Aron
Master
Posts: 125 
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198023768234/
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Post by Aron on Aug 28, 2014 7:19:02 GMT
www.gamereactor.de/grtv/?id=188204in my opinion only excuses why they dont and never will react to our suggestions ect. and i dont know what he thinks he gives us just a Balance mod file and then he says that we the EA will have the Chance to mod the whole game
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Post by engarde on Aug 28, 2014 7:54:17 GMT
So they are too small to do more than one thing at a time.
So why are they trying to do more than one thing at a time?
Could he have said 20 any more times?
Is they have the time to issue map editors, balance tools and AI editors surely they have the time themselves to actually use them in the game defaults.
Nothing in Godus has ever suggested his preferred controller was a mouse, I just about destroyed mine playing before I switched to a touch device.
He wants none of the cloud bollox but is issuing a game which err uses the cloud...
I've no problem modifying a solid playable game, to enhance the basics they developed but I have an expectation that 'the 20 of them' issue that first.
He believes they will continuing developing Godus for years to come, is that beyond the mystically 100% level or just to get to the 100%?
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Post by Crumpy Six on Aug 28, 2014 10:44:20 GMT
So PM is still insisting the Godus iOS is a revolution in F2P mechanics. He's also referring to the iOS version as "pretty much done" which is just incredible. "Millions of people who have never been exposed to online games before.." in what way is Godus an online game, other than requiring a network connection? Sometimes he says things that make me think he's forgotten which elements of Godus actually made the cut.
This interview gives away that the balancing tool is literally seen to be the thing that will fix the problems with the PC version. No talk of the rest of the freemium mechanics.
Regarding the "20 staff".. have they had some layoffs? Last count they said they had at least 30 people.
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feanix
Suspected 22Cans staff
Posts: 73
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Post by feanix on Aug 28, 2014 13:40:31 GMT
The internal count varies depending on what you count. Developer? Admin staff too? Temporary contract workers? External contractors? But no, we haven't laid off a third of our staff.  I think the problem is that we really WANTED to be literally a 22 person studio but we had to grow bigger than that and it's a bit embarrassing. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 15:04:33 GMT
I always read it as "Twenty Toucans".
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Post by 13thGeneral on Aug 28, 2014 18:01:57 GMT
I always read it as "Twenty Toucans". Me too. And then I imagine their mascot running around jabbering on about "delicious zen-like fruit loops" and insisting on following his nose. |
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Post by Gmr Leon on Aug 29, 2014 1:13:51 GMT
I always read it as "Twenty Toucans". Me too. And then I imagine their mascot running around jabbering on about "delicious zen-like fruit loops" and insisting on following his nose. Correction: following his vision. |
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Post by sidara on Aug 29, 2014 1:35:17 GMT
I think every time I read something Peter has said, I feel the need to snack on something chocolatey and/or cakey.
Peter Molyneux: destroying my diet since early 2013.
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Post by Gmr Leon on Aug 29, 2014 1:53:38 GMT
I don't know about you guys, but this honestly doesn't sound as bad as some are making it out to be. The introduction of more of the dev tools for us to work with to try and collaborate with them sounds promising, at least if they'll be more willing to listen. Not to mention the whole when part, which is to say when it will finally get around to arriving. It still sucks that it's taken as long as it has, but if it comes somewhat closer to what we'd hoped for, it'd be a start.
Edit: I dunno, I'm thinking I'm getting suckered in by the possibilities again.
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Post by hardly on Aug 29, 2014 4:10:10 GMT
I don't know about you guys, but this honestly doesn't sound as bad as some are making it out to be. The introduction of more of the dev tools for us to work with to try and collaborate with them sounds promising, at least if they'll be more willing to listen. Not to mention the whole when part, which is to say when it will finally get around to arriving. It still sucks that it's taken as long as it has, but if it comes somewhat closer to what we'd hoped for, it'd be a start. Edit: I dunno, I'm thinking I'm getting suckered in by the possibilities again. [br Yeah it depends whether it is a genuine effort to engage or a sop to get us off their back. All evidence to date points to the later but I'd love it to be the former. |
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Post by engarde on Aug 29, 2014 7:42:55 GMT
Dev tools would have been fine in alpha, maybe even in early release but not at the beta level - even this duff interpretation of beta - after all is a released iOS game...
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2014 11:29:59 GMT
Dev tools would have been fine in alpha, maybe even in early release but not at the beta level - even this duff interpretation of beta - after all is a released iOS game... Beta? I though we were in Gamma or Delta or... I need a nap! |
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Post by 13thGeneral on Aug 29, 2014 14:19:45 GMT
Dev tools would have been fine in alpha, maybe even in early release but not at the beta level - even this duff interpretation of beta - after all is a released iOS game... Beta? I though we were in Gamma or Delta or... I need a nap! What, no Charlie or Echo? What kind of phonetic system is this? |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2014 16:58:51 GMT
Beta? I though we were in Gamma or Delta or... I need a nap! What, no Charlie or Echo? What kind of phonetic system is this? It was a deeply meaningful, well thought out, non confusing system that I assumed even the least informed gamer would be able to understand. I spent many hours on devising it to fully mirror the Zen-like versioning scheme 22cans has bestowed on us. "Aren't you grateful?" - Bashiok |
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Post by Danjal on Aug 29, 2014 19:30:05 GMT
I don't see how 22cans can hold "We're too small of a studio" as an argument - they themselves chose the scope of their project.
