Perhaps I meant it as a more general response to his post. It certainly represents an example of "hyp[ing] the game for more then what it is."
FD wants to swim with the big fish now
- Thread starter LetoAtreides2
- Start date
That type of clip was the last reason I, or anyone, should buy a game. It's used to draw attention to the game, not inform about it's content. If you bought this game based on that clip, with what info is out there, and just as easy to find, you have to take the hit for that.
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Of course. But releasing "cinematic trailers that have nothing to do with gameplay" is what the big fish do.
Yup. Big fish do hype what they sell. Does every burger you get look like the one on the commercial? If not, do you go around calling Wendy's a liar? Do you really believe that coffee shop is really helping to save the rainforests? Rational people know how to separate advertisements from reality. None of the other game makers advertise using cinematics? Come on. The straws are failing you.
Yet they are gonna be updating the mission system in 1.4, something that continually came up.
And like I alluded to, there is no set value to any idea, but there is always the opportunity to present a case.
If the idea is sound enough then they may make changes.
PP is designed as a grind but they are listening. They're trying to make it more about allowing players to have an affect on how the Universe is shaped. They have an open thread discussing how to make it work. That kinda communication is very rare but very welcome.
That's a good thing.
Not every suggestion will ever "make" it into the game but if there is no effort to discuss such things, we may as well just pack up and go home now.
Then you will have your "soulless" game full of mind-numbing tedium.
It's not something I want for this game.
Honestly, if that was there intent they would not have put a banner of " not actual game play" maybe?
What in that "sizzle reel" you cannot do in the game?
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FD sits at a comfortably ambiguous position. Are they the humble, almost indie-esque devs who require your Kickstarter money to get their dream project going, and who will actually listen to their community? Or, are they the AAA dev who sells hype above content, who withholds information from their fans to exponentiate such hype?
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Would it be so wrong to actual be both?
Are they both, though? I feel as though they are leaning more toward the latter.
They are both. They have to compete with the AAA Dev's for the consumers money. Why shouldn't they use their strategies? I have found many instances where FD has listened to us. They heard a whisper of a complaint about the 'Pause' screen, so they changed the name, and, they have revamped the RES design to align with what we were complaining about, and are going to introduce a whole new level of RES just to satisfy us. I could go on, how about when PP was released the 1st thing they did was put a stickied post asking for suggestions, and they have already changes the reward structure for us. It is incredible to me how players can see this go on, but not allow credit for it. The straws are all but gone.
From where I sit, FD has done the best job they can to bring the product they have wanted to bring with the resources they have. In what way have they "hyped" the game beyond what they have shown/delivered?
Off the top of my head:
1.3 was supposed to bring a "complete mission overhaul." Did we really see that?
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Yeah, what missions we had didn't always work right. They made the way the branched mission worked completely new. They even introduced some new missions to the mix. An overhaul doesn't mean completely done either. 1.4 is scheduled to have mission improvements as well. As is continuous improvements. Just like they said. Maybe, like you read too much into a video clip, you may have read too much into the word 'overhaul'.
Imo yes we did. The missions now are far more interesting then the game had at launch, more profitable, more engaging. Smuggling mission are now one of my main source of income, that was not the case before 1.3.
Missions are not done, but I believe they are going in the right direction.
There was a sales pitch from DBOBE in one of the daily updates about a week before the kick starter closed. I really cannot be bothered to look it up for the benefit of others when I know what it says. It was described as a post-release in-game moderation role, doing things like deciding how a system should react to an epidemic. Nothing to do with pay to win - the DDF was consistently dead against that.
We have had very occasional contact from FD of late - perhaps 3 or 4 this year. In one of those they told us that the DDF was dead (as if we had not noticed), and started discussions about what the God-like powers would be. From that post it looks extremely unlikely that we will get anything remotely close to what we were sold.
Reaching back to one cryptic mention of 'god-like' powers, as some sort of broken promise, is another great grasp at those straws. The second part of the question above was 'why would you want' those powers? Just because BD said something and players want to poke him in the eye with it? Maybe that kind of backlash is why they don;t stay in contact?
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The rest of the white knights know perfectly well that this is a subject to avoid, since FD are so clearly at fault that there is no upside in mentioning it.
It was NOT cryptic mention. It was a deliberate advert increasing the 'value' of the DDF pledge level to get more people to Jonty up to that level. And it was a spectacular success, since about 150 people did Jonty up the day the advert was posted - around a third of all DDF members. Of course we want to poke him in the eye. If he delivered against promises, there would not be an issue.
Doesn't single player allow for this play style to be played out? to a certain extent of course.
What play style? The God-like powers were for DDF members to help FD with moderation and administration. Nothing to do with playing the game.
Isn't quite the subject of this thread. Still, you're missing some numbers:
http://steamstats.madjoki.com/app/359320
http://steamcharts.com/app/359320
http://steamspy.com/app/359320
https://steamdb.info/app/359320/graphs/
There's the number of owners, which tends to vary wildly each day; most Steam stats are quite inaccurate, but that variation is way above this inaccuracy. This means one thing, not yet picked up by most websites: refunds. Only Frontier can know exactly how many refunds are being filled, but I wouldn't be surprised there are many. The average negative variation per day over the last month is of 7664 players, with an average negative of 4586 players. That's higher than normal, so surely refunds are part of the cause.
Then, there's your own numbers. Indeed, a strong initial bump, other bumps after sales and Steam keys available fo everyone and beginning of summer. And then it decreases. It's right there on the graph, and the exact same model can be seen on any other game over the same period: launch, sales, summer. As for the rest, it follows the same global activity as Steam.
But most importantly, the number of owners is estimated to be between 256k and 275k. The peak players was recorded in early july, with about 12k players, which is less than 5% of owners. The overall audience, which steadily decreases, is about a third of the owner base judging by the past few months, so either two thirds of people stopped playing the game, or they're taking rounds each month- regardless, that's not good at all. The current trend is down to a fourth of active players, when we're in the middle of summer: that's appaling.
As for total playtime numbers... some have a thousand hours of play... Frontier reports a 64 hours average on their part (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=a82d46dca0)... Yet the average playtime noticed on Steam is of 45-47 hours, with a median of 19 hours. It's like 10% of the community accounts for more than half of total playtime.
I've been told that Steam considers the ED launcher opened to be "playtime" too. We'd need confirmation on that, but if that's the case, I guess you understand what it could entail.
No, those numbers are not good at all. Compare them to that of a healthy game, and you'll see the problem.
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