Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

jasonrohrer · 2019-07-29 17:15:16

In about 5 days, the recent score will go from 74% positive to 50% positive.

This has nothing to do with anything real, and everything to do with a promotion Steam ran during the summer sale which gave people points for posting reviews. So there was a huge spike in reviews for OHOL (and other games). But those reviews are about to fall out of the 30-day window.

Also, the Rift has caused the SECOND biggest negative review spike in history. Once the positive spike falls out of the window, the Rift negative spike will swamp everything else.

You know what the biggest negative spike was? I'll bet you guessed "wars swords," but no! It was the Life Token Limit. SO HATED! Some dude may actually be in the process of suing me over that update. But also probably the best update the game has ever seen.

The other big negative was temperature overhaul. Also one of the best updates ever.

I hope you see a pattern here. The quality of the update in terms of long-term positive impact on the game is inversely proportional to the number of negative reviews.

Which is what I hope to achieve with the rift, eventually. It will eventually be amazing. But I'm still tweaking it.

Ilka · 2019-07-29 17:40:48

Face yoohoo.

Whatever · 2019-07-29 17:42:05

jasonrohrer wrote:

.....
You know what the biggest negative spike was? I'll bet you guessed "wars swords," but no! It was the Life Token Limit. SO HATED! Some dude may actually be in the process of suing me over that update. But also probably the best update the game has ever seen.
The other big negative was temperature overhaul. Also one of the best updates ever.
I hope you see a pattern here.
...

Yes i can see the pattern, the worse the ratings the better the updates !

Ruben · 2019-07-29 17:51:55

jasonrohrer wrote:

It was the Life Token Limit. SO HATED! Some dude may actually be in the process of suing me over that update. But also probably the best update the game has ever seen.

Reviews reflect people's disappointments, not the general quality of a game.
And to be fair, I also hated the Life Token Limit. I thought I would never be able to see the same town twice. Not sure if the rift update fixed it by coincidence, but it works for me.

Good game so far.

arkajalka · 2019-07-29 17:57:05

The life tokens really serve no value to experienced player, i've almost never run out of lifes, but i can imagine the strugle if you are new to this game. Only way it affected my play style is that i dont "/die" as a boy, which i used to do before to secure continuity of lineage. Dem girls dont seem to survive or make dem bb gurls.

Temperature update only affecthed the world in that way that the town spot can be now anywehre near green and swamp as before you wanted desert for the optimal temperature edge. The temperature dance and the picking the right spots to hang out was actually neat game play in my eyes. Now it just hard spikes and you dont have much control on it, so just a missed opportunity of gameplay.

Dont get the huge negative impact they got, but dont see them as "great" updates either. Pretty much all neutral to me and not that world changeing.

Imo best updates so far are advanced clothing, newcomen devices and the roads.

Most impactfull, jungle biomes, soil rework, springs and warswords.

The most negative update came with jungles MOSQUITOES REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Lava · 2019-07-29 18:18:39

lol no this update is just garbage and unlivable
in goes against everything the game was built on.

sigmen4020 · 2019-07-29 19:10:31

arkajalka wrote:

The life tokens really serve no value to experienced player, i've almost never run out of lifes, but i can imagine the strugle if you are new to this game. Only way it affected my play style is that i dont "/die" as a boy, which i used to do before to secure continuity of lineage. Dem girls dont seem to survive or make dem bb gurls.
Temperature update only affecthed the world in that way that the town spot can be now anywehre near green and swamp as before you wanted desert for the optimal temperature edge. The temperature dance and the picking the right spots to hang out was actually neat game play in my eyes. Now it just hard spikes and you dont have much control on it, so just a missed opportunity of gameplay.
Dont get the huge negative impact they got, but dont see them as "great" updates either. Pretty much all neutral to me and not that world changeing.
Imo best updates so far are advanced clothing, newcomen devices and the roads.
Most impactfull, jungle biomes, soil rework, springs and warswords.
The most negative update came with jungles MOSQUITOES REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I personally don’t think being naked all the time was a neat gameplay mechanic. Clothing being pretty much a complete waste of resources sure was very neat. Seems to me that you undervalue the effect that the temperature overhaul had. You even say that the new clothing update were one of the best, but I doubt it would be without the temperature update. Imagine the clothing update without the temp update. It would be the most pointless thing ever, people would still run around naked or wearing an apron. The only good thing lost with the temp update was being able to set your child down at a perfect temp tile while you work. I sure don’t miss the ugly desert towns in any way.

I’m neutral toward the limited lives update since it didn’t really affect me. Only change was that I got less SID babies born to me.

Swords and fences are still bad though with very few useful uses. Swords being backpack preservers and fences being easy pens.

I don’t have an opinion currently on the arc update since I haven’t played it yet and probably won’t until Thursday. From what I’ve heard it sounds pretty rough though.

