PAX 2009

The only place you'll ever hear the truth
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Ace Rimmer
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Postby Ace Rimmer » Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:37 pm

Feud wrote:I want to hug you guys, quite being pineapples!

O_o

What in the world does that mean?

Hehe, typo included, just 'cause. :wink:
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Postby Xocrates » Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:25 pm

You know, this is an interesting discussion, but in the age of the Angry Internet Men and the Entitled Gamer I find myself trying to go against the flow and stand for The Man.

Contrary to popular belief IV's support is not bad. It's not awesome, obviously, but it is quite adequate. Very few large companies provide continuous support for years (Blizzard being the champion for that, and even they get ludicrous amounts of flak) the "set it 'n forget it" mentality is par for the course. Heck, look at Relic and their extremely popular Dawn of War series: The moment a new game was released the previous ones were dropped entirely. Hell, how much support did other Indie companies provide for their titles past a few hotfixes in the first couple weeks?

True, we all want IV to provide better support, but sometimes we have to ask ourselves two questions: Is it reasonable to expect that support? And if so, do we deserve it?


I will grant one point: IV makes too many promises it can't or won't keep (aka, the Peter Molyneux syndrome)
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Postby Ace Rimmer » Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:40 pm

I think you highlighted something missing in my post, I did not mean to say that IV has bad support, only that they have lot's of opportunity to have great support while not taking advantage of it.

The "set it 'n forget it" mentality I mentioned is due to the fact that IV promises they do care about the community (which is based off of their games), while not following through on that with anything that has substantial and lasting value.

To clarify, my other post was meant as encouragement directed at IV to deepen their value amongst the community, not a attack or slam against perceived shortcomings/failures, which is why I offered my thoughts on one particular solution. I've learned that solutions must be offered with any criticism to be of any real value. When I mention value, I am thinking in terms of the company that I currently work with, which has been/is on a rate of growth = double the number of clients, workload, employees every two years, for at least the past three. One of the reasons it's grown so fast and consistently is all the value we provide beyond the expectation set to our clients before, during, and after contracts are signed (i.e., meaningful "extras" that clients recognize as both useful and "extra" they get nowhere else).
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Postby xander » Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:41 pm

Xocrates wrote:You know, this is an interesting discussion, but in the age of the Angry Internet Men and the Entitled Gamer I find myself trying to go against the flow and stand for The Man.

I really am not trying to be an angry internet man, nor an entitled gamer. I am not asking for anything that IV have not promised, or that is particularly unreasonable: major changes to the modding capabilities of Darwinia were announced more than two years ago, yet none of these changes have made it into Darwinia as of this date. There is still no map editor for Multiwinia, despite the fact that it was announced almost as soon as the game came out.

I am not even asking that these things all be released. I think that my problem is more with the nature of communication with IV. Lots of things are announced, then they seem to disappear without further comment. If the new modding features are not going to be added to Darwinia, it would be nice if someone were to say so. If the map editor is not going to be released, or if it has been delayed, please, tell us. Right now, we all know that "IV is working hard on other things, so those aren't priorities," but no one from IV has ever really said as much. That is the party line in the forums.

I mention all of this not because I dislike IV. If I disliked IV, I would go somewhere else and find something else to do with my time. On the contrary, I love IV. The games that IV has released are all quirky little masterpieces in concept, and generally fun and playable in execution. Even Defcon, which is my least favorite of IV's games, is, when compared to most other games that I play, a wonderful game. I love IV, and want to see them succeed, but I get frustrated by the lack of communication.

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Postby Xocrates » Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:53 pm

To clarify, I wasn't calling AIM or Entitled Gamer to any of the previous posters, since their points are fairly solid, I just wanted to give a counterpoint and mentioned the AIM since they're usually the ones bringing those points.
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Postby Shwart!! » Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:56 am

Ace Rimmer wrote:IV basically has a giant, willing, and knowledgeable "staff" at it's fingertips (not me, others) and does pull from it every so often, but has never taken true advantage of this resource.

Just one option would be to create some sort of veteran player (for each game) group with *access, and in lieu of £'s, give that person/group freebies. If nothing else, such freebies could be distributed amongst the rest of the population in the form of prizes, awards, gifts of appreciation (for superb community service, e.g. Dedcon/Dedwina). Obviously, some sort of NDA-like agreement would be needed.


This.
Personally, I wouldn't even care about $s/freebies. Just being able to contribute in some meaningful capacity to the continued support of IV's games would be fantastic.
Because like others have said, I love IV, I love their games. But the continued dropping of promises gets a bit stale, and I'd like to be able to help reverse that.

