I don't think anyone is trolling... the points Guass raised were legitimate. To illustrate the screenshot one specifically, here are two screenshots from Bulletstorm's website that sum up the game pretty well:
Shit is happening, guns and stuff, blood, giant things, choppers, bodies flailing, etc. The action in the scene does a fairly good job of illustrating what it feels like to play the game, not just what it looks like. If that makes any sense...
These are two of your screenshots:
Really nothing going on here that says anything about gameplay. There's a difference between an "in game" screenshot and a "gameplay" screenshot, you've got screenshots that were no doubt taken inside the game but it doesn't illustrate the gameplay at all. They convey atmosphere pretty well but that's about it.
You say your shots weren't staged... maybe they should have been. It's hard enough to convey gameplay in a screenshot, may as well use staging to your advantage to illustrate the point right?
This is basically what your screenshots say: You walk around flipping people the bird and pointing your gun at creepy dudes. I'm guessing that isn't what your game is about... your description says it's a team based multiplayer game, get more than 3 other people on screen, one of your teamates and 2 enemies, dudes shooting eachother, being shot, hanging off ledges, climbing, whatever?
I mean yeah all FPS games boil down to shooting people but if you could sum up *what it feels like* to play your game in a picture what would it be? I'm hoping it wouldn't be a creepy guy in a bathroom...
Simply post a video of your gameplay prototype instead of going for polished AAA screenshots, that's about it really!
Game design docs and prototypes first, polish pass later! And if you don't have a running gameplay prototype then it simply means that it is too early for founding, crowd or not ...
Ok, I haven't got around to making a video yet, that takes time and I'll get on it in a bit after a bit of thinking. But I have re-wrote the main page. Thoughts?
This is an example of what I was talking about before. This game hasn't started production yet, its an idea. They are looking for donations to pay for it. Theres no real ingame shots, because as I said, its an idea. They made a game before it, but they were an indie team, same as now.
In other words, they have nothing to show, are unpaid for their efforts, and have started up on Kickstarter JUST to ask for people to donate.
Whats peoples views on this? It can't be just based on track record, because I've actually worked on and released more than they have...? Soooo...? Whats your thoughts there? (Totally asking in a none sarcastic way, but its just shown up as a big news article on Joystiq).
This is an example of what I was talking about before. This game hasn't started production yet, its an idea. They are looking for donations to pay for it. Theres no real ingame shots, because as I said, its an idea. They made a game before it, but they were an indie team, same as now.
In other words, they have nothing to show, are unpaid for their efforts, and have started up on Kickstarter JUST to ask for people to donate.
Whats peoples views on this? It can't be just based on track record, because I've actually worked on and released more than they have...? Soooo...? Whats your thoughts there? (Totally asking in a none sarcastic way, but its just shown up as a big news article on Joystiq).
You forgot the link to whatever you're complaining about.
Well, first off, they've got a history, which helps. Second of all, they're promoting their stuff beyond just creating a kickstarter page.
Why haven't you submitted tips to Kotaku/Joystiq/everyone else yet? Put together a press release and send it off.
Advertise!
You love to bitch about how other people are successful and how the world is and what is happening, but you seem to miss that all of that is beyond your control. You can't force things on the world, you can only change the way you respond to it. In this case, rather than harping on someone else's success or telling me that you've released more than they have (you have? You've been working on Overdose for as long as I can remember), why don't you change the way you present things? Observe what they do, see what works, and do the successful shit. In this case, clearly their kickstarter is benefiting from Joystiq's post, so why aren't you trying to get on Joystiq?
You come off as a bitter shitheel every time you post, and that same bitterness comes off in your pitch, too. Every time you say something, it's not about what you offer, or implementing change, it's about what other people are doing, or why you can't change. You're way too angry about shit and it's very off-putting. And putting people off you, your team, and your project is not very good advertising.
