Arcen Games

General Category => Untitled 3D Survival => : x4000 February 24, 2016, 04:47:59 PM

: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 24, 2016, 04:47:59 PM
It's funny that the dinosaurs bit is the part that everyone latches onto the most.  This is not chiefly a dinosaur game at all.  Just as an fyi, because folks seem to be getting the wrong idea in the absence of other information.  Yes there are dinosaurs.  But there are a lot more aliens and robots and corrupted human enemies.  Dinosaurs are one of a variety of genetic-experiment-style creatures you'll run into in the wilderness, away from the main enemy towns and forts.

...and yes, it's possible you might be able to turn into a dinosaur for a while in the game at times, but that's just one feature among many many more core ones. ;)

Just throwing this out there so people are not disappointed later. ;)
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: ptarth February 24, 2016, 04:52:51 PM
So to sum up, It's all about dinosaurs?

 >D

Katanaka Ultimate Maker. Never Forgive, Never Forget.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 24, 2016, 04:55:17 PM
So to sum up, It's all about dinosaurs?

 >D

Katanaka Ultimate Maker. Never Forgive, Never Forget.
you mean robot dinosaurs of course.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 24, 2016, 04:55:54 PM
Katanaka Ultimate Maker. Never Forgive, Never Forget.

I can give you some more suggestions if you like.  >D
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 24, 2016, 05:03:11 PM
you know id be prepared for more dinosaur nerding as time goes on if I were you Chris especially with a community as nerdy as this one.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: ptarth February 24, 2016, 05:03:22 PM
Heh.

 ;D


More seriously, so this game isn't all about dinosaurs, which is understandable (but sad). But why do almost all of the games made with dinosaurs turn out so bad? Dinosaurs are awesome. Is it that the underlying mechanics aren't very good and throwing Dinosaurs on top of it just don't do anything to fix that problem?

(PS: Remind me to send you my Debuglog which is current getting echo-checks from every single boundary collision call caused by batman.)
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 24, 2016, 06:39:27 PM
For the debuglog stuff, be sure to send that to Keith, not me. :)

And yeah, I know what you mean about most dinosaur-based games being bad.  I don't know, maybe I'll make one that focuses on them at some point.  I don't see any inherent limitations with having dinosaurs as a core mechanic-anchor in a game, but so many games have just been poor games+ dinosaurs.

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis 3 was pretty sweet, though.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 24, 2016, 07:30:18 PM
For the debuglog stuff, be sure to send that to Keith, not me. :)

And yeah, I know what you mean about most dinosaur-based games being bad.  I don't know, maybe I'll make one that focuses on them at some point.  I don't see any inherent limitations with having dinosaurs as a core mechanic-anchor in a game, but so many games have just been poor games+ dinosaurs.

