Game News The New World is now on Steam, gets its first trailer, releasing in Fall 2020

[DeepOcean]

Vince, are you still using T3D?

Unreal 4.

Is Unreal 4 easy for RPGs? How big is the team?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vince, are you still using T3D?

Unreal 4.

Is Unreal 4 easy for RPGs? How big is the team?

So far we haven't run into any serious problems, which doesn't mean there won't any at a later point. Two programmers, if that's what you're asking.

 

[Fenix]

The music is so good I didn't even noticed there was a text...
Put me in cryocapsule till 2020!

 

[Alienman]

Fenix waking up in the far distant 2020:

 

[Diggfinger]

Awesome.
Just tell me when and how I can...

 

[Black]

Free for everyone who bought AoD I presume.

 

[Zer0wing]

So, thursday it is then? Vince reports on steady progress with no detractions from schedule. We'll see if it stays true when quests implementation starts and the game won't move to 2022.

 

[Crash]

Looks good, looking forward to it.

On a relevant topic, can anyone tell me where can I download for free couple of same theme (generation ship) books, Robert A. Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky" and Brian Aldiss's "Non-Stop", to read while waiting for the game ? Both of them are 50+ years old, so surely they have been scanned and uploaded already somewhere.

 

[Tigranes]

I'll be honest, I found the trailer awful.

I liked the text. If it was presented in a splash screen, or a book, or the first pages of an old-school manual. Not so much in a youtube video. It really wasn't written/edited at all with the format & viewing experience in mind.

This isn't primarily that the text disappears too quick (which it does); that becomes a problem only because there's way too much for a quick video. (And making it twice as long wouldn't help.)

We don't need to know the names of the factions, we don't need to know the specifics, not in a quick 'concept trailer'. It just needs to move at a faster clip: "Our ancestors had faith. They launched a colony ship, bound for a distant star. But the journey was too long for faith to last. The revolt left the old order crippled - as well as the reactor. Warring factions rose..."

It's probably small fry in the end. And makes little difference for me - I love AOD, I'll buy this day one. But as someone who regularly delights in MRY's turns of phrase in his forum posts, the trailer honestly didn't click.

 

[MRY]

Well, I take the blame for all flaws in the text. (Though in my defense, it was something I sent under a heading like, "If it were me, I might write it something like..." IIRC, I was basing it mostly on the prior script because my computer and the server hosting the video weren't cooperating.) I think Vince's team's work on the trailer is nifty, and could definitely have benefited with someone better at ad copy than turgid prose. That said, my understanding is that a trailer was required to get a Steam page, and really wasn't viewed as a freestanding marketing opportunity so much as as prerequisite to satisfy for the time being until something with more substance can be made.

 

[MrMarbles]

Free for everyone who bought AoD I presume.

Bought AoD, Dungeon Rats and can post screenshots of completionist achievement screens

 

[Kem0sabe]

Trailer text fades out too fast, even for people proficient in English it's hard to read everything.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'll be honest, I found the trailer awful.

It won't win any awards, that's for sure.

We don't need to know the names of the factions, we don't need to know the specifics, not in a quick 'concept trailer'.

That's where I disagree. The goal is to sell the setting not the concept art and the only way to sell it is via specifics. Of course we could have commissioned a proper story trailer with illustrations and voice over, Icewind Dale style, but without having established relationships with illustrators and voice-over studios such a project will be a nightmare to manage. Outsourcing the entire project would cost a fortune and we'd rather spend the money on art assets.

It's probably small fry in the end. And makes little difference for me - I love AOD, I'll buy this day one.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

The goal is to sell the setting

Sure but a setting hardly requires a complete set-list so to speak.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Can't speak for everyone but my answer is yes. If you simply tell me that a game has 3 factions you tell me nothing of interest. Plenty of games have factions these days. If you list the factions, you give me a small glimpse into the setting that might push me to visit the site and learn more. Etc.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Agree. Lessons learned.

