a19 blows - bring back the auger

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, AlphaOmega said:

 

Spoken like a kid who dreams of owning their own company one day.

 

Successful companies focus on pleasing their customers, not their CEO.

You make it sound as if "their customers" were a specific group. But a company selects their customer segment with the product they make. This is especially true for companies producing art.

 

Does David Bowie like his own music? You bet he does, he specifically made music he would like 😉

 

 

[hiemfire]

39 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Does David Bowie like his own music? You bet he does, he specifically made music he would like 😉

An artist has to feel what they're doing for it to work, otherwise it's flat and lifeless.  

[AlphaOmega]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

You make it sound as if "their customers" were a specific group. But a company selects their customer segment with the product they make. This is especially true for companies producing art.

 

Does David Bowie like his own music? You bet he does, he specifically made music he would like 😉

 

 

Can you imagine if Bowie sold millions of copies of his first album and then just handed fans an unfinished product that a lot of people and critics deemed as terrible, and then promised that he'd replace that album for free in a year's time with a spectacular finished album? And then 8 years later he still failed to deliver? Do you really want to compare the genius of Bowie to a house flipper turned independent game dev?

[meganoth]

7 hours ago, AlphaOmega said:

Can you imagine if Bowie sold millions of copies of his first album and then just handed fans an unfinished product that a lot of people and critics deemed as terrible, and then promised that he'd replace that album for free in a year's time with a spectacular finished album? And then 8 years later he still failed to deliver? Do you really want to compare the genius of Bowie to a house flipper turned independent game dev?

Yes, the actual quality of the product doesn't change the principle. But if it makes you happy, I can substitute Bowie with David Hasselhoff. Better?

 

[Roland]

10 hours ago, AlphaOmega said:

Can you imagine if Bowie sold millions of copies of his first album and then just handed fans an unfinished product that a lot of people and critics deemed as terrible, and then promised that he'd replace that album for free in a year's time with a spectacular finished album? And then 8 years later he still failed to deliver? Do you really want to compare the genius of Bowie to a house flipper turned independent game dev?

I’m having a hard time with your parallels. What was the first product that sold millions and then the second product that was just handed over that critics deemed terrible?  7 Days to Die is the House Flipper’s first game. I was thinking you possibly meant A16 and prior was the first product and A17+ was the second product but then that wouldn’t fit the 8 years scenario since it hasn’t been nearly that long since A17 came out. 

[katarynna]

I believe he is trying to say "Imagine that for Bowie's first album, instead of selling an album he sold a kickstarter/early access concept of an album that somehow sold millions of copies. Then a lot of people and critics decided that concept of an album that was actively being worked on was terrible, and Bowie promised he would replace that album for free in a year's time with a spectacular finished album (not sure what the parallel to 7dtd is there?)

 

And then 8 (7) years later he still hadn't finished.

 

I have no idea what previous occupations have to do with anything. Apparently David Bowie was a butcher's delivery boy and madmole flipped houses. Who cares?

 

https://www.nme.com/photos/28-boring-day-jobs-musicians-did-before-they-were-famous-1427661

 

My opinion? If millions of people paid for a concept of an album before it was ever even recorded, with the notification that it might never be finished and that it may change in any way during the completion process, then they got what they paid for regardless of when/how the album was finished.

 

 

[AlphaOmega]

On 11/1/2020 at 9:21 AM, Roland said:

I’m having a hard time with your parallels. What was the first product that sold millions and then the second product that was just handed over that critics deemed terrible?  7 Days to Die is the House Flipper’s first game. I was thinking you possibly meant A16 and prior was the first product and A17+ was the second product but then that wouldn’t fit the 8 years scenario since it hasn’t been nearly that long since A17 came out. 

 

Imagine Bowie selling millions of pre-ordered copies of his first album, one year before the album's actual release.

 

The millions of investors were promised a full album with lyrics, vocals, guitars, bass, drums, synths, organs, pianos, backing vocals, harmonies, and a full album of 20 songs, all of which tell a cohesive themed story. In one year's time the album would be considered "Gold" status, or a completed product released in full.

 

Then, a year later, he releases the album but it's just a recording of him literally reading partial lyrics to 5 songs. No instruments. No singing. Just him speaking some of the lyrics for 5 songs.