People are repeatedly providing useful information and criticism in the thread and you act like a total tit. It's very clear that you are passionate about your project and that is why people are willing to provide help, but your attitude is total poison.
You would most likely benefit from finding someone who is more personable to advertise and perform PR for your project because you come off as incredibly vitriolic. I'm not saying nice things here and I really couldn't give a fuck about your feelings because I've seen your shitty attitude crap up every thread you create for as long as I can remember - but the important thing is your shitty attitude isn't somehow justified by my being an asshole here. Or by gauss giving it to you straight. Or by anyone else who has had it with your whining.
Grow up already. Stop whining about other people's success and start incorporating more feedback and effort into advertising. If someone is successful, don't bitch about how you're not successful, investigate why they're successful! You don't seem to do any research regarding this. If you want to know more about Auditorium:Duet's kickstarter goals and publicity start looking into them more and their history - I think you'll find they've got a lot of advertising and press behind them.
As an incidental note, the indiegogo page has the Overdose page linked as the moddb page instead of the actual Overdose page.
Also, unlock your forums - not being able to lurk and see what is up in a forum isn't how you build a community and engage new folks - let them read and see something they want to discuss if you want to build a discussion community.
Erm... See thats what I'm on about. I love to "bitch"? I'm, not bitching at all...?
A bitter shitheel? Again with the needless flames, for zero reason at all.
Show me a single example in my pitch where I show that I'm "angry", or "bitter".
Once again, I would LOVE to know exactly where I've ignored anything said...? Last time I checked, I re-did all of the perks, due to suggestions from her. I re-wrote the entire article the second I could, because I was away from the computer for a few days, because shock horror there was a death in the family and I couldn't put my time into it (But thats not for here). I'm actually making, this second in fact, a video, as per requested here. So tell me exactly where I've ignored ANYTHING?
You don't like me. Thats awesome man, I'm happy for you. So why dont you naff off out of the thread, seeing as all you're doing is attacking and trolling, and for zero reason at all. Just put me on ignore or something if I keep you up so bad at night, yeah? Theres been LOTS of feedback in here, and when I didn't agree, I stuck to my guns and didn't agree. But once I saw that I was indeed in the minority and that I was looking at it the wrong way, what did I do...? I changed everything. I listened. And the only times I piped up and said something was when people acted like arseholes for no reason at all, regardless of if they had good points or not. Funny how I spoke like a normal person when people spoke normal to me, even when they told me everything I did was wrong... Theres a way to do it.
So heres the deal... I won't bother you at all, I won't annoy you. Its very simple if you want this. Simply don't post in my threads, don't even open them, and certainly don't bitch at me as if somebody on the internet is such a bad guy and has hurt you in some way.
You love to bitch about how other people are successful and how the world is and what is happening, but you seem to miss that all of that is beyond your control. .
I've only ever seen him bitch about MW :P He's not bitching about much, certainly he's not bitter about other people's successes. He's just trying to get his head around something thats new to him. None of us are overly delighted when learning something new that challenges us, right? He's actually taking the critisism and new ideas fully on board from what I've read.
My issue with the pitch is... True Combat Elite, wolf: ET, AVA, a bunch of hl2 and hl mods, Warsow, Nexiuz and all kinds of other awesome, unique team based shooters are FREE.
Natural selection 2 is out there with preorder buyin to the beta and (no offense) a MUCH, MUCH higher caliber product than what you can deliver on a shoestring budget. Interstellar marines is out there putting out demos every now and then.
Overdose looks cool, but why exactly would anyone spend their money on it instead of other options on the market? The pitch doesn't tell me at all.
True Combat and Wolf:ET are old, and don't have the movement OD does. Other mods are just that... Mods. Nexiuz is just Quake 3 arena with new models/sounds, which again, is free, but also old.