Last edited by sigmen4020 (2019-07-29 19:24:04)

arkajalka · 2019-07-29 19:27:06

True that didnt consider the clothing part, but the jugle was fun.

pein · 2019-07-29 19:46:11

negative is just negative
sure, it can be controversial, but cmon when mostly negative it says something

it's not one update, it's the combination of them

life token limit? i never had issue with it, i can see some people have but the root of the problem is that people are bored in huge cities and want to have some control of what they do in a game, you cant really force them to do what you want
maybe they want to go back to their projects, maybe just the map is all the same

temp overhaul
i cant say i liked it, hot spots on map made a more strategic play, and that was lost on update, also we got 3 useless biomes which are even more useless with the spring update, i liked jungles, the whole thing was dangerous until you cleared it, then it was op

we can get used to, it. this wont change the fact that it missing some rebalancing

we need more tech and actual choices in tech, unique paths to adapt to a map
i would like the rift if it could be bridged over

maybe even if you don't limit it to one family

too many griefers, pointless killing and basically no one can afford tools to make anything nice

you ruined duels that for sure, we had duels, we had attackers and skilled defenders, now we got bad intended assasins and pointless one hit deaths
all in favor for attackers, all in favor for the one who clicks first
i mean if we talk about griefers from the point of view of town guard maybe makes sense
but that's like 5% of problem
generally the griefers are more and the fact they find weapons they use it to bully or kill others and this chain kill mechanic is dumb
spending a life in fear that someone might or might not attack isn't too fun either
a 8 year old starting a war in a mixed city isn't fun either
if sword kills arent griefing then why we cant dodge it?
heal someone while others use swords to kill? never gonna happen

you said you want wars and trade, that was the whole point for swords and fences
we wont
we need groups, group decisions, war treaties, a normal combat system, killing people with 1 hit is pointless
i killed a lot, mostly for good reasons, but lately i don't think it's anything hard about it or worth it
it's not fun
for trade, we need longer processing of resoiurces and a market to sell those items, and buy soemthign with the price
rifts are okay, but maybe buy a pass trough? build a bridge? let some kids cross an ocean with a boat?

live in peace until you can unlock a border then fight until death?

it's really time for durabilities, hp bar, cash crops and processed resources

we need more options to build faster, nicer
transport stuff, trade stuff

inside box is mostly pointles killing and depressed people
it wont make the lazy people work any more, or care about survival if they can just steal stuff and ruin the fun for everyone

Last edited by pein (2019-07-29 23:11:26)

BladeWoods · 2019-07-29 19:52:36

Jason I like what you're doing, but I wanna say you might be the best and most experienced game developer here but you're not the best or most experienced OHOL player. A lot of us know your own tech tree better than you, and some of us can see problems in the game, and even predict the results of a change better than you. That said you should ignore the trolls like Lava. But you could've learned the teleportation glitch from looking at our issue reports, and you have learned about the wild bush to domestic bush 'bug' before but closed the issue without fixing it, and I myself could tell the original and second auto-apocalypse conditions weren't going to work very well.

mrbah · 2019-07-29 22:33:50

Despite reading your update, I am still not sure what precisely you are trying to accomplish with the rift update.
For me, it doesn't seem to make sense, I prefer if players start with a small area and can together expand the area that is playable, but I am a sucker for cooperation. I know you thirst for drama and exitement.
Still, doesn't the rift currently defy all the travel technology you have added to the game? Is anyone really going to build cars and planes?

The update will highlight the flaws of the current gameplay, that the fact that we had potentially infinite everything hid.
we can no longer work around a lot of things and if jason is as perfectionist as i think he is, he views this as a positive, and it probably is, at least long term.

However in short term, it completely gimps player experience, because the game was never really desined or playtested around that limited ressources.

sigmen4020 · 2019-07-29 22:46:11

mrbah wrote:

Despite reading your update, I am still not sure what precisely you are trying to accomplish with the rift update.
For me, it doesn't seem to make sense, I prefer if players start with a small area and can together expand the area that is playable, but I am a sucker for cooperation. I know you thirst for drama and exitement.
Still, doesn't the rift currently defy all the travel technology you have added to the game? Is anyone really going to build cars and planes?
The update will highlight the flaws of the current gameplay, that the fact that we had potentially infinite everything hid.
we can no longer work around a lot of things and if jason is as perfectionist as i think he is, he views this as a positive, and it probably is, at least long term.
However in short term, it completely gimps player experience, because the game was never really desined or playtested around that limited ressources.

Well nobody really used cars before in the first place. They are either immediately stolen by a noob or griefer, never to be seen again, all the effort down the toilet. Or they just stand around as an advanced decoration, never to be used for fear of losing it. I even have a car at a base on one of the low pop servers, and I’d rather use the horse tbh. The one time I did use it I ran out of gas and only then realized I forgot to bring kerosene. Long story short took a while to get it back.

