KickStarter Mechajammer (formerly Copper Dreams) - cyberpunk RPG from Whalenought Studios

[mediocrepoet]

It sucks that the game sounds fairly interesting if you can get past the extreme bugginess. It would almost be better if it was unredeemable shit so it wouldn't feel like a shame to miss out.

 

[Cyberarmy]

1012

Bloody hell

 

[buffalo bill]

Dhaze you make this unplayable game sound cool, i.e. you are making this thread even more depressing.

(I can't decide to give your posts brofists or despairs)

 

[buffalo bill]

also Dhaze what is your playtime so far? I know you're probably losing lots of time on saving/reloading and bugs and shitty pathfinding and so on, but it seems nonetheless like this is a pretty big game. Pretty sure I would actually give this game an honest go if the bugs were fixed

Wish Joe would come out of hiding and answer some questions on the codex, especially about whether bugs will ever be squashed

 

[mediocrepoet]

Agreed, I'd take back all my griping if it ever became reasonably bug free.

 

[Lyre Mors]

There are much deeper problems here than just bugs. But yes, it does tend to be entertaining - sometimes even addictive - despite the problems.

 

[Dhaze]

Quick notes: according to the Steam Reviews, I count roughly 10% of players having played more than 10 hours.

Bloody hell

The only other games I know of that even remotely approach this level of weirdness in their save system are Neverwinter Nights 2, which if I recall correctly had saves that would reach individual sizes in the vicinity of 1.5Go towards the end of the main campaign; and Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which saved and loaded absolutely every single detail about the game world, including stuff like items left on the ground of maps that have become and will forever remain inaccessible, resulting amongst other things in possibly ludicrous, 90-120 seconds load times on an M.2 SSD when reaching the House At The End Of Times.

also Dhaze what is your playtime so far? I know you're probably losing lots of time on saving/reloading and bugs and shitty pathfinding and so on, but it seems nonetheless like this is a pretty big game. Pretty sure I would actually give this game an honest go if the bugs were fixed

Yeesh, that's hard to say. I bought it on GoG, so unfortunately no playtime as is displayed by Steam. And there's indeed an exaggerate amount of saving/reloading due to bugs, plus a good bit of fuck-around-and-find-out in attempts to ascertain whether this or that is or isn't a bug, and numerous attempts at replicating bugs to understand how they might occur.

Take that not with a mere pinch but with a fistful of salt: I'd say a good 20 hours of actual, normal gameplay so far.

Wish Joe would come out of hiding and answer some questions on the codex, especially about whether bugs will ever be squashed

I've not tried to contact Whalenought yet. Honestly I'm hesitant to do so.

On one hand I don't want to annoy them, and they owe me nothing. On the other hand, I can't help but think that if they're not traumatised for life after what they endured with this game (and I hope they're not), they might—with truly tremendous and prolonged effort—have a chance to recoup their losses and even gain something if they squash the myriad of bugs and refine a few things.

I mean, it's terribly rare, but a couple of games have recuperated from some of the most monstrously botched launches. Brigador is a fine example. Excruciatingly bad launch. But now? Man, mowing down entire city blocks aboard an Aetos equipped with a Bishop (short-barrel version of a cannon designed for frigates) and König (brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) is amazing stuff.

Dhaze you make this unplayable game sound cool, i.e. you are making this thread even more depressing.

Agreed, I'd take back all my griping if it ever became reasonably bug free.

Yeah, that's the worst part: there's a good game buried in there. But deeply, deeply buried—beneath an overflowing sceptic tank.

As it is now, it feels like playing the shoddy pre-alpha of a game that took roughly three years of development. The ideas and systems are there, and what it really needs is fine-tuning along a thorough cleaning up.

Take a year to squash the bugs. Make it so the various systems coalesce into a stronger experience. Refine the whole of it a couple of times with help from dedicated, but more importantly thoughtful playtesters. Then you'd have an honest-to-god good game ready to launch successfully—or in this case re-launch, provided they have a marketing genius can send the internet a-buzz.

There are much deeper problems here than just bugs. But yes, it does tend to be entertaining - sometimes even addictive - despite the problems.

