Steam

[gibby290]

Any updates on Steam availability?

[Widgin]

Several friends and I would also like to know this. Are you waiting until all the RotR adventures are done, or maybe for Multiplayer to be implemented?

[gibby290]

I simply prefer to play on the PC.  I don't enjoy playing games on the tablet.  It'd be an instant buy with all content on Steam.

[Hannibal_PJV]

I don't Expect Steam Anytime soon. The phone versions Are next big platform update. Maybe christmast or next spring? But your ques is as good as mine. But their todo list is quite long and PC version is not very high on that list. It is coming, but there is a lot of things before that. I Expect the PC version to have own beta stage before release too. So if you here about PC beta, the release can be one to three months from that depending on the bug situation.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Hannibal_PJV

[wakasm]

As much as I want steam personally, they need to tackle the following to maximize success with it: 

• Account Data Sharing between devices
• Content 
• Bugs
• Achievements 
• multiplayer

Achievements are not important to all, but they are important to a lot of Steam people, so would be silly to not have all that in place.

 

Lack of multiplayer, even though I don't personally think it's AS needed as much with a co-op game of this style, users will give the game negative reviews if it's missing.  Multiplayer enhances competitive games with crappy AI, but luckily, co-ops play well with 1 or more. 

 

Steam also has a super forgiving refund system, so, I'll break out the popcorn if they launch Steam before all of this is in place.  

 

However, if done right... i believe you'd see a nice boost in users since you'll see more Streamers and potentially cross platform growth as people want to continue their games in multiple places.  Lack of content will kill this though if they don't figure that out as well.

 

Lots of challenges... fingers crossed, but expectation at an absolute minimum at this point.  

Edited August 9, 2016 by wakasm

[The Real Redgar]

For those of you looking to play on a PC rather than play on Steam specifically: no need to wait a minute longer.  I'm playing right now on my laptop (works fine with the touchscreen, works fine with mouse).

 

(Bluestacks .  Every month it will ask me to pay or install some apps; I'll install the apps, then uninstall them.)

[araciel]

I actually prefer Andy, but yea it's the only way to roll.

[PinkRose]

Not supported, but works well.

[hfm]

I simply prefer to play on the PC.  I don't enjoy playing games on the tablet.  It'd be an instant buy with all content on Steam.

 

Can't say enough good things about AmiDuOS

 

http://www.amiduos.com/

 

Using the Lollipop version, it's fantastic.

[Marginal0]

Obviously a lot of us are waiting for this, as I don't like playing tablet emulators to play the game on my pc. I used Andy based on recommendations from a player here, but it tends to install random content on itself that you have to delete. But hey: it's free and it works fine. Is AmiDuOS better? It seems this is not free, and I don't plan to buy something solely for this game (which I already purchased).

 

That being said, wakasm makes some valid points. The developers realize better than anybody that when you release it on steam with any amount of bugs and potential problems listed here, you're not going to catch any kudos from the players, but rather negative reviews that will undermine potential sales. So I'll wait. It's better to release with all content available anyway. And if I have to start over because my accounts aren't linked, I'm not even going to bother.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Marginal0

[Flounder]

I think Hannibal_PJV is getting to know us too well.

 

We do plan on a Steam version but it is further down the road.  I think Marginal0 summed it up quite well and if we have too many issues we will get rating murdered and never be seen again.

 

Our publishing arm is doing some research but I do have a question for you Steam users though.  "What do you think the cost of the game should be?"

 

Since we are using a PlayFab ID, all your content will be available for any platform (assume account syncing is in by then, because it better be) so if you got it on Steam for $0.00 you would have everything carried over from your Android/iOS...  

 

OR do you think it would be better to go the opposite direction and charge $25 for the game and get all the deck 1-6 content kind of like a bundle purchase?

 

Again, this is me being curious and shouldn't be indicative of any decisions that are being made.

[Hannibal_PJV]

Point and point... If it is directly 25, there is not worrying about free to play vs normal Gaming.

Ofcourse you would lose free to play posibility... No personal opinion to either direction.

[quidproquo]

Bloody brilliant if cross platform playability! Get it done! After deck four is out first, tho.

[PinkRose]

I'm always happier to buy a full game.

