Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Game Discussion => Player's Plaza => Topic started by: almozayaf on April 29, 2015, 03:09:29 PM
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I know rougelike games first from dame steam games and like the idea of permanent death and randomness, but i have that feeling that the hardcore RL fans hate these kind of games that mix FPS or Action or even Platforming in RL, i just want to hear what you guys think.
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I don't think people necessarily hate them so much as disagree with them being labelled roguelikes when many of the definitive features of the roguelike genre are often missing from those games.
Personally I'm not that bothered. Aside from the odd misunderstanding (e.g. when someone asked why my top 10 roguelikes list just included 'ugly' games rather than Risk of Rain or the Binding of Isaac) I don't find it problematic to see the label applied liberally.
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I think it's totally fine too - I mean I've started a podcast called LikeLikeLite for a reason, clearly I'm okay with games that mix it up! I think the main difficulty that is always going to come up with this is that... people are going to view roguelikes as being whatever few games they are familiar with, and unfortunately people don't really like to learn more about the games they are playing, thus the misunderstanding Samildanach was talking about. I think people need to be encouraged to learn more about the genre, but it needs to be done THROUGH the games that they love. If your reaction to someone who loves Spelunky or Binding of Isaac or Dungeons of Dredmor is condescending, rude, and dismissive, you're not going to be encouraging those people to look into the traditional roguelikes that you love. And this is something that I think is true for entertainment in general - if you meet someone who is interested in roguelikes but has only played The Crypt of the NecroDancer and Ziggurat, that could be a great shooting off point to recommend they try out NetHack (maybe recommend some good tilesets they can use to ease them into it, or they can get Vulture on Steam) or other such games. There are so many options out there if people are just encouraged to explore them.
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Too pretty, to cute, too intuitive, too much mouse support (or mouse dependency!), too much no-traditional. I don't hate new wave of roguelikes - I quite like more-traditional-than-other-new-roguelikes like Sword of The Stars, ToME4, and similaries. But always back to more archetypic games, like classics - ADoM, *bands, NH, Omega, or newer-but-traditional, like Frozen Depths, Numenfall (Legend of Siegfried), Forays Into Norrendrin (horrible title, but great game).
New 'roguelites', like Faster Than Light, or games-with-roguelike-influences-but-named-roguelikes, like Sunless Sea? I love them! But I don't think about they as about roguelikes. It's not hate, it's fact.
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It's not hate, but real time RL's lack the problem solving component of a roguelike.
Roguelikes are not RPG's, they aren't about action or grinding or timing or memorization. They are strategy games with very real consequences for failure.
So when labels a game a roguelike just because it has procedural content and permadeath, well, there's that strategy part that's missing.
I really like Spelunky and Binding and the such. But they aren't strategy games for me, so they don't scratch the itch I have to play a roguelike. They scratch the Zelda or Megaman itch instead.
So not hate or anything, just some mild confusion by people who don't know what roguelike games are. People think the hybrid types are roguelikes. Meh. It's just a word but there's definitely something different about the strategy games.
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It's not hate, but real time RL's lack the problem solving component of a roguelike.
Roguelikes are not RPG's, they aren't about action or grinding or timing or memorization. They are strategy games with very real consequences for failure.
So when labels a game a roguelike just because it has procedural content and permadeath, well, there's that strategy part that's missing.
I really like Spelunky and Binding and the such. But they aren't strategy games for me, so they don't scratch the itch I have to play a roguelike. They scratch the Zelda or Megaman itch instead.
So not hate or anything, just some mild confusion by people who don't know what roguelike games are. People think the hybrid types are roguelikes. Meh. It's just a word but there's definitely something different about the strategy games.
Haven't you watched Jeff Lait's presentation at IRDC USA 2015?
"Some people" believe that roguelikes can only be like rogue, and are only making definitions to exclude. Definitions should be ignored. Apparently, if you start wanting to make a roguelike, and end up with something else, then it's still a roguelike because you want it to be. It was well presented, and full of empty rhetoric, ending that segment with Jeff pushing his own definitions which seemed odd given all the previous talk.
Lots of people believe different things make roguelikes roguelikes, and lots of people want to tell other people their definition is the right one.
Me, I just want to be able to find games that are actually roguelikes, and ignore the ones that use the label but lack resemblance, as an ego thing.
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Yeah I didn't see that one. And the definition is well established. Pretending it's not is odd. You don't have to be in the box, you can be a rogue-lite, it's not a problem. The label has such value to people, dunno why, it should just be used as a descriptor for players, so they know what to expect.
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Yeah I didn't see that one. And the definition is well established. Pretending it's not is odd. You don't have to be in the box, you can be a rogue-lite, it's not a problem. The label has such value to people, dunno why, it should just be used as a descriptor for players, so they know what to expect.
What if there's an argument to be made that most roguelike players these days are roguelite players, because games like FTL and Spelunky have had a much wider range of players and potentially higher numbers? Because these games are labelled roguelikes, and have been used to push the expansion of the defintion, it can be argued that numerically players who understand a descriptor for roguelike, incorporate roguelite in the roguelike definition.
In which case by your own logic, there are no roguelites, only roguelikes and no real definition for the term! Conundrum! ;)
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I don't like them.
What we've been seeing play out in the past 8 years or so is the result of longterm leaderlessness combined with new commercial interest in roguelikes touched off, ironically, by dwarf fortress. The fact is that proponents of traditional roguelikes have produced little that is genuinely new or exciting in a long damn time. I include myself in this criticism, of course. Almost everyone involved in the development of the classics and their descendants are maintainers or are developing forks and variants. Very little of stature comparable to the classics has been written since the late 90s. The closest thing is dwarf fortress, but Tarn doesn't seem to want to stake a claim there. No one really has a legitimate claim as a first mover and it's been that way for a very long time.
If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.
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Games from other genres - be it platform, fps, even Necro-dancing - that get infused with roguelike traits can be awesome when done well and it`s a good thing that these concepts spread out (I would love to see an AAA game getting this treatment one day, like they tried with Far Cry 2 for example). And to be fair, these days they`re seldom called "roguelikes" by the authors themselves or even by the journos - just "X with roguelike elements" (great) or yeah, a "roguelite" - not so great, because it`s a confusing term, implying a lesser roguelike. But generally, they`re in totally different camp and I think there`s a kind of understanding - or at least it`s improving - in that regard (Shopfronts are guilty of lumping them all under roguelike tag but there`s not much can be done about that I suppose).
The ones I dislike (to put it mildly) are true rogue-lites. True as in, "me too!" bandwagon jumpers that just imitate the real thing because it`s hip & trendy due to its underground status. These clones are superficial, shallow and more often than not dispose of some important mechanic - especially permadeath - in order to make it more "accessible" and because it was "unfun".
I`m not sure though if - or how - the whole "new wave" thingy affects the traditional camp. After all, it was always a very niche part of videogaming. It`s not at all given that all these folks who play FTL would love Angband too, if only they knew it existed. I suppose most actually did try a classic RL or two, and they simply didn`t like it, one possible reason that it`s just not for them, or another - like in my case for 2 decades - misunderstanding and miscommunication of what the genre really is about.
One real danger can be talent drain - roguelike devs going roguelite mode because it will sell. I also agree with mp that there`s not much comparable to the Major Ones appearing these days - maybe URR, Cogmind and few others, but little else. It`s extremely worrying, but are the -lites to blame? I`m not too sure...
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If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.
We've had decades for this to happen. Do you really expect a champion to arise from within the proletariat to shake off the shackles of the establishment any time soon?
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I`m not sure though if - or how - the whole "new wave" thingy affects the traditional camp. After all, it was always a very niche part of videogaming. It`s not at all given that all these folks who play FTL would love Angband too, if only they knew it existed. I suppose most actually did try a classic RL or two, and they simply didn`t like it, one possible reason that it`s just not for them, or another - like in my case for 2 decades - misunderstanding and miscommunication of what the genre really is about.
Which might include unapproachability.
How it affects the traditional camp: If you were to look for a roguelike now, you have to hope that whomever is making a traditional roguelike uses the keyword "traditional" otherwise you might miss it amongst the detritus that litters the references to the term.
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If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.
We've had decades for this to happen. Do you really expect a champion to arise from within the proletariat to shake off the shackles of the establishment any time soon?
Nope. To some extent, it's an economic problem. There's no money in making actual roguelike games, yet the skills that go into making good ones can be put to profitable use elsewhere. Anyone who produces anything good is therefore likely to disappear within a few years. Meanwhile, the one guy who views it as a sort of religious vocation but still produces good stuff doesn't even call his game a roguelike.
On some level, it's probably necessary to find an economically viable model that can still produce the genuine roguelike article, as opposed to dumbed down, heavily commercialized schlock for steam. I think this has to involve a return to multiuser systems and a move away from the DOS shareware catalogue model.
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I don't like them.
What we've been seeing play out in the past 8 years or so is the result of longterm leaderlessness combined with new commercial interest in roguelikes touched off, ironically, by dwarf fortress. The fact is that proponents of traditional roguelikes have produced little that is genuinely new or exciting in a long damn time. I include myself in this criticism, of course. Almost everyone involved in the development of the classics and their descendants are maintainers or are developing forks and variants. Very little of stature comparable to the classics has been written since the late 90s. The closest thing is dwarf fortress, but Tarn doesn't seem to want to stake a claim there. No one really has a legitimate claim as a first mover and it's been that way for a very long time.
If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.
This post pretty much nails it.
The problem might be that early on in the RL "scene" Hack/Moria/Angband became popular and that popularity continued by means of a billion forks/remixes (all the *bands, various versions of Nethack, and so on). In recent times (though I've been out of the loop HARD) I guess Brogue and perhaps Sil are the only games to get much approval amongst the purists?
I speak for myself here, but I'm a purist and I'm fine with rererereplaying the fossil games of yore. What I want is more games like what I know and am familiar with (more angband variants!) or games that don't stray too far from my comfort zone (brilliant gems like Forays into Norrendrin or a nice diamond-in-the-rough 7DRL).
What I'm after is UI improvements (DynaHack/NitroHack) or clever gameplay twists, not taking two steps forward and two steps backward because compromises have to be made due to graphics.
We've had decades for this to happen. Do you really expect a champion to arise from within the proletariat to shake off the shackles of the establishment any time soon?
Nope. To some extent, it's an economic problem. There's no money in making actual roguelike games, yet the skills that go into making good ones can be put to profitable use elsewhere. Anyone who produces anything good is therefore likely to disappear within a few years. Meanwhile, the one guy who views it as a sort of religious vocation but still produces good stuff doesn't even call his game a roguelike.