 

A year later he has finally released an updated album which still doesn't deliver all that he promised.  Album v2 is just 20 songs of spoken lyrics and him strumming a guitar for 5 minutes.

 

A year later he adds some bass and drums to 11 tracks.

 

A year later he adds piano and organs.

 

After 4 years, all 20 songs now have guitar, bass, and drums.

 

5 years in, all the instruments except synths and vocals are done on all 20 songs.

 

6 years in, he has now finally added vocals. All the guitar and bass tracks that fans were really enjoying, despite having to wait for years to hear them, have now been removed and replaced with random sound clips of monkeys banging trash can lids together.

 

7 years in, After getting lots of negative feedback about the trash monkeys, Bowie decides that all the contractual obligations and promises mean nothing, he now focuses on adding more trash monkeys.

 

8 years in. Fueld by steroids and coke, Bowie has now completely taken out at least half of the elements of his album that people really enjoy and just replaced it with more monkey sounds. They now not only bang on trash cans, they also screech and throw feces onto walls. Fans continue to hate it, so he diverts a lot of the money he should be paying to the musicians helping him complete his album, and instead diverts those funds into the pockets of shills and fanbois who he can pay to improve his public image, and hopefully convince everyone that what they're listening to is purest art, not monkeys banging on trash cans.

[Roland]

That takes way way too much imagination. There is nothing remotely common or even similar between your story and the development history of 7 Days to Die. 
 

Much closer to reality is that someone preordered a Bowie album thinking it was a collection of Christmas carols only to be shocked when the actual album was so different. 
 

If that “analogy” is really how you feel then why on earth are you still hanging around?  There MUST be other games you’d enjoy better. The popularity of this game has grown and that wouldn’t be true if your imagination was anywhere close to the mark. If you’re here thinking you can somehow influence a change to their development path, well...let’s just say that is even more wildly imaginative than your Bowie story....
 

 

[Roland]

On 11/1/2020 at 8:04 AM, katarynna said:

I have no idea what previous occupations have to do with anything.

He is trying to be insulting. In his mind a house-flipper couldn’t possibly know or understand how to make a video game. He probably believes that their success was just dumb luck. It is a pretty common attitude amongst those who are envious over the success of others. 
 

The truth is that there are people who are successful at whatever they do because of who they are. If that guy tried his hand at real estate he’d probably be just as unsuccessful at it as if he tried to produce his own video game. The fact that Joel has made millions doing both completely escapes his comprehension. 
 

It’s similar to how he thinks this game is such an utter failure and deviation from the Kickstarter goals when in fact it is exactly as promised and more popular and engaging than ever before. Sure...there has been an evolution of how the promised features are implemented but those features are still in place. 

[TSBX]

Let me start out by saying that I have been critical to the direction the game has taken in the past few years, and I am a huge proponent of the modding scene for this game. I'm an admin on one of the popular modding discords, I've put out a few minor modlets, but most importantly, I READ. I know. I understand a lot of concepts and how the xmls generally work.

With that being said, I can say that Alpha 19 was the first alpha in a long time that I was able to put 30+ hours into without feeling like anything *needed* to be modded. There are preferences that I'd like, and while I would change a lot of things, it's fine out of the box.

The devs have been clear that they are molding the game in their vision and it's okay to disagree. It's fine to prioritize things that they don't. It's cool to think the game is too easy/hard. That's where the modding community comes into play. Don't like something? Find a mod that fixes it. There's not one? Sky's the limit, get to learnin'. Don't want to do that? Well, there's always vanilla.

[JaxTeller718]

5 hours ago, Roland said:

He is trying to be insulting. In his mind a house-flipper couldn’t possibly know or understand how to make a video game. He probably believes that their success was just dumb luck. It is a pretty common attitude amongst those who are envious over the success of others. 
 

The truth is that there are people who are successful at whatever they do because of who they are. If that guy tried his hand at real estate he’d probably be just as unsuccessful at it as if he tried to produce his own video game. The fact that Joel has made millions doing both completely escapes his comprehension. 
 