True, it goes deeper than bugs.

1) The A.I. is braindead.

2) Zones of shadows and light are badly delineated or sometimes outright falsely communicated to the player, making the whole sneaking affair a huge pain in the ass. A game shamelessly lying to its player is the worst possible offense, as far as I'm concerned.

3) Improving some Studies (your character's proficiencies) starting at character creation and profession selection is borderline impossible. Proficiency in Two-Handed Edge for example can only be furthered by having worked in Heavy Artillery, a choice of profession only available after a certain age—and even then it provides one measly pip. Likewise, Throwing appears nowhere, meaning it can't be improved during character creation, despite Throwing being a perfect fit for a profession like Looter.

4) At present I still have no idea how and why the police forces might spring into action and attack me. Sometimes I crash my vehicule into another or crush a pedestrian, and there comes the police; but sometimes not, despite dozens of witnesses. For the life of me I can't replicate conditions that systematically lead to them appearing. And when they do, it's in the fashion of Cyberpunk 2077: they materialise out of thin air, a pace away from you.

5) Bands of roving rioters can appear anywhere, anytime. But they almost only ever attack... themselves? Frankly, I've no idea what going on there.

6) Grenades; how do they work? It's a mystery to me. If I throw a fire grenade (C-90 or something) on the ground, it explodes in a fiery blaze. But if I throw it straight into someone's face, it does 1d8 damage? I mean come on, I'm willing to wade through some weird stuff, but that's just plain wrong.

7) The Virtue (attribute) called Pain Treshold is, to my eyes, useless to invest into. It adds 10 HP per dice, when your base HP is 50. Now, enemies either barely do any damage, or outright one-shot me with such damage I couldn't even survive with 170 (!) HP. But at the level cap, you have a grand total of 8 dices to spread in your Virtues, which I would say is about 4 or 5 dices too few.

I could go on for a long, long while; I've scribed pages of notes like that, in case I ever decide to potentially annoy the devs with my experience.

 

[Dhaze]

And now an update on my playthrough. I progressed, then got stuck and stumped, then progressed some more.

But firstly, as is only proper, a glitch and an annoyance, both being light spoilers of what's to come.

Here you have an example of a visual glitch that affects quite a few enemies. Some enemies end up in only one color, others in two; here they are at times reduced to a single splat of Stihl-tinted orange.



And next you'll see what might be the loudest, most eloquent example of a frequent problem in Mechajammer: that of lights and shadows being badly communicated to the player. My character and three enemies are somehow considered by the game as in the shadows, though we're so clearly in the light—and furthermore we're literally being illumined every few seconds by a lighthouse's projector, yet for some reason are still not lit up.



Evidently this particular example stands to the player's advantage, but know that the opposite—being visually in shadows, yet being considered as standing in bright light—happens more often, and transforms the act of sneaking through enemy lines into a coin toss.

Onto the update proper, then.

I enter the cyphered coordinates previously obtained near a shipment of radioactive waste, and find myself disembarking onto Agro-Fax's Dome Six Island. Where I am immediately detected—before even I could tense my toes:

Those of you who have followed this game's development a bit might recognise the name Agent Orchid. Here was the original Agent Orchid, as she looked about 4 or 5 years ago: https://imgur.com/sfPxnUT
Exactly how many visual overhauls were needed to devolve her into the final product? Before, she looked like a trained, collected, absolute stone of a woman, a cross between The Boss from Metal Gear Solid and Hārokku from the eponymous late 70's manga. Now she looks like an emo girl in her late teens, who works at the local mini-market and bemoans every facet of her life.

But anyway. I start sneaking around, and unfortunately I couldn't spring quickly enough on my screenshot key to capture the phylactery that briefly popped over one of these guys' head:

"Another cage broke!" he said before becoming unable to ever say any more.

More sneaking around, with my drones staying behind as they can prove a hindrance when discretion is de rigueur:

Unfortunately I can't sneak my way through these guys, so with a well-tossed and -placed grenade as well's a bit of stabbing, I clear the way:

But while the dead guys behind me, along the trail of blood, are entirely my wrongdoing, the responsibility of what carnage lays farther ahead cannot be laid upon me. Moreover, my minimap and the icons to the left alert me to... well... alert enemies; and the game log sings a like tune of warning.