On some level, it's probably necessary to find an economically viable model that can still produce the genuine roguelike article, as opposed to dumbed down, heavily commercialized schlock for steam. I think this has to involve a return to multiuser systems and a move away from the DOS shareware catalogue model.
I think the "dumbed down heavily commercialized shlock for steam" tag is a very fitting description of "the new wave". Looking at steam's catalogue, you're quick to notice Dungeons of Dredmor (which I think is just the worst), which is badly designed in nearly all its aspects. The rest is mostly examples of "other genre but with something vaguely related in the third degree to roguelikes tacked on".
I'm trying really really hard to not go into the whole "but what is a roguelike?" spiel AGAIN. It's been discussed to death and there's neither a leading body to decree what is law nor is there a desire among those who discuss it to reach consensus, so why even bother.
I don't know what the topic starter counts as "new wave". I know I occasionally look at the roguebasin or here during 7DRL Challenges, download everything that looks appealing to me, and decide whether I'm shift+deleting or keeping it within 5 minutes of starting.
What I myself have been noticing, right here in the Announcements subforum, is a marked rise in games tagged with $.
Paid roguelikes! Unheard of! That's what *I* consider to be the "new wave". And I don't like it.
I'm sure I'm an awful person for saying "Roguelikes were free from the start, so they should be free forevermore!", but I don't have any incentive to pay for Cogmind, or Adom, or ToME4, or any RL. Not when I can play 7DRL Cogmind for free. Or legacy Adom for free. Or Nethack for free. And so on and so forth.
I think the shift to paid RLs is mildly alarming. If it's gated behind a paywall, how will I know if I'll like it? Likewise, since I'm very picky about my RLs, if there's a slight flaw or thing I dislike, I'm deleting the game and never looking back. That's... a slightly wasteful thing to do to a product you paid money for.
Who are paid roguelikes for? Purists/veterans have an ocean of RLs to play already. People new to the genre likely don't know what they're getting themselves into. Is this some sort of malicious cash grab or bait and switch?
Sorry if this wasn't what the topic starter had in mind or if I'm getting off-topic here. I just had to get this off my chest when mushroom patch mentioned "economically viable models"; I wouldn't mind an explanation either. Could be I'm overlooking something crucial here.
I don't think having an actual job and making RLs for the fun of it is mutually exclusive.
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Indeed, and the previous post highlights a big part of the problem, two in fact. As much as people trying to make a name in roguelike commentary fight it, pedigree is a central aspect of what it is to be roguelike. They say my definition is too narrow, but in reality it's probably too broad. Mere engagement with the genre and superficial similarity to existing work has never had the cachet of direct descent. To my mind, Sil and DCSS are the standard bearers of the genre, yet they're variants of older games.
The other big piece is the expectation that everything be free. The problem is that you can't exceed existing work in the genre starting from nothing for free. That takes time and expertise, neither of which come cheap. It must be disheartening to read someone claim they make a decision on whether a game is worth anything in five minutes and even then are absolutely unwilling to pay a dollar for it if it is. Probably a common practice among fans though.
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I'm sure it is disheartening, but value for money is pretty important. I'm used to the idea of paying for "regular" games if only because I have to help them recoup development costs; the thousands/millions spent on graphics/employees' code/licensing engines.
When I buy a "normal" game (which is not often!) I usually gladly pay because I'm buying something else; either access to online matchmaking, or hassle-free access to a modding community. Things like that.
Or because it's a platform-tied console game that I have to play for some stupid reason.
Of course the first impression here is that I'm criminally undervalueing the time and effort RL devs put in their games (and I'm not! I think?). But with RLs I'm not paying for a stellar soundtrack by some renowned videogame music man. I'm not paying for whoever's hot shit in the Japanese Voice Acting market nowadays. I'm not paying to see 3D models based on the concept designs of some ridiculously talented artist to come to life. I'm not paying for the journey of traversing some lovingly crafted landscape (haha! who am I kidding, it's all corridors nowadays~).
No, I'm paying for fluff/lore and the ability to test my wits and luck against 5 billion dice rolls and tactical decisions. I don't know... you'd have to do something really incredible to set yourself apart from the sea of existing RLs and earn my money. Just as devs put in effort to make RLs I put in effort to earn money :V
With RLs a lot (all?) of the excess trim is gone; it's all gameplay. And having played so many it's easy to make snap judgements like "this RLs theme is incoherent and I can't deal with that" or "this RLs experimental gameplay is a neat concept but each keypress takes 10 seconds to process; I'm so frustrated I don't want to play more". "This 7DRL is nice but the trick is to just hole up in a corridor.", "This 7DRL is neat but I immediately lose interest once the open-world aspect kicks in; I want something more focused.".
"This angband variant has some nice things, but in the end I prefer that other variant because of reasons.".
I bought Dungeons of Dredmor originally because a "wacky" RL with lots of crafting sounded good. What I got out of it was a badly balanced RL with lots of character generation options, which then proceeds to nullify most of your choices (ie. everything not directly combat related). You want to craft things? Enjoy never finding the proper recipes and materials!
In the end I did pour roughly 50 hours into it before realizing just how badly monsters/item generation were designed and deciding that playing more wasn't worth my time. By that point Gaslamp Games had already received my money of course.
Looking at something like Steam Marines or Sword of the Stars or whatever other paid RLs are on Steam nowadays, I'm sure I'll find something that pisses me off about them sooner or later if I were to play them. Having to pay up-front for the privilege of going "this sucks, I'll never play it again because the flaws it has isn't something that a simple update can remove" is... less than ideal?
I think Wazhack's model (unless it's changed) of letting you play up till a certain depth is perhaps a step in the right direction, but said depth is reached within minutes and what it leaves me with is the distinct impression that I just played a cheap-looking game that's trying to nickel and dime me into purchasing each class seperately. And I hope that's not the direction we're going in.
ToME4 might have a good idea, as you can get it for free, or pay to get it on Steam. Either one gets you access to the community online in-game BUT the paid version (or donating in the free version) gets you access to player tile customisations and whatnot. An optional payment scheme that doesn't paywall content but still incentivizes paying. Sadly though this does tie in to the need to have an account that checks in online to verify your identity, so it's not all positives.
I think in the end (as far as paid RLs is concerned) the developers' intention is what's important.
Why are you making a RL? So that anyone who's interested can play it?
Or do you want to get money? If so, you'll have to compromise and add graphics/tileset, or nobody outside of the RL community is ever going to buy it. I see Steam reviews for ToME4 (which has a very nice tileset imo!) and most of the negative reviews are harping on and on about how "they don't understand what the attraction is of permadeath" and/or "this game is mad ugly yo!". Also some fun reviews like "Play DCSS instead, this blows.".
Bear in mind you can nowadays only write Steam reviews for games you own and have played, and ToME4 costs money on Steam. I don't know what drove these people to buy ToME4. Some of them obviously didn't know they could get it for free, officially. DarkGod's got their money now though.
Two parting observations/remarks:
1) I just noticed ADOM's been Greenlighted. For those not familiar with Steam, Steam Greenlight is a process where creators can ask the community to vote on whether or not the community feels their game should be added to the Steam Store. ADOM's been greenlighted; it's going to be sold on Steam someday soon.
2) This is the kicker; Steam's recently introduced a refund option. You can get your access to a game revoked and your money returned within two weeks of purchase IF you have less than two hours playtime.
I don't think other digital game retailers will follow (I don't think Desure will be doing much of anything from the grave, heh), but does this refunds concept perhaps serve as a suitable solution for you, mushroom patch?
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Several good points in this thread. I agree about the lack of innovation. Surely we can procedurally generate game worlds more complex and original than monster-filled dungeons. Surely we can invent game mechanics more interesting than hack and slash. I think Cogmind and URR look promising, but they both have a long way to go.
I'm skeptical about the paid model of development producing quality roguelikes. Like Holsety said, gameplay matters more than in other genres. A roguelike needs to be balanced, free from grinding, frustration, and bugs, and that takes a lot of long-term playtesters giving useful feedback. Classic roguelike history is full of lone developers adding new mechanics and breaking the gameplay. Maybe a lone genius with a Great Vision can substitute for an open-source, open-suggestion community, but I fear the failures will outnumber the successes.
I also agree about much of the new wave being driven by the hope of making money. I don't think this will last. People are always jumping to new platforms that promise small developers can make big money, and it never works for long. But in twenty years, when Steam is out of business and iOS 24 won't run today's games, will there remain anything they have contributed to the genre?
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@Holsety: You illustrate the economic issue very well. You're cheap. Unbelievably, unapologetically cheap. I've bought games I never played or even had any serious intention of playing for more than I would ever expect to see a roguelike game sell for, yet here you are talking about how any price for a roguelike game is too much. You're seriously drawing a comparison between the effort you put into making five bucks and the effort developers put into a reasonable quality roguelike game? "Value for money is pretty important." Value for five bucks? Jesus.
You know why wazhack has to pry and scrape to get money out of players? Because of guys like you who think everything has to be free.
You ask "Why are you making roguelikes? So that anyone who's interested can play it? Or so they can get money?" Read the following very carefully and reflect on it: In real life, people cannot do things that take a lot of time and expertise without compensation. It just doesn't work. Unless some Bruce Wayne Batman-for-roguelikes guy came along, nothing good can be made in your world of never-pay-for-anything-without-a-commercial-publisher.
That's the whole thing right there: If you don't have a faceless, professional promotion operation behind you, some halfwit will think "you're just in it for the money." If you do, though, sure, he'll buy your schlocky game, it's totally normal to buy shit from people who don't have names. Of course, the guy who doesn't have the professional promotion operation behind him is exactly the one who isn't in it for the money.
This bit particularly amazed me:
Of course the first impression here is that I'm criminally undervalueing the time and effort RL devs put in their games (and I'm not! I think?). But with RLs I'm not paying for a stellar soundtrack by some renowned videogame music man. I'm not paying for whoever's hot shit in the Japanese Voice Acting market nowadays. I'm not paying to see 3D models based on the concept designs of some ridiculously talented artist to come to life. I'm not paying for the journey of traversing some lovingly crafted landscape (haha! who am I kidding, it's all corridors nowadays~).
You realize that two of the three points you mention here are purely a function of marketing, right? That what makes video game music composers and japanese voice actors famous is the promotion operations behind them? Right? You realize the people who design models for computer games aren't artists, they're designers? People tell you how to spend your money and you refuse to consider spending it any other way. You don't even realize they're telling you.
