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Post by Mordecai on Apr 28, 2015 15:33:28 GMT
In the award thread, someone mentioned the, "BUT ITS PER LAPHA" argument, which got me thinking about SotA's timetable. When the original release date was given, some people assumed that it would be released late. However, I don't think anyone assumed we would still be in pre-alpha after the initial release date. So I ask, when does the perlapha argument fall apart? It can be good to push back a release date, but when does this act transition from bettering a game to embodying Duke Nukem Forever? I mean, considering that we're not even in alpha yet, shouldn't Portalarium have had some idea that their timetable was so grossly unrealistic that it wouldn't even give enough time to make it out of pre-alpha?
Could they really have not known better, what with all their experience?
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Post by grimgryphon on Apr 28, 2015 16:12:42 GMT
In the award thread, someone mentioned the, "BUT ITS PER LAPHA" argument, which got me thinking about SotA's timetable. When the original release date was given, some people assumed that it would be released late. However, I don't think anyone assumed we would still be in pre-alpha after the initial release date. So I ask, when does the perlapha argument fall apart? It can be good to push back a release date, but when does this act transition from bettering a game to embodying Duke Nukem Forever? I mean, considering that we're not even in alpha yet, shouldn't Portalarium have had some idea that their timetable was so grossly unrealistic that it wouldn't even give enough time to make it out of pre-alpha? Could they really have not known better, what with all their experience? Define experience. Given the past roles of the Portalarium crew, I doubt any of them could execute successfully without a parent company breathing down their necks. Makes you wonder who exactly was defining and driving timelines at EA, NCSoft, Disney, etc. Experience is relative, or so it seems.
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Post by ChodeKillers on Apr 28, 2015 17:45:48 GMT
I think it is clear now that while EA was/is full of sins, it was the status quo for these Portalarium veterans to leech as much money as possible in an endless cycle of "game development". You figure it was people like Dallas Snell who headed up the effort to leech leech leech until EA or NCSoft told them to shit or get off the pot. Now with crowdfunding, they are pulling the same shit except this time the public is starting to see what kind of faggotry they are full of.
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Post by Mordecai on Apr 28, 2015 20:30:05 GMT
In the award thread, someone mentioned the, "BUT ITS PER LAPHA" argument, which got me thinking about SotA's timetable. When the original release date was given, some people assumed that it would be released late. However, I don't think anyone assumed we would still be in pre-alpha after the initial release date. So I ask, when does the perlapha argument fall apart? It can be good to push back a release date, but when does this act transition from bettering a game to embodying Duke Nukem Forever? I mean, considering that we're not even in alpha yet, shouldn't Portalarium have had some idea that their timetable was so grossly unrealistic that it wouldn't even give enough time to make it out of pre-alpha? Could they really have not known better, what with all their experience? Define experience. Given the past roles of the Portalarium crew, I doubt any of them could execute successfully without a parent company breathing down their necks. Makes you wonder who exactly was defining and driving timelines at EA, NCSoft, Disney, etc. Experience is relative, or so it seems. I don't have a hard definition for experience here, but let's define it roughly as whatever it was that made you believe in the team to begin with. I'm glad you mentioned a few producers ChodeSlayer. I always assumed that delays were because the producer set an unrealistic release date to begin with, and yet here we have an "indie' company free from the command of a producer, and still the same thing happens, but arguably even worse than normal. I know that we're biased here, but what should we expect in the future? Judging by what I've seen, I'm not hanging my hopes on SotA, but let's say it somehow turns out successful. In that case, would the delays have been justified? I ask because, if it isn't successful, it will be easy to say that they were just milking their poor fans, but if it is successful, well- were they still just milking fans, or were the massive delays warranted?
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Apr 29, 2015 13:17:10 GMT
I'm not quite sure I've seen anything in the past 10 releases that has given me a boner really. Not even a single sighting of a Russian MiG.
What I didn't expect is for them to say, oh, all this moneyz we just got from all of you during KS+, may not be able to help us with the other four episodes. Nopes, we needs more funds, now, for the rest of the four. Took me unawares.
You could say, game systems devd now can be used across all episodes, and you would be right except there is no depth of game systems. Where are my mounts, my ships, my cannons, all my shizzle. No, we're a year past release date and still alpha like you say.
But it is fine! Because there is nobody to hold them accountable while they are continuously blown by reviewers and fans for making an awesome...alpha.
No, something went terribly wrong with SotA if this wasn't just pure mismanagement. I don't know what that is? Funds? Staff? LB and DS fisticuffs? Those guys have been around for a while, unless they were just full of shit then I'd say something unexpected in the "ecosystem" took a shit on the planet.
