<pours one on the curb for timber and stone>

[FlowerChild]

Well...I called it. Didn't I just say that I was afraid the T&S developer was on the verge of caving to the unreasonable demands of his audience, thus ruining an otherwise promising game in the process?

I present to you exhibit A...the 1.2 release notes:

http://www.timberandstonegame.com/?p=501

'nuff said.

[Taleric]

Whew! Scared me, thought he might have gone way out there. There is some pandering in there but a bunch of great stuff that moves it towards release.

I am more worried he now has to compete with hearthstone that looks surprisingly similar and feels like it has well connected backers. Don't want him to get hurt like Edge of Space vs Starbound.

[FlowerChild]

There is some pandering in there

Dude...

[Xeo]

Well, at least he's visibly mad about having to cave. That's better than a lot of des these days.

[DaveYanakov]

A better changelog would have read more like;

"Due to daily requests for the feature, we have updated the spam filters linked to the game"

[Pucc]

Read that change log and died a little inside.

I've been following this game from the start the direction it was heading looked promising now I have no idea where its going. The game still has quite a few wrinkles it needs ironing out but to see the focus being on features that add nothing substantial to the game except some pixel art is saddening indeed.

There are people on the forum still pestering to have children units in the game and a unit breeding mechanic on top of this...

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I honestly like the game, but the last couple of releases have been rather "wtf?".

The adventurer was a total tangent. I really don't think first-person combat has a place in a game focused on village management and defense like that as it's going to be exceedingly difficulty to balance the player's combat abilities vs the units, especially at this early stage of development. I can only assume that was a community request, as it feels like it's totally out of left field given the design of what's already in there.

Now, to spend all that time on female units just because he was being pestered about it? Yeah...I'm not hopeful. Maybe he'll grow an exoskeleton and be able to start saying no to this stuff, but when I read over the forums and see all the requests for options to make things easier etc. under the usual same old "the game should be everything to everybody" bullshit banner, it makes me rather afraid for him. Up until the last couple of releases the game seemed to have a clear development focus.

Anyways, will keep my fingers crossed. I was joking on IRC last night that I'm going to give all the NPC's in RTH knee-length schlongs in honor of T&S's 1.2 release ;)

[Pucc]

Anyways, will keep my fingers crossed. I was joking on IRC last night that I'm going to give all the NPC's in RTH knee-length schlongs in honor of T&S's 1.2 release ;)

That'll bring a whole new meaning to villagers tossing the milk...

I do believe the Adventurer was one of his original concepts he'd always intended to add. It does seem like he's staying strong on his view of wanting the game to be challenging though, which is promising, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Hmm the IRC I should really go and have a poke around on there, if you'll have me, never been on it.

[Rugaard]

Im having difficulty figuring out what you all are so upset about with this update, if its adding female characters to the game how is that unreasonable?

[FlowerChild]

Im having difficulty figuring out what you all are so upset about with this update, if its adding female characters to the game how is that unreasonable?

A few reasons:

-That he did it not because he thought it was a good idea, but because people were asking for it.

-That he states he spent extensive development time on it when that time could have obviously been better spent elsewhere given the current state of the game.

-It brings nothing to the game. Zip. Nada. Rien. It's a purely aesthetic addition with no real significance whatsoever. It will provide ten seconds of "oh...that's nice" amusement for players with no meaningful impact on gameplay at large development cost.

-It will open a whole can of worms. He may have done it to stop the daily emails requesting this "feature". He'll probably only end up with more of those kinds of emails, given he's now provided positive reinforcement for such behavior.

Small lone developers can't afford to do stuff like that man. I'm basically in the same boat, so when I see a developer start caving to public pressure like that it strikes a very deep chord with me.

People will inevitably request the lowest common denominator type things like female characters that are blatantly obvious, because *they aren't designers and have no clue what a developer's time could be better spent on*. It's right up there with "better graphics", "more monsters", "multiplayer", and "more options". If you can't say no to that, you're basically fucked.

[Rugaard]

Im having difficulty figuring out what you all are so upset about with this update, if its adding female characters to the game how is that unreasonable?