Not counting that OverDose has a new graphics engine for a second, you have the team play aspect as well you can ignore, but then none of those games allow you the freedom of movement OverDose does. OverDose doesn't have clipped 1 foot tall fences that you cant get over... Either you jump it, climb it, jump up/grab and climb, or you can have a team mate stand above you and help pull you up. Its more like the team play of RtCW, with the movement and flexability of a coop Mirrors Edge... I don't actually know of any other game that does that?
As for the "Natural selection 2 is out there with preorder buyin to the beta" thing... So do we? We offer a lot, in fact.
EDIT: Just as an aside... Kickstarter have accepted us.
Brink does that very well! But was a bomb, so you guys wont have trouble competing with it
I'm not laying these down as criticisms of you, I personally do think the project looks very cool -- but you need to pitch what you just said to me on the kickstarter, with some serious impact. It doesnt come across at all in the indigogo pitch why overdose is truly unique.
Brink does that very well! But was a bomb, so you guys wont have trouble competing with it
I'm not laying these down as criticisms of you, I personally do think the project looks very cool -- but you need to pitch what you just said to me on the kickstarter, with some serious impact. It doesnt come across at all in the indigogo pitch why overdose is truly unique.
Yeah, I'll try and adapt that very point over on the site... Stands to reason people would think the same.
And Brink... Yeeeeaaaahhh... I dunno, Brink was stunning, but it just wasn't fun? And it felt clunky as all hell. Even though you had a lot of movement, it just never erally felt like you could pull off amazing feats or be nimble at all? It made me feel like I was about 60 stone
IMO of course.
I do have the go ahead for Kickstarter, but I need to be more proactive first. I won't even think about that until I get the video up, it wouldn't be right.
Another fact you must have into consideration, it's to avoid stupidities like the "penis rock" and that "finger", those are things of stupid brats, with too many birds in their mind, get down from the cloud... or you will hurt yourself.
You are not showing off anything serious, nothing that can be sold, and with the comparison of bulletstorm we can see too many lacks i will not say for respect, but just some things, the screens of overdose are very very monochromatic, dead of color, there's no action or something interesting and all is very dirty and the details are placed without logic, like the busts in a interior? c'mon...
You are not selling well this proyect, just show a video in a good map where you kill enemies and that's all. Make a video talking about what others have said and you surely will have success in kickstarter. Otherwise, you will get a kick in the ass like we say here.
You are not schafer... but you can talk, can't you?
And put down your war axe, we denote some frustration in the way you reply.
Penis rock? The "finger"? Its a taunt, the game has taunts... Thats the style of the game. Taunts, orders that show onscreen ala Rainbow Six, but also on the third person model?
While you may see the "finger" as totally childish, I call it something else... Having a laugh. You can take shit seriously until your balls fall off, but you have to have a laugh sometimes, you have to relax up a bit.
Also, I LOVE the way you say we are lacking because "when you compare to Bulletstorm......" Well yeah, no shit we look lacking compared to Bulletstorm lol! We are two guys, not paid, doing this for free in our spare time, we have no experience in the retail world. Compared to a company that has released a shit load of titles, has a massive team, and is using an already existing and well established engine........................................... So how exactly am I supposed to compete there...? I can't, thats why of course I don't.
While I can of course accept the crit that things are placed "without logic", (which btw, is called feedback, and you're more than welcome to post that in the thread created in Pimping) I simply flat out REFUSE to take any crits on art style that are in the vein of "its dog shit brown".
So instead, I'll simply say this, and don't get all up in arms about it. Just read it.
What tone conveys depression more? What colour, represents dirt? And on the point of colour, just how much saturation should a scene have when its supposed to be showing a dirty, old, run down area thats hardly survived a good nuking...?
If I'm honest to God wrong, then thats fine. I can deal there. But I'm not changing it, because its the style set out from the start. Thats like saying Saving Private Ryan is wrong because its less saturated. Thats like saying Left 4 Dead is TERRIBLE because its less saturated. Thats like saying the Book Of Eli is........ You get the idea. I don't load up the Disney Channel and moan that these shows that are full of laughs and cartoon characters are too "colourful" do I? No, because thats exactly what I expect them to be.
