PC Do game developers owe anything to the people buying their games?

[Matt115]

Honestly - i'm kinda dissapoited with setting - the old alphas give vibes more similiar to F.E.A.R. - whispers , dark, lack of ammo etc just wait for ghost girl . it was so good. but now? it looks to colourful and brightly. Too much in "american light vibes".  And this big disadvantage in my opinion. I know if they decided to keep deppresing and creepy setting less people bought this game but it would give so rare feeling in open world games. Honestly i would prefer rotting hanging corpses, random teddy  bear and crazy bandits that bandits in colourful hairs and guns make of junk

 

[Jost Amman]

1. weaker  explorders zombie could be interesting. you know. you fall to cave or flooded basement  and there is drowned zombie - he will attack you like normal zombie but on death he have 50% chance to explosions. weak dmg against block and medium against player but high chance to infected you , broke legs and make bleeding.

They're adding it in A21: it's the new dancing demo kid. Takes you out with cuteness and little explosions...


Spoiler

 

[Matt115]

30 minutes ago, Jost Amman said:
They're adding it in A21: it's the new dancing demo kid. Takes you out with cuteness and little explosions...



  Hide contents

what the hell?

 

[pahbi]

I feel the devs owe us Zombie fat Elvis Impersonator.  

That's just me though.

 

[Aldranon]

Besides the unrealistic weight carrying and construction speeds, basically everything else could be considered realistic. (squinting your eyes a little)

Zombies you say?  I say Rabies virus that progresses quickly though Stage 1 <Edit: taking 7 days...> but doesn't progress past a Stage 2 infection (any bets some level 4 lab in the world hasn't been funded to do something like that?)

 

[Kyonshi]

I will if the OP asks me to but who can tell what @Kyonshi thinks. Maybe they're just thrilled their conversation starter took off and they aren't so concerned about sticking strictly to player entitlement. No need to feel sorry for them if they are perfectly happy with how the thread is going.

I dont mind this. A topic like that is a complex one and sooner or later, there can be people who drift a bit from the main thread, since there's so many points discussed and involved.

My intention was to survey what do people think about the issue i mentioned, more on a moral standpoint than the legal side of it, although i do appreciate the input of some people about that legal aspect.

I enjoy reading the replies and i believe everyone's take about the subject is important. Even the one from those who are going the other way from the majority, like Viktoriusiii, who's demonstrating the kind of mentality i think is fundamentaly flawed and that i was talking about initially. He/She delivers his/her point way less aggressively and with more respect than what i observe on Facebook though.

Its important to know that there's people who think this way because its a golden opportunity to rectify that mentality, which is rooted in ignorance for the most part, with verifiable and documented data, facts and info. Just like you did Roland, with your replies on Saturday during the night. This embodies everything that there's to know about the creative and PR approach of the Pimps. It couldnt be clearer and is the most constructive answer to my initial question so far and beyond.

As an overview of the whole thing, i think its a shame that indie developers have to deal with this bull@%$# when they bust their asses with far more limited resources than major studios. We see the laters launch AAA titles that are plagued with bugs, for 90$, and some of those flaws are easily a result of an amateur, rushed and careless job (hello Bethesda, Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red).

People today are used to have lots of games being released in rapid sequence, on multi-platform. Seeing an indie dev like TFP, who takes its time to build a good game, over years, raise suspicion because it creates a loud contrast with many big titles that come out every 2 years, with sequels. This, i guess, gives the impression, mostly for the haters, that TFP are taking their sweet time, do the minimum required to give the impression they're "working" on something and call it a day, racking up the money. Which of course is monumentaly far from what those haters imagine. And when the Pimps dare to talk about that damn Twitch integration, then the entitled folks burst with anger and stupidity. For them, its a confirmation that the devs dont work on important stuff...

Its not because you can directly talk to a lead designer, through social medias, that they have to submit to your input or worse, to your entitlement and insults.

