I really love indie devs.

[Mánagarmr]

This is why.

See, this never happens with AAA games. You're expected to enjoy the game, and if there's any bugs, they MIGHT fix them if enough people shout on their forums about how "broken the game is". Here I simply stated that I think this doesn't work, provided some testing and asked if anyone else experienced it. Shadow (the dev) sees the post, looks it up and goes "Cripes, he's right!", fix the next patch, scheduled next week.

It's the same with Arcen. Guys, never stop being this awesome, k?

[Mánagarmr]

Also, before someone mentions the dev/publisher thing, I know. The devs likely love their game and would really LOVE to fix the bugs, but unfortunately, Scrooge McDuck has already put them on the next money-maker so they don't have the time, and if they peep a word to the fans, bye bye.

I hate publishers. In this age of the Internet and digital distribution, who really needs these colossal greedbags anyway?

[keith.lamothe]

Not all publishers are colossal greedbags.  Some devs are, too, but aren't in a position for it to show in the same way.

That said, yea, on the average devs seem more interested in true customer service than the publishers.

[Mánagarmr]

Not all publishers are colossal greedbags.  Some devs are, too, but aren't in a position for it to show in the same way.

That said, yea, on the average devs seem more interested in true customer service than the publishers.

True, but it's much more fun judging them all collectively. To be honest, I can't name many publishers that I feel any kind of respect for. Valve is probably up there, but...err...yeah, the rest are probably not big enough to register on my meter. :/

[Volatar]

Valve tend to act like Dev's rather than Publishers in all aspects of their behavior.

[Coppermantis]

Well, to be fair, larger companies have usually many more customers to deal with. For instance, Valve has to support thousands of customers who use Steam as well as the developers, plus support for their own games. Also, AAA game communities don't get feedback like we give to Arcen. When Blizzard released patch 1.5 for Starcraft II, instead of the "Hey guys, this isn't working like you said it would, could you fix it?" like you might get here or from some other indie title, they got responses like this. The developers can't visit the forums without being flamed by angry "fans."

Valve is probably one of the better companies in respect to customer service, but they still have a huge amount of stuff to do, so customer service can't match indie companies. Arcen, whose customer service is one of the best I've ever dealt with,  probably wouldn't be as effective if they had to deal with thousands, even millions of issues per day.

[LaughingThesaurus]

What's grown to be my favorite common thing to see here is the "Send me a save and I'll look at it". It happens like all the time. If there's any issue, or question, or concern, it's an "I'll check it out" at the drop of a hat. It's just simple feedback that we know the developers know or will know soon, but it's such a relief compared to games that just get flat-out no support whatsoever, or developers whom you report a bug to, and get no response until 3 months later the patch comes out fixing it and a thousand other things.

[Mánagarmr]

I think it's the near-instant feedback of "We'll look into it" that is so bloody welcome with indie devs. Being stonewalled with a giant, well known bug in an AAA game is rather frustrating. Just a "We know of it, and we're on it" is all that is needed.

[keith.lamothe]

Often the bigger an organization is, the more legal risk involved in not having what is sometimes called "discourse control".  Taken to the logical extent, employees trained to have no verbal interaction with those outside the company apart from prescribed scripts.  No room for the employee to accidentally make a pop-culture reference that is completely misunderstood by a customer who then blows a gasket, etc.

On the other side of things, devs often expect a snake pit reception in fora (granted, this is encouraged by an expectation of stonewalling, something of a vicious cycle) and don't really want to jump in.

In the end, the smaller community approach does have a lot of advantages.

[LaughingThesaurus]

^ Among the advantages, the community members grow to know each other quite well. For instance, Diazo is insane and pushes AI War to its limit. Always enjoy reading his posts about his 16 homeworld, 8 champion, all minor factions at 10, whatever other insane thing he can think of.

[chemical_art]

I do understand the love, but what you described can only really occur with "indie" devs because they are the only ones small enough to pull this off.

Generally you need the following criteria to make this change so quickly:
1. Responsible for balancing the game
2. Responsible to reading the forums
3. Responsible to implement any proposed changes
4. Able to correlate 1 - 3 and give the final OK.


In a small organization this can occur in a day. In a really small organization 1 - 4 could be the same person. But in a non-indie dev 1 - 4 are at least 4 people, maybe more. Being bigger makes changes slower due to division of labor.

[Diazo]

I certainly love the fact that I can go back and forth with Keith directly on issues that arise, or just chat with him really.

The rest of the staff is also easy to get in touch with and have a conversation, but now that Chris is moving (moved?) to Shattered Haven I pretty much talk exclusively with Keith.

And knowing that the devs are reading and finding things like your AARs interesting is always a nice ego boost. 

^ Among the advantages, the community members grow to know each other quite well. For instance, Diazo is insane and pushes AI War to its limit. Always enjoy reading his posts about his 16 homeworld, 8 champion, all minor factions at 10, whatever other insane thing he can think of.

