Game is missing major features - working on add ons instead? What is going on?

With a lot of games they will hire a bunch of artists early and then lay them off late as they have less work later. The add-on items help keep them employed and generate necessary revenue so they can afford to hire more programmers.

 

One sore spot I have is the amount of time invested by the entire team on PoTs, which I think clutter the map and are unnecessary addon when so many things need work.

One such thing could have been an updated conversation system, like lord dark moon proposed so long ago(one like wasteland 2)

 

You are calling the add-on store "microtransactions"? Let's take the recent airship which will supposedly cost 700$ later on. That is the price of what, 14 AAA titles?

 

Any items that can be sold for a lot of gold create pay-to-win: People just sell the item and buy high-power items for the sale funds. Might as well sell the high-powered items directly. No factual difference.

 

90% of these could have been eliminated if it wasn't that custom plots gave usually more storage than premade houses on a given plot. So many people bought the large plot for the added storage and never wanted to customize but were forced to. That was simply bad design.

 

Either way; debating what's called a microtransaction is besides the point. I'd rather all of the items on the add-on store be available to every player through the game systems. The low priced items probably even more so; for instance, I'd want the trees and hedges be connected to the gardening system, etc. I'd want everyone to have the hats.

But we're past that point already, that was already decided. The discussion was about whether all that stuff is responsible for delaying development; I don't think there's any reason to think that.

 

I wonder what we will use in game gold for

 

Of course I can assume that they are not staying on kickstarter timeline and budget because those who drafted those either had no clue what they were talking about or acted in malicious intent, but I personally prefer thinking it was feature creep. Considering that there is barely any gameplay features to speak off, and that the game is even lacking features that are industry standard for pretty much every game in the genre (mountable rides) I am left sincerely wondering...

 

do you have the numbers to back that up? How much time was wasted? Did not the funds that purchased the towns cover the cost? In addition with the flexibly dynamic tool they made it will save tons of time for players. All they have to do is select the biome. So with that in mind I think there is a net gain on this.

 

A lot of it is due to switching to Unity 5 -- which took several releases to work out the kinks -- and some due to retooling some of the game systems due to player feedback -- so they changed the map, are changing combat, and are also changing the skill system. I'm sure working on the POT system sidetracked them a bit too. But the add-on stuff is really trivial IMO in the big picture.

 

so you say, what is the standard for this? Can you provide links? I also think that they DO have a clue, you just personally do not like the direction of it.

 

To be honest: I do not care what the reason, but I feel that if you can not stay even remotely close to the timeline you initially suggest when collecting funds, the honest thing would be to offer people a refund. If no one wants to take that opportunity it is a good sign, but I have a feeling that a number of backers would be quite happy retreating from their pledge. With delays like that there has got to be the point where one should focus on the core features and delay anything else.

 

I never claimed that they do not. Maybe read it more carefully?

 

This is why I've suggested that replacing existing systems is not necessarily a good thing and this team can't afford to keep throwing away work. But people keep calling for it, unaware of the cost.

 

so you are just saying things that are not true, why would you say it if you cannot back it up?

 

Part of it seems to be a lack of proper planning. With regard to some of the systems they have changed or will change they were given very early feedback that they chose to ignore for a long time.

 

If that is what you think I meant, then I have to leave it at that. I have no way of phrasing it simpler, so I apologize that I was unable to convey the meaning to you, it must be bacause I am not a native speaker. I will put you on ignore from now on and I suggest you do the same in order to avoid useless back and forth. Have a nice day!

 

Let me also add, that Unity 5, the changes in the combat system and skill system as well as the POT's all happened after the tentative kickstarter release date. That pretty much leaves the map, but the time does not account for a full beta and alpha. The more I think about it the harder this discrepancy in release time is to explain ...

 

sounds like something Caliya would do, she is you wife right?

 

Well there is a time to implement feedback, plus until something is actually put in place is mostly the time feedback is valuable. True the forum system for feedback is all over the place. That's why some threads are very valuable like spoons and smacks to 10 or so negative and positive threads. No one said that making a game this way was a perfected art, but I can say it is most certainly a learning experience. Hashing over funds is never my fun spot since I find it inappropriate for what's going on here, but that is my opinion. Most know that I believe more funding will make a better game and that this game will be a lot more game than originally planned with it, so I will now bow out and leave you to it.