Arcen Games

General Category => Stars Beyond Reach... This World Is Mine => : x4000 October 07, 2015, 04:59:37 PM

: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 07, 2015, 04:59:37 PM
Yesterday I said November would be the new release date, but that was met with lots of dire warnings (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18036.15.html).  Wise ones, I think.  So, here's the skinny:

I've been talking with my wife, and my mom (an excellent businesswoman), and listening to the thoughts from all of the staff individually and as a group, and thoughts from players, and just looking at how I feel about all this as well...

Here's what I come to:

1. Trying to do a release of a new game like this in 2015 is just plain going to be a shortsighted grab no matter how you cut it.  There's no scenario that really truly makes sense if you look at things in a three or four quarter window and you say "oh yeah, they totally should have released in that horrible period at the end of 2015."

2. The point about "if the game is great, it doesn't matter when you release" is somewhat taken, but I think that people do tend to overlook all the great "cult classics" that never caught on for one reason or another.  In other words, this smacks a bit to me of being over-confident.  Which I have certainly been many times, but am not really feeling in the spirit of right now. ;)

3. So, one way or another, we come down to releasing something in January 2016, best case.

4. When it comes to pushing on with Stars Beyond Reach at the moment, I am just not feeling like that is the wisest thing either.  Let's take away all other factors, and just look at money.  If we keep on with SBR and go for a release of that in January, that means that we've put ALL our eggs into the one basket of this game.  If it does poorly, then there's a big uh-oh moment.

5. But beyond just the money and eggs-in-baskets bit, I am personally just plain burned out with the game right now.  I need time to regroup and collect my thoughts and take things in a more timely manner.  I need time to work on the game without feeling constantly under the gun, and I need to not be SO emotionally invested in it.  After 14 months of just being on this game and nothing else, it starts to intertwine with my self image to a dangerous degree.  I need time to separate myself from that.

6. I do still believe very strongly in SBR, though, and I think that buying ourselves time to then work on that in early 2016 and really finish that up with a flourish rather than a grunt of exhaustion is the way to go.

7. In the meantime I am super excited about the other project, and I do believe that we can do it in the timeframe for a January release.  My goal with that will be to get it to a point where we can start selling it on our own site (and I guess Humble?) in November.  So skipping Early Access and all that jazz, and just building up a community outside of Steam, then doing a full proper Steam release in January.

Hold On A Second -- "Next Game?"
Right, so here's how it goes: we stop all work on SBR, and instead work on the next game, for full release in January.  I've been excited about this and planning it for more than half a year.  It's meant to be a project that can comfortably fit in that timeframe, with minimal amounts of the things that take us (as a company) the most time.  Interface is minimal, etc, etc.  And we have a pretty solid baseline of other games in the market that we can model on, unlike with some of our other titles.  It's a much less risky project because it's not so darn novel, but nonetheless still scratches an itch for me that I don't get scratched by anything else that's out there.

During that period, whenever there are some dead periods, if there are, then work can be done in spots on SBR.  But otherwise, mainly we just put it on ice until after this next game comes out, then resume working on it again after the next game is out.  At that point we're looking at a March release for SBR, but we've put out another game in the midst of that.  Then if the SBR release needs to slip AGAIN, we'd be in a better financial situation to weather that.  SBR is just a larger beast than I'd anticipated, and handling it properly is important to me.

I have hesitated on this because I worry about the "grass is always greener" effect when thinking about this other game we're going to be doing in the interim.  That said, there is a clear model of other games that do this same sort of thing for the next game, whereas that is not the case with SBR.  And there's been a massive market appeal for the other kind of game, too.  And we have a lot of code just sitting around that does exactly what we want in that realm, too.  So we're in much safer territory on a whole lot of fronts there.  Is there still a risk of schedule slippage on that game?  Of course.  But it's a much lower sort of risk than with SBR.

Overall I think that this is the plan that will be the safest for the company financially, which gets you another great game in the meantime, and which will let SBR have the funding to truly live up to its potential.  I hate walking away from a project even temporarily, but this is one of those times I'm super glad that we didn't do a kickstarter or sell preorders or whatever.  You guys would be pretty pissed at me right about now.  As it stands, hopefully this is something that instead is ultimately a positive message, even if delays are never something one exactly looks forward to.

Any questions, please do let me know.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Captain Jack October 07, 2015, 05:14:13 PM
Well nuts.  :'(

Would this other project be Life at the End of the Universe or something else?
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 07, 2015, 05:15:16 PM
well I certainly wasn't expecting this over all this was probably for the best though.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: mattymuc October 07, 2015, 05:16:56 PM
Oh :( No testing this weekend  :(
But it was a good decision to not release the game in november!

And I am excited about the other game :-)
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Castruccio October 07, 2015, 05:18:51 PM
Wow.  This is huge, and courageous.  So the new game may hit alpha next month, but will only be sold through your site and not the early access program on Steam.  So you will be doing things like we used to do them around here (with light of the spire and valley 1) where we buy the game early and you push updates through the arcen updater?

I have no idea how this will turn out as a business decision, but I bet the players will all do all we can to make the new game great.  And I am still very much looking forward so SBR.

  Good luck!  Can't wait to help when the time comes. 
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Aklyon October 07, 2015, 05:31:22 PM
I was gonig to ask if you could afford to do that, but then half the post is about why, likely, you would be able to later. And neither of those dates are February where xcom2 is showing up in, which is probably good.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Bambusek October 07, 2015, 05:45:38 PM
I was gonig to ask if you could afford to do that, but then half the post is about why, likely, you would be able to later. And neither of those dates are February where xcom2 is showing up in, which is probably good.

Yeah, now lets hope that Sega does not decide that March is a great time for TW: Warhammer release.

Well, avoiding the craziness that will be November is a good thing.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Tridus October 07, 2015, 05:50:18 PM
This is both surprising and not surprising at the same time. It was showing in some ways that SBR was a difficult project, and having been pushed back into November's gauntlet, trying to push through was probably not a great idea.

Big decision, but it sounds like a good plan. :)
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Bambusek October 07, 2015, 06:35:48 PM
There is a polish game studio called Wastelands Interactive. They expertise were a niche turn based strategy games, usually in world war II setting.  They were really good at it. Then they decided to make a spiritual successor to Master of Magic. It was the biggest project for them and they even went Early Access. The result is a disaster called Worlds of Magic that was "released" on March, but even now need serious patching. So if Stars Beyond Reach are the most ambitious project for Arcen it is for the best to put it in a freezer for some time and release polished in more calm period than try to rush it because of finances and get crushed by crazy competition on November.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: tuigirl October 07, 2015, 06:59:41 PM
I fully agree with the decision. You really had me worried with the November date yesterday.
This way SBR can be made into something great and you can look at it fresh after you take a break from it.
Thumbs up.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Rythe October 07, 2015, 07:17:20 PM
I approve.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 07, 2015, 08:10:11 PM
Well nuts.  :'(

Yeah, ditto.  Just delayed, though, not dead!

Would this other project be Life at the End of the Universe or something else?

Yep!  Although that will undergo another name change.  And the description of it is pretty incorrect now, too.  But I'm very excited about it, and it will be refreshing to work on something smaller and different for a while.

Oh :( No testing this weekend  :(
But it was a good decision to not release the game in november!

And I am excited about the other game :-)

Thank you!

Wow.  This is huge, and courageous.

I really appreciate it. :)

So the new game may hit alpha next month, but will only be sold through your site and not the early access program on Steam.  So you will be doing things like we used to do them around here (with light of the spire and valley 1) where we buy the game early and you push updates through the arcen updater?

Yep, exactly!  It was never the case that we completely gave up on that model, although I can see why one would think that.  Keith has his own ways that he prefers to run his betas for the AI War expansions, which I respect.  And with the other things that we have done in a more closed fashion on Steam, a lot of that has just come down to the nature of the game and what I felt like I'd need in terms of feedback.  And/or what sort of volume of feedback I felt like I could take on.

This new game is more mechanics-focused in a lot of respects, versus having lots of huge interlocking systems (being systems-focused), and that has a big impact on my willingness to get a lot of feedback early.  Hating some mechanic is cool with me, because it doesn't mean a cascading failure of lots of systems.  With something like SBR, a failure in the economic system can bring down the whole game, by contrast.

I have no idea how this will turn out as a business decision,

I don't either, but I think that I can safely look at it and say that it is the least bad decision out of the ones available.  I highly doubt I will regret this specific decision.  It's entirely likely I will regret other decisions that I have recently made or will soon make, regarding either SBR or the new game, but the decision about dates and game shifts is hopefully not one of them, heh.

(Oh, don't say that Chris -- you're just tempting fate now.)

but I bet the players will all do all we can to make the new game great.  And I am still very much looking forward so SBR.

  Good luck!  Can't wait to help when the time comes.

I really, really appreciate it. :)

I was gonig to ask if you could afford to do that, but then half the post is about why, likely, you would be able to later. And neither of those dates are February where xcom2 is showing up in, which is probably good.

It will potentially involve taking on about $30k to $50k of debt, depending on how Steam sales and whatnot go in the next few months.  Or it might be as positive as having almost no debt and almost no cash, in the best of the likely cases.  I tend to plan around the worst of the likely cases, as a way of helping errors not be disasters.  But anyway, financially we've been through far worse before.

The thing I don't like about this is that it removes a lot of safety nets, and does potentially add that debt, and so if this interim game bombs in January then we are well and truly hosed.  But I mean, what company can afford to put out lots of games that bomb and not be hosed?  Most large game studios are one game failure away from closure.  Thankfully we've weathered multiple game failures without closing, despite them causing layoffs (blaaah).

It's a tough business for sure.

Yeah, now lets hope that Sega does not decide that March is a great time for TW: Warhammer release.

Well, avoiding the craziness that will be November is a good thing.

Oof, yeah, I didn't even know that one.  When is their current slated release?  Anyhow, that's certainly less threatening than the lineup of November, so I'll take that over the other.  The overall cash availability that customers have should be better then when the AAA glut isn't full-swing, too.  In theory if the interim game does well, we might have more flexibility to finish SBR in March but sit on it until April or May if the market is hostile with things like Warhammer in March.  Meanwhile working on an expansion to AI War or the interim game or who knows what.

I'm not saying I would want to do that, but the flexibility goes a lot higher in that time period is all I mean.

This is both surprising and not surprising at the same time. It was showing in some ways that SBR was a difficult project, and having been pushed back into November's gauntlet, trying to push through was probably not a great idea.

Big decision, but it sounds like a good plan. :)

I appreciate it.  This turned out to be about double the budget and complexity that I expected.  I'm not sure why I thought I could be so clever in simplifying a 4X and citybuilder hybrid, but there's hubris for you.  I feel like it's going well at this point, but we needed to hit this point a few months ago, not now.  And you guys are still finding various systems that have things wrong with them or that lack fun in some fashion, and that concerns me greatly.  I want to have proper time to address that sort of thing, versus having to go "well the other parts are good, and they can just live with that one bit, oh well."  Blah to that!

There is a polish game studio called Wastelands Interactive. They expertise were a niche turn based strategy games, usually in world war II setting.  They were really good at it. Then they decided to make a spiritual successor to Master of Magic. It was the biggest project for them and they even went Early Access. The result is a disaster called Worlds of Magic that was "released" on March, but even now need serious patching. So if Stars Beyond Reach are the most ambitious project for Arcen it is for the best to put it in a freezer for some time and release polished in more calm period than try to rush it because of finances and get crushed by crazy competition on November.