A few reasons:

-That he did it not because he thought it was a good idea, but because people were asking for it.

that may be true but he may have already had planned to add female units, not only that he hinted in the beta forums that 1.2 was going to be an aesthetic update

-That he states he spent extensive development time on it when that time could have obviously been better spent elsewhere given the current state of the game.

-It brings nothing to the game. Zip. Nada. Rien. It's a purely aesthetic addition with no real significance whatsoever. It will provide ten seconds of "oh...that's nice" amusement for players with no meaningful impact on gameplay at large development cost.

-It will open a whole can of worms. He may have done it to stop the daily emails requesting this "feature". He'll probably only end up with more of those kinds of emails, given he's now provided positive reinforcement for such behavior.

Aesthetic additions depends on your view of them and how they are added, I have no idea what your view or what Roberts view is but I know I would prefer at least some aesthetics. I find that games lacking in such things tend to be boring and bland.
as far want more messages, Robert has probably received just as much if not more to make the game easier but it looks like he wants to go the opposite direction and making it just as hard if not harder as when the game was first released, the only thing I'm unsure of is if he is going to add difficulty levels

Small lone developers can't afford to do stuff like that man. I'm basically in the same boat, so when I see a developer start caving to public pressure like that it strikes a very deep chord with me.

As I have zero experience in this sort of thing I will have to agree with you and hope that Robert doesn't cave into future requests

People will inevitably request the lowest common denominator type things like female characters that are blatantly obvious, because *they aren't designers and have no clue what a developer's time could be better spent on*. It's right up there with "better graphics", "more monsters", "multiplayer", and "more options". If you can't say no to that, you're basically fucked.

he already has more monsters planned as well as playable races, more biomes. more options is a bit vague but as a game evolves there will always be more options added.

Multiplayer has been planned but he is currently focusing entirely on the single player aspect of the game.

from the FAQ:

Will there be any plans for Multiplayer or Online play?
My focus until the full version is released will be sandbox singleplayer. Having said that, I have put a little thought into competitive multiplayer modes. At the least being able to visit and wage war against your friends’ kingdoms. But this will be far down the road, and single player will always remain the priority.

http://www.timberandstonegame.com/?page_id=22

[FlowerChild]

Aesthetic additions depends on your view of them and how they are added, I have no idea what your view or what Roberts view is but I know I would prefer at least some aesthetics. I find that games lacking in such things tend to be boring and bland.

Of course. However: it all comes down to bang for the buck. With the way he talked about it, it sounds like he put something like a week of work into giving the units tits. Does that in any way sound like an effective use of his time?

In terms of development, features can not simply be measured as good or bad. Do I object to female units in and of themselves? Of course not, and sure, they're "nice" to have. In an ideal world where features come at no cost, and where a feature developed doesn't mean other features that never will be, then go for it. However, just like with wolves in vMC: I do not consider such features an effective use of development time. You could probably have just as much aesthetic impact (if not more) spending an hour texturing a new block for players that they can then use in creative ways.

When such considerations go out the window for a developer in the face of public pressure to do something, I fear for a game's future.

http://www.timberandstonegame.com/?page_id=22

You know what the above says to me? "In order to get you to stop bugging me about multiplayer I'm going to say that it's for a later date". Don't Starve was saying something similar for awhile (at least now they seem to have finally just said "no"), and Project Zomboid still seems to be struggling to try to do it when I think it's obvious that it's unlikely to ever happen.

There's a very simple reality in game development, and it's doubly important if you're a lone indie developer: one game can not be all things to all players. Sounds exceedingly obvious, but you'd be surprised how many times people forget that, and how many players try to push for it anyways. If a game is good at something (and I think T&S *is*, or at least has great potential there), then a sure fire way to ruin it is to try and broaden its appeal as much as possible by trying to cater to everyone's desires instead of focusing on its core strengths.

[Pucc]

Aesthetic additions depends on your view of them and how they are added, I have no idea what your view or what Roberts view is but I know I would prefer at least some aesthetics. I find that games lacking in such things tend to be boring and bland.