Makes it feel not like a Tablet/phone/mobile port where I get nickel and dimed.

 

But if I can port everything over from the game that I've already invested (I think that's what you are saying), that would be magical.

[wakasm]

 

OR do you think it would be better to go the opposite direction and charge $25 for the game and get all the deck 1-6 content kind of like a bundle purchase?

 

 

Since the framework is there, you should release it for free and sync content.  I would not have said this though if Pandora's box wasn't already opened.  It should have been a paid game from the start, but I think reversing it at this point would do more harm than good, but it might be possible.

 

Your enemy against F2P bad reviews are:

• your glacial pace of content (and miscommunication of said content)
• bugs, bugs, and more bugs

Luckily, a Steam release would ideally be where all of this is fixed and done, and thus, you will probably be in a good place for a F2P steam release by then.   Needless to say... the app should have also been released in this condition. 

 

My only advice would be to have even more content planned & in the works by then to do your best to avoid content droughts, as I predict that will be the biggest killer of your game. 2 or 3 week cycles, or even splitting up content into smaller chunks should work. Some people are not affected by content droughts, but I think the majority are and it's super prone to backlash.  

 

Related sidenote:

• People would pay for an Adventure Path 7+, or an Obsidian Custom Made Adventure Path, that has new cards bundled into it and are balanced for the content, including tougher banes as well
• I personally think the best implemented F2P aspect that was implemented was letting users play starter adventure path for free, since this game has to be experienced to get addicted to it.  
• I personally think the worst implemented F2P aspects were treasure chests (I suspect there will be disagreement on this).  For me, it feels misguided since this is not a collectable card game, and was forced in at the expense of game content and dilutes the value of adventure paths and the cards they unlock
• The current system undervalues extra characters add-ons and extra adventure paths as a means of gold/money sinks for players, which I understand is related to dev time - but I also think it's misguided.
  • As an example: We've seen 2 treasure chest updates + codes released in bundles for them, We've seen 0 extra characters, We are still missing 3 Adventure Paths 

That's not to say I think the treasure chest is completely horrible.  I like the collection aspect of it, which could still exist even without it, by tracking it through encounter rates like a beastipedia.  I do like it's a gold sink.   I just think it should be restricted to non-gameplay things, like dice, and/or maybe foils of cards, and definitely shouldn't exist if you decide to release the game in full for $25 on steam... especially since the cards could easily be wrapped up into Adventure Path releases which would also make you money. 

Edited August 31, 2016 by wakasm

[PinkRose]

Not sure I agree with everything you said, Wakasm, but I'm not the developer.

But I do want to say I like how thorough and well thought out your above post was.

That's nothing but helpful for Obsidian.

I wish my post was as salient as yours.

[Elaborigen]

My personal opinion as a Steam user would be to release it for free with no content as a demo but only having the option to buy the adventure path and characters via money, leave gold only for chests.

 

Although just the fact that it would say Free game on steam might make some people ignore it (I know I most of the time don't pay much attention to those kind of titles because they are more likely to be moneysinks).

 

The best approach would be to do like sentinels of the multiverse, I think. Release the whole game with the RotR bundle for 25$ and also what is now free as a Demo, so it would appear as 2 different products on steam and point the to the demo on the main product page.

[RedPred]

Not sure about that.

League of Legend is a f2p. Pure, solid, planetary and very remunerative.

If you have a solid f2p and the same solid p2p the main difference is players amount. Players pays anyway for LoL 'real money stuff'.

 

If you look business plan of 'indecent' companies (King, IGG, ..), they based everything on f2p and they have huge income.

 

But they release at least one new content for month or one new update, and the first critical aspect they solved is the stability and compatibility of their software.

 

Here we have an incomplete Story, a broken Quest, an 'abstract' multiplayer feature in first screen, NO MANUAL in the app... and a very large amount of bugs. And devs solved many issues with last patch... And still there are some issues from day 1 of release... still there after 4 months. And every update introduces new ones...

 

Players who joined the forum are a little numbers of total. The fact that every day appears a new 'Quest - missed reward' thread is quite self-explicatory.

 

The snail that runs half way every day never gets the end... (I m quite sure you have a different version of that... sorry guys )

If you add elements and you are too slow to fix old and new stuff, simply this work endures for next year if we are lucky...

