Curious, why didn't you release pillars as 1.1?

[gristlethick]

Well I guess that I have to ask what caused you to release this game too early. Not enough funding? Wanting to just get done with it? I figured you'd have enough funding. If there was proper funding then there's no hard time constraints right?

 

Seeing what you did with 1.1 and seeing free dlc being pumped out. The game will just continue to get better. And 1.1 was a huge leap forward in itself.

 

The method you used here seems to be a method of self harm? I imagine if you had a more complete game at release then the initial surge of fanfare would have carried sales further as it becomes almost a viral meme or something.

 

I don't get it. I love the game though.

[Wormerine]

I have been wondering about it as well. Not angering fans by delaying the release further? Need to keep the schedule going (base release, DLCs). When Deadfire released, I don’t remember anything else going on, which meant it was good time to release. Maybe the count that every DLC released will give Deadfire another shot at sales?

[Mannock]

Well I guess that I have to ask what caused you to release this game too early. Not enough funding? Wanting to just get done with it? I figured you'd have enough funding. If there was proper funding then there's no hard time constraints right?

 

Seeing what you did with 1.1 and seeing free dlc being pumped out. The game will just continue to get better. And 1.1 was a huge leap forward in itself.

 

The method you used here seems to be a method of self harm? I imagine if you had a more complete game at release then the initial surge of fanfare would have carried sales further as it becomes almost a viral meme or something.

 

I don't get it. I love the game though.

Cause at some point you have to take the plunge. A lot of the stuff found and noticed, wouldn't have been found without the huge player base jumping into the game. There would never have been the 1.1 you see today, even if you had waited until today to release the game. It would more or less have been 1.0 as you saw it when it was released.

 

 

And on a side note; is Deadfire the first cRPG a lot of people have played? Cause judging by the posts on the forums the expectations of 1.0 seem to be way out of proportion. No cRPG is perfect at release. That's my experience of games like these going back to the early 90's.

[Rhaeg]

The game was already pushed back for a bit once; what reactions do you think a second delay would have caused?

[antman45454]

@op

 

Yeah ive been really surprised by how they have handled the release as well for the same reasons you mentioned.

 

People can speculate and only people who work at obsidain would know.

 

One thing i know for sure though is because its a crowd funded game and not funded by a publisher or an IP holder they are not under any of there constraints and are accountable to know one but themselves.

 

This has probably allowed them to be able to get away with doing this. I dont think an investor would ever let them get away with it.

[Night Stalker]

@op

 

Yeah ive been really surprised by how they have handled the release as well for the same reasons you mentioned.

 

People can speculate and only people who work at obsidain would know.

 

One thing i know for sure though is because its a crowd funded game and not funded by a publisher or an IP holder they are not under any of there constraints and are accountable to know one but themselves.

 

This has probably allowed them to be able to get away with doing this. I dont think an investor would ever let them get away with it.

 

Unless of course the investor wanted the game shipped on a certain date come hell or high water - like when Obsidian had to chop up large parts of Kotor II: The Sith Lords ending because Lucars Arts wouldn't give them an extension on their agreed development time (as was their right, to be fair):

 

 

 

But however valiant the team's efforts, Knights of the Old Republic 2 would not be properly finished - "broken", the team implores polite old me - and asking LucasArts for an extension was out of the question. "There would have been substantial penalties had we not have made that date," Avellone tells me. But LucasArts isn't the Sith Lord in all of this, the Obsidianites are quick to point out.

(Source)

[wRAR]

Why didn't they also release PoE1 at 3.0?

[Wormerine]

Why didn't they also release PoE1 at 3.0?

Why didn't they release PoE1 with White March1&2?

[KDubya]

@op

 

Yeah ive been really surprised by how they have handled the release as well for the same reasons you mentioned.

 

People can speculate and only people who work at obsidain would know.

 

One thing i know for sure though is because its a crowd funded game and not funded by a publisher or an IP holder they are not under any of there constraints and are accountable to know one but themselves.

 

This has probably allowed them to be able to get away with doing this. I dont think an investor would ever let them get away with it.

 

 

Just because there was some Kickstarter money does not in any way mean that there were no financial pressures to release and get the influx of sales money into the company.

 

A company has payroll, office rent, insurance and all the other operating expenses that are not funded by the Kickstarter funds. Kickstarter seems more like a sort of marketing scheme rather than a method of bankrolling game development.