Yikes!  That is definitely the sort of story I wouldn't want to have, yeah.  Then you are in an incredibly terrible spot.  What do you do then, if the game is not selling, but is also kind of broken?  Do you keep working on it, and lose even more money?  (In the past when we had some issues with a project, I chose this).  Or do you walk away from it because you have to, and then everyone calls you a crook and you kind of feel like one?  That whole situation just has no upside, and there's really no escape from it once you start selling something like that.

Whew.  Yeah, that is something I wholeheartedly want to avoid.  But even more than that, I honestly think this game could be huge, a real watershed for Arcen, if I can just get some things figured out.  It does a lot of stuff no other game does, and if all the kinks can get worked out of that, I think that could be really a special thing.  I'd hate for that to get all thrown away and turn into the other kind of story.

I fully agree with the decision. You really had me worried with the November date yesterday.
This way SBR can be made into something great and you can look at it fresh after you take a break from it.
Thumbs up.

Thank you. :)

I approve.

As a huge tester lately, I definitely am glad to hear that.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 07, 2015, 08:30:31 PM
well I certainly wasn't expecting this 1 does stopping work on this game(temporarily) involve bugs? I presume it would be but I'm just curious since it seems to me that there a fairly straight forward thing to deal with

It's not really bugs, no, although that certainly is a factor.  There are more than I'd like right now, and since we are still changing the codebase I can't really say how many there are until we stop adding them, heh.  Having proper time to test is a big thing.

It's honestly a lot more about systems design and balance.  With the various game systems, are they as fun as they can be?  As clear?  Are there some that need yet more rejiggering because of how annoying popups continuously appearing is?  Should international abilities be direct-use, for instance?  Or is that simply a case of them needing to somehow display in a way that doesn't spam your sidebar?

That's just one example.  But for another, how about the economy stuff?  I'm fairly well versed in that sort of thing from past experience with strategy games, and getting that balanced is not a quick job.  The 10,000th player sometimes finds something really off with them that nobody else did.  But right now lots of people are exploiting the economy.

There are a variety of solutions that I can think of, some of them very straightforward.  However, they increase the fiddle-factor a lot.  They encourage players to fiddle with the dials to optimize things.  We went through that with various mechanics in AI War for quite some time.  In many games, a lot of 4X games in fact, they introduce AI governors to handle that sort of fiddling for you.

To me... I don't know.  I'm against that.  I think if you're getting into AI governors, something else is maybe wrong.  Not for sure, and maybe I'll eat my words and wind up coding something like that.  But I don't like it.  If there's an aspect of the game that should "play itself" in order for me to have fun, that just feels icky.  So rather than going with the simpler solution and just doing what other 4X titles have more commonly done, I've been trying other things.  With varied success.  In other past games we have solved some of those problems in certain contexts.  I want to have time here to truly solve that in this context so that people can be happy with the economy and not exploit it, but we don't have any sort of system where the game is playing for you.

2 could I help with the testing for this game as well? (if this is lateotu were talking about) I wouldn't be much help in turns of insight really since I don't really play that .type. of game but id be more than happy to bug hunt I've discovered testing stars that I really rather enjoy bug hunting.

Of course!  When we get to that point.

3 are you sure its as straight forward as think its going to be? I vaguely remember we had a set deadline when I first started testing stars but we know how that turned out don't we.

I lack the arrogance at this point to say that I'm sure of that.  If you asked me a year ago, I would have confidently told you yes. ;)  But at this point...?

In all honesty I do feel like it is what I think it is.  I've done enough of this exact sort of game before that I know what it is, from top to bottom.  I'm not inventing a new genre.  There are also multiple other games on the market now that do a lot of what I want, but not fully everything, and so I can pull ideas from them and add the things I thought were missing.  In many respects this is what AI War did.

SBR and TLF and some of our other titles were really challenging ones because they try to break really novel ground.  And I absolutely love doing that.  But sometimes it's also really fun to just take a specific idea and really try to run with it as well as you can and do some stuff that people don't even know they're missing.  I feel like the AI War expansions all fit that sort of description if you compare them to vanilla AI War, and Tidalis was largely that way for that small portion of the market that noticed it at all.  Bionic had aspects of that, although we made a key mistake of having two cooks and a design that got more ambitious partway through the project.  It mostly worked out, and I'm proud of the game, but we had far less understanding of what we were going to make before starting that game than before starting this one.

Actually, that's an important thing to note: I have far, far more detailed of an idea of what this game is going to be like than I have any other project in the past.  So there is that going for us.  ;D

4 just out of curiosity besides what you mentioned about being burnt out is there any particular reason you choose not to go with the idea of putting it into early access?

Well, "you only get one release on Steam."

Downsides as expressed by one of our staff:  Loss of revenue because we never get a full "launch period" and from negative EA reviews (the current state of the game is extremely rough fun-wise), flood of people who don't realize (or don't care) they're playing pinata with the developer. Probably not being able to actually do the 1.0 release in November or even December anyway, for the same reason as without a EA period.

Or as another staff member put it: I'd say the landscape has changed dramatically since Valve launched the service. There have been enough false promises and abandoned projects in the space, that most are super wary about putting money toward an Early Access project -- unless it's something that really, really speaks to them. Another question to ask: Is SBR suited for Early Access? Many space/sci-fi games apparently are, but that might not be the case with SBR. Then again, it might be, but I feel like it's way more likely for a given game to find its audience at 1.0 over Early Access at this point.  I'm not against Early Access entirely -- I think it could be an integral part of the process, but I do worry about the idea of making Early Access SBR's coming-out party.

I had my own lengthy thoughts about it as well, but I'm not sure where I put them.  The other two expressed it really well, though, and it was basically my fears also.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Bambusek October 07, 2015, 08:39:31 PM
Oof, yeah, I didn't even know that one.  When is their current slated release? 

Still 2016 only, nothing more specific, not even what quarter of next year. So I think it is unlikely they will go for Q1, especially that after Rome 2 disaster both Sega and CA reputation suffered and it reflected on Attilla sale. I believe this time they will take as much time as needed to avoid another broken release, but Shogun 2 was released on March, so it is always a possibility.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 07, 2015, 08:43:35 PM
Yeah, March is the new "second Christmas season" for games these days.  Hopefully not for them, and they go for another E3 cycle, though.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 07, 2015, 08:45:45 PM
well I certainly wasn't expecting this 1 does stopping work on this game(temporarily) involve bugs? I presume it would be but I'm just curious since it seems to me that there a fairly straight forward thing to deal with

It's not really bugs, no, although that certainly is a factor.  There are more than I'd like right now, and since we are still changing the codebase I can't really say how many there are until we stop adding them, heh.  Having proper time to test is a big thing.

It's honestly a lot more about systems design and balance.  With the various game systems, are they as fun as they can be?  As clear?  Are there some that need yet more rejiggering because of how annoying popups continuously appearing is?  Should international abilities be direct-use, for instance?  Or is that simply a case of them needing to somehow display in a way that doesn't spam your sidebar?

That's just one example.  But for another, how about the economy stuff?  I'm fairly well versed in that sort of thing from past experience with strategy games, and getting that balanced is not a quick job.  The 10,000th player sometimes finds something really off with them that nobody else did.  But right now lots of people are exploiting the economy.

There are a variety of solutions that I can think of, some of them very straightforward.  However, they increase the fiddle-factor a lot.  They encourage players to fiddle with the dials to optimize things.  We went through that with various mechanics in AI War for quite some time.  In many games, a lot of 4X games in fact, they introduce AI governors to handle that sort of fiddling for you.

To me... I don't know.  I'm against that.  I think if you're getting into AI governors, something else is maybe wrong.  Not for sure, and maybe I'll eat my words and wind up coding something like that.  But I don't like it.  If there's an aspect of the game that should "play itself" in order for me to have fun, that just feels icky.  So rather than going with the simpler solution and just doing what other 4X titles have more commonly done, I've been trying other things.  With varied success.  In other past games we have solved some of those problems in certain contexts.  I want to have time here to truly solve that in this context so that people can be happy with the economy and not exploit it, but we don't have any sort of system where the game is playing for you.

2 could I help with the testing for this game as well? (if this is lateotu were talking about) I wouldn't be much help in turns of insight really since I don't really play that .type. of game but id be more than happy to bug hunt I've discovered testing stars that I really rather enjoy bug hunting.

Of course!  When we get to that point.

3 are you sure its as straight forward as think its going to be? I vaguely remember we had a set deadline when I first started testing stars but we know how that turned out don't we.

I lack the arrogance at this point to say that I'm sure of that.  If you asked me a year ago, I would have confidently told you yes. ;)  But at this point...?

In all honesty I do feel like it is what I think it is.  I've done enough of this exact sort of game before that I know what it is, from top to bottom.  I'm not inventing a new genre.  There are also multiple other games on the market now that do a lot of what I want, but not fully everything, and so I can pull ideas from them and add the things I thought were missing.  In many respects this is what AI War did.

SBR and TLF and some of our other titles were really challenging ones because they try to break really novel ground.  And I absolutely love doing that.  But sometimes it's also really fun to just take a specific idea and really try to run with it as well as you can and do some stuff that people don't even know they're missing.  I feel like the AI War expansions all fit that sort of description if you compare them to vanilla AI War, and Tidalis was largely that way for that small portion of the market that noticed it at all.  Bionic had aspects of that, although we made a key mistake of having two cooks and a design that got more ambitious partway through the project.  It mostly worked out, and I'm proud of the game, but we had far less understanding of what we were going to make before starting that game than before starting this one.

Actually, that's an important thing to note: I have far, far more detailed of an idea of what this game is going to be like than I have any other project in the past.  So there is that going for us.  ;D

4 just out of curiosity besides what you mentioned about being burnt out is there any particular reason you choose not to go with the idea of putting it into early access?

Well, "you only get one release on Steam."

Downsides as expressed by one of our staff:  Loss of revenue because we never get a full "launch period" and from negative EA reviews (the current state of the game is extremely rough fun-wise), flood of people who don't realize (or don't care) they're playing pinata with the developer. Probably not being able to actually do the 1.0 release in November or even December anyway, for the same reason as without a EA period.

Or as another staff member put it: I'd say the landscape has changed dramatically since Valve launched the service. There have been enough false promises and abandoned projects in the space, that most are super wary about putting money toward an Early Access project -- unless it's something that really, really speaks to them. Another question to ask: Is SBR suited for Early Access? Many space/sci-fi games apparently are, but that might not be the case with SBR. Then again, it might be, but I feel like it's way more likely for a given game to find its audience at 1.0 over Early Access at this point.  I'm not against Early Access entirely -- I think it could be an integral part of the process, but I do worry about the idea of making Early Access SBR's coming-out party.

I had my own lengthy thoughts about it as well, but I'm not sure where I put them.  The other two expressed it really well, though, and it was basically my fears also.
1 sorry I clearly didn't word that correctly what I meant was while your working on that other game will this game be getting bug fixes in general just because its seems a really straight forward thing to be doing on the side again sorry I understood perfectly WHY you decided to stop temporarily working on it.

2 awesome!

3 I certainly hope you do having that game end up like this one would utterly ridiculous

4 fair enough I personally prefer what your doing to the ea thing this won't have the problems that those other 2 options will have

ps it'll be interesting to see what happens stars after you (hopefully) finish lateotu on time.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Sounds October 07, 2015, 09:16:56 PM
Provided the financials work for you, it definitely seems the right choice.

Whilst I've been very ill the last month, I kept lurking in the forums and could see progress was being made. However it read like you were completely under the pump both personally and professionally.

Also I opened up the game this morning for a quick glance at the changes and from what I could see there's been a definite improvement to the UI experience. I could also see some of the design warning signs of overthinking things (I have this trouble myself). Giving yourselves a break from SBR seems the best thing to do. The deluge of new titles coming out now and also time to reflect on what works game wise (and financially) makes it a sound choice.

