Release the Game? [but seriously]

[Sirnanigans]

Okay, the title is a little baity, but ultimately my suggestion is just that. It's more complicated than "stop screwing around and finish it" though, so hear me out...

 

This game has been in development for a long time, but it hasn't been in development hell. In fact, in my opinion, it's complete. It needs polish, it needs balance, it needs to have the UI and all that reviewed and such, but as far as features and gameplay are concerned this game is good to go. Even the kickstarter stretch goals map disclaims that (virtually all remaining) features may come in post-release updates, so why not take and advantage of this disclaimer? I suggest the game be balanced and polished as is and released as a solid and successful game of its genre, then expansion be done afterwards.

 

Speaking of that expansion and the remaining stretch goals... I understand that backers are expecting these additions to be part of this exact game. That probably means hands tied. But, if I were so bold as to ignore that fact then I would suggest that this game be wrapped up, shipped, and a sequel begins production with these features. I've been following since A12, which isn't that long, but I think long enough to form some understanding of how this game started and how it's coming together. My impression is that it's not quite capable of becoming the magnum opus of The Fun Pimps', but it is an excellent first round and has surely demonstrated what does and doesn't work for a game of this kind. But its foundations were built before these things were learned and attempting to plug in more advanced vehicles and AI into this game will be arduous with diminished returns.

 

So my more extreme -- and likely impossible due to kickstarter promises -- suggestion is to polish this beautiful creation as is and allocate remaining resources toward an even better and more feature rich sequel. I like this game so much that I would gladly play it as is for the next 5 years and then get a fantastic expansion.

[Liesel Weppen]

1 hour ago, Sirnanigans said:

 I suggest the game be balanced and polished as is and released as a solid and successful game of its genre, then expansion be done afterwards.

That would break the development cycle. First you make a game featurecomplete and THEN polish it. Later added features might break other features or even be impossible to implement without breaking an optimization from the polishment.

 

So if you define the game feature as complete now and start polishing, adding new features regarding mechanics later might not possible or at least is more work.

 

On the other hand you are right too. At one point you need to "finish" it, because there will always be new ideas and cause the game becoming a neverending story without polishment. But it's TFP to decide when this point is reached and afaik they have a lot of other "todos" in their backlog, they WANT to realize before starting polishment as of the above mentioned reasons. Like the vehicle improvements which have now been postponed to A20. So even A19 will not have reached a state ready for polishing.

[Sirnanigans]

I think you're right that 'feature complete' is an important point, and it is a decision made by developers. However, they specified many remaining features as possibly "post release" additions. So I wonder if they decided that isn't wise after all or if they have just promoted the entire stretch goal list to 'core features'.

 

Also, once released as 1.0, the devs should have some breathing room to implement new features and troubleshoot them in house without affecting us. We have a right to access alpha iterations because that's the promise of their early access sale. Once released, though, they don't need to release development as regular updates. They're then free to break things as much as they want. Or.... work on a sequel or major expansion.

[mr.devolver]

So you want them to release it asap, but still want a highly polished product. Well, the only thing that can be said here is: It's done when it's done.

[stallionsden]

34 minutes ago, Sirnanigans said:

I think you're right that 'feature complete' is an important point, and it is a decision made by developers. However, they specified many remaining features as possibly "post release" additions. So I wonder if they decided that isn't wise after all or if they have just promoted the entire stretch goal list to 'core features'.

 

Also, once released as 1.0, the devs should have some breathing room to implement new features and troubleshoot them in house without affecting us. We have a right to access alpha iterations because that's the promise of their early access sale. Once released, though, they don't need to release development as regular updates. They're then free to break things as much as they want. Or.... work on a sequel or major expansion.

I dont think you understand the steps to making a game lol...

If they shipped this game as it is now their next game would probably have 3 people interested in it. The game is far from complete and for anything less TFP would never release a sub par game. It is great and fun etc but to say finish and pack it up and ship it is stretching what is going on.. everything has to be in the game that tfp want. they are not feature complete and they def need to add the things in game they have stated in their kickstarter. Not only cause of ethics etc but because they have promised such. (even tho they have gone above and beyond some areas thus stated they still need to complete mechanics features etc. Before being anywhere near beta even.  What Liesel stated is pretty accurate to.

but TFP are the ones to state when its done. It could be another 5 yrs time before the game is at that stage or it could be 1yr. hell it could be 10 yrs altho the latter is unlikely.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

1 hour ago, Sirnanigans said:

 

What exactly was specified as "post release" and where did anybody state this? I guess what was promised by kickstarter is already reached, even if the game is still in development. So basically you are getting more then even promised. If you are unlucky with that, you'd better never support an unfinished game.

