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Any one else a little annoyed
Darkcrystal
Member UncommonPosts: 963
I hardly ever post and I been a huge fan of this game. I gave them 75 bucks to support them and to get in early, I found out that its going to early access in a month so what was the point to get into beta for a few weeks early, when we all paid a few years ago, or a year ago, or what ever.
I find that to be annoying... What was the point.? Also they did invite guilds to test, that never got to test when asked, I plan to still play, but it considers me that they seem disorganized a bit.. Delays happen thats the industry, but a few weeks? cmon, I feel like that was s lap in the face, I got over 20 people to support them and everyone of us got slapped in the face if we would of known this we could of waited..
Also the whole guild thing when they asked on twitche and then screwed people over and invited there buddy guilds instead, I have seen other indies do this as well, I eneded upquiting the game, when some company play favorites. Anyways, wanted to post to let the devs know what they did was wrote, and I hardly ever post about this stuff ever.
Comments
I don't pay for games that have such an extremely small testing size like this one, and I don't follow them either.
To me it means the game is going to be trash and it's just getting funded from promises of being a good game.
If you have a good game and it's already well funded, like this one has been, you shouldn't have to nickle & dime everybody who wants to play.
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A game like Firefall was in beta for years, and I was invited to their beta, nearing 3 years ago, I didn't pay 1 cent to get invited, and a few weeks later I spent $200 on it.
I don't mean to attack this game in particular, it's just a fairly new trend that I strongly dislike, but it seems to be working for some games, so good for them, but I will not and haven't supported a game with a business model like this one.
You got exclusive perks basically, not a bad deal at all considering platinum subscription will cost about that much.
"A game like Firefall was in beta for years, and I was invited to their beta, nearing 3 years ago, I didn't pay 1 cent to get invited, and a few weeks later I spent $200 on it."
Firefall sucks, The Repopulation is better, so the statement above couldn't be more incorrect from my standpoint. Good luck though.
"To me it means the game is going to be trash and it's just getting funded from promises of being a good game.If you have a good game and it's already well funded, like this one has been, you shouldn't have to nickle & dime everybody who wants to play."
Guess you can say the same about Star Citizen since it was crowdfunded as well?
"I don't mean to attack this game in particular, it's just a fairly new trend that I strongly dislike, but it seems to be working for some games, so good for them, but I will not and haven't supported a game with a business model like this one."
It's the new trend alright developers are sick of getting drained by these corporations, ask Marc Jacobs, but I guess Camelot Unchained will suck too since it's crowdfunded games suck? It's OK for Landmark to do crowdfunding, or is it different because they are Sony?
Look at Wildstar and it's layoffs, reducing sub numbers etc, just because a game has money behind it doesn't mean it will have long term success.
Seemed like reasonable responses that you just shot down...cause you must be so far "in the know" what with your 58 thousands stars and absurd status.
How about a little less sarcasm and jackassery...and a little more insight huh?
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
I understand very little of what you posted, but I was just defending crowdfunding, people will talk down about crowdfunding yet go out and buy Wasteland 2 or Divinty Original Sin, not realizing it was made possible by people who "pay for testing". A lot think money grows on trees for small indie companies, it doesn't unfortunately. To mock a company for crowdfunding or "paid testing" is just ignorant. Worse than that Firefall had a real cash shop running for the 3 years it was in beta, it's a joke to hear it, sorry.
You understood exactly what I was saying...is why you posted what you did. Such a better reply than the sarcasm.
Hafta say I agree with you about crowd funding to a point. Have seen it work out great and not...soo
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Criticizes poster for being sarcastic and not addressing OP, is sarcastic in first sentence and does not address OP
@OP: that sucks. You didn't get any additional bonuses for your early & sizable donation? Gotta say I agree with Paige, I tend to avoid donating to games until I can at least try it once.
Dang that sucks OP, 75 bucks is quite a bit of cash.
I wanna know though how a small company like this is going to prevent cheating in this game.
As far as guild invites, we gave some keys to guilds before PAX Prime so they could participate in the siege demo. We never cut their guild access, though some guilds assumed it would be cut after PAX.
Players were guaranteed beta slots, and the game isn't in beta yet. We realized some players had backed and were waiting and with us now being ready for more testers we've been aggressively adding people. That process has gone in what we felt was the most fair way.