Whilst I'm not in your position, I was starting to panic for you and Arcen.  :(

I was hoping this was THE game for me this year, I can now look forward to a more awesome thing in the coming year.  :)

When I recover some what more, should we continue to add items for SBR to Mantis?
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: mooncows October 07, 2015, 10:28:21 PM
 :-\ Not sure how to feel about this, but I always hope for success, and I'll always be an avid Arcen supporter. Best of Luck!
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: YukaTakeuchiFan October 07, 2015, 10:54:30 PM
Honestly, I feel like you've almost certainly made the best decision on multiple levels.

Having gotten to faff about with the game myself a little now, I definitely see the makings of a game I'll certainly have fun with, but at the same time, it's very clear that there's still much to be done - and with your previous due date being what it was, I had a bad feeling that you'd have to rush the ever-loving hell out of things if you wanted to stick to that date, and nothing good ever comes out of that sort of thing. And yeah, having heard some of your previous stories about unfortunately-ill-timed releases, I definitely wouldn't want to roll the dice during a period where you'd be up against MULTIPLE major releases, immediately followed by a number of sales that you could easily fall under the radar during.

And I certainly wouldn't want a game that despite its current flaws is still pretty darn fun to suffer that kind of fate, especially given the effects that a release right now would likely have on you and your company. If you guys were gone, who else would I trust to make such offbeat titles in the future? ;3

I for one (for what my doofy office worker opinion's worth, anyway) think you're making a good choice, and I think this'll give you time you need to not only get the relaxation you sound like you need at this point, but also to ensure that this is the best damn game it can possibly be. There currently aren't too many games in the genre that have held my interest that aren't the progenitor juggernaut that is Civilization itself - but I think you're one of the people I'd trust most to make a game I'd enjoy as much as I did 1, 4, and 5. Don't rush it and make a Civ 3. =333
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Misery October 08, 2015, 01:26:26 AM
I already responded to your email about this, just so you know, since Yahoo can be a real snotwad and sometimes doesnt like to actually SEND the blasted things yet will tell me that it did (sigh... why cant technology just WORK? I keep having to tell people directly if I send them something, because of this, which almost blows the point of email to begin with...), but I'll just reiterate that I definitely think this is a very good move.  There's just.... so very many problems with releasing now or next month.  And that's just from my point of view.  It'd really suck to have it go the way Valley did when up against Diablo. I think that game SERIOUSLY deserved more attention than it got.    I wish all these damn games next month werent releasing in one big stupid clump like that, really.  All I"m really buying is Anno, myself, but that's another story.

Just out of pure curiosity, has this game been the longest development cycle you've done so far?  Or was AI War's original version longer (because holy heck, that game is COMPLICATED)?  I mean, this game really has a TON of stuff to it at this point and has been going for quite awhile.  Should be pretty great once it's done though.

Definitely looking forward to.... whatever the heck the next game is going to be called though.  I think that's the one I'm most excited about since BD, which is saying something.  It just sounds like a great concept.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: dfinlay October 08, 2015, 02:00:20 AM
I think this makes a lot of sense and I wish you all the best. I was beginning to feel that even by the end of November, there was no way SBR was going to be able to be a game that fully lived up to its potential on release (which I think is huge, btw - I've been ranting at my friends about this game a bunch). Hopefully, this side project gives you the breather it sounds like you need (though I know it'll inevitably generate its own stress). I look forward to both games now.

Do you want us to continue posting things on Mantis for SBR or hold off for now?
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Mánagarmr October 08, 2015, 03:44:55 AM
2. The point about "if the game is great, it doesn't matter when you release" is somewhat taken, but I think that people do tend to overlook all the great "cult classics" that never caught on for one reason or another.  In other words, this smacks a bit to me of being over-confident.  Which I have certainly been many times, but am not really feeling in the spirit of right now. ;)
System Shock says hi. That's a cult classic legend of a game that just never took off and never made the money back due to a botched release.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Shrugging Khan October 08, 2015, 04:55:03 AM
Firstly, things turn out differently. And secondly, than you thought.
Ahem. I approve of this. SBR needs some more thinking and planning done, and having a good deal of breathing room will probably be necessary.

Of course, as always I hope this doesn't cause any financial stress Arcen can't handle  :-\
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: gnosis October 08, 2015, 07:17:23 AM
A wise choice to postpone release.

There was indeed a feeling of panic going around. And I understand the concept of becoming too intimate with the project. I am in a similar situation, too many months - too much code.

SBR needs more work in its systems, interactions, gui, story, tooltips,combat, AI, pacing, etc, etc. A lot of work.

As others have said and I agree, a project should stay in EA at least for a year as a business model and build momentum. Barring that it would feel like a cash grab game with extreme risk for the buyer and it would face harsh criticism from youtubers and the community in general. Add to that the fact that you're not a new studio so people have expectations.  You can't be productive in such an environment and you need a community manager that is a true Warlord.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: steelwing October 08, 2015, 09:15:54 AM
So basically, you'll be working on the new SHMUP to get that rolled out ASAP.  When do you expect the Alpha to start?  I saw an earlier post where it was posited that this will be like the alpha/beta releases of TLF, where the game is available directly from Arcen (or via Humble Store) from its earliest playable state, and then you push updates out from Arcen directly.  Any thoughts on what your asking price for the game will be?
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 08, 2015, 10:04:33 AM
1 sorry I clearly didn't word that correctly what I meant was while your working on that other game will this game be getting bug fixes in general just because its seems a really straight forward thing to be doing on the side again sorry I understood perfectly WHY you decided to stop temporarily working on it.

OH, I see -- sorry.  No, there won't be any more patches for the beta of SBR until the interim game is completed, probably.  I want to give the interim game our full attention so that we don't wind up right back in this situation with a game that isn't quite complete but where time is running out, etc. 

It takes a lot of memory power to keep the design for games like this in my head, and I tend to forget a lot about older games as soon as I get too far into a new game.  It's kind of shocking to me how much I forget, actually.  In the case of some games, that can actually be useful because then I can come back with fresh eyes and solve problems that I couldn't solve before.  My intent is that will be the case with SBR.

Anyway, so there are overall three reasons:
1. It does eat up time, even if the increments are small (it's like eating a bag of mini-Oreos: even though they are small the bag is still a lot of calories).
2. I need to "unload some stuff from RAM" to properly focus on the new game.
3. I need some mental distance from SBR just to get back in a fully-positive frame of mind for working on it.

Whilst I've been very ill the last month, I kept lurking in the forums and could see progress was being made. However it read like you were completely under the pump both personally and professionally.

Yikes, I'm really sorry to hear that you've been so ill!  That's definitely no good.  And yeah, your assessment of my own situation is pretty spot on.  It hasn't been great for the rest of the other staff either.

Also I opened up the game this morning for a quick glance at the changes and from what I could see there's been a definite improvement to the UI experience. I could also see some of the design warning signs of overthinking things (I have this trouble myself).

Yep, I think that is pretty spot on.

I was hoping this was THE game for me this year, I can now look forward to a more awesome thing in the coming year.  :)

You know, that was my hope as well.  But, I'm definitely excited about what this can do next year. :)

When I recover some what more, should we continue to add items for SBR to Mantis?

Heh.  I mean, you can if you really want, but a lot of me wants to go "please don't!"  I need mental space from it, so anything you log right now I'm going to respectfully set aside until work resumes on SBR.  At that point absolutely I'll want feedback again, but right now I'm trying to get my head into the space for the interim game and just get my blood pressure down a bit from what it has been for the last while.  I've been blacking out and developed a tremor and all sorts of fun things.  I just need some distance from having so much of my mind and identity wrapped up in one game; it's not healthy.

:-\ Not sure how to feel about this, but I always hope for success, and I'll always be an avid Arcen supporter. Best of Luck!

Thank you!

Honestly, I feel like you've almost certainly made the best decision on multiple levels.

...

 I think this'll give you time you need to not only get the relaxation you sound like you need at this point, but also to ensure that this is the best damn game it can possibly be. There currently aren't too many games in the genre that have held my interest that aren't the progenitor juggernaut that is Civilization itself - but I think you're one of the people I'd trust most to make a game I'd enjoy as much as I did 1, 4, and 5. Don't rush it and make a Civ 3. =333

Again, my thanks. :)

I already responded to your email about this, just so you know, since Yahoo can be a real snotwad and sometimes doesnt like to actually SEND the blasted things yet will tell me that it did (sigh... why cant technology just WORK? I keep having to tell people directly if I send them something, because of this, which almost blows the point of email to begin with...), but I'll just reiterate that I definitely think this is a very good move.  There's just.... so very many problems with releasing now or next month.

I did get your email, and thanks.  I responded with some work stuff relating to the interim game, actually. :)

Just out of pure curiosity, has this game been the longest development cycle you've done so far?  Or was AI War's original version longer (because holy heck, that game is COMPLICATED)?  I mean, this game really has a TON of stuff to it at this point and has been going for quite awhile.  Should be pretty great once it's done though.

Valley 1 was still the longest dev cycle for us at I believe 15(?) months pre-release.  So we're not to the longest-yet with SBR, but by the time it's done it will be.  That said, we had a smaller staff with Valley 1, so in term of man-months this is by far our longest game.  In man-months, TLF would be our #2 behind that, at about 60% of the man-months that went into this game so far.

AI War 1.0 was actually our shortest game ever if you look at man-months.  I knocked that puppy out on my own in 7 months.  We've had shorter timeframes on projects since then, but never in terms of man-months.  So... maybe that does give some insight into why my estimates for timelines on things can get skewed sometimes.  If I could do AI War in that timeframe, why not something else, you know?

Definitely looking forward to.... whatever the heck the next game is going to be called though.  I think that's the one I'm most excited about since BD, which is saying something.  It just sounds like a great concept.

At the moment that's the one I'm most excited about as well, and it's been that way for a while.  It's hard to work on something like SBR when it's no longer the thing you're most excited about, too.  It will swing back around that it's the thing that I'm most excited about, because I've been super excited about SBR for a long time.  But the series of delays and design defeats have just left me feeling pretty battered and not great about myself (I'm not fishing for compliments, but I figure that a frank insight into at least this game developer's mind is interesting to a lot of folks).  So it's hard to maintain that sense of excitement when a game has done something like that to you, anyway.  Or when you've done something like that to yourself via the game, more appropriately.

In the end I'm really surprised by some of the turns that SBR has taken.  It now gets at what my original intents were far better than my original designs did, and I would be delighted by that if I weren't so weary.  It does still make me very pleased, though.  I'm also really excited that it does seem like it will meet a number of my career goals in terms of telling an interactive procedurally generated story and a variety of other things, so there's also that that pleases me greatly.  But I do need some space to where I can sort the good from the bad, and the past pains from the present state of things, etc.  The sort of pepping up I need is hopefully what the interim game will provide.

I think this makes a lot of sense and I wish you all the best. I was beginning to feel that even by the end of November, there was no way SBR was going to be able to be a game that fully lived up to its potential on release (which I think is huge, btw - I've been ranting at my friends about this game a bunch).

Well, that's always really cool to hear that folks are getting excited to that point, despite the problems of the moment with a game.  :D

Do you want us to continue posting things on Mantis for SBR or hold off for now?

If there's something you might forget, then please go ahead and feel free to post it.  Really I'm not going to say "no don't post!" to anyone right now.  But as with my own personal notes, I've got those archived so that I'll remember what I was up to when I come back to the game, and then I'm just putting those out of sight for a while to let them marinate and free up my mind a bit.

