Criticize Us Here

[Butta]

Yay! I'm always excited about new screens, they really are appreciated.

And don't worry, at least I can't even get mad with you.

[Deathhood98]

I think a large problem is with the modding, sure it is supported but you have to go through dozens of forum posts to find out how to do anything such as new buildings, weapons, etc. If a developer could make a guide or something for more complex modding I think it could keep everyone occupied while we wait for new updates

[Alafff]

Thanks Koomatzu.

Squad Size : I would speak for myself but i think some people share this opinion , but even with a tutorial or a step by step manual ,we would be really too lazy to mod the game , even if like here we have the tools. But we would still ask devs to put it in game , That sound kind of egoistic i know.

Experimental : Shouldnt have put the end line about normal mode , it seems that it confused you Zeal , i'm in experimental since two days after buying the game . That is the job of the early access after all , Players feedback about everything to help shape the game better , or so it's written on the paper. Devs have theirs own team of free semi-pro testers with early access(Semi pro because they will rant about bad things but not points out the good ones). We bought the game so we believe in the game you do. So use us as long as you can .

As Rikter say , Regular update , even if you just say , "I went to work , spent 1week on finding why my update caused memory leaks , finally found that int i wasnt initialized to 0 \o/ "

[EternalAmbiguity]

Well, the last time I tried to play the game crashed. Everytime I've tried to play it for the last several months the game has crashed. I feel like it was the memory leak (is that truly, TRULY fixed?), but I can't be sure because I refuse to play a game that crashes randomly (with the exception of SimCity 4, a 12 year old game).

Additionally, wall/gate systems and pathfinding really REALLY need work. I had a save where I built into the side of a mountain, with walls going up to the impassible areas, but even then characters would skirt around it to move in and out without using a gate.

The entire reason I did this was because the "normal" system, just building a wall all the way around your area, is still messed up and the characters refuse to take commands when gates are locked, going to open the gate before doing the action.

I have no idea if navigation is baked into the map (recalculated X times per second perhaps), and maybe it's just not worth it to update the old map when you've got the new one *nearly* done, but again I don't have any interest in playing a game with such a severe issue.

Regarding the "two devs per part" idea, you can get around that by having someone from another aspect of the game simply take a look at the issues and maybe have a discussion on them. Or better yet, with such a small size, freely talk about the big issues amongst all of you and brainstorm for solutions. You may already be doing that, but if not it's an idea.

Regarding slow development time, it would be nice if you did a brief recap at the end of the month. You don't have to go full Star Citizen (I just skim it, there's no way I'm reading all that), but just outlining what you've accomplished would be very helpful. That may seem like a big task, but really, no one's looking for minutiae and it would only take a short amount of time, a few minutes at most.


I may seem nitpicky, but it's intentionally so for the purpose of this topic, I still think you've got a great game on your hands, and I absolutely do not regret my one Early Access purchase. Just want things a bit more stable.

[EternalAmbiguity]

Building new content... not so much.

Um...yeah, definitely so much. Maybe not populating a singular world or something, but on actual content creation, after the designs have all been ironed out, two people working on two different things is objectively faster than only one of those people (unless the second person is an idiot that messes things up, but we presume that isn't happening).

If I'm working on modelling the in-game vegetation and my buddy is animating a monster we both are absolutely accomplishing more (maybe 2 times more based on how good the other person is) that one person alone doing that work.

Hey so uhh... speaking of being more transparent, whatever happened to screenshot Fridays? It at least gave as a weekly "something is being worked on" sort of update, kind of like what Project Zomboid does on Mondays.

^^^

Edit: most of what we've seen and read has been about the visual design, stuff like the biomes or the races. I personally would love more information on other things, like the dialog for instance (I'm a hobbyist writer). Fill us in on some of what you're doing with that, or some other parts of the game than just modeling/visual design.

Double Edit: I just saw that your technical artist is named Chris Roberts. How'd you swing that?

[Hatsune_Neko]

Double Edit: I just saw that your technical artist is named Chris Roberts. How'd you swing that?

Technical artist (part-time) Chris Roberts ( developer of "shelter") not star citizen Chris Roberts

[EternalAmbiguity]

Double Edit: I just saw that your technical artist is named Chris Roberts. How'd you swing that?