Each individual unit profession has a unique skin and they look great I'd never say that part of the game in an aesthetic sense needed something more. Besides there's been a vast majority of players demanding more block variations and colours. I'm at a loss as to why he chose lumberjacks with knockers over new craft-able blocks and colour variations to include in a purely aesthetic update.

[Mr_Hosed]

Indie's need to realize they're either making a single player experience or multiplayer experience. They don't have the man-power or budget to develop what's essentially two games in one. I've yet to see a single-player game where the multi-player wasn't a near complete reimagining of the game mechanics, etc. Most of the time you can't even reuse a large chunk of your art assets between the two either.

I saw GenerikB talk about the female models on his latest T&S vid. It was like 20 seconds of video. "Oh, and you can do this now." Definately NOT a worth-while feature, time to gameplay wise.

[KittenToaster]

Indie's need to realize they're either making a single player experience or multiplayer experience.

Ye. I was watching the introductory vids to ToS yesterday and a couple of "lets plays" with really buggy road networks, it caught my eye but he should work on important stuff first. Since multiplayer is said to be a long way off ....
I can understand people that need to have a "cool" avatar in a game (console players) but I would rather be the last man standing in an orange hat, pink chestplate, green trousers, blue shoes and a yellow codpiece during an encounter - so I have the correct AC/resists. (Icy I'm looking at you in your Skyrim playthough, get rid of that crown FFS) :P

All in all I hope it goes well though, as he has put in an undeniable amount of effort.

OT - Where did the expression "pours one on the curb ..." come from? - searched but I can't find.

[Mr_Hosed]

OT - Where did the expression "pours one on the curb ..." come from? - searched but I can't find.

It's from inner-city lingo. Specifically gangsta life crap and pouring one out for your dead homies.

Back to the original topic, this developer mentioned placing a high price on beta access specifically because he didn't want to deal with a large community on his project until it was in a more ready state. Obviously he knew himself well enough to know that constant demands for features would affect his decision making and lead to this kind of waste of effort.

Live and learn. I've worked on some public projects in the past and the hardest thing to learn is to trust yourself enough to tell everyone to fuck-off (more politely is better, but essentially that's what you're saying) and do what you know is right. Listen to concerns after the fact with a grain of salt.

[FlowerChild]

Live and learn. I've worked on some public projects in the past and the hardest thing to learn is to trust yourself enough to tell everyone to fuck-off (more politely is better, but essentially that's what you're saying) and do what you know is right.

As a long term practitioner of what you're saying above, allow me to say that doing it politely and consistently so is exceedingly difficult. I agree, it would be theoretically better if you have the kind of personality to sustain it, but I for one definitely do not.

I think it's difficult to reconcile treating people nicely with being in direct opposition with what they're saying, and knowing that you have to be in opposition to it in order to continue working effectively. It's very hard to escape the sensation that they are in some way trying to attack you and your work through distracting you with drivel, and not get upset by it, especially if it's coming at you in large volume. Heck, sometimes they're actually trolls and that's exactly what they're doing :)

Also, I have no idea how you could maintain the signal to noise ration should you do that. IMO, being polite with it would only encourage it to propagate, and as a lone developer, it would become exceedingly difficult to hear the valid commentary as it gets drowned out by the resulting onslaught of dimwitted nonsense. Eventually, I would think that you'd have to shut down the lines of communication with the community once it gets past a certain point, as you won't be able to deal with the volume.

So yeah, in an ideal world, I definitely agree. The thing is though, just having the ability to do the "fuck off" thing to begin with is so exceedingly rare, especially while maintaining direct contact with a community of any size, that I try not to lose any sleep over being admittedly incapable of doing it in the ideal fashion.

[Mr_Hosed]

I cheated on my projects. I brought in a PR guy to handle most public content and help filter things, both ways. I did this from the beginning of projects, before any kind of outside influence could warp perceptions or influence interested fans.

The other thing that I did was basically look at my users as "just want to participate in something they love, but lacking the skills to do so effectively". If you look at your users as dumb friends instead of intentionally evil (until proven otherwise, ofcourse) it becomes easier to manage the noise.