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis 3 was pretty sweet, though.
probably more of a coincidence than anything really also am I right in thinking this games 3d? its just what I've heard makes it sounds super 3d but that sounds like it would be quite expensive.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 24, 2016, 07:33:52 PM
Yup, this is our first 3D game.  I'm having to learn a lot about this particular engine and how it handles a lot of the 3D concepts that I've just bypassed before, but I have a huge background in 3D as a hobby so I'm not having to start from scratch.  Hopefully this will be ready to start showing off in the next couple of weeks in terms of a few early videos, and a kickstarter in late March or sometime in April.  It's coming together pretty killer so far, although I still have a lot to do.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 24, 2016, 07:42:15 PM
Yup, this is our first 3D game.  I'm having to learn a lot about this particular engine and how it handles a lot of the 3D concepts that I've just bypassed before, but I have a huge background in 3D as a hobby so I'm not having to start from scratch.  Hopefully this will be ready to start showing off in the next couple of weeks in terms of a few early videos, and a kickstarter in late March or sometime in April.  It's coming together pretty killer so far, although I still have a lot to do.
hu that should be rather interesting though It should interesting to see how my laptop copes with it the last 3d game I played that my laptop actually run well was blood money which is a rather old game I could easily upgrade to something capable of handling that but most of the games I seem to really like are in 2d I just really prefer it to 3d besides the performance I just find that to me personally there just more interesting looking.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 24, 2016, 07:58:44 PM
Obviously I also love 2D games, but after 7 years I also want to change things up.  This is also a passion project for me, because my wife and I really want to play this sort of game and nobody makes it.  Yes there are other survival games and whatnot, but none do what this one will.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 24, 2016, 08:12:08 PM
Obviously I also love 2D games, but after 7 years I also want to change things up.  This is also a passion project for me, because my wife and I really want to play this sort of game and nobody makes it.  Yes there are other survival games and whatnot, but none do what this one will.
yea that's just my personal preference I will play this game though it will be nice to play a survival game that isn't in early access for once (although the flame in the flood doesn't look bad).
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 24, 2016, 08:15:01 PM
...this will be in early access...
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Draco18s February 24, 2016, 08:37:41 PM
But why do almost all of the games made with dinosaurs turn out so bad? Dinosaurs are awesome. Is it that the underlying mechanics aren't very good and throwing Dinosaurs on top of it just don't do anything to fix that problem?

I think its because the underlying mechanics aren't good, and then dinosaurs are thrown on top.  In some cases, the dinosaurs were there to begin with, but the underlying mechanics never worked out, so it was sold with extra hype because dinosaurs.

Not that there aren't good dinosaur games, of course.  I happen to have a friend that's working on one called Saurian (http://saurian.maxmediacorp.com/).  Which is also full of SCIENCE.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 24, 2016, 08:38:06 PM
...this will be in early access...
  >:( seriously? what is it with 95 percent of survival games being in early access?! still in that case ill be playing it when its finished I don't buy early access games(except if there at the point were there pretty much finished) out of principle.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 24, 2016, 09:15:48 PM
Exciting on Saurian!  That sounds pretty slick.

Regarding early access: it's a good way to get a lot of testers, build up a playerbase, and have a lot of interaction/feedback with the players as things go.  I don't think there's anything wrong with early access as a tool -- rather, it's how some people game that system to take advantage of players.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 24, 2016, 09:47:38 PM
Exciting on Saurian!  That sounds pretty slick.

Regarding early access: it's a good way to get a lot of testers, build up a playerbase, and have a lot of interaction/feedback with the players as things go.  I don't think there's anything wrong with early access as a tool -- rather, it's how some people game that system to take advantage of players.
of course your aboustley right but to me testing is well what I've done with starward and stars I just don't principly like the idea of paying a developer for the curtsy of paying an unfinished and depending on their goodwill/luck that it actually gets finished unless its from a company like klei for instance were its pretty much guaranteed to be finished(although their early accesses are usually barely early accesses at all apart from don't starve really) but any way before I do a second derailing I wish you the best of luck with this game I may even opt into its early accesses if its still going on when stars is hopefully finished(since I definitely won't enough time while I'm testing that) although you might want to make it abundantly clear that its actually going to get finished since I'm sure your quite awere of the massive amount of survival early accesses games that just don't.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 25, 2016, 12:25:19 AM
No worries.  My hope is that this also counts as a "barely even in early access" sort of game.  There's a reason why I don't tend to do early access in general.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Cinth February 25, 2016, 02:07:03 AM
No worries.  My hope is that this also counts as a "barely even in early access" sort of game.  There's a reason why I don't tend to do early access in general.

This is #2 IIRC.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Draco18s February 25, 2016, 06:16:06 AM
Exciting on Saurian!  That sounds pretty slick.

Indeed.  Seeing as how some of the people working on it are writing the leading edge of paleo research, not just reading it.  My friend talks about barely-public papers all the time.  Cool stuff all around.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 25, 2016, 01:21:24 PM
There's a reason why I don't tend to do early access in general.