It’s similar to how he thinks this game is such an utter failure and deviation from the Kickstarter goals when in fact it is exactly as promised and more popular and engaging than ever before. Sure...there has been an evolution of how the promised features are implemented but those features are still in place. 

To tag on to your point I would say being a blue collar "house flipper" who developed a game they wanted to play actually worked out in their favor. Go stroll through Twitch, or through server discords. You will see a LOT of middle aged to older aged players. Right alongside younger ones. I would say that their life experience actually puts them MORE in tune with what the common player enjoys and wants to see in a game.

I've never seen a more diverse group of players in terms of age than this one.

[AlphaOmega]

10 hours ago, Roland said:

That takes way way too much imagination. There is nothing remotely common or even similar between your story and the development history of 7 Days to Die. 
 

Much closer to reality is that someone preordered a Bowie album thinking it was a collection of Christmas carols only to be shocked when the actual album was so different. 
 

If that “analogy” is really how you feel then why on earth are you still hanging around?  There MUST be other games you’d enjoy better. The popularity of this game has grown and that wouldn’t be true if your imagination was anywhere close to the mark. If you’re here thinking you can somehow influence a change to their development path, well...let’s just say that is even more wildly imaginative than your Bowie story....
 

 

 

My analogy is spot on. The kickstarter goals have NOT been delivered. It's why thousands of people have demanded refunds.

 

Your analogy is not applicable at all because the final promised product has not yet been delivered. If they released Gold tomorrow and it contained all the kickstarter promised features, but it was slightly different than what we expected, then yes, your analogy would be appropriate. But as it stands now, your analogy is not based in truth and reality, whereas mine is. And I mean no disrespect when referring to Joel as a house flipper. I mention that as a sign of respect. Anyone who has chased turds and remodeled bathrooms deserves respect in my books, and I'm happy that he's made millions of dollars as a dev. I'm not happy that those millions were given to him and he has yet to deliver what was promised for those millions.

 

 

 

 

 

[meganoth]

38 minutes ago, AlphaOmega said:

 

My analogy is spot on. The kickstarter goals have NOT been delivered. It's why thousands of people have demanded refunds.

 

Your analogy is not applicable at all because the final promised product has not yet been delivered. If they released Gold tomorrow and it contained all the kickstarter promised features, but it was slightly different than what we expected, then yes, your analogy would be appropriate. But as it stands now, your analogy is not based in truth and reality, whereas mine is. And I mean no disrespect when referring to Joel as a house flipper. I mention that as a sign of respect. Anyone who has chased turds and remodeled bathrooms deserves respect in my books, and I'm happy that he's made millions of dollars as a dev. I'm not happy that those millions were given to him and he has yet to deliver what was promised for those millions.

 

 

 

 

 

Where in the kickstarter was there a promise that the product would be final? 😉

 

 

[AlphaOmega]

40 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Where in the kickstarter was there a promise that the product would be final? 😉

 

 

Right there where it says what each pledge level will receive.

 

Pledge US$ 35 or more

THE SUNRISE SURVIVALIST - Early Alpha Access + Beta + Finished Game + Kickstarter Backer Badge

Estimated delivery Aug 2013

 

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, AlphaOmega said:

Estimated delivery Aug 2013

 

[Solomon]

8 hours ago, hiemfire said:

"Quote"

So if you order a new TV get an estimated delivery time of 1 week you wont complain when you dont get your TV at all?

 

Like damm dude, an estimated software finish does not mean 1 year or in our case 7 years and still not done.

[Kalen]

34 minutes ago, Solomon said:

So if you order a new TV get an estimated delivery time of 1 week you wont complain when you dont get your TV at all?

 

Like damm dude, an estimated software finish does not mean 1 year or in our case 7 years and still not done.

if I got my TV immediately.... and it was watchable but didn't have all the features added yet.  Then over the years they kept improving my TV, even though I was thoroughly enjoying it as it was.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't complain.

[AlphaOmega]

53 minutes ago, Kalen said:

if I got my TV immediately.... and it was watchable but didn't have all the features added yet.  Then over the years they kept improving my TV, even though I was thoroughly enjoying it as it was.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't complain.

 

So you'd be happy with waiting....