 

[Tigranes]

Re. the trailer, of course I understand that it's about prioritising resources and then doing the best you can.

Can't speak for everyone but my answer is yes. If you simply tell me that a game has 3 factions you tell me nothing of interest. Plenty of games have factions these days. If you list the factions, you give me a small glimpse into the setting that might push me to visit the site and learn more. Etc.

If I don't know anything about the game, listing the names of those factions hardly tells me anything of interest, either.

If it's my first and only 30 seconds hearing about Pillars of Eternity, I want to hear that it's about the death of children, the turning of souls, and the secret of the gods - not that it's about St. Waidwen of Readceras who channeled the divinity of Eothas and lo there were Pwgra galore.

The essence of the New World is: what happens when humanity sets out on a grand mission, and nobody quite believes in it anymore? What happens when you embark for a new world, but the journey is the only world you have ever known? What happens when everyone is stuck on this big creaky ship and devolving into factional infighting? Whether I know the ship is called Starfarer or Space Force, whether the faction is the Hammerites or the Seven Testicles, isn't particularly important, unless I have several minutes to introduce things at a greater level of detail.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

If it's my first and only 30 seconds hearing about Pillars of Eternity, I want to hear that it's about the death of children, the turning of souls, and the secret of the gods - not that it's about St. Waidwen of Readceras who channeled the divinity of Eothas and lo there were Pwgra galore.

The essence of the New World is: what happens when humanity sets out on a grand mission, and nobody quite believes in it anymore? What happens when you embark for a new world, but the journey is the only world you have ever known? What happens when everyone is stuck on this big creaky ship and devolving into factional infighting? Whether I know the ship is called Starfarer or Space Force, whether the faction is the Hammerites or the Seven Testicles, isn't particularly important, unless I have several minutes to introduce things at a greater level of detail.

Very much agree here. Imo initial trailers should sell the themes, style, tone and type of a game, no exposition of specifics (people,places,to-hit calculation) needed. The fact that the text is going too fast to properly read is quite fitting actually

you give me a small glimpse

 

[Infinitron]

Re. the trailer, of course I understand that it's about prioritising resources and then doing the best you can.

Can't speak for everyone but my answer is yes. If you simply tell me that a game has 3 factions you tell me nothing of interest. Plenty of games have factions these days. If you list the factions, you give me a small glimpse into the setting that might push me to visit the site and learn more. Etc.

If I don't know anything about the game, listing the names of those factions hardly tells me anything of interest, either.

If it's my first and only 30 seconds hearing about Pillars of Eternity, I want to hear that it's about the death of children, the turning of souls, and the secret of the gods - not that it's about St. Waidwen of Readceras who channeled the divinity of Eothas and lo there were Pwgra galore.

The essence of the New World is: what happens when humanity sets out on a grand mission, and nobody quite believes in it anymore? What happens when you embark for a new world, but the journey is the only world you have ever known? What happens when everyone is stuck on this big creaky ship and devolving into factional infighting? Whether I know the ship is called Starfarer or Space Force, whether the faction is the Hammerites or the Seven Testicles, isn't particularly important, unless I have several minutes to introduce things at a greater level of detail.

What most developers would have done, I think, is release a trailer like you describe alongside a press release or blog post with all the details about the factions.

 

[UnknownBro]

I think the font and the pacing of the trailer was "amateurish" to say the least, not awful but completly forgettable. The opposite of what you want with a trailer.

Also too much misc concept art at the end.

 

[Life of the Party]

New info.

https://wccftech.com/new-world-preview-amazon/

 

[Latelistener]

 

[Trashos]

Well, let's brainstorm a new name.

 

[Infinitron]

New info.

https://wccftech.com/new-world-preview-amazon/

Can't say he wasn't warned: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/colony-ship-rpg-update-15.115539/#post-5138760

 

[Latelistener]

The Sunless World was better, if banal.
It's not too late to change it though.