Technical artist (part-time) Chris Roberts ( developer of "shelter") not star citizen Chris Roberts

Heh, I know, just joking.

[Zeal]

Double Edit: I just saw that your technical artist is named Chris Roberts. How'd you swing that?

Technical artist (part-time) Chris Roberts ( developer of "shelter") not star citizen Chris Roberts

I also have an irl friend named Chris Roberts. Knew him long before SC. Seems that name isn't so uncommon.

[EternalAmbiguity]

I actually know two different families in real life named Roberts, though neither has a Chris.

[Tolwrath]

Building new content... not so much.

Um...yeah, definitely so much. Maybe not populating a singular world or something, but on actual content creation, after the designs have all been ironed out, two people working on two different things is objectively faster than only one of those people (unless the second person is an idiot that messes things up, but we presume that isn't happening).

If I'm working on modelling the in-game vegetation and my buddy is animating a monster we both are absolutely accomplishing more (maybe 2 times more based on how good the other person is) that one person alone doing that work.

That's nice and all but that statement was about 2 people working on the same thing, not 2 people working on different things. And populating the map is one of the things where 2 people working on it could definitely be faster because they could just claim and work on separate cells within the map to add NPCs and buildings to.

Two Chris Roberts? Would either of them happen to be some sort of dread pirate?

[Ironfist]

Well it is April!

no news, no information, and again no update!!
but then again, nothing new under the horizon in how the customers are treated.

Normally you would expect a news item with a release date, or an update.
But as normal for this studio, customers are not the priority it seems. Why on earth would you keep your customers informed on promised updates!.
Then again, perhaps the internet in Vegas was not available at the blackjack table.

This thing is never going to finish... promi$e$, promi$e$.

[Ironfist]

It is funny, that every time the team is protected by the community with statements they are a small team, and progress is slow because of that.

I say small team, huge disappointment.
More of a team unable to solve the current major issues and keep running around in circles trying to fix them, unable, and losing time and effort doing so.

Change the team!
Get a timeline and hire people who can solve the issues!

“Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.”

― Robert C. Gallagher

[dietpills42]

Change the team!
Get a timeline and hire people who can solve the issues!

Firing someone isn't as easy as one might think it is. There may be legal complications, like, if employee felt his dismission was unjustified he/she can actually open a lawsuit against your company. Which would lead to the consumption of time and therefore money to find another employeee with the specific skillset and mindset you need for synergy to bloom in a team.

If you want though, you could try asking them to slap a "release version" tag on it and sell it on the summer steam sales.

[EternalAmbiguity]

That's nice and all but that statement was about 2 people working on the same thing, not 2 people working on different things. And populating the map is one of the things where 2 people working on it could definitely be faster because they could just claim and work on separate cells within the map to add NPCs and buildings to.

Two Chris Roberts? Would either of them happen to be some sort of dread pirate?

Fair enough I suppose, though you don't actually say initially that you're talking about doing one thing (outside of your pregnancy analogy).

Also fair I suppose. All of my (extremely limited) development has been with a single map in Unity so I don't exactly know how you'd work on it simultaneously.

[Zeal]

Building new content... not so much.

Um...yeah, definitely so much. Maybe not populating a singular world or something, but on actual content creation, after the designs have all been ironed out, two people working on two different things is objectively faster than only one of those people (unless the second person is an idiot that messes things up, but we presume that isn't happening).

If I'm working on modelling the in-game vegetation and my buddy is animating a monster we both are absolutely accomplishing more (maybe 2 times more based on how good the other person is) that one person alone doing that work.

That's nice and all but that statement was about 2 people working on the same thing, not 2 people working on different things. And populating the map is one of the things where 2 people working on it could definitely be faster because they could just claim and work on separate cells within the map to add NPCs and buildings to.

Two Chris Roberts? Would either of them happen to be some sort of dread pirate?

I'm pretty sure there is more than 1 single asset in each department... The objective is to have more than one person working on any single area of the game. Model design for example.. Unless the game contains 1 single model all around the game, it's very easy to assign two or more people to work on models. They each work on a different model.

Though you are right that doesn't work so well with something like a specific line of code. But people collaborating on developing code in even small areas isn't farfetched, and is done widely, so i'm not sure what you're getting at in that front either.