2. The point about "if the game is great, it doesn't matter when you release" is somewhat taken, but I think that people do tend to overlook all the great "cult classics" that never caught on for one reason or another.  In other words, this smacks a bit to me of being over-confident.  Which I have certainly been many times, but am not really feeling in the spirit of right now. ;)
System Shock says hi. That's a cult classic legend of a game that just never took off and never made the money back due to a botched release.

That is one of the two that I was thinking of, actually.

Ahem. I approve of this. SBR needs some more thinking and planning done, and having a good deal of breathing room will probably be necessary.

Of course, as always I hope this doesn't cause any financial stress Arcen can't handle  :-\

I appreciate it.  We should be okay, I think.

A wise choice to postpone release.

There was indeed a feeling of panic going around. And I understand the concept of becoming too intimate with the project. I am in a similar situation, too many months - too much code.

Yeah, even when I was doing business software and didn't have the same kind of emotional stake in my work, there was still the occasional case of this.  I mean, I was proud of my work and invested myself in it, so some really giant thing that was being developed for clients could be quite the entanglement.  I never had an individual project that went on this long, though, so that's new to me with Arcen.  What line of work are you in?

SBR needs more work in its systems, interactions, gui, story, tooltips,combat, AI, pacing, etc, etc. A lot of work.

Vision fading... yeah, this is why I'm stepping away for a bit.  You've been one of the biggest supporters lately, and to hear you say that is a bit of a blow.  Not that I wouldn't want you to say it, and I agree with you on all the points.  But it's a good example of how I've just gotten too involved in it mentally.  It shouldn't be that much of a punch to hear "you have more work to do on XYZ areas."  Hopefully the interim project will provide some reasonable success that I can use as some insulation against the inevitable ups and downs of a project as complex and novel as SBR.

As others have said and I agree, a project should stay in EA at least for a year as a business model and build momentum. Barring that it would feel like a cash grab game with extreme risk for the buyer and it would face harsh criticism from youtubers and the community in general. Add to that the fact that you're not a new studio so people have expectations.  You can't be productive in such an environment and you need a community manager that is a true Warlord.

Whoa, a year in EA?  I don't know about that -- that would bring the total this game would need to earn up to close to $1.5 million gross.  It wouldn't be our first game to hit that level, but I mean that would be the break-even point just to earn back what was spent making it.  I'd like to think that we're not that far off the finish line, but then again I'm just not in a good place to judge right now.  At any rate this definitely isn't a conversation I'm emotionally equipped to handle right now, and the point is moot for another 3-4 months either way.  Whew, though.

So basically, you'll be working on the new SHMUP to get that rolled out ASAP.  When do you expect the Alpha to start?  I saw an earlier post where it was posited that this will be like the alpha/beta releases of TLF, where the game is available directly from Arcen (or via Humble Store) from its earliest playable state, and then you push updates out from Arcen directly.  Any thoughts on what your asking price for the game will be?

I have a lot to figure out in the next week or so on those points, so take my answers with a grain of salt, heh:

1. To some extent I'm wary of calling this a SHMUP.  Let's say roguelike, perhaps.

2. Starting the alpha... I'm not sure.  I hope to have a nice internal prototype by the end of next week.  Depending on how things look with that my goal is for an alpha to start in November sometime with a solid degree of starting content to the point where you can get a good idea of it.  In an ideal world, closer to the start of November.

3. Most likely we'll do a very small private alpha first to do some sanity checking with some folks.  Then go to the paid alpha (at a discount off full price) after that.

4. I'm not 100% sure on the final cost of the game.  I'd estimate between $10 and $15.  Given the nature of the genre, and the staff we have, my intent is to pack this thing to the gills with content.  We have the capability of doing certain kinds of content independent of weighing me down as a designer or Keith down as a coder, and I intend to make full use of that.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Misery October 08, 2015, 12:12:32 PM
4. I'm not 100% sure on the final cost of the game.  I'd estimate between $10 and $15.  Given the nature of the genre, and the staff we have, my intent is to pack this thing to the gills with content.  We have the capability of doing certain kinds of content independent of weighing me down as a designer or Keith down as a coder, and I intend to make full use of that.

Ah, this reminds me of the one question I forgot to ask in my response email.  If you're going with the idea of premade rooms/floors/areas/something or whatever, is this something you might be able to get outside help with?  Not just myself, I mean, but even just some random people in the community being able to submit possible room designs.  I know *I* at least would find it entertaining to do, that sort of thing is usually my favorite part of game design actually. To be able to do it for this sort of game, it working the way you described it so far, would be even more entertaining.  I bet plenty of others would find it entertaining too.  And the more rooms the game has to select from, the better.

Just curious about that. 

Anyway, it sounds like you were getting waaaaayyyyyyyyyy too stressed out over this here... I know it's not really my business, but I always think you guys put in far too many hours. I really dont know how you manage it. Or maybe that's just me being lazy, I'm about ready to throw something at the wall after about 2 hours.  But still, blackouts and such.... ugh.  Definitely sounds good that you'll be able to get some distance from the whole thing.  Frankly, it just sounded very frustrating, making all of those constant changes, and as Gnosis said, it still seemed far from done.  Which hopefully doesnt sound mean here, and I think I've said as much before anyway.  I hope you recover quick from that though, feeling like that aint any fun at all.

And I hadnt realized that Valley 1's development time was that long!  Agh, I swear that game's beta feels like a bazillion years ago or so. 
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 08, 2015, 12:30:15 PM
1 fair enough no need to apologise  for my shitty wording

2 ill probably put up things on mantis while I'm .finishing up on. stars mainly for prudence's sake

3 being away from stars will probably do me some good as well in regards to infusiasm and just general clarity testing

4 when you say private do you mean in the same way that stars is or even more private?.

5 are act 3/4 going to be implemented at all before you lock stars away temporarily? mainly so people can do some better clarity on the balance certain things.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: nas1m October 08, 2015, 12:30:52 PM
Sounds like a wise decision to me all around.
I am too looking forward to the new game -especially more details being leaked by you Chris ;).


Regarding SBR: Would you consider to at least release the currently completed fixes?
That way Act 2 would be actually winnable and allow players to have some fun with the current state in a way that allows them to actually complete a given game.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 08, 2015, 03:37:39 PM
Ah, this reminds me of the one question I forgot to ask in my response email.  If you're going with the idea of premade rooms/floors/areas/something or whatever, is this something you might be able to get outside help with?  Not just myself, I mean, but even just some random people in the community being able to submit possible room designs.  I know *I* at least would find it entertaining to do, that sort of thing is usually my favorite part of game design actually. To be able to do it for this sort of game, it working the way you described it so far, would be even more entertaining.  I bet plenty of others would find it entertaining too.  And the more rooms the game has to select from, the better.

I'm definitely hoping so!  It was popular with Valley 1 and 2, so maybe we'll see that again. :)

Anyway, it sounds like you were getting waaaaayyyyyyyyyy too stressed out over this here... I know it's not really my business, but I always think you guys put in far too many hours. I really dont know how you manage it. Or maybe that's just me being lazy, I'm about ready to throw something at the wall after about 2 hours.  But still, blackouts and such.... ugh.  Definitely sounds good that you'll be able to get some distance from the whole thing.  Frankly, it just sounded very frustrating, making all of those constant changes, and as Gnosis said, it still seemed far from done.  Which hopefully doesnt sound mean here, and I think I've said as much before anyway.  I hope you recover quick from that though, feeling like that aint any fun at all.

Yeah, definitely too many hours.  Mostly I try to keep everyone else insulated from that or at least compensate them for it, but the sense of burnout has been strong with a number of us.

And I hadnt realized that Valley 1's development time was that long!  Agh, I swear that game's beta feels like a bazillion years ago or so.

Like a different life to me, too, yeah.  Some vestigial memories of a past life.

4 when you say private do you mean in the same way that stars is or even more private?.

I mean something super brief, a week or less, and probably just involving a handful of people that we'll reach out to (or who PM us proactively, as is often the case).  And then opening it up more widely.  We did this prior to the main beta of SBR starting, too, actually.

5 are act 3/4 going to be implemented at all before you lock stars away temporarily? mainly so people can do some better clarity on the balance certain things.

Nope!  All work on SBR stopped yesterday and is on hold for now.  We just need to move on for a bit, and dragging out the transition doesn't help anything.  We'll be back on it in February, but in the meantime we just stopped all in one big jolt.

Sounds like a wise decision to me all around.
I am too looking forward to the new game -especially more details being leaked by you Chris ;).

I appreciate it. :)  And some are over there already, heh.

Regarding SBR: Would you consider to at least release the currently completed fixes?
That way Act 2 would be actually winnable and allow players to have some fun with the current state in a way that allows them to actually complete a given game.

Unfortunately there are some half-completed things in the codebase right now that would bust it if we released them.  And if we finished those, it would take another half day or so, which I'd rather just wait on.  Sorry about that!
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: nas1m October 08, 2015, 04:59:30 PM
Ah, this reminds me of the one question I forgot to ask in my response email.  If you're going with the idea of premade rooms/floors/areas/something or whatever, is this something you might be able to get outside help with?  Not just myself, I mean, but even just some random people in the community being able to submit possible room designs.  I know *I* at least would find it entertaining to do, that sort of thing is usually my favorite part of game design actually. To be able to do it for this sort of game, it working the way you described it so far, would be even more entertaining.  I bet plenty of others would find it entertaining too.  And the more rooms the game has to select from, the better.

I'm definitely hoping so!  It was popular with Valley 1 and 2, so maybe we'll see that again. :)

Anyway, it sounds like you were getting waaaaayyyyyyyyyy too stressed out over this here... I know it's not really my business, but I always think you guys put in far too many hours. I really dont know how you manage it. Or maybe that's just me being lazy, I'm about ready to throw something at the wall after about 2 hours.  But still, blackouts and such.... ugh.  Definitely sounds good that you'll be able to get some distance from the whole thing.  Frankly, it just sounded very frustrating, making all of those constant changes, and as Gnosis said, it still seemed far from done.  Which hopefully doesnt sound mean here, and I think I've said as much before anyway.  I hope you recover quick from that though, feeling like that aint any fun at all.

Yeah, definitely too many hours.  Mostly I try to keep everyone else insulated from that or at least compensate them for it, but the sense of burnout has been strong with a number of us.

And I hadnt realized that Valley 1's development time was that long!  Agh, I swear that game's beta feels like a bazillion years ago or so.

Like a different life to me, too, yeah.  Some vestigial memories of a past life.

4 when you say private do you mean in the same way that stars is or even more private?.

I mean something super brief, a week or less, and probably just involving a handful of people that we'll reach out to (or who PM us proactively, as is often the case).  And then opening it up more widely.  We did this prior to the main beta of SBR starting, too, actually.

5 are act 3/4 going to be implemented at all before you lock stars away temporarily? mainly so people can do some better clarity on the balance certain things.

Nope!  All work on SBR stopped yesterday and is on hold for now.  We just need to move on for a bit, and dragging out the transition doesn't help anything.  We'll be back on it in February, but in the meantime we just stopped all in one big jolt.

Sounds like a wise decision to me all around.
I am too looking forward to the new game -especially more details being leaked by you Chris ;).

I appreciate it. :)  And some are over there already, heh.

Regarding SBR: Would you consider to at least release the currently completed fixes?
That way Act 2 would be actually winnable and allow players to have some fun with the current state in a way that allows them to actually complete a given game.

Unfortunately there are some half-completed things in the codebase right now that would bust it if we released them.  And if we finished those, it would take another half day or so, which I'd rather just wait on.  Sorry about that!
Well, maybe in a few weeks time then ;).
Until then: The best of luck with your new venture.
I am looking forward to a more structured synopsis of what is coming up :).
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Draco18s October 08, 2015, 05:19:11 PM
Things go as things go.  The best you can do is make the most of it.
The Christmas season is always hard for a new release from a smaller company, so do what needs to be done: make it good, make it right, release when ready.