This is #2 IIRC.

Kinda?  It depends on how you count it.  Early Access wasn't a thing the last time we did something like this -- Valley 2.  But it was on Steam and marked as "coming soon" while being on sale for those who wanted to buy it.  With the first 4 expansions to AI War we made those available for people to purchase as soon as there was one iota of content for them (like literally one ship), so we started getting feedback immediately and people got to participate a ton.  That was only through our site, though, not Steam.  All of the above went well.

We also did a public on-sale alpha/beta of Valley 1 through our site after about 9ish months of development on that one and a couple of months of private tester testing.  It was definitely too early for that one, which scared me off of the process quite a bit.

Exciting on Saurian!  That sounds pretty slick.

Indeed.  Seeing as how some of the people working on it are writing the leading edge of paleo research, not just reading it.  My friend talks about barely-public papers all the time.  Cool stuff all around.

Yeah, that's incredibly exciting for that bit.  Their site doesn't do a great job of making me understand just what the game is, but it highlights all the research and dinos really really well.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Draco18s February 25, 2016, 04:24:40 PM
Indeed.  Seeing as how some of the people working on it are writing the leading edge of paleo research, not just reading it.  My friend talks about barely-public papers all the time.  Cool stuff all around.

Yeah, that's incredibly exciting for that bit.  Their site doesn't do a great job of making me understand just what the game is, but it highlights all the research and dinos really really well.

AFAIK (which is admittedly little) it's a survival multiplayer game where you play as various dinosaurs.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 25, 2016, 04:27:42 PM
I kinda got that impression, but before they start trying to really push this they definitely need to clarify their message on that, heh.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Draco18s February 25, 2016, 04:57:31 PM
I kinda got that impression, but before they start trying to really push this they definitely need to clarify their message on that, heh.

Definitely.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Misery February 25, 2016, 09:13:12 PM
It's funny that the dinosaurs bit is the part that everyone latches onto the most.  This is not chiefly a dinosaur game at all.  Just as an fyi, because folks seem to be getting the wrong idea in the absence of other information.  Yes there are dinosaurs.  But there are a lot more aliens and robots and corrupted human enemies.  Dinosaurs are one of a variety of genetic-experiment-style creatures you'll run into in the wilderness, away from the main enemy towns and forts.

...and yes, it's possible you might be able to turn into a dinosaur for a while in the game at times, but that's just one feature among many many more core ones. ;)

Just throwing this out there so people are not disappointed later. ;)

CLEARLY this is a direct result of you not spoiling-  I mean, offering enough information on the upcoming game. 

Obviously, you should just do an infodump here.  Am I right, everyone?


Early Access wasn't a thing the last time we did something like this -- Valley 2.

These terms confuse the heck out of me nowadays.  Everyone seems to just mix "early access" and "beta/alpha" now. 

Granted I'm usually a little confused, but still. 
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Cinth February 25, 2016, 09:27:31 PM
There's a reason why I don't tend to do early access in general.

This is #2 IIRC.

Kinda?  It depends on how you count it.  Early Access wasn't a thing the last time we did something like this -- Valley 2.  But it was on Steam and marked as "coming soon" while being on sale for those who wanted to buy it.  With the first 4 expansions to AI War we made those available for people to purchase as soon as there was one iota of content for them (like literally one ship), so we started getting feedback immediately and people got to participate a ton.  That was only through our site, though, not Steam.  All of the above went well.

We also did a public on-sale alpha/beta of Valley 1 through our site after about 9ish months of development on that one and a couple of months of private tester testing.  It was definitely too early for that one, which scared me off of the process quite a bit.

Ah, some history lessons!  I wasn't around back then.  I'd say buy in betas are EA.

Early Access wasn't a thing the last time we did something like this -- Valley 2.

These terms confuse the heck out of me nowadays.  Everyone seems to just mix "early access" and "beta/alpha" now. 