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Post by argyle on May 1, 2015 1:38:46 GMT
Have you seen Chris Spears' LinkedIn? It really illustrates the role of experience on this team, given that he is the technical director. Now, I won't discount the man's previous work in general. Its what his work was that leads me to question what I believed this game might be and what it is shaping up to be.
Take a look at their about page, see how many of their developers are fresh out of Full Sail or local community colleges.
When was RG's last successful game launch? What about Starr's? Its a volatile, evolving industry with rapid change. I don't see experience at all where it matters, in successfully release quality games in the last 10 years.
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Post by grimgryphon on May 1, 2015 5:28:50 GMT
Have you seen Chris Spears' LinkedIn? It really illustrates the role of experience on this team, given that he is the technical director. Now, I won't discount the man's previous work in general. Its what his work was that leads me to question what I believed this game might be and what it is shaping up to be. Take a look at their about page, see how many of their developers are fresh out of Full Sail or local community colleges. When was RG's last successful game launch? What about Starr's? Its a volatile, evolving industry with rapid change. I don't see experience at all where it matters, in successfully release quality games in the last 10 years. I find it curious you can't view any of the 'About' information unless you've created an account and are logged in. Wouldn't you think it would be valuable to someone thinking about getting involved. It almost feels like it is purposely hidden. As for RG, I really don't think he's been much more than a poser for the last twenty years. He poses for the box art and someone else does the work. The funniest part is the simpletons over on the SotA forums eat it up like he's the second coming of Christ. Well, someone is coming and someone is eating it up but I'll leave it to you to figure out who the actual players are in that incestuous little soirée.
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Post by TemplarAss on Jun 7, 2015 15:08:05 GMT
Ayyyy theres my old fella Mordecai! I aondered where did he go. By the way, I was permabanned on the zota forums a few months back. Nice to see we have a place to discuss freely now.
*waitinG for insane to approve my account*
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Post by argyle on Jun 7, 2015 20:12:10 GMT
I'm not quite sure I've seen anything in the past 10 releases that has given me a boner really. Not even a single sighting of a Russian MiG. What I didn't expect is for them to say, oh, all this moneyz we just got from all of you during KS+, may not be able to help us with the other four episodes. Nopes, we needs more funds, now, for the rest of the four. Took me unawares. You could say, game systems devd now can be used across all episodes, and you would be right except there is no depth of game systems. Where are my mounts, my ships, my cannons, all my shizzle. No, we're a year past release date and still alpha like you say. But it is fine! Because there is nobody to hold them accountable while they are continuously blown by reviewers and fans for making an awesome...alpha. No, something went terribly wrong with SotA if this wasn't just pure mismanagement. I don't know what that is? Funds? Staff? LB and DS fisticuffs? Those guys have been around for a while, unless they were just full of shit then I'd say something unexpected in the "ecosystem" took a shit on the planet. You know, I don't think the extra funding is for any of the other episodes. I'm pretty certain they need the funds they've received to stay afloat for this episode. I read an article by a game developer on polygon that estimated the costs of game production at around $10,000 per employee per month. Now, that's factoring in average salary, health care, and all associated costs with a business (office, keeping the lights on, legal expenses) its not meant to be a reflection of how much an individual costs, but how increasing the size of the company would naturally increase the needs of the company. I've exchanged messages with another developer (not a game developer though) who said he thought that those figures didn't seem out of line for the industry. SotAs current staff is 23 or so going from the standups they post. That would put them at roughly 230k a month for expenses. Another thing that made the polygon article interesting in relation to SotA was that it focused on how games use the kickstarter to gather more funds from outside sources by intentionally giving KS backers a very low expectation of what they game will need to be made and a shorter time frame that it will be made in. SotA asked for just 1,000,000 and estimated the release date for Oct. 2014. The article contests that kickstarters like this are actually used to try to entice outside money to come in based on the demand hopefully expressed during the kickstarter. There's no way the game could be made for 1,000,000 in a year and a half. They knew that. But they were launching 6-8 months after Star Citizen, which was seeing millions come in after the kickstarter ended. Curiously, RG places the time period in which they started discussing creating his Ultimate RPG right around the end of the Star Citizen KS in the SotA KS video. My guess as to what went wrong is, they expected a massive influx of money, maybe not on par with SC, but certainly on a much larger scale than they have received. They've got big problems if any of this is true when it comes to episode 2-5. The average backer is at $112 or something like that atm. Backers at the $80 level are already paid for episodes 2&3. Backers at the $120 level are already backed for episodes 2-5. 17% of KS backers (3805) had already paid for all 5 episodes by the time the KS ended. 5791 or 26% had already paid for episodes 1-3 by the time the kickstarter ended. I don't think those numbers bode well for continuous development over the next 5-6 years. A large number of backers have already paid in at levels that would make it pointless to invest in future kickstarters for additional episodes.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Jun 8, 2015 0:26:45 GMT
Can't fault you for anything you've said at all. Not only at $120 do you have the full suite of episodes, but unless you are some sort of weird virtual hat collector there will be no incentive at all to fork over more hard earned cash. They have mislead or banned or pushed away many of the sensible people which were involved early and could have been strong banner holders for sota moving forward.