Video games are an art. Like any other of the seven previous forms of art. You dont ask a singer or a film maker to do like you want, you dont lecture them about their craft when you dont know the reality of it. So its the same for video games.

 

[7daystodierocks]

I will if the OP asks me to but who can tell what @Kyonshi thinks. Maybe they're just thrilled their conversation starter took off and they aren't so concerned about sticking strictly to player entitlement. No need to feel sorry for them if they are perfectly happy with how the thread is going.

plain and simple roland all you guys at the TFP owe us is a complete game on your guys time table not ours

 

[Roland]

As an overview of the whole thing, i think its a shame that indie developers have to deal with this bull@%$# when they bust their asses with far more limited resources than major studios.

But then again, developers at major studios have to deal with bull@%$# of another sort from marketing executives and corporate deadlines and work policies... The Fun Pimps much prefer the interaction with the fans even it isn't always pretty.

At least here, the most demanding fans only act like they are the task masters whereas the devs at large studios actually have to deal with real task masters.

 

[Kyonshi]

But then again, developers at major studios have to deal with bull@%$# of another sort from marketing executives and corporate deadlines and work policies... The Fun Pimps much prefer the interaction with the fans even it isn't always pretty.

At least here, the most demanding fans only act like they are the task masters whereas the devs at large studios actually have to deal with real task masters.

I understand what you're saying, but that's not my point.

My point is, as naive as it can sound, is that the Pimps achieved something that few big major developers could ever do, with far more means and tools than the Pimps have. The 7DTD community still plays a game that's 8 years old and after every Alpha, the community grows and the game get much more appeal. The game isnt even finished yet and its considered a cornerstone in the genre. 

Im saying that its a shame that the Pimps are being given that much @%$# by people, because those haters can't see the achievement i mentioned above, or they do see but choose to be dicks, when they should be humble and stop being dicks. They should stop giving that much @%$#.

The video game industry is brutal, the competition is unforgiving. Studios shut down the following day without notice. CD Projekt Red got it in the nuts really hard btw. Great game concepts are developed over months and get canned for X reasons and the staff is laid off like they're leftovers. And gamers hate that when this happen. We get attached to some games and franchises and devs, and get @%$#ed off when it just vanishes, like we are given the finger. Yet, the Pimps are still rolling well and sound, with, again, much less power than bigger players in the business and to see that they're given so much crap is a shame and quite frustrating. People should just stop that imbecile attitude.

I admire smaller, underdogs who are still going strong in such barbaric business. Sure, there will always people complaining and @%$#ing, i realize that im too idealistic. Yet, this is still the truth. I've been playing video games since about 35 years now, this always have been my main hobby and i did see the evolution of it all, particularly watching capitalism running it like we see today. And i cant accept that devs like the Pimps, or any other indie developers for that matter, get to suffer from such insane criticism. Its ok, it doesnt keep me from sleeping at night and neither does it keep the Pimps from living their dream as well, hahaha! But the reality is that too many people are ignorant and entitled, its affecting the business negatively and this has to cool the @%$# off a bit.

Im rambling way too much now lol. But im saying, if we wanna keep our hobby healthy enough, we have to stick our heads off our asses and come to sense that some people, read artists, just wanna make our lives nicer. The hate is currently going way overboard right now. I guess its the aspect of interactivity that video games bring that give the hater the impression that they have a legitimate right to give @%$#, that something is due to them?

 

[12pack]

TL/DR

i know, why would anyone do that?

because.


Do game developers owe anything to the people buying their games?




yep. game developers owe the players the game they bought as they bought it.

If you buy early access games, yas takes yer chances..

could be good, could be not..

tl/dr; don't gamble if you are not prepared to lose

my personal opinion: tfp is kicking all the ass, do casinos still have nickel slots?

 

[Maharin]

my personal opinion: tfp is kicking all the ass, do casinos still have nickel slots?