Granted I'm usually a little confused, but still. 

It's because it gets misused everywhere by dev/publishers as a marketing ploy.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 25, 2016, 09:34:31 PM
Oh, for all practical purposes I would say that a buy-in-beta is early access.  I mean, there's no difference from a developer-player transaction point of view.

But in terms of "have we ever done the Steam Early Access program," which is a very specific thing with a lot of specific connotations, requirements, blah-de-blah: no we have not.

On the one hand it doesn't make any difference, and I'm not trying to dodge saying we've done it before.  But on the other hand doing an actual "Early Access on Steam in the modern sense of the actual thing" is new to us in a literal sense, so there are some bits there that are relevant for a practical point of view.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Cinth February 25, 2016, 09:43:28 PM
I don't count on Steam for anything other than being a pita at times.  I know you haven't used EA through Steam.  Steam is just a tool/method/platform/over boiled water for you to reach consumers.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 25, 2016, 10:08:22 PM
you know I am very much looking forward to see your take on the survival genera trying to find an actual survival game that isn't in real early access is really hard and the way its tagged on some games is ridiculous for instance did you know that the division has the survival tag? now from what I've seen of it it appears to have no survival elements what so ever and it goes on from there in terms of ridiculousness although flame in the flood looks pretty solid.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Misery February 25, 2016, 10:36:23 PM
Steam tags can be kinda ridiculous in general.

I dont even look at them much.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 25, 2016, 11:21:00 PM
Steam tags can be kinda ridiculous in general.

I dont even look at them much.
I find them generally  okay so long as your going with something very vague and not super persifick I suspect the ridiculsness of this tag though is because a lot of people don't really seem to under what an actual survival game is for instance they see tomb raider and are ,hey shes got a bow and I shooting animals that means this is a survival game!, which is obviously utter nonsense but what can you do.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 26, 2016, 01:27:25 AM
Ditto on the tags.  I wish that devs could control those, or... something.  I don't know, that probably would hardly be better.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Draco18s February 26, 2016, 05:55:23 AM
...Steam's tags mean something?
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Cinth February 26, 2016, 06:09:37 AM
...Steam's tags mean something?

Only if you put value to them.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Hearteater February 26, 2016, 01:30:29 PM
Ditto on the tags.  I wish that devs could control those, or... something.  I don't know, that probably would hardly be better.
That would be nice, but we'd end up with the 90's webpage meta tag fiasco: Put on ALL THE TAGS! The only way dev control would work would be if a dev could permanently remove tags they felt did not apply to their game. I could also see allowing a dev to add 3 initial tags or something limited when the game first got added.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 26, 2016, 02:21:14 PM
You actually can tag your game like anyone else, yeah.  So I always throw in my two cents when it comes to picking my three tags for my own games.  Never seems to matter, though.

You're absolutely right on the "throw in ALL the tags" bit.  It's like that with youtube tags still, and I hate having to do that.

I really love the idea of being able to just remove tags that feel irrelevant to the game.  All of the tags are positive things, so it's not a way of dodging  something negative that is said about your game.  It's a way of clarifying things, instead.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Draco18s February 26, 2016, 06:18:32 PM
I use an art posting site that has two sets of tags:
The second set is just the list of tags that are suggested by regular users.  I think there's some kind of popularity filter (e.g. five or more people suggest the tag).  I am not sure off hand if I can suggest the removal of a tag on a piece that is not mine or outright remove a suggested tag on one of my own submissions (90% of everything is well tagged by the artist and I have no submissions).
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 26, 2016, 07:32:15 PM
I use an art posting site that has two sets of tags:
  • Artist official tags
  • Suggested tags
The second set is just the list of tags that are suggested by regular users.  I think there's some kind of popularity filter (e.g. five or more people suggest the tag).  I am not sure off hand if I can suggest the removal of a tag on a piece that is not mine or outright remove a suggested tag on one of my own submissions (90% of everything is well tagged by the artist and I have no submissions).
is that deviant art by any chance? also to Chris shall this game be continuing your current trend of having zero humans in it? also I'm very much looking forward to seeing if stars confirms my theory.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 26, 2016, 07:44:15 PM
Stars Beyond Reach has zero people in it; it takes place in a different time and place.  This game has people, though -- you play as a person.  Mostly the enemies are not humans, although there are some.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Cyborg February 27, 2016, 03:48:43 AM
I like dinosaurs but, I have a concern:

