2017-08-12 15:03:47

I never said that I was promised any additional chapters for those games. Although disappointing, I'm fine with only getting the first chapter and nothing more.

What annoys and upsets me is when the developers neglect to tell you that you are only getting the first chapter, you only learn that when the game ends rather abruptly. Blindside is still being sold and there is no mention anywhere that you are buying episode 1 of a multi part story, nor that the rest of the story isn't forthcoming.

And even though they are no longer being sold except maybe to get rid of remaining stock, there is no mention anywhere that Chillingham and Time Adventures are only the first part of a story that now will never be finished.

Omitting that information is just as much a deception as a out right lie is. It's still a deception to get your money, because if they came right out and told you that you would only be getting part 1 and that the rest of the story would never be produced, would you buy it?

And then there are games like Steam Punk Neverland and Watch Tower Chronicles, that developer even went so far as to collect money for preorders for those games, and two years later, the games still haven't been released and the developer is still collecting, or at least asking for, preorders!

While I agree that taking the route of being patient and watching what develops as I am doing with Code 7 is the best course. There are too many examples of things going way south.

I have downloaded the prelude for Code 7 and will be trying it out later today, but I'm not going to order the rest of the episodes until they are ready for immediate delivery. I don't see anything wrong with that.

2017-08-12 16:32:53

Again I wonder why people always! remember the unfulfilled promises here.
I can think of plenty of occasions where accessibility did not happen on first release, King of dragon pass, smugglers series, especially in Smugglers 4, yet again adventure to fate  etc, but are these the occasions people remember?

if this were a year down the road then! I might myself be a polite email to a developer asking about the games' status, as I have already done in several cases, however methinks we're jumping the gun on this one.

As to Orco's point about first episodes, that is an issue, but its a writing issue rather than a gaming issue. Chillingham had a terrible ending, but that is because Chillingham is not a well written game. Not all developers are good writers, but that has little to do with when a game is released, what is released etc. After all there is a major difference between reading a book that has a really open ended conclusion with no resolution and no sequel,  someone promising a book, be that a sequel or a prequel which doesn't then appear.
The one is an issue in the ability of the author to write plot,
the other is an issue in the ability of the author, and to a lesser extent their editor, publisher, agent etc, to get their respective fingers out and get work done in  to deliver on a promise.

its the difference in being George R R Martin or Brandon Sanderson, a really good author who doesn't always release books when expected but you know they'll be good when they get there, and Steven Moffat of Doctor who, an author who works so much by "look! look at this big cliff hangery plot mysteriness! isn't it mysterious! wooooo! aren't you interested now!" and you know there will never be any resolution since thewriting just doesn't hang together and leaves you unsatisfied.

Personally given the choice I'd rather the former situation to the latter, though equally there are those sitautions in the middle, where the current crisis ends, the villain defeated and the plot resolved, but there is room for a sequel.

I'm fairly sure given what I played of episode zero that code 7 will be the former case, i.e, a well written plot with a good resolution that continues through several episodes and doesn't just leave us hanging, though that is something we'll just have to see about.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-08-12 16:45:02

all we need is patients. the game will come.

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2017-08-12 17:05:27 (edited by jack 2017-08-12 22:46:08)

Harison, I'll just go off of what has been said here, and put it as plain and simple as I can...take the entitlement and shove it, please. Ever pay attention to that heading in damn near every kickstarter page, called, and I quote, risks and challenges? Well, just as there are risks of things going down or postponing a project, one automatic risk you are taking, is funding a campaign. Is that a bad thing? Well, have it your own way. I personally don't think it's a good or bad thing, especially if the project actually is released. Trust me, there are far worse things that could go wrong on a campaign than what you're seeing here. Look at the Clazio speaker, which was supposed to be a voice activated speaker/android tablet containing both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, that was said to be released in, June of this year? For months the campaign on Indiegogo has been going on with no news posted, and it's August of this year. Now normally I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, except for one thing. No social media activity, and it's not like they didn't have it before. Their Twitter account was suspended. That to me is a red flag. So, even if it comes out, I can say I'm glad I decided against funding that campaign. That, my friend, is an example of a badly managed campaign. This campaign right here? Far from it. As they said, they specifically stated in the last few updates that the accessible version would be released later and to give it time. That is completely, utterly and totally fair, because it is transparent, and there has already been a proof of concept. It's obvious to me that someone didn't pay particular attention to the backer update emails they received, otherwise they would've found that. So if you're gonna back a project, set aside a moment of your precious time to read the updates when they come, will ya? That'll make things a whole lot easier. And people wonder why so many devs in the past few years have said no to preorders. The argument about episodes is completely valid, I can say I agree with that considering games like Blindside and Chillingham never once stated in their description that the game was episodic. That would've been nice to know so that we knew what we'd be getting ourselves into, not to mention any new gamers who may find Chillingham or Time Adventures out of nowhere, completely unaware of the situation with Bavisoft's ambiguous status as a company, or the fact that this game will never be continued. But this game, Harison's in no position to argue here, especially! considering he won't let up after the dev has specifically said that the accessible version would be released later, during a Kickstarter update. I'm sorry to come off so harsh, but if we even want so much as a chance to get noticed by the mainstream gaming community on a large scale, this certainly isn't the way to go about doing that. Quite the reverse effect, actually.

