History versus Hype

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Strife, Feb 28, 2017.

  1. Strife

    Strife Existential Complex

    It appears Chucklefish themselves will be the developer and publisher of Wargroove.

    I've been a HUGE fan of Advance Wars, but have been disappointed by the distinct lack of games to fill that itch. From the trailer, Wargroove appears to be a worthy spiritual successor. My hype levels are huge.

    However, I need to curb my hype because of one big concerning factor: this is a game being developed by Chucklefish! You guys are a good publishing team, allowing interesting projects to get the exposure and funding they need, but as a developing team, not a great track record.

    Obviously, I mean Starbound. A game poorly managed that was stuck in development hell for quite a few years, but finally getting completed much later. Sadly, at only a fraction of what was promised. Many things contributed to this disaster (including a poorly run team).

    It's not my intention to just rip on Chucklefish, but instead use your past to illustrate why I'm hopeful when looking to the future. It is my genuine hope that your team learns from past mistakes to make Wargroove the best damn game it can be. A game that truly deserves being the spiritual successor of Advance Wars.

    Good luck!
     
    • Tairuse

      Tairuse Subatomic Cosmonaut

      I understand what you mean with a previous track record of development history of Starbound, and I hope to see Wargroove become a solid and static game that can carry on the Advance Wars in spirit as well as add a fresh take on the turn-based strategy game. I too growing up was a huge fan of Advance Wars and am still looking for a replacement of my (worn) game boy advanced copy.

      For the development of this project I hope there is less customer drive in the development process, compared to Starbound. Starbound was interesting and still to this day is changing and evolving with a ton of content, but I think Wargroove will be a largely developer driven project.

      I have high hopes with Wargroove, and if I am not mistaken it will be available on the new Nintendo Switch (Which is awesome cause I think this will be a must have game for me). I am looking forward to more updates and would like to thank OP (Strife) for bringing this up! :D
       
        Last edited: Mar 1, 2017
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      • Jareix Cryvix

        Jareix Cryvix The Waste of Time

        I think starbound is an interesting case on its own, being developed with much community input and backlash and general chaos of trying to keep people interested while being unable to live up to all of their promises. However, keep in mind that they are likely going with an already previously established mechanic and system set from Advance Wars. Much more of a simple concept compared to SB, with really needing little in terms of expansion. From the trailer, it actually looks very complete in terms of mechanics, though some new twists would be appreciated much like in SDV, However, I think it looks like this will be better off developed with merely us catching glimpses in the devblog. CF seems to know what they're doing as long as they're following their own trail rather than trying to appease the thousands clamoring for new stuff. (Thought the new space thing looks very dope. I hope for something like SC2 in terms of a dynamic system and explorable universe, though there's still some things that could use some polish.)
         
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        • Belon

          Belon Orbital Explorer

          Although my hype today with Wargroove is skyrocketing, my history with this kind of (indie) games ends by dropping the entire game when there is no simple way to play online with friends (on PC).
          Happened with Risk of Rain and Wanderlust (almost with Terraria too). Port forwarding, ips configuration and lots trial and error are total turnoff :(

          My hope is that Starbound already had Steam Networking directly, If finally Wargroove delivers on it promises, I'm going for a at least 4 copies for gifting :laugh:.
           
            Last edited: Mar 1, 2017
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          • bk3k

            bk3k Oxygen Tank

            I presume that you do not know this, or you clearly wouldn't be commenting on the time frame, but games DO typically take years to develop. Even AAA titles with large development teams. But typically by the time you hear about them(even at game development announcements), they've already got several years under their belt. The sequel to the game may be underway before the game in question is finished yet alone released.

            And if Chucklefish is poorly managed... what is the basis of that assessment? Do you have an intimate knowledge of the inner-workings of Chucklefish specifically? Do you consider yourself an expert on game development? Or is this assertion sourced from your finest armchair expertise? Maybe you'll surprise me by being more so an expert than I'm expecting.