 

Devs know exactly how many new accounts there are every day, and how many players stop playing per day (inactive/lifetime)... And you know that it's rare to come back today, when we have a dozen of new app/games every single day... to fill 1/2 hours per day.

Then every player who leave for issues is a potential bad review that comes out and stays there forever pushing down ratings.

 

For the final price in Steam/PlayStore/AppleStore ... choose a solid business plan to support this beautiful game. No really matter what. But all the accounts that played the game in the actual state (both p2p and f2p) and that today still support it, and will until its final state, they all have already paid the use licence ... in my honest opinion..

 

Personally I stopped to play some days ago, for the second time, so I continue jumping here to read news and announcements mostly, and helping some new players when I can. As I already told you, I like this game because it's a cooperative rpg and my end-game is to play with all of you around the world a kind of game I can't play anymore around a table.. since two decades. And now that seems to me far away..

[Elaborigen]

Free to play games fare better when there is some interaction between players. Basically, the game is free so that it gets a nice playerbase, but has some in-app purchases that can make a portion of the players "feel superior" to the rest (being pay-to-win advantages or cosmetic items).

In those games even the players that will never pay anything have some value just by playing because the paying ones will have people to play against. Some of this paying players spend astonishing amounts of money as there is generally no limit to how much you can spend on these games, or if there is it's in the thousands of dollars, so they normally rely on making money out of these big spenders.

 

So you can't really compare this to LoL, nor to most other f2p games of the same kind since they're generally not single player (even single player ones will have a global ranking of some sort).

I personally think it's probably not the best choice but I'm sure whoever made the decision has more knowledge about it and knows what they're trying to achieve. It would be interesting to know the reasoning behind the decision.

[Ripe]

 

Related sidenote:

• People would pay for an Adventure Path 7+, or an Obsidian Custom Made Adventure Path, that has new cards bundled into it and are balanced for the content, including tougher banes as well
• I personally think the best implemented F2P aspect that was implemented was letting users play starter adventure path for free, since this game has to be experienced to get addicted to it.  
• I personally think the worst implemented F2P aspects were treasure chests (I suspect there will be disagreement on this).  For me, it feels misguided since this is not a collectable card game, and was forced in at the expense of game content and dilutes the value of adventure paths and the cards they unlock
• The current system undervalues extra characters add-ons and extra adventure paths as a means of gold/money sinks for players, which I understand is related to dev time - but I also think it's misguided.
  • As an example: We've seen 2 treasure chest updates + codes released in bundles for them, We've seen 0 extra characters, We are still missing 3 Adventure Paths 

That's not to say I think the treasure chest is completely horrible.  I like the collection aspect of it, which could still exist even without it, by tracking it through encounter rates like a beastipedia.  I do like it's a gold sink.   I just think it should be restricted to non-gameplay things, like dice, and/or maybe foils of cards, and definitely shouldn't exist if you decide to release the game in full for $25 on steam... especially since the cards could easily be wrapped up into Adventure Path releases which would also make you money. 

 

I agree with you on Treasure chest... not sure they were necessary addition and they will cause a whole lot of problems in the future. You're right they do dilute value of Adventure Deck cards (it's deck, not path... Adventure Path is set of 6 Adventure Decks) but luckily we do have an option to turn them off in story mode, which is the first thing I did after acquiring my first treasure chest cards.

 

Problem with treasure cards will became bigger once we get to a second Adventure Path (Skulls & Shackles) because a lot of the cards that were added here as part of treasure chest are integral part of that AP. Even bigger problem will became Damiel who is already overpowered as it is (how else would you call a character who can potentially deal d10+d8+4d6+5 points of damage from the first turn! Without anyone using a blessing or something similar on him!) and now, thanks to those treasure cards he will get all those Flasks that he recharges by default since they have Alchemical trait...

Edited August 31, 2016 by Ripe

[Hannibal_PJV]

 

Related sidenote:

 

• People would pay for an Adventure Path 7+, or an Obsidian Custom Made Adventure Path, that has new cards bundled into it and are balanced for the content, including tougher banes as well
• I personally think the best implemented F2P aspect that was implemented was letting users play starter adventure path for free, since this game has to be experienced to get addicted to it.  
• I personally think the worst implemented F2P aspects were treasure chests (I suspect there will be disagreement on this).  For me, it feels misguided since this is not a collectable card game, and was forced in at the expense of game content and dilutes the value of adventure paths and the cards they unlock
• The current system undervalues extra characters add-ons and extra adventure paths as a means of gold/money sinks for players, which I understand is related to dev time - but I also think it's misguided.