Prior to August it was based on pledge amounts, simply because those players had spent a bit of money to support the product, we wanted them to be able to see it progress. We slowly dropped that cut off range over time. Going from $250 to $150 to $100, now to $50 and soon to $25. Each of those packages of course has a lot of extras other than alpha access. But the values served to help us limit players as the game became more ready.
We had another problem though, in that some players had backed the game more a year ago or more ago, and we wanted to get those guys in as soon as possible. So we also began to invite players based on time period. We let in all the original Kickstarter backers first. Then we began letting in the early adopter guys from the web site. That's what we felt was more fair, because they had been waiting the longest. Obviously there's going to be cut off ranges and such where it's less fair to. There's really no way around that. But the choices we made here were with the intention to make the most people happy.
This is still an alpha game. There's still bugs and unfinished content. But it's progressed to the point where it needs more people to start testing the economy in a larger setting. We aren't at an open beta state of readiness, so there needs to still be some barrier of entry so we don't get flooded with players.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
Well .. FireFall (8 years development, in Beta for 4 years) had a guestimated budget of 30 MILLION.
Repop raised 200K in last kickstarter and 50K in the first. This funded 3 years of development so far and has produced an alpha with twice the complexity and features Firefall has. Would they have had 30Mil of funding, i'm sure they wouldn't do the crowdfunding (which is very time consuming ).
That, and also you're supporting an awesome, unique project, helping it to blossom. To me that's part of what crowdfunding is about. Its not about buying, its about supporting what/whom you believe in.
That's great, but I was talking a corrupt business practice.
At the very least games that don't need to crowdfund had an idea/base game design that was worth a company risking $30 million to invest into, and didn't have to nickle & dime players to even have access to test their game for them, for free, which before this whole era people got paid for, now people pay access to test a game for a company.
If you didn't like Firefall you didn't have to play, but there were mass invites to people who just even signed up to their website over the beta testing period.
If I signed up to Firefall 4 years ago I probably would've been invited within a few months max, played it, and either kept playing or moved on without a loss, and this was done because they didn't have to crowdfund, what you posted on the forums and what you did to support the game without your $ is what increased your chances of getting invited, not what Kickstarter package you paid for ahead of time.
I couldn't say the same about this game, sorry.
Again, if the end product turns out great, then awesome, you can call me a cynic. We just clearly don't agree on whether or not selling access to test their game for them (and other games who does this too) is a good or bad thing.
I didn't need to...and I was in no way sarcastic. But I will point out sarcastic, self glorified posts...every time.
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
I agree.
Crowd funding and paid early access are crap practices and part of the problem of why we have such a shitty selection of online games.
I am a fan of the old SWG and hope this game brings that back, but I won't support it until AFTER it releases.
You are blaming the indies for the shitty selection of games, how about those well funded titles with millions behind them?
I think the big difference is that games with big budgets will usually go the safe route and create rehashes of other succesfull games. At least the Indies will try to make something new, something different. And yeah, probably many of them are crap or not up your alley ... but it's that 1 game that makes it all worth it. These indies only have a chance when supported by the gaming community.
Investors will invest in games they believe will be financially successfull. Problem with that is that it doesn't leave the development studio much room for trying something new or different.
(Some) Indies do try to be innovative, new, refreshing and fill niches. Their chance of success is much lower though, as they usually do not try to appeal to the big market and are a risky investment. The only way to see their vision come to live is ask the gaming community for support.
Ask any of these backers being testers, they happily do it because they believe in the game and want to see it completed succesfully. Next to that they don't do it for free, what they gain is influence on the progress and development of the game. Many of these Indies take the great ideas and input from their backers and use them, I know the Repopulation implemented a lot of great suggestions from their community.
Lastly, usually the testing access is one of a whole package of perks, which the big funded titles would call a pre-sale. Ofcourse this is promoted most prominently, as that seems to be the "hottest" perk.
Deal :P
Just one thing i'ld like to mention which I just came to realise. I've started electronic gaming in 1981 ... you weren't even born then, as your half my age
I've seen and played so many games and wasted so many years on them .. mainstream games just don't cut it anymore. That's probably why i'm looking for them in the Indie corner ... as the big publishers have only produced dissapointments in the past few years for me and never seem to dare to take any risks in producing something "new".