Planes on the other hand seem to have found its use as a way to escape beyond the rift. Same with the car it can be easily stolen to never be recovered and requires even more effort than the car. Before the rift it only really useful for either raiding the tutorial or starting towns there.

This is in no way in defense of the update. Just wanted to take a jab at the transport tech that has been inferior to a horse cart ever since they were added, because at least they are much easier replaced than the higher tech alternatives.

Last edited by sigmen4020 (2019-07-29 22:47:29)

Spoonwood · 2019-07-30 00:40:28

jasonrohrer wrote:

I hope you see a pattern here. The quality of the update in terms of long-term positive impact on the game is inversely proportional to the number of negative reviews.

Completely wrong. The quality of the update is directly proportional to the negative reviews. The game got worse with each of those updates. And for the record, I have consistently said, WITHOUT knowing the numbers, that all three of these updates were bad. And YES, I do mean that the temperature overhaul was bad. The worse part was the whole mechanic that it implied that people stand around a fire to increase their fertility. As if standing in one spot in a game is more interesting than moving around (EITHER around the center of a mosquito free jungle or a desert edge). Sorry Jason, motion is interesting. Sitting still has a boring aspect to it. It's one reason why sitting meditation exists and isn't regarded as necessarily easy.

And no, your numbers are NOT better since those update. It's all red: https://steamcharts.com/app/595690#All

Spoonwood · 2019-07-30 00:47:02

sigmen4020 wrote:

I personally don’t think being naked all the time was a neat gameplay mechanic.

Being naked all the time wasn't actually optimal. It would just be tricky to have a set of clothes lying around if you left town.

sigmen4020 wrote:

Seems to me that you undervalue the effect that the temperature overhaul had. You even say that the new clothing update were one of the best, but I doubt it would be without the temperature update. Imagine the clothing update without the temp update. It would be the most pointless thing ever, people would still run around naked or wearing an apron.

The new clothes are still pointless, unless you don't want to keep making new clothes. None of them makes for the most insulating clothing part for your body.

sigmen4020 wrote:

The only good thing lost with the temp update was being able to set your child down at a perfect temp tile while you work. I sure don’t miss the ugly desert towns in any way.

I agree about the *visual* appearance of those towns. However, the beauty of jungles went away. It went from pretty green to hideous green. Also, no, that wasn't lost. Some people use to run along desert edges. Or you could run along/make short trips back and forth near a desert edge, and you had decent temperature. Now you have dance around a fire, and that involves less motion than the old days and more standing around. Standing around is boring in comparison to having freedom of movement.

jasonrohrer · 2019-07-30 01:09:08

No, Spoonster, I'm COMPLETELY RIGHT, always! Never wrong. Never have been, never will be. It's impossible. A truly great designer is never wrong. Well, I was wrong one time, but that was when I mistakenly thought I was wrong. So I was wrong about being wrong, since I was actually right! I felt like a failure that one time, though.

Let's go back to building everything along desert boundaries.

Let's go back to buildings having no valuable effect (now, if you close the door, it keeps you warm, so you don't need to stand on top of a fire).

Let's go back to clothing making no sense, and causing you to boil instantly if you stepped in the wrong place.

Yes, the temp update, which fixed and improved all of this, was a complete disaster.

FINALLY, let's go back to 5000 /die babies a day! Those were amazing times!

That was fixed instantly by life tokens, which was the single most unpopular update in the game's history.

Please, Spoonmeister, take a play on the Time Machine server and see just how great this game used to be, and how much worse it has become over time.

RedComb · 2019-07-30 01:17:10

Your rotten attitude and contempt toward your players is why a lot of people leave negative reviews. They might site specific updates or changes, but the way you treat your players like they are beneath you and have nothing valid to add to the dialogue is off-putting.

I still don't understand why you make snarky comments and snide remarks when people make farewell posts, especially people who made a forum account just to voice their displeasure and say goodbye. That is somebody who paid money to play your game, who found something they liked about it, and then you shit all over them and mocked them to their face. It's the behavior of a bully.

Why do you hold us in such low esteem? Seriously, you treat us like dirt and think people's angry reactions are funny.

Well, I'm not laughing and I'm glad so many people are pushing back against you and voting with their feet.

If I had to guess, I'd say you realized you weren't going to sell that many more copies of the game and that continuing with updates and keeping the servers up wasn't worth it, so you're sabotaging your own project. Whatever, that's your choice, but you don't have to denigrate your players and treat them like they don't deserve to breath the same air as you.

Last edited by RedComb (2019-07-30 01:18:05)

Nepetalactone · 2019-07-30 01:29:28

"No, Spoonster, I'm COMPLETELY RIGHT, always! Never wrong. Never have been, never will be. It's impossible. A truly great designer is never wrong. Well, I was wrong one time, but that was when I mistakenly thought I was wrong. So I was wrong about being wrong, since I was actually right! I felt like a failure that one time, though."

i dont know whether this is sarcasm or not

Léonard · 2019-07-30 03:56:01

RedComb wrote:

Why do you hold us in such low esteem?