A few more careful, tentative steps and I come to this:

Well I guess now we know what was kept in the cages. I don't envy this guy's fate. This forces me to discover a merciful side to myself I hadn't suspected existed, and thus I decide to help him deal with his bug problem—after all, I commiserate, since I also suffer from an infestation of bugs, though admittedly bugs of a different nature.

A big, mean, nasty bugger bites off a chunk of my lady leg, which has me limping, which, in the end, sucks. And while that first guy did not pay the least attention to me, all busy being gnawed on by mutated insects that he was, his colleagues behind were less happy to see me, and with not a thought wasted on the possibility of a fruitful friendship between the lot of us, they started laser-blasting with damnable accuracy:

Look to the screen's upper-left: that's a bit of HP gone, and three wounds will require that many Health Kits I do not possess.

With no immediate threat lurking in the vicinity, I then bandage myself best's I can, prioritising my legs, for having a wounded leg makes me stagger at a snail-stuck-in-glue's pace. Gone, my last Health Kit; still there, my head wound and growing migraine. Hopefully once my business here is done, I'll be able to find some Paracetamol amongst the drugs sold in Calitana.

I then notice a door:

But it's locked, and I don't have the key, and with not even a pip in Burglary have zero chance of lockpicking it. Time to call back my little drone buddies, who are pretty darn good at that thievery stuff:

But while I have an almost exaggerate amount of drones, with 5 dices in Burglary they have no more hope than I in lockpicking that door. Fortunately, this one—though sturdy—can be shattered into myriad fragments with enough insistence:

Once inside, I can but notice an array of computers, and a note printed on Agro-Fax stationary:

Valuable information!

1) The Earth Collective (of which me and my team were formerly members before deciding to defect) has a presence here on Calitana, or at least must hop by periodically.

2) Mayflower Initiative's technology was sealing the entrance to Atlantean ruins — much hype!

3) The Agro-Fax team recovered a few Atlantean artifacts.

4) A crude vocal box that plays garbled, four-bit frequencies, used to open doors. So those are obviously voice samples of the Quarrymen, or an emulation thereof used by the Mayflower Initiative to communicate with the Quarrymen.

5) Those sounds resemble rudimentary languages used by drones and other robotic interfaces. Excuse me sir, pray stop; my penis can only get so erect. So sentient or close-to-sentience drones? Wetware confirmed? This I like very much.

But what's the deal with the computers' interface? Here it is in action:



And my heart to sink and spirit to wallow, because I have no fucking idea what to do here. I thought I would, with help from the few clues I've gathered so far, the colored line drawings and the mention of the purple; but I feel quite distinctly that I'm still missing one or more pieces.

Still, I've a bit more of the Dome Six Island to explore, and while I absent-mindedly try to connect some pieces together I decide to move on for the time being.

I briefly cosplay a more effective version of Dale Gribble, exterminator:

Then I witness this guy, who looks like a beginner Terran stricken with terror while facing a master-level Zerg player (also, notice the vaguely-delineated shadows of his colleagues, cowardly hiding nearby to the right, their green Agro-Fax pants probably slowly taking a yellow or brown tinge):

Eventually, I meet face to face with Agent Orchid:

She finds herself expeditedly disembowled (and so, too, her goons). I hate how goddamn ugly and standard she looks. To think the devs had such awesome art that was shoved aside...

But I find a letter tucked neathly in the right cup of her bra:

Well well well. Damned corpos, always screwing the little people with their imporper disposal of hazardous waste!

Also on her person, I find this here ticket:

And that confirms what I suspected was a glitch.

See, before taking the Quinton Industries' train bound for the Gershwein Estates, I had to register at a counter, where a Quinton employee asked to see my ticket. And I had the dialogue option to show him my ticket, despite not having one. So that was glitch, a flag that was activated but shouldn't have been, because obviously I'm supposed to first get Orchid's ticket, then go the Gershwein Estates.

