Delayed to early 2015

[archangel979]

 

I think we can at least agree to disagree. We obviously want different design from games. I don't care about "degenerative gameplay" and prefer if game let me decide what is good or not, instead of limiting my options through game design. 

Some of your here think differently. Lets leave it at that. You cannot change my mind and I cannot change yours.

 

We're clearly disagreeing, whether we agree about it or not, and yes, I agree that some of that is due to different preferences. 

 

We can still discuss the respective arguments on each of our sides.

 

For example, "I don't care about degenerative gameplay" means "I don't care if the systems in my game are broken or exploitable." That's about equivalent to "I don't care about design." 

 

That's a perfectly valid position to take, but IMO it kind of disqualifies you from talking about the subject to start with. It's a bit like someone saying "I don't care for music" but insisting on discussing the latest performance of Wagner's Ring at Bayreuth anyway.

 

Second, "limiting my options through game design." That argument is fundamentally nonsensical, as has been pointed out to you by several people already.

 

A game is a created artifact. It is defined precisely by the limitations it puts on your options through its ruleset. Remove those limitations, and you have no game left. It's like starting with a group of people playing a tabletop game and then throwing out the rulebooks and deciding to tell each other stories instead. That can still be brilliant fun, but it's no longer a game by any reasonable definition of the word -- and, of course, since things on a computer are made of rules -- programming logic -- that cannot, by definition, exist on a computer.

 

I.e., whatever your preferences are, your arguments are weak. If you really want to conclude the discussion, just say "I like exploitable systems." To that there really is nothing to add.

 

I know you are really trying but should have learned by now that you cannot win the Internet. 

 

You presented your opinions and I presented mine. They are pretty opposite. The best you can get out of this situation is that we can agree to disagree.

[talharbash]

Does this delay mean they will continue updating the backer beta or...?

[Flow]

Does this delay mean they will continue updating the backer beta or...?

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68877-delayed-to-early-2015/page-5?do=findComment&comment=1519401

[PrimeJunta]

I know you are really trying but should have learned by now that you cannot win the Internet. 

 

You presented your opinions and I presented mine. They are pretty opposite. The best you can get out of this situation is that we can agree to disagree.

 

Oh, that post wasn't for you. It was for whoever's reading.

[Lephys]

@archangel, this is not about winning anything. It's about the difference between opinions and facts. The stuff we've pointed out to you is true regardless of whether or not we like it. It's like explaining how 2 and 2 add up to 4. You can't dismiss that as opinion. You can love 4, or hate 4, or want to add different numbers, etc. But 2 + 2 isn't 4 purely because someone likes that answer.

 

Doesn't mean "HAHA! We're right and your opinion is bad!". It's simply two different things. So, when you respond with stuff about winning, it kind of suggests you're missing that distinction.

 

We didn't invent what game design is or isn't. We're just telling you.

 

Or, if none of that still makes any sense to you, I'd ask this simple question:

 

At what point does a game grant sufficient freedom? When is it not cutting off someone's preferred options?

[Zeckul]

 

I know you are really trying but should have learned by now that you cannot win the Internet. 

 

You presented your opinions and I presented mine. They are pretty opposite. The best you can get out of this situation is that we can agree to disagree.

 

Oh, that post wasn't for you. It was for whoever's reading.

+1 for using sound logic and patience to clearly dismantle clichés and common fallacies.

[VirtualForce]

My brain understands, my heart doesn't....such a great conflict.

[AndreaColombo]

My brain understands, my heart doesn't....such a great conflict.

How delightfully Sturm und Drang!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yeah. It had that Goethe-Angst and -Stimmung, married with and marred by Zeitgeist and Weltschmerz.

[PrimeJunta]

Re brain/heart... that's a thing too, especially so with "retro" stuff like this. However, when discussing this stuff it's IMO important to keep it clear which one's talking.

 

I really dig most of the IE games despite their occasionally glaring laws, and in a way some of those flaws have become central to the experience. Fixing them results in something that doesn't feel the same and therefore loses that golden glow of nostalgia. There are people who really dig British sports cars of that certain period when it was really hard to get electricity, oil pressure, and brakes all working at the same time, and I've understood from talking with them that similar cars that, you know, work most of the time just don't have the same charm.

 

Even so, I think that if you wanted to build a spiritual successor to, say, the Triumph Spitfire, it would be a bad idea to knowingly design it to break down every few miles. Same thing with this project. Fix the flaws. It will be better. We can enjoy it and then reminisce together about how awesome it was when you figured out 30 hours into the game that your character and party build just wasn't going to cut it and you had to start over.

[Sensuki]

That's never happened to me lol

[archangel979]

 

 

I know you are really trying but should have learned by now that you cannot win the Internet. 