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@Holsety: You illustrate the economic issue very well. You're cheap. Unbelievably, unapologetically cheap. I've bought games I never played or even had any serious intention of playing for more than I would ever expect to see a roguelike game sell for, yet here you are talking about how any price for a roguelike game is too much. You're seriously drawing a comparison between the effort you put into making five bucks and the effort developers put into a reasonable quality roguelike game? "Value for money is pretty important." Value for five bucks? Jesus.
Yes, value for five bucks. Value for one, even. To be annoying, though, I never mentioned a price point and I'm pretty interested to see you start at five at the end, though you never say what you consider "more than I would ever expect to see a roguelike game sell for" to be exactly.
Taking a quick look through the "rogue-like" tag in the Steam Store (picking just a few examples);
ToME4's 6 Euro, Dungeons of Dredmor (+the expansions) is also 6.
Sword of the Stars: The Pit is kind of murky... the Gold Edition (with 2 DLC's included) is 10 Euros, but there's three more classes to buy as DLC for 2 Euros each, so let's say it's 16 Euros for the complete experience. And you want the complete experience, of course.
Steam Marines is straight up 15 E. Arcen Games' Bionic Dues (though it calls itself a roguelite) is 10 E.
Wazhack's 9 E, which is an improvement over the iOS version where you have to purchase the classes seperately (though I might be wrong on this since it's been years since I thought of Wazhack at all).
ADOM's not out yet, so I don't know what price point Biskup will choose; he's not allowing buy-ins to the pre-releases anymore as far as I can see, and those are only being released to people who pledged 25$ in the campaign. I... doubt he'll pick 25$ as his price point though.
Going over the announcements subforum right here, you see a few 12$ and 15$ games right on the first page, even.
So, not to be an ass or anything, but you say "value for five bucks" when 10-15 seems to be the rough average.
I used to buy games on sales too, or off humble bundles, just because I could "own" those games for "unbelievably cheap". The result being me having a load of games (some of which I still haven't touched) and less money. Realizing this I started looking a bit more critically at my expenses (well, as far as videogames go).
Console games; 60 Euro a piece. Games for handhelds; roughly 30ish E per game. Games on PC; anywhere between 0 and 60 before DLCs come into the picture. Then I took a look at how much time I spent with those games.
I got some 800 hours out of Morrowind for less than 30 E.
Cave Story (free) granted me around the 24 hour mark worth of playtime, not mentioning the emotional impact and fond memories.
I got Garry's Mod for five bucks and spent 260ish hours on it.
Bastion for 10 bucks gave me 9 hours worth of fun; but nine excellently crafted and enjoyable hours.
Most Xbox 360 games I have on the other hand gave me FAR less hours of fun. I played maybe 12 hours worth of Chromehounds (not counting the monthly fees to be able to play online!) before they shut down the servers, permanently locking away 90% of the game's content. 60 bucks. I doubt Gears of War 2 got past the 10 hour mark before I beat the campaign (twice). 60 bucks.
Nintendo DS' Knights in the Nightmare's cost is irrelevant because the game is a gem and unique.
And so on and so forth. Examples upon examples.
Yes, I've gotten extremely more bang for my buck out of some games; this might have caused my metric for what constitutes "good value for money" to get skewed. I've gotten very wary of what I'm spending my money on. Oftentimes I'll pay more than what I feel is fair, because I know what I'm getting is something I know I want. If it's a casual purchase though, the seller is often shit out of luck. That's not my problem. I don't go buying mangoes every day just because a farmer picked them. I stopped buying videogames I don't plan on playing just because someone made them and put them up for sale.
You know why wazhack has to pry and scrape to get money out of players? Because of guys like you who think everything has to be free.
I played Wazhack. I was not impressed. I don't think the graphics look nice, I don't think putting Nethack in a side-view platformer perspective is good gameplay. I think it's clever, but it's not worth money to me. I don't throw a tenner at my colleague when he makes a clever remark.
I wouldn't pay 10 cents for it if I found them on the floor. I get so little enjoyment out of it I wouldn't play it if it were FREE.
Maybe someone loves Wazhack! Excellent for that person! It's not for me, and if I'd paid for it SO I COULD PLAY IT, I'd be feeling robbed. That's not unique to roguelikes. If you buy a game and you think it's shit, you feel robbed. The difference between RLs and regular games in this aspect is that RLs have been free from the start. They didn't start out in the arcades, 25 cents per life, the idea of "if you want to play, you'll pay" being a CORE founding concept.
Wazhack doesn't have to pry and scrape money out of players because guys like me think everything should be free. They have to pry and scrape money out of players because nobody's willing to pay for their game; everyone already interested has bought it, and everyone else sees it and dismisses it. Less "masterpiece undervalued by plebeians", more "flawed game sells poorly".
You ask "Why are you making roguelikes? So that anyone who's interested can play it? Or so they can get money?" Read the following very carefully and reflect on it: In real life, people cannot do things that take a lot of time and expertise without compensation. It just doesn't work. Unless some Bruce Wayne Batman-for-roguelikes guy came along, nothing good can be made in your world of never-pay-for-anything-without-a-commercial-publisher.
That's the whole thing right there: If you don't have a faceless, professional promotion operation behind you, some halfwit will think "you're just in it for the money." If you do, though, sure, he'll buy your schlocky game, it's totally normal to buy shit from people who don't have names. Of course, the guy who doesn't have the professional promotion operation behind him is exactly the one who isn't in it for the money.
I don't think publishers are relevant here; the entire indie scene has matured WELL beyond what it was when it started out. If anything, just labeling something "indie" is the equivalent now of having an actual publisher. Hell, they're practically AA-gaming (as opposed to triple A, see? ha~).
With paid roguelikes I inevitably ask "what am I being offered here that I can't get from other roguelikes, and how much am I willing to pay for THAT?". Hell, replace roguelike with [game] and the above applies to any game I consider purchasing.
Just because Ubisoft is willing to spend millions to churn out Assassin's Creed after Assassin's Creed sequel, doesn't obligate me to buy them. For me, the first two games give me all the enjoyment I'm willing to get out of that entire franchise.
If more people feel that way, and Ubisoft has to close an entire studio and put thousands of employees out on the street... that's supply-and-demand. That's business; that's why they develop several franchises at once.
This bit particularly amazed me:
Of course the first impression here is that I'm criminally undervalueing the time and effort RL devs put in their games (and I'm not! I think?). But with RLs I'm not paying for a stellar soundtrack by some renowned videogame music man. I'm not paying for whoever's hot shit in the Japanese Voice Acting market nowadays. I'm not paying to see 3D models based on the concept designs of some ridiculously talented artist to come to life. I'm not paying for the journey of traversing some lovingly crafted landscape (haha! who am I kidding, it's all corridors nowadays~).
You realize that two of the three points you mention here are purely a function of marketing, right? That what makes video game music composers and japanese voice actors famous is the promotion operations behind them? Right? You realize the people who design models for computer games aren't artists, they're designers? People tell you how to spend your money and you refuse to consider spending it any other way. You don't even realize they're telling you.
What? Do you even play videogames with sound? Mario 64's soundtrack, composed by Koji Kondo; excellent. Final Fantasy series' soundtracks, composed by Nobuo Uematsu; excellent. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, soundtrack composed by Yoko Shimomura; SO DAMN GOOD. Shin Megami Tensei; Strange Journey, soundtrack by Shoji Meguro. Brilliant.
Composers. Each of these is well known. Each of them made some haunting tunes that many fans of these series will remember, to this day.
Ask me who did the soundtrack for Gears of War, or Assassin's Creed, or Dead Space. I don't know. Honestly I don't even remember IF these games even HAD any music. Or what it sounded like.
Famous composers have marketing operations behind them, yes. They're also famous for a reason; they make good music. Nobody's going to spend millions to promote a no-name composer who can't make a tune that connects with the players.
I don't care about Voice Actors, though there's plenty of people who recognize a VA no matter what character he's pretending to be. VAs who give good performances are hired again and again, and build a career out of it. This is simple stuff, guy. Norio Wakamoto's Norio Wakamoto; nobody else has that deep rumbling voice. So if a Wakamoto fan hears his fav VA is doing a voice in a new game, he'll be (more) interested. It's only natural.
Yes, a character isn't "made" by the artist. But the artist is commissioned for the concept, and the art department is paid for rigging the model, painting the textures. Other people are paid to make sure the model is easily visible and doesn't look like a christmas tree or blend seamlessly into the background. What of it? That's the work of many people, and for good reason. Nobody's buying a game where all the characters look half-assed. Spend money to make money.
What is the point you're trying to make? Are you saying an orchestra's time and talent isn't worth money? Are you saying VA's aren't important? Have you ever HEARD the voice acting for Robot Alchemic Drive? (spoiler: it's atrociously BAD).
Regular games have to balance music, gameplay and graphics. It's multi-disciplinary. Sometimes a person doesn't like the gameplay of a game completely, but the soundtrack+voicing+story will still let him have an excellent experience.
Roguelikes. As a genre you offer me nothing but gameplay. Fine, that's why I'm HERE. That's what I LIKE about Roguelikes.
A dev wants me to pay? What can YOU offer ME that I can't get elsewhere for free.
It's not rocket science. Nobody'll pay for bananas if they can get similar quality bananas for FREE.
This next part is going to sound awful, and I regret having to say it, but I can't think of another way to phrase it. Apologies in advance to anyone who makes roguelikes. (of the type: "I'm sorry you're offended, not for offending you.")
Just because making a RL takes time and expertise doesn't obligate me to fund you. YOU chose to make it, and if YOU lose money on that because people don't buy your game, then YOU made a bad business decision. YOU chose to make your hobby/passion/pastime into a BUSINESS; don't blame ME and my legion of cheap-o clones that you're hungry when you're trying to sell sand in a desert.
You'd be a fool not to value your time. You're free to call consumers cheap for not buying your roguelikes and rail against AAA for being shlocky shit, but the truth is, you've chosen a TERRIBLE market to try and monetize and people will always pay for something they desire. Good luck trying to bend a market habituated to free games towards paid games while creating content that offers very little new, at a price point you're likely just making up on the spot without any frame of reference. You might be able to live off it, and maybe one day I'll write a post that's shorter than a children's book.
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Holy crap. With "fans" like these, who needs roguelites?
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Ugh yea this thread is depressing. Here's why we can't have nice things.
A dev wants me to pay? What can YOU offer ME that I can't get elsewhere for free.
It's not rocket science. Nobody'll pay for bananas if they can get similar quality bananas for FREE.
I hear you. It's the free market; I get it. But in reality people buy Bananas 2015 when they've already bought Bananas '88, '89, '90, '91, and so on for the last 2 decades (e.g. Madden or any of today's FPS franchises). Some of those were incremental upgrades, but mostly it's the same shit repackaged. That'll be $60.