This persistence-roguelike concept is one I want to see more of, I really liked Rogue Legacy, even if it took bloody forever to figure out.  And there was another game for one of Nintendo's handhelds, I forget which one now, involving a magical shovel....ah, Master of the Monster Lair.  You would dig the dungeon yourself and populate it with items, which would then spawn specific monsters, which you would then go in and beat up.  Even if the first thing you fought beat the crap out of you, you still got stats, because your mom would make you dinner after you got home.  The more stuff you killed, the more money you'd have to buy ingredients for dinner.  Worst case, you'd buy nothing and you'd still get 1 stat point.

Combine that with SHMUP and you'll have me hook line and sinker.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Cyborg October 08, 2015, 06:25:57 PM
Sounds like a wise decision to me all around.
I am too looking forward to the new game -especially more details being leaked by you Chris ;) .


Regarding SBR: Would you consider to at least release the currently completed fixes?
That way Act 2 would be actually winnable and allow players to have some fun with the current state in a way that allows them to actually complete a given game.


Why would he spend money releasing these updates for people who are supposed to be testing, at a period of time where development is on hold? Makes me think people are unaware of what beta testing is or the service we are performing.


Anyway, I think this is for the best. The game isn't fun for me, and I know that a lot of feedback revolves around people not knowing what's going on or even how to play. They don't know how to have fun with the game, and I think that's a huge issue. There are a few people on here which appear to "get it," and some people who are doing their best to find the fun. So whenever this project gets revisited, there needs to be not only a balance pass, but maybe even a video about how to play that would also serve as a publicity video. I could write pages about my thoughts on it, but I'm not sure it would be helpful. I decided a long time ago that this game wasn't aimed at me, probably just not meant for someone like me. Maybe my opinion means nothing. But if you want me to write it down in mantis for later, I can do that. But not if it's going to cause anybody distress, tremors, blacking out, or other health problems. My inability to grasp this game doesn't mean jack about Chris Park or anyone else on the team. I think you are all wonderful people, and I root for you all as people to be happy and successful. And healthy.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Captain Jack October 08, 2015, 07:45:25 PM
I just realized that there's one release juggernaut we haven't taken into account. Paradox's Stellaris (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/08/06/stellaris-paradox-strategy-game/) is due indefinite month 2016, not "January/February 2016" as I previously thought. If it is coming out after SBR, it's liable to cut SBR's legs off like D3 did AVWW.

My half-trained marketing recommendation is a SBR expansion timed to release two weeks after Stellaris, to restart that sales engine
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 08, 2015, 08:04:11 PM
Cheers guys.  Just a few quick notes:

1. I appreciate the bucking up, and I'm glad there's excitement on the next game.

2. I don't take it personally at all when someone doesn't like the game and says so in a respectful way.  In other words, I don't take it personally as them being rude or inappropriate or whatever.  But for various reasons to do with my past, which I'm working through, I am aware that I can overreact to varying degrees.  The longer a project has gone on, the worse it gets.  I usually seem to "reset" after a release of another project, so I should just be in a better mental state all around with it after the hiatus.

3. All respect, yes, I'm not doing any updates during the hiatus, because I'm not really expecting anyone to test.  It's not something I need from folks during this period, and as it's not support for a released product I don't view it as something that's a priority the way I otherwise would.  That feels super harsh for me to say, and I don't mean it that way.  But rest assured, the hiatus will end and there will be more updates on the other side.

4. The blacking out and all that stuff is just a matter of accumulated stress more than anything else.  It's not any one thing, it's just a matter of too long a period of too much intensity on one thing.  I should be back in good form after the hiatus, and people don't need to worry about my health.  If there's something amiss, I'll do something to try to address that.  I have an anxiety disorder as well as severe PTSD (dating back decades), and some of that gets triggered sometimes around releases.  Therapy and medication have been helping over the last years, although some of the medication comes with nasty side effects.  I think the blacking out was related partly to one of those that I started taking in March and have stopped taking in the last week.  We'll see.  Originally I got on that because I was having low-grade panic attacks literally all day every day, and that solved that issue.  But lots of other problems went with.  EMDR did work pretty well for some of the stuff, but I'm giving neurofeedback a shot now.  We shall see.  Anyway, the point is a lot of that has absolutely nothing to do with testers or specific feedback, and I try not to be a pansy about how I receive news I don't want to hear.  It's important to be able to take criticism, and if I ever hit a point where I'm dissuading people from "giving it to me straight," I'm only doing myself and the games a disservice in the end.

5. Often I find it really useful to get feedback, periodically at least, from people who a game is "not really aimed at."  Sometimes they come up with the most useful feedback.  With AI War, I was getting my mom, my sister, and other non-gamers to go through the tutorials and I was watching what happened with them.  I wanted it to be something that would not bother me to go through, in the sense of "click here to move forward," but at the same time that they could do.  That was useful.  For someone coming outside the conventions of a genre, that's not like being a non-gamer, but you are still missing some assumptions that might be inherent in the genre, and that might be precluding the game from reaching a wider audience.  Plus, there's always the chance that a game that is not aimed at you can be smoothed out subtly enough that it does draw you in, at least some, in the end.  I don't get offended when that happens, so long as others are enjoying it, but the closer I can get someone like that to enjoying it, the better the game is for it.  Core fans of the genre will overlook all sorts of things that a person like that will not stand for, is another way to put it.  So only that sort of person who's not quite in the audience can give that kind of vital feedback.

6. Stellaris looks interesting, though I'm not sure how threatening.  Diablo 3 was a kind of once in a lifetime event it felt like.  I'm not saying that Stellaris might not be very harmful in a short term, but I don't think it would obliterate the market like Diablo.  I could be wrong, though.  And anyhow, I'd definitely try to give it a wide berth.  Hopefully the interim game does well enough that we're really not beholden to any specific month of release in early 2016, but we'll see.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: P3X-639 October 08, 2015, 08:33:14 PM
Sorry for being late to the party. Just saw the old thread. For what it's worth, if you can make this new thing work, I think this is the best option. When I was reading the old thread, I was thinking, "Damn. It'd be great if they could just hold out untill the end of December or next year. I also think taking a step back from SBR would do some good. There's been a lot of changes recently and having some time to examine it from the outside and rejigger your thoughts about the game you want with a clear mind is for the best.

Looking foward to the new game :)
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 08, 2015, 08:38:10 PM
I appreciate it. :)
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: P3X-639 October 08, 2015, 08:45:56 PM
Just read the official post writeup on the main website. Yes! As a kid who sunk a lot of quarters in that B14 or whatever it's called shoot'um up, color me super exicted for a endless roguelike version! Was looking foward to it when you mentioned it during TLF development. Nice to know that's the new one coming up. :D
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: mrhanman October 08, 2015, 08:49:28 PM
Good luck, guys!  I didn't pile on in the November-misgivings thread, but I will pile on now with my support.  Of course, you had that anyway.   8)

As bummed as I am to hear that SBR will go on ice for a while, I'm really excited to hear I'll be seeing another new Arcen game soon.  Whatever it is, I'll be there day one to help however I can!
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Rythe October 08, 2015, 10:04:07 PM
Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

More pertinent though, I discovered Steredenn (http://store.steampowered.com/app/347160/) on Steam the other day and thought to myself 'If this had some persistent elements, I'd actually buy it.' So kudos on you for predicting that. Also, easy source to crib some design notes from something close but not quite?
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: wwwhhattt October 08, 2015, 10:12:17 PM
2 games to get excited about? I don't know how I'll cope...

Can't comment on business things, but with health problems like that business (and games, really) start to seem almost irrelevant. Hope the new stuff sorts things out - change is always good :)

(and while I'm here, sorry for not contributing much to the SBR beta - but by the looks of things I'll be great for breaking tutorials)
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Misery October 09, 2015, 02:46:36 AM
Things go as things go.  The best you can do is make the most of it.
The Christmas season is always hard for a new release from a smaller company, so do what needs to be done: make it good, make it right, release when ready.

This persistence-roguelike concept is one I want to see more of, I really liked Rogue Legacy, even if it took bloody forever to figure out.  And there was another game for one of Nintendo's handhelds, I forget which one now, involving a magical shovel....ah, Master of the Monster Lair.  You would dig the dungeon yourself and populate it with items, which would then spawn specific monsters, which you would then go in and beat up.  Even if the first thing you fought beat the crap out of you, you still got stats, because your mom would make you dinner after you got home.  The more stuff you killed, the more money you'd have to buy ingredients for dinner.  Worst case, you'd buy nothing and you'd still get 1 stat point.

Combine that with SHMUP and you'll have me hook line and sinker.

Yeah, that's pretty much the reaction I had upon hearing more about the game.  I"m *really* excited for this one.  I play sooooooo many games of this sort already... there's traditional roguelikes, and of course 5 bazillion traditional shmups, but then there's also action roguelikes, like Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, Vagante (I *highly* recommend giving this one a whirl, if you havent seen it before... VERY good), Spelunky, Nuclear Throne... and plenty more.   It's such a very fun genre.  Every one of those games can get hundreds of hours out of me, I just dont tire of them.  Heck, I'll just be lost to the world entirely once the Afterbirth expansion for Isaac comes out.

So the idea of doing that sort of thing with alot of shmuppy elements.... yeeeeep, definitely wanting that, indeedy.

Just be prepared for what might end up being a bit of difficulty overload during the game's beta, whenever that part begins.  I'm doing a bunch of attack pattern design again (which is likely to not JUST be bullets this time), and in ANYTHING I design of any sort, I've got this tendancy to seriously underestimate the difficulty.  I know this, yet I still manage to do it.  And then I watch as players die, over and over and over, to something I thought was easy.

I'll not say more about it because I dont want to point out gameplay details that I shouldnt, but if something I did seems overly nasty, feel free to yell at me about it.  I aint the only one doing the enemy stuffs though, so there should be ALOT of variety with them.  I'm particularly excited for that part.  With Bionic Dues, which is one of my favorite games, that was one of my absolute favorite aspects, the incredible amount of variety with the design and behaviors of the enemy bots.  It really added a ton to the game.  Even if I do get just a BIT tired of the ever-clingy EMPBots after a time.  Those little jerks... They could at least have the decency to fire at me or something.  But no, they get up next to you and just start repeating taunts over and over again.  They're not as annoying as a certain type of bird in a certain Arcen sidescroller, with a certain tendancy to fly up your nose very abruptly (will anything ever quite match those?), but still...  Definitely the Goddamn Bats of that game.  Or the Stupid Flying Medusa Heads of that game, depending on your point of view.

But yeah, in other words, just... EVERYTHING about this new game sounds just grand.  It's the new game I'm most excited for right now, by far.  With the new Anno coming in second, so that's really saying something, since that's freaking ANNO of all things.  Anno in spaaaaaaaaace, for that matter.  Coming in second.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: nas1m October 09, 2015, 08:08:00 AM
Sounds like a wise decision to me all around.
I am too looking forward to the new game -especially more details being leaked by you Chris ;) .


Regarding SBR: Would you consider to at least release the currently completed fixes?
That way Act 2 would be actually winnable and allow players to have some fun with the current state in a way that allows them to actually complete a given game.


Why would he spend money releasing these updates for people who are supposed to be testing, at a period of time where development is on hold? Makes me think people are unaware of what beta testing is or the service we are performing.
In think I have been around here long and contributed enough to qualify as "knowing that betas are for the game/the company and not for the players", I think.