On that note they need to have a casino POI with at least one working slot machine to win/lose some dukes.  But make it rigged with a bomb so if you try to dismantle it to get the dukes it explodes.

 

[SnowDog1942]

The question is, do people owe ME anything after they purchase my latest XXX film?

 

[Viktoriusiii]

I enjoy reading the replies and i believe everyone's take about the subject is important. Even the one from those who are going the other way from the majority, like Viktoriusiii, who's demonstrating the kind of mentality i think is fundamentaly flawed and that i was talking about initially. He/She delivers his/her point way less aggressively and with more respect than what i observe on Facebook though.

Thank you. It is totally ok if people disagree.
I just think many people let their emotions get the better of them (me included, especially after people have talked @%$# for no reason )
Often majority opinion is just BS of people who either all go with their feeling (I like to play 7D2D therefor, TFPs are doing a good job) or are just repeating/following peer pressure. AND the community of regular posters are pretty same minded...

Roland is often a good mediator, but he also falls victim to... beeing a bit more passive agressive than necessary Which spurs people like me on to get @%$#y

As an overview of the whole thing, i think its a shame that indie developers have to deal with this bull@%$# when they bust their asses with far more limited resources than major studios. We see the laters launch AAA titles that are plagued with bugs, for 90$, and some of those flaws are easily a result of an amateur, rushed and careless job (hello Bethesda, Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red).

Okay... so imagine you buy a puzzle.
That puzzle has the image of dogs, which you love and has about 300 pieces of the guessed finished 500.
You buy that because they say they need the money to finish it and promise to finish it and fix the parts that are broken.

After 7 1/2 years, of the 50 broken puzzles, only a handful are still broken, YAY. But they still are broken and unusable in places.
BUT in the meantime, you had a good time... but every few months, they changed the design a bit.
They added parts, deleted some... repainted others.
Now it is still a puzzle, but it is only 200 pieces now because they said it was too difficult for younger players, the image of dogs was scrapped and now it is a farm where a dog is in the background and there are still about 100 pieces missing.

Would you say that the buyer was 100% rewarded and should not have any right to complain?

With excuses like "well there is still a dog" and "the game has become a lot easier to get into" and "the design is far more visually pleasing!"

But your 500 piece dogpicture, it is no more.
It was not advertised, that the dogs owuld go away, just that the puzzle is "subject to small changes". Nor were you made aware of the other changes.


I understand why many people are mad at them.
7D2D is not a horrorgame anymore. It has become more survival in 19 and I support that. But it is not an RPG, it is a lootershooter. And everyone who says otherwise seems to have a very different definition of these genre.
7D2D has gone through so many iteration of features that I sometimes forget about gunmolds...
And I do like that they try out stuff... but 7 1/2 years of alpha is...
Well lets just say it is justified that websites and people are making fun of them. I personally do not ascribe to that, I find it admirable that they still work on the game, BUT I also would like to see the game finished in my lifetime...


*rambling off*

 

[Matt115]

The question is, do people owe ME anything after they purchase my latest XXX film?

yes, stake. even @unholyjoe is more saint that you! i understand everything but rly midgets?? my friend is in mental hospital now! after watched this he was barely alive.

So remember good people of TFP FORUM - never watch film suggested by @SnowDog1942. you can pay it with your live 

WARNING X WARNING X WARNING X WARNING X WARNING X WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NEVER WATCH HIS MOVIES. NEVER.

Now it will be half seriouse half joke :

I DON'T KNOW WHAT DO YOU THINKS GUYS BUT I THINKS TFP OWNS US ANNOUNCEMENT OF THEIR NEW GAME AFTER A20. 

honesty i know you want this too !https://community.thefunpimps.com/t...thing-to-the-people-buying-their-games.25092/

 

[BFT2020]

Thank you. It is totally ok if people disagree.
I just think many people let their emotions get the better of them (me included, especially after people have talked @%$# for no reason )
Often majority opinion is just BS of people who either all go with their feeling (I like to play 7D2D therefor, TFPs are doing a good job) or are just repeating/following peer pressure. AND the community of regular posters are pretty same minded...