After what happened this winter, don't you think AI War 2 is the safe project? It has a playerbase already. Not that I don't like dinosaurs, because I do. I got a new video card just to play ark.

You have challenges marketing and bringing in new players. I just think that another wild idea might not get the attention that the studio needs. And I think, if this is a survival game, there are an awful lot of those.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Pumpkin February 27, 2016, 09:41:46 AM
I like dinosaurs but, I have a concern:

After what happened this winter, don't you think AI War 2 is the safe project? It has a playerbase already. Not that I don't like dinosaurs, because I do. I got a new video card just to play ark.

You have challenges marketing and bringing in new players. I just think that another wild idea might not get the attention that the studio needs. And I think, if this is a survival game, there are an awful lot of those.
I can't read that without (emotionally) respond. I'm worry about Arcen because I love it. I love what you've done so far and I hope you'll be fine. I don't know anything about running a company ; I can only trust you on this choice (of doing a brand new game). I fear it would be a bad gamble (heck, your first 3D game?!) in face of some other choices (totally random example: AIW2) that, for me who knows nothing about running a company would have been better.

TL;DR: I am (we are?) worried yet I don't know what's best. Please reassure me (us?).
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Cyborg February 27, 2016, 11:15:41 PM
I like dinosaurs but, I have a concern:

After what happened this winter, don't you think AI War 2 is the safe project? It has a playerbase already. Not that I don't like dinosaurs, because I do. I got a new video card just to play ark.

You have challenges marketing and bringing in new players. I just think that another wild idea might not get the attention that the studio needs. And I think, if this is a survival game, there are an awful lot of those.
I can't read that without (emotionally) respond. I'm worry about Arcen because I love it. I love what you've done so far and I hope you'll be fine. I don't know anything about running a company ; I can only trust you on this choice (of doing a brand new game). I fear it would be a bad gamble (heck, your first 3D game?!) in face of some other choices (totally random example: AIW2) that, for me who knows nothing about running a company would have been better.

TL;DR: I am (we are?) worried yet I don't know what's best. Please reassure me (us?).

It could be his final ace in the hole (English expression), and he's not ready to play it yet. But without looking at numbers, you have to ask the question if that ace loses value the farther away you get from AI war 1 (Like Duke Nuke'em, whose launch was an anachronism).
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Misery February 27, 2016, 11:45:04 PM
I like dinosaurs but, I have a concern:

After what happened this winter, don't you think AI War 2 is the safe project? It has a playerbase already. Not that I don't like dinosaurs, because I do. I got a new video card just to play ark.

You have challenges marketing and bringing in new players. I just think that another wild idea might not get the attention that the studio needs. And I think, if this is a survival game, there are an awful lot of those.

I'll be honest, I've had this same concern.

I mean, Starward turned out fantastic, yet even so the launch was terrible and never picked up afterwards really... it did enough damage that many people were let go.  What would happen if that sort of launch were to occur again?

Even with better advertising and such before launch, that sort of result is still possible.  Particularly from those players that followed you guys due mostly to your strategy games, which I think is the main thing you're known for.

I mean yeah, SBR is there, but even with that, when I think about it, this does seem a bit risky.

Wheras something like AI War 2 would probably be an instant buy for many.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: ptarth February 28, 2016, 01:48:25 AM
AI Wars 2 would require a lot of programming resources.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 28, 2016, 08:50:34 PM
The main response I have to the above is: why can't we do both?

