Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 12, 2014 1:57:29 GMT
In other news... I currently have made about 27% of all posts on the forum whereas I used to have far more than 50% of the posts. This is a good development but you guys need to up your posting a bit more. You're making me look bad, like a dictatorial figure who controls the whole board.  |
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arryu
Senior Apprentice
Posts: 80 
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Post by arryu on Aug 12, 2014 2:00:05 GMT
In other news... I currently have made about 27% of all posts on the forum whereas I used to have far more than 50% of the posts. This is a good development but you guys need to up your posting a bit more. You're making me look bad, like a dictatorial figure who controls the whole board. Of course, right away, Glorious Leader. *posts until fingers bleed* ...eh...still better than playing GODUS. |
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Post by hardly on Aug 12, 2014 2:44:20 GMT
Of course Master, right away Master.
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Post by Deth on Aug 12, 2014 4:03:09 GMT
Hey you never said I had to post to the board when I backed this kickstarter! I thought I was backing at the level that I would get post automatically done for me! Also I do not like the quality of the post that have been randomly generated for me! See if I back another one of your kickstarters!  |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 12, 2014 11:52:18 GMT
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 12, 2014 13:27:38 GMT
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Post by dozvati on Aug 12, 2014 15:58:44 GMT
I perused ye olde posts and found this write-up our Fearless Leader Ba'al posted back in May. How times change from " ..they read into micro-transactions and they started worrying that this is going to turn into some exploitative thing once the game releases and I just wanted to reassure people of that." to " We love gems. There, I said it." |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 12, 2014 16:31:07 GMT
I perused ye olde posts and found this write-up our Fearless Leader Ba'al posted back in May. How times change from " ..they read into micro-transactions and they started worrying that this is going to turn into some exploitative thing once the game releases and I just wanted to reassure people of that." to " We love gems. There, I said it."Actually that was a video from the time of the kickstarter campaign. |
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Raspofabs
Former 22Cans staff
Posts: 227
I like: coding, high peat single malts, ... , yeah, that's about it.
I don't like: object oriented design, and liver.
Steam: raspofabs
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Post by Raspofabs on Aug 12, 2014 16:58:22 GMT
I won't complain, but you guys are rating the graphics too high. It's not that good yet. I've got loads of things lined up for when we get to PC sprint. |
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Post by Danjal on Aug 12, 2014 17:13:19 GMT
The main reason graphics are rated so high is because we feel it is adequate. We do not want you to spend a ton of time on graphics, we want you to spend time on gameplay and other related elements instead.
Any time spend on graphics is time not spend on actually improving the game. And right now, Godus does not need to be graphically improved.
It is in dire need of the rest.
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Post by Deth on Aug 12, 2014 18:33:58 GMT
Fabs, That is cool but as Danjal said, we like what we have. Not that I for one would turn down more shine. But I know I have been burned before on games that to much full and they start taking away from the crunch of the game. Now if you are going to be able to add more of different looks to buildings and people depending on how you play. Go for it.
Edit: Oh and if you would like to share what you would like to get in the game I promise most of us will not hold you to it..... unless we like it to much. Then we might have to go and light a fire of Peters feet to make him let you put it in.
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Raspofabs
Former 22Cans staff
Posts: 227
I like: coding, high peat single malts, ... , yeah, that's about it.
I don't like: object oriented design, and liver.
Steam: raspofabs
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Post by Raspofabs on Aug 13, 2014 8:52:45 GMT
Fabs, That is cool but as Danjal said, we like what we have. Not that I for one would turn down more shine. But I know I have been burned before on games that to much full and they start taking away from the crunch of the game. Now if you are going to be able to add more of different looks to buildings and people depending on how you play. Go for it. Edit: Oh and if you would like to share what you would like to get in the game I promise most of us will not hold you to it..... unless we like it to much. Then we might have to go and light a fire of Peters feet to make him let you put it in. I can tell you that I'd like to put in a deferred renderer (Can't really do that right now as minimum spec is too low to handle it), which would mean that at night, we could have the lights on in the houses, have lampposts with lights that work, have local lighting effects from god powers and the burning of trees etc. And we could have SSAO so I don't have to use CPU time to generate the landscape AO as baked vertices. Apart from the cool stuff, I also want to do more gameplay oriented improvements. I've been testing techniques on my machine to allow me to zoom out by a factor of 4 (you really can't see the followers very easily at that distance), but I'm still not satisfied. As a desktop gamer, I want to be able to zoom out so I can see the whole map on one screen. That And I want the map to be much bigger too. To do that, I've been thinking about having a complete second rendering system for far out zoom levels, where you don't see the terraces any more, but they can be faked by pixel shader estimating where the edges of the land would be, like a really hacked pixel shader ray marching thing. This would mean we could zoom out and out forever, using any old geo-mipmap or LOD terrain system. Which ties into the last bit: I want the god powers to rip the land apart. Volcano shouldn't just make lava that cools into slabs of land, it should bend the land upwards, cracking it, breaking it, and generally being a nuisance. It should leave a dirty mess that doesn't fit in with the landscape around it, and only by using a cleanup power (like beautify) would you be able to get it back to manipulable land. At least that's what I'd like to do. As to wasting my time on graphics as opposed to gameplay: I don't get to do gameplay or game designing, so me doing graphics stuff would never detract from Godus advancing on that track. |
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Post by hardly on Aug 13, 2014 9:42:21 GMT
Ras that stuff sounds fricken awesome.