Roland is often a good mediator, but he also falls victim to... beeing a bit more passive agressive than necessary Which spurs people like me on to get @%$#y

Okay... so imagine you buy a puzzle.
That puzzle has the image of dogs, which you love and has about 300 pieces of the guessed finished 500.
You buy that because they say they need the money to finish it and promise to finish it and fix the parts that are broken.

*snip to make things brief in my reply, not to hide what you stated*

When we bought the game in Early Access, it was just a chance to play the game in a working state as the developers continued working on the game.  No where in the agreement or even mentioned by TFP was the right to dictate where they were going in the development of the game.  They can (and have) listened to feedback about this game, but they are not obligated (either lawfully or ethically) to implement ideas / feedback submitted by the community.

As for people complaining about how long it has been (and still not a finished game), that is their right to complain.  I haven't been around as much as some people with this game, I believe I got in around Alpha 16 (I don't recall ever having to fight the hornets and I know I had at least once Alpha before 17).   However, for an unfinished game, I have put in 3k+ hours into it, and just started looking at mods now to change some things up.  If TFP released it today as is, I would have no real gripes as I have easily played this game more than any finished game in my library.  If it takes them another 10 years to finish it, again no gripes.

 

[meganoth]

Thank you. It is totally ok if people disagree.
I just think many people let their emotions get the better of them (me included, especially after people have talked @%$# for no reason )
Often majority opinion is just BS of people who either all go with their feeling (I like to play 7D2D therefor, TFPs are doing a good job) or are just repeating/following peer pressure. AND the community of regular posters are pretty same minded...

Roland is often a good mediator, but he also falls victim to... beeing a bit more passive agressive than necessary Which spurs people like me on to get @%$#y

Okay... so imagine you buy a puzzle.
That puzzle has the image of dogs, which you love and has about 300 pieces of the guessed finished 500.
You buy that because they say they need the money to finish it and promise to finish it and fix the parts that are broken.

After 7 1/2 years, of the 50 broken puzzles, only a handful are still broken, YAY. But they still are broken and unusable in places.
BUT in the meantime, you had a good time... but every few months, they changed the design a bit.
They added parts, deleted some... repainted others.
Now it is still a puzzle, but it is only 200 pieces now because they said it was too difficult for younger players, the image of dogs was scrapped and now it is a farm where a dog is in the background and there are still about 100 pieces missing.

Would you say that the buyer was 100% rewarded and should not have any right to complain?

With excuses like "well there is still a dog" and "the game has become a lot easier to get into" and "the design is far more visually pleasing!"

But your 500 piece dogpicture, it is no more.
It was not advertised, that the dogs owuld go away, just that the puzzle is "subject to small changes". Nor were you made aware of the other changes.


I understand why many people are mad at them.
7D2D is not a horrorgame anymore. It has become more survival in 19 and I support that. But it is not an RPG, it is a lootershooter. And everyone who says otherwise seems to have a very different definition of these genre.
7D2D has gone through so many iteration of features that I sometimes forget about gunmolds...
And I do like that they try out stuff... but 7 1/2 years of alpha is...
Well lets just say it is justified that websites and people are making fun of them. I personally do not ascribe to that, I find it admirable that they still work on the game, BUT I also would like to see the game finished in my lifetime...


*rambling off*

Now when was the last time you bought a puzzle in Early Access? More precise, did you ever buy a puzzle in Early Access?

The problem with such comparisons is that you can't really compare buying a game in EA to buying puzzles, shoes, cars. Doesn't work. Because there are some critical differences there and it wouldn't make any sense to offer puzzles in EA or buy puzzles in EA. But without EA you are missing a critical ingredient there.