In the ideal case we're contrasting this with a new RL that has fresh art, theme, lore, mechanics, a better UI, etc. for about 10-20% the cost of Bananas 2015. And suddenly it's considered a "malicious cash grab." FML
Maybe we should start a poll on how many people buy RLs. I'd be really curious how representative your views are, Holsety. I wouldn't be surprised if they are widespread. That's the depressing part really. I'm not convinced mainstream gamers want to touch traditional RLs with a 10 ft. pole. Simultaneously, I worry that most serious RLers won't step away from the classics. What's left?
Dungeons of Dredmor is $2.49 for the next 40 hours by the way. Not that I'd recommend it, but the argument that you can get 50 hours of gameplay out of something for a few bucks and it wasn't a good value is hard for me to understand (of course I've seen "not recommended" reviews on steam with 500+ hours logged... this blows my mind). Most of my favorite (non-RL) games are ~4 hours long.
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Dungeons of Dredmor is $2.49 for the next 40 hours by the way. Not that I'd recommend it, but the argument that you can get 50 hours of gameplay out of something for a few bucks and it wasn't a good value is hard for me to understand (of course I've seen "not recommended" reviews on steam with 500+ hours logged... this blows my mind). Most of my favorite (non-RL) games are ~4 hours long.
What's depressing about this thread is the logic.
There's complaints that people don't want to pay a few bucks for something they don't value. There's complaints that people just feel entitled and won't pay for anything. So what? People don't have to do things the way you do them. And if someone plays the 7DRL cogmind, and considers it a free experience equivalent to the commercial version, I suspect they are deluding themselves. Their loss.
I bought Dungeons of Dredmor, it could have 50000 hours of gameplay, and it'd still be a bland funless experience for me. I probably played it for tens of hours, until I realised I was cheated and the fun wasn't coming. So some people play it for 500 hours? Good for them, even if I can't fathom how they could enjoy it. I wish I could get a refund on it from Steam, not because the dollar or two I spent on it means anything, but rather because it sends a message to the game developer that he needs to do better if he wants my money.
Steam refunds are going to be great. I can't want to try more games, and get refunds on the ones that I don't like.
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Hey, if you don't value something, don't pay for it. It's your money. When you play roguelikes and get lots out of them and you care enough about them to to post on a roguelike forum, yet you make a blanket statement that in principle paid roguelikes are some malicious scheme.... well, uh, that confuses me. But I guess it's still your money.
Re: the 10 or 50 hours on DoD. I've not played it. I won't be playing it. I've heard it's awful. So knowing it's awful, I have trouble understanding how that happens. Maybe it's just because I value my time more than I used to and my cash less than I used to. If a game doesn't hook me in the first couple hours, I move onto something else. But I'm trying to picture it....
Hour 1: Meh
Hour 2: Still boring.
Hour 3: ZZZ. Why am I still playing it.
Hour 4: When is the fun coming?
Hour 5: Maybe the fun will be in one more hour??
....
Hour 50: OK. I've had enough. This game sucks.
If a TV show is boring, I quit watching it. If a movie is that horrendous, I walk out. What were you doing those 10, 50, or 500 hours before the fog cleared and you realized it had all been a big waste of time?
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In general, I like the new wave. In the mixing of roguelike element and whatever other genre, many of the new wave games are creative and fresh, especially when compared to main stream and AAA games. Pretty much every one I've tried has had a neat idea or two that makes it worth trying.
My thoughts on some of the "new wave" or "commercial" RL and RLLs mentioned so far, and others I've played:
* I like Dungeons of Dredmor a lot. For the price it is a very generous game. I've bought extra copies for friends, some of whom hate me for it because they ended up sinking hours and hours, ;D. The skill system is a highlight, I like experimenting with different builds.
* TOME4 is great. Someone mentioned not wanting to buy it, well you don't have to it's free, although I've paid up twice (Once to support the dev, and again because I wanted a Steam copy). It's pretty much replaced the *bands for me when I want to play a big, expansive RL. The global chat/event log is great. There's something extremely unifying when you see other people's YASDs in real time (also their achievements!).
* FTL's got some neat things going on in the ship management and node based map structure. I wish it didn't have such a strict a hunger clock and that it was less random. It's too full of cheap deaths and weird difficulty spikes for me.
* Crypt of the Necrodancer is cute but too simplistic. It's primary gimmick is in the timing aspect, and I suck at it. Trying the timingless character revealed just a bare bones hack and slash. It's a masterstroke of presentation though, and the singing shopkeeper is a brilliant version of "you hear the chime of a cash register".
* Rogue Legacy - I like the warp door at the beginning, granting access to later areas as your ancestors unlock them. Character legacy and home base upgrading thing is something I've been wanting in a more traditional RL as well.
* Binding of Isaac's method of growing the potential content over time is the best twist on unlocks I've seen in any game.
Jere, if I could vote more than once for Golden Krone greenlight I would. 8)
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Ugh yea this thread is depressing. Here's why we can't have nice things.
A dev wants me to pay? What can YOU offer ME that I can't get elsewhere for free.
It's not rocket science. Nobody'll pay for bananas if they can get similar quality bananas for FREE.
I hear you. It's the free market; I get it. But in reality people buy Bananas 2015 when they've already bought Bananas '88, '89, '90, '91, and so on for the last 2 decades (e.g. Madden or any of today's FPS franchises). Some of those were incremental upgrades, but mostly it's the same shit repackaged. That'll be $60.
In the ideal case we're contrasting this with a new RL that has fresh art, theme, lore, mechanics, a better UI, etc. for about 10-20% the cost of Bananas 2015. And suddenly it's considered a "malicious cash grab." FML
First off, people like Bananas. Or they liked last years' Bananas. Maybe they're buying because this years Bananas includes Puerto Rican Bananas; those haven't been in a game since '99 and any real banana enthusiast knows they're severely underrated.
Or maybe they buy Nanas 2015 for the multiplayer; the entire playerbase is moving on to the new/better game. It's either buy in or play with the tumbleweeds by yourself.
Perhaps they want to see if Master Banana will finally complete the epic journey he started in Bananas 1 and continued in Bananas 2.
Perhaps the Bananas franchise (ie. Fire Emblem or Advance Wars) offers them a type of gameplay that no-one else is offering; of course they'll buy new games.
Don't contrast AAA games with RLs. Don't even contrast indie games with RLs. I think this is a major fault of RL devs; you're not competing with anyone, save other RLs. Looking for comparisons or connections is a bad idea. Marketing principles that work for other games are unlikely to work for RLs.
You're not a franchise, you don't have a previous game whose mechanics/setting/quirks have created an expectation in your fanbase.
Hell, likely you (likely) don't even have a dedicated fanbase. Just about any reason you give for why "your game" isn't doing well that's connected to AAA gaming is a flawed reason. All you have is the genre, so try and look for economic explanations within the genre; how are other paid RLs doing and why are they succeeding/failing where you are (possibly) not.
Lastly, a AAA game isn't worth 60 bucks. You PAY 60 bucks, but it's worth hundreds, if not more. Millions go into the development, and millions more go into marketing. If a game does not SELL a set target amount of copies, the studio is running a loss. Some publishers can absorb a franchise running at a loss because the profits from other franchises they're managing can compensate.
Indie devs (the real ones, who aren't operating a studio by this point, with people on payroll) hopefully understand that. They price their games low, accordingly. They don't go "If you're willing to pay 60 for AAA, why won't you pay me at least 30! I worked hard!".
Well, that or they see it doesn't work and price down accordingly. I can only guess at so many things from the sidelines.
Dungeons of Dredmor did well because it had "teh wacky meems" and pulled in the Reddit crowd who naturally went LOL LUTEFISK! LUTEFIIIISK! Minecraft did well because a) children have no concept of the worth of a dollar and mommy/daddy just went and bought it for them, and b) it is psychologically designed to make children covet it.
What? Adults play minecraft too? Go to youtube, search for captainsparklez or yogscast or just minecraft. Do you want to watch those vids? Do you WANT TO WATCH those vids? If no, then you're not the target demographic for minecraft; your enjoyment of it is irrelevant and your economic contribution in purchasing it is minor, you incidental consumer you~.
Maybe we should start a poll on how many people buy RLs. I'd be really curious how representative your views are, Holsety. I wouldn't be surprised if they are widespread. That's the depressing part really. I'm not convinced mainstream gamers want to touch traditional RLs with a 10 ft. pole. Simultaneously, I worry that most serious RLers won't step away from the classics. What's left?
I think strawpoll.me will let you easily do that, but it'd have to be up on a spot where as much of this community as possible can easily see it, if you care about getting a representative result.
Hey, if you don't value something, don't pay for it. It's your money. When you play roguelikes and get lots out of them and you care enough about them to to post on a roguelike forum, yet you make a blanket statement that in principle paid roguelikes are some malicious scheme.... well, uh, that confuses me. But I guess it's still your money.
Mmm. If I seemed to be applying some sort of blanket statement regarding ALL paid roguelikes, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention.
Nearly all that are currently out, though, are not worth getting, for me. That's all. I played Cogmind when it was fresh off the 7DRLChallenge, and had fun. As things stand now, I'm not feeling a need to play Cogmind and thus I'm not going to pay for it.
It's not a matter of "this game isn't good enough for my money" (in this case; some other times this is exactly what it's all about), it's a matter of "my need to play this game isn't high enough that I'll pay".
If it was free, I'd download it and store it in a roguelike mausoleum, to be played on some grey day when the fey mood strikes me.
For a paid product, that'd just be me aimlessly spending. I'd like to see the person whose blind faith drives him to purchase each and every title that looks even remotely appealing.
If I was malicious I'd start throwing around "developer entitlement".
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Re: the 10 or 50 hours on DoD. I've not played it. I won't be playing it. I've heard it's awful. So knowing it's awful, I have trouble understanding how that happens. Maybe it's just because I value my time more than I used to and my cash less than I used to. If a game doesn't hook me in the first couple hours, I move onto something else. But I'm trying to picture it....
[...]
If a TV show is boring, I quit watching it. If a movie is that horrendous, I walk out. What were you doing those 10, 50, or 500 hours before the fog cleared and you realized it had all been a big waste of time?
Nobody cares if you walk out on a movie if the ticket's already paid for, though. I'd like to see a movie maker accuse you of bad taste.
As for DoD, the first few hours I was enjoying the soundtrack, trying to wrap my head around the rather silly amount of stats there were, figuring out the classes, retrying class choices, generally just playing the game. It LOOKS like a decent game, you have to play it a bit before finding out that it recycles monster zoos, that wizard portals generally aren't really worth it, that crafting options are useless, that gear progression is bad, that enemies DON'T get interesting, and that the final boss is... unfair.