Sometimes art styles, colours and methods won't gel with you on a level that makes it not appeal. Thats fine, I see lots of media like that. But thats your thoughts. I'm trying to convey a mood, and just a quick FYI, not all the locations are like that in colour tone.
Please, by all means crit me on layout and things like that, I'm all ears. But don't crit something like colour tone that you don't like just because you don't like it. Thats a tad silly.
Penis rock? The "finger"? Its a taunt, the game has taunts... Thats the style of the game. Taunts, orders that show onscreen ala Rainbow Six, but also on the third person model?
While you may see the "finger" as totally childish, I call it something else... Having a laugh. You can take shit seriously until your balls fall off, but you have to have a laugh sometimes, you have to relax up a bit.
I think the point he's trying to make is that it doesn't really "advertise" your game well to potential backers.
Brink does that very well! But was a bomb, so you guys wont have trouble competing with it
Not necessarily just about brink but worth noting that in general most multiplayer focused games will bomb if they don't go F2P (I suspect brink will be the last big commercial example of this), even if they do go F2P they will usually still bomb if they aren't well promoted.
Multiplayer games centralize around a catch 22, no one will buy your game without a thriving community (because the whole point is to play with other people), and you can't have a thriving community unless people buy your game. It really doesn't matter how good your game is if no one is playing it. Thus far the only real solution has been to either run it in a really long, huge open beta, or just give the game away and forget about making money off boxed copies.
I do agree with everyone else that you seem seriously defensive. Ghostscapes post was over the top for sure but even your response to Gauss and EQ were full of resistance.
You don't need to respond to every single thing someone says that you don't like, and honestly in 90% of cases it's better to assume you just don't understand rather than think they're trolling or just being assholes. Your responses to Gauss and Blaizer are kind of revealing that you missed the points they were making... so again you're better off proceeding with caution and just asking them to elaborate on their thoughts with examples rather than just launch into defensive rationalizations about why you've done things the way you did. Even if you do understand what someone is telling you it's entirely possible for you to just ignore it rather than trying to fight them over their response. If anyone looks like they're trolling here, honestly it's you.
I know a lot of the posts here are dickish, mine included, but you should see this as a valuable insight and not just rude people on the internet being rude. You quickly learn in business that your most valuable customers are the ones that complain, especially if they aren't sugar coating it. Because you learn nothing from the people who refuse to buy your product and never tell you why, and you learn little from the ones that do tell you but are softballing it because they want to be polite. Just your attitude in responses thus far has probably driven off tons of people from giving you feedback.
Anyway your new screenshots are an improvement but I'd try to push the variety if possible. I'm not sure what your assets look like but if you have another weapon, I'd show it so that you're not holding the handgun in every picture. At a bare minimum maybe make one shot firing the gun, one shot holding it... Pick some different maps, maybe a couple with more depth or at least something showing some visual variety. According to your description the game has objectives aside from just killing eachother, probably a good idea to show them in action?
I'd feel more compelled to donate if I saw a video of actual gameplay on the indiegogo page. The youtube page you link to has random stuff and other game vids
If you want to get exposure, you must be serious, professional. Sell your game with real videos, and never say your team is formed by 2 people when it's not true. Who did the concepts? who did the guns? who did the props? who did the characters? you did all?. As far as i know, you don't.
You don't need experience in the retail world... you just need to work hard and give your blood and soul if you want to have success in this. there are dozens of groups doing indie games in UDK...
I'm sure kickstarter did a study with your project and refused it in minutes. I've been following your "Team", since quake 2 evolved, before "kman" (now with other nick on these forums) did the machine gun... the years have passed, too many years, and as me, too many of us see nothing here except air. Will you be able to finish the game with a release date?, we highly doubt it, and kickstarter may think in the same way.