We're in a stable enough position at the moment that we can afford to plod along with both things.  I'm also not in a very good state of mind for making a strategy game right now, and so the likely result of that would be pretty poor.  Keith is working on that, however; first with SBR, then AI War.  AI War 2 is still a long ways off programming-wise.

Meanwhile I'm able to focus on something else that I'm passionate about, and on a timetable that I have more control over.  I was passionate about Starward Rogue, but had no control over its timeframe thanks to being staff-heavy and past mistakes with the amount of time spent on SBR and so on.  We're now running a lot closer in terms of our expenses to our income, so the risks of doing anything are lower.

And in my case, I see a hole in the market here, and feel a burning desire for this kind of game, and so am thinking... why not?  The last time I had this feeling and noticed that kind of hole, AI War happened.  There literally hasn't been any other case where that's happened for me.  I'm brimming over with game ideas all the time, but that sort of situation is pretty darn rare.  For me it made sense to take a couple of weeks and see if it made sense and was something I could actually pull off.  The discovery was: heck yes, absolutely I can do this.

I totally get the concerns you guys have, don't get me wrong.  And you could wind up saying "I told you so" some months down the line.  That said, at the moment we're pursuing something safe (the Keith side of things, which he is more than capable of handling himself), and something that is more of a departure, but in a good way I think (the me side of things -- and I'm not pulling in Keith one iota for my bits).

I'm not sure how many of you read about the whole Trine 3 debacle, but that's not this.  Those guys really tried to go nuts with the graphical fidelity in 3D in a just absolutely insane way, and they were trying to live up to the standards of a prior game while also translating it into three dimensions, etc, etc.  That led to just so very many problems for them that they discussed.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 28, 2016, 09:15:21 PM
The main response I have to the above is: why can't we do both?

We're in a stable enough position at the moment that we can afford to plod along with both things.  I'm also not in a very good state of mind for making a strategy game right now, and so the likely result of that would be pretty poor.  Keith is working on that, however; first with SBR, then AI War.  AI War 2 is still a long ways off programming-wise.

Meanwhile I'm able to focus on something else that I'm passionate about, and on a timetable that I have more control over.  I was passionate about Starward Rogue, but had no control over its timeframe thanks to being staff-heavy and past mistakes with the amount of time spent on SBR and so on.  We're now running a lot closer in terms of our expenses to our income, so the risks of doing anything are lower.

And in my case, I see a hole in the market here, and feel a burning desire for this kind of game, and so am thinking... why not?  The last time I had this feeling and noticed that kind of hole, AI War happened.  There literally hasn't been any other case where that's happened for me.  I'm brimming over with game ideas all the time, but that sort of situation is pretty darn rare.  For me it made sense to take a couple of weeks and see if it made sense and was something I could actually pull off.  The discovery was: heck yes, absolutely I can do this.

I totally get the concerns you guys have, don't get me wrong.  And you could wind up saying "I told you so" some months down the line.  That said, at the moment we're pursuing something safe (the Keith side of things, which he is more than capable of handling himself), and something that is more of a departure, but in a good way I think (the me side of things -- and I'm not pulling in Keith one iota for my bits).

I'm not sure how many of you read about the whole Trine 3 debacle, but that's not this.  Those guys really tried to go nuts with the graphical fidelity in 3D in a just absolutely insane way, and they were trying to live up to the standards of a prior game while also translating it into three dimensions, etc, etc.  That led to just so very many problems for them that they discussed.
he sounds like you know what your doing here still though I remember we were pretty confident about star ward and well I don't think I need to reiterate on that still hope this turns out better also if I may ask how is keith getting on with his prototype? just asking since last I heard form him was almost a month ago and you seem to be less busy than he does judging your activity here.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 28, 2016, 09:40:04 PM
In terms of Stars Beyond Reach, yes, much confidence was had and then later dashed.  Nothing is sure in this business, and I was overconfident.  That said, this time I have a vastly more complete design available from early on in.  And it's already a game that is mechanically fun to play, which is a big deal.  We never really hit that point with SBR.