 

[Laz Man]

A puzzle is a bad comparison.  With a puzzle you already know exactly what the end result will look like (e.g. a picture of a dog).

Mix genre games like 7d2d are ambitious and have no standard formula to create.  Its not surprising to me at all alot of experimentation of ideas/features have come and gone.  Indie shops like TFP have the freedom (and thankfully the funding) to do so.

I laugh everytime people compare TFPs to triple AAA companies who release uninspired games at relatively faster intervals.  AAA companies might be better minimizing project scope creep, but they are not necessarily the best at fostering new and creative ideas.

You can't have it both ways imo.  And if you do, it is a magical sweet spot that many groups can't sustain forever.

 

[Roland]

Part of the problem is people defining what the game is differently. (I just lost the game)

Some people thought that LBD was the core principle of the game. It was the reason to play and grind and progress. But TFP thought of LBD as simply a means by which players could progress. To TFP, player progression was the core principle and LBD was just one way to express that. When they chose a different way to express that, in their minds, the genre never changed. It was still a zombie survival crafting game with elements of tower defense and rpg. But to the fans of LBD, the game was completely thrown out and made new in a completely different genre.

To me, the game seems about the same as it always has as far as the general genres it hybrids together. Skill points instead of LBD is about the same as list crafting instead of grid crafting to me. The game is still a crafting genre game even though we craft through lists and recipes instead of grids and spacial puzzles. The game is also still a character progression RPG-like game even though we spend points for improvement instead of grind up that improvement via actions.

Imagine you bought a puzzle in early access... j/k but I will say that in my opinion the picture did not change. It is still the same picture but perhaps the piece count is slightly different and maybe the shapes of some of the pieces have been changed so they fit together differently than they did. But it is still a puzzle and the image of what was promised is still there. Going down the kickstarter list which is what the promised image was, they are closing in on fulfilling every single promise. How those promised features play out exactly have changed a few times as the Pimps experimented but they are there and the genre that was the proposed genre as described on the Steam page hasn't ever changed and is still relevant to what is being played today.

 

[Viktoriusiii]

Some people thought that LBD...

while LBD was a big draw for me (I had it before we even had skills so I didn't buy it FOR that)

I am not refering to it when I talk about genre change.
I can still remember the first few alphas.
I sat at night in my little 5x5 wooden home, as I heard the zombies run around my base.
Why? Because you were lucky to find a crossbow book on day 10 (or even before books)
It felt like a struggle. You had to claw and fight your way to get weapons and ressources.
Now you have these insane loot containers that should probably only ever be at an unreachable position (so no nerdpolling and so on) to reward going through a poi.
Maybe they are only there after you finish a clear quest.

But right now, if you don'T have 4 guns at day 7 with ~100-300 ammo, not only will hordenight be tough on you (if you want to defend your post) but it feels bad because you know you were unlucky.
It is a looter shooter, because at no poin in the game do you ever not have guns, except for the first few days, maybe even hours after you start.
I do not feel scared because I know I always have enough ammo to fight everything.

The thrill does not come from beeing helpless (like you should be in horrorgames) and picking your fights carefully, but you just mow down cannonfodder that gets gradually harder to kill.


AND IT IS A FUN LOOTER SHOOTER.
disclaimer: There is a SLIGHT possibility, that this game was never a horrorgame and the horror just came from me not knowing the game.
I highly doubt it, but I do not want to sound like this is 100% fact when i could just have rosetinted glasses.

But you can not tell me that it is a horror game anymore. Just because it has zombies and a few of them literally fall from the ceiling, does not make it horror.
I am not scared of zombies. Even on harder difficulty, I am not scared, because I know with the right tactic I can beat them.
That is not horror.
Horror is not knowing what will happen next.
Horror is beeing unsure if you can handle whatever comes next, even if you know.
Horror is trying to escape from something you know in theory is faster than you.
Horror is avoiding conflict and beeing the underdog when you have to confront it.