I don't know if you're any kind of artist, like someone who draws (like me), but I know that even though I'm the one holding the pencil, other's input and views on things speed up the process to efficiency considerably. And heck, maybe there's a part of that specific drawing that I'm having a hard time with, but someone else knows well how to draw that specific something (I'd personally prefer it to be 100% my own work, but that isn't relevent in this example)

I draw mostly people. And often times there is a hideous proportional issue that I'm completely blind of, but someone else can look at it and go "That looks really weird.. is that intentional?" And then i can look at it and realize what i've done incorrectly and fix it. Collaboration is a wonderful thing for the reasons i've already explained.

[Ironfist]

No update again,

On Steam the community is turning towards the facts and reality, and people are openly speaking out that the game is another Indie failure to complete.
Grab and run ins more and more outspoken on Steam, reviews are turning negative.

No information is given on updates, just dead silence, as if the customer is just a nuisance who does not need to be updated.

It is almost arrogant.

It is a matter of time before it will hit the sales department on steam, and then everyone knows what the future will be of the game.

I refer to Steam to read the articles.

So unfortunately, all signs are there that my statements that the money will be grabbed and used for other development is becoming reality.

[Koomatzu]

No information is given on updates, just dead silence, as if the customer is just a nuisance who does not need to be updated.

It is almost arrogant.

I'd generally appreciate if you can elaborate on this. After listening to people's suggestions of weekly blogs I've been trying hard to keep the community well updated on what we're doing, so I personally don't feel like we've been silent recently. Unless you mean the lack of a release date? In which case, we're simply not ready to give a date yet, we don't want to mislead people with another incorrect estimate.

I rather have an update patch Friday
every Friday

They're working on complex things at the moment, it wouldn't be possible to release weekly. I expect that at the next stage (which Chris referred to as B-Alpha, you can see in our road map), new content will be more frequent, since all the complicated stuff will be out the way. By all means, frequency of updates are not a measure of progress.

[Zeal]

No update again,

On Steam the community is turning towards the facts and reality, and people are openly speaking out that the game is another Indie failure to complete.
Grab and run ins more and more outspoken on Steam, reviews are turning negative.

I've been paying heavy attention to the forum the past while, and there have been a couple threads posted by people who showed discontent, and the % of reviews has dropped 1% in the last month or so, but I hardly consider that the chaos that you're implying...?

No information is given on updates, just dead silence, as if the customer is just a nuisance who does not need to be updated.

It is almost arrogant.

Kooma's last update post was on the 16th. That was last thursday, or friday depending on where you are. Complete with a progress report and screenshots.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/233860/di ... 965148992/

Sorry, i'm just not seeing it

[w30wnz]

I feel the updates complaint is a bit exaggerated, but I do agree with him somewhat, although I have only recently purchased the game I've noticed there has been only 1 stable update and 4 or so experimental updates (Not counting hotfixes) since last April which means we average:

1 Stable Update every 12 months
2 Experimental Updates every 6 months

But, the team had just recently expanded I believe it was late last year so since then you all have come up with 2 experimental updates and hopefully are almost ready to release this much needed new one to fix Havoc bugs and what not, which is a much better release rate.

Anyways, I think people would appreciate if you all better utilized stable and experimental branches to give us quicker access to new material. With respect to pushing out features you're confident are stable into in the actual core game more quickly (Such as the several mentioned complete features in the road map) and allowing us to try these still under development features in the experimental build even if they are game breaking as that is the whole purpose of the build setup between stable and experimental versions.

Not only would this keep your current customers happy but would also attract new players as they can be confident you are actively bettering your game and the player testing to find bugs and recommended changes wouldn't hurt either...

An example I would give is Mad Games Tycoon which sometimes posts several updates a week that could include just one simple change to the game, but this minimalist and feedback orientated approach has had it hailed as a greenlight "success story" by some reviewers.

[EternalAmbiguity]

^ I do think the comment about utilizing the experimental branch better is certainly fair. If stuff is complete, even if not balanced, having an update with it available would only be a boon to the game--everyone knows it's a work in progress, but indeed, they DO know it's a "work" that's actually "in progress."