Development Info Knights of the Chalice 2 on hold

[Mortmal]

As opposed to what, people who bought KOTC and ended up funding a shitty rts?

I did not pay for future games i paid for a functional product i was delivered.We arent doing him a favor by paying for the game he worked on.. Heck its rather the other way around , theres nothing similar released since years, decades even.
I dont think it will be a shitty rts, his source of inspiration is dune. He said he will do it with better IA and worse graphics, could turn to be really good. See the bright side, its not a first person shooter.

 

[mondblut]

I dont think it will be a shitty rts, his source of inspiration is dune. He said he will do it with better IA and worse graphics, could turn to be really good. See the bright side, its not a first person shooter.

Shitty rts'es are shitty by the virtue of being rts'es. I can only name a few "realtime strategy" games which were remotely enjoyable, and all of them despite being realtime, not because of it. Each and every one of them would be far preferable turn-based, from Seven Kingdoms to Total War to Crusader Kings.

Also, while I could name about a score of okayish to great RPGs produced by 1-3 men teams, I know not a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts that was ever accepted by an rts-playing community as at least tolerable. In fact, I don't know a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts period, unless you count tower defense crap as "strategy" (LOL). The closest you get is lame warcraft 1 clones by eastern european studios from late 90s. Or a couple of "let's ruin the Master of Orion with realtime, hurr durr derp" games nobody wants.

 

[Davaris]

Also, while I could name about a score of okayish to great RPGs produced by 1-3 men teams, I know not a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts that was ever accepted by an rts-playing community as at least tolerable. In fact, I don't know a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts period, unless you count tower defense crap as "strategy" (LOL). The closest you get is lame warcraft 1 clones by eastern european studios from late 90s. Or a couple of "let's ruin the Master of Orion with realtime, hurr durr derp" games nobody wants.

I hate to say it, but I think you are right. RTS is well served by AAA and you can't compete with the favorites people are still playing. Turn based war gamers might be a better bet, as they have strong communities and AAAs haven't made games for them in a long time.

I think it is possible to impress the casual crowd with tower defense like games, but you need to be a great programmer and have tons of money for art. This is what 1 programmer made and he sold a ton of copies.

Gratuitous Space Battles Gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1QYMFGEv5M

 

[Oriental European]

See the bright side, its not a first person shooter.

HEY, FUCK YOU MAN! You think everything is OK and EZ in FPS world?






...







Oh wait, everything IS ok, HAHAHAHA!!! :smugmotherfuckerplayingSS3whileyoupeopledreamingaboutanotherTOEE:

 

[Wunderpurps]

I dont think it will be a shitty rts, his source of inspiration is dune. He said he will do it with better IA and worse graphics, could turn to be really good. See the bright side, its not a first person shooter.

Shitty rts'es are shitty by the virtue of being rts'es. I can only name a few "realtime strategy" games which were remotely enjoyable, and all of them despite being realtime, not because of it. Each and every one of them would be far preferable turn-based, from Seven Kingdoms to Total War to Crusader Kings.

Also, while I could name about a score of okayish to great RPGs produced by 1-3 men teams, I know not a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts that was ever accepted by an rts-playing community as at least tolerable. In fact, I don't know a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts period, unless you count tower defense crap as "strategy" (LOL). The closest you get is lame warcraft 1 clones by eastern european studios from late 90s. Or a couple of "let's ruin the Master of Orion with realtime, hurr durr derp" games nobody wants.

And to top it off the two problems he has are 1) getting word he exists out, which will not be made easier by genre hopping and 2) art quality and general production values, which will have to be ten times better to make a decent RTS.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Also, while I could name about a score of okayish to great RPGs produced by 1-3 men teams, I know not a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts that was ever accepted by an rts-playing community as at least tolerable. In fact, I don't know a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts period, unless you count tower defense crap as "strategy" (LOL). The closest you get is lame warcraft 1 clones by eastern european studios from late 90s. Or a couple of "let's ruin the Master of Orion with realtime, hurr durr derp" games nobody wants.

I hate to say it, but I think you are right. RTS is well served by AAA and you can't compete with the favorites people are still playing. Turn based war gamers might be a better bet, as they have strong communities and AAAs haven't made games for them in a long time.

