Vapourware That Which Sleeps - Vaporware Strategy RP

[Rahdulan]

That prophecy screen, mang.

 

[Helly]

I can't tell you how glad I am this isn't actually dead.

 

[Oarfish]

I guess grand strategy game authors should make sure that they can write AI for the game systems they design, but that never stopped Paradox.

 

[Matalarata]

That is not dead which can eternal vapour,
And with strange aeons even golden babies may fly...

 

[almondblight]

Except exercise takes time and effort, while taking 5 minutes to copy bits would be much more convenient and less expensive than hiring someone to take care of that. Not to say that companies don't unnecessarily waste money, but if there was profit to be made from simply firing people and having a programmer do the work then there'd be more companies at least trying that approach.

Most people would be a lot better off with just 5 minutes of exercise everyday; still, most people don't do that. But we have an even better example here - it wouldn't be difficult for the programmer to answer the other developer's messages with at least a "Hey, sorry, been busy lately but everything's still on track." Yet he apparently didn't do that for 2-3 months, until the other developer had to basically annoy the answer out of him.

Also keep in mind that copying and pasting your weekly wrap-up only works when someone has a good plan for their work and actually does a weekly wrap-up. A lot of people don't do this, and just sit at their desk every day trying to work on whatever comes to mind or whatever they feel like. Then they don't bother cataloguing what they did at the end of the week, and just keep hammering away at things until (hopefully) they seem mostly finished.

So there are reasons why people don't do this; they just aren't good reasons.

 

[Space Satan]

A fitting infiltration tactics for petty kingdoms

 

[Lucky]

Most people would be a lot better off with just 5 minutes of exercise everyday; still, most people don't do that. But we have an even better example here - it wouldn't be difficult for the programmer to answer the other developer's messages with at least a "Hey, sorry, been busy lately but everything's still on track." Yet he apparently didn't do that for 2-3 months, until the other developer had to basically annoy the answer out of him.

Also keep in mind that copying and pasting your weekly wrap-up only works when someone has a good plan for their work and actually does a weekly wrap-up. A lot of people don't do this, and just sit at their desk every day trying to work on whatever comes to mind or whatever they feel like. Then they don't bother cataloguing what they did at the end of the week, and just keep hammering away at things until (hopefully) they seem mostly finished.

So there are reasons why people don't do this; they just aren't good reasons.

That's bottom of the barrel level exercise where any movement at all will help. At that point you're saying that a company with zero web-presence, no contacts and no marketing budget might want to look into getting a facebook account. It's the advise you give to people who avoid sports at all costs, not to semi-pros striving to go professional.

As for what their team dynamic is, well, who knows? They do, obviously, but what I mean is that we have no real idea of how their team is currently run and why; what their arrangements are and why they made them. What we have is speculation based on a few messages by the developers that don't give any specifics as to how development is done and little else, so going by an impression of how they might handle notes or messaging won't get us anywhere.

Also, them not being in contact for months appears to be a case of Chinese whispers, because I took a look and the other developer seems frustrated at how communication has been going but mentions nothing about them not being in touch for that long. It also gave me this:

Based on my conversations the thing that is impossibly hard and is taking 10x longer than originally anticipated is making all of these interconnected features actually work together to DO THINGS. Josh is making great progress though and I think we'll have some more screens for next week.

That's about what I expected. He likely underestimated the difficulty of bringing everything together when the materials are essentially done and was way too optimistic regarding the amount of time it would take. If he's really being truthful, then what mainly remains to be seen is whether or not he's able to make the AI enjoyable to play against, or whether he has to strip it of functionality to such a degree, in order to work, that it'll be an unresponsive pushover.

 

[thesheeep]

And there is the new update:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingdinosaurgames/that-which-sleeps/posts/1518447

 

[Helly]

 

[agris]

We've had a bit of communication breakdown as it's been about 3 months since our last major update. I want to take a moment to again apologize for this lapse. We've generally been trying to do updates every 4 - 6 weeks but we ran into several issues that forced us to dive back into the tank and spend the entirety of our time working on bug fixing and game coding.

I know people are annoyed and upset with this lack of communication and I don't blame anyone - please feel some solace knowing that we are aware of our poor communication over the past time period and are making a solemn promise to try to do much better.

So in summary - yes we're still here and we're still working on That Which Sleeps.

We will be posting a few screenshots each Saturday to show more in game screens of stuff actually being worked on or occurring in game - hopefully this will allay some of the fears and allegation of That Which Sleeps being vaporwore.

Secondly - We've taken the preorder button down from our site as of a couple weeks ago. We are no longer accepting preorders because 1 - we're getting closer to beta and 2 - (more importantly) the huge amount of refunds and chargebacks that we received. So at this point our Beta testers are locked in. We're still determining the final vessel for delivering Beta to you but if we're lucky it will be a private release on one of the major distribution platforms.

Finally - the screenshots promised - find them HERE on this Imgur album. These were first posted Saturday on our forums and we'll continue to post a few each weekend for at least the next month or so.

I've also dug up a few screens specifically for Kickstarter.


First image shows the total redo / rework of the Biomancer and her facilities.


The second image shows a dynamically generated screen that occurs on the death of a major hero.

I apologize for the long break between updates and I don't fault anyone for being frustated with us in our lack of communication or our extremely questionable ability to hit deadlines - but we promise that we're still working hard and getting a little closer everyday.