I'm not sure if I'm more or less busy than Keith, but I am trying to keep up some level of community engagement as part of my work at the moment.  Right now he's trying to keep his head down and just working with a few people on that first prototype.  There have been some setbacks with it, so I'm not sure how that will ultimately work out.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 28, 2016, 09:50:09 PM
In terms of Stars Beyond Reach, yes, much confidence was had and then later dashed.  Nothing is sure in this business, and I was overconfident.  That said, this time I have a vastly more complete design available from early on in.  And it's already a game that is mechanically fun to play, which is a big deal.  We never really hit that point with SBR.

I'm not sure if I'm more or less busy than Keith, but I am trying to keep up some level of community engagement as part of my work at the moment.  Right now he's trying to keep his head down and just working with a few people on that first prototype.  There have been some setbacks with it, so I'm not sure how that will ultimately work out.
I wasn't referring to stars beyond reach I meant starward rogue stars hasn't come out yet so for all we know it might just end up making all the money spent on it back but thanks I hope he doesn't get set back to much.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 28, 2016, 10:07:44 PM
Well, with Starward Rogue we always knew we had an uphill battle with the marketing.  I was distressed about that back in October when we decided to try for it, but it seemed like the lesser of the evils at the time.  In retrospect I still definitely agree with that assessment out of the two choices I was considering at the time.

The mitigating factors we thought we had set up marketing-wise were time of year (quiet on the AAA front) and the Humble Bundle promotional thing.  The former is less of a boon now that we have indie games coming out of our ears all year round, and the latter is something that was new to us and just didn't yield anything close to the return that we expected.  In the past we've also managed to "get away with" poorer marketing due to rushing things out the door based on... I don't know.  Mainly the kindness of strangers, to some extent, I suppose.  But the market is different now.

At any rate, with this new 3D game the idea is that we won't just be throwing it out there all of a sudden.  You're going to be seeing a bunch of videos, a kickstarter, etc, etc.  This subforum is me kind of testing the waters on that front. ;)
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Cinth February 28, 2016, 10:37:03 PM
The discovery was: heck yes, absolutely I can do this.

So much of that.  It's a wonderful feeling right up to the point of OH SH**!  HEELLPP!!!
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman February 28, 2016, 10:37:27 PM
he fair enough things felt very optimistic during testing but any way it was like as people have pointed out repeatedly a case of nobody knowing about it sounds like this new game is certainly going to be nothing like that provided the kick-starter/early access works out personally I think kick-starter is going to work very well for you judging from the nice sort of things you created.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: tombik February 29, 2016, 07:40:24 AM
"Both"
"At the same time"
"But also"
"It is not the only thing"
"It also includes"
"There are many systems"

Here is my current understanding of Arcen's policies regarding many things. As an indie company, making one game which specializes in one thing, and doing this one after another would make more sense I assume.

It has been a while since I saw a single game idea that is perfected so elegantly, that none of its components (like graphics, UI, tutorials, sounds) actually are in need to be justified by the "indie" phrase.

I hope this last game is more refined than the others, since solving overcomplexity problems, (and also solving bugs in a different setup in mind) will definitely tire you.

Although, if I understood you right, you will try to refine 7 days to die, which you love. Most of the charm of 3d games comes from immersion, which is tremendously aggravated by good 3d models. What I am trying to say is, as far as I know, indie community is less tolerant with not perfect graphics when it is in 3D.  I guess you already considered this, but I just try to give you the initial feedback you are asking.