            With Starbound, the process was much more transparent than you are accustomed, and knowledge of the development came far sooner than you are accustomed. The chaos that comes with the development cycle is typically not in plain view as is was for Starbound. These things will certainly all skew your view.

            To the degree that they've made mistakes - mistakes which IMO you're wildly exaggerating - why do you assume nothing has been learned from them?

            Criticism is fine, and in many cases actually helpful. However it should be based off objective reality. When you make sweeping assertions, back them up with supporting evidence.

            Starbound needs more work/fleshed out. They seem to be doing just that. They didn't just release the game, take the money are run. They're still actively developing it. No DLC. Just new content like the forthcoming planetary system exploration. It will be more than just planets to explore. Thus in this aspect they are EXCEEDING promises made, even if a few things may have fallen short along the way. The mechs are also being worked on(as the dev blog shows). Probably things we don't know about yet as well.
             
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            • Neleos

              Neleos Title Not Found

              I've never experienced a bad Chucklefish game
               
              • Xacris

                Xacris Pangalactic Porcupine

                I saw Starbound as a success, because I've had fun with it at pretty much every level of it's development. It changed quite a bit from what it was originally, but I don't think that's a bad thing. As it exists now, I feel it's a very strong game. I've dropped about 250 hours into it and can say that I enjoyed most of that time, which is pretty good for a $15 game.

                So I'm pretty much all hype about War Groove. I was a big fan of the Advance Wars games, and so far Chucklefish's track record (to me) is pretty clean.
                 
                • Xylia

                  Xylia Tiy's Beard

                  When they "released" Starbound on Early Access, it was a tech demo at best. I mean absolutely no insult by this, I'm merely stating facts.

                  They made NO attempts to hide it, they told you exactly what it was: EARLY Beta. A Tech Demo. Barely out of Alpha.

                  People were VERY hyped about it, and sadly some people missed the "Barely out of Alpha" tag. No, it wasn't in "development hell". If you think Starbound of all games was in "development hell"... go look up Duke Nukem Forever, or some of the other infamous titles out there that had similar problems.

                  Starbound is a success, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. And they are STILL adding features onto it, FOR FREE.

                  EDIT: As for WG itself... uh, I'll wait and see. I'm not huge on these types of games, though I once played Final Fantasy Tactics so who knows. I might like it enough to try it? I'm not going to instantly buy just because of who made it, nor am I going to NOT buy it because of who made it (Only EA and Ubisoft get THAT distinction -- I have a boycott on those two).
                   
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                  • Firebird Zoom

                    Firebird Zoom Oxygen Tank

                    *Cough* Half-Life 3 *Cough*
                     
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                    • Jareix Cryvix

                      Jareix Cryvix The Waste of Time

                      I was thinking more like DOOM, and look at how well that turned out...
                       
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                      • Firebird Zoom

                        Firebird Zoom Oxygen Tank

                        I'm going to guess it failed pretty badly, but we're digressing here. Let's get back to the topic of the thread.
                         
                        • Jareix Cryvix

                          Jareix Cryvix The Waste of Time


                          I'D LIKE TO DISAGREE WITH YOU THERE!

                          Honestly though, there's a lot of issues with revealing games really early. I mean, people have very short attention spans. They also lack a sense in how much time and effort goes into making these games. While some games could really benefit/have benefited from an early access period (Necropolis/Minecraft respectively) Many others should have just waited until they're more feature complete before people giving it attention and then dropping it after some odd years because it didn't develop rushed enough. Such was almost the example of Starbound, and may be the example of Unreal Tournament... Who knows...
                           
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                          • Xylia

                            Xylia Tiy's Beard

                            Sometimes, though, an indie developer needs the cash right now and that's what Early Access is for. Starbound is yet again an example: It seems to me that Chucklefish was not doing anywhere near as well right about the time SB was first released on Early Access on Steam. It seems to me like they really needed the money to get "off the ground" so to speak, and get money they did. A lot of it; it was bought and downloaded by LOTS of people.