My main cause for bringing this up (aside from the one mentioned above) is that I know how bad it get get to (have to) go back to a codebase that as unfinished changes still lurking in various checkouts from a professional standpoint.

If there are none, or if they will get reverted when the time comes to start with a clean slate - fair enough.
Consider my request as non-existent. But if there are local changes that are still of interest to the game it is my form conviction that it would be better to get them in while there still is some contextual knowledge about what is going on.

My point was never to ask you guys to throw money at something only benefitting the current beta players.

What ever you decide, its good with me :).



: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 09, 2015, 11:11:00 AM
Thanks everybody. :)

In think I have been around here long and contributed enough to qualify as "knowing that betas are for the game/the company and not for the players", I think.

My main cause for bringing this up (aside from the one mentioned above) is that I know how bad it get get to (have to) go back to a codebase that as unfinished changes still lurking in various checkouts from a professional standpoint.

If there are none, or if they will get reverted when the time comes to start with a clean slate - fair enough.
Consider my request as non-existent. But if there are local changes that are still of interest to the game it is my form conviction that it would be better to get them in while there still is some contextual knowledge about what is going on.

My point was never to ask you guys to throw money at something only benefitting the current beta players.

What ever you decide, its good with me :).

You know, I apologize -- I in particular really should have given you the benefit of the doubt on that.  Goodness knows you've earned it.  Sorry about that!

Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

That's a bummer, actually.  But the system requirements on that thing for the minimum are kind of nuts.  I've been trying to mostly game on my laptop so that I can get away from my desktop when I'm not working.  I guess a 1GB card is anemic these days, but jeez.

More pertinent though, I discovered Steredenn (http://store.steampowered.com/app/347160/) on Steam the other day and thought to myself 'If this had some persistent elements, I'd actually buy it.' So kudos on you for predicting that. Also, easy source to crib some design notes from something close but not quite?

Yeah, I saw that too.  For the record that's really not my sort of game and not the sort of thing that we're making here.  That's way more like Rygar from what I can tell, and that was never anything I got into.  My favorite SHMUP was Tyrian.

But really, I need to stop saying that word I think, because this is really more of a dual-stick-shooter than a SHMUP.  It has SHMUP elements, but it's more of a dual-stick shooter in a roguelike structure, with shmup-style enemy patterns.  Of course playable with keyboard and mouse as well.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 11:23:48 AM
the one I think I'm looking forward to is coming back to this game in months and being able to see it from the perspective of a new player better than at the moment also more relevantly I have a question I've been reading in the life part of the forum and apparently your in the middle of a big war and I was wonder what/who exactly is waging this war? are these new race or already established races? or is that sort of thing being completely ignored right now?.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: nas1m October 09, 2015, 11:32:15 AM
Thanks everybody. :)

In think I have been around here long and contributed enough to qualify as "knowing that betas are for the game/the company and not for the players", I think.

My main cause for bringing this up (aside from the one mentioned above) is that I know how bad it get get to (have to) go back to a codebase that as unfinished changes still lurking in various checkouts from a professional standpoint.

If there are none, or if they will get reverted when the time comes to start with a clean slate - fair enough.
Consider my request as non-existent. But if there are local changes that are still of interest to the game it is my form conviction that it would be better to get them in while there still is some contextual knowledge about what is going on.

My point was never to ask you guys to throw money at something only benefitting the current beta players.

What ever you decide, its good with me :).

You know, I apologize -- I in particular really should have given you the benefit of the doubt on that.  Goodness knows you've earned it.  Sorry about that!

Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

That's a bummer, actually.  But the system requirements on that thing for the minimum are kind of nuts.  I've been trying to mostly game on my laptop so that I can get away from my desktop when I'm not working.  I guess a 1GB card is anemic these days, but jeez.

More pertinent though, I discovered Steredenn (http://store.steampowered.com/app/347160/) on Steam the other day and thought to myself 'If this had some persistent elements, I'd actually buy it.' So kudos on you for predicting that. Also, easy source to crib some design notes from something close but not quite?

Yeah, I saw that too.  For the record that's really not my sort of game and not the sort of thing that we're making here.  That's way more like Rygar from what I can tell, and that was never anything I got into.  My favorite SHMUP was Tyrian.

But really, I need to stop saying that word I think, because this is really more of a dual-stick-shooter than a SHMUP.  It has SHMUP elements, but it's more of a dual-stick shooter in a roguelike structure, with shmup-style enemy patterns.  Of course playable with keyboard and mouse as well.
Don't you worry about that.
All is good :).
Looking forward to both SBER and the interim venture!
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 09, 2015, 12:04:05 PM
the one I think I'm looking forward to is coming back to this game in months and being able to see it from the perspective of a new player better than at the moment

I'm hoping to be able to get some degree of this effect myself, too.  Putting it as much out of my mind as possible will really help me to see it as an outsider, which should be good as I then get back deep inside it.  We'll see if that span is long enough for that to happen or not, but that definitely does happen to me with games I've made after a while.

also more relevantly I have a question I've been reading in the life part of the forum and apparently your in the middle of a big war and I was wonder what/who exactly is waging this war? are these new race or already established races? or is that sort of thing being completely ignored right now?.

Well, we're billions or trillions of years into the future from TLF, and far far far after SBR as well.  So it's not really anyone we know, I don't think.  There are a few potential interesting ideas we have, but mostly I want to not make that the focus of what's going on.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 12:20:32 PM
the one I think I'm looking forward to is coming back to this game in months and being able to see it from the perspective of a new player better than at the moment

I'm hoping to be able to get some degree of this effect myself, too.  Putting it as much out of my mind as possible will really help me to see it as an outsider, which should be good as I then get back deep inside it.  We'll see if that span is long enough for that to happen or not, but that definitely does happen to me with games I've made after a while.

also more relevantly I have a question I've been reading in the life part of the forum and apparently your in the middle of a big war and I was wonder what/who exactly is waging this war? are these new race or already established races? or is that sort of thing being completely ignored right now?.

Well, we're billions or trillions of years into the future from TLF, and far far far after SBR as well.  So it's not really anyone we know, I don't think.  There are a few potential interesting ideas we have, but mostly I want to not make that the focus of what's going on.
I understand but that's incredibly interesting to me I mean holy shit billions of years after?! I have to assume that the hydral is like a lobster then and practically immortal also I'm actually really glad that it won't be any one I know if it was like stars then it would feel like fan service and there's only a few races were it would make even feasible séance to be a threat to you(ie thoraxians zenith and spire although the last 2 wouldn't likely care about something as trivial in their eyes as a war any way) also a question that's fairly random and that I don't think you'll even really be able to answer at this point in time is are the obscura ever going to pop up again in a game/expansion
ps just had a mad idea what if they were introduced as faction in ai war? would it work at all? would they even fit in any way to the game? I have no idea so I thought I would ask you since I obviously haven't really played the game at all?
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Tormodino October 09, 2015, 12:22:40 PM
Postponing the release is a very good idea. Actually getting the systems in this game balanced and working together is not a two month job.
I want this game to be as good as it can be, but it requires more minerals.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Captain Jack October 09, 2015, 12:27:58 PM
are the obscura ever going to pop up again in a game/expansion
Not the way you'd expect but yes.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 12:32:28 PM
are the obscura ever going to pop up again in a game/expansion
Not the way you'd expect but yes.
I might be superficially imagining things here but it sounds like you know something I don't?. (perhaps information from Chris?)
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 09, 2015, 12:35:15 PM
are the obscura ever going to pop up again in a game/expansion
Not the way you'd expect but yes.
I might be superficially imagining things here but it sounds like you know something I don't?. (perhaps information from Chris?)

Yep, he's intimately involved with writing a lot of things for the lore with SBR, and some in TLF now, and actually some in the new game now, too.

In terms of them being immortal: yep.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 12:39:37 PM
are the obscura ever going to pop up again in a game/expansion
Not the way you'd expect but yes.
I might be superficially imagining things here but it sounds like you know something I don't?. (perhaps information from Chris?)

Yep, he's intimately involved with writing a lot of things for the lore with SBR, and some in TLF now, and actually some in the new game now, too.

In terms of them being immortal: yep.
well that's pretty interesting and it wasn't about the obscura being immortal I meant the hydral I mean since the obscura are particle based I assume they don't even have a life cycle in the typical séance.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Captain Jack October 09, 2015, 12:55:11 PM
are the obscura ever going to pop up again in a game/expansion
Not the way you'd expect but yes.
I might be superficially imagining things here but it sounds like you know something I don't?. (perhaps information from Chris?)

Yep, he's intimately involved with writing a lot of things for the lore with SBR, and some in TLF now, and actually some in the new game now, too.

In terms of them being immortal: yep.
Well that too but I was more paraphrasing your response when I asked six months ago.  :D

And yeah, Chris has said that the Hydral are functionally immortal unless someone kills them.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 01:02:24 PM
now I'm wondering what the hell the hydrals been doing between life and tlf which hopefully stars(when it gets let out of he basement and hopefully finished) will answer.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Captain Jack October 09, 2015, 01:10:00 PM
now I'm wondering what the hell the hydrals been doing between life and tlf which hopefully stars(when it gets let out of he basement and hopefully finished) will answer.
No Hydral in Stars Beyond Reach, except the backstory. The Last Hydral is off doing its own thing which mostly involves him not dying until the interim game.  :D I actually have no idea whether anything that happened between TLF and the new game will be important to the new game.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 01:15:42 PM
now I'm wondering what the hell the hydrals been doing between life and tlf which hopefully stars(when it gets let out of he basement and hopefully finished) will answer.
No Hydral in Stars Beyond Reach, except the backstory. The Last Hydral is off doing its own thing which mostly involves him not dying until the interim game.  :D I actually have no idea whether anything that happened between TLF and the new game will be important to the new game.
yea that's what I meant I'm pretty sure the planet would nuke the hydral out of orbit if he even came near any way I doubt the planet would want some one that powerful interfering with things also enoughour question I think you'll be able is I was just wondering what exactly is the hydral doing in the middle of this war in the first place? rather manipulating and the back stabbing the races involved via politics and so on I assume there's some reason why?.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Aklyon October 09, 2015, 01:26:40 PM
Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

That's a bummer, actually.  But the system requirements on that thing for the minimum are kind of nuts.  I've been trying to mostly game on my laptop so that I can get away from my desktop when I'm not working.  I guess a 1GB card is anemic these days, but jeez.
And its claiming 40 GB of space from the sys requirements, oi. Shadow of Mordor took up as much space for a lot more than some nice star wars multiplayer shenanigans, I'm not sure what they're doing with it all here.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Wingflier October 09, 2015, 01:35:08 PM
4. The blacking out and all that stuff is just a matter of accumulated stress more than anything else.  It's not any one thing, it's just a matter of too long a period of too much intensity on one thing.  I should be back in good form after the hiatus, and people don't need to worry about my health.  If there's something amiss, I'll do something to try to address that.  I have an anxiety disorder as well as severe PTSD (dating back decades), and some of that gets triggered sometimes around releases.  Therapy and medication have been helping over the last years, although some of the medication comes with nasty side effects.  I think the blacking out was related partly to one of those that I started taking in March and have stopped taking in the last week.  We'll see.  Originally I got on that because I was having low-grade panic attacks literally all day every day, and that solved that issue.  But lots of other problems went with.  EMDR did work pretty well for some of the stuff, but I'm giving neurofeedback a shot now.  We shall see.  Anyway, the point is a lot of that has absolutely nothing to do with testers or specific feedback, and I try not to be a pansy about how I receive news I don't want to hear.  It's important to be able to take criticism, and if I ever hit a point where I'm dissuading people from "giving it to me straight," I'm only doing myself and the games a disservice in the end.
As someone else who suffers from PTSD and chronic stress/anxiety symptoms on a daily basis, I definitely understand what you're going through.