Rich, Rooster, did a game alone, and with him you have a proof of effort and talent.
And it was just a suggestion, the screens are not appealing considering what we have nowadays. If you say me, it's the style you are looking for, go on, you are free to do as you like, and if you are wrong with your choice and you end failing, bad for you. But know that, for me that's an excuse full of ego. You think you are doing the things well when you aren't.
And with kickstarter you did all wrong.
As commercial, you didn't sell your product. Make it more appealing, less gritty, less dirty, less distracting, less monochromatic, less bad, make more content and try to astonish the donors with your project.
So, stay fresh, and make a video like you were looking after investors. And remember that saying that your team has only 2 members is like trashing the effort other people put on "your project".
Oh, man. You really need to readjust your approach to communicating with people.
I wouldn't donate to your project on principal because of your tone throughout this thread.
There's been a lot of good advice given on here - some of it pretty blunt, including this, but that's a direct result of the whiny tone of the opening post (and the fact this is polycount) - and we probably represent a fairly good cross section of the people most likely to fund these sorts of projects. I'd really listen to it, if I were you.
You're going to need this advice sooner or later, so I'm posting it now.
Ben Kuchera, gaming editor of Ars Technica, shares his advice for indie game developers, including marketing best practices, how to deal with press, and how to get your indie game to can stand out.
One last point -- I think maybe you set your goal too high? Schafer asked for 400,000, yeah, but he runs a full studio and between him and Gilbert their project has a large percentage of the talent for the ENTIRE GENRE, so that makes some sense.
What are you planning to use the money for? That's too little to fund a team, so... Marketing? a few individual assets? Living expenses so you can dev full time?
Replies
Shit is happening, guns and stuff, blood, giant things, choppers, bodies flailing, etc. The action in the scene does a fairly good job of illustrating what it feels like to play the game, not just what it looks like. If that makes any sense...
These are two of your screenshots:
Really nothing going on here that says anything about gameplay. There's a difference between an "in game" screenshot and a "gameplay" screenshot, you've got screenshots that were no doubt taken inside the game but it doesn't illustrate the gameplay at all. They convey atmosphere pretty well but that's about it.
You say your shots weren't staged... maybe they should have been. It's hard enough to convey gameplay in a screenshot, may as well use staging to your advantage to illustrate the point right?
Dinosaurs = instant profit?
I'll see what I can do there when I get home. Trains delayed a full hour and I need a dump
This is basically what your screenshots say: You walk around flipping people the bird and pointing your gun at creepy dudes. I'm guessing that isn't what your game is about... your description says it's a team based multiplayer game, get more than 3 other people on screen, one of your teamates and 2 enemies, dudes shooting eachother, being shot, hanging off ledges, climbing, whatever?
I mean yeah all FPS games boil down to shooting people but if you could sum up *what it feels like* to play your game in a picture what would it be? I'm hoping it wouldn't be a creepy guy in a bathroom...
Nah see that's a point brought up in a good way. I'll try and fix some things when I get back, set some new pics up. Good points raised there.
Game design docs and prototypes first, polish pass later! And if you don't have a running gameplay prototype then it simply means that it is too early for founding, crowd or not ...
http://www.indiegogo.com/overdose
In other words, they have nothing to show, are unpaid for their efforts, and have started up on Kickstarter JUST to ask for people to donate.
Whats peoples views on this? It can't be just based on track record, because I've actually worked on and released more than they have...? Soooo...? Whats your thoughts there? (Totally asking in a none sarcastic way, but its just shown up as a big news article on Joystiq).
You forgot the link to whatever you're complaining about.
I'm assuming it's this?
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/28/auditorium-devs-look-to-kickstarter-for-sequel-funding/
And ergo this?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/761471459/auditorium-2-duet/
Well, first off, they've got a history, which helps. Second of all, they're promoting their stuff beyond just creating a kickstarter page.
Why haven't you submitted tips to Kotaku/Joystiq/everyone else yet? Put together a press release and send it off.