2017-08-12 18:11:02

Well put Dark and Jack. This entitlement mentality a lot of blind people seem to have is one reason why I haven't been as diligent as I could have been about my BGT studies or, more accurately, why I would hesitate to make public any games I might develop.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!

2017-08-12 19:05:00

Well said Jack and Dark.

Based on pass experiences developers using funding campaigns like kickstarter or asking for preorders do need to prove themselves.

But, at the same time, don't go throwing new developers under the bus until they has shown that they deserve it.

After my weekly backup finishes, I'll be giving Code 7's prelude a spin, if I like what I hear, I'll buy a season pass after the vision impaired version has been released.

2017-08-12 20:22:26

Hi.
At kevin and those who develop code7, will the accessibility mode also be implemented in the german version.
If not it's ok to, but I actually would love to play the preview or the upcoming chapters in german as well.
Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-08-12 20:42:22

hey simba. no, the accesibility mode will only be english because the voice over is only english as well.
When testing it with episode 0 it was really weird having german voice command mixed with english voice acting.

2017-08-12 22:48:48

I'll just point out that Kickstarter, as much as it is a nuisance accessibility-wise, does have quite a few layers of protection for backers. If the project didn't reach its goal yet was released, all backers would get their money back as Kickstarter doesn't let you keep the funds if the campaign is up and you haven't reached the goal. I'm not saying this applies to this game in particular, since after all it doesn't, just pointing out the, insurance, as it were. You're still on your own, and you're still taking a risk, might as well get used to that.

2017-08-13 00:40:52

I feel like now is a good time to remind people of how stock markets work. It's kinda like Kickstarter for publicly-traded companies, except with fewer protections and perks, and less accountability.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-08-13 04:24:49

As I understand a campaigner develops an idea he wants to persue and how much money he'll need to do it. He tries to sell his idea to prospective funders by describing what his project is, and how much he'll need to see it through. Thus the campaign begins to raise the funds for the project. Prospective funders can then read about his project and how much funding he's looking for, if they like what they see they can then pledge x amount of money towards his goal. If within the time limit the funding goal is met then all the pledges are expected to fulfill their pledge, but, if at the end of the time limit, the funding goal is not met, then no one owes anybody anything.

It is after the funding goal is met and pledges are expected to be paid that risk enters into the picture, because, depending on how well managed the project is, it could be successful and end up producing the desired results. If it is not well managed, they could burn through the money and at the end of it all have nothing to show for it.

So far, I haven't felt the slightest inclination to pledge anything on any kickstarter or go fund me projects, heck, I don't even bother to click the links and go look at the project in the first place.

My feeling is, if you don't have a product ready for immediate delivery, I'm not interested in giving you any of my money.

In that way I don't expect anything from the project starter, nor am I disappointed when nothing comes of it either.

2017-08-13 04:57:16

I think there are some campaigns for products that _could_ be released without funding, but at a significantly lower quality. Ex, AHC was funding things like sounds and voices, where they could have released the game as it was and have it seem less professional.
So I guess I'm wondering if you differentiate "viable but obviously 2 dudes in a garage" status from "definitely have nothing reasonably releasable even by amature standards", in terms of fundability, or if you're strictly interested only in the products final quality? (I say final quality because "final form" isn't really applicable in the days where everything is continuously updated.)