 

1 year for a 9" black and white TV with no sound and only 1 channel

 

2 years for a 13" B&W TV with sound, but the sound is just elevator music

 

3 years for a 19" color TV with actual sound, still only 1 channel though

 

4 years for a 27" color TV with sound and 10 channels

 

5 years for a 42" LED TV with sound and 99 channels

 

6 years  They remove 43 channels and replace the sound with monkeys banging on trash cans because the CEO likes that kind stuff better.

 

7 years   The TV is now a 60" projection big screen that weighs 690 lbs. It gets 56 channels and still has monkeys banging on trash cans for sound. No wireless or smart features even though they were promised. But if you spend 200 hours rewiring your TV and rewriting every line of code in the firmware, you can get actual audio instead of trash monkeys, and you can enable an additional 1200 channels. Still no smart features or internet connectivity. Still a ungodly bulky projection screen.

 

 

[Kalen]

2 minutes ago, AlphaOmega said:

 

So you'd be happy with waiting....

 

1 year for a 9" black and white TV with no sound and only 1 channel

 

2 years for a 13" B&W TV with sound, but the sound is just elevator music

 

3 years for a 19" color TV with actual sound, still only 1 channel though

 

4 years for a 27" color TV with sound and 10 channels

 

5 years for a 42" LED TV with sound and 99 channels

 

6 years  They remove 43 channels and replace the sound with monkeys banging on trash cans because the CEO likes that kind stuff better.

 

7 years   The TV is now a 60" projection big screen that weighs 690 lbs. It gets 56 channels and still has monkeys banging on trash cans for sound. No wireless or smart features even though they were promised. But if you spend 200 hours rewiring your TV and rewriting every line of code in the firmware, you can get actual audio instead of trash monkeys, and you can enable an additional 1200 channels. Still no smart features or internet connectivity. Still a ungodly bulky projection screen.

 

 

Well, first of all I disagree with your assessment of the quality of the "TV".

But, if I felt I got my money's worth out of the product, then yes, I'd be happy with it.

 

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, Solomon said:

So if you order a new TV get an estimated delivery time of 1 week you wont complain when you dont get your TV at all?

 

Like damm dude, an estimated software finish does not mean 1 year or in our case 7 years and still not done.

With kickstarter it does practically. I have backed upwards of 70 projects on kickstarter, almost all of them games, and I would be lucky to find even one that kept the estimate even in a ballpark sort of way. I was lucky in that a high percentage of them resulted in an acceptable or even high-quality game. But if I made a fuss about delivery date or thought it was some sort of preorder scheme, kickstarter would be a complete failure.

 

If you want guarantees, don't use kickstarter and don't use early access. At least steam has that warning on each store page of an EA game that you should only buy the game if you think the current version is worth it. In general if you buy your tv on kickstarter you should get your head examined carefully, because KS is not a TV shop nor amazon.

 

 

 

[Roland]

15 hours ago, AlphaOmega said:

And I mean no disrespect when referring to Joel as a house flipper. I mention that as a sign of respect.

As far as I'm concerned this is an indication of the lie and duplicity of your entire post. ANYONE who read your original post referring to Joel as "a house flipper" grokked that you meant it in a derogatory way. There is no chance your full intent was lost through text. You clearly were saying that game design was out of Joel's element because he was a house flipper and not a real game developer. Trying to back pedal now and say that in that context you meant it as a sign of respect is an insult to the intelligence of everyone who is reading this thread. The same is true of your use of the comment section of the kickstarter page. There are not thousands demanding refunds. There ARE thousands wondering what's going on and most comments are from 4 or more years ago. Several said they have reported TFP to Kickstarter for fraud and invoked their right to a refund of their pledge and guess why nothing has ever come of it? Because those people are wrong and so are you. TFP can easily show that they have been in constant development. There has never been a period of time where someone can point to abandonment of the game or an intent to not finish. If some of those people did open a law suit against TFP for fraud they would lose big. 

