AVWW2 - Early impressions/feedback (now with more feedback and less derail!)

[ShaggyMoose]

Played the game for about an two hours, resulting in the following simple feedback.

- Great music. Really helps the atmosphere in a lot of places.
- There is a typo in the description of the achievement "That's where the big guy lives". It says "Enter a region that of the Overlord's Keep", should it be "part of the Overlord's Keep"?
- Achievements seem to unlock in the game (as seen via the menu), but Steam is still reporting no achievements unlocked.
- It annoys me that I can't jump straight up and shoot straight across. Is there a way to do this that doesn't cause me to edge forward?
- Any chance of allowing dual stick controls to aim? Its still not as exact as mouse aim (which I understand from a zillion threads is probably not going to happen), but it beats the hell out of the current system. I get stuck firing in the wrong direction all the time...
- As noted in other threads, the whole building/survivor tasks aspect feels very futile and desperate. I understand that is probably the vibe you were going for, but I would like to see some sort of ability to contain/hold back Demonica even temporarily.

EDIT: Realised this was a shared forum and added the game to the subject...

[Nanashi]

There's already 2 other "Impressions" topics near the top of the forums - did you really need to open a new thread for 6 bullet points? >_>

[chemical_art]

Because they are from different people?

[LaughingThesaurus]

There should probably be a global pinned impressions thread somewhere. The point of the beta is to gather impressions and feedback, and the game's in beta. There's going to be a lot of discussion of this.

[chemical_art]

I feel like though each individual impression should be its own thread.

It's not like we are that swamped with them , if anything this thread would almost be dead except for them right now.  I feel on some level if someone is kind enough to take the time to leave impressions they should get the benefit of individual threads.

[LaughingThesaurus]

The discussion is confusing, though. With like 3 or 4 different impressions threads, I don't really know which impressions we're discussing at a glance without reading back through the older posts. I feel as though there's some way to make it more organized. Not like, a big thread with completely everybody's impressions all looped into one big pile, because the more I think about that, the worse of an idea it becomes. It's not as if it's a terribly big deal, it's just a case of "Gosh darn, it could be more efficient."

[ShaggyMoose]

As mentioned above, if I just drop my impressions in someone else's thread, it sort of derails their discussion. Also makes it hard to identify different issues. Ideally, someone could find common themes between these threads and open a dedicated thread for discussion of each theme. Being new to this forum, I don't know if that happens around here.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Derailing is kind of standard here actually.
Anyway, don't you worry about it. You haven't done anything wrong, and I don't have a problem with you or anything. Like I said, I was just wondering about efficiency. Let's get on the subject of talking about your impressions.

[ShaggyMoose]

Fair enough.

I wasn't aware Mantis was being used to report bugs, so I have added a couple of new issues there. Seems the best way to consolidate themes rather than the forum itself. Kind of difficult to find duplicates/existing issues though...

[Nanashi]

I disagree -  it's far more messy to post a deluge of impressions posts than to have separate posts for individual issues that already have entire threads devoted to them like:

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12213.msg132712.html#msg132712

Which covers your fourth point (and has also been discussed in at least two other threads).

At the top of the forum, there's an interesting stickied thread called "Topic: Where to make suggestions. Also: Want to see something added/changed? VOTE!  (Read 2729 times) ". That's really an introduction to Mantis, which has a search function that actually does make looking for specific issues easy because you can link related issues. I think that's one of the reasons mantis exists.

I understand your enthusiasm for the game, but if you just felt the need to make six concise bullet points, it could easily fit on Mantis, which is very democratic about addressing issues since everyone can vote on them.

Edit: You've already posted the issues on Mantis, good job. Ignore this post.

[chemical_art]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

My opinion on Mantis related to any changes has for my lifetime of these forums has been the same:

If you want to use it: fine. To tell me my opinions only really matter if I log them into Mantis I will always tell you to shove it. Because the system simply is different then from the forum atmosphere, and you can at least have the courtesy for me to express my thoughts in peace without the rub of saying I have to log them in yet another place.

So if your first post on any forum happens to cover the beta of a new game, I won't mention if said things have been mentioned before. Rather, I will think that the fact other people have said similar things does that mean that you the new person should read ahead, rather I will be thankful for your opinion, welcome you to the forums, and think others should take greater stock that a completely new person is echoing a thought another has said before rather then say your opinion needs to be transferred to another place.

*Note: This is an angry rant. Please consider this in said view. I just reviewed my first few posts in these forums and not once was I told to go to Mantis, rather people just addressed my thoughts directly. I felt welcomed then, and maybe too vigorously am I unconsciously trying to have new players get this experience.

[Nanashi]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

My opinion on Mantis related to any changes has for my lifetime of these forums has been the same:

If you want to use it: fine. To tell me my opinions only really matter if I log them into Mantis I will always tell you to shove it. Because the system simply is different then from the forum atmosphere, and you can at least have the courtesy for me to express my thoughts in peace without the rub of saying I have to log them in yet another place.

So if your first post on any forum happens to cover the beta of a new game, I won't mention if said things have been mentioned before. Rather, I will think that the fact other people have said similar things does that mean that you the new person should read ahead, rather I will be thankful for your opinion, welcome you to the forums, and think others should take greater stock that a completely new person is echoing a thought another has said before rather then say your opinion needs to be transferred to another place.

*Note: This is an angry rant. Please consider this in said view. I just reviewed my first few posts in these forums and not once was I told to go to Mantis, rather people just addressed my thoughts directly. I felt welcomed then, and maybe too vigorously am I unconsciously trying to have new players get this experience.