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Re: PAX 2009

Postby DTNC Vicious » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:43 pm

Chris wrote: And I love the fact that PAX exists, and that it hasn’t devolved into the cynical big corporate nonsense of E3

[



Pax is cool, But E3 is not nonsense its awesome !
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Postby Enclave » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:47 am

I can understand peoples frustrations but Introversion is still a small company. Obviously after the early successes, introversion wanted to expand and grow larger so they could bring in more revenue. Unfortunately this backfired but that is the risk of running a business. At the end of the day there is only so many people at IV that can work on patches for older titles and in all honesty, if Darwina+ fails, IV may also. A lot is hinging on the release of Darwinia+ and so it is only logical that all the staff are mainly focused on that for now. I for one would LOVE a patch for the PC versions of Darwinia and Multiwinia to bring it up to scale with Darwinia+ but I accept that there is only so much a few guys can do.

You all complain about transparency and lack of information when in reality the Blog entries on the site speak for themselves. IV is in CRISIS mode. Things are not great. Trying to maintain community groups would be the last things on their mind right now, they are trying to survive as best they can. I've lurked these boards for years but this is the first time I felt like posting, the guys need support right now, not complaints. Yes you helped make IV what it is today, but just as easily they will falter without your assistance. Let them do their work and in the end you will all be rewarded with more games.
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Postby Feud » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:38 am

Enclave wrote: I've lurked these boards for years but this is the first time I felt like posting, the guys need support right now, not complaints. Yes you helped make IV what it is today, but just as easily they will falter without your assistance. Let them do their work and in the end you will all be rewarded with more games.


The same problems that exist during the bad times were just as present during the good. This isn't a matter of the company scaling back and cutting services, it is an issue of company practices that have been existent during the boom as well as the bust.

As for support, I think that the community has been incredibly supportive of IV, and remains such. Constructive criticism is vital to a small business which cannot afford to repeat costly mistakes. the whole point of allowing community input is to get both the positive and negative feedback, and if we as a community fail to properly voice our concerns then there is no reason to think they will ever be addressed. Squeaky wheels get the grease.

We all want to see them succeed, we want to play their games and for them to make lots of money in the process. But trying to bail out a boat while ignoring the leaks is at best inefficient, and at worse at waste of time.
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Postby Enclave » Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:56 am

I can see the logic in that Feud but I still feel like they are being kicked when they're down. The 2009 survival post just really got me down and I started to realise that we may not have an IV much longer if things don't pick up. :(
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Postby Nutter » Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:02 am

To bring it back a bit to the slogan part, I always thought introversion first and foremost was about making games with good gameplay.

So what about: "Introversion, games with actual gameplay"

Too cheeky or just introversion cheeky?
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Postby allen » Sat Oct 03, 2009 1:18 am

Nutter wrote:To bring it back a bit to the slogan part, I always thought introversion first and foremost was about making games with good gameplay.

So what about: "Introversion, games with actual gameplay"

Too cheeky or just introversion cheeky?


not as cheeky as much as it would be kind of..pretentious. And regarding the "last of the bedroom programmers" and their failure to get rid of it after Uplink is a little..meh. Some indie developers hold some sort of resentment over the old tagline and the last thing IV needs is the 'hatred', as it were, of hte indie community. (ie: that company thinks they are the only indie developers out there! i'm not buying their games!). I don't want IV to fail, and besides..it's better to be safe than sorry, eh? Good luck either way guys. :D

You do not need a tagline. Positech games doesn't have them (another UK dev) and he's successful, as far as indie companies go.
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Postby Nutter » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:56 am

You're properly right, it was just a thought.
If the tagline doesn't add anything to the way they or their games are seen then don't have one, but I think the reason do want one, is to show they no longer see themselves as "the last of the bedroom programmers".
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Postby Xocrates » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:17 am

Nutter wrote:If the tagline doesn't add anything to the way they or their games are seen then don't have one, but I think the reason do want one, is to show they no longer see themselves as "the last of the bedroom programmers".

"Introversion: Moving out of their parents basement since 2001"?
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decide what you are

Postby maninalift » Thu Oct 15, 2009 10:12 am

The slogan is part of the brand and the brand needs to express what you are. The first thing is to be clear about what you are, what your skills are and what your market is. Next find a snappy way of saying it.

So your games are:

# innovative
# not BIG commercial games

BUT

# neither are they little indie games based on a single concept

they are:

# innovative in a quite involved geeky way (not the oh-so-fashionable afore-mentioned single-concept way made popular by java, flash and steam)
# carefully designed but without a lot of expensive "art content"


----------------

well, that's my start, I'll be thinking

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