Sometimes the best solution is to just put your life on hold and deal with your own mental and emotional health, but unfortunately that doesn't seem like much of an option for you. Sadly, sometimes these mental problems boil under the surface for countless years, and by the time they have been recognized, one already has too many life responsibilities to adequately address them in a relaxed, stress-free environment.

Just wanted to let you know that you're not the only person in the forums suffering through this.

Buddhist philosophy/psychology has been one of the major motivating factors that has allowed me to survive through this daily trauma, and one thing it teaches is that the ego is the source of all our problems. You've made a point several times in the last couple days that you were beginning to attach your own self-worth to the outcome of this game, and it's good that you recognize the danger of that tendency.

I wish you the best Chris, take care of yourself.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Captain Jack October 09, 2015, 01:52:08 PM
Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

That's a bummer, actually.  But the system requirements on that thing for the minimum are kind of nuts.  I've been trying to mostly game on my laptop so that I can get away from my desktop when I'm not working.  I guess a 1GB card is anemic these days, but jeez.
And its claiming 40 GB of space from the sys requirements, oi. Shadow of Mordor took up as much space for a lot more than some nice star wars multiplayer shenanigans, I'm not sure what they're doing with it all here.
Making consoles the lead platform and doing zero PC optimization, duh.  ::) I'm not even particularly upset since EA knows they're cutting off the majority of the PC audience by staying Origin exclusive, but it's kinda too bad.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Rythe October 09, 2015, 02:14:08 PM
Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

That's a bummer, actually.  But the system requirements on that thing for the minimum are kind of nuts.  I've been trying to mostly game on my laptop so that I can get away from my desktop when I'm not working.  I guess a 1GB card is anemic these days, but jeez.

You know those moments in Star Wars where Rebel Soldiers or Storm Troopers rush onto the scene and get mowed down by laser fire? Battlefront is faithfully recreating that experience in the sections available in the beta, if the players were those Rebel Soldiers or Storm Troopers getting mowed down. Except for brief periods after you wander over a vehicle power up, then you get to play at being the mechanical war demons spitting out great swaths of that laser fire until the gerbils manage to take you down - also faithfully recreating an experience from Star Wars movie moments.

The problem appears to be that spending the vast majority of your time as movie cannon fodder gets old for most people. They're hoping other game modes provide different experiences.

As for the RAM, yeah, it's all about them textures these days.

Yeah, I saw that too.  For the record that's really not my sort of game and not the sort of thing that we're making here.  That's way more like Rygar from what I can tell, and that was never anything I got into.  My favorite SHMUP was Tyrian.

But really, I need to stop saying that word I think, because this is really more of a dual-stick-shooter than a SHMUP.  It has SHMUP elements, but it's more of a dual-stick shooter in a roguelike structure, with shmup-style enemy patterns.  Of course playable with keyboard and mouse as well.

Oh, twin stick shooter with a heavy dose of bullet hell and roguelike. I gotchas. :P
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 02:42:20 PM
honestly I haven't really heard anything good about the new star wars battlefront from what I saw of jesses e3 coverage all they seem to have done is take things out for no reason and add nothing to it );
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 09, 2015, 03:08:10 PM
As someone else who suffers from PTSD and chronic stress/anxiety symptoms on a daily basis, I definitely understand what you're going through.

Sometimes the best solution is to just put your life on hold and deal with your own mental and emotional health, but unfortunately that doesn't seem like much of an option for you. Sadly, sometimes these mental problems boil under the surface for countless years, and by the time they have been recognized, one already has too many life responsibilities to adequately address them in a relaxed, stress-free environment.

Just wanted to let you know that you're not the only person in the forums suffering through this.

Buddhist philosophy/psychology has been one of the major motivating factors that has allowed me to survive through this daily trauma, and one thing it teaches is that the ego is the source of all our problems. You've made a point several times in the last couple days that you were beginning to attach your own self-worth to the outcome of this game, and it's good that you recognize the danger of that tendency.

I wish you the best Chris, take care of yourself.

I really appreciate it -- all of that.  It's something that I've been struggling with for decades, though I didn't start getting any treatment until late 2011.  I've known for quite some time that I get too much of my self-worth wrapped up in individual games, and that's one of several reasons that we put out so many games in 2013.  That strategy did not really work from some other standpoints, though (just general schedule, finances, stress of other kinds, etc).  So we had to shift to something else.

One of my long-term tricks for dealing with deadline stress that I've used for years is to just take a day off and observe that the universe doesn't explode.  Then I can resume the following day without so much tension.  In some respects that's kind of what this break from SBR is.

I can't overstate how puppy-like happy I am to be working on this other game at the moment, though.  All the stress from earlier in the week has melted away, and I'm just really refreshed and excited.  Still dealing with fallout from it like exhaustion, etc, but that's small potatoes comparatively.

All throughout the SBR process I have relatively been taking better care of myself.  In some past projects -- most of them, really -- there came times where I was working from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep, with a two hour break to play with my son and eat and see my wife, etc.  I've been waaaay better about that this time, and have been making sure to take time for myself in the evenings even when there is a deadline looming.  Ultimately my productivity remains higher over the course of a week when I take an hour or so to just play some other games or whatever in the evening rather than using that hour to work yet more.

Anyhow, so I'm gradually getting where I want to be mentally with all this.  This is a really stressful business!  There's a reason you don't see a lot of long-term developers who actually hang around -- at least not compared to the number who make one game and disappear even if that game was successful to some extent.  But I definitely wouldn't want any other job at this point, so I deal with it as I go.

As for the RAM, yeah, it's all about them textures these days.

Yeah, I saw that too.  For the record that's really not my sort of game and not the sort of thing that we're making here.  That's way more like Rygar from what I can tell, and that was never anything I got into.  My favorite SHMUP was Tyrian.

But really, I need to stop saying that word I think, because this is really more of a dual-stick-shooter than a SHMUP.  It has SHMUP elements, but it's more of a dual-stick shooter in a roguelike structure, with shmup-style enemy patterns.  Of course playable with keyboard and mouse as well.

Oh, twin stick shooter with a heavy dose of bullet hell and roguelike. I gotchas. :P

I'm really surprised they can't just include lower-res textures as an option, though.  A half-scale texture is less than one quarter the ram of a high-res texture.  Ah well.

From what I read on Forbes and Kotaku, balance issues aside it looks like Battlefront is really fun for people.  The unlockables sound stupid and the vehicle controls sound off, but hey it's beta.  All of those sound like minor problems in the grand scheme of making a game like that.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 03:54:29 PM
As someone else who suffers from PTSD and chronic stress/anxiety symptoms on a daily basis, I definitely understand what you're going through.

Sometimes the best solution is to just put your life on hold and deal with your own mental and emotional health, but unfortunately that doesn't seem like much of an option for you. Sadly, sometimes these mental problems boil under the surface for countless years, and by the time they have been recognized, one already has too many life responsibilities to adequately address them in a relaxed, stress-free environment.

Just wanted to let you know that you're not the only person in the forums suffering through this.

Buddhist philosophy/psychology has been one of the major motivating factors that has allowed me to survive through this daily trauma, and one thing it teaches is that the ego is the source of all our problems. You've made a point several times in the last couple days that you were beginning to attach your own self-worth to the outcome of this game, and it's good that you recognize the danger of that tendency.

I wish you the best Chris, take care of yourself.

I really appreciate it -- all of that.  It's something that I've been struggling with for decades, though I didn't start getting any treatment until late 2011.  I've known for quite some time that I get too much of my self-worth wrapped up in individual games, and that's one of several reasons that we put out so many games in 2013.  That strategy did not really work from some other standpoints, though (just general schedule, finances, stress of other kinds, etc).  So we had to shift to something else.

One of my long-term tricks for dealing with deadline stress that I've used for years is to just take a day off and observe that the universe doesn't explode.  Then I can resume the following day without so much tension.  In some respects that's kind of what this break from SBR is.

I can't overstate how puppy-like happy I am to be working on this other game at the moment, though.  All the stress from earlier in the week has melted away, and I'm just really refreshed and excited.  Still dealing with fallout from it like exhaustion, etc, but that's small potatoes comparatively.

All throughout the SBR process I have relatively been taking better care of myself.  In some past projects -- most of them, really -- there came times where I was working from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep, with a two hour break to play with my son and eat and see my wife, etc.  I've been waaaay better about that this time, and have been making sure to take time for myself in the evenings even when there is a deadline looming.  Ultimately my productivity remains higher over the course of a week when I take an hour or so to just play some other games or whatever in the evening rather than using that hour to work yet more.

Anyhow, so I'm gradually getting where I want to be mentally with all this.  This is a really stressful business!  There's a reason you don't see a lot of long-term developers who actually hang around -- at least not compared to the number who make one game and disappear even if that game was successful to some extent.  But I definitely wouldn't want any other job at this point, so I deal with it as I go.

As for the RAM, yeah, it's all about them textures these days.

Yeah, I saw that too.  For the record that's really not my sort of game and not the sort of thing that we're making here.  That's way more like Rygar from what I can tell, and that was never anything I got into.  My favorite SHMUP was Tyrian.

But really, I need to stop saying that word I think, because this is really more of a dual-stick-shooter than a SHMUP.  It has SHMUP elements, but it's more of a dual-stick shooter in a roguelike structure, with shmup-style enemy patterns.  Of course playable with keyboard and mouse as well.

Oh, twin stick shooter with a heavy dose of bullet hell and roguelike. I gotchas. :P

I'm really surprised they can't just include lower-res textures as an option, though.  A half-scale texture is less than one quarter the ram of a high-res texture.  Ah well.

From what I read on Forbes and Kotaku, balance issues aside it looks like Battlefront is really fun for people.  The unlockables sound stupid and the vehicle controls sound off, but hey it's beta.  All of those sound like minor problems in the grand scheme of making a game like that.
by the way I remember you mentioned something about getting blackouts if you don't mind me asking is that due to the stress game making or outside influences or both? also if stars was making you as stressed as you say then perhaps you should have taken a break earlier just my 2 cents there really.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 09, 2015, 04:15:34 PM
Both, really.  And the blackouts were only coming in the last two weeks or so, for the most part.  I wasn't losing consciousness, just vision and very occasionally some muscular control.  Edit: often not even all my vision.  Just half of one eye, or all of one eye, or half of both.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 09, 2015, 04:43:43 PM
Both, really.  And the blackouts were only coming in the last two weeks or so, for the most part.  I wasn't losing consciousness, just vision and very occasionally some muscular control.  Edit: often not even all my vision.  Just half of one eye, or all of one eye, or half of both.
well I presume you already saw a doctor about that so I won't nag to do it but though this just reinforces that locking stars away was a good idea.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 09, 2015, 05:00:56 PM
Yep, several.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Misery October 10, 2015, 01:09:24 AM
Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

I only just noticed this comment, and all I have is a resounding "HAH!" as a response.  That game, I've been warning people about that game for a freaking year now, but nobody listens to me, nope.  Despite things like, I dont know, the absolute greed-driven disaster that was Simcity, for instance.... among other examples.  EA has been *nasty* lately, and they've been proving how bad they can be over and over.  This game, frankly, was doomed from the moment of conception.

And going and looking at some of the comments and such about that beta, well.... it sounds worse than I'd thought.

It'll sell, there's no doubt about that... EA could get people to buy dead birds, really, they've MASTERED the art of getting people to buy their stuff...  but if there ISNT about 5 bazillion things wrong with it, I'll be all sorts of very surprised.  Most likely though, I'll be kinda entertained.