I mean, if anything, that whole 15+ years of game designing experience meme should have given it away.

It was already apparent to me even the very first months that I bought this game.
When people opposed his suggestions regarding temperature overhaul: "you guys just want to play an easy game".
Or when people criticized his overly large area ban's initial implementation: "I suspect you guys just want to get back to working on your previous lives' projects and you just don't want to tell me".

I hope you see a pattern here. The quality of Jason's replies in terms of long-term positive impact on the community is inversely proportional to the number of people who disagree with his ideas.

Belittling people's opinions, assuming they hide their true intentions.
What a rotten and childish way to think.

It's almost as if he's actually insecure.
Rather than base his arguments off of actual logic and thoughts to justify his actions, he would rather dismiss people's opinions.
Goes on to show how much thought he really puts into his updates really..

NiGB0 · 2019-07-30 04:51:04

jasonrohrer wrote:

FINALLY, let's go back to 5000 /die babies a day! Those were amazing times!
That was fixed instantly by life tokens, which was the single most unpopular update in the game's history.

Instantly fixed? Since that update nothing changed for me, the mayority of my babies always were suicidal...
The update didn't change anything.
You are losing players, the new ones can't learn because it's too difficult now, and the old ones are seeing how the game they bought is becoming a very different one.

If you can, start to listen to your players.
In my opinion, we need to go back to the update #61.

We don't need rifts, we need islands to trade/war.

jasonrohrer · 2019-07-30 06:11:09

Really, NiGB0?

You think I'm making this up? I've go the data right here.

Friday, June 7, 2019: 4331 /DIE babies out of 10,542 lives. That was before life tokens. 41% of babies born did /DIE that day.

Sunday, June 9, 2019: 996 /DIE babies out of 5,987 lives. That was after life tokens. 16%. That's way less than half.

A few days later, it was down to 12%. That's a HUGE change.

If you're seeing a lot of /DIE now, that's because tokens have been loosened temporarily while I work on the rift stuff.

I joke around because you all take this WAY too seriously and act like the world is ending when the game changes in a way you don't like.

I truly have nothing to lose here. The game is still selling well, and player reviews have no impact on that.

I'm trying to have a good time. This is my dream job after all. I love this game, and I love working on it.

Somehow you want me to hate working on it. Or make me feel so bad about it that I quit?

I love my players....

BUT... the truth is that players have changed over the past 10 years. They have gotten very angry and pushy and demanding and negative and entitled.

I'm not sure exactly where it is coming from, or why it changed.

But it's not just me experiencing it. Every game developer experiences the same thing. They're out to "get" the developer or "show" them a thing or two or "punish" them with negative reviews.

Like, who do you think you are to come in here and make demands and threaten me or sue me over the game that I'm making? I'm making the best game that I know how to make. I don't owe you anything else. You're just one person out of 70,000 people with 70,000 different opinions. You're going to "vote with your feet?"

That's just not the way this works. There isn't going to be some kind of grand revolution here where you're the hero and you finally dethrone me.

The way it works is I keep making an amazing game, and keep making money, and the ones who want to get angry leave, and the rest stay, and new players come in every day, and .... well, the world keeps turning!

I mean, I've literally had THREE people threaten legal action against me over the past year. Two were over a change to the game that they didn't like. Really, what planet are you on? This is a VIDEO GAME that I'm making. You can't force me to listen to you!

If you want to have a good time here---which is why you're playing a video game, right---I suggest you settle down a bit, take it down about 5 notches in terms of passion/anger/indignation.... and just try to enjoy this process. Why do you want to feel angry? I do not want to feel angry myself.

It's going to be wild and crazy. That's the train you got on. It's not for everyone, of course.

As far as "treating you like dirt" well... not sure what you mean. I treat you like real people. I respect you enough to tell you what I actually think.

I'm not going to plaster on a fake smile and say "yes sir, so sorry you didn't like this update, I will fix it right away." and then actually do nothing. That's the kind of "customer service" that you're used to, but it's total BS.

THAT is actually treating you like dirt!

What I do is treat you like my equal, which means not blowing smoke up your ass, not feigning modesty, not pretending like you're an expert game designer, etc.

DiscardedSlinky · 2019-07-30 06:49:10

I just want my hard work to not be reset everyday. A natural death is more acceptable than a reset.

Engines and oil are stressful. I want to feel like it was worth that stress, or else why am I doing it

jasonrohrer · 2019-07-30 06:51:48

Yes, the goal is to tweak it so that it does not reset every day.

And just so you know, that whole Hammer fiasco delayed me acquiring data that I need in order to tweak and fix it.

How long can you last inside the rift? Well, I just found out that it's 5 hours. But I can't tweak it more until tomorrow.

If the hammers had died in 5 hours, we'd be at this point yesterday instead of today.