If you could make a game you love, and play with your wife, even that would be one of the biggest things a person can achieve. Just dont overreach, and dont add new mechanisms before perfecting the existing ones, and I am able to see something is great is shaping up. And yes, kickstarter is really a good idea to fund your business, since it is one of the sources I use for deciding whether to pick up some games after its release on steam. And you have many devoted fans (whose love will make mine look like tiny), I am sure that with enough tiers and different rewards (like naming a mech in the game etc.) you will be funded.

The only thing is release dates are one of the biggest problems that developers are faced there. So, dividing all tasks to do to be able to get playable games even after leaving some systems after release will definitely make sense.

I dont play 3d games mostly, but my wife likes survival games, and I will ask her opinion about the game when there are more information. For now, to my horror, it again looks like a risky project, but if you are sincere about comparing your hype for this to AI war, then we should all shut up :)
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 29, 2016, 03:15:09 PM
The 3D graphics bit is something where it's a bit of a mix in terms of what people will accept.  7 Days is a good example: it looked not-great for a long while, and yet has a huge playerbase.  However, they spent like half a year trying to incrementally improve their graphics.  Their playerbase has pretty vocally said "why???"  It doesn't look so vastly enough better to make it worth it, and it made performance drop through the floor.  A lot of their "HD" models have a whole lot less character than their older models that were SD.

There are then other games like Rising World where the graphics are a clear detriment, and I kind of cringe with that.  What I've got already is lightyears ahead of that, and I actually know how to optimize things (both in terms of models and LOD and a variety of other tricks) to keep things speedy, whereas a number of other devs don't seem to.  I've sacrificed a number of piece of gameplay that are overly heavy on performance (network and otherwise), like voxel terrain.  None of that!  It's not key to what I want this game to do, and I can get vastly better visuals and performance out of it without it, so here we are.

I'll also note that the biggest issue with a lot of games that might look reasonable but intead look terrible is that they have no sense of how to use light, shadow, color grading, etc.  This is an area I have almost a decade of experience in.

Anyway, the proof will be in the pudding.  I look forward to being able to show you some first videos in a few weeks.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Captain Jack February 29, 2016, 08:45:53 PM
Anyway, the proof will be in the pudding.  I look forward to being able to show you some first videos in a few weeks.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
And I look forward to actually working on the name. ::)  Finally found the list though, I'll shoot you some later tonight.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 February 29, 2016, 09:26:16 PM
Anyway, the proof will be in the pudding.  I look forward to being able to show you some first videos in a few weeks.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
And I look forward to actually working on the name. ::)  Finally found the list though, I'll shoot you some later tonight.

Awesome -- it would be super nice to have an actual name by that point, yeah. :D  I've been mulling it but not coming up with much.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: Pumpkin March 01, 2016, 07:47:49 AM
Okay. I'm not yet sold on this idea (survival and 3D), but now you've told us more, I'm trusting you. Thank you very much for taking the time to reassure your community. I'm looking forward for the preview videos and the kickstarter.

Good luck, Chris. Good luck, Arcen.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 March 01, 2016, 10:15:07 AM
No worries!  And yeah, I don't figure everyone who is an existing fan of Arcen will be a fan of this.  Like most of you, I like more than one type of game.  The chances that all of my tastes would line up exactly with yours are minuscule.  That said, I also hope that for many of you this will be the only game you like in the survival genre because everyone else is just "doing it wrong." ;)
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: crazyroosterman March 01, 2016, 04:31:24 PM
No worries!  And yeah, I don't figure everyone who is an existing fan of Arcen will be a fan of this.  Like most of you, I like more than one type of game.  The chances that all of my tastes would line up exactly with yours are minuscule.  That said, I also hope that for many of you this will be the only game you like in the survival genre because everyone else is just "doing it wrong." ;)
hey I'm very much looking forward to this(provided my laptop can cope with it fingers crossed) just well yea when it comes out of early access for reasons I've already stated.
: Re: This is not a dinosaur game!
: x4000 March 08, 2016, 09:03:06 PM
But now we ARE making a dinosaur game over here: https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/board,120.0.html