But Agent Orchid was clearly guarding a door leading inside a small building. What's in it?

Oh no. Mara. I mean, since she'd stopped contacting Sullivan, I knew something must have gone awry, but man, poor girl, she was just trying to escape from New-York Calitana. Of course, saddened but curioused, I read her letter:

Decidedly, Fortune does not smile upon me today; no valuable information here.

After this, I completed my exploration of Dome Six Island, yet found naught else of value, only a handful of Agro-Fax guys taking a stand on a little hill, and behind them a small house with an empty container (of those that usually contain good loot, so I hope there was not supposed to be an essential item in there that got bugged).

So now what to do? I don't know how to use the computer, and my previous progress has led me to what closely resembles a cul-de-sac.

Nursing a suspicion that I've missed something there, I decide to trek back to the Greshwein Estates. And indeed I had missed something!

Might those be Atlantean artefacts? Hard to say, given the... peculiar artstyle; more than anything it looks like a bouillabaisse of pixels, and posit is all I can do. So did Gershwein pilfer or buy them? Don't know either.

But at the center of what might be a collection of artefacts, there's this most mysterious arrangement:

Chairs? On hexagons of various colors? Seemingly can't interact with them, either.
Now's the time for me to shamefully admit to being anxious. I can do pew-pew, and stab-stab, because my character takes care of that. But I suck so hard at puzzles it's embarassing. If I manage to push through the plethora of bugs this game houses only to fail due to puzzles, I'll commit honorabru seppuku.

So that's it, I'm stuck with no idea where to—no wait I know! I know I know!

Look at that:

That little yellow rectangle, towards the upper-right part of the map, is a note I had scribed on my map long ago, about two hours into my playthrough. It marks the spot of power generator linked to a vault door. It confused me for a while, because all the other generators-cum-vault doors in the game belong to one faction or another.
But this vault door is far away from any faction, deep in the jungle. And what do we know can be found in abundance in the jungle? Atlantean architecture, which interests the Mayflower Initiative to a considerable degree. And in the north, Quinton's executives on their way to fleeing Calitana.

So I race there:

And try to use the key previously filched from a guy riding a car bearing the Mayflower Initiative's logo:

Yes, ahah! I'm jubilant, baby, jubilant!

Not much farther beyond, I see that:

A field littered with traps, these probably being detected by my dear little drones, whose senses are keener than mine. Meseems I've finally found the Mayflower Initiative's base, meaning that I'm likely to uncover a few secrets and/or clues, and perhaps more importantly to sabotage a certain anti-air battery caused me and mine to crash on this sweaty hellhole.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

more than anything it looks like a bouillabaisse of pixels

 

[Dhaze]

Welp, I've progressed on one important front, to the end of one fork of the main quest, and did a bit of stuff on the side—but am now facing a dead end.

So I explored the Mayflower Initiative's base, which was very disappointing. Small area; little to see; littler to do.

Here you can see one of a handful of the Agro-Fax guys that patrol the area, proving that Agro-Fax and Mayflower are conniving:

Then I quickly come to a rise on the land; atop which I find something, limned by shadows, makes my heart swell with relief and happiness mixed equal parts:

But there is a substantial slab of steroidal beef watching over the anti-air battery. Thus, with naught in the way of ceremony and less still of honorability, I creep unseen towards Hunk o' Chunk so as to sweep his trunk-like legs from under him, then skewer him twice in quick succession afore he can act:



A little to the side of the gun, I find a small cabin with a computer that offers me the possibility to print codes. Which I do:

I was then put in mind of some comments Barry had earlier made, at a bar called the Duke Of Whales: should I ever discover any, Pelican could use codes related to the anti-air gun. Back to the base then, for a brief speak with Pelican:

Pelican, my girl, my sweet, sweet, curly-haired girl... not even someone with such wild imagination as Clark Ashton Smith possessed could begin to imagine how relieved I am—because I'm one important step closer to ending this atrocious nightmare. As soon as I'm done with Mechajammer, I'll uninstall the game and commit myself to some manner of mental institution. In my future, I see truckloads of medication tablets whose names invariably are Zepam or Zolam.