After that comes a perverse part where you feel you owe it to your "RL cred" to beat this shitty game, and you sink some more hours.
The animations take some time to play out as well, but that's kind of moot. I don't play classic RLs on TURBOSPEED either.
Realizing a game sucks is not instantaneous. Even a shitty game can hopefully keep up an illusion for some hours. Oblivion and Skyrim are garbage, but that doesn't mean there isn't some tens of hours worth of enjoyment to be had from each.
A game that sucks immediately will get universally panned, a game that sucks at the middle/end stage will usually be defended by all the people who don't want to admit they got suckered into buying it.
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Realizing a game sucks is not instantaneous. Even a shitty game can hopefully keep up an illusion for some hours. Oblivion and Skyrim are garbage, but that doesn't mean there isn't some tens of hours worth of enjoyment to be had from each.
A game that sucks immediately will get universally panned, a game that sucks at the middle/end stage will usually be defended by all the people who don't want to admit they got suckered into buying it.
No. A game you`ve got "tens of hours of enjoyment from" is worth its price, end of. Buyer`s bias is an interesting mental device , sure, but so is logic where somebody might spend 50 hours on DoD and yet claim it`s garbage. "RL cred?". Please. Seems you want to have the cake and eat it - play the game and yet still be able to join in with the cool kids on the "hey, there`s a fish in that barrel" exercise.
No doubt there`s a need for discussion about roguelikes and money - the arrival of digital distribution is a seismic shift for the genre & community. For me it`s much less about the (rather silly) "should the devs get paid" question but how/if commercial development affects the games` quality itself.
I`m afraid though that the kind of argument you offer - RLs should be free because they always were, because AAA games might be crap but at least they have gfx/music/story and because of some other "armchair economist" type stuff - is just too ridiculous to work with. No really, talking about dev entitlement when your posts could be prime examples of that dreaded term "entitled gamer" (hate it because it`s mostly used by people who defend extensive DLC and microtransactions, ugh) is just a little bit too much.
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No. A game you`ve got "tens of hours of enjoyment from" is worth its price, end of. Buyer`s bias is an interesting mental device , sure, but so is logic where somebody might spend 50 hours on DoD and yet claim it`s garbage. "RL cred?". Please. Seems you want to have the cake and eat it - play the game and yet still be able to join in with the cool kids on the "hey, there`s a fish in that barrel" exercise.
No yourself.
Walk a mile in shitty shoes, go ahead. The distance you cover doesn't make the shoes worth their price, even if they were comfortable at first. Your feet are bleeding and blistered; you bought shit shoes.
Eat some half-raw chicken. As you're crapping your guts out, consider the meal worth its price; you did eat some if not all of it, after all.
Read an awful book. You didn't just waste your time and money on drivel; you went cover-to-cover so it was worth its price.
I could write more god-awful analogies, but my point is something is only worth its price if you're happy with the end product.
If a movie has a shit ending, I want my money back or I'm not watching something by that director again. "Worth it" is subjective, but it's also detached from the actual quality of the product.
You can only take "The meek will inherit" so far before it becomes "I love getting my face stomped on!".
Sometimes I pay for shit games, guilty as charged. Sometimes I enjoy shit games! How much enjoyment I get out of them doesn't force me to change my judgement. There's no "cool kids" to join; if something sucks, say so. I'm not going to say "oh but the soundtrack was pretty groovy" or "some of the setting was amusing". No. It's a shit game. If you like it, you like shit games and/or are unable to tell when something is good or bad.
No doubt there`s a need for discussion about roguelikes and money - the arrival of digital distribution is a seismic shift for the genre & community. For me it`s much less about the (rather silly) "should the devs get paid" question but how/if commercial development affects the games` quality itself.
I`m afraid though that the kind of argument you offer - RLs should be free because they always were, because AAA games might be crap but at least they have gfx/music/story and because of some other "armchair economist" type stuff - is just too ridiculous to work with. No really, talking about dev entitlement when your posts could be prime examples of that dreaded term "entitled gamer" (hate it because it`s mostly used by people who defend extensive DLC and microtransactions, ugh) is just a little bit too much.
But I AM an armchair economist. I've been following AAA AND Indie. Pc, console AND mobile. Over the years, watching attitudes and dogmas shift. The death of PC gaming and its recent resurrection due to new funding models. The rise of pre-order mentality. The almost-universal catastrophic failure of crowdfunding. People happily buying into "Early Access" games (ie. developers losing any and all sense of shame). Major studios straight up announcing they're quitting consoles to chase the mobile gaming money.
Talking about how their latest major release ended up costing them millions because not enough people bought it. Talking about how they need to CHANGE their franchise in order to DRAW IN more buyers, even if that goes against the wishes of the CURRENT fans. Indie devs talking about fickle buyers and low sales. Mobile devs talking about the race to 0.99c price point due to the insanely overcrowded market.
These things interest me, so I keep tabs. Maybe it all sounds ridiculous, but I'm not inventing some crazy system of economics to fit my agenda of evil and cynicism.
Look at this:
I'm not convinced mainstream gamers want to touch traditional RLs with a 10 ft. pole. Simultaneously, I worry that most serious RLers won't step away from the classics. What's left?
This is the core of the matter.
You're at the Temple of the Roguelike. Go to some major gaming forums, start a thread; tell people you're going to be charging this or that much for a game that may or may not have a tileset. May or may not have ANY sound.
I'M skeptical about their response, but I'm also known for being negative.
All this is speculation, and most of it coming from someone who only mentions the downsides of everything.
So go ahead, release a game. Ask indie devs with multiple games out what their metric for succes is, share some info with other RL devs. (Share some info with meeeee! I'm actually curious, moreso in hard sales figures than whatever morals you have on worth and value and appreciation!)
What's your day-one sales? What's your daily sales in the first week post-release? Second week? Third week?
I think the market for rogueliKes is already small. In this small pool, most will likely already have a game-of-choice (Nethack/Crawl). The pooldwellers may or may not all look favorably on your attempt to sell them something. Once you've saturated the pool of "people who actually like RLs", how much do you think you'll sell to outsiders?
I can't imagine people making bank on such a small niche of games. I said it before, don't blame the consumer. Blame yourself for picking a poor target market. Nobody's forcing you to ask money for a game; perhaps blame yourself if nobody is willing to buy.
If I'm wrong, by all means share some figures. I'm not clairvoyant, unless the future turns out to be shit as far as the eye can see.
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I'm generally reckoning to stay out of this discussion beyond this one post, for all sorts of reasons, as well as encouraging folks to be civil and bear empathy in mind especially with consideration for any viewing it while contending with projects of their own commercial or otherwise, but this in particular on a whim:
The almost-universal catastrophic failure of crowdfunding.
Probably isn't at all a point you want to be trying to orient any arguments around---as that's some rather incredulously incorrect hyperbole. There are definitely myriad failures in crowdfunding, great and small, in various senses of the term as will be readily brought up by many in both the gaming sector and, more readily, the tabletop P&P gaming sector which arrived much earlier to the crowdfunding scene period and efficacy within it---but the absolute and ongoing success of the various well wrought and timely ones thoroughly dwarfs the failures and renders a state or quality of " almost-universal catastrophic failure" a flat out impossible thing as the history has already been made and the "almost" qualifier is the flimsiest of fig leaf's that the slightest breath on the breeze would send wistfully off into the horizon. In other words: We Got Dungeonmans and such yo. 8)
In general, any conflation of micro/macro economics and (fine) arts is liable to fare about as well in a broader sense as the former has with general education since about the time of Roguelikes even coming into existence outright alongside all the other formative gaming endeavors---not exactly an oil and water situation, but there's a reason why viewing things dogmatically from a singular, inherently flawed prism isn't at all a good idea when it comes to very much cross-discipline cultural things.
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Not to hijack the thread, but some context and hard numbers regarding getter77's claim:
On KS video games from 2009~2013 (http://gamerant.com/kickstarter-video-game-failure-rate/): "In total, 37% of successfully funded projects have fully delivered a finished product to backers. A further 8% have delivered a partial product (i.e. part 1 of a promised full game, or a mobile tie-in app). 3% of successful projects have been formally cancelled, while a further 2% have been formally placed in hiatus. A total value of $21,641,800 has so far been sunk into successful Kickstarter projects that have failed to deliver, while the total value of projects that have delivered is less than $17,000,000."
For more recent stats regarding a portion of games funded through 2014 (and a few 2015), there's a maintained list here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFW2sjShHriYRsyuVZx4Se8Qxjw38VJk4g-7cls8cpg/htmlview?usp=sheets_home&sle=true#).
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I'm not going to say "oh but the soundtrack was pretty groovy"
As for DoD, the first few hours I was enjoying the soundtrack
Just for the record: when I call somebody`s argument "too ridiculous to engage" (don`t happen too often tbh) it means just that. In other words : "We have nothing to talk about." I could spend some valuable time crafting a half-page reply similar to yours, picking up gaping holes in your logic (example above) and so on, but it would be totally pointless. In this kinda exchanges nobody ever convinces anybody, and it will only get uglier, clogging the thread - which was quite interesting up to this point.
The only reason I responded at all was just to register a NO vote, since I consider your angle harmful to the Greater Cause (and the main reason I frequent this forum) - and that is long-term survival and sustainability of the traditional roguelike genre.
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Not to hijack the thread, but some context and hard numbers regarding getter77's claim:
On KS video games from 2009~2013 (http://gamerant.com/kickstarter-video-game-failure-rate/): "In total, 37% of successfully funded projects have fully delivered a finished product to backers. A further 8% have delivered a partial product (i.e. part 1 of a promised full game, or a mobile tie-in app). 3% of successful projects have been formally cancelled, while a further 2% have been formally placed in hiatus. A total value of $21,641,800 has so far been sunk into successful Kickstarter projects that have failed to deliver, while the total value of projects that have delivered is less than $17,000,000."
A 37% success rate in seed-funding projects is really good! And if you're not an idiot about throwing money at things, and you pick and choose projects that have good demos and reliable managers then you'll see a much higher success rate. My own success rate of backed projects is over 80%.
People seem to be very depressed in this thread. I don't see why. We have an amazing wealth of history we're sitting on, and many of the classics are receiving new leases of life thanks to crowdfunding or active fanbases. Meanwhile we have lots of excellent experimental 7DRLs each year that push the boundaries and innovate mechanics, and some of them get turned into full-fledged games in their own right. And on top of that full-fledged games like CataclysmDDA, Caves of Qud, Sproggiwood, Dungeonmans, ToME4, Cogmind, The Great Expedition, Ultima Ratio Regum, and whatever else is being worked on in the shadows.
