Peter Molyneux chats with Pocket Gamer

Anyhow more generally, it really doesn't feel like he understands why we are criticizing things, and more importantly what we are criticizing. I'm sure there are a bunch of idiots out there who are posting stuff like "omg this game is terribad i r gunna kill 22cans" (I mean we see a little bit of it on this forum too), but most of the criticizing isn't like that at all. 

Firstly, a lot of our complaints are about lack of communication, just take the "we've been saying mobile focus for 9 months", which is clearly rubbish.

Secondly, he is equating us being mad about mobile F2p with literally it being free-to-play on a mobile. Mostly none of us care about the mobile game, it's the F2P mechanics in a PC game.

Thirdly, I don't think he gets how persuading people works. He wants the long timers to force us to go and do other stuff, which is a stick. Now where is the carrot? What do I gain from going off and doing another voyage when what I actually need is more suitable land to build stuff. Similarly, he states that the cost for high/low land scultping is to try and prevent us building flat land, again this is another stick. Where is the carrot? Again and again the game mechanics are deliberately prohibitive, rather than rewarding the player for doing something, instead it is punishing if you try and do something it doesn't want you to.


Also, when multiplayer finally gets released, does anyone wish to join me in forming "Team Godus Boards Awesome Win The Title Of God of Gods And Fix All The Bad Commandments Team"?

Only... Whenever he gets told that some changes are in order he insists that "we're wrong and just don't see the larger picture" - funny how that goes, you promise something, you get money for it, you deliver something else and you can just ignore the people that paid you? How he must love crowdfunding and early access....


You have GOT to be fucking kidding me... An NPC tribe "that didn't come up untill six weeks ago" - WE HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR SOME PROPER AI TRIBES FOR FUCKING AGES
And this one is taking the piss, its not even a proper AI tribe, its a timer that takes away some people without any true underlying mechanics.
They do nothing but drain resources.

Promising the Astari back in kickstarter? Why? He promised much better features. Don't act like the Astari are a miracle made real. They're probably the junkiest implementation possible on the whole range of AI tribes available. I've seen a ton of better suggestions on the steam boards and they've been ignored.


Just one actually - the fact that you've got your head too far up your own behind to realize that you're not delivering on what people paid for.
That you're leading people on with pipedreams and excuses. It'd be so easy to actually deliver... But no... We have to insist on some failed abortion attempts at "innovation" (even though the reality is that its probably one of the worse F2P ripoffs on the store right now)


...uhm... Free to play? This sentence doesn't even make sense, I think he's losing it.


On one thing... And what is that one thing? Sitting and waiting? You're so busy trying to get the player to focus on timers that you forgot to actually create a game?\
Here's a thing Peter, stop THINKING what you believe is best and start actually delivering the game you once set out to create.
You had some great ideas, these ideas were what got you your initial funding.

All we ask is that you deliver on those ideas. No more, no less. Nothing fancy, nothing innovative, no backflips, no golden lining. Just a delivery of your original promises.
Which means, no abusive F2P schemes, no timers, no "but I was trying to..." - just a plain and simple entertaining game.
We want you to STOP coming up with all kinds of marvelous and 'delicious' concepts, and simply LISTEN to what we ask of you - and then deliver on that.
And I can assure you and all of your fellow cans that the game that would result out of that would be far superior to your current timer riddled clickfest.


Except, Godus has nothing else to do... Godus isn't Civilization, Godus purposefully tries to AVOID being Civilization, Godus wants to be something else.
Something without depth or resources. Something that runs itself and has you going around as a groundskeeper cleaning up the litter.

Please just stop... Don't claim that Godus is something it is not. Don't hide behind "but its incomplete" - because more timers will NOT make this game more enjoyable.


Oh yes, because clearly that will solve ALL the problems in Godus. A game that has nothing to do but sitting and waiting on timers will suddenly become enjoyable if you give people the tools to remove the timers.

Here's the thing, I've played the latest version. I've fought through the incessant tutorials telling me I'm a fucking moron and don't know up from down, I've sat through the timers and fought through the settlement expansions to unlock the cards...
4 days it took me to blow through that all, mostly waiting on timers to tick by and bars to fill up. I've spend most of my time watching youtube on my laptop while this happened and talking to friends.
The game, barring my need to reset timers, ran itself.

Thats not a fun game, a fun game has something to do. An overarching goal or challenge. Interesting mechanics.
Godus has timers....