Hopefully, in a few days, I'll have it much more stable.

sigmen4020 · 2019-07-30 08:29:20

Spoonwood wrote:

sigmen4020 wrote:
I personally don’t think being naked all the time was a neat gameplay mechanic.
Being naked all the time wasn't actually optimal. It would just be tricky to have a set of clothes lying around if you left town.
sigmen4020 wrote:
Seems to me that you undervalue the effect that the temperature overhaul had. You even say that the new clothing update were one of the best, but I doubt it would be without the temperature update. Imagine the clothing update without the temp update. It would be the most pointless thing ever, people would still run around naked or wearing an apron.
The new clothes are still pointless, unless you don't want to keep making new clothes. None of them makes for the most insulating clothing part for your body.
sigmen4020 wrote:
The only good thing lost with the temp update was being able to set your child down at a perfect temp tile while you work. I sure don’t miss the ugly desert towns in any way.
I agree about the *visual* appearance of those towns. However, the beauty of jungles went away. It went from pretty green to hideous green. Also, no, that wasn't lost. Some people use to run along desert edges. Or you could run along/make short trips back and forth near a desert edge, and you had decent temperature. Now you have dance around a fire, and that involves less motion than the old days and more standing around. Standing around is boring in comparison to having freedom of movement.

Were you even playing the same game as me? The best piece of clothing at the time was an apron for a very obvious reason. Chef hats were made more that seal skin coats for very obvious reasons. Insulation was awful. If you wanted to travel you really ought to just stick to desert or jungle borders rather than waste your time making a worthless piece of clothing. Even when traveling they were just viewed as mosquito death traps. They still are mind you, but with the temp update we avoid the jungle like the plague. People were being called griefers for making anything besides backpacks with rabbit fur. You were actively wasting the towns food supply if you were wearing insulating clothing.

You say that the new clothes are pointless but then you mention a pretty big exception. Them not decaying is a huge advantage. They still give enough insulation to be a load off the food supply compared to being naked. If they were released without the temp update however. They would be as pointless as the radio if not more. They would be griefing tools or at least seen as such.

Sure the jungle was kind of beautiful, but I don’t miss the gimmick of having to trap mosquitoes. That wasn’t intuitive to begin, but I never tried it so what do I know? But I would gladly trade off jungles if it meant that towns wouldn’t be filled with naked people running along desert borders.

Last edited by sigmen4020 (2019-07-30 08:34:24)

RedComb · 2019-07-30 08:36:50

jasonrohrer wrote:

I joke around because you all take this WAY too seriously and act like the world is ending when the game changes in a way you don't like.

Joking around is one thing, but sarcastically mocking people is something else entirely.

You can dress it up all you want about treating people as equals, but belittling people and pretending it's a joke is just a cowardly thing to do.

This did not come across as "funny" to me, except to the extent that you were making fun of somebody who frustrates you and a lot of other people around here:

No, Spoonster, I'm COMPLETELY RIGHT, always! Never wrong. Never have been, never will be. It's impossible. A truly great designer is never wrong. Well, I was wrong one time, but that was when I mistakenly thought I was wrong. So I was wrong about being wrong, since I was actually right! I felt like a failure that one time, though.

Furthermore.... There's the posts to JK HOWLING (and several others) where you mock them for saying they are done with the game.

I'm trying to have a good time. This is my dream job after all. I love this game, and I love working on it.
Somehow you want me to hate working on it. Or make me feel so bad about it that I quit?

And players are trying to have a good time. They love(d) playing your game.

People like Tarr made really logical posts explaining the things he found endearing about this title (teaching others, working together, building something great) and pointed out the stark contrasts that stuff has with your recent foray into the so-called "rich and interesting" stories derived from war and murder and mayhem.

Also, I haven't seen anybody say they want you to hate working on it or feel so bad about it that you quit.

You are playing the victim here and putting words in people's mouth, or at the very least, attributing a sweeping generalization to all of us that we think something that maybe only a "vocal minority" of players think or thought.

I love my players....
BUT... the truth is that players have changed over the past 10 years. They have gotten very angry and pushy and demanding and negative and entitled.
I'm not sure exactly where it is coming from, or why it changed.
But it's not just me experiencing it. Every game developer experiences the same thing. They're out to "get" the developer or "show" them a thing or two or "punish" them with negative reviews.

"I love my players.... BUT...."

So, playing the victim again and now blaming the customer too?

Talking like that makes you sound like just another "woke" pretentious creative who thinks all the blame rests with the fandom. You can proudly join the likes of Rian Johnson, Dan and Dave, Brie Larsen, Alex Kurtzman and all the rest who call their fans nazi misogynists and blame them for their projects under-performing, even when their creative output just wasn't very good.

And to pretend there haven't been caustic critics who destroyed artists since time immemorial is laughable. It's hardly a new development.