The themselves set the limits of what they can do...
If you keep overpromising you shouldn't back out later saying that "We're too small to do all of this." - instead you should adjust your promises to fit your size.
Keep your expectations realistic and match your promises to them.
As for Godus introducing millions of people on mobile to online? - sorry, but "3 years from now" doesn't count. Godus hubworlds don't work.
You haven't introduced anyone to anything but timers, waiting and delays - and most of those millions were already quite familiar with those.
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Post by 13thGeneral on Aug 29, 2014 19:59:05 GMT
I don't see how 22cans can hold "We're too small of a studio" as an argument - they themselves chose the scope of their project. The themselves set the limits of what they can do... If you keep overpromising you shouldn't back out later saying that "We're too small to do all of this." - instead you should adjust your promises to fit your size. Keep your expectations realistic and match your promises to them. As for Godus introducing millions of people to mobile - sorry, but "3 years from now" doesn't count. Godus hubworlds don't work. You haven't introduced anyone to anything but timers, waiting and delays - and most of those millions were already quite familiar with those. Without having Hubworld ready they've pretty much missed the window on converging millions of users on the two platforms; by the time it's ready (if ever) they will likely never have that innitial coverage they desire, because people have already tried it and moved on. With all the excuses that are starting to be thrown around, it signals to me that they're in crisis panic mode - which only has two outcomes; they either pull up hard on the yoke and reorient (accept and acknowledge mistakes) to get back on track, or flounder about trying to ditch all excess weight and put on parachutes (cut thier losses and abandon ship). Let's hope it's the former, because the later isn't pleasant for anyone. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2014 20:03:10 GMT
I don't see how 22cans can hold "We're too small of a studio" as an argument - they themselves chose the scope of their project. The themselves set the limits of what they can do... If you keep overpromising you shouldn't back out later saying that "We're too small to do all of this." - instead you should adjust your promises to fit your size. Keep your expectations realistic and match your promises to them. As for Godus introducing millions of people to mobile - sorry, but "3 years from now" doesn't count. Godus hubworlds don't work. You haven't introduced anyone to anything but timers, waiting and delays - and most of those millions were already quite familiar with those. Without having Hubworld ready they've pretty much missed the window on converging millions of users on the two platforms; by the time it's ready (if ever) they will likely never have that innitial coverage they desire, because people have already tried it and moved on. When did peter promise suggest that they were going to "flick the switch" and enable multiplayer functionality again? |
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Post by 13thGeneral on Aug 29, 2014 20:08:48 GMT
March was it? Wait, I mean some time in April. Well, perhaps May or June ... July at the latest. Maybe late August. But certainly within just a few weeks.
Peter, just say, "when it's ready" and stop shooting your team in the foot.
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Post by Gmr Leon on Aug 29, 2014 21:03:11 GMT
I don't see how 22cans can hold "We're too small of a studio" as an argument - they themselves chose the scope of their project. The themselves set the limits of what they can do... If you keep overpromising you shouldn't back out later saying that "We're too small to do all of this." - instead you should adjust your promises to fit your size. Keep your expectations realistic and match your promises to them. As for Godus introducing millions of people to mobile - sorry, but "3 years from now" doesn't count. Godus hubworlds don't work. You haven't introduced anyone to anything but timers, waiting and delays - and most of those millions were already quite familiar with those. Without having Hubworld ready they've pretty much missed the window on converging millions of users on the two platforms; by the time it's ready (if ever) they will likely never have that innitial coverage they desire, because people have already tried it and moved on. With all the excuses that are starting to be thrown around, it signals to me that they're in crisis panic mode - which only has two outcomes; they either pull up hard on the yoke and reorient (accept and acknowledge mistakes) to get back on track, or flounder about trying to ditch all excess weight and put on parachutes (cut thier losses and abandon ship). Let's hope it's the former, because the later isn't pleasant for anyone. Without letting myself get too optimistic, I'm thinking that much of our perception of the game's reception is mostly clouded from experience and looking at the reviews it's received. We have to keep in mind that forumgoers and review-readers are a fairly small minority in most cases, compared to the vast majority of people and the people playing the game. Ever since 2.1's release, for some inexplicable reason I can't understand for example, there have consistently been a few hundred or so people playing Godus on Steam. I know that's a small number, but let's compare that to some other Early Access titles (using potentially skewed data from Steam Charts): "Normal"
| "Outliers"
| Dungeon of the Endless
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 49.