Digression over, has the creator of T&S published any clear description of the intended experience he's building? I've only followed his work through GenB on youtube (all my money is tied up in aluminum for the next 3 months), but the game doesn't seem to have a clear direction. Reminds me of Minecraft during it's beta days in that way actually.

[Shengji]

I think it's difficult to reconcile treating people nicely with being in direct opposition with what they're saying, and knowing that you have to be in opposition to it in order to continue working effectively. It's very hard to escape the sensation that they are in some way trying to attack you and your work through distracting you with drivel, and not get upset by it, especially if it's coming at you in large volume. Heck, sometimes they're actually trolls and that's exactly what they're doing :)

Also by being polite, most people assume you have entered into a debate with them and come back with reply after reply. I was talking to an author friend who made the mistake of revealing on twitter that he had lost a chunk of the book he was working on - this book was a special in a very long running series, the first in a long time so it had an extraordinary amount of interest. He got a tonne of supportive, one off comments and he said thanks to quite a few. There was almost a direct correlation with the people he replied to and the people who then replied again (and in some cases again and again!) with advice on how to keep going (which really wasn't a problem, given the 25 or so books he has to his name) or more disturbing, people who started to get a bit too friendly with him, talking to him as if they knew him and were a mate of his.

[Pucc]

Digression over, has the creator of T&S published any clear description of the intended experience he's building? I've only followed his work through GenB on youtube (all my money is tied up in aluminum for the next 3 months), but the game doesn't seem to have a clear direction. Reminds me of Minecraft during it's beta days in that way actually.

The only thing he's stated on the forums is that its a rogue-like, RTS mixed in with city-building/management type game. Not sure how they're all supposed to work together but I'm no game designer. Other than that he rarely communicates his intentions limiting them only to releases and bug fixes with the odd comment on a suggestion topic here and there. Anyway I'm staying clear of that forum for a while see how things pan out from a distance.

[jorgebonafe]

Just wanted to mention the new release in case anyone is interested. As opposed to the previous release, it seems this one got back to actual gameplay features and bug fixes. So I guess he held himself on that "slippery slope" of community pandering pretty well, hopefully :P

I didn't know about this game before this thread mentioned it, even if in a negative way. It seems pretty good, I'll just keep my hopes that the developer can keep from falling into the same trap so many good indy games seem to be falling into...

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I noticed that myself. I've yet to try the new release (I currently have a surplus of games to play and not enough time to play them), but I'm rather hopeful given it focused on upping the difficulty.

On the other hand though, I'm a little sad to see a time slider go in there when he seemed so opposed to the concept in the past, so I'm not sure he's really resisted the pandering urge.

[Sarudak]

Is this game worth getting? I tried towns but it seemed so obtuse I couldn't get into it. Is this any better?

[FlowerChild]

Is this game worth getting? I tried towns but it seemed so obtuse I couldn't get into it. Is this any better?

Yeah, the interface is definitely slicker than the other DF clones out there, and it even feels like its own game rather than just "DF with graphics".

I'm not sure if it's really worth the price of admission yet. I decided to splurge on it at one point in the name of "research" for RTH (I'm trying to play as many games along these lines as possible these days to get a good picture of what games in the broad genre are doing), but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable suggesting that others pick it up until it is more developed.

The most promising game I've played in this genre is probably Prison Architect, but again, it's still very early in development, and the price tag is also very high for what it is. On the other hand, it's probably one of the most stable in development games I've been playing (which makes sense, as Introversion are industry veterans by now), and I've yet to encounter a single show-stopping bug (a few minor issues mind you) in around 20 hours of play. They also seem to have a great incremental system of development in place, where it really feels like they are bringing each feature to completion before moving on to the next (something I feel most indie devs are pretty bad at), so the stuff that is in there feels very solid. In other words, the stuff you have to do in-game is limited, but what is in there feels largely complete and playable.

But yeah, if you have a hankering for this kind of gameplay, I think Dwarf Fortress is still your best bet as the most developed and richest game of its kind, despite its steep learning curve and horrid interface.

[Stormweaver]

Though I'd hold off on dwarf fortress for now, since it looks very much like it's getting a update fairly soon, judging my the various bits of info given out.