So now what? Well, you guys tell me, because I don't know.

I travelled back, on more time, to the Gershwein Estates, thinking about his weird garden and chairs, hoping to see or think something would help me. And find something I did; apparently I'm missing tidbits time and again in this place.

But it was useless...

Basically, what that is is a clue as to the code to the computer that opened a reinforced door. Computer I'd already used upon first visiting the Estates, by correctly guessing the username then hacking the code. So that offers me nothing new nor useful.

After this I went back to the Black Market, more precisely to the Melrose Apartments, since I had found a note mentionning one apartment in particular, where a guys from the Arms Guild was supposed to be found (there was also mention of a psionic gun that could unfortunately not be procured). But the guy was a simple merchant, with guns and scopes and a couple of gun mods.

Still in the Black Market, I searched its underground for a bit. On an isolated island I had met the Fishmongers syndicate, who said they would ally with me if I did away with the Medics of Black Market. Well, I found the Medics, but they also proposed an alliance, and I had previously accomplished what needed be accomplished to conclude an alliance with said Medics.

So that's the Cyberfreaks, the Scavengers, the Temps and the Medics on my side. The Miners, the R4ts, the Bottlers, and the Factus East Boys all stand decimated; more fertilizer to send Calitana's jungles ever a-sprawl. This leaves the Fishmongers standing, whom I'll likely leave alone; and the Grubworms, whose fate I've yet to decide, and camp to re-visit.

But under the Black Market, near the Medics, I found a couple of bridges raised, with, out of range from my tiny human arms, a computer. To reach the computer in question, I had to take a huge, huge, fucking huge detour, and along the way mow something like 200 mutants and mutated dogs and jungle dogs. I was bored out of my skull, so dull the combat in this game is. Just insanity; a grey underground of many corridors with no a single even remotely interesting thing to see, and click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click to mindlessly kill throngs of enemies animated by a bare-bones, one-note A.I.

Not for nothing at least all this trudging, I thought upon seeing this message near the computer:

A mention of the Mayflower Initiative! Ok. Ok ok ok. Now I wonder where the rest of the passage will lead me? Well, it lead me smack dab in the eastern district of Calitana. Nowhere special though; actually it brought me exactly next to the merchant featured in the video in which I lose my spear due to a bug with the inventory.

So that was an easy-to-miss passage! But I don't know why it exists, save to provide an overly long alternative way to reach the Black Market, one that requires not use of the cyphered taxi system. Perhaps at one point in the late game the taxi system will be shut down, and I'll need to reach Sullivan on foot?

So I'm a bit at a loss here. I still have the following puzzle pieces to assemble, somehow:

I guess the next step is to drive around, revisit a couple of places, and mull it over.

/edit : oh I almost forgot, check out this amazing, steaming pile of shitty level design!

 

[Tyranicon]

Every time I see a screenshot I'm reminded of how good the art is, especially the design of the UI (even if it's not super practical).

On a brighter note, I checked and it is possible to finish the game, unless merely escaping Calitana is some kind of midgame event. Also the achievement lists what some people may consider a spoiler in its text, which I've blocked out.

Dhaze if you actually finish the game, you're in the company of only a select few stubborn enough to do so.

Also thanks for reminding me about Brigador, it's on sale and I'm gonna get it.

 

[buffalo bill]

Every time I see a screenshot I'm reminded of how good the art is, especially the design of the UI (even if it's not super practical).

On a brighter note, I checked and it is possible to finish the game, unless merely escaping Calitana is some kind of midgame event. Also the achievement lists what some people may consider a spoiler in its text, which I've blocked out.

Dhaze if you actually finish the game, you're in the company of only a select few stubborn enough to do so.

Also thanks for reminding me about Brigador, it's on sale and I'm gonna get it.

Does the 0.1% mean that 1/1000 people who have played the game have beaten it? Haven't only like 300 people ever even played the game? I assume steam must round up, cuz otherwise it seems like 1/3 or so of a single person has beaten the game

 

[mediocrepoet]

Every time I see a screenshot I'm reminded of how good the art is, especially the design of the UI (even if it's not super practical).