Average players last month: 41.0. | Prison Architect
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 1,407.
Average players last month: 909.3.
| Hand of Fate
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 79.
Average players last month: 36.6.
| The Forest
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 1,578.
Average players last month: 1,123.3. | StarForge
Currently playing (as of 2 hours ago): 136.
Average players last month: 276.6. | Kerbal Space Program
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 3,114.
Average players last month: 2,906.5. | Planet Explorers
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 161.
Average players last month: 273.4. | 7 Days to Die
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 5,708.
Average players last month: 3,697.8. | Endless Legend
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 171.
Average players last month: 138.5. | Space Engineers
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 5,926.
Average players last month: 4,719.1. | Invisible, Inc.
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 238.
Average players last month: [insufficient data since recent release]. | Rust
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 9,859.
Average players last month: 8,763.1. | Godus
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 689.
Average players last month: 622.6. | DayZ
Currently playing (as of 1 hour ago): 19,413.
Average players last month: 14,905.7. |
If you notice from all those numbers, excluding the outliers (Kerbal Space Program, Space Engineers, Prison Architect, Rust, DayZ, 7 Days to Die, and The Forest), Godus' player count is right above average for an Early Access title. This is all without the benefit of any front page placement on Steam, excluding perhaps a brief mention with recently updated. Every other game that's relatively low in numbers has had minimal presence on the Steam front page too, except during sales (or in their initial release) and so it's little wonder their player counts are so low. When was the last time you heard of Endless Legend/Dungeon of the Endless/StarForge? All three of those have been available through Early Access for a decent amount of time now, but their player counts are pretty low. For a game that's not constantly on the front page like DayZ/Rust/7 Days to Die/The Forest/Kerbal Space Program, Godus is doing surprisingly well. That being said, there's a good chance that these numbers will taper off like they did after the March update, but if 22cans can get the turnaround time on some opt-in updates that actually contain something of substance, there's a possibility of keeping the player retention up. After all, I'm pretty positive the reason that the numbers dropped after March are for all reasons we're familiar with, the updates didn't bring much of worth afterward and then over the past couple months they stalled all updates for the iOS release. What's really bothersome for 22cans is that it seems the March update put a major dampener on some players hopes for the game, since this recent update shows 478 fewer players at the peak compared to back in March. |
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Post by Danjal on Aug 29, 2014 21:09:48 GMT
March was it? Wait, I mean some time in April. Well, perhaps May or June ... July at the latest. Maybe late August. But certainly within just a few weeks. Peter, just say, "when it's ready" and stop shooting your team in the foot. To be precise - during GDC Peter announced that hubworld would go live "3~4 weeks from now". This was on March 18th, making the estimated release at that point in time (and lets be generous here) April 18th 2014. Which subsequently is 16 months after (December 21, 2012) their kickstarter funded, 7 months after the game reportedly would've been released according to said kickstarter. Also 7 months after the SEA launch. Not to mention shortly after the period of silence (which ended shortly before GDC with the v2.0 release) that preceded the v2.0 release and its accompanying "official shift in focus" to mobile. Ofcourse at that time 22cans was still in full denial mode, claiming that the PC platform was not abandoned at all and that 22cans was focusing their efforts on completing their "unfinished" game and that people should not be so harsh on it. Its not completed and still in alpha/beta/development afterall. (Cue the subsequent articles that pointed out that the 'alpha' status of Godus is a bare technicality as the 'game' is barely sufficient to be a proof of concept or tech-demo.) Then came a number of delays and excuses. Untill only relatively recently they acknowledged that indeed 22cans has been in a "mobile sprint" and has not been spending as much time and energy on PC as they would have otherwise. But that this was perfectly normal, because the *KICKSTARTER* had mentioned that Godus was developed for these various platforms. The complete refusal to properly portray this information on the steam store (aswell as the 'in development' status of Godus on the iOS store btw) is something that has remained an issue for a very long time. With only recently getting the addition of the mobile and PC sprints. Ofcourse, hubworlds itself is still not playable - without clear reasons of why this is the case and what we can even EXPECT of hubworlds. (Funny how that goes, the question of "what is hubworld exactly" has been around since before march and still hasn't been answered....) Its an interesting conundrum. Godus is the game that introduced millions if iOS players to multiplayer, without actually having multiplayer as part of the game yet. And without the studio themselves even being in a position to answer simple questions about its multiplayer functionality. Questions such as: - What happens to the players that do not 'advance' to the next hub. - What exactly do the advantages that the players achieve from higher hubs mean for the players that didn't advance. - How does 22cans intend to maintain hubs as players become inactive and someone might lose 1, 2 or even all 3 of the players that are part of his hub? - How does 22cans intend to deal with players that do not "work together", but infact actively work against the people within their hub? - What exactly can we do inside each hub to compel us to want to bother with them at all? (Other than a base resource gathering minigame.) And I'm sure there are countless other simple questions regarding hubworlds that I've not mentioned here. |
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