Advertise!
You love to bitch about how other people are successful and how the world is and what is happening, but you seem to miss that all of that is beyond your control. You can't force things on the world, you can only change the way you respond to it. In this case, rather than harping on someone else's success or telling me that you've released more than they have (you have? You've been working on Overdose for as long as I can remember), why don't you change the way you present things? Observe what they do, see what works, and do the successful shit. In this case, clearly their kickstarter is benefiting from Joystiq's post, so why aren't you trying to get on Joystiq?
You come off as a bitter shitheel every time you post, and that same bitterness comes off in your pitch, too. Every time you say something, it's not about what you offer, or implementing change, it's about what other people are doing, or why you can't change. You're way too angry about shit and it's very off-putting. And putting people off you, your team, and your project is not very good advertising.
People are repeatedly providing useful information and criticism in the thread and you act like a total tit. It's very clear that you are passionate about your project and that is why people are willing to provide help, but your attitude is total poison.
You would most likely benefit from finding someone who is more personable to advertise and perform PR for your project because you come off as incredibly vitriolic. I'm not saying nice things here and I really couldn't give a fuck about your feelings because I've seen your shitty attitude crap up every thread you create for as long as I can remember - but the important thing is your shitty attitude isn't somehow justified by my being an asshole here. Or by gauss giving it to you straight. Or by anyone else who has had it with your whining.
Grow up already. Stop whining about other people's success and start incorporating more feedback and effort into advertising. If someone is successful, don't bitch about how you're not successful, investigate why they're successful! You don't seem to do any research regarding this. If you want to know more about Auditorium:Duet's kickstarter goals and publicity start looking into them more and their history - I think you'll find they've got a lot of advertising and press behind them.
As an incidental note, the indiegogo page has the Overdose page linked as the moddb page instead of the actual Overdose page.
Also, unlock your forums - not being able to lurk and see what is up in a forum isn't how you build a community and engage new folks - let them read and see something they want to discuss if you want to build a discussion community.
A bitter shitheel? Again with the needless flames, for zero reason at all.
Show me a single example in my pitch where I show that I'm "angry", or "bitter".
Once again, I would LOVE to know exactly where I've ignored anything said...? Last time I checked, I re-did all of the perks, due to suggestions from her. I re-wrote the entire article the second I could, because I was away from the computer for a few days, because shock horror there was a death in the family and I couldn't put my time into it (But thats not for here). I'm actually making, this second in fact, a video, as per requested here. So tell me exactly where I've ignored ANYTHING?
You don't like me. Thats awesome man, I'm happy for you. So why dont you naff off out of the thread, seeing as all you're doing is attacking and trolling, and for zero reason at all. Just put me on ignore or something if I keep you up so bad at night, yeah? Theres been LOTS of feedback in here, and when I didn't agree, I stuck to my guns and didn't agree. But once I saw that I was indeed in the minority and that I was looking at it the wrong way, what did I do...? I changed everything. I listened. And the only times I piped up and said something was when people acted like arseholes for no reason at all, regardless of if they had good points or not. Funny how I spoke like a normal person when people spoke normal to me, even when they told me everything I did was wrong... Theres a way to do it.
So heres the deal... I won't bother you at all, I won't annoy you. Its very simple if you want this. Simply don't post in my threads, don't even open them, and certainly don't bitch at me as if somebody on the internet is such a bad guy and has hurt you in some way.
Just go about your business, and move along.
Well first of all you should have that shit.
Love that screenie of the guy flipping of the mutant.
I've only ever seen him bitch about MW :P He's not bitching about much, certainly he's not bitter about other people's successes. He's just trying to get his head around something thats new to him. None of us are overly delighted when learning something new that challenges us, right? He's actually taking the critisism and new ideas fully on board from what I've read.
You need to chill the fuck out. I dunno who pissed on your cornflakes this morning, but this post was grossely unneccesary.
