Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

DEV Zoom wrote:

I think I already said this somewhere, but you should accept the fact that no single feature that we do or don't do will bring in new players. It's sales and publicity that does this.

You may not agree with the order of how we do things, but with gammas out, there is a big chunk of the game missing, basically the whole thing that's currently meant as endgame. After much consideration we have decided to do gammas first, so we can focus on PvE again after it's done. Trust me when I say that if our opinion was that this would mean the death of the game then we would have chosen a different plan.

You're never gonna get the publicity because you tuck in your turtleneck for 4 months without a peep. I told you 4 and 3 and 2 years ago, you NEED to put blog posts out every 2-3 weeks consistently.

This is a sample of what people are saying about your game on Steam;

"Do not get it. Only people left in this games are vets who played this game since launch, and for very good reasons
- broken economy [and i mean it, it's just plain broken and doesn't exist as almost all trade is done inside corps]
- very dated graphics and non-scalable ui (makes most of the text there barely readble from any distance at resolutions above 1080p)
- no pve content, if you will go PVE route you will be doing 3 missions over and over (literally 3)
- combat mechanics are very bare and simplistic compared to eve.
- crafting is pointless, in order to craft anything meaningfull you will have to spend weeks killing NPCs to gather enough datacores to unlock something meaningful (and even then, look the point about broken market).
The only thing going for it is the existing community as they are deperate for every single new player, but the steam graphs are very brutal and show that people who try this game, just give up (http://steamcharts.com/app/223410#1m)."

Thats not "grrr evil syndic wants the game to fail", thats what your customers are saying about your game.

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Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

DEV Zoom wrote:

I'm writing up what you need to know right now.

i hope you put another gamma online for the testing? one with a bit better terrain that is not passable for mechs almost across the whole island without turning.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
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Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

Additionally,

Your entire concept is ass-backwards.

5+ months to make Gamma
? months to tweak PVE
? months to add some reason to even bother with Gamma
? months to fix the Beta which will be even more worthless by that point

We're talking with your development speed realistically a year from today.

[18:20:30] <GLiMPSE> Chairman Of My Heart o/
CIR Complaint Form

The Imperial Grand Wizard of Justice

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

thats if theres a game to develop in a year lol

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

I would help with testing if you need it

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

Glad its FTP now.  Just log in, check the market, and wait for the game to be fixed all while doing other things smile 
I always felt the game was more fun when observers roamed alphas, external gates didn't have protection when you jump through, no mobile beacons etc etc.  But then again, I was never a big fan of gamma even when it first came out.  lol

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

DEV Zoom wrote:

Corp A: It's too expensive to build bases, it needs to be hard to destroy them, otherwise it's not worth it!
Corp B: We gain close to nothing from destroying bases, it needs to be easy to destroy them, otherwise it's not worth it!

What kind of corp form the both above _you_ think will help the game develop farther?
The ones who like to build up something, but only if their assets are somehow protected or the ones that like to have it as simple as possible to destroy sand castles?

I think you need to answer this question for yourself.

33 (edited by Stranger Danger 2014-08-19 20:28:58)

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

In the end im starting to see this more like the tutorial that took like two years to develop.

Its happening at a vital stage of the games life, meaning a big population increase is treated to the devs turtled up coding for a few months (ill never forget that QOL patch that fixed auto pilot though)

Its creating content that I don't think many will fully enjoy...like the tutorial...you could have hired a well spoken member of the community to speak on a youtube video of gameplay explaining the functions of the game over dev gameplay footage with arrows and texts highlighting stuff...piece by piece and made a tutorial compendium.  Instead they got a 3 hour tutorial that showed them the whole game when they had zero frame of reference, and most just wanted to leave it.

It pains me to think that we could have had two more robot factions, possibly more tiers of bots, and been better off, than we will be with a three hour tutorial, a butchered gamma, but no money maker "exploits" and three years of dev time spent.

In the end I hope that gamma isn't lacking its once creative outlet, lacking its reason to pve out there, lacking a reason to even mine out there...but hey...lets toss a a couple billion nic out there just because.