Ten years ago things looked fairly dark for the genre, but things have picked up massively of late. I'd say that the release rate of new traditional roguelikes is higher than its ever been, and the design quality is far better. The community is growing, partly driven by those introduced through roguelites. The ability to make a living on roguelike games is a really big deal, and in spite of that we still have Angband and DCSS under active and sustainable development. The newly released Angband 4.0 may also start a new wave of variants with its better structured code.
The whole "new wave" of roguelikelikes I don't care much for myself, beyond what design lessons they can teach us and what players they drive our way. Much more important is that the genre has been resilient and is finding new strengths. This is a very good time to be a roguelike fan!
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What a great thread! I've missed this place. And I feel vindicated that FINALLY other people are admitting that DoD kinda sucked.
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Man, I'd forgotten about this thread. And this guy... smh
Had a long, point by point response to this nonsense about video game music and voice actors, but fuck it. Here's what I have to say about the stance and attitude voiced by Holstety:
For roguelikes and other, let me say, "craft" video games to flourish, we need a more sophisticated consumer. More sophisticated artistically and critically, in their ability to appreciate works for what they are without a catalog in the back of a printed instruction book informing them that recordings of the game's sound track performed by the Kyoto Chamber Orchestra or w/e are available for $59.95, plushies of cute monsters from the game etc. More sophisticated economically in their understanding that good work doesn't come free and that 20 USD isn't actually a lot of money. More sophisticated in their awareness that buying a game is not just about the particulars of that game, but also the work that would follow it, not just by the same author but by all others who might contribute to the genre.
And to clear just one thing up:
You'd be a fool not to value your time. You're free to call consumers cheap for not buying your roguelikes and rail against AAA for being shlocky shit, but the truth is, you've chosen a TERRIBLE market to try and monetize and people will always pay for something they desire. Good luck trying to bend a market habituated to free games towards paid games while creating content that offers very little new, at a price point you're likely just making up on the spot without any frame of reference. You might be able to live off it, and maybe one day I'll write a post that's shorter than a children's book.
To be clear, I don't think AAAs are schlocky shit. There have even been a few I liked. I do think a lot of "new wave" "roguelikes" are schlock though as I've described upthread. There is no contradiction in saying that new, interesting work showing genuine continuity with the genre should be funded by roguelike fans and saying exploitative trash you see in app shops and steam should be shunned.
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I don't like the new "roguelikes".
I'm not saying that they're bad but they're just not roguelikes.
And also I've noticed that roguelikes are beginning to be paid and I don't like where this is going :(
I will just tell you an example: You're searching for some good roguelike and you have found a paid roguelike on steam (becouse this is the source of that disease) so you bought it and you play it for a while and... The game is really bad and you are raging that you spent 20$ on it.
And after that event you again search for a roguelike and again you found one but this time it's free so you download it and the game was bad too so you just delete it and no rage becouse the game was free.
Situation like that happened to me when I bought dungeons of Dredmor and I didn't like it and the money was lost forever.
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If people, like me, don't want to see the concept of a roguelike continue to be appropriated as the shortest path between between getting a BA in computer science and having a game on the market, new, exemplary work has to appear and new voices must appear with it to oppose the current establishment.
We've had decades for this to happen. Do you really expect a champion to arise from within the proletariat to shake off the shackles of the establishment any time soon?
Nope. To some extent, it's an economic problem. There's no money in making actual roguelike games, yet the skills that go into making good ones can be put to profitable use elsewhere. Anyone who produces anything good is therefore likely to disappear within a few years. Meanwhile, the one guy who views it as a sort of religious vocation but still produces good stuff doesn't even call his game a roguelike.
On some level, it's probably necessary to find an economically viable model that can still produce the genuine roguelike article, as opposed to dumbed down, heavily commercialized schlock for steam. I think this has to involve a return to multiuser systems and a move away from the DOS shareware catalogue model.
I just wanted to say that I agree wholeheartedly with what you've posted. I've been working on my own game for four years now, a few hours a week. Progress is slow, but it comes. I'm tired of boring, unambitious, cutesy little games, so I've been working on a large, ridiculous, unbalanced roguelike of my own. It's curses only, free to download, MIT licensed, and hopefully easily moddable, angband-style, once it's actually fun. It's got elves and dragons and all the stuff that other roguelike devs think are boring and cliche, despite the fact that everyone seems to play dcss, tome, and similar games.
Mostly I'm tired of looking at the announcements page and seeing $ after $ after $, all sorts of games released for Steam with no source and ugh.
Most of what I love about the genre has been leeched out by the countless little games that exist to get greenlit. I'm tired of this, and I hope my own game will stand as an example against that. I'm never going to make any money off it, and that's fine, because I want to make something interesting and deep and beautiful instead.
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I'm never going to make any money off it, and that's fine, because I want to make something interesting and deep and beautiful instead.
Include a donation link/reference somewhere? You'll probably still never make any money off it, but who knows.
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I'm never going to make any money off it, and that's fine, because I want to make something interesting and deep and beautiful instead.
Include a donation link/reference somewhere? You'll probably still never make any money off it, but who knows.
Realistically, I think I get around 100 downloads/month. Rough estimates based on my HTTP traffic. I don't have a huge audience. And realistically, I'm happy plugging away, slowly making something big and rough around the edges. I would think long and hard about putting up a "Donate" link as with one in place, I would feel less able to work on whatever I wanted at the moment.
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While it's true you wouldn't get much in donations (evidence from other devs doing this points to possibly accumulating donations in the hundreds of dollars over time), in terms of your own feeling, note that from what I've seen donations of this sort (from the donator's point of view) are not intended as "here's money to keep you developing" or "hope you do XYZ next," and are instead as a reward for time they've already spent with the game and gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it. In other words, more a way to say thank you rather than support future features.
But if that feeling would affect you regardless and you don't need it anyway, no sense in bothering. Sometimes interested players are really keen to effectively "buy you a meal/drink/whatever" remotely, though :P
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While it's true you wouldn't get much in donations (evidence from other devs doing this points to possibly accumulating donations in the hundreds of dollars over time), in terms of your own feeling, note that from what I've seen donations of this sort (from the donator's point of view) are not intended as "here's money to keep you developing" or "hope you do XYZ next," and are instead as a reward for time they've already spent with the game and gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it. In other words, more a way to say thank you rather than support future features.
But if that feeling would affect you regardless and you don't need it anyway, no sense in bothering. Sometimes interested players are really keen to effectively "buy you a meal/drink/whatever" remotely, though :P
I guess. I mean, I donated a lot of money to ADOM via Indiegogo, not because I wanted the rewards, but because TB created the most influential game I've ever played, and a hundred bucks is nothing when we're talking many hundred hours of my life - so many nights watching the sweet glow of the ascii on my old all-in-one 486. Maybe it's something I'll do later, but it feels really hard to justify right now, when my game is honestly in a very alpha-ish state.
Honestly, having a reported win has been the biggest thrill for me so far. Not just that some people have downloaded it and given it a whirl, which in itself is pretty amazjng, but that people have actually kept playing and fighting through and reporting all the bugs they've found.
Have you put up a similar button for Cogmind or any of your other projects?
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Caves of Qud and Ultima Ratio Regum have been pushing things forward quite a bit. I barely play classics aside from Dungeon Crawl.
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Have you put up a similar button for Cogmind or any of your other projects?
Nope. Donations to individuals are illegal here. PayPal isn't allowed to provide that service--a big chunk of their business here was shut down years ago, and another chunk just this year, because they are unregulated and not a proper financial institution.
This is part of the reason that I decided to forge ahead and get the core of the game to a fun state first, to a point where I'd feel comfortable charging for it under an EA model.
If I could ask for donations, I would've done that long ago. (But honestly, I wouldn't feel safe doing it with any serious amount of money because PayPal is totally untrustworthy, and there's little to no recourse if and when they decide to screw you, which they have a history of doing. Nowadays there are more options beyond PayPal, too, though not operating where I live.)
Regarding donation amounts, I've seen and heard numbers from multiple other devs over the years.
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What new wave? I haven't seen roguelik.. oh, wait, Nethack 3.6.0 was released. So that's one. What else? ADOM of course, but.. it sucks.
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ADOM sucks? Hell no. Maybe development (and background of dev process) of ADOM sucks, but game 'as it'?
As 'new wave of roguelike games' I understand 'this lots of new games called roguelikes because is more roguelike-like than roguelike like^n'.
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ADOM sucks? Hell no.
It's like a unneccessarily bloated Nethack clone without any original ideas, but slightly worse than Nethack (which also isn't that good game).
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From the Kaduria wiki entry:
"game was originally much like NetHack."
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Let me think... Wilderness, vary endings, side quests, runes, herbs... Are these features present in NH? Nope.
It's true that ADOM is based on NetHack, and in additional borrows a lot of elements from NetHack, sometimes mades them simpler - Big Room for example. But I can not say that "ADOM is Nethack clone without any original ideas". Unneccessarily bloated? You mean these features which I mention earlier? These ideas makes ADOM very different from NetHack and it's harsh to say that they are 'unnecessarily'.
In that way, NH is more clone of Rogue than ADOM is clone of NH. If it means that ADOM sucks, it means that NH sucks much more ;)
Without hate, I very like NH, but your arguemnts are... controversial and questionable.
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You mean these features which I mention earlier? These ideas makes ADOM very different from NetHack and
The reasons I don't like ADOM are incomprehensible to you. I can understand it, because lot of the players and developers too are only regular people. The way I see games like Nethack and ADOM today is that they are extremely simple games. I can still play Nethack, because 5% of it is still playable in my mind. Most games are 0%, that's why I don't usually play games. It's similar to what I experienced with books. When I was younger I was reading a lot, but then I started to see patterns beyond normal understanding and it was no longer needed for me to read more.
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What new wave? I haven't seen roguelik.. oh, wait, Nethack 3.6.0 was released. So that's one. What else? ADOM of course, but.. it sucks.
I'm glad we can always count on you to push the quality of the conversation forward. How's Kaduria coming along?
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ADOM sucks? Hell no. Maybe development (and background of dev process) of ADOM sucks, but game 'as it'?
As 'new wave of roguelike games' I understand 'this lots of new games called roguelikes because is more roguelike-like than roguelike like^n'.
That's how I understand it as well - the large number of games that takes "roguelike" to mean "some procedural content" while ignoring most of the rest of what the term means/implies.