 

The game was perfectly playable at release so what is the reason to have held off release for some balance patch? I agree that the gameplay is much better now than at release but its pretty standard for games to improve dramatically post-launch, I just perused through my Steam and GoG libraries and I don't see a single game that was released and never updated or changed after launch.

[Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell]

Got remember there whole market of other games so got find window for said produce that's what you feel is best chance for it.

 

There fact it had original date and had already been moved back once and keep moving goal post probably would start annoying customers.

 

There financial reasons to release game earlier then perfect package.

 

There really big point most artist will understand you can keep working on something and it can become never ending cycle, at some point got say yeah it's time.

 

This was crowd funded but it does have publisher and I personally don't know but publisher could said they wanted it done by set date.

 

Lot issues are not discovered until someone with different mind set finds ways to abuse system or finds unique ways doing things.

 

I find it so very funny that people come on this board and then behave like POE franchise is only franchise to behave in these ways. Most games come out with issues. Obsidian not only company bring game out late. Most companies make new content for there games, some abuse this by forcing microtransactions. Stop it with rose tinted glass please. 

 

Games have become lot bigger then they ever were in past which gives lot space for issues.

 

There the point of computers are made from lots of different components manufactured by lots different companies with lots of software that created by lots companies and multiple systems eg windows linex etc. So its very hard to know what effects those things will have on game till after release. Hence lot of companies prefer game system as it much easier to write game for game system then it is for pc.

Edited June 14, 2018 by Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell

[tinysalamander]

The game was perfectly playable at release so what is the reason to have held off release for some balance patch?

I wouldn't use the world “perfectly” here…

[Judicator]

 

@op

 

Yeah ive been really surprised by how they have handled the release as well for the same reasons you mentioned.

 

People can speculate and only people who work at obsidain would know.

 

One thing i know for sure though is because its a crowd funded game and not funded by a publisher or an IP holder they are not under any of there constraints and are accountable to know one but themselves.

 

This has probably allowed them to be able to get away with doing this. I dont think an investor would ever let them get away with it.

 

The game was perfectly playable at release

You cannot be serious.

[Purudaya]

 

 

@op

 

Yeah ive been really surprised by how they have handled the release as well for the same reasons you mentioned.

 

People can speculate and only people who work at obsidain would know.

 

One thing i know for sure though is because its a crowd funded game and not funded by a publisher or an IP holder they are not under any of there constraints and are accountable to know one but themselves.

 

This has probably allowed them to be able to get away with doing this. I dont think an investor would ever let them get away with it.

 

The game was perfectly playable at release

You cannot be serious.

 

 

It *was* perfectly playable. I (and the vast majority of other customers) played it from beginning to end.  Whether or not it was properly balanced or perfect as a game is a whole other debate, but to argue that a game is 'broken' or 'unplayable' just because its difficulty or some other factor isn't well optimized is grandstanding. PoE2 was flawed at release just as PoE1 was flawed at release, but that doesn't mean it was unplayable.

 

Unplayable = cannot be played. It's an objective term.

 

Unenjoyable, unsatisfying, unbalanced, etc. might be what you're looking for, but any game that can be completed from beginning to end is by definition playable.

Edited June 15, 2018 by Purudaya

[Aryelle Thrace]

As pointed out POE 2 was pushed back for more polishing. Sometimes this ends up being a good thing and I'll point to DAI as an example as it did well enough to be mentioned in shareholder calls twice. First on how it was a cornerstone of the company's profits that year (and all of us being ganes know how rare that happens, especially at a giant at EA) and second they even admitted in the second call that holding DAI back was the right thing to do.

 

It can also workout poorly, but you have to drop the penny sometime.

[gGeorg]

Well I guess that I have to ask what caused you to release this game too early. Not enough funding? Wanting to just get done with it? I figured you'd have enough funding. If there was proper funding then there's no hard time constraints right?

 

Seeing what you did with 1.1 and seeing free dlc being pumped out. The game will just continue to get better. And 1.1 was a huge leap forward in itself.

 

The method you used here seems to be a method of self harm? I imagine if you had a more complete game at release then the initial surge of fanfare would have carried sales further as it becomes almost a viral meme or something.

 

I don't get it. I love the game though.

When you bite more than you could chew then it happens.

Miss-management, wrong time scheduling, underestimate importance of internal\VIP testing.