I think it is possible to impress the casual crowd with tower defense like games, but you need to be a great programmer and have tons of money for art. This is what 1 programmer made and he sold a ton of copies.

Gratuitous Space Battles Gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1QYMFGEv5M

The whole point of GSB was to show-off giant space ships hurting each other with space beams. It alone has a huge appeal to sci-fi serials fans.

I dont think it will be a shitty rts, his source of inspiration is dune. He said he will do it with better IA and worse graphics, could turn to be really good. See the bright side, its not a first person shooter.

Shitty rts'es are shitty by the virtue of being rts'es. I can only name a few "realtime strategy" games which were remotely enjoyable, and all of them despite being realtime, not because of it. Each and every one of them would be far preferable turn-based, from Seven Kingdoms to Total War to Crusader Kings.

Also, while I could name about a score of okayish to great RPGs produced by 1-3 men teams, I know not a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts that was ever accepted by an rts-playing community as at least tolerable. In fact, I don't know a single freeware/shareware/"indie"/whatever rts period, unless you count tower defense crap as "strategy" (LOL). The closest you get is lame warcraft 1 clones by eastern european studios from late 90s. Or a couple of "let's ruin the Master of Orion with realtime, hurr durr derp" games nobody wants.

Exactly. Who is going to buy it? Especially if it won't have 3 years of balance testing or awesome FMV cutscenes?

 

[Elim]

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

What on earth is the man thinking...

Why didn't he just throw out a couple more games, using the same engine, with some minor tweaks, different areas, with different enemies and challenges? He doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Or make an rts...give me strength...

 

[Norfleet]

What a surprise: Vaporware is Vaporware.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Just in case you were wondering if he was making some kind of cool non clicky RTS like Ogre Battle, someone asked him what kind of RTS he is making on his forums.

Like Dune 2000 but with a map editor, worse graphics, no multiplayer, and possibly a better AI.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Dune 2000 defines "bog standard RTS".

The only good news out of this is that at least he is realistic about it

I don't expect to make much money from this project.

 

[Elhoim]

What on earth is the man thinking...

Why didn't he just throw out a couple more games, using the same engine, with some minor tweaks, different areas, with different enemies and challenges? He doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.

This. Maybe add a couple of more classes and such. God...

 

[Davaris]

The whole point of GSB was to show-off giant space ships hurting each other with space beams. It alone has a huge appeal to sci-fi serials fans.

Combining casual-ish and space was a smart move, because most people like sci-fi. He is doing the same kind of game again, but with a military land battles theme. I don't think it will do as well as the space game, as it doesn't look as cool to me, though I only saw a video of one of his dev versions.

Like Dune 2000 but with a map editor, worse graphics, no multiplayer, and possibly a better AI.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Dune 2000 defines "bog standard RTS".

The only good news out of this is that at least he is realistic about it

I don't expect to make much money from this project.

So he is doing it not because he has to, but because he wants to, for whatever reason. What can you do? You can't change what a person likes.

 

[thesheeep]

This is MADNESS!

 

[Johnny the Mule]

As opposed to what, people who bought KOTC and ended up funding a shitty rts?

I did not pay for future games i paid for a functional product i was delivered.We arent doing him a favor by paying for the game he worked on.. Heck its rather the other way around , theres nothing similar released since years, decades even.
I dont think it will be a shitty rts, his source of inspiration is dune. He said he will do it with better IA and worse graphics, could turn to be really good. See the bright side, its not a first person shooter.

So first you say, hurr durr, if the torrent hivemind payed for kotc1 it would have gotten kotc2, since thats what the torrent hivemind apparently wants, right, cause we aint so smug now anymore? (lets forget for now that you derped something about paying bills too)

But after being slapped in the face for your short hurr durr thrice by mondblut, me and bluesalamander lol, you turn around and say that we pay for the game in question, irregardless of the future developments, so it doesnt matter for the future if I torrent it now or not, right?

Not so smug now, aint ya? But you werent smug to begin with, you were butthurrdurrt.

 

[Oriental European]

Like Dune 2000 but with a map editor, worse graphics, no multiplayer, and possibly a better AI.

Huh. Does anyone even remember what AI was in D2000? Was it better than in Emperor: Battle for Derp?