                            Now sadly, as you said, people tend to have short attention spans and they rushed through the content each update, devouring what it had as fast as possible and then whined about the game "lacking in content" despite it was still in beta... and even after full release, after having played the game for hundreds of hours, they STILL whined the game had "little content". People do the same stupid thing with MMOs too, they'll whine about MMOs having "no content" but yet every time a new content patch comes out, they play it 24/7 until they've devoured all it has to offer right away as fast as they can.

                            I really don't understand what they expected when they played the game while it was in early to mid beta for hundreds of hours, tired themselves out on the game and then they complain that it "lacks content".

                            Some of these selfsame people also refuse to install mods, chanting the "I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO FIX THEIR GAME WITH MODS!" mantra which is just stupid because the game was designed around mod-ability from the start.
                             
                            • Xacris

                              Xacris Pangalactic Porcupine

                              Mods were a big part of my experience of Starbound, and I don't see that as a failing of the base game. They designed it from the start to support mods, host them on their own website, and the game was good enough to inspire the modders to add their own spin.

                              What really kills me is when I see a reviewer that put hundreds of hours into a game and then says "I can't recommend playing this". If you didn't like it, you could have stopped playing at any time
                               
                              • GoldHypercurve

                                GoldHypercurve Void-Bound Voyager

                                I have no idea what you mean by "not a great track record" Starbound was great, the only issues it ever had where due to over hype and impatient consumers who decided nothing was getting done for years simply because the game wasn't fully complete with a full fledged story and flawless game-play within the first two months of early access. Everything I've seen from Chucklefish from their publishing to their development has been great, I see no reason for hype to be curbed by a misinterpretation of the companies history, as long as you recognize that things may change and the game could be a ways off there shouldn't be an issue with getting excited about this game.
                                 
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                                • Xylia

                                  Xylia Tiy's Beard

                                  Well, there WERE some design decisions made that some don't agree with, even I have my quibbles with the game, but all-in-all, I think SB is the poster child of Early Access success. Too bad that for every 1 of Starbound-type success stories, there's 100 failed zombie survival wannabes.
                                   
                                  • Jareix Cryvix

                                    Jareix Cryvix The Waste of Time

                                    I dunno. 7 days to die is pretty fun so far...
                                    Then again, could be another case of a 1/109 chance.
                                     
                                    • Xylia

                                      Xylia Tiy's Beard

                                      I was talking about the scores of zombie survival horrors that never got finished, and never hardly got off the ground, lol. A couple of them were OK-ish if you like that kind of thing, most were not.
                                       
                                      • lazarus78

                                        lazarus78 The Waste of Time

                                        How can Chucklefish have a bad track record with only one game under their belt? You need at least 3 points of data to establish a trend.
                                         
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                                        • Mitsie

                                          Mitsie Void-Bound Voyager

                                          While I see your point, OP, I hope you take some other factors into account as well.

                                          --This is now Chucklefish's second big swing at one of their own fully developed games. They're no longer new to the playing field, and they come with much more experience--some of it pretty hard fought, I would say.
                                          --Starbound, mechanically, is a very different game than Wargroove is going to be. When it comes to development, you begin to compare apples to oranges.
                                          --Nintendo themselves has officially endorsed and announced Wargroove coming to Switch, and stated themselves that it would be coming this year. This means something significant, considering a game on the Switch will be a full release and not any kind of Early access. While it's not unheard of for games to see delays, obviously, I doubt Nintendo would put themselves behind this project at all if Chucklefish had not proven Wargroove's worth in some fashion.
                                          --The trailer shows a ton of polished and promising gameplay already, and Chucklefish will be presenting a playable demo of the game this coming weekend at EGX.

                                          Chucklefish I have a lot of confidence in their ability to pull this off smoothly. Advance Wars is probably my #1 favorite game/series of all time and I can honestly say I haven't been this excited about a game in a long time. I could not be more pleased with this!
                                           

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