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Post by Deth on Aug 13, 2014 10:44:00 GMT
*Starts gathering tender and torches again.*
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 13, 2014 10:44:01 GMT
I can tell you that I'd like to put in a deferred renderer (Can't really do that right now as minimum spec is too low to handle it), which would mean that at night, we could have the lights on in the houses, have lampposts with lights that work, have local lighting effects from god powers and the burning of trees etc. And we could have SSAO so I don't have to use CPU time to generate the landscape AO as baked vertices. I have no idea what SSAO and AO mean, could you explain? Lighting effects would be cool. I don't think they had many lampposts in the stone age though. Apart from the cool stuff, I also want to do more gameplay oriented improvements. I've been testing techniques on my machine to allow me to zoom out by a factor of 4 (you really can't see the followers very easily at that distance), but I'm still not satisfied. As a desktop gamer, I want to be able to zoom out so I can see the whole map on one screen. That And I want the map to be much bigger too. To do that, I've been thinking about having a complete second rendering system for far out zoom levels, where you don't see the terraces any more, but they can be faked by pixel shader estimating where the edges of the land would be, like a really hacked pixel shader ray marching thing. This would mean we could zoom out and out forever, using any old geo-mipmap or LOD terrain system. Bigger map, good. Further zoom, good. Which ties into the last bit: I want the god powers to rip the land apart. Volcano shouldn't just make lava that cools into slabs of land, it should bend the land upwards, cracking it, breaking it, and generally being a nuisance. It should leave a dirty mess that doesn't fit in with the landscape around it, and only by using a cleanup power (like beautify) would you be able to get it back to manipulable land. Volcanoes ripping apart land sounds awesome. Regarding the beautify though, I really don't like as it is now. It can look cool if you want to use it, but I'm not one of those people. I think it makes the landscape look less realistic and thus breaks a part of the immersion for me. There are also certain negative aspects to the beautify power. If I use it on a patch of land I end up with a nice looking terrain with a weird spot in it. You can't get rid of the weird spot, so you are forced to either keep seeing it or to beautify the whole map. The latter option puts serious strain on the CPU and makes the game run terribly slow. At least that's the case on my system, which is a 2GHz duo-core with 4GB of RAM and a G-Force GT8600M with 256MB of its own RAM. I know this machine is getting old but I think I should still be able to run a game like this on it. Anyway, there is a simple solution to this. Have a two tier beautify system where the first option takes ugly or beautified land and makes it look normal and the second option takes ugly or normal land and makes it look beautified. Perhaps some people would even like an option to make beautified or normal land to look ugly. That would fit with being an omnipotent being and it would also give balance between good and evil. If there were certain types of benefits to having ugly land that is. Another thing that springs to mind is why beautified land doesn't degrade into normal land over time? The design team seems happy to put repetitive menial chores into the game at every corner so why they haven't come up with this one is beyond me. If you want beautified land, you'll have to re-beautify it every couple of days. The perks of having beautified land (if there are any) would of course also wear off when the beautify fades away. A similar thing could be applied to the other end of the spectrum. If you could create ugly land (which would have certain perks) it would fade back into normal looking land and the perks would disappear until the land were re-uglified. I kinda feel dirty now. I'm sorry I said it, but I just had to get it out. I'll be shooting myself in the foot now. At least that's what I'd like to do. As to wasting my time on graphics as opposed to gameplay: I don't get to do gameplay or game designing, so me doing graphics stuff would never detract from Godus advancing on that track. Good. |
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Post by Crumpy Six on Aug 13, 2014 10:56:20 GMT
Fabs, you have brilliant ideas for this game! But it sounds like unfortunately you don't have any input on the actual content, and instead have to follow the instructions you are given.
What's the decision-making process at 22Cans as far as design decisions are concerned? Where do the requirements come from - are they based on analytics, user feedback, Peter's ideas or a combination of the three? Does DeNA have any input or offer any ideas? Who gets the final say?