Many Platonic dialogues are full of Socrates tearing down his contemporaries (calling philosophers morons, playwrights hacks, students lazy oafs, his fellow citizens dullards), Edgar Allan Poe used to eviscerate his peers when critiquing their works, there used to be riots and bedlam throughout history at various opera and play houses when controversial works were showcased, several Elizabethan critics bemoaned various plays and playwrights (one of them even called Shakespeare a fraud, who in turn castigated critics in several of his plays), fans booed Bob Dylan all throughout his 1965-1967 period when he went electric and "turned his back" on folk music, etc.

While some of those are cases of fans or critics being short sighted, and some are cases where the fans and critics were correct, all are examples that audiences and critics alike have always held various creatives to high standards and were not shy about sharing their dislike or dismay with them, loudly and sometimes even violently.

Perhaps the truth is that creatives have changed over the past 10 years and are just too thin-skinned now. They have gotten very condescending and contemptuous toward their fans, and preachy and tone-deaf to their audience, and are totally out of touch because they operate in a bubble of other creatives like them who do nothing more than agree with each other about how bad their customers are in an echo-chamber of denial.

I think creatives just can't stand that consumers have a voice now and can actually express themselves in a public forum in ways that make waves. I don't pretend it amounts to much more than a tempest in a teapot, but you are the one complaining about how demanding and entitled and angry players are, so fan ire must mean something more than nothing at all.

I find it rich and interesting. Quite a story, indeed....

Like, who do you think you are to come in here and make demands and threaten me or sue me over the game that I'm making?

And now who is the entitled one here? Talking like that, you act like we are only allowed to do one thing when in your august presence: kissing your ass.

And what a crock of shit to compare me or anybody else here to the people who threatened to sue you. In fact, I told that guy to stop being so obstinate and just take you up on your offer to refund, but yeah, I'm totally threatening to sue you somehow because I agree with other people that it makes sense to stop playing OHOL.

It seems that instead of dealing with critical voices, it's easier for you to play the victim and paint us as villains, lumping us in with people we have little in common with and attributing us with the same behavior as the most extreme examples you can point to....

I'm making the best game that I know how to make. I don't owe you anything else.

So you bemoan how entitled and demanding fans are, how uncivil people are when they deal with you, but you don't owe people who express their criticism without threats of legal action or crazed rancor a modicum of respect? Guess you don't owe us the same kind of dialogue and civility that you seem to expect from us.... what a hypocrite.

You demand respect and civil conduct from 70,000 people, then lump all critics in with the worst of the worst. Demand respect, but you demonstrate a total lack of regard or respect for us as people or players.

And you act like you are entitled to our praise and fawning and money, but you refuse to show even a hint of respect to us for what many here have brought to your game (and for collectively contributing to your livelihood). Instead, you sarcastically mock us and push our feedback aside like we are the unwashed masses who don't deserve to bother you with our take because we don't have the prerequisite 15 years of experience as a game dev (and you claim you're "just joking" when you belittle people because we take everything too seriously, as if that makes it right to treat people like shit).

You're just one person out of 70,000 people with 70,000 different opinions.

As you are just one game dev out of thousands of devs with thousands of games we can chose from....

You're going to "vote with your feet?"
That's just not the way this works. There isn't going to be some kind of grand revolution here where you're the hero and you finally dethrone me.

Voting with our feet is very simple and yes, it is very much the way this works.

People stop playing. They go elsewhere for their entertainment. That's it.

The many players like Tarr who did a lot of QA-type stuff for you pro bono simply moves on and applies his passion and ingenuity to other games, helping other devs, where his insights and time and energy are actually appreciated and not brushed to the side because some narcissistic dev can't take critical feedback.

There is no delusion we are going to "dethrone" you (though using that word again shows that you clearly think you are above us as you lord over us). The comment that it was good to see people vote with their feet was just pointing out that people who brought a lot more to this game than you realize are fed up and they are moving on.

The way you've treated them and have been so callous toward their genuine feedback is shameful and it's a good thing they move on to play something else where the devs actually don't treat them like they are fools who should grovel at their feet. Despite how you act like all the other devs out there just blow smoke up their customer's ass, there are devs who actually appreciate the passion and devotion their players bring to their game.

The way it works is I keep making an amazing game, and keep making money, and the ones who want to get angry leave, and the rest stay, and new players come in every day, and .... well, the world keeps turning!

Until it doesn't work that way.

If you're honest with yourself, most of the people who would play a niche product like this have already bought it, discovered it, and played it. Out of the 70,000 voices with 70,000 different opinions you are so quick to demean, how many stay vs how many leave? When I look at the server numbers, the most I see during peak times is around 90-100 people. Not sure how many that translates to for a whole 24 hour period, but I would guess it's several hundred at most.

So, out of 70,000 people who already discovered and bought your fairly niche game, you retain maybe a few hundred diehards?