The text in red is sarcasm. Just for your future reference.
I backed shroud of the avatar and that's that.
I see now that lots of games are getting released and the games are not even polished or 100% ready this angers me,you pay for a new product and its not 100% right.
@OP the game is still in the 3rd stage alpha testnig at the moment.. The next stage is to move into beta testing but I am not sure when they plan to do that.
You also get a lot more than just alpha access for that $75 by the way... but I am still not sure what your problem is you still have to pay to get into the beta test as well.. so its not like you could have held off from paying that $75 and get in for free or anything.
Also this is currently the 3rd stage of alpha testing and its been in testing for quite some time, there will also be at least 3 stages of beta testing as well.
Most of all remember this is still in alpha and if you are in game you need to be looking for bugs and reporting them.
Everything is handled server side so cheaters would need to hack into the servers.. tho thats not to say that some people wont develop certain hacks and stuff but that happens in every game. Devs are pretty active and I am sure they will want to prevent any kind of cheating.
Really? I dont agree at all.
The only really good games to be released this year on PC have mainly been crowd funded games.. Divinity Origional Sin and Wasteland 2 just to name a few that I backed and am currently playing.. for me nothing has come close to those games this year. Elite Dangerous is also in the later sages of testing and that game is bloody amazing.. The repopulation as well..
Without crowdfunding these games may have never got made or would not have been as good as they are...
Crowdfunding is prob the best the to happen to PC gamnig since steam and i am more than happy to support devs who are maknig a game that I think i will enjoy playing.. I am not one to spend £100s in backing a game but I am more than happy to back up to the cost of an average game so around £30.
Firefall was in testing for so long because they totally changed the game about 5 times during the development process and in doing so ended up releasing a complete mess of a game.. I realyl liked the origional ideas behind that game but each tme they re-designed it the game just got worse.. they kept removing great features and putting in dumbed down versions instead..
LOL. Oh, I'm definitely not against indie games, I made a post on here a bit ago talking about how most of the games I'm looking forward to aren't from mainstream companies, I'm tired of the over hyped trash like Destiny and Wildstar.
But the way I see it, now instead of over hyped Destiny and Wildstar, you have over hyped "insert indie game here", so out of this whole indie movement that's came from nowhere, nothing was changed fundamentally about game design or how companies sell their game, it's the same tactics from different people.
If you have a game, and it's good, then let people test it. The players playing it will decide on how good it is, and if it's as amazing as your company hypes it up to be, then people will support it from there. You shouldn't have to hide your game and make people pay to test it for you unless you're worried about your game flopping imo.
It doesn't have anything to do with "hiding" the game because it sucks. Companies have discovered that people will pay to beta test games. You can dislike this on that basis but I doubt they are going to stop monetizing betas any time soon.
Personally for a crowdfunded game I can at least somewhat understand it. After all these games are usually really strapped for funding and need to raise money any way they can. If people will pay to get in early, why not? and $25 for a few months of trying out The Repopulation seems like a pretty good deal for those curious about the game.
On the other hand I would not touch the paid betas of Archeage or EQ Next. Those games are run by big corporations who definitely have enough money to make the games they want without our help. AAA or AA games should not be charging for beta access IMO (although as I said now that they know it makes money I doubt they will stop).
My point was if you take a look at all of these games websites & read into even a fraction of the hype they try to produce for themselves, it'd be a no brainer to release the game for everybody, have everybody talking about how great it is, and then you can set up something like Path of Exile where people will fund your game, just because you have a good product that people are willing to support.
There are a ton of ways to fund a project, you don't have to have players pay for strict access to help test your game unless you don't think they will continue supporting/playing your game once they've tried it out themselves.
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Now it's time to sleep. http://i.imgur.com/ZQcc72d.jpg
You had to initially pay to get into the Path of Exile testing..
There are of coruse different ways of funding a project but crowdfunding with offering perks is one of the best ways. They usually set alpha access at a high cost because they do not want 1000s of people in an alpha test to start with because they dont have the funds then to run large servers and they only need to test specific things so no need for 1000s of testers.
Only at the very end of beta testing to do you really want to open up the servers for 1000s of people of test because at the point you want to stress the servers out as much as possible so you have the hardware in place ready for launch.