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 13, 2014 11:07:52 GMT
Fabs, you have brilliant ideas for this game! But it sounds like unfortunately you don't have any input on the actual content, and instead have to follow the instructions you are given. Yeah, he does have good ideas. They should really involve him (or the entire team for that matter) in design meetings every now and then. Just gather the whole team together and discuss the design plans for the upcoming sprints and then ask the whole team if they have any ideas about what's on the table. Then follow up with a meeting a week later so they can bring forth the ideas they have had about it. Doing this every 2 months or so couldn't hurt, could it? |
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Post by Danjal on Aug 13, 2014 11:24:16 GMT
I can tell you that I'd like to put in a deferred renderer (Can't really do that right now as minimum spec is too low to handle it), which would mean that at night, we could have the lights on in the houses, have lampposts with lights that work, have local lighting effects from god powers and the burning of trees etc. And we could have SSAO so I don't have to use CPU time to generate the landscape AO as baked vertices. Apart from the cool stuff, I also want to do more gameplay oriented improvements. I've been testing techniques on my machine to allow me to zoom out by a factor of 4 (you really can't see the followers very easily at that distance), but I'm still not satisfied. As a desktop gamer, I want to be able to zoom out so I can see the whole map on one screen. That And I want the map to be much bigger too. To do that, I've been thinking about having a complete second rendering system for far out zoom levels, where you don't see the terraces any more, but they can be faked by pixel shader estimating where the edges of the land would be, like a really hacked pixel shader ray marching thing. This would mean we could zoom out and out forever, using any old geo-mipmap or LOD terrain system. Which ties into the last bit: I want the god powers to rip the land apart. Volcano shouldn't just make lava that cools into slabs of land, it should bend the land upwards, cracking it, breaking it, and generally being a nuisance. It should leave a dirty mess that doesn't fit in with the landscape around it, and only by using a cleanup power (like beautify) would you be able to get it back to manipulable land. At least that's what I'd like to do. As to wasting my time on graphics as opposed to gameplay: I don't get to do gameplay or game designing, so me doing graphics stuff would never detract from Godus advancing on that track. Lights sound interesting - but wouldn't be something I'd value that highly at this point in time. Zooming in and out however would definitely be something I'd place highly on the agenda. The concept you describe for terrain deformation does sound interesting - although I do not know whether it'd "fit" with the very layered terrain design as it stands so I guess I'll wait and see. As for your final sentence - I guess you're right in saying that. Though my observation on Godus so far (and this is also true for many other games) is that the emphasis from up top seems to be that 'the people in charge' often value graphics far more than gameplay. It seems that the conclusion made is that a beautiful game without gameplay will sell far better than a mediocre looking game with great gameplay. So as with my criticism, the comment that 22cans should focus on gameplay and not graphics is something directed at the team and not the individual. I guess if I had the chance I would slap Peter over the head and tell him to fix his game before polishing it up. The gameplay and balancing have been put on the backburner for a very long time and it is hurting the future prospects of his product. It would appear that Peter still believes he's working under a AAA publisher and can apply the same practices with as only difference that he doesn't have a board of directors to answer to. (He has said as much in an interview before...) Apparently it doesn't dawn on him that the actual paying customers are that 'group' he answers to right now, and by letting them down he's been hurting the chances of his game aswell as his company. Just looking at the mobile reviews, I've noticed that Godus isn't particularly well received there either. Many pointing out that the monetization seems to be the only developed mechanic and that the game treats its players like they are drooling idiots that do not have a clue. |
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Raspofabs
Former 22Cans staff
Posts: 227
I like: coding, high peat single malts, ... , yeah, that's about it.
I don't like: object oriented design, and liver.
Steam: raspofabs
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Post by Raspofabs on Aug 13, 2014 12:35:21 GMT
Fabs, you have brilliant ideas for this game! But it sounds like unfortunately you don't have any input on the actual content, and instead have to follow the instructions you are given. What's the decision-making process at 22Cans as far as design decisions are concerned? Where do the requirements come from - are they based on analytics, user feedback, Peter's ideas or a combination of the three? Does DeNA have any input or offer any ideas? Who gets the final say? As much as my ideas don't gain any traction, I also don't know how features get requested and authorised either. I think DeNA only get say on stuff to do with making the game profitable for Mobile, and I think that the suggestions from outside, such as yours, are curated by the CM team and then go through Jack and Jamie before they reach Peter. This is all just what I've picked up though, not quotable fact, sorry. |
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Post by nikink on Aug 13, 2014 13:12:09 GMT
Is it possible to raise the minimum specs for different platforms? Or even have those neat lighting effects available for machines that can handle them but turned off for ones that can't? Greater zoom would be fantastic, btw.  |
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