Even with new player acquisitions, you really think it doesn't matter when longtime players throw up their hands in anger and give up in frustration?

And isn't your promise to keep updating this game for like two more years? You really think you're on pace to make it like everything in the trailer and have some huge success when you've already alienated the vast majority of the people who were interested in a title like this?

I mean, I've literally had THREE people threaten legal action against me over the past year. Two were over a change to the game that they didn't like. Really, what planet are you on? This is a VIDEO GAME that I'm making. You can't force me to listen to you!

I'm on the planet where I am not one of those THREE people (out of 70,000), but for some reason you keep playing the victim and attributing the unwanted actions of a TRUE vocal minority of THREE unhinged people to the many of us who are merely saying things like "warswords are terrible, property fences are terrible, rift update is terrible, we give up and are moving on!"

If you want to have a good time here---which is why you're playing a video game, right---I suggest you settle down a bit, take it down about 5 notches in terms of passion/anger/indignation.... and just try to enjoy this process. Why do you want to feel angry? I do not want to feel angry myself.

"Settle down..." says the guy who sarcastically belittles people repeatedly, mocks them when they post that they are leaving, and plays the victim and acts like every critic is on the level of a mere THREE people who have threatened to sue him.

Why don't you take your own passion/anger/indignation down about 5 notches and really reflect on the heartfelt feedback of your players?

After all, they are only giving it because they want to have a good time while playing your game, right? They want to have fun and be happy. They don't want to waste their time and then be made to feel a moron when they bother to let you know they don't like something you've done.

It's going to be wild and crazy. That's the train you got on. It's not for everyone, of course.

Yeah, clearly it's not for everyone, hence the "voting with our feet" comment, a sentiment that around 69,000+ people apparently acted on too (even though they supposedly all have different opinions -- funny how they managed to agree on one thing though: that they didn't want to keep playing your game anymore).

As far as "treating you like dirt" well... not sure what you mean. I treat you like real people. I respect you enough to tell you what I actually think.

I'm all for honesty and real dialogue, which is why I find it so laughable that you excuse away your atrocious way of demeaning people as merely treating them like real people, but go hysterical and liken them to sue-happy entitled brats when they are merely "respecting you enough to tell you exactly what they think"..... It's funny how you claim to dish the truth, but you can't take it worth a damn when the role is reversed.

I'm not going to plaster on a fake smile and say "yes sir, so sorry you didn't like this update, I will fix it right away." and then actually do nothing. That's the kind of "customer service" that you're used to, but it's total BS.
THAT is actually treating you like dirt!
What I do is treat you like my equal, which means not blowing smoke up your ass, not feigning modesty, not pretending like you're an expert game designer, etc.

Hey, it's your call. Everybody knows you will do what you were going to do anyway, but you could at least show that you actually really listen to people and consider what they are saying instead of openly mocking them and throwing it in their face about how laughable you think their feedback is because you think they are taking things too seriously.

People aren't asking for lip service or token gestures. But, they damn sure aren't looking for flippant replies or you treating them like they are beneath you (then claiming you're just treating them like an equal).

If you were doing something that really upset your family, like drinking too much or isolating yourself, would you honestly react to their complaints with hysterics, sarcasm, and mockery like you have here? Even if you thought they were being ridiculous, would you talk to them the way you talk to your players?

"Hey, Jason... I think we need to talk about your sullen attitude and you isolating yourself from us too much."

"OMG YEAH RIGHT! I"M SOOOOOO ISOLATED!!! JUST LIKE RIGHT NOW WHEN WE ARE TALKING!!!! TOTALLY ISOLATED, RIGHT!? WELL THEN, I PROMISE I'LL DO SOOOOOO MUCH BETTER WITH SPENDING TIME WITH YOU BECAUSE A PERSON LIKE ME NEVER MAKES A MISTAKE!!!!!! DO I!? WHO ARE YOU TO DEMAND I SPEND TIME WITH YOU!!!? YOU'RE LIKE THAT TELEMARKETER WHO CALLED ME THREE YEARS AGO AND WOULDN'T LET ME HANG UP!!! AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!!!!!"

I contend you don't treat your players as "equals" or "real people," you treat them as just an annoyance you have to deal with to get a paycheck so you can continue to make your art.

Looking at how you talk to us, I think you take your players for granted and don't realize the benefits of the time, energy, and money that they bring to your vision. And that right there is the crux of the matter: YOUR vision.

For, even though you are the sole person making this, and even though we lack 15 years of experience and yadda yadda yadda, this isn't your vision exclusively anymore.

Lucas might have created Star Wars, but that story and those characters are part of the culture now. It has transcended the vision of one man and entered the cultural lexicon as a modern myth that the masses will carry on despite what corporate overlords and "woke" creatives would have us believe. Same with Roddenberry, creator of Trek. Fans kept that IP alive for decades long after it's cancellation. His utopian vision of the future (that hamstrung writers and producers on TNG) ultimately crumbled as his health deteriorated and he passed. This led to the brilliantly dark and gritty aspects that make DS9 so great (or terrible depending on the beholder).