• As an example: We've seen 2 treasure chest updates + codes released in bundles for them, We've seen 0 extra characters, We are still missing 3 Adventure Paths 

That's not to say I think the treasure chest is completely horrible.  I like the collection aspect of it, which could still exist even without it, by tracking it through encounter rates like a beastipedia.  I do like it's a gold sink.   I just think it should be restricted to non-gameplay things, like dice, and/or maybe foils of cards, and definitely shouldn't exist if you decide to release the game in full for $25 on steam... especially since the cards could easily be wrapped up into Adventure Path releases which would also make you money.

I agree with you on Treasure chest... not sure they were necessary addition and they will cause a whole lot of problems in the future. You're right they do dilute value of Adventure Deck cards (it's deck, not path... Adventure Path is set of 6 Adventure Decks) but luckily we do have an option to turn them off in story mode, which is the first thing I did after acquiring my first treasure chest cards.

 

Problem with treasure cards will became bigger once we get to a second Adventure Path (Skulls & Shackles) because a lot of the cards that were added here as part of treasure chest are integral part of that AP. Even bigger problem will became Damiel who is already overpowered as it is (how else would you call a character who can potentially deal d10+d8+4d6+5 points of damage from the first turn! Without anyone using a blessing or something similar on him!) and now, thanks to those treasure cards he will get all those Flasks that he recharges by default since they have Alchemical trait...

If I have to ques, I would Expect that S and S will be separate game, so any treasure cards you have, don't go to that game.

Treasure cards Are good for the quest mode, because it is so much longer, so They provide good diversity in that mode.

[Ripe]

 

If I have to ques, I would Expect that S and S will be separate game, so any treasure cards you have, don't go to that game.

Treasure cards Are good for the quest mode, because it is so much longer, so They provide good diversity in that mode.

I expect S&S will have it's own Vault and will be somewhat separate but I hope it won't be completely separated game because I'm looking forward to soloing RotR with Feiya...

[wakasm]

If I have to ques, I would Expect that S and S will be separate game, so any treasure cards you have, don't go to that game. 

 

 

If they make it separate, that is probably where I'd lose interest.  It doesn't need to be it's own thing, especially with how much they've made the game repeatable and farmable. It should be tt's own adventure path, but in the same app.  They might as well respect the option to choose characters from sets and use them in other Adventure Paths... and for Quest mode, the possibilities are fairly endless.  

 

Treasure cards Are good for the quest mode, because it is so much longer, so They provide good diversity in that mode.

 

 

 

 

Quest mode has lots of opportunity outside of the treasure chest as well... such as S&S or even a card add-on packs.  It just doesn't have to be a random collect-a-thon wrapped up in a random-encounter-a-thon, which is why I believe they stole the wrong parts of F2P for that aspect.  But, I feel like this distracts from the Steam conversation, so I won't comment more on it. 

Edited September 1, 2016 by wakasm

[Killer_Power]

The best approach would be to do like sentinels of the multiverse, I think. Release the whole game with the RotR bundle for 25$ and also what is now free as a Demo, so it would appear as 2 different products on steam and point the to the demo on the main product page.

I think, this is a really good idea!

Release it as a full game for 25$, which comes with the full bundle and also offer either a f2p version or a demo (demo would probably be better), which has the content of the free mobile App (including the possibility to "upgrade" to full version for 25$).

[Greenvise]

There is absolutely no way that Obsidian releases Skull & Shackles as a fully-separate game. S&S will probably feature a separate vault, but that vault could easily contain all your treasure cards. And characters will absolutely, 100% be shareable across all campaigns - that's the way the PACG works, and it would be a colossally stupid move for Obsidian not to do the same thing.

 

You'll be able to play with your unlocked characters and things in Skull & Shackles. I can virtually guarantee it. I bet my cherry vanilla Pepsi on it.

 

Cherry. Vanilla.