At least he's trying, and making a bloody good go, of making something of himself. Lets see you get this far with your own title.
EDIT: Sorry for the double post.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/punyhuman/blade-symphony
Natural selection 2 is out there with preorder buyin to the beta and (no offense) a MUCH, MUCH higher caliber product than what you can deliver on a shoestring budget. Interstellar marines is out there putting out demos every now and then.
Overdose looks cool, but why exactly would anyone spend their money on it instead of other options on the market? The pitch doesn't tell me at all.
Not counting that OverDose has a new graphics engine for a second, you have the team play aspect as well you can ignore, but then none of those games allow you the freedom of movement OverDose does. OverDose doesn't have clipped 1 foot tall fences that you cant get over... Either you jump it, climb it, jump up/grab and climb, or you can have a team mate stand above you and help pull you up. Its more like the team play of RtCW, with the movement and flexability of a coop Mirrors Edge... I don't actually know of any other game that does that?
As for the "Natural selection 2 is out there with preorder buyin to the beta" thing... So do we? We offer a lot, in fact.
EDIT: Just as an aside... Kickstarter have accepted us.
I'm not laying these down as criticisms of you, I personally do think the project looks very cool -- but you need to pitch what you just said to me on the kickstarter, with some serious impact. It doesnt come across at all in the indigogo pitch why overdose is truly unique.
Yeah, I'll try and adapt that very point over on the site... Stands to reason people would think the same.
And Brink... Yeeeeaaaahhh... I dunno, Brink was stunning, but it just wasn't fun? And it felt clunky as all hell. Even though you had a lot of movement, it just never erally felt like you could pull off amazing feats or be nimble at all? It made me feel like I was about 60 stone
IMO of course.
I do have the go ahead for Kickstarter, but I need to be more proactive first. I won't even think about that until I get the video up, it wouldn't be right.
You are not showing off anything serious, nothing that can be sold, and with the comparison of bulletstorm we can see too many lacks i will not say for respect, but just some things, the screens of overdose are very very monochromatic, dead of color, there's no action or something interesting and all is very dirty and the details are placed without logic, like the busts in a interior? c'mon...
You are not selling well this proyect, just show a video in a good map where you kill enemies and that's all. Make a video talking about what others have said and you surely will have success in kickstarter. Otherwise, you will get a kick in the ass like we say here.
You are not schafer... but you can talk, can't you?
And put down your war axe, we denote some frustration in the way you reply.
While you may see the "finger" as totally childish, I call it something else... Having a laugh. You can take shit seriously until your balls fall off, but you have to have a laugh sometimes, you have to relax up a bit.
Also, I LOVE the way you say we are lacking because "when you compare to Bulletstorm......" Well yeah, no shit we look lacking compared to Bulletstorm lol!
While I can of course accept the crit that things are placed "without logic", (which btw, is called feedback, and you're more than welcome to post that in the thread created in Pimping) I simply flat out REFUSE to take any crits on art style that are in the vein of "its dog shit brown".
So instead, I'll simply say this, and don't get all up in arms about it. Just read it.
What tone conveys depression more? What colour, represents dirt? And on the point of colour, just how much saturation should a scene have when its supposed to be showing a dirty, old, run down area thats hardly survived a good nuking...?
If I'm honest to God wrong, then thats fine. I can deal there. But I'm not changing it, because its the style set out from the start. Thats like saying Saving Private Ryan is wrong because its less saturated. Thats like saying Left 4 Dead is TERRIBLE because its less saturated. Thats like saying the Book Of Eli is........ You get the idea. I don't load up the Disney Channel and moan that these shows that are full of laughs and cartoon characters are too "colourful" do I? No, because thats exactly what I expect them to be.
Sometimes art styles, colours and methods won't gel with you on a level that makes it not appeal. Thats fine, I see lots of media like that. But thats your thoughts. I'm trying to convey a mood, and just a quick FYI, not all the locations are like that in colour tone.
