KickStarter Serpent in the Staglands Thread

[Shevek]

I'm really surprised more codexers aren't playing and talking about it. This game is like a fucking unicorn. I really hope they get enough sales to continue development.

I was waiting for the first major set of patches. Is this thing good to go now?

 

[Infinitron]

Pope Amole's basically right, I'm afraid - this kind of post-release rapid-fire scrambling for patches would have been grounds for extreme Codex mockery coming from another developer. They should have done a few weeks of Early Access, period.

 

[Latro]

Where's all the Codexers howling that it isn't turn based as they did with PoE? Better start...

(clears throat)

Fucking RTS combat! Banal shit boring! Moar like Derpend in the Shitlands amirite????

Where's the TB combat patch????

RTwP ain't my cup of tea by a long shot, but the asking price for this sort of quality is more than enough to let me hop over. Glad to see the game patched in such a short span of time, buying my copy tonight.

 

[Ninjerk]

God damn, three members of the Dorito brigade one after the other.

 

[agris]

I'm really surprised more codexers aren't playing and talking about it. This game is like a fucking unicorn. I really hope they get enough sales to continue development.

I was waiting for the first major set of patches. Is this thing good to go now?

Yep, go at it. There's a few string text errors like padded armor giving +1 AC when it states +2, but that's actually the only known example to my knowledge.

edit: the inventory screen shows your combat and spell stats, so you can instantly see the discrepancy. The UI is actually very solid IMO, despite the pixels.

 

[Infinitron]

God damn, three members of the Dorito brigade one after the other.

Pffft, this member of the Dorito brigade is one of the only sources of publicity this game has.

I'm sure it's a wonderful experience, but don't act like two weeks of almost-daily post-release patching is anything but an unfortunate clusterfuck

 

[agris]

Pope Amole's basically right, I'm afraid - this kind of post-release rapid-fire scrambling for patches would have been grounds for extreme Codex mockery coming from another developer. They should have done a few weeks of Early Access, period.

I don't know how right he is, but they're definitely getting a pass based on the fact that: it's a two person team, and the game's worldbuilding and design sensibilities are so goddamn good. I agree about EA, though I think they avoided it for moral reasons. Lets hope their next release goes more smoothly.

 

[roshan]

In the end, despite all its claims of prestigiousness and all the shitting on the other forums, Codex is just as blind in its fanboyism as everyone else, bursting into the rage whenever a spek of criticizm touches their objects of worship.

Or maybe some of us jaded grognards here still have some human decency left and aren't shills motivated by doritos and/or subs. It's easy to be a cunt and power trip by taking a dump on indie devs while at the same time fellating big studios.

Pope Amole's basically right - this kind of post-release rapid-fire scrambling for patches would have been grounds for extreme Codex mockery coming from another developer. They should have done a few weeks of Early Access, period.

But well, it is what it is.

It's funny that we have you saying this because you are essentially a PR shill for Obsidian. Last I checked POE still needs a shitload of balance and patching. So does Wasteland 2 and Divinity Original Sin. In fact all three games up to now are essentially completely broken experiences. And let's get real, the only reason Obsidian/Larian/InXile are even fixing their games is so that they can make more money off expansion sales and console ports. Is the Codex so retarded that now taking well over a year + several expansion packs or an enhanced edition release to fix a broken game is now viewed as a good thing? And actually putting real effort into fixing your game is a "big fuck you to players"?

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Pope Amole's basically right, I'm afraid - this kind of post-release rapid-fire scrambling for patches would have been grounds for extreme Codex mockery coming from another developer. They should have done a few weeks of Early Access, period.

I agree a bit of early access could have helped, but in terms of criticism my personal view tends to be influenced by the scale of dev we're talking about. A 2 person team who've quickly worked to iron out problems and respond to feedback gets more of a pass from me than bigger devs who have no excuse. Perhaps that isn't strictly objective but tbh I'm just amazed that 2 relatively inexperienced people managed to make this game at all.

But the state it launched in wasn't great for first impressions, so I actually held off recommending it to people until the first few patches ironed out some teething problems - first impressions count. So I was pretty happy with how quickly they pumped the patches out even if you see it as "scrambling for patches".

 

[Infinitron]

I'm amazed too. But it's like, they seemed so experienced while developing the game, but when it came to actually releasing it they suddenly went into rookie mode. It was a bit jarring.

Not saying Early Access would have been a perfect solution either since I know lots of people wouldn't have touched it and the ability to catch bugs would be less than what it is now, but it definitely still would have helped. Just ask Vault Dweller!

 

[agris]

I'm going to quote myself.

I think they ran out of money. They were getting humanitarian relief via codex air-dropped coffee rations.

FWIW, all the serious balance wrt spells and abilities has been patched and is done. There's small shit left I'm sure, but it won't change very much. They even mentioned back-patching the expansion abilities (Grade 4) and AI to some of the end-game content in the base game. Joe did a series of profiles on different character build concepts, so you might start there.

edit: and AA is right. They dialed up the difficulty of the end-game content by both buffing creature stats, and toning down OP spells. I don't think there's any other large balance changes coming, just UX improvements.

 

[tuluse]

Pffft, this member of the Dorito brigade is one of the only sources of publicity this game has.

I'm sure it's a wonderful experience, but don't act like two weeks of almost-daily post-release patching is anything but an unfortunate clusterfuck

Looks like business as usual these days. PoE and WL2 did the same thing. D:OS might have as well, don't remember it as much.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Pope Amole's basically right, I'm afraid - this kind of post-release rapid-fire scrambling for patches would have been grounds for extreme Codex mockery coming from another developer. They should have done a few weeks of Early Access, period.