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-08-13 06:39:18 (edited by JLove 2017-08-13 06:47:22)

All I am going to say here is that I am immensely pleased that a team of two developers has decided that we're worth the effort of adding accessibility to what began as a mainstream game for the sighted, and initially most likely had no plans of accessibility implementation.  It makes it all the more pleasing to realize that a team with only two devs has decided to listen to our community, but companies with hundreds of coders absolutely refuse to even try to make things accessible.  That attitude is what pisses me off.  When a large company that makes a lot of money and has hundreds of programmers refuses to even attempt to make access fixes out of sheer laziness, that is unfathomable to me.  I'm not saying that they can't, or shouldn't, market primarily to persons who are sighted, but I see absolutely no reason why, with that many coders, they can't do both, even if our releases have to be staggered six to twelve months post the initial mainstream release.  Take Valve, for example.  There is absolutely zero reason why they cannot implement some accessibility into steam.  Laziness is the reason why they refuse.  You'd think that devs who love what they do would relish the chance to learn new things and the challenge.  Yet it seems as though the devs that are even willing to listen to us or consider us are the ones that are one and two person crews, for whom the effort is going to be tremendous.  Yet the companies that have hundreds of coders, the teams that could divide the work among everyone so that the effort isn't totally taken on by one or two, and so that the problems are more easily solved, don't even consider it.  That's ridiculous to me.  That smacks of nothing but laziness.  So I am not pissed about development delays.  I myself have been working on a game for several years, actually, and a large part of the delay has been simply life-related.  Life shit just got in the way...illness, divorce, etc...  And now that things are on more of an even keel in my life, and I have started working on it again, I have encountered a serious development issue that has forced me to entirely restructure my code, further delaying things.  (I apologize for the numerous developer room posts that I am certain will be written before the game is finished in advance, smile).  That being said, I am by no means giving in or giving up, and if it takes me ten more fucking years, I will finish it.  Lol.  So delays don't displease me.  Laziness, apathy, and being ignored  are what piss me off.  As for code 7, let's be patient and give Kevin and his partner a chance to prove themselves.  From what I have seen, they seem to be upstanding and deserve the benefit of the doubt.

JLove

2017-08-13 09:10:48

I would like to point out here that Kevin and his partner do not "have" to give anyone anything. Yes, someone asked them to make their game accessible. Yes, they said they would. But just because someone says they'll do something does not mean that they'll do it when someone else expects them to. So, before a particular someone on this topic continues to push this issue, I would like that someone to remember that none of us who want this implemented are entitled to anything. All we've done is asked for it to be implemented. They said, "Yes, we'll do that." Does that mean that we can scream and rage at them when they don't get accessibility implemented on a specific deadline that we expected? Hell no! We are not gods. No one is a god who can just snap they're fingers and make something happen exactly as someone else wants. No one is perfect. No one can make something absolutely perfectly the first time. So don't go acting all arrogant and entitled towards Kevin and his partner and demand that 'your' needs be met when you obviously don't pay as much attention as you should to update emails. As many have pointed out on this topic, backing a project like this is a risk. Entrusting your money into anything is a risk. Purchasing a simple item at the local grocery store is a risk, albeit a very small one. So don't act all arrogant and rude when something you think will happen does not. If we all were developers -- and I mean 'if every single person in the world was a developer' -- then we wouldn't have this problem. But alas, not all of us are. So just remember that just because a developer says they'll develop something by a specific date does not mean that that is always possible. There are other forces far more powerful than any of us can even begin to imagine at work here, and we have no control of them. Those forces are called 'outside events', 'outside influences', etc. If I begin writing an awesome system management framework and estimate that it will be released by 25 August of 2018, and it isn't, you can't just automatically assume that it's my fault, because, really, you don't know if it truly is. It might be -- I might have gotten lazy and forgotten all about it. Or, alternatively, it could be a family death or emergency or something else equally as distracting. So if you want to act all arrogant and think that you can just waltz in and get your way with other developers, the most likely thing they're going to do is tell you to 'get out', in far more disrespectful terms. The other alternative most likely thing is they'll ignore you and not even read your message. Developers don't like to be overly-rushed. They don't like to be poked and prodded to do something by a particular date or time, especially if the project is developed by one to five people. However, if the project is manned by hundreds, if not thousands, of developers, then outrage is certainly understandable. But this particular project is not, so get rid of the entitlement you've got. Keep that up and the developers might just "accidentally" forget about your initial request and remove accessibility support entirely because they don't want to deal with you, and, in that case, your only option then would be to shut up and move on.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2017-08-13 15:13:07

Hi,

My two cents.

Firstly, I completely agree with what Ethin has said. I can't tell you how many times something has been delayed or out right just left because of real life situations. I'm trying to start making an audio drama with original scripting, ideas, etc. Its been delayed by about four months because of things beyond my control. Equally, I'm involved in development of a news application. Its been delayed because of other people, school, etc.