Why thank you. 

Although I can't claim a lot of those, I do think I am the one (or one of the ones) who's been making serious attempts at 10/10 for the longest.

I'm pretty sure I started the 'everyone trying 10/10' a few months ago with one of my AARs, although Wanderer's 9 through 10 run probably also deserves credit.

I just don't AAR my games unless I think there's something different or weird about them, such as my last 3 being Starships only so I've posted them as that's something different then the norm.

I will lay claim to playing 'old-style', one of the 10/10 AARs that went up had the comment of "to beat 10/10 you need schizo waves on", I always play with schizo off so I get mono-waves.

I also tend to play with all the minor factions off, no Dyson Sphere or Resistance Fighters helping me out.

A legacy of how long I've been playing 10/10 I think, I started 10/10 back before most of those toys were available.

And before the change to normalize the first wave of the game, getting a max time double wave to open the game hurt. I think that single change did more then anything to make 10/10 more approachable.

One of my early attempts at 10/10 got me so frustrated I resorted to warheading the first wave, I technically survived but I was driving AIP through the roof as I just kept warheading the waves.

Wow, offtopic. I really just wanted to clarify that while I'm part of the 10/10 crowd I'm not actually the one who's tried a lot of the crazy stuff listed.

D.

[LaughingThesaurus]

All I see of you though is, you trying the hardest you can to break the game. I'm all for that though, I love it when games let you do that, and it's a great habit in betas.
It's like... the first AAR I saw of yours was the 'take every planet, then win' one.... so 16 homeworlds looked like one of your just general favorite things to do. Then, you come into ancient shadows jumping straight on the '8 champion' train. I could very easily see you just maxing out on everything possible just to try to break the game, just by those two happenings.
The whole 10/10 craze actually pushed me away from doing any kind of AAR. I got to thinking when seeing those, that 10/10 would be the most interesting thing for people to see. That's when the AI is not only not holding back, it's throwing all it's got at you and then some (the 'then some' being provided judiciously by Keith). That kind of competitive environment, I just thought would be more interesting to watch than someone who's just fumbling around in a 7/7. XD
Maybe it's the excitement of seeing two evenly matched adversaries go at it. Not just the sense of "Oh mah gawd it's 10/10!" I like seeing what crazy things people resort to when things go crazy (SIX nukes? Really?). So like... I didn't imagine a game I'd play at a lower level would be as interesting.

I got a bit off topic there too! The 10/10s are brilliant and cool. They just gave me the sense that I'd have to get to the 10/10 level to do any storytelling. Otherwise, it'd just be like "Well, may as well just play the game yourself" you know? Like, there's a Super Meat Boy Iron Man playthrough going on. Nobody sensible's gonna do that! Those people are gonna come flocking to see it instead!
Although I really can't do any story telling for a couple months anyway. I'd love to try a 7/7 and have it open to the public. It's okay, I embarrass myself publicly on a daily basis... but the 10/10s did make me think it'd be uninteresting.

What were we talking about again?

[Diazo]

Topic? We had a topic?

But yes, it takes a certain mentality to throw yourself at the 10/10 wall.

For all the games I do put up in the AAR section, there's probably 7 to 10 that I don't put up either because I die pretty quick or the game was not interesting.

Having said that, the early game is much easier now that you only get a single wave and the fact that it has been normalized so you can't get a max-time double wave right off the bat anymore.

Perhaps that is why my second favorite game is Touhou, I'm throwing myself at the Extra stage in Touhou #6 (ESoD) at the moment.

Youtube of it here.

Not my video, but that's the stage I am (fruitlessly) trying to clear.

I want a challenge in my games.

Well, challenge maybe is not the right word, but I think you know what I mean.

D.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Well, I'm certainly not throwing myself at the 10/10 wall until I can chip away at the 7/7 wall. And like, that's why I haven't really thought about even doing AARs. I'm sure nobody wants to see an AAR of someone gradually 'learning' the game... since they already had to do that most likely.

I'm personally playing Super Meat Boy. I'm kinda unable to play PC games, I've probably reiterated on that too many times. But, I do have Super Meat Boy on console as well as a large variety of other games (Many more shallow or easier than I'd like). Super Meat Boy is just really fun. I'm never in a million years going to go for Iron Man runs, but when it comes to just progressing... I'm a little over halfway finished overall, and I've got 3800 deaths. That should speak a lot for the lack of frustration the game gives. You die, you respawn in half a second and do it again. Simple as that. Each world's got a dark world, just in case beating the game isn't hard enough for you. Dark World 2's probably about as hard as Light World 5. Dark World 5? Don't even think about dark world 5. We don't think about dark world 5.

And I shall check out that video after going on that little spiel. But, I don't really get into shmups. Bullet hells aren't my kind of game unless I get infinite lives.

Edit: Oh my goodness, they are wasting so much ammo... I do hope they don't have limited ammo...