 

And what you got wrong ist that after a 1.0 release the devs do NOT get more room for breathing but on the opposite exactly less. That's exactly what i have written above.

So if it comes to what some people want, everbody becomes an highly qualified architect, but they are not. They are most likely just sandworms which like to build an 300m tall skyscraper whithout even knowing if they build on massive stone or on highly fluid sand. So what you are asking for is "finish the skyscraper however high it is with ignoring the grount it's built on". And later on you are ultimatively surprised why the whole game collapses to unplaybale.

Don't overestimate yourself. You are just a tiny player with absolutely no idea how software development works but are highly overrate your expirience.

 

It's like an architect tells you that you can not build a 20  floors building on pure sand, but you as you don't know anything about building insist of building it anyway. The result will be fatal. And you in the end you will get even less to nothing that what you expeceted.

That's also the reason why not everybody retarted person can make a successfull game. It's a "little" bit more than just "what i imagine". There are also technical limitations that need to be dealt, and they do not resolve just because you want to.

[stallionsden]

14 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

What exactly was specified as "post release" and where did anybody state this? I guess what was promised by kickstarter is already reached, even if the game is still in development. So basically you are getting more then even promised. If you are unlucky with that, you'd better never support an unfinished game.

 

And what you got wrong ist that after a 1.0 release the devs do NOT get more room for breathing but on the opposite exactly less. That's exactly what i have written above.

So if it comes to what some people want, everbody becomes an highly qualified architect, but they are not. They are most likely just sandworms which like to build an 300m tall skyscraper whithout even knowing if they build on massive stone or on highly fluid sand. So what you are asking for is "finish the skyscraper however high it is with ignoring the grount it's built on". And later on you are ultimatively surprised why the whole game collapses to unplaybale.

Don't overestimate yourself. You are just a tiny player with absolutely no idea how software development works but are highly overrate your expirience.

 

It's like an architect tells you that you can not build a 20  floors building on pure sand, but you as you don't know anything about building insist of building it anyway. The result will be fatal. And you in the end you will get even less to nothing that what you expeceted.

That's also the reason why not everybody retarted person can make a successfull game. It's a "little" bit more than just "what i imagine". There are also technical limitations that need to be dealt, and they do not resolve just because you want to.

They still have bandits to implement.

Place holders to replace

RWG to complete

Water to totally redo

the list goes on and only TFP know exactly the whole list.

Again agree with what you stated 🙂

[xiiMaRcLeoN]

I dont even care how long its in development, they didnt leave it like some other Early Access titles. 6 years with the game and its been so nice seeing all the changes since Alpha 1, the game has come a long way. They will add the rest of the promised features and polish it up.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Release it now and pay for future content as DLC? You sure OP? Because optimization is done when all content is added. Releasing now would mean to optimize now and then again every time new content is added. Costs time and money wich leads us to DLC´s that we would have to pay.

 

Also it is far from ready. There is no end game for example. You can basically kill everything pretty fast.

 

[Sirnanigans]

On 5/7/2020 at 4:28 PM, mr.devolver said:

So you want them to release it asap, but still want a highly polished product. Well, the only thing that can be said here is: It's done when it's done.

Not exactly, that's a bit of a misrepresentation. I'm saying release it as soon as it can be polished.

[Sirnanigans]

On 5/8/2020 at 7:45 AM, pApA^LeGBa said:

Release it now and pay for future content as DLC? You sure OP? Because optimization is done when all content is added. Releasing now would mean to optimize now and then again every time new content is added. Costs time and money wich leads us to DLC´s that we would have to pay.

 

Also it is far from ready. There is no end game for example. You can basically kill everything pretty fast.

 

Paid DLC is not the only form of game expansion. Particularly in the highly repayable Indie genres, there are many examples of major updates (essentially expansions) being released for no additional cost.

 

In fact, those same examples double as proof that games can have major additions added post-release that are balanced and bug fixed in house. Once 1.0 launches, there's no obligation for the devs to release frequent updates to us as they continue development. They can work away quietly on vehicles, bug fix and balance them, and launch them as part of an expansion in a year.

 

It's a common statement that a game suffers from being balanced before completed, but nobody thinks about how a game suffers from being required to launch stable and playable versions throughout development. If the devs can work for a year without the burden of assembling playable updates for us then it may go by faster despite the fact that the game was previously balanced without their new features.

[mr.devolver]

30 minutes ago, Sirnanigans said:

Not exactly, that's a bit of a misrepresentation. I'm saying release it as soon as it can be polished.

Well, I just don't think that they would really want to delay it if they didn't have any good reasons for that. One of the good reasons for delay is if they feel like the game still needs more polishing. You can't really force them to work faster or even release it any time before they feel it's really finished, so as they like to put it: It's done, when it's done.