On a brighter note, I checked and it is possible to finish the game, unless merely escaping Calitana is some kind of midgame event. Also the achievement lists what some people may consider a spoiler in its text, which I've blocked out.

Dhaze if you actually finish the game, you're in the company of only a select few stubborn enough to do so.

Also thanks for reminding me about Brigador, it's on sale and I'm gonna get it.

Does the 0.1% mean that 1/1000 people who have played the game have beaten it? Haven't only like 300 people ever even played the game? I assume steam must round up, cuz otherwise it seems like 1/3 or so of a single person has beaten the game

I believe it's a percentage of registered owners. So it'd count me, for instance. The game is in my account but I've never booted it.

 

[Dhaze]

Well there's a guy in the Steam review section with 235 hours of playtime, of which 230 at review time (arrant folly of the maddest kind; I can't imagine playing Mechajammer for that long), so I want to believe that he at least has finished the game.

While enthusiastic, he does mention a number of bugs in his review, but I need to call bullshit on one point:

This game had a rough launch, it's true, but the v1.1 "Refracted" update which dropped mid-March 2022 is like the game's real launch. Where you had despawning items, doors and bridges resetting between saves, and enemies respawning endlessly upon loading saves before, you now have completely stable save states.

Nah, no matter how optimistically you look at it, that's just plain false, and readily verifiable. Upon reload, your character might be standing up when he was previously crouching. Though rare, some enemies do still respawn right next to you. Items in the inventory might have disappeared or re-organised themselves. Etc, etc...

This is what the folder content of a single save file looks like now, 1252 .es3 files: https://i.imgur.com/Q3kvnz6.jpg

No way in hell that's the shape taken by a stable, healthy saving system.

Other than that, I'm stumped as to how to further my playthrough. I've destroyed the Grubworms faction and scoured their base for potential information; saw a satellite dish with the distinct sheen of an interactable object, but could not find a way to interact with it. Destroyed the Fishmongers, and likewise scoured their base for potential information, but found none.

I feel like I'm missing something a clue or knowledge of a place, and I hope it's not because of a bug.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Well there's a guy in the Steam review section with 235 hours of playtime, of which 230 at review time (arrant folly of the maddest kind; I can't imagine playing Mechajammer for that long), so I want to believe that he at least has finished the game.

While enthusiastic, he does mention a number of bugs in his review, but I need to call bullshit on one point:

This game had a rough launch, it's true, but the v1.1 "Refracted" update which dropped mid-March 2022 is like the game's real launch. Where you had despawning items, doors and bridges resetting between saves, and enemies respawning endlessly upon loading saves before, you now have completely stable save states.

Nah, no matter how optimistically you look at it, that's just plain false, and readily verifiable. Upon reload, your character might be standing up when he was previously crouching. Though rare, some enemies do still respawn right next to you. Items in the inventory might have disappeared or re-organised themselves. Etc, etc...

This is what the folder content of a single save file looks like now, 1252 .es3 files: https://i.imgur.com/Q3kvnz6.jpg

No way in hell that's the shape taken by a stable, healthy saving system.

Other than that, I'm stumped as to how to further my playthrough. I've destroyed the Grubworms faction and scoured their base for potential information; saw a satellite dish with the distinct sheen of an interactable object, but could not find a way to interact with it. Destroyed the Fishmongers, and likewise scoured their base for potential information, but found none.

I feel like I'm missing something a clue or knowledge of a place, and I hope it's not because of a bug.

Maybe the application hung and is running in the background, but he has a powerful enough system he just leaves it while he does other things because alt-f4 didn't work and he's too lazy to reboot.

J/k, it's probably Hannah and Joe's personal account.

 

[Dhaze]

You're kidding about the application hanging and alt-f4 not working, but that's actually been the case during my last few sessions of play. The game hangs indefinitely upon quitting, and I have to open the task manager to kill the process.

 

[AdolfSatan]

You actually inspired me to give this a try. I'm not getting nearly as many bugs as you do. Have you tried a clean install? The ones currently affecting me are:
If I saved while crouching, upon reload I'll lose my hidden status.
Items may reorganize themselves in the inventory after I reload, but so far none has disappeared.
Issues with light/shadow zones not working 100% as intended.
Sometimes the ground becomes unclickable despite it clearly being traversable. I have to switch between the two views/levels of zoom and click around until it magically fixes itself.