Edited for tone (I need to choose my words carefully):

Mantis exists for a reason. I respect the wishes of the developers because that's how they'd like us to organise feedback for them, and that is what a large amount of the people on these forums who are genuinely concerned about the game use. I respect the opinions of people that use Mantis precisely because they care enough for the game in order to read each separate issue submitted by other people and give their own personal time and consideration to the opinions of other people. (Even if I don't always agree with what they want for the game. That choice is up to Arcen.) What goes around comes around.

That does not mean that people may not create whatever topic they want, and by no means is there a moratorium on posting feedback on the forums instead of Mantis. However, asking a question which has been answered multiple times on the forums in recent threads (as well as on mantis) is sometimes frustrating to other readers because it makes the unfortunate implication that the poster is not interested in actively participating as a part of the forum community. Secondly, although the devs at Arcen are nice people (far FAR nicer than I am, as I'm sure you're acutely aware) and do read the feedback on the forums, this is not an efficient method of communicating urgent issues to them, because it is unreasonable to expect them to dig through every forum thread hunting for feedback every time they make a new revision. Mantis is also a great way of letting people know that the devs HAVE looked at your issue and made a decision about it.

I've personally found that ignoring stickied posts is not generally a good way of making a good impression on any forum. However, I think ShaggyMoose is generally a nice person who really cares about the future of Valley 2 because he cared enough to do this:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10205

Would that everyone was half as cool as that.

[Teal_Blue]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

My opinion on Mantis related to any changes has for my lifetime of these forums has been the same:

If you want to use it: fine. To tell me my opinions only really matter if I log them into Mantis I will always tell you to shove it. Because the system simply is different then from the forum atmosphere, and you can at least have the courtesy for me to express my thoughts in peace without the rub of saying I have to log them in yet another place.

So if your first post on any forum happens to cover the beta of a new game, I won't mention if said things have been mentioned before. Rather, I will think that the fact other people have said similar things does that mean that you the new person should read ahead, rather I will be thankful for your opinion, welcome you to the forums, and think others should take greater stock that a completely new person is echoing a thought another has said before rather then say your opinion needs to be transferred to another place.

*Note: This is an angry rant. Please consider this in said view. I just reviewed my first few posts in these forums and not once was I told to go to Mantis, rather people just addressed my thoughts directly. I felt welcomed then, and maybe too vigorously am I unconsciously trying to have new players get this experience.

Edited for tone (I need to choose my words carefully):

Mantis exists for a reason. I respect the wishes of the developers because that's how they'd like us to organise feedback for them, and that is what a large amount of the people on these forums who are genuinely concerned about the game use. I respect the opinions of people that use Mantis precisely because they care enough for the game in order to read each separate issue submitted by other people and give their own personal time and consideration to the opinions of other people. (Even if I don't always agree with what they want for the game. That choice is up to Arcen.) What goes around comes around.

That does not mean that people may not create whatever topic they want, and by no means is there a moratorium on posting feedback on the forums instead of Mantis. However, asking a question which has been answered multiple times on the forums in recent threads (as well as on mantis) is sometimes frustrating to other readers because it makes the unfortunate implication that the poster is not interested in actively participating as a part of the forum community. Secondly, although the devs at Arcen are nice people (far FAR nicer than I am, as I'm sure you're acutely aware) and do read the feedback on the forums, this is not an efficient method of communicating urgent issues to them, because it is unreasonable to expect them to dig through every forum thread hunting for feedback every time they make a new revision. Mantis is also a great way of letting people know that the devs HAVE looked at your issue and made a decision about it.

I've personally found that ignoring stickied posts is not generally a good way of making a good impression on any forum. However, I think ShaggyMoose is generally a nice person who really cares about the future of Valley 2 because he cared enough to do this:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10205

Would that everyone was half as cool as that.

To support Chemical_Art and to express my opinion, I believe Nanashi may want to consider that having 'new' people post their impressions directly to the forum with multiple threads, with whatever topics they consider relevant to their experience, good or bad, "serves the purpose to bringing to the attention of the devs, those subjects that multiple new people to the game are experiencing, ie... topics that may want to be addressed to minimize the problems for new people to the game.

Or areas of the game where player opinions, or desires are mounting to 2%? 5%?  10%? or more? of the player base are expressing much the same things, and which for the purpose of heading off player disenchantment, or player frustration might want to be addressed.

Sending new people to Mantis, may  be an efficient way of cataloging any number of issues and making any number of devs or nicely efficient players/posters happy, but it 'hardly' serves those new players who may already be frustrated and being told they 'have to', or 'it is strongly suggested that you...' or 'we have xx threads already! and you really, really ! need to...' are all just rude forms of you saying you want someone else to conform to your point of view...

Which you may really desire...
But give me a break...
When you got here, did i tell you that posting your opinion, when it disagreed with mine was really, really annoying and that i would prefer that you not do that?   

I didn't think so. 

In other words,

Be nice.  and people will be nice to you too. 

Loving and kindly and softly and nicely and not rantingly (at least too much)   

-T

[zaaq]

far FAR nicer than I am, as I'm sure you're acutely aware

Yup

I respect the opinions of people that use Mantis precisely because they care enough for the game in order to read each separate issue submitted by other people and give their own personal time and consideration to the opinions of other people.

Alternatively, the people who care enough could scavenge issues and put them into Mantis... then post a link to the issue back in the forums. If "forum contributors" feel strongly enough, then they can vote for it... "Live the rules", so to speak.

The thing for me is that Mantis feels so official that I don't want to put a half-baked idea in there as a full bug report. I start threads to talk about ideas w/ a (wider?) audience, then put the distilled/refined suggestion in mantis and cross-link the hell out of it. I wouldn't expect everyone to do it, but it's a constructive and inclusive way to organize things.

[Nanashi]

You know the difference between the forums and Mantis? Mantis doesn't get sidetracked into these idiotic segues.