[meganoth]

20 minutes ago, Sirnanigans said:

Paid DLC is not the only form of game expansion. Particularly in the highly repayable Indie genres, there are many examples of major updates (essentially expansions) being released for no additional cost.

 

In fact, those same examples double as proof that games can have major additions added post-release that are balanced and bug fixed in house. Once 1.0 launches, there's no obligation for the devs to release frequent updates to us as they continue development. They can work away quietly on vehicles, bug fix and balance them, and launch them as part of an expansion in a year.

 

It's a common statement that a game suffers from being balanced before completed, but nobody thinks about how a game suffers from being required to launch stable and playable versions throughout development. If the devs can work for a year without the burden of assembling playable updates for us then it may go by faster despite the fact that the game was previously balanced without their new features.

It might free them from doing those playable releases, but their costs would go up as they would need more testers, their quality and balancing would be worse because of less real word testing.

 

I don't think it would save a lot of time since for their own playtesting they need playable versions and fixing the bugs is always needed and takes most of the time. The only time saved would be for bugs that vanish because their code was rewritten. Now that TFP is less changing and more adding stuff those savings are a very small part of the equation. Balancing is parallel to bug fixing, you don't save time there.

 

 

 

[Sirnanigans]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Now that TFP is less changing and more adding stuff

I hope you're right about this. My biggest worry is that the additions will require change. For example, candy is being added and will boost certain abilities. Beer alone already significantly impacts the value of stamina and melee perks, and they're reworking perks because of their value disparities. I worry that candy won't just be an addition, it will also be yet another overhaul of the perk system to account for the relatively cheaper consumables that overlap their benefits.

 

It's hard to say what's the best from here because I'm not TFP. I just feel like the game can be finished with the assets and mechanics already present, possibly plus vehicles if the community demands it. I think NPC's will be a year or more of work on their own, if everything goes right, so that's a no thanks for me.

[Sirnanigans]

On 5/7/2020 at 5:40 PM, Liesel Weppen said:

What exactly was specified as "post release" and where did anybody state this? I guess what was promised by kickstarter is already reached, even if the game is still in development. So basically you are getting more then even promised. If you are unlucky with that, you'd better never support an unfinished game.

 

And what you got wrong ist that after a 1.0 release the devs do NOT get more room for breathing but on the opposite exactly less. That's exactly what i have written above.

So if it comes to what some people want, everbody becomes an highly qualified architect, but they are not. They are most likely just sandworms which like to build an 300m tall skyscraper whithout even knowing if they build on massive stone or on highly fluid sand. So what you are asking for is "finish the skyscraper however high it is with ignoring the grount it's built on". And later on you are ultimatively surprised why the whole game collapses to unplaybale.

Don't overestimate yourself. You are just a tiny player with absolutely no idea how software development works but are highly overrate your expirience.

 

It's like an architect tells you that you can not build a 20  floors building on pure sand, but you as you don't know anything about building insist of building it anyway. The result will be fatal. And you in the end you will get even less to nothing that what you expeceted.

That's also the reason why not everybody retarted person can make a successfull game. It's a "little" bit more than just "what i imine". There are also technical limitations that need to be dealt, and they do not resolve just because you want to.

I appreciate your analogy, but I think it's not very accurate. First, and most importantly, how you are able to educate me on the my lack of understanding when you are (as far as I know) exactly as ignorant of the process as I am. A tiny player telling a tiny player that they know better. I may not be a professional game developer, but I know how software is made, I have some brief experience making small games, and I am a professional fabricator. I may not be TFP, but I know how complicated it things are often built.

 

Since you asked, here's where TFP anticipate that some features will be added post-release: . Strange how a tiny player as educated in game development and so sure of my ignorance needs be be shown that TFP themselves anticipated doing what you claim is not possible.

[meganoth]

One thing is very safe to predict: NPCs (in the form of bandits) were a promise from kickstarter, are in their own words the one central missing item on their feature list and they will make a determined attempt at adding them before release. There is probably nothing you can say to remove this from their list. And the work for this is happening even now in parallel with other programmers and artists fleshing out the rest of the game (AFAIK).

 

Why do you assume candy would lead to a rework of the perk system? If candy is too strong, half the effect, half the availability or double the price until it fits. No need to change the perk system. And balancing is something that takes very little time (for the programmers).

There is already a potion in the game to increase damage to 400% for 2 minutes, recog. You can even cook it yourself, although you need lots of acid. I don't see it unbalancing the game. It is powerful but also expensive and scarce

 

For me personally candy will be just another buff that I always forget to use when it would make sense to take it. The same fault that led me to haul tons of potions around in RPGs which I never used 😗. I often forget to drink coffee when digging. Last horde night I had all the good buffs in my inventory, did not use a single one. But ok, my problem, only half the players have the same 😋