Fiddling Resolve meaning to the last month before release so NPC could not be polished, difficulty could not be tuned.

 

Also compare marketing campaign POE with DOS.

 

Also check accessibility for casual players in POE, that is horrible.

Can you imagine a 13 year old "I_want_have_fun_NOW", enjoy at first 40 minutes in the game?

Same for a working professional, who has 2 hours per week for gaming.

Is there any option, how to start playing the game in under 5 minutes? (get noticed character import tutorial and character creation, and intro movie is NOT part of the game for casual gamers.)

 

All these mistakes cost tens of thousands not sold copies.

Check number of current players at steam, new POE2 vs a nearly year old DOS2.

That is the result of all these mistakes.

 

Looks to me like devs overfocuse for a story (text) part of the game, underestimate resources for introduction the completely new systems (all the ships mechanics include management and combat,  relationships in party, guild relationships) which  produced a lot of cuts somewhere else, which lead to unpolished things deadbackfire of whole customer satisfaction.

 

I only hope, Obsidians survive this kind of success, learn and make POE3 polished on release.

Edited June 20, 2018 by gGeorg

[Shake Appeal]

Every delay is hugely expensive. The game was in good shape. And tens of thousands of players grinding dozens of hours of gameplay each help find bugs and balance issues faster than Obsidian ever could alone.

[rjshae]

Perfect is the enemy of good.

[wRAR]

Also check accessibility for casual players in POE, that is horrible.

Can you imagine a 13 year old "I_want_have_fun_NOW", enjoy at first 40 minutes in the game?

Same for a working professional, who has 2 hours per week for gaming.

Is there any option, how to start playing the game in under 5 minutes? (get noticed character import tutorial and character creation, and intro movie is NOT part of the game for casual gamers.)

They should play a different genre, or at least not a game with ~60hrs per completion.

[Abel]

Also check accessibility for casual players in POE, that is horrible.

Can you imagine a 13 year old "I_want_have_fun_NOW", enjoy at first 40 minutes in the game?

Same for a working professional, who has 2 hours per week for gaming.

Is there any option, how to start playing the game in under 5 minutes? (get noticed character import tutorial and character creation, and intro movie is NOT part of the game for casual gamers.)

 

 

Accessibility? I think that the franchise is already badly gimped by the things done for accessibility sake.

 

I'm with wRAR on this one.

[Verde]

Because at some point you need to release it...you will always have "stakeholders" you need to please. You can't keep putting it off if you made the commitment to your backers and fans.

 

My only question is did they play through some of the sidequests? Because some have laughable continuity you could spot if you just went a slightly different route. Otherwise it's par for the RPG course...remember Witcher 2? The combat was crap until they released an official overhaul patch a year later. And entire year!

[Ichthyic]

the game DID have a lot of easily avoided dialogue bugs, that were entirely noticeable (but apparently forgotten?) by pretty much everyone who played the game from start to finish, including myself.

and by dialogue bugs, I mean serious things like quests getting reset, etc.

there's a reason I make hundreds of saves when I play an obsidian game.

that said, unlike PoE1, this time I WAS able to backtrack, maneuver around the bugs, and finish the game.  which made it considerably better as a release than PoE1 was, and thus continues obsidian's slow but steady progress towards finally releasing a game that doesn't have any significant bugs in it.

bottom line there is noticeable progress, and that, is a good thing.

 

[Yosharian]

The game was already pushed back for a bit once; what reactions do you think a second delay would have caused?

 

Are the negative reactions from pushing back the game more damaging than releasing the game in a buggy, unbalanced, unpolished state?

 

I don't think there's anything worse than releasing your game in such a state, but there may be more to it than meets the eye, I suppose.

[the streaker]

Well I guess that I have to ask what caused you to release this game too early. Not enough funding? Wanting to just get done with it? I figured you'd have enough funding. If there was proper funding then there's no hard time constraints right?

 

Seeing what you did with 1.1 and seeing free dlc being pumped out. The game will just continue to get better. And 1.1 was a huge leap forward in itself.

 

The method you used here seems to be a method of self harm? I imagine if you had a more complete game at release then the initial surge of fanfare would have carried sales further as it becomes almost a viral meme or something.

 

I don't get it. I love the game though.

I played it through as 1.0 and it was still a great game. Every game will always have a 1.1 patch...