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I can still play Nethack, because 5% of it is still playable in my mind. Most games are 0%, that's why I don't usually play games. It's similar to what I experienced with books.
I am consistently impressed by how much people on this forum hate roguelikes.
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I am consistently impressed by how much people on this forum hate roguelikes.
It's different when you are a developer. You know, some actors don't watch movies, at least their own movies. Writers don't read books etc. For example I don't play computer games these days. Two main reasons are that I grew up to be an adult and also because I feel game development has possibly even degenerated and the best we saw was in 1990's when money was not the most important thing in gaming industry as it is today.
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You know, some actors don't watch movies, at least their own movies. Writers don't read books etc.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce that just a few days into January we've already got a contender for Stupidest Thing Said in 2016! Knocking "What happens if I stick my dick into an electrical outlet" and "I drive better when I'm drunk" off the scoreboard is Krice from the Rogue Temple! Give him a hand, everyone!
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I can still play Nethack, because 5% of it is still playable in my mind. Most games are 0%, that's why I don't usually play games. It's similar to what I experienced with books.
I am consistently impressed by how much people on this forum hate roguelikes.
You need to understand that Krice is not representative of anyone on this board.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce that just a few days into January we've already got a contender for Stupidest Thing Said in 2016!
It's you who don't understand what I'm trying to tell. I can understand why people like and play even crappy roguelikes (or games). I've been there when I was younger, I did like games and was an enthusiastic player myself. If you are younger than let's say 30 there is a big chance that you don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Don't worry. You'll get there when it's your time.
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Ah, the good old «if only you were wise and old like me» routine :) You're wrong about writers not reading, though. It's my own field of work, and I've never met an accomplished writer who wasn't also an avid reader. Some may abstain from reading for short periods, and a few perhaps dismiss reading altogether (but they are probably borderline paranoid). Not that there's anything wrong with not playing computer games. I hardly do so myself, but when I do, it's often precisely to get inspiration for my own game project(s). If I was a professional rather than a hobbyist developer, I'd be playing a lot more games, certainly not less.
As always,
Minotauros
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I can partially understand where Krice is coming from. Once you've had the best, why settle for the rest? Ie. if a certain game in a series reaches a zenith of gameplay perfection (and gameplay is what you care most about), why would you ever play earlier/newer games or games from other series? [disclaimer: not how I feel]
I'm also somewhat sympathetic regarding the quality/type of games that got made in ye olden days, but that's both partly off-topic and I don't think that money was any less important back then. Rather I think older games had to work around their technical limitations, allowing more room for player imagination to provide immersion, rather than the modern approach of throwing millions at game development in order to try and force immersion through cutting edge realistic graphics (which isn't helped at all by the garbage design of simplistic map design etc etc etc etc) If anything modern game devs have more access to money than ever before, it's just that instead of the golden age of rockstars-of-design we are now in the poop age of design-by-focusgroup.
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I can partially understand where Krice is coming from. Once you've had the best, why settle for the rest? Ie. if a certain game in a series reaches a zenith of gameplay perfection (and gameplay is what you care most about), why would you ever play earlier/newer games or games from other series? [disclaimer: not how I feel]
While this might or might not be true - up for unrelated discussion - I don`t believe this is what Krice`s message is. Straight from the horse`s - sorry, developer`s mouth:The reasons I don't like ADOM are incomprehensible to you. I can understand it, because lot of the players and developers too are only regular people. The way I see games like Nethack and ADOM today is that they are extremely simple games. I can still play Nethack, because 5% of it is still playable in my mind. Most games are 0%, that's why I don't usually play games. It's similar to what I experienced with books. When I was younger I was reading a lot, but then I started to see patterns beyond normal understanding and it was no longer needed for me to read more.
So basically, our proto-brains are unable to comprehend the advanced patterns that would show us why Adom/Nethack/other majors are in fact basic bitches of roguelike world. What are the good ones, with more than "5%" gameplay? That`s left unsaid, perhaps they don`t exist yet and we`ll just have to sit and wait for Kaduria - the true next-gen RL - to arrive.
As AM pointed out above this is one of the oldest -and very dangerous - fallacies our poor brains sometimes steer us toward. The "I`ve seen the light while y`all are still groping in the dark" is cute but quite sad...very easy to fall for if you`ve been around for a bit, read this and that about pattern recognition and such and start fancying yourself a unique snowflake. I had a similar brief period of delusion a decade ago when I thought I read it all and what`s the point, luckily my in-built neutral defences are quite strong and I got over this BS...turned out I wasn`t just looking hard enough (there`s always some brilliant stuff out there, it just gets more difficult to find)
TL; DR; it`s not ADOM - it`s the player. Play one game for a decade or so and of course you will perhaps start getting bored of it a bit, see all its tricks and gambits and if you lack perspective and have propensity for delusion, as our Uncle K here, you might start thinking it sucked from the beginning.
And re: that "people on this forum hate roguelikes." adage - no, not at all. There`s nothing wrong with slaying some sacred cows, disliking some styles, genres and/or particular roguelikes and discussing it to hell and back, It`s just, as a wise man once said; " If you come at the King, you best not miss". Aka, bring your AAA arguments if you want to tell me why Crawl sucks. This is why I miss old regulars like Jo, mushroom patch, Vanguard & Co - could disagree a lot, but at least their delivery was thought out and compelling, not this weaksauce Molotovs Krice`s lobbing around.
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and start fancying yourself a unique snowflake.
You should think the possibility that I am unique. That happens sometimes.
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Everyone is unique. Krice most of all.
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Ah, the good old «if only you were wise and old like me» routine :) You're wrong about writers not reading, though. It's my own field of work, and I've never met an accomplished writer who wasn't also an avid reader. Some may abstain from reading for short periods, and a few perhaps dismiss reading altogether (but they are probably borderline paranoid). Not that there's anything wrong with not playing computer games. I hardly do so myself, but when I do, it's often precisely to get inspiration for my own game project(s). If I was a professional rather than a hobbyist developer, I'd be playing a lot more games, certainly not less.
As always,
Minotauros
Precisely. We've all met writers who don't read (usually in creative writing classes), and their writing is horrible. I just thought it was cute because the "writer who doesn't read and produces shitty writing as a result" is a well-known trope among anyone who has even a passing interest in the craft of writing. They're a bit of an inside joke.
That's not to say that a deeper understanding of a thing's inner mechanisms doesn't affect one's perception and enjoyment of the thing. That's completely true; it's like Christmas as a child versus Christmas as an adult.
But to claim that one's own brilliant perception - allowing for an inspired visualization of the platonic ideal of a video game - has turned the flavor of every imperfect roguelike into ash... well... speaking of age, let me just say that it's a bit melodramatic and immature.
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Mostly I'm tired of looking at the announcements page and seeing $ after $ after $, all sorts of games released for Steam with no source and ugh.
I know I said I'd leave well enough alone generally...but...generally~
Part of this isn't quite as it seems owing in large part due to a stylistic request earnestly made to me a good ways back now to throw the $ up there as it is along with the other pertinent info so that they might keep things better organized---and from there is just kind of stuck once I got into the habit. Prior to this, such $ concerns were more of a "surprise" buried someplace in the first post, if even that soon in the thread---the commercial projects were still very much "there" alongside the rest, just not so prominent in their symbolism. Take heart and have courage: Your project is awesome and you should stand to feel awesome---the gulf is still vast between just Commercial projects and proper Mega-Projects with the latter absolutely being of at least equal import when stood side by side with the former due to the potential gains, both indirect and direct, from it being unique and special in an absolute sense. 8)
The rest is what it has become though, no getting around that in terms of Steam and/or lack of source. Aside from the already well trodden economic aspects, it is an unfortunately turn of history that the tools/engine side of the equation has largely faded off into the hinterlands for various reasons---from the various ones that didn't make it out of the early days scattered back in the winds of time on this very forum despite being cool and useful sounding, to the Big Ones that couldn't reach the next thresholds of power and stay alive/current outright like libtcod. Without a tools and dev pipeline keeping rough relative pace to the advances in mindshare and whatnot alongside outright ambition, folks are just off doing their own thing or more often bludgeoning the ever living hell out of Unity and whatnot to a point tantamount to self-flagellation in lieu of having their specific and special needs already well taken care of at the forefront.
Nowadays, the Hopes in terms of people getting stuck in without getting Stuck In come down to the likes of T-Engine, which aside from the thankful ongoing success of Veins of the Earth, has yet to kick up to a critically productive mass despite that wonderful Module contest from awhile back that generated some stellar one off's that hopefully get additional polish at some point after the Orc campaign finally lands or some such...general hopes that things will liven back up in the lands of Chaosforge aside from the industrious pit of woe in the shadows of Jupiter Hell...the prospects technically better than ever in *BAND Country on account of the enormous v4.0.X days upon us as well as the crazy QT edition providing folks old and new alike can be tempted and tantalized into action...NotEye continuing to improve via ADOM and all else...the TC Module backend behind X@COM/Cogmind bearing more random fruit...and not a whole lot else that immediately comes to mind.
In theory, Unreal Engine 4 and, deeper in theory, some of the ongoing adventures in new(usually C(++) power successor) programming languages outright stand to help spur The Source aspect as well as Roguelike's other oft under-appreciated ally and/or foil historically---the future plucking from the unknown frontier expeditions.
Other stuff since I last checked in here: :o So this is what the vague chats elsewhere were talking about specifically...
The urge to get all regressive amidst a Renaissance is an elder foe within humanity---best bet is to rage against it while noting all the times in history it has been soundly demonstrated that the Renaissance ultimately wins out...optimism to be on the better side of progress is the better move as one has every chance to shape active history literally in the making for the best.
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Precisely. We've all met writers who don't read (usually in creative writing classes), and their writing is horrible
Creative writing classes are for people that want to get better at writing in an oft structured classical setting. I was talking about a totally different thing, I said that I've already read all that there is. It's boring to read books, because I know how they work.
*Edit: Mod interference improvement to reflect reality and not venture down the thorny path of foolishly slurring folks out of freaking nowhere in bold---again as per the Temple Conducts precepts.*
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$ up there as it is along with the other pertinent info so that they might keep things better organized---and from there is just kind of stuck once I got into the habit. Prior to this, such $
I would not worry about $, because those games has nothing to do with roguelikes. If we see a commercial game that is true roguelike I'm going to cry tears of joy.
