

[agentorange]

Game will be good. I've sunk a good deal of time into the pre-release thing.

Typical codex faggots are blind to the existence of a decent game because there is no 1000 page thread filled with pedantic nitpicking and troll baiting.

 

[Grotesque]

What are those "Agenda" and "" and what do they do?

It's cheap brofist substitutes.

In that case I want this to be retroactive.
My reason to be was collecting brofists!

 

[TeknoBM]

Soon...

 

[Pope Amole II]

Game will be good. I've sunk a good deal of time into the pre-release thing.

How's its RPG system, by the way, in terms of versatility & stuff? Will it make a decent funbuilding material?

 

[MicoSelva]

Looking forward to reading Codex review of this during Christmas.

 

[EG]

Have been meaning to replay this for the last few months. The dialog lead quite a bit to be desired last time, with its inconsequential nature.

Hope they pulled off their original goals . . . Shame, if not.

 

[SniperHF]

The thing that strikes me about Dead State is how from the original 7 day demo to the last build I played it seems like Double Bear and crew are mostly focused on getting their original content and vision into the game and releasing it. There is very little focus compared to other recent RPGs on iteration and making things already in the game better.

Sure some things in the game have been improved like ranged weapons. But it's not at all like how with D:OS or AoD when the teams decided to make serious changes to the gameplay mechanics either based on feedback or their own internal testing. Both of those games were better for it. Dead State did not have this same iteration process, at least that was viewable to public eyes. The things that were added over time, based on Brians forum posts, all seem to be things that were planned but not in yet due to time. Commands, the updated health system, fixing the end game at 12AM.

The only chance Dead State has of being a quality title is achieving "more than the sum of its parts" status. I'm a sucker for the core exploration-loot-shelter loop of Dead State so I'm easily pleased. But I can see most people finding the game incredibly boring. Especially with the unpleasant surprise of the writing being pretty mediocre.

 

[MurkyShadow]

Dead State may be the game I have the most irrational hopes for.

 

[Morality Games]

Dead State may be the game I have the most irrational hopes for.

That always turns out well.

 

[agentorange]

The thing that strikes me about Dead State is how from the original 7 day demo to the last build I played it seems like Double Bear and crew are mostly focused on getting their original content and vision into the game and releasing it. There is very little focus compared to other recent RPGs on iteration and making things already in the game better.

Sure some things in the game have been improved like ranged weapons. But it's not at all like how with D:OS or AoD when the teams decided to make serious changes to the gameplay mechanics either based on feedback or their own internal testing. Both of those games were better for it. Dead State did not have this same iteration process, at least that was viewable to public eyes. The things that were added over time, based on Brians forum posts, all seem to be things that were planned but not in yet due to time. Commands, the updated health system, fixing the end game at 12AM.

The only chance Dead State has of being a quality title is achieving "more than the sum of its parts" status. I'm a sucker for the core exploration-loot-shelter loop of Dead State so I'm easily pleased. But I can see most people finding the game incredibly boring. Especially with the unpleasant surprise of the writing being pretty mediocre.

The original 7 Days demo didn't even include enemy human factions (not the scavengers), next to no additional companions, only a fraction of the possible base improvements, and the player skill development wasn't even fully implemented, among other things that have since been added and improved - the AI has certainly seen improvement and continues to be improved.

I am glad they have a strong internal vision of the game and are working towards that, instead of constantly trying to keep up with feedback from people who are nitpicking minute details of the game - that did not turn out well for Wasteland 2.

 

[Trash]

So, they introduced meaningful factions and faction and npc interaction?

 

[SniperHF]

The original 7 Days demo didn't even include enemy human factions (not the scavengers), next to no additional companions, only a fraction of the possible base improvements, and the player skill development wasn't even fully implemented, among other things that have since been added and improved - the AI has certainly seen improvement and continues to be improved.

I am glad they have a strong internal vision of the game and are working towards that, instead of constantly trying to keep up with feedback from people who are nitpicking minute details of the game - that did not turn out well for Wasteland 2.

There is tons of room to improve on the game through iteration without changing their core design goals. Simple things like how much of a pain in the ass the inventory/stash is when you start to get serious numbers of followers. You can spend more time monkeying around with this than actually playing the game depending on the session. I don't think this is a minor issue.

All the stuff not implemented in the 7 day demo now being implemented isn't something they should get credit for. That was planned and obviously going to be in except to a few unfortunately unaware EA purchasers. The improvements to the AI which I have noted in other posts are great for sure. But my point isn't that they need to toss out a few of their own ideas and take the communities feedback or ideas instead. It's that they haven't at least outwardly shown much of this process at all amongst themselves either. Where are the writing passes especially? I assume they did a lot of this in pre-production especially before the KS cash injection. But some of the writing is just flat out bad and needs to be looked at. Just a few minor tone changes would elevate it from bad to passable. That could be all the difference in the world.

You say it didn't work out for WL2. I played almost every single beta version and almost every single one got better. Especially the last 3-4 where the difficulty ramp up became more apparent. Even way back in the early versions with the har har arrow to the knee jokes and the health regen. Or to the half dozen dialog UI changes. You might dislike their initial core vision and it did seem weak from the outside anyway. But that has more to do with InXile having a less defined end point then it does how the communities role played out. Either way I said it doesn't necessarily have to be a process where you directly involve the EA players. But even if I accept your premise that it didn't work out for WL2, my two examples still stand and there are more.

They may flat out not have time, inclination, or money to iterate more. But the game will be worse for it on the whole.