This is why I ignore hype, for the most part, unless a developer has already proven without a doubt that they can pull off something amazing, big stupid publisher or no big stupid publisher.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 10, 2015, 11:52:16 AM
Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

I only just noticed this comment, and all I have is a resounding "HAH!" as a response.  That game, I've been warning people about that game for a freaking year now, but nobody listens to me, nope.  Despite things like, I dont know, the absolute greed-driven disaster that was Simcity, for instance.... among other examples.  EA has been *nasty* lately, and they've been proving how bad they can be over and over.  This game, frankly, was doomed from the moment of conception.

And going and looking at some of the comments and such about that beta, well.... it sounds worse than I'd thought.

It'll sell, there's no doubt about that... EA could get people to buy dead birds, really, they've MASTERED the art of getting people to buy their stuff...  but if there ISNT about 5 bazillion things wrong with it, I'll be all sorts of very surprised.  Most likely though, I'll be kinda entertained.

This is why I ignore hype, for the most part, unless a developer has already proven without a doubt that they can pull off something amazing, big stupid publisher or no big stupid publisher.
aboustley agree with this in every way I was hoping ea wouldn't ness up this game but that's because I love this series and was hoping  that the 3rd iteration would be worth me playing which so far from I've seen it doesn't really.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Misery October 10, 2015, 12:25:06 PM
Well, as an update on November Doom, the Rock Paper Shotgun community has already given up on the Star Wars Battlefront game via its beta. The vocal types over there are expecting it to fizzle out in a month, and I get the sense from their complaints that the doom and gloom they're expecting isn't far off. Then again, it's stripped down model could appeal to people who breath Star Wars and live nothing but Twitch.

I only just noticed this comment, and all I have is a resounding "HAH!" as a response.  That game, I've been warning people about that game for a freaking year now, but nobody listens to me, nope.  Despite things like, I dont know, the absolute greed-driven disaster that was Simcity, for instance.... among other examples.  EA has been *nasty* lately, and they've been proving how bad they can be over and over.  This game, frankly, was doomed from the moment of conception.

And going and looking at some of the comments and such about that beta, well.... it sounds worse than I'd thought.

It'll sell, there's no doubt about that... EA could get people to buy dead birds, really, they've MASTERED the art of getting people to buy their stuff...  but if there ISNT about 5 bazillion things wrong with it, I'll be all sorts of very surprised.  Most likely though, I'll be kinda entertained.

This is why I ignore hype, for the most part, unless a developer has already proven without a doubt that they can pull off something amazing, big stupid publisher or no big stupid publisher.
aboustley agree with this in every way I was hoping ea wouldn't ness up this game but that's because I love this series and was hoping  that the 3rd iteration would be worth me playing which so far from I've seen it doesn't really.

Sadly that just seems to be the way it goes with a ton of games these days... I dunno about everyone else, but the whole freaking industry just disappoints me in recent years.  It's how I ended up finding Arcen's games, for example... I'd gotten just too fed up with mainstream crap, so I made the switch to mostly doing indie games on PC (before that, I was at least somewhat more of a console gamer).  Found the first Valley game while it was being made, and everything just ran from there.  And found a variety of other games and devs that I like too.

And really for me it's just sooooooooo much better.  It's been awhile since I've had a disappointing moment from an indie dev; they dont have some greedy publisher shoving them around, after all.  And if they DO make a mistake, it's genuinely their mistake, not because some corporate twit made a decision that made no sense yet had to be followed. 

In all honesty, I kinda feel sorry for those that are actually DEVELOPING Battlefront; there's a really high chance that EA has forced them to do a ton of things that they didn't want to with this game, as seems to be the norm with major publishers these days.  Well, I know *I* would be frustrated as all hell, in that situation.  The damn jerks...  And for a game that's been so DESIRED by gamers as a whole for such a long time, too.  It'll be the extreme disappointment of Simcity all over again.  I'm still not entirely over that.  It was... infuriating, to say the least.  Still is.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Tolc October 10, 2015, 06:32:03 PM
Well, I guess that's really for the best. Even though I had more fun with the game since the introduction of the acts, it still felt quite unfinished. And a break from it will be good for both the game and your sanity and health. I'm still excited for what it will eventually become, though, and you can't make me not play it once in a while in the mean time  :P So, I wish you all the best with your interim game (rogue-like....yeees, I'm in for that. I only have 10 other rogue-likes in my game library :)) and with your health (those symptons don't sound fun at all  :()

Yeah, I agree with Misery. I get way more enjoyment out of indie titles nowadays than I get out of AAA titles.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Despayre October 10, 2015, 10:21:33 PM
Well I am glad you are making this decision.  As an ex professional designer in the game industry I know what it feels like to be too close to a project and have it start affecting life outside of work. Burnout is never good. You're doing the right thing for yourself and the game, I'm sure you'll both be better off for the delay. Good luck with the next game, can't wait to check it out!
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Bluddy October 11, 2015, 01:38:25 PM
I think your decision makes a lot of sense. Even though I'm not beta testing SBR, I was worried by the changes that were being made to the basic gameplay late in the game. These strategy behemoths take a lot of time to tweak and adjust -- just look at [At The Gates](http://www.atthegatesgame.com/) made by Jon Shafer -- this puppy's been in the works for a LONG time, and it's still being tweaked (actually, also check out the amazing UI he developed while you're at it). In general, I think that the more revolutionary a game is, the more you can afford to release it in an unpolished state, since the mechanics alone will draw people and there's no point of comparison. A turn based strategy game needs to really get the mechanics down because it'll be immediately compared to hundreds of other games.

My main advice for the next game is to zero in on the core mechanics that need to be fun, and the things that could be simplified. You guys have a tendency to create overly-complicated mechanics or stories that then need to be connected somewhat unnaturally to gameplay mechanics. The main example that popped into my mind right now is the mechs in Bionic Dues. I fully expected (as I'm sure every other player did) to have 4 bots to control. Since you determined mechanically that only one bot should be controlled at a time, having 4 bots didn't really make sense. Why wasn't it changed to having a transformer robot with 4 forms?

Anyway, I think that one asset you have here is a lot of smart, helpful people on this board. The problem is that relying on forum posts gives you a really bad skew. Many people don't have time to write long posts, or don't feel as strongly as other people about certain points. I think (non-anonymous) surveys might work really well here. You could list every system, and let people tell you if they thought those systems were fun, well polished etc. Since you tend to have such an open development process, you could even get feedback on your design document. Surveys could really eliminate the shouting match that happens when you post a change and then want feedback.

Another issue that I remember coming up a lot in previous games is that there will be a design issue, at which point everybody will give their loud opinions on the forums. You'll go away for a bit and say you've come up with some solution but want to code it first, and then you'll come back and the solution will be... mediocre. It does the job, but it creates other problems. But it's already coded, so you're not going to criticize it, and certainly it's not worth getting into a forum shouting match with other beta testers over it. Stating your solution before coding it, and then making a survey about it to find the potential faults, could really help avoid that. You could then discuss the results of the survey in a forum thread to allow the crowd the cross-polination needed to pinpoint the design flaws. It'll hopefully allow you to crowdsource the potential issues in your proposed solution before you've needed to code them or even worse -- create art for them.

The bottom line is, iterations are expensive once you have a lot of good art, which you must have in order to compete in today's market. A huge part of iteration is getting feedback from many people, because as the dev your natural human biases act up everywhere. That's difficult to do in a tiny company, and the other difficult part is, how to use the limited resources you have to iterate efficiently, and with as little materialization as possible.

Sorry for the rambling post.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 11, 2015, 02:57:12 PM
Wow AtG is looking good these days.  I haven't seen it in a while, since around the time I was on Shafer's podcast and chatting with him more.  Time flies.

Anyway, points taken on things needing time and polish, and that's basically been the goal.  For the interim game that we're working on, focusing in on the core fun is our immediate goal.  That's a lot easier in that genre, whereas with strategy it's almost impossible: the fun is in the interplay of the complex systems, and if those aren't there can you really say it's fun?
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: Bluddy October 11, 2015, 03:28:06 PM
Great. And also, I don't have a good answer for how to cut through many complex systems to find the fun factor. I think you really need to nail down the core game loop, and state how it would be different, challenging, and rewarding, but that's easier said than done.

For this upcoming game, I would recommend starting 'alpha' immediately. I understand you not wanting to have details leak out yet. However, it's basically just you and Keith working on design, and you guys are in the thick of it creating the stuff. You need fresh eyes and brains to give you constant useful feedback, and the earlier the better. So pick your favorite forum goers, get them to swear allegiance to Arcen (or sign an NDA or something), and put them in a private forum where you can use their brains to test designs, ideas and iterations, even at a basic, primordial level. (Plus, I really think surveys are a good idea to get everyone's opinions equally). This should make it so that by the time you're ready to produce art/code, you've already nailed down a lot of the concepts, at least partially, and you know which parts work and which parts don't. By the time you're ready for real alpha, you'll recognize a lot of the feedback and know what really needs time.

Oh here's another point, this time criticizing the forum goers. It's very easy to get carried away in flights of fancy as a commenter, coming up with loads of new ideas that may or may not be realistic to implement. I think each commenter wants to feel the affirmation of having *the* idea that was chosen by you to be in the game. We all seek approval, after all. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I think this is detrimental to the kind of feedback you need, especially early on, since it causes huge tangents rather than focusing on direct feedback on different aspects of the game and whether they're working. Ideally, there should be one forum for feedback (and this is something I think surveys are also very good for) and another forum for ideas, where once you are looking for an idea, you (the designers) can wander into this forum and read up on some ideas that could be useful for solving issues.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: x4000 October 11, 2015, 03:42:58 PM
I think folks have been doing a surprisingly good job of practicing egoless suggestions, to be honest.  That's one thing I've always been impressed with, but particularly in recent years.  That said, the various processes can definitely do with improvement I'm sure.

The next game is definitely not ready for alpha yet, as there does need to be quiet time where I can focus on design and testing of my own without a huge load of distraction.  That said, I have Misery and a couple of other folks helping out this go-round from the start, who are working on contracting for some things anyhow.  And in terms of the alpha starting, that will start insanely fast, within 3 weeks or so.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 11, 2015, 04:45:07 PM
Oh here's another point, this time criticizing the forum goers. It's very easy to get carried away in flights of fancy as a commenter, coming up with loads of new ideas that may or may not be realistic to implement. I think each commenter wants to feel the affirmation of having *the* idea that was chosen by you to be in the game. We all seek approval, after all. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I think this is detrimental to the kind of feedback you need, especially early on, since it causes huge tangents rather than focusing on direct feedback on different aspects of the game and whether they're working. Ideally, there should be one forum for feedback (and this is something I think surveys are also very good for) and another forum for ideas, where once you are looking for an idea, you (the designers) can wander into this forum and read up on some ideas that could be useful for solving issues.
your pretty right on this I my self have been guilty of this my self out of all the ideas I put forth for stars only 2 actually got accepted (one of which disappeared some were down line intentionally or not the whole were dumps used to adjacency bonuses) love the idea of putting separate threads for that sort of thing.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: crazyroosterman October 11, 2015, 04:48:29 PM
I noticed that Chris changed  the name of that roguey game I definitely appreciate that its old name was a bit painful to keep typing out.
: Re: Whoa, this game is coming out in 2016 now? Well, it's for the best.
: tbrass October 14, 2015, 06:12:54 PM
Both, really.  And the blackouts were only coming in the last two weeks or so, for the most part.  I wasn't losing consciousness, just vision and very occasionally some muscular control.  Edit: often not even all my vision.  Just half of one eye, or all of one eye, or half of both.

Get healthy, Chris. I hope the change of (subject, if not pace) does wonders & that you can actually take a break somewhere in here. . .