Now, to my opinions.
Disregarding that, the biggest issues are:
Atrocious, inconsistent UI and lack of very basic QoL features. Looks like it was designed and programmed by people that never played a game or used a program in their lives.
Wanna start a new game? Well, you gotta fire up the tutorial, let it load, and then skip it. Hell yeah, fuck the players.
Walking around is unnecessarily complicated, how could they get something as simple as moving wrong?
Game looks beautiful on the screenshots, but like you said, it's very hard to parse in movement. Stuff gets mixed and lost in a dark mush of drabness.
Why is everything so fucking slooooow? The text and rolls move at a glacial pace.
For a low poly game, it's awfully optimized.

The good part:
The atmosphere is compelling, and I enjoy the sensation of being lost in a suburban swamp.
The, let's say… loose way in which information is presented reminds me of how the logic for some PSX games worked, and I think that's a deliberate choice which they nailed.
10/10 OST. I don't exaggerate when I say it carries most of the weight of the game on its own.

 

[grimace]

Well there's a guy in the Steam review section with 235 hours of playtime,

Maybe the application hung and is running in the background,

Since first alpha to the build before public beta ... I didn't log my hours. There might still be a steam log related to the alpha/beta builds I tested.

I did leave the app running and walk away to do IRL quests.

In my mind mech-opper-dream-jammer is still EARLY ACCESS beta version and I wonder why Modern Wolf did not release it in that way to STEAM. Perhaps GOG doesn't do EA and Whalenought/Modern Wolf needed to release something to fulfill Kickstarter promises.

Many questions. May be answered at some point. Confucius sits calmly.

 

[Dhaze]

You actually inspired me to give this a try. I'm not getting nearly as many bugs as you do. Have you tried a clean install?

Yes, I re-installed it twice, and the GoG installer verifies the integrity of the files. Believe me, the bugs keep creeping on you and the more you pay attention the more you notice the little ones. Some are really easy to miss, but they're here. They're omnipresent. I mean, you're already seeing the most noticeable ones.

For example when you approach a certain short bridge—I believe somewhere in Old Town—all potential cars and pedestrian in roughly a two-screens radius instantly despawn. If you drive straight by while looking at your minimap or something else, you'll miss it.

On a Steam thread, there was this post which, at least to me, rings perhaps truer than any:

Most of the issues aren't gone. Supporters are on some major copium and treat the game like a charity event instead of a full game release. They patch out one bug and reintroduce the 5 bugs they tried fixing before. Best bet is to buy a better game.

Sweeping now over the patch notes, I know I've seen many of the bugs that have supposedly been corrected.

I'll start strong, with a weird one I discovered about an hour ago, and now I see that something akin to it is supposed to be fixed since the 1.06 patch!

— Fixed equipping shield and two-handed weapons bug



And that one pissed me off, because I suspected that wearing dog tags of the Earth Collective might cause certain people to react differently, so I equipped the dogs tags at the very start of the game. Or so I thought, as now I realise they weren't equipped, and I've played almost the entire game without them.

— Car can disappear when player is driving
— NPC cars disappearing while driving

Yup, I've had those.

— Police called even when not seen by MFI scanners

That definitely happened to me. I mentionned earlier being confused by the conditions required for the police's arrival, and I'm guessing this bug only serves to reinforce that.

— Fixed bug with items falling outside of walkable areas

Happens all the time with spear throw. It even goes through walls. To the point where I've never used that skill after the first couple of hours of play.

— Companions multiplying on load

Yup, I've had that with Dex and another guy (I want to say Gillis?) at the Rizo Den during my first playthrough. Ended up with five of each guy.

— Removed noise radius effects while driving

Uh, no. Just no. Drive somewhere around the many warehouses to the west, not far north-west from the Quinton Industries buildings, and the enemies inside, unable to see you at all, will aggro due to the noise of your car.