KDG

 

[Jimmious]

That Which Might Not Vapour After All

 

[Space Satan]

 

[almondblight]

That's bottom of the barrel level exercise where any movement at all will help. At that point you're saying that a company with zero web-presence, no contacts and no marketing budget might want to look into getting a facebook account.

At that point you're saying that projects that go for months without updates might want to look into sending out a short update once a month saying "Hey guys, everything is still moving a long, this month we worked on X Y and Z, and next month we'll be working on C, D, and F." Which is, eh, what we are saying.

Also, them not being in contact for months appears to be a case of Chinese whispers, because I took a look and the other developer seems frustrated at how communication has been going but mentions nothing about them not being in touch for that long.

Posts by Fenicks (developer) over the past couple of weeks, regarding Josh (the programmer):

I don't really think I deserve any credit for coming here every few days and apologizing - I am in a similar boat as you all, basically we're just waiting for concrete news.

I don't and won't have any access to Josh - he is possibly returning to Boston in the Summer but TBD. Even if he were to return its not like I can go to his house and handcuff him to me and follow him around for a week - we're all at the mercy of the project.

Yes we should be able to schedule regular conversations. You remember back in high school you message a girl you like and she never gets back to you and then you message her like every day for the next week?

Change week to 3 months and change "message" to "go through the gamut of anger to sadness to betrayal to forgiveness to hope to rage" etc.

It's basically just a fun therapy exercise for me - like screaming at the ocean.

I believe that Josh is still working and fulfilling his end of the agreement however due to our distance and his lack of communication (which unfortunately really shows a lack of respect for the process, the project, and me as a partner) I just can't really lead the communication aspect of it now with anything tangible.

Yeah, "Chinese whispers"...

 

[Beowulf]

Not wanting to sound like a party pooper, but they need to show some gameplay; the AI in action, systems of the game working as a coherent whole.
Until then it's in a transitional state between emptypromises/vapourware/yet another nail in a kickstarter coffin and orgasm inducing experience.

 

[Irenaeus III]

 

[Lucky]

At that point you're saying that projects that go for months without updates might want to look into sending out a short update once a month saying "Hey guys, everything is still moving a long, this month we worked on X Y and Z, and next month we'll be working on C, D, and F." Which is, eh, what we are saying.

I'm simply saying that the analogy doesn't sell the idea that it's that easy to adequately handle pr for a product. Companies don't start from zero where all gains are a benefit, but have to already be at a level where doing it wrong can seriously backfire. There's a reason why such methods aren't more prevalent and it's not that everyone is just that incompetent.

Posts by Fenicks (developer) over the past couple of weeks, regarding Josh (the programmer):

Yeah, "Chinese whispers"...

Huh. That's weird, I hadn't seen those. My mistake then. Yes, that doesn't strike me as a healthy way to handle internal communication.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

This is pretty cool, here's to hoping for 2020 release

 

[Space Satan]

Devs on kickstarter

Agree 100% with Robert - KDG team had some intenal failings and unfortunately caused our backers to suffer and just generally made us look bad.
We're going to do better.

Kraken - I think people got frustrated with our inability to hit deadlines and decided that signing up for a Beta phase that's date is still very TBD is probably too expensive or not worth their resources.
That's fine and totally within their right - but because a significant amount of folks chose to do so we decided it was best to stop offering.

 

[Drax]

Only 20 micro-elders remaining

 

[Lucky]

Looks like they're serious about keeping up with these updates.

We are extremely excited to be able to check in this weekend and provide a few more screenshots.

We posted a small imgur album HERE showing off a few new or updated screens directly from game - and we're also showing off an initial glance of some of the deeper mechanisms of direct hero combat below.

Thank you for your continued support and patience and we'll check in next week with some more things for to you check out.

Other pictures.

Spoiler

 

[Ulminati]

Tentatively

Maybe it'll be Grimoire, maybe it'll be AoD. I hope the latter, but I'll wait until the backer beta indiegogo superdemo before I'll get emotionally engaged again

 

[Got bored and left]

Maybe it'll be Grimoire, maybe it'll be AoD. I hope the latter, but I'll wait until the backer beta indiegogo superdemo before I'll get emotionally engaged again

You'll believe a golden Cthulhu can fly!

 

[GarfunkeL]

Will the memes never end?

 

[Got bored and left]

Will the memes never end?

With strange aeons even memes may die.

 

[Lucky]

Still keeping the pace.

Good Morning,

As promised - here is the next batch of screenshots to show off from That Which Sleeps.

Hopefully these screens help to show off all the polish we've been working to add, as well as the many layout, font, and interface changes that we feel are extremely important when it comes to the huge amount of information that needs to be presented on any given screen.

Crafting

The crafting screen got completely overhauled and now all of the information can fit on one dynamic page - you no longer need to go through a multiple step process that looked a lot like the mod tools. You should find it much easier to make some really cool artifacts.

Sleepopedia

We've also added an entire encyclopedia that lists major pieces of info, behaviors, lore, and other things you can use to bend the races and players to your evil whim.

Age & Lore

Another look at how we display information specific to an age or location, and a quick look at lore events.

Lesser Evils

... and finally a look at some of the work we've put at integrating lesser evils into the game - trying (unsuccessfully) to bend one to her will, the Dread Pirate is about to make a tough decision in the shot below:

I hope you've enjoyed these screens, and we'll have some more for you next week.

- KDG