 

Many of those comments were from when the console edition came out and they were upset about that. It's fine that they were upset that a finished console version was released before they got a finished PC version from their pledge but there is no violation of the kickstarter agreement that was made. TFP didn't even cease development on the PC version while the console port was being made because they partnered with Telltale who took care of that side of things. Then there are a whole bunch of posts of people who are just clearly ignorant that they could have been playing the game all along. They seem to not understand that their pledge gave them a key that allowed them to play the game while waiting for the final version and they seem to be sitting around just waiting for their key to arrive for the final version. I can attest that all keys were sent out back in 2013 to enable anyone who pledged access to the game. Furthermore, a follow-up email went out once the game went to Steam with instructions for converting their kickstarter key into a Steam key. I personally help 1-2 people per week still today in converting their old keys into a Steam key so they can play the game. Many of them admit remembering having received that email 7 years ago but not doing anything about it until now and are worried because they no longer have those emails. But they all get their keys because they are in our system and as soon as I do a search and confirm their identity, they get the key they were promised which they could have had these past 7 years if they had done something about it. What's more, I have never gotten a reply from someone I helped get their promised key that was not congratulator and happy with the obvious progress the game has made since they pledged. It is obvious to anyone who backed this game and has followed development that the game has made great progress, is a labor of love,  will not be abandoned, and exceeds the original expectations in every possible way.

 

 

[Roland]

4 hours ago, Kalen said:

Well, first of all I disagree with your assessment of the quality of the "TV".

But, if I felt I got my money's worth out of the product, then yes, I'd be happy with it.

 

This is key. @AlphaOmega feels that the quality of gameplay and his experience with the game has not been worth the $35 that the pledge cost. Nobody can dispute his own personal experience. However, it is clear from the success and constant upward growth of player base over the last 7 years that @AlphaOmega is really unique in his assessment of the value we have gotten for the money we paid. By far, most people feel they have gotten their money's worth in terms of gameplay and entertainment and the past seven years have not been an odious horrible return on their purchase.

 

Even most people who disagree with recent design choices say that they have gotten their money's worth out of the game. So it isn't just you, Kalen, who disagrees with the assessment of the quality of the "TV" or the quality of the "album" they've had while waiting for the final version. These few people who come here and demand for the updates to stop and for TFP to just be done and let the game be forevermore a static game in a final state are not who we want TFP to listen to. They wanted the game to be done 6 years ago as it was. Can you imagine what the game would have been like if they would have slapped together the goals and released it as it appeared in May of 2014?  @AlphaOmega deceptively is running the narrative that what we will be getting someday will BE what we would have gotten in May of 2014 but just 8 or 9 years late when the truth is that what we will get greatly exceeds what we would've gotten if the game just released back then.

[SnowDog1942]

On 10/23/2020 at 10:20 AM, Roland said:

Please tell me the names of the mods that must be installed to make the game playable. I’d really be interested to know which ones are doing the work that TFP should be doing and making the game the way it is intended to be.  Pretend I’m a new player that just downloaded the game because I must have missed the thread where everyone is helping new players by telling them to be sure to install these critical mods.  So what are your picks because the devs @%$#ed up and the game can’t run as intended without ______________, _____________, and ______________?
 

Wait, let me guess one of them: Sorcery!  Right...?

The only one essential mod is the nudity mod.   Everything else is take it or leave it.

[JCrook1028]

16 hours ago, AlphaOmega said:

It's why thousands of people have demanded refunds.

Oh Boy! Over the last 3 years there's like 15 people complaining! Such huge numbers! lmao.

[Solomon]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

With kickstarter it does practically. I have backed upwards of 70 projects on kickstarter, almost all of them games, and I would be lucky to find even one that kept the estimate even in a ballpark sort of way. I was lucky in that a high percentage of them resulted in an acceptable or even high-quality game. But if I made a fuss about delivery date or thought it was some sort of preorder scheme, kickstarter would be a complete failure.

 

If you want guarantees, don't use kickstarter and don't use early access. At least steam has that warning on each store page of an EA game that you should only buy the game if you think the current version is worth it. In general if you buy your tv on kickstarter you should get your head examined carefully, because KS is not a TV shop nor amazon.

Oh, i dont trust kickstarters. I seen too many of them sink away.

 

Early access is different, if it functions well enough to be called a game im happy with it. I seen Deep Rock Galactic and Starbound leaving early access and i just dont buy anything what doesnt have playable amount of content.