Please, by all means crit me on layout and things like that, I'm all ears. But don't crit something like colour tone that you don't like just because you don't like it. Thats a tad silly.
Multiplayer games centralize around a catch 22, no one will buy your game without a thriving community (because the whole point is to play with other people), and you can't have a thriving community unless people buy your game. It really doesn't matter how good your game is if no one is playing it. Thus far the only real solution has been to either run it in a really long, huge open beta, or just give the game away and forget about making money off boxed copies.
@odium:
I do agree with everyone else that you seem seriously defensive. Ghostscapes post was over the top for sure but even your response to Gauss and EQ were full of resistance.
You don't need to respond to every single thing someone says that you don't like, and honestly in 90% of cases it's better to assume you just don't understand rather than think they're trolling or just being assholes. Your responses to Gauss and Blaizer are kind of revealing that you missed the points they were making... so again you're better off proceeding with caution and just asking them to elaborate on their thoughts with examples rather than just launch into defensive rationalizations about why you've done things the way you did. Even if you do understand what someone is telling you it's entirely possible for you to just ignore it rather than trying to fight them over their response. If anyone looks like they're trolling here, honestly it's you.
I know a lot of the posts here are dickish, mine included, but you should see this as a valuable insight and not just rude people on the internet being rude. You quickly learn in business that your most valuable customers are the ones that complain, especially if they aren't sugar coating it. Because you learn nothing from the people who refuse to buy your product and never tell you why, and you learn little from the ones that do tell you but are softballing it because they want to be polite. Just your attitude in responses thus far has probably driven off tons of people from giving you feedback.
Anyway your new screenshots are an improvement but I'd try to push the variety if possible. I'm not sure what your assets look like but if you have another weapon, I'd show it so that you're not holding the handgun in every picture. At a bare minimum maybe make one shot firing the gun, one shot holding it... Pick some different maps, maybe a couple with more depth or at least something showing some visual variety. According to your description the game has objectives aside from just killing eachother, probably a good idea to show them in action?
You don't need experience in the retail world... you just need to work hard and give your blood and soul if you want to have success in this. there are dozens of groups doing indie games in UDK...
I'm sure kickstarter did a study with your project and refused it in minutes. I've been following your "Team", since quake 2 evolved, before "kman" (now with other nick on these forums) did the machine gun... the years have passed, too many years, and as me, too many of us see nothing here except air. Will you be able to finish the game with a release date?, we highly doubt it, and kickstarter may think in the same way.
Rich, Rooster, did a game alone, and with him you have a proof of effort and talent.
And it was just a suggestion, the screens are not appealing considering what we have nowadays. If you say me, it's the style you are looking for, go on, you are free to do as you like, and if you are wrong with your choice and you end failing, bad for you. But know that, for me that's an excuse full of ego. You think you are doing the things well when you aren't.
And with kickstarter you did all wrong.
As commercial, you didn't sell your product. Make it more appealing, less gritty, less dirty, less distracting, less monochromatic, less bad, make more content and try to astonish the donors with your project.
So, stay fresh, and make a video like you were looking after investors. And remember that saying that your team has only 2 members is like trashing the effort other people put on "your project".
But come on, if it was as simple as making something "less bad", this world would be full of perfect concepts and ideas.
I wouldn't donate to your project on principal because of your tone throughout this thread.
There's been a lot of good advice given on here - some of it pretty blunt, including this, but that's a direct result of the whiny tone of the opening post (and the fact this is polycount) - and we probably represent a fairly good cross section of the people most likely to fund these sorts of projects. I'd really listen to it, if I were you.
Ben Kuchera, gaming editor of Ars Technica, shares his advice for indie game developers, including marketing best practices, how to deal with press, and how to get your indie game to can stand out.
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What are you planning to use the money for? That's too little to fund a team, so... Marketing? a few individual assets? Living expenses so you can dev full time?