None of us have never even played ROTMG. But, yeah. Money $$$

Lugia319 wrote:

I mean, people play MMO clones all the time, and I don't doubt that this game will be any different. But hey, as long as you can make a quick buck amirite?

At first, I thought you were seriously trying to be negative, but now I'm pretty sure you're just being sarcastic or trolling. $20k and 6+ months of work on a product that isn't even finished yet is not a quick buck. A Zeta rip with a donation button is a quick buck.

Going through the trouble of getting original assets doesn't make it any less of a quick buck. You could spend as much time as you want programming a completely new copy of Zeta and it's still a cheap rip for a quick buck.

I see a Casual Quest issue here. Might be popular for a month or two, and then it just drops off the map. 20k+? Not even sure it'll make its money back with those numbers. Especially with the aforementioned REFUND OPTION.

Lugia the Debbie downer. I can't imagine what kind of satisfaction you get from jumping on the developer of this game's sack.

Lugia319 wrote:

Again, this game isn't that good. Did we watch the same trailer? It's providing NOTHING new to the genre. Absolutely nothing. Is it ambitious when you make a safe game? It's not even sarcastic, ironic, cheesy, etc., it doesn't have interesting mechanics. Schrodinger's Cat? That's ambitious. This is just... copy/paste RPG.

I didn't know you had early access to the gameplay. How was it? Were the controls responsive? How was the questing? Oh, was the PvE experience fulfilling? Wait... Oh, that's right. You HAVEN'T played the game, that's right. I had assumed from all of the absolutely egregious pandering you were doing as a "critic", I might have thought you actually had. But since you haven't, it's pretty safe to say that you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.

There's really no need to argue in defense of our game, or continue humoring Lugia319 any further. Best to just wait until we have more to show everyone.

He also worried that developers of DRM-free games—that is, games that don’t actually require Steam to run—might consider turning to DRM due to the ease with which someone can now make a copy of their game and then get a refund on Steam.

What a silly thing to say. It's much easier to simply pirate a game than to jump through a bunch of hoops to download it then refund it. You won't have your credit card on record either.

I think Steam allowing refunds on games is incredibly pro-consumer and my hope it that it stamps out a lot of the low effort/early access junk clogging up the store front.

In spirit that's probably what Early Access was meant to be, but as it exists now it's mostly just a way to sell unfinished products with little accountability for whatever outrageous promises a developer makes. Say you have two devs trying to attract funding; one has meticulously planned out a budget and a development road map while the other promises everything and the kitchen sink to be completed within a few months. For the average person wanting to fund a game, which of the two are they probably going to donate towards? Is donating towards the eventual trainwreck helping indie developers or is it scaring away new potential benefactors?

SuperAntx wrote:

I think Steam allowing refunds on games is incredibly pro-consumer and my hope it that it stamps out a lot of the low effort/early access junk clogging up the store front.

The biggest problem is the implementation. It's really the exact same scenario as when Steam introduced their calamitous Paid MODs policy in April. That rollout was completely botched, and the policy itself was half-baked and full of opportunities for abuse. The difference here is that it's the game developers who are getting screwed over rather than the consumers, hence the lack of rioting in the streets.

There has been a ton of discussion on the Steam Dev boards about all of the ways in which this policy can be (and has been) abused in its current form. I've been shocked by how unprepared Valve has been to answer even simple questions/complaints about the system. Just like with the Paid MODs system, it's almost as if the people who came up with the new refund system never sat down and had a serious discussion about what might go wrong.

Note that I'm not complaining because I've been personally impacted, because I haven't yet. NEStalgia's refund rate since June 1st has been about 0.1% (which is a stat that only became available to Steam devs a few days ago). I just feel really bad for all of the developers who have short games or who are easy targets for abuse under the new system. The people at Valve have always been great to work with, but it's super disappointing to see how all of this has played out so far.


Ter13 wrote:

I really think early-access games should be exempt from the refund business. If you buy early access, it really should be buyer beware. Early access is supposed to be supporting development, not purchasing a product.

My opinions on the virtues of the early-access system itself are inline with SuperAntx, but I totally agree with you that refunds don't make any sense at all for those games.


Doohl wrote:

There's really no need to argue in defense of our game, or continue humoring Lugia319 any further. Best to just wait until we have more to show everyone.

Great response. You can't argue reason with someone who is irrational, especially when you're dealing with a person who can't stand to see other people succeed. The more successful you become, the louder these types of individuals get about what a failure you are.

From what I've seen so far I think that you guys are going to do awesome both on and off Steam. Just getting on Steam in and of itself doesn't guarantee success, but having a great product and then receiving the type of exposure that Steam provides pretty much does.