Haha... right, yea, 5 star likes "Press the like button to get your gems please!" within the first stretch of the game and before you introduce the hour long timers.
Please tell me, how many of those people are still playing? Cause when I last checked this supposed miracle ranking crashed down and is crashing still...

But thats not a good sales line is it? So lets ignore that and not tell that on the interview!


Yea... thought so...


Really?... REALLY?!

Then please... PLEASE Mr Molyneux - EXPLAIN to me why Godus has multiple timers that last LONGER THAN A FUCKING DAY!


Oh, they're far later in the game... Then its okay because later in the game you have much more things to...
Oh wait, no you don't because there's nothing to do in the first place...................................
Don't be a hypocrite. Timers are a bad mechanic. A bad mechanic showing how incompetent the design of the game is that you needed to resort to a clock ticking down because you couldn't think of a proper alternate method to deal with it.


Peter and his numbers, I love how he doesn't even have a single shred of evidence to back up these arbitrary and fictional numbers.


Funny, cause thats Godus in a nutshell... You just have to keep shelling out gems or be willing to sit through hour long timers.
But I guess sitting through timers is okay, you can just put your phone down and move on with your life right?
I mean, its not like you'd WANT to spend your time playing a game to pass your time when you can go into the kitchen and play with your favorite new knife and cut yourself within 15 minutes right? Thats much more enjoyable isn't it Peter?


Taking feedback? How? You haven't listened to a word we said - you keep insisting we misunderstand and we're playing your game wrong.

We're sculpting too much, we're taking the wrong decisions, we need to be more patient and sit down to watch those zen-like timers tick down.
No, you haven't listen... You refuse to listen...
You're not a designer, you're a tell-sell advertisement "BUT WAIT, IF YOU CALL NOW YOU'LL GET A FREE STICKERPACK!"



Argh, fuck it, I'm not even gonna bother with this shameless piece of self-advertisment and delusion...
Just stop with the bullshit and start delivering some actual proof.
Fix your game instead of doing BS interviews - cause clearly you're too high on some sort of drug to realize what is going on in the real world...

Thanks, Matt. That was brave of you to link to.


Yeah, that pisses me off to no end. Either he's so full of shit himself that he has to try and take credit for that, or so oblivious he truly believes he just thought of it. Or maybe he really isn't seeing our suggestions, just our complaints?
At this point, I really don't know if I can care anymore. This is just insanity.

I've just read it through a second time, and you know what just hit me...
The thing he claims all the time. That we 'fail to see the larger picture' - its exactly what he's doing.
He's focusing on single problems and claiming they're not that bad.

"They don't like timers, so I give them the ability to manually alter the timers and all will be well."
"They don't like F2P, but designers love F2P so they should just embrace it!"
"They don't like X, but Y!"

He doesn't stop and look at the collective clusterfuck.

That's exactly it, it's so obvious I'm shocked he doesn't see it. And the reply is often, "But, but... Voyages! But, sculpting!" But even those are held down by timers. It's a flimsy, ramshackle mess, with a few nice chairs and pretty coat of paint.
Doubt it, but maybe. I can't help but feel it's another attempt to distract while they continue doing something else.

I don't need to smell the BS when I can plainly see it.

And here's your favourite proposed mechanic Qetesh:

"A classic example of this: should women stay at home and look after the family, or should it be down to men, or should it be equally shared? When you make that decision you'll see what percentage of players chose each decision and if there's a clear majority that becomes the default behaviour through everyone's worlds. Unless you override it as a god."

I suspect he will be paid in gems.

At least he won't have to sacrifice anyone to get them. 

I suspect it all depends on what was in the small print of the contract they had him sign. If he signed away his right to demand cash up front or even worse agreed for a loophole to relinquish his rights to the cash in case of a bankruptcy then I doubt there is much that could be done about it. 

This a wonderful legal world we live in today. If you make a contract and have someone sign it, it is pretty hard to later declare you should not have signed away those rights. If you cannot prove coercion or incapacity of some sort that you are pretty stuck to what you agreed too. I have to say I agree with that, because if not, then what good would any contract be? This guy won something and this is his prize and just like the lottery has the right to give you your money in a lump sum or installment payments so can any other contest if you agree to it. For all we know, they offered him the chance to take percentage A now, or percentage B later. They could have agreed to match some of it in exchange for his waiting. They could also be sending his money to a high interest bearing savings account. I don't really see anything wrong with it if he agreed to it and since he has not made a peep, I assume he did and is fine with his arrangement.