Man, whole this shebang smells like crap already.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Why didn't he just throw out a couple more games, using the same engine, with some minor tweaks, different areas, with different enemies and challenges? He doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.

This. FFS.

There's a reason people buy their 22nd Megaman game. If you're monopolizing a niche market and need money, milk it, don't fucking branch out. I'd have happily shelled out another 20$ for a KotC expansion with another level 1-20 adventure and like, one new class, using the same engine and graphics. I don't intend to touch a shitty RTS that plays like a bad Dune knockoff unless someone is paying me to do so.

 

[Wunderpurps]

When you start a business you need to build a fan base. A bunch of small releases is probably the best way to do that. If you have just one big release every 4 years people won't be playing your game and evangelizing on forums and all that.

 

[Excidium]

Just in case you were wondering if he was making some kind of cool non clicky RTS like Ogre Battle, someone asked him what kind of RTS he is making on his forums.

Like Dune 2000 but with a map editor, worse graphics, no multiplayer, and possibly a better AI.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Dune 2000 defines "bog standard RTS".

The only good news out of this is that at least he is realistic about it

I don't expect to make much money from this project.

I'll be very surprised if this game sells enough to at least cover development costs.

 

[MuscleSpark]

I'll be very surprised if this game sells enough to at least cover development costs.

I thought he developed as a hobby and had an actual job? I assume development costs in such a situation would be minimal since most of the stuff that requires an upfront cost would have been carried over from his first game.

 

[Morkar Left]

Maybe he likes rts more than rpgs?

Maybe he wants a job in the gaming industry and probably would be laughed at if he comes up with only turnbased games as references?

 

[DwarvenFood]

I'll be very surprised if this game sells enough to at least cover development costs.

I thought he developed as a hobby and had an actual job? I assume development costs in such a situation would be minimal since most of the stuff that requires an upfront cost would have been carried over from his first game.

Exactly.

But..Dune 2000.. 1/5

 

[Scroo]

Crap, this has to be the worst news regarding RPGS for years! What should an honest oldschool-gamer do when even the indie-developers are on the ? Jeff Vogel decided to "streamline" the fuck out of his games to make them more appealing to the Derp Age Community, this guy wants to make a Dune clone instead of building a constant fanbase and Cleve has always been the biggest asshole of all times, sitting on the best looking RPG out there while making fun of the desperate nerds that want to play his supposed RPG-Gem.

Aw, whatever, hopefully Legend of Grimrock will be good.

 

[Fezzik]

Didn't he say something a while ago along the lines of "I didn't realize before that a game like this would be better developed in an object-oriented way, but now I do?" That suggests to me that part of this might be him working on a smaller scale project to work out the kinks of how to program a game in a different way before moving on to the big one. There might be doom on the horizon, but I'm not totally disheartened; I don't get a young-indie-developer, "dude! this would be, like, totally awesome but I'm, like, totally inept" vibe from Pierre.

 

[GhostBadger]

Yep, months later, sort-of-new-guy resurrects dead KOTC2 thread..

What on earth is the man thinking...
Why didn't he just throw out a couple more games, using the same engine, with some minor tweaks, different areas, with different enemies and challenges? He doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Or make an rts...give me strength...

This is perhaps the most important thing said here. I was thinking exactly this. Didn't get nearly enough mileage out of the existing work.

And ok, so it's clear he doesn't want to work on it more right now. How about this: Get together with some Codexians who may like to use the guts of KOTC as a point to make some more games. Why not hand off some of this to people who are interested in doing the work? Too bad there isn't somewhere between a one-off game and the full-blown FWE that could be arrived at.

Also, this episode right here is a big part of why I don't believe in closed-source. You may say "People would just rip off his code and he'd get nothing." Ok, well he didn't get enough to make this work, so the mighty power of secret source apparently wasn't enough. And in the aftermath, the code is locked up as well. It's the FAIL that keeps on giving. Awesome.

For what it's worth, I bought KOTC. Really excellent work. Thank you, Pierre.

 

[almondblight]

If anyone wants to work with his engine, or work with him one a new module, I'd say contact him directly. He might agree to something like that. But there's no telling how easy it is to work with, and how much time it would take away from him to work on it.