 

You presented your opinions and I presented mine. They are pretty opposite. The best you can get out of this situation is that we can agree to disagree.

 

Oh, that post wasn't for you. It was for whoever's reading.

+1 for using sound logic and patience to clearly dismantle clichés and common fallacies.

 

Lol. Another guy that wants to win the internet.

Edited October 7, 2014 by archangel979

[PrimeJunta]

The first IE game I played was BG2. It happened to me... many times with that. Same for Planescape: Torment which is just perverse in the character-building mechanics. The IWD's and BG1 not so much but by the time I played those I already knew how these things work.

[archangel979]

Only game I had to start over after 10+ hours of playing was Diablo 2 where I ****ed up my build and could not progress in Act 4. 

[Seari]

Does everything really need to award the same xp? Might as well not have xp then, and have level ups on certain points.

[Cantousent]

Does everything really need to award the same xp? Might as well not have xp then, and have level ups on certain points.

Yeah, I don't think everything should award the exact same XP.  I think some results are superior and should receive superior rewards, some in terms of story based or other intangible awards, some in terms of character ability, some in terms of loot, and some in terms of XP.  I know I know!  Someone will say, "isn't that arbitrary?!"  Of course it's arbitrary.  The idea that the ultimate mission is to get rid of the arbitrary nature of rewards is akin to the idea of absolute freedom.  I mean, someone decides the manner in which XP is doled out to the party, which things count as quests or not, which activities will grant XP in the first place, and the ultimate resolution to quests which grant a huge chunk of XP, but having that same person decide which results are better than other will just be too 'arbitrary?'

 

I also don't think every method should always grant the exact XP.  Some times, the ideal way to overcome an obstacle really *is* combat.  Sometimes, it's with a glib tongue.  Sometimes, avoiding danger and going around the obstacle is ideal.

[phalzyr]

I don't understand the people asking it to be pushed back to March or April because other games are coming out. I consider myself very low middle class... but if I am interested in a game I buy it. it doesn't change my bank account whether I buy it in Jan or in April, so if two games I plan on buying change to come out at the same time... I buy both

 

Release it when it is ready :D

 

I wish planescape torment would of delayed more, I think that it is the only game I wanted to play to the end but couldn't finish (I don't know why but every playthrough I hit the same game stopping bug... So I gave up...)

[gkathellar]

I don't understand the people asking it to be pushed back to March or April because other games are coming out. I consider myself very low middle class... but if I am interested in a game I buy it. it doesn't change my bank account whether I buy it in Jan or in April, so if two games I plan on buying change to come out at the same time... I buy both

 

Release it when it is ready :D

 

I wish planescape torment would of delayed more, I think that it is the only game I wanted to play to the end but couldn't finish (I don't know why but every playthrough I hit the same game stopping bug... So I gave up...)

 

A lot of people only buy a new game when they're done with their current one. So if DA:I and PoE release at the same time, and one of those people is looking for something to play, and DA:I is higher on their priorities list, PoE will go unnoticed.

 

Check out the Planescape Torment fixpack and tweakpack. Both make it much less buggy and much more bearable.

[phalzyr]

But regardless of whether it is released in February while they are playing the other game until April... It doesn't stop them from buying it in April, but if it is released in April it prevents me from playing it in February  (I will be playing TW3 but anyway...)

 

What they have no wishlist or really bad memory?

 

I thought it just weird to want something delayed simply because they don't want to play two games at once or wait to play a game they bought until done with current one...

 

Now The publisher take is another thing... Sales... (which in long run I don't think it'd have much effect unless they have a lot of people with the memory of gold fish and forget they wanted the game lol)

[Flayeriv]

Heh, as much as I want to see this game out as soon as possible, I don't mind it taking a while. I'm concerned my current laptop won't be able to deal with it and the longer I can push back the upgrade the better. Also it gives me more time to settle into the community before the sudden 'game release' explosion.

[H0RSE]

Technically, nothing has been delayed. Wasn't the release date "Winter 2014?" Winter doesn't start till December, and it ends in March, so an "early 2015" launch, could still be within the Winter '14 prediction.

[Lephys]

Technically, nothing has been delayed. Wasn't the release date "Winter 2014?" Winter doesn't start till December, and it ends in March, so an "early 2015" launch, could still be within the Winter '14 prediction.

True, but Winter "2014" typically means that the release date will fall only within winter, and also only within the year 2014. It's like a search filter, with two criteria. The season will be winter, and the year will be 2014. Where those intersect, you had your possible release date. So, now, they've basically said "Okay, it's no longer going to be out by the end of the year 2014," and scratched that criterion off, leaving "winter" (although, they haven't actually said that it will definitely be before winter's end, now).