Going into any building you like guns blazing, xp farming while yoloing around is NOT horror.
It is a fun looter-shooter, but not horror.
Give me one person ANYWHERE after A16 that was genuinely scared (and I'm not talking about "oh my god how can they come out of the fake walls and fall from the roof" horror, but unknowing horror. The kind that slenderman or outlast gives you.


 

 

[Matt115]

A puzzle is a bad comparison.  With a puzzle you already know exactly what the end result will look like (e.g. a picture of a dog).

Mix genre games like 7d2d are ambitious and have no standard formula to create.  Its not surprising to me at all alot of experimentation of ideas/features have come and gone.  Indie shops like TFP have the freedom (and thankfully the funding) to do so.

I laugh everytime people compare TFPs to triple AAA companies who release uninspired games at relatively faster intervals.  AAA companies might be better minimizing project scope creep, but they are not necessarily the best at fostering new and creative ideas.

You can't have it both ways imo.  And if you do, it is a magical sweet spot that many groups can't sustain forever.

Part of the problem is people defining what the game is differently. (I just lost the game)

Some people thought that LBD was the core principle of the game. It was the reason to play and grind and progress. But TFP thought of LBD as simply a means by which players could progress. To TFP, player progression was the core principle and LBD was just one way to express that. When they chose a different way to express that, in their minds, the genre never changed. It was still a zombie survival crafting game with elements of tower defense and rpg. But to the fans of LBD, the game was completely thrown out and made new in a completely different genre.

To me, the game seems about the same as it always has as far as the general genres it hybrids together. Skill points instead of LBD is about the same as list crafting instead of grid crafting to me. The game is still a crafting genre game even though we craft through lists and recipes instead of grids and spacial puzzles. The game is also still a character progression RPG-like game even though we spend points for improvement instead of grind up that improvement via actions.

Imagine you bought a puzzle in early access... j/k but I will say that in my opinion the picture did not change. It is still the same picture but perhaps the piece count is slightly different and maybe the shapes of some of the pieces have been changed so they fit together differently than they did. But it is still a puzzle and the image of what was promised is still there. Going down the kickstarter list which is what the promised image was, they are closing in on fulfilling every single promise. How those promised features play out exactly have changed a few times as the Pimps experimented but they are there and the genre that was the proposed genre as described on the Steam page hasn't ever changed and is still relevant to what is being played today.

I will say something unpopular. 

@Laz Man well i agree with you about gender mixing but problems starts when "balance" go to hell. ofc things are added in cutted by this kinda looks like like cod cw in release day and now : add not suit things and this start to looks like almost diffrent game or mod .

@Roland i will past something from kickstarter

An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games.

Okay : open world ? Yes

Voxel-based? Yes

sandbox? yes

fps? yes

Survival , tower defense? yes

RP? Well this depend on server but yes

but horror? nope.

And this is why i have grudge to TFP.  There were promised horror but now we get what? mad max and fallout with zombie --> post apo.

Previouse alphas was darker, more corpses that now ( on 2013 - 2015 standards well more can be added now because pc are better), whispers screams. etc

I was thinking ( i will not talk about new games like new back 4 blood cod cw etc) that 7dtd  will be like f.e.a.r. , cod waw on zombies,  outlast or zombie u. dark deppresing setting with spooky thing and random sad small stories.

I know changing of setting make this game more popular-if they decided to put ghost girls, hanging copses etc maybe only 1/4 number of actual 7dtd owners bought it. 

ofc you all can say " so you should wrote this in 2013 or 2014". Honestly it could be imposible because this game setting start to change after A17. and honestly any one thing if i wrote this in 2014 it would change anything? ofc not because postapo setting  make this game more popular.

Honestly  i can wrote how it could looks like as horror. but if it can dunno infuence on their next game?  no. 

Live is sometimes so disappointing,  

btw 2  thing that 7dtd in past post more horrorisic

about second one ( well hornet was mistake ) - game was more darker