I guess the exposure the game got on Codex didn't make enough of a difference. They just raised 28058$ on Kickstarter and only had around 1000 backers, only a little over 100 of whom pledged at the Beta access tiers. I doubt that their own website raised those numbers significantly (even though I myself preordered there). So just a few out of a little over 100 guys and just 2 developers and maybe a couple of their friends beta testing a C&C heavy CRPG with nontrivial char development and combat mechanics. Big surprise that didn't work flawlessly.

So stop bitching, faggots, their game was stable and kinda fun from the get-go, and the speed they are patching away the minor and few major issues/bugs is exemplary. Game balance is screwed up in many of our most beloved CRPGs, including Baldur's Gate 2 (mages, everything with magic resistance), Fallout (completely broken balance-wise, and it isn't even broken in a fun way like BG2, close combat is not fun at all, many reloads and frequent praying to Fortuna), Morrowind (Pimp my Ride Char - Mushroom Edition) and other Codex favorites. I bet you can find fan-made rebalancing patches for most of the Codex top 50.
Imo a sad state of affairs because wouldn't it have been better if the devs kept on giving a shit after releasing the game and patching the worst bugs away? The digital age makes that even easier, so why not embrace progress?

 

[Abu Antar]

Getting my ass handed to me. Every hit enemeis land tike like 25% of my health. This shit's brutal!

Still seeing lot of errors in dialog at patch v8.

Loving the atmosphere so far. Went south of the first town and got beaten to a pulp. Will go west when I play next time.

 

[Pope Amole II]

it's a two person team

Sorry but that's romanticized point of view. Studios are made of people too, you know. They're also headed by people. At least in the case of our discussion - after all, no one recalls the baby-eating monstrosities like Activision-Blizzard/EA here, it's more about Fargo, Urquhart and Vincke. Who all operate in the "one bad project away from the bankrupcy" mode. And two weeks of delay is a huge sum of money for those guys - their studios may not be the biggest ever but they still have the upkeep costs. Let me remind you that Troika died by slowly bleeding away from the upkeep costs. And we don't even know what kinds of loans or investments those guys have been taking to finish up their projects - its rather obvious that they're all made not on the kickstarter money alone.

Besides, even in case of the evil studios, if they get into bancrupcy (because that's the excuse here - they'll need to release fast or they're broke) no real justice is done - the evil CEOs got ten times more their initial investment already and they have their asses covered anyways. It's the small, 12-hour crunching worker bees that's gonna be kicked on the street without any kind of bonus (and with their young years wasted on this shit). So even if, say, EA goes down, it won't be a fucking triumph of justice - it will be some poor chump taking the bullet.

Let's not make a fairytale out of this. They've made a bad business decision, they don't deserve praise for it. And yeah, it's unethical to release early access, but it's ethical to release raw game. Anyways, it's not that this crap is even bad for us - it's worse for themselves. Considering how many indie shit is on the market now, reputation becomes invaluable. And while sure, the Codex is ready to absolve all their sins, other places or people may not be as forgiving.

 

[tuluse]

Let me remind you that Troika died by slowly bleeding away from the upkeep costs.

That's not remotely true. They gave everyone a year's worth of pay when they shut down. They died because they couldn't get any contracts for real RPGs and didn't want to work on anything else.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Considering how many indie shit is on the market now, reputation becomes invaluable. And while sure, the Codex is ready to absolve all their sins, other places or people may not be as forgiving.

But they are. Even Steam has mostly positive reviews. Which isn't such a big surprise because you are exaggerating.

You make it sound like they released a horribly broken game like those clowns responsible for the RoA remake.
This is not at all the case. Only because you can't sperg on with your Funbuilding series because the balance isn't final doesn't mean the game is near unplayable.

Some skills were broken and I didn't like the balance/encounter difficulty because I'm a minmaxer, but other than that it seemed stable and polished enough for a newly released game.
Doesn't mean that this will be an all time favorite for me, because after playing a couple of hours I'm not so sure if I still love their implementation of the "find stories and puzzle pieces on your own" approach. But I'll play some more before making up my mind about that aspect.

 

[DeepOcean]

Pope Amole's basically right, I'm afraid - this kind of post-release rapid-fire scrambling for patches would have been grounds for extreme Codex mockery coming from another developer.

Maybe because Roguey didn't buy this game?

 

[AetherVagrant]

Cant wait for the quest-marker and updatedmyjournal mods.
and the turn-based mod
and the unity 5 upgrade
and the sawyer-mod
and antialiasing. definitely going to hit up some post-processing and shaders....
and then, after months if not years of hard work, waiting, dedication and patience, we will finally have the true darklands successor we've been waiting for.

Spoiler

 

[Roguey]

Maybe because Roguey didn't buy this game?

I know I mocked the hell out of Dead State's release, which was similar to this.

Of course the activities of a particular DoubleBear dev made them lose a lot of goodwill with other 'dexers.

 

[PeachPlumage]

Any news on Inxile Studios to release one complete game instead of fucking incomplete shit and there are on their third kickstarter!

 

[Bubbles]

Any news on Inxile Studios to release one complete game instead of fucking incomplete shit and there are on their third kickstarter!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard's_Tale_(2004_video_game)

 

[PeachPlumage]

 

[Lhynn]

Of course the activities of a particular DoubleBear dev made them lose a lot of goodwill with other 'dexers.

And this is the reason i cant take half the shit you and those other posters say seriously.

 

[AetherVagrant]

Anyone know the exact effects of the character generation questions? do they just change the suggested stats offered to you on the next screen, or are the gameplay effects more subtle and story-oriented?