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...that's pretty much already been the case though unless you go deep into the rabbit hole of No True Scotsman arguments where nothing of value is generated nor resides. ADOM is there, Sword of Fargoal 2 soon enough, Dungeonmans, ToME 4, 1Quest, Caves of Qud, MidBoss, Lost Labyrinth, Cogmind, Dredmor, WazHack, SotS The Pit, Ragnarok/Valhalla/Jaunt Trooper/Rogue itself back in the day, the Mystery Dungeon series, Voyage to Farland, Pixel Dungeon and the progeny thereof very directly Roguelike---it just goes on and on like this.
Even the oft damnable Berlin reckonings generally tend to fit most, if not all, in all the ways that matter in a concrete sense---the history has already happened man, there's no going back from that same as anything else so your tears should've already ran long since dry unto giving way to jubilant celebration for the present times being the best it has ever been by all sorts of metrics and measures in the Roguelike world. The tech is much improved, ability to share and gain visibility for projects is a night and day difference, communities are numerous and varied---a golden age of persisting vigor and vivacity like no other since the inception at the fringes where even just a common accident on the road could've wiped out the entire lot of it in a heartbeat. I mean, in terms of overall positive outcomes and trajectories---about the only thing "missing" is that the various crazy Talkie projects didn't actually wind up making it to shore up the towering backlog even moreso...the rest has pretty well fallen into place and continues to do so.
Even beyond all that, if somehow none of these work, there's nothing stopping you or anybody else from just putting a "true roguelike" out there commercially and seeing what happens in the wider market---something that has never been so viable as now and to no detriment if you don't anticipate any recoup of investment/time. If you idolize something too much, you lose touch with the essence of the thing outright as you'll have nothing but hate and bile for every part of it that doesn't fit The Icon but rather makes up the Gestalt. Everything that is made awesome manifest is also made up of myriad shit and failures and dead ends and borrowed concepts on the road to getting there and beyond---the journey and the process are what is paramount, not some damned taxonomy devoid of all the romanticism and age of high adventure.
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I think for me, the crux of it is this: at some point, the majority of roguelikes passed from the concept of being "Unix games" to "indie games". For the former, there is generally the expectation of source being available, so that the game can be built on whatever platform you're running. For the latter, it's typically closed source, teaser videos, early access, Greenlight.
It is what it is. I don't like it, but I can't do anything beyond making the game I want to make, and try to make it the way that I feel is best.
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Ah, the Fabled Year of the Linux Desktop was also something that never happened alongside the fortunes of the other big Tinkerer OS projects that carried with it a different cultural strain of sensibilities versus the goings on in the land of Windows and to a similar extent Mac Country---aside from the current joustings of SteamOS, "Unix games" are about the farthest things generally associated with Unix and whatnot by the general public as the environ/ongoing disasterpiece with the hardware/driver manufacturers leaned in collectively hard instead on...well....very much not multimedia content creation and enjoyment aimed at all comers. Of course, the history of Roguelikes would've been so very different had Commodore and Amiga not blazed needless trails unto oblivion with only the latter still persisting and sort of trying as a shell of the former glory...even aside from the terminal world's own fade to black...
The closest things nowadays to the inheritance of that communal spirit would be the likes of Haiku and MenuetOS---each mired in their own respective quirks, though the main one that matters on the former would be how long it has taken them to still not quite make it to even a Beta status and eke out that shadow of BeOS in full, but the latter at least relatively established at what it tries to do even if stuck in time to an unintentional degree.
But yeah, running your race as best you can as an exemplar of the sort of ideals you'd hope to become more prominent again for those that'll take note of them and the accomplishments you can wring out is the best way to go. I mean, it is a trite example at this point, but Minecraft damn sure wasn't gone about in a Best/Sane/Healthy Practices sense in terms of the prevailing wisdom/trends of the times or otherwise---what mattered was the absolute efficacy with a healthy portion of eventual luck that then beget quite a tremendous ripple in the old pond.
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Ah, the Fabled Year of the Linux Desktop was also something that never happened
Linux has a desktop I guess. I think this is getting off-topic, but who cares. Linux has couple of problems and it's true that non-commercial nature of the OS is one of them. You have to be able to release games in binary mode compatible with all linux versions, which I hear is impossible. So Linux will never have software it needs to be a complete OS for real life use. The real problem is that linux people don't get it. They only see what they want to see, from their point of view. It's like these non-roguelikes that claim they are roguelikes, because it's a genre or in this case a "brand" for marketing.
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Ah, the Fabled Year of the Linux Desktop was also something that never happened
Linux has a desktop I guess. I think this is getting off-topic, but who cares. Linux has couple of problems and it's true that non-commercial nature of the OS is one of them. You have to be able to release games in binary mode compatible with all linux versions, which I hear is impossible. So Linux will never have software it needs to be a complete OS for real life use. The real problem is that linux people don't get it. They only see what they want to see, from their point of view. It's like these non-roguelikes that claim they are roguelikes, because it's a genre or in this case a "brand" for marketing.
So when a roguelike is commercial it's bad, but when an OS is non-commercial it's bad. Got it.
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So when a roguelike is commercial it's bad, but when an OS is non-commercial it's bad. Got it.
No, when something is something else than it should be, then it's bad. Linux isn't a nice OS in desktop use you could say, and some of these so called roguelikes aren't roguelikes.
By the way, ADOM doesn't count as a commercial roguelike, because it wasn't that earlier. I see the commercial ADOM as a betrayal and just a simple way to make money. Biskup should have left ADOM as it was and possibly release ADOM 2 as a commercial game from the start. But he was in hurry to make money when all this crowd funding stuff began.
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I cannot call ADoM 'commercial roguelike' if is (and will be) available free version, which isn't demo or cut-off version. OK, there is lack of some features existing in paid version, but there are really minor things. So. semi-/half-commercial for me. Simple way to make money? Probably you are right. Betrayal? Oh man, it's really *BIG* word.
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Given ADOM's actual community has been tremendously generous/supportive alongside their newest growing members, I'm not sure you can square betrayal with something you've long established an entire lack of faith in and whatnot. Even if Biskup had instead chosen to walk away forever having burned and salted the lot of it, there's no earned or deigned entitlement whatsoever for the present or posterity. Reality and the playerbase have overwhelmingly spoken.
Nothing "simple" about paying a team either, probably one of the harder and more frustrating things to wrangle really in terms of weight and rightful expectations.
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I cannot call ADoM 'commercial roguelike' if is (and will be) available free version, which isn't demo or cut-off version. OK, there is lack of some features existing in paid version, but there are really minor things. So. semi-/half-commercial for me. Simple way to make money? Probably you are right. Betrayal? Oh man, it's really *BIG* word.
Crash in every 10 minutes of playing is minor thing? Thomas should make free version more stable.
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In a way, Krice is an Alex Jones of RL world. As in, we might have similar notions and ideas, but there`s always an insane catch - e.g: the world is sucked dry by a cabal of corporate shills, bankers, rich elites and corrupt politicians...but not because of them simply being a network of evil people but because they`re BUNCH OF REPTILES FROM PLANET X.
This makes discussing such issues with non-believers impossible because they tend to dismiss everything as "ah, another kerrazy conspiracy theory". Similarly here, dunderheaded, illogical "arguments", plenty of which can be witnessed above, might make anybody from the "new wave" camp roll their eyes really hard, mutter something about "stuck up cavemen grognards" and fire up Dredmor to cleanse the palate.
Other thing is, the situation seems to be usually painted in either black or white -as in, complete doom or glorious new era. Personally I`m closer to the former, but nowhere so definite. There are good and bad things coming out of the "new wave" - the fact that previously non-RL genres like platformers, shooters, brawlers etc take on roguelike elements is awesome - that`s precisely what we need to revitalise these genres, and sometimes results are truly astounding. New ways of distribution, ease of payments and new converts can also be a good thing.
However, the biggest danger - that the traditional roguelikes -as a specific genre - will be swept away and forgotten does exist, no doubt about that. Yep, the struggle is real, no matter how much some folk will try to deride this notion or try to pretend it doesn`t even exist. I`m all up for inclusiveness but without forgetting distinctiveness. And the new designers are all about roguelites - can you really name a modern high-level "true" roguelike out there, overground? One that`s not been around forever like Qud or ADOM or written by an old-schooler like Cogmind?
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...Maybe? At least some of the partial list I jotted above probably count well enough. With all the qualifiers in place it really strikes me as a needless albatross/goal post shifting considering, well, while it is true that Roguelikes have been around long enough to be one of the founding genres of gaming worthy of veneration still largely not doled out in proportion compared to peers like cRPGs and the like---the absolutes are also there that, like gaming, it is laughably young in the grand scheme of things. I mean, we're only just now arrive at the first real phase of mass death in the medium of all the early pioneers as per how the demography has worked out---which is especially why I'm highly reticent to reckon we've already passed some sort of "peak Roguelike" threshold as it just doesn't square well versus all the other cultural creative endeavors of human history.
I suppose there's parallels in the actual classical grognard camp that reckons even AD&D is a sacrilege too far compared to The Real True D&D---but much as in that camp, what granules of truth there may be to the notion do not validate the steaming handfuls of muck they are swimming in so much as question why you don't just rinse the damn things clear of it and continue prospecting.
If you REALLY have to play a card of "Well, some 18 year old in school, where's your true Roguelike as per your forebears at about this time?", then you've got a hell of a time on your hands dealing with the state of P&P Tabletop and all else that has at least changed dramatically, if not failed to keep to a good course, since the late 70's to early 90's---as such a backdrop was what led to Rogue itself in the first place and heavily influenced Qud, ADOM, and a host of the other elder pillars as culture is more of a roiling stew than some sort of vacuum when it comes to such matters. It isn't the fault of The Roguelikes or The Roguelites---all are shaped by the myriad environs and goings on surrounding their creation and consumption relative to and including everything else.
This is part of why Berlin and such are of limited use---you can only get taxonomic to such an extent when it comes down to The Spirit of The Thing, despite the best endeavors of all classic Mythology and the most broken minds of Old World of Darkness splat books. That Sense combined with plucking from the future is about all that elevates Roguelikes beyond the Maths upon a Spreadsheet of Doom that have settled in to shackle the 4X genre---nothing good will come of such a pursuit on a mistaken path to Purity.
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Crash in every 10 minutes of playing is minor thing? Thomas should make free version more stable.
Which version are you playing? There is error message? I'm using R60 and everything works fine, and this is a lot more stable than old 1.1.1. or winbeta4. If you didn't use local storing data settings, you have to delete data folder in C:\Users\Current_User\AppData\Local\ADOM\.
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can you really name a modern high-level "true" roguelike out there, overground? One that`s not been around forever like Qud or ADOM
Yes, I'm too waiting for the next roguelike. In the meantime people are talking a lot about these.. games, which clearly are not roguelikes. This situation is really strange.