In both cases and many others, there is a point where the "ownership" or vision of a piece of art becomes shared by the broader society. Trek is more than Rodenberry's utopian "Wagon Train for the Stars", including the nonsense that is ST: Discovery and the disappointment that the Picard series will likely bring. And Star Wars can move beyond Lucas' obsession with spaghetti Westerns, Campbell's mono-myth, and Akira Kurosawa samurai movies, and perhaps morph into other things (that I don't much care for) to meet the tastes and fancy of new generations.

You are but one person creating this "vision," but it is a vision that requires many people to populate it, to breathe life into it. You are not the sole dreamer of this dream, but if you want to act like you are and drive people away, more power to you. There was a very special vibe to your game prior to warswords and all the recent changes. It was a breath of fresh air to cooperate and care for others instead of trying to kill, kill, kill.

But, if you insist on being the sole dreamers of dreams and treat your community like disposable ants to be discarded and replaced regularly, then despite your assertions, this will not turn out to be something amazing. It will be a nightmare.

Last edited by RedComb (2019-07-30 10:42:09)

Morti · 2019-07-30 11:16:05

jasonrohrer wrote:

I'm not sure exactly where it is coming from, or why it changed.

The growth of the gaming industry, the growth of social media, like minds, banding together, and more of them.
People are the neurons of the internet, get enough of them to work together and they have the power to keep a heart pumping, or to move the muscles needed to pick up a crying child, or to engage in vigorous procreation. For that matter they now have the power to wrestle, to thrust knives into others chests, or, with the whole process getting so much more efficient, as we learn shortcuts, to simply pull triggers.

But yeah, social media; communication becoming streamlined, and games becoming more mainstream every decade.

Also, we're getting old Jason. The slower games are made, the more the developers engage with their players and customers, as games are being developed, the more those players and customers are feeling responsibilities too.

Imagine if there was an open public alpha test for ET for the 2600. XD

I guess a business man might say this is just the market changing.

Games, played and developed, via the internet; the marketplace of ideas.

The alternative is, you develop your game yourself, lay it ALL out before going public, then you release it.
I was sold on your plan of 100 objects a week. That sounded wonderful.
I saw your talk with your previous partner on the game, where you just added that goofy car on the stage, I saw you add the sheep, and I had this idea of a guy sitting down and drawing for 4 hours a day, and then spending another 4 putting those drawings into that nifty interface of yours, maybe copying some old files of other objects, tweaking a few numbers and that was it. 20 new things added to the game, 5 days a week, and they all roll out on Friday when everyone has the weekend to play with them. Just repeat that for 2 years or so and, bam, 10,000 objects.

You didn't say you were going to be engaging with players in the game's forum, you didn't say anything about discord or anything else but that you were going to add lots of objects at a set pace. That's the main thing most of us bought, along with the setting mechanics and conditions.

I understand it's summer, you have kids, they have free time, you want to spend more time with them for these few weeks.
I'm a little dissapointed you gave us swords to play with, while you went off to play with your kids though.

But I thought we'd learn a good lesson from them and just not bother with them after we'd learned it.
I think it was kind of bad timing, in the grand scheme of things, just, from a sort of historical perspective.

I think another thing is you got people in two different mind sets about the setting of the game.
There's probably those that thing we are just going through history, then theres probably those that think we're in a sort of post present state, where we are just rediscoving things, like, we've come out of bomb shelters and are starting over, like the mutants in KKND.

Now the game is just Pacman; it doesn't need either of those settings. It just is going to be, what is going to be.
Just you throwing assorted toys into the sandbox with us and making up stuff as you go, like, how the G.I. Joes and the Wrestlers use the Tonka truck to combat the Dinoriders living in Castle Greyskull.
I mean, whatever man, it's your game.
You want to add diesel engines and radios before swords, whatever.
Monoliths, Curses, Dark Nosaj's... it's your game man.

I just want to survive, help other people do the same, build some things and imagine I'm a parent,
or a child again.

Some of my earliest memories were faking being asleep on the couch, so I could crack my eyes just enough to see what was on television at night. The comedians swearing and shouting, the audiences laughing, the violence and the sex scenes. But, at the end of the night, when my mother would turn off the television, she made sure to get me into my bed, and it felt comforting to be picked up and carried like that. I might never know what it's like to give that comfort to a child of my own, but at least I remember feeling it. I can only ever imagine what it must be like to be a hungry child or a woman capable of breastfeeding, but I think you did a good job of breaking that down into a game mechanic. It might even turn out to be the best thing you ever give to the world.

Reproduction of your own genes aside.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-07-29 17:15:16

Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

#2 2019-07-29 17:40:48

Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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Re: Are you ready for the Steam review score to tank?

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#21 2019-07-30 06:49:10

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