Medieval Engineers

[Taleric]

I want to grab this while it is cheaper for SE owners but can't justify with how incomplete they both are...

Have you guys grabbed ME and should the recent SE comments provide comfort? http://blog.marekrosa.org/2015/02/space ... tx_18.html

[FlowerChild]

I want to grab this while it is cheaper for SE owners but can't justify with how incomplete they both are...

I know the feeling man. I'm in the same boat.

It's the lack of any actual gameplay to Space Engineers that's really holding me back. I keep looking longingly at each release of SE that comes out, as there's some cool features in them to be sure, but until survival mode gets some love I can't bring myself to play it again.

Starting that whole process over again with a company that is so obviously prioritizing purely creative play is just not something I can really get behind again, as cool as some of the ME stuff looks.

[MoRmEnGiL]

If you ask me, it's bad form to start up a new project when you have an unfinished one, when you are a small indie team. Sometimes you can get away with it, for e.g. if all art and sound is done on the main project, some people do not have a job to do, but how many small dev teams have many dedicated artists and sound engineers? It just feels like a small betrayal, heavy as that word might be. Now space engineers is not exactly my kind of game, but if I was a big fan of that game, patiently waiting to have it finished I'd be feeling pretty angry.

I had recently had a big discussion with a friend about early access, kickstarter and games being perpetually unfinished. There are many examples of ea games (early access not the other ea) that got out of ea with so many features promised but absent. This is a very bad trend and is becoming more and more common. I'm becoming increasingly sceptical when I see indie studios (or even solo creators) announcing new projects before finishing the previous ones.

[FlowerChild]

Well, I see two sides to this. One is that it's not uncommon for dev studios to start up a second project while the first is yet incomplete. This can happen in situations where a company has a surplus of cash and thus can afford to hire additional staff (and just throwing additional staff at a project is not always the best idea), or where they have a shortage of cash and need to secure additional funding. Showing a desire to grow into a larger operation is one way to do that, even if it also opens up a host of other problems as well.

But early access politicizes everything studios do. This was the kind of thing that would draw very little attention before early access, but now, your "investors" are investing in a game, not a company, and tend to get pissed when anything is done that looks like it may mess with the game, even if it's to the benefit of the company itself.

Do I look sideways at this as someone that bought into Space Engineers? Definitely. Despite all the explanations they've given about hiring new staff and all that jazz, I still look at SE and wonder where the actual game is, and see very little effort being made at present to make it happen. There are constantly new features being added so I can't really feel justified in complaining, but, I still see no sign of a real survival mode and I haven't played the game in months as a result. Until that company can prove to me that they are actually capable of designing a game, and not just technology, I don't want to buy into a 2nd title by them.

So, despite me understanding intellectually that development studios have a long history of starting up 2nd games like this, I do feel conned and somewhat betrayed here with SE, and I do not yet feel that they have provided what I payed for with the first title.

I think the worst example of this kind of thing I've seen from ea games so far was with Planetary Annihilation where they obviously pushed the game out the door too early, called it done, and immediately put up a new Kickstarter campaign for a new game. Just glad that one didn't get funded, or I think it could have established a very alarming trend.

[Sarudak]

Planetary annihilation is still unplayable for me... It literally just bombs when I build a map.

[Pfilson]

I'm additionally skeptical of ME and SE getting to be finished games because of their one fully released game Miner Wars 20-- something.. That page is full of reviews as to how the game is unfinished and lacking a lot of things that were promised and were the reason that people bought into it in the first place. It would have been better to their image for me if they had put at least some of the new staff on addressing some of the issues with their "released" game.

Also, a lot of the times when you look at the EA text on pages now it says: if you are not interested in playing this game as it currently stands you should not buy into it as there is no guaranty that the game will develop any further or that the planned features will ever get implemented. This feels to me to be largely in response to games getting released without meeting the goals given in EA. And is probably worth keeping in mind when putting money into an EA game.

[Nyoike]

Planetary annihilation is still unplayable for me... It literally just bombs when I build a map.

Last time I tried I got about a 10 minute load in for a 6 planet solar system that a friend made.

I think the worst example of this kind of thing I've seen from ea games so far was with Planetary Annihilation where they obviously pushed the game out the door too early, called it done, and immediately put up a new Kickstarter campaign for a new game. Just glad that one didn't get funded, or I think it could have established a very alarming trend.

I almost backed Planetary Annihilation when it was put up on Kickstarter, but ultimately I didn't. I did pick it up when it went to Gamma testing phase and was on sale. Overall it's got some satisfying moments, but it does seem lacking in some ways. I was very interested in their new one, but I had never thought of what you brought up before.

I'm additionally skeptical of ME and SE getting to be finished games because of their one fully released game Miner Wars 20-- something.. That page is full of reviews as to how the game is unfinished and lacking a lot of things that were promised and were the reason that people bought into it in the first place. It would have been better to their image for me if they had put at least some of the new staff on addressing some of the issues with their "released" game.