The entitlement displayed here will get us absolutely nothing. As said previously, we were given a yes on developing accessibility into this game. What I played and saw in episode 0 was fantastic. I can understand, there for, why it might take a little extra time to prepare such a framework, especially for a game such as this. We weren't, technically, promised accessibility. We asked for it, and we were told we'd get it because the developers of this game were kind enough to do so. Being entitled and bratty about it will insure that developers do not want to work with us in the future. I know for a single fact I don't.

Underworld Tech.
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2017-08-13 15:18:47 (edited by jack 2017-08-13 15:19:51)

Ethin nailed it. Nearly everyone posting on the topic except for a few, have been around to know that whenever there's a preorder, shit eventually goes down, almost every time. Mostly because a product itself is incomplete. Hell if you want my 2cents, just don't subject yourself to your own deadline, period. Give yourself all the time you need to make the best game you can, and when people ask, say, it'll be ready when it's ready, that simple. Now when it comes to crowdfunding I can definitely see where that would be a little different. This group of devs chose that, thereby providing a release estimate. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. People just need to realize that an estimate is exactly that, an estimate. When a new song or album has a hard release date and an artist nails it on midnight of that day, it's mostly because the album was finished probably a few days to a week before the release date. Hell, it goes to the music news journalists before it even goes to us, which proves that theory. Again, nothing wrong with that. A game is different. You can't expect someone to set a release date and for the game to come out, 12:00:00on that day, with all features added. This is the case with the accessibility features, they *are* coming,  you just have to wait and be patient. Let's take a different, totally unrelated situation here, that is with three-d velocity2. I happily preordered that game on Newyears Eve 2013. Years later, did you even once see me bitching about the game not being out, and where's my money, and all? Absolutely not! I knew that such a game takes time, and *programmers are people too ya know* lol! And in the end the game, even the online server, became open sourced, and everything worked out in the end as I eventually figured it would. You folks need to realize though that part of the reason that happened was due to a Twitter conversation with Munawar, where we eventually! led into talking about Tdv, and then discussing open sourcing it. I didn't just mention him out of nowhere and say, hey what's up with tdv, why isn't it released. You see, even a preorder customer wasn't mad at all. So Harison, in case you're still fixated on this, i remind you once again, shove the entitlement, and give it time.
@jlove: That's the sad truth. Bigger game companies also don't have much to lose, because pleasing everyone wouldn't matter as much to them as pleasing the masses. And, while it's true people do say, if you do this right you're actually gaining customers, what's wrong with that? Most big companies don't have anything close to that logic, and think of it in the marketing sense. What's a few thousand lost potential players to us when you still have billions of dedicated customers? Each $60 spent for a mainstream game, is like $6 for the nearly fortune 500 game developers, so the unfortunate truth is that losing a few thousand potential sales is nothing to the devs, sort of like Microsoft could care less if you pirated windows 7, because, we have plenty of honest customers. How much do you wanna bet that at least half of them are running an unlicensed copy of windows because it never expires. Lol! Fortunately there are quite a few well-known mainstream devs that are the exception. Nrs is taking slow steps in the right direction with the auditory interactables objects. They may be slow at work, but hey, that's a lot better than nothin. It all started, though, with a polite conversation with an Nrs developer that eventually led to some slight improvements of accessibility. EA is making incredible strides with accessibility, being the first big-name company that not only is doing this, but came to us right here on the forum to get our feedback. And Skullgirls as we know is 100% voice accessible. There are definitely a few others, but those are the big examples. Hopefully with Microsoft for once pushing accessibility like never before, more and more devs will finally be convinced to add it. After all, what's a few hundred lines of code to make the game use the text to speech api anyway?

2017-08-13 15:45:37

harrylst wrote:

no, we were told well after the KS campaign ended that the accessible version wouldn't come out the same time. And by then, it was too late.
I'm sorry if I keep harping on this and not letting it go, but we really have no proof that anything's going to happen until it does.

Show me. Where is this supposed thing said at?  I backed the project fully aware that the accessible version wasn't going to be in line with the normal release. I want to say that was fully explained even while the campaign was going on, not after.  I second everyone else here. Learn some patience and you'll be fine. To the devs, well done on your product, and the rest of us will wait for the accessible release. I got my Humble Bundle code a few days ago.

2017-08-13 16:31:19

If you really wanna prove us wrong Harison, sift through your inbox and find all the backer updates and post them here. Then again, everyone else is right on the matter.