[Aotrs Commander]

Disappointed... but unsurprised - this sort of thing happens. Part of the point of Kickstarter was so that the devs are not under the thumb of a company wanting to rush a game out before it's finished, so I'd rather the game be released when it's finished and not before.

 

Mostly I'm disappointed because this will still be the first Kickstarter game to come to fruition and I've been WOEFULLY short of new games this year. (Like, I think with this being pushed back, it means I will have bought about... maybe five...? All year? I think?)

[Larkaloke]

I'm not either surprised or disappointed that it was delayed. I would always rather see a more highly polished and better game than a more swiftly relased one. As far as I'm concerned, they can take as long as they want -- within limits, of course, but half a year is well within reasonable limits. So long as it doesn't get to the five-to-ten years point, all's good to me. I might like to be playing the game right now, but I'd ultimately rather be playing a better or more complete game at some date in the future rather than a slightly worse one sooner.

 

Technically, nothing has been delayed. Wasn't the release date "Winter 2014?" Winter doesn't start till December, and it ends in March, so an "early 2015" launch, could still be within the Winter '14 prediction.

True enough, technically speaking. I'm used to thinking of "winter" as being more of "end of October through the middle of April", but that's based on snowfall, not the calendar -- although, thinking of it that way, it's even more the case that early 2015 would still be the same winter.

[Gromnir]

I know some people wonder why this was the specific time when we chose to announce our delay.  After all, there were big problems in Gamescom/BB build, so why not announce a delay immediately?  I think it's a reasonable thing to wonder about, so hopefully this explanation will answer some of your questions.

 

When you, the individual developer, think there is a timeline problem on a project, it's usually not enough to simply rely on spidey-sense.  There are exceptions to this, e.g. if you're working on a small team where everyone has high exposure to almost every aspect of the game.  But with a team of 20+ people working on a project at a company of well over 100, gut feelings aren't substantive enough to make immediate course-corrections.  What they are good enough to do is start investigating and start planning potential scenarios.  When the Backer Beta went out, Adam, Brandon, and I all knew there were major problems, but we needed to quantify those problems in terms of time spent across our team.  I.e., how many problems, how long do these problems take to fix, and who has time to fix these problems?  We also had found work, which is a general way of bundling those valuable and worthwhile new features and options that backers and internal developers bring up that we think we really should take the time to pursue.

 

We worked with the OEI owners to quantify all of this work and project it out over the next several months.  There's really no point in us hooting and hollering that the sky is falling until we realistically understand how fast the sky is falling and what is required to prevent it from crashing.  This took the time between the BB launch and several updates.  That gave us burn down rates on bugs, a comprehensive listing and allocation of found work, and time for all of the leads to discuss a realistic timeline to complete the game at the necessary quality level.  Of course, we also needed to discuss all of this with Paradox since they are the publisher for PoE and are handling a large number of logistical aspects of completing the game, including physical goods, localization, PR, marketing, and some QA.

 

We also try to be as general as possible for as long as possible on dates for two reasons a) the closer we get to the end, the more accurate our estimates get and b) nobody likes seeing a ship date shift five times.  If we could get all of our estimates right and all of the backed features in and polished exactly on time, that would be ideal.  But if I'm forced to pick two of the following three: all promised features, high level of quality, on time -- "on time" is almost always going to be the thing I'd prefer to sacrifice.  On many of the projects I've been a part of "level of quality" has been the thing sacrificed, and I've almost never had a say in it.

work has kept us away for a bit, so am only seeing these posts after some necrosis. apologies. nevertheless, am going to note dubious characterization. much like cant and others with experience following game developments, we has become jaded about release dates, so we took "2014" with a grain o' salt. and yeah, when gamescom and bb builds were released we made a few comments regarding how skeptical we were 'bout a 2014 release. obsidian silence on release date would not have surprised us one bit. the thing is, obsidian weren't silent. after the gamescom build and bb build were released, we were still heating that PoE would release in 2014. 

 

if you had made this kinda post after gamescom or after first bb build, or following the first patch, am expecting you would have had far fewer folks on the purchaser side "hooting and hollering that the sky is falling."

 

*shrug*

 

we has noted many times that we is happy 'bout the delay, 'cause the builds we has seen and played appeared to need a good amount of work. the thing is, you guys brought some o' the fan panic on yourselves when we kept being told, without equivocation, that 2014 were gonna be the release. am knowing you couldn't unilateral change the release date on your own, but am thinking you likewise gotta acknowledge that hearing that 2014 would be the release date AFTER we saw some o' your builds is not the same thing as obsidian silence while doing due diligence.

 

HA! Good Fun! 

Edited October 16, 2014 by Gromnir