Also, a lot of the times when you look at the EA text on pages now it says: if you are not interested in playing this game as it currently stands you should not buy into it as there is no guaranty that the game will develop any further or that the planned features will ever get implemented. This feels to me to be largely in response to games getting released without meeting the goals given in EA. And is probably worth keeping in mind when putting money into an EA game.

I picked up Miner Wars 20- whatever. Never really played it. I tried to once with a controller as it said it had partial controller support (which I assumed meant it was playable with a controller) but it lacked key movement controls. Like the ability to turn. I've never tried it since and wish I would've looked at the reviews before buying, even if I did get it for a few dollars.

Overall, Early Access is an interesting idea, but I think it's causing more trouble than it's worth.

[FlowerChild]

Overall, Early Access is an interesting idea, but I think it's causing more trouble than it's worth.

There are still some great games being made due to it that might not otherwise though man. I do think that people need to be smarter about how they invest in these things, but I do think it serves a very useful purpose.

[Nyoike]

There are still some great games being made due to it that might not otherwise though man. I do think that people need to be smarter about how they invest in these things, but I do think it serves a very useful purpose.

I 'spose there is that. I guess those don't stand out as much as the games that do mess up Early Access. The whole "Good news is no news" thing again.

[FlowerChild]

I 'spose there is that. I guess those don't stand out as much as the games that do mess up Early Access. The whole "Good news is no news" thing again.

I think people are wising up about what they invest in, and that's a good thing. After the success of Minecraft as an early access game I think people went a little nuts in just throwing money at absolutely everything.

There were a lot of people that basically took advantage of the uninformed consumer in the wake of that, but there are also still some very serious efforts out there which are making good games using this model.

Just take a look at the RimWorld thread, or games like Kerbal Space Program with the realization that they might never have happened if not for early access. The whole EA model is allowing for non big corporate studio games, and that's a very good thing IMO, as there are very few of those I can stomach playing anymore. Almost everything I play right now seriously is in early access.

[MoRmEnGiL]

I think you as a developer can especially appreciate how the whole early access thing can make developing viable for a small indie studio. It makes risks smaller, and helps build a closer connection between devs and players (which has its ups and downs for both)

All said I think ea is a very positive innovation, but one that needs to be treated with responsibility by both devs/publishers, and gamers. A lot of things can go wrong, but it's not due to inherent flaws imo. And to be frank, you do not go to the supermarket and grab something without reading what it actually is and the big red warnings near it. Why should you do that on steam?

[Jesar]

I bought Space Engineers when it was just an asteroid and a creative inventory. I didn't know anything about the game, just that it looked like it was Minecraft, BUT IN SPACE, GUYS!!!

I saw the bloom, the voxel building, the space, and bought it. I was stupid, though, because the game had no features whatsoever, and I burned out in frustration trying to learn its controls, just to learn that I only had one asteroid available to me. All that space I saw? Skybox. Well, spacebox, I guess.

Fast forward, I bought medieval engineers for the same reason. Bloom. Voxel building. Structural integrity? GRAVITY? MINECRAFT WITH GRAVITY? I bought it.

It has even LESS features than space engineers had. This "alpha" is just a tech demo for structural integrity. That's it. You are on a small square map floating in space with mountains covering the corners of the world so that you can't see where the skybox meets the edge of the world. It is piss poor and disappointing.

20 dollars for this shit, guys. The reason why this is one of the last straws for me was because there was no reason for them to release this thing this early at all. They already have space engineers money. They can afford to develop this thing just a little bit more before selling it for 20 FUCKING DOLLARS. Space engineers needed early access because the company needed to pay the bills to afford development. But Medieval Engineers? They are literally cashing in on the trust they built with their audience to sell a tech demo for a full indie game release price years before this thing will be even close to worth 20 dollars.

They need to make sure Space Engineers is worth 20 dollars before they pull this shit.


The only reason why I don't hate early access as a whole right now is because I also happened to pick up rimworld alpha 9 in the same week. It was expensive to buy both, but I'm glad I did. If I hadn't bought rimworld as soon after medieval engineers as I did, I may never have bought it. Which is kind of scary if you think of the implications practices like this have for good games using early access in the future.

Atari did something similar to what steam greenlight is doing right now, and I've read about how good that went. Let's hope that Nintendo has something better than the Wii U up their sleeve.

[MoRmEnGiL]

This is what happens when you blindly buy stuff man. Exercise some caution in the future? At the very least,before grabbing something, check here to see if we are talking about it, chances are you will get a good impression of how things are.

[Taleric]

I had to accept that strat/sim gamers are not the SE/ME target right now.

That is why we are frustrated, we see what could be for our play style.

SE/ME are a field day for modders and entertainers that benefit the most from fresh unstructed platforms to build content and get clicks. The big EA pitfalls have been hype from content makers that does not reflect most peoples play.

We have to be better at spotting games that cater to us right off the bat.

EAs can also get pushed by the community our way such as KSP where strat/sim folk have fought so hard to get their desired features.