— Rioters no longer start riots indoors

Seen it.

— Overlapping items bugs fixed

Not fixed, still happens rarely; particularly if an armor breaks while you wear it, said armor might reappear hours later in your inventory, with negative durability, and over-imposed on other items

— Dialogue items given to full bag now drop to ground instead of disappearing

That one was indeed fixed. Great job team! But said items can become un-interactable, forcing a reload anyway...

I think one only has to look at the sheer number and sizes of the patch logs Whalenought has published to realise that no, this game was not nor is even now fit for release.

/edit: holy frack I found a puzzle in the temple of the Faith. Dear god does this game badly needs a key to highlight interactable items.

 

[Saduj]

I'm not getting nearly as many bugs as you do.

Give it time.

A few bug related tips.... First is, don't carry more than one full stack of the same type of ammo. It has been a consistent experience for me that if I reload a weapon while having a full stack(s) plus a small stack in my inventory, the full stack(s) will disappear. Better to drop the excess somewhere convenient - like your base - and pick it up later. What you can do is carry more than one type of ammo for the same weapon. Edit - Generally, items abandoned on the floor all over the game world seem to have less of a chance of disappearing than anything you carry in your inventory!

If you pick up an item and it doesn't show in your inventory, look carefully to see if there is a slightly darker, unusable section in your inventory. If it is there, you can't do anything with it but that is your item. Saving and reloading seems to fix this and give you access to the item while clearing up the dead inventory space. Recommend a new save slot for this.

If you're exploring on foot and seem to get physically stuck on something for no reason, jumping sometimes helps.

 

[Dhaze]

AdolfSatan and Saduj

I'm progressing again, albeit only a little; do you want me to keep what I'll post next in spoilers? So far I was operating on the idea that I'm pretty much the only one playing this game 'seriously' so to speak, but perhaps it'd be better for the enjoyment of your playthrough if I kept most of mine to spoilers—especially when it comes to puzzles.

 

[Saduj]

Dhaze - For my part, I don't need you to spoiler your posts. I would say I'm playing the game only semi-seriously. I didn't want to start over after my jammer disappeared and was under the impression that I wouldn't be able to finish the game so I've just been messing around. But thanks to one of your posts, I now know that the jammer is unimportant. So I guess I could potentially try to complete the game. But for now, I'm just trying to see as much of the map as possible, wipe out or ally with factions and complete some NPC quests. If anything, your progress may nudge me towards giving the main quest a try...

 

[Dhaze]

Pelican's Jammer, right? Yeah, I think that one is not essential. As for the other one, the Arms Guild Jammer, I've yet to ascertain its use.
Anyway, glad to be of help. May you suffer less than I did.

So I'm probably gonna need to get some sleep at some point, because of life and obligations and all that boring stuff, but I've found what is evidently the missing thread to my tapestry, thus made huge progress, and am now on the verge of solving the voice puzzle on Dome Six Island.

Why was that game marketed as it was, I'll never understand. If it can get me, of all people, not merely interested but actually rather excited about detective work and puzzle solving, I think they missed their target by a mile and some, when they didn't insist on that aspect of the game during their promotional efforts.

 

[True Ukrainian]

I'm going to blindly speculate on what the mystery of the copperheads are.

The copperheads aren't a weapon by themselves. Remember the patch notes saying police are only meant to be summoned if you have been detected by the copperheads? The copperheads are a means psionically controlling the entire population of the planet. Agrofax has been working with MFI in the project by providing food that makes the population susceptible to psychic domination.

The copperheads are invincible because no one can bring themselves to harm them. To do that you need the jammer made by the Arms Guild to block the psychic transmission the copperheads use. This fits the setting since you can roll a psychic character yourself, except there are no conventional psyker powers in the game. Instead you gain the ability to build an army of vagrants by talking / dominating them.

So that's why the copperheads are such a big deal for the ciwar, it allows a faction to completely weaponise the planet.

I hate that this game is interesting enough to speculate about yet nearly unplayable.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Nay, don't worry with the spoilers, I can always skip over the text if I'm worried about that. Besides, who says I won't get fed up with the shitty UI and drop it halfway through.