Bad choice.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Nov 15, 2015 17:00:38 GMT
In the award thread, someone mentioned the, "BUT ITS PER LAPHA" argument, which got me thinking about SotA's timetable. When the original release date was given, some people assumed that it would be released late. However, I don't think anyone assumed we would still be in pre-alpha after the initial release date. So I ask, when does the perlapha argument fall apart? It can be good to push back a release date, but when does this act transition from bettering a game to embodying Duke Nukem Forever? I mean, considering that we're not even in alpha yet, shouldn't Portalarium have had some idea that their timetable was so grossly unrealistic that it wouldn't even give enough time to make it out of pre-alpha? Could they really have not known better, what with all their experience? Thread necro time! So, in one of the past dev hangouts we've got people now saying something to the effect of "game will ship when our backers say it is finished enough" How do you like dem apples SU? Pretty sour if you ask me. Could they really have not known better, indeed Mordecai!! It wasn't just long ago that they claimed to have a new schedule they would stick to dramatically. Then, no. It is ready when we backers say it is ready? Really?? This has to be some kind of sick joke now...
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Caliya
Strong in the Force
People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
Posts: 2,121
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Post by Caliya on Nov 15, 2015 21:23:54 GMT
Then Portalarium can come back at the backers and say, you never told us to release because you never said it was ready!
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Nov 16, 2015 0:48:22 GMT
I think it goes a little something like this:
"Waaa, you havent customized my PoT yet, waaaa, my PoT is not on the map, waaa, SPOnline players are going into my PvP town offline, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"."
Crying about getting things in the the game that were never promised to be there in the first place. Class act SotA community.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Nov 16, 2015 1:20:11 GMT
I would love to dig up a direct quote on that too, but I fear I would have to re-watch everything they've done for the past three months. I'm not sure I am up to it!
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Post by chodekiller on Nov 16, 2015 2:17:31 GMT
I think it goes a little something like this: "Waaa, you havent customized my PoT yet, waaaa, my PoT is not on the map, waaa, SPOnline players are going into my PvP town offline, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"." Crying about getting things in the the game that were never promised to be there in the first place. Class act SotA community. Better yet, it is little midgets like blake blackstone who is crying about not seeing his $60,000 customized town in game yet. wonder when that dumbfuck is gonna realize he was ripped off.
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Caliya
Strong in the Force
People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
Posts: 2,121
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Post by Caliya on Nov 16, 2015 14:08:45 GMT
wonder when that dumbfuck is gonna realize he was ripped off. Oh, he'll get his town. But there will be no one to occupy it. Sorry Blakey, game is tanking and so is your cash.
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dodgy
Strong in the Force
Posts: 1,171
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Post by dodgy on Nov 16, 2015 14:19:07 GMT
Fuck that guy
He tried to make money off it
No sympathy
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Post by chodekiller on Dec 2, 2015 16:26:27 GMT
I think it goes a little something like this: "Waaa, you havent customized my PoT yet, waaaa, my PoT is not on the map, waaa, SPOnline players are going into my PvP town offline, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"." Crying about getting things in the the game that were never promised to be there in the first place. Class act SotA community. Better yet, it is little midgets like blake blackstone who is crying about not seeing his $60,000 customized town in game yet. wonder when that dumbfuck is gonna realize he was ripped off. Told you so.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Dec 2, 2015 16:33:35 GMT
Better yet, it is little midgets like blake blackstone who is crying about not seeing his $60,000 customized town in game yet. wonder when that dumbfuck is gonna realize he was ripped off. Told you so. If that is the case, and I suspect that is only the tip of the ice burg knowing how much Uncle Porty usually fucks up, not actioning requests for your a backer that is 60k into your game... Well it is in my name. Quite INSANE!
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Caliya
Strong in the Force
People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
Posts: 2,121
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Post by Caliya on Dec 2, 2015 16:38:11 GMT
Apparently you can buy privilege in SotA, but only so far.
Interesting to see this thread unearthed, talking about bb.
Ya, it's not good wanting privilege but I don't think bb was a dick about it like other whales have been.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Dec 2, 2015 16:39:59 GMT
At least not out in the open where someone like me is waiting to see it
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