Stranger Danger / Capital Punishment / Cyberdown
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34 (edited by Maidden 2014-08-22 02:39:44)

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

Dev Zoom.

The reality of your current situation requires a different approach to the one being currently used. Currently we have community members which strive on pointing out the negatives toward the game. We have developers who are at best semi stagnant on a approach to make this game successful.

As such I will offer some suggestions. Mind you they are not answers, but suggestions.

1. While many of the veteran players like to be heard. Only use the ones that bring a positive light to your game.
2. I would recommend voluntary player moderators. To make sure players and others keep a  supportive tone when talking about the inner issues of the game.  Currently, the community is striving on negativity. They all can point out the bad but very few offer any solution.

3. This is your baby! Act like it! Be more active! If you need help, dont be afraid to ask the community for that help! While you can only do some things. You can appoint community members who are willing to help to do other things.

Syndic is not the greatest PR guy out of game. But he and CIR do wonders for noobies in game. I have personally seen it!

4. You need to promote the game more from its pluses. Number one on the list is the one time buy per account compared to competitors subscriptions. That is a huge PR bonus.

Also the advantages of playing on a world with a sandbox environment. Bots, customization, corps... All the things that make this game great!

5. Always keep new things coming. When was the last time some new bots came about? Scarabs? Hmmm.. What about some new combat bots, new industrial.. Even better new weapons(Example "Pulse Lasers"" Which fire repetitive bursts instead of a steady stream. ) Currently there are lots of open spaces so more content is not necessarily your best choice to work on. But rather work on the inner workings of what you got.

6. Keep your blog active!

7. Get a good PR person/firm who will represent the game best.

I also have some PR ideas for you. But will send them to you personally.

These are just some of the ideas and suggestions. Ill give more later. Have to go get my daughter from the airport!

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

So much time spent on a mechanic that was never going to work because people were involved. Everyone on these forums is guilty of wanting to have their cake and eat it too.

But this all goes back to risk vs reward. Everyone wants little of the first and lots of the later, and we will complain on both sides no matter what you do. All I can say is that from my perspective, I had/have very little interest in Gamma. I wasn't interested the first time it was released, and I'm even less interested now because:

1. It would get blown up, sooner rather then later, because there's a faction of players that really really hate themselves and everyone else and want to ruin everything for everybody.
2. There's next to no reward. Espically with no epriton, and if bases can't have ~all~ production done in one terminal.


Now, lets say you plan to add new islands every 3-4 months for the next year or two, you could make the Islands you plan to reintroduce soon be made a permanent aqusition for a corp. You could even make it a large event where the islands have to be captured/taken from huge armies of NPCs. People love to be part of events. You could release it as a big fanfare, build it up and sell it. Make it to where the island can only be captured by 50+ man corps, 1 per corp. Balance it so the people who love to exploit any way they can... can't.

Instances! Will it ever work in perpetuum engine/coding? Instead of the beacon bringing bots to you, you go to an instance and can shoot npcs and npc bases or bosses. Tie in faction stuff for faction bots.

Bottom line is, we need new shiny toys, and we need them soon. I don't know how, but you guys need to increase volume of output somehow. 2 new bots in 3 years. 2 years work on a feature not many really want. The only thing in recent memory you guys have put out that's gotten pretty universal praise is the autopilot mechanics. Don't mean to sound critical, but it's the truth, and someone must speak it.

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

I liked the autofit tool too!

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

Excellent post Smokeyii

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38 (edited by T3xasp3t3 2014-08-23 02:37:51)

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

Just me dreaming but what if they released a new set of bots that used heavy weapons each race would get on wouldn't that be cool and wait for these bots would require the gamma mineral




Ps i spelled it GAMMA happy Jita?

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

He's banned, ***'em.

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Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
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Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

I'm happy Texas!

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

Martyrdom!

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

I've got more accounts and ip's than Ville has had ... Well not that many

Re: Gamma needs months of testing- please stop development!.

Tonnik wrote:

I've got more accounts and ip's than Ville has had ... Well not that many

Eve and those pron sites dont count!

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War