2017-08-13 17:04:11

Well well. Harison is sure getting roasted here big_smile. Seriously though, I'm glad that more and more mainstream developers are paying attention to making their games more inclusive to everyone.

Oh no! Somebody released the h key! Everybody run and hide!

2017-08-13 18:53:38

It's funny, but I was discussing this with a friend on Facebook yesterday and she was saying exactly what Harrolst is, and also that there shouldn't be two separate versions of the product. I told her that they were implementing the accessibility mode into the game itself because that's how I understood it, so there wouldn't be two separate versions.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!

2017-08-13 20:25:14

@45, see, that's the problem with some people. When they expect it and don't get it by an expected date or time, they bitch about it and think that their bitching will actually get them somewhere when it actually just pisses people off and makes the developers less likely (I'd say 2-10 percent less likely) to do what they want. So, remember that every time you bitch about accessibility not being implemented in Code seven, remember that Kevin and his partner might just be 2 to 10 percent less likely to implement it. They might forgive one person bitching, but the more who harp on about this issue, the less likely they'll be all forgiving and nice to those people. I'd be happy to pre-order this game and back it if I had enough money to make a difference, and wouldn't bitch about accessibility not being implemented. Sadly, I don't, and won't for a while, because I don't have the funds for it.
Also, I would like to note to everyone that when accessibility does get implemented don't start ranting and raging and screaming about how it's not up to top-notch specs. This is probably the first time Kevin and his partner have done this, so give them a shit ton of slack when it comes to this. I can happily summarize my post -- post 39 -- and this one -- post 46 -- by saying this: The more helpful and/or patient you are, the more likely a developer will love you and be willing to do what you want them to do; and the less helpful and/or patient you are, the more likely a developer is going to hate you and tell you to fuck off. (It might not be in such colorful terms, but the message gets across anyway.)

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2017-08-13 21:20:06

@Jack,
Yeah, big companies aren't worried about us in the sense of profit loss, but two things don't make sense to me:
As you pointed out, what's a few hundred lines of code when you've got hundreds of coders?  It's really no skin off of your back to implement that.  And it's not like you're losing much, if any money at all, since you don't have to buy anything special to implement access fixes.  And you don't have to pay for specialized sounds or anything, since the sounds within the game will most likely be sufficient, and even if they're not, I bet that these big companies already have huge libraries that they use from project to project.  It's simply a matter of literally typing out the code.  So it's not like implementation of access is going to negatively affect their profits.  I fail to see what the downside is to them.  How does it hurt them at all?  With the hundreds of programmers at their disposal, it's not like they couldn't spread the accessibility part of the coding among them, which would lessen the burden, cut time, and improve quality.  That's my main thing.  I see absolutely no downside to them trying.  What exactly do they lose?  Besides, most devs that I know are nerds at heart, and most of them enjoy coding for the challenges that it presents.  So I would think that the challenge in making their project accessible would be something that they would relish as someone who enjoys problem solving.  I can, therefore, only assume that their reason for refusing to even try comes down to laziness.  Am I way off the mark here?

2017-08-13 21:38:33

Looking at the kickstarter all it said was that there was a prototype for an accessible version, so I'm not sure how people expected accessibility right out of the box. Either way looking forward to this when the accessible version comes out, and appreciate the work you have and will put into it.

Silly Gohan, animals don't eat people. People eat animals.

2017-08-14 04:13:40

@Jlove It's one of two things, the ladder being the more likely depending on which dev you encounter. One only comes down to laziness on the dev's part, which is self explanatory although still makes no sense. But when we're a low-incidence, they sadly have their excuse, all be it not a valid one. The second is the publishers. Most of the major game companies go through a publisher, and let me tel ya, the publishers, all they care about is what rakes in the cash for them. This is why you see more indie game developers surprise/impress us with accessibility than you do big-name companies. Simply because even if a dev gets the idea to add in accessibility then runs it by the publisher, since they'd have to run it by the publisher, the publisher could dismiss it as a waste of investment, shrug it off, and tell them not to implement it. Now you'd think that the devs, as powerful as they are, would confront these publishers about it, but when it comes to benefits and a job at risk, they'd rather stick to what they're doing than risk losing their corporate relationship with their publisher if even for the greater good.

2017-08-14 04:59:11

Exactly Jack. That said it's probably highly unlikely that we'll ever see a big, mainstream developer ever really get onboard with accessibility. So we have to rely on these indi developers and that means offending them as little as we possibly can.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!