@Mad
What is the guarantee that what happened to firefall wont happen with Em-8er?
The first reason is.....YOU!!
Well, everyone really. This community.
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Same can be said about firefall actually. Still we were ignored when ANY decision was made concerning the game or the tech tree and RNG resources/crafting would not have vanished BEFORE the major fiasco's happened!
...You see Em-8er is community funded. ...
So was firefall initially. In fact when I started supporting firefall it was through postal money orders.
...That means we are able to build this game, step by step, due to the continuous contributions of this community. That means there is no outside corporate investor that is in a position to come in and push the game in different direction. ...
THIS!!!!
I am fully aware that the point of making games is no longer art. It is now entirely commercialized. ( frankly this has ruined gaming in so many ways)
So maybe you should consider treating early supporters as the legal entities they truly are... INVESTORS!!!!! Without myself and hundreds of other early investors. firefall would never have attracted the TRIAD investors that Mark was (deleted bitterness) to get conned by. But what did we get for it in the end?
IGNORED!!!
The things we LIKED about the game were removed one at a time. The things we were promised for our early support were,
1) completely removed.
2) replaced with useless garbage.
3) suddenly available to NON-founders
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That was the biggest reason firefall went off the rails in the way that it did.
The second reason is the laser focus we have on delivering the core gameplay experience. We have learned from hindsight what did and didn't work in firefall, so this time we can devote our entire selves to what works.
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Now THAT is a scary statement. Are you referring to technology wise or marketability wise? If it is technology wise then frankly modern programming and DB technology has vastly improved so the database issues of pre-fireFAIL should be easily (relatively speaking of course) be resolved.
If it is marketability wise then I am forced to point out that if you go over the login numbers you will realize that for the first couple years there was only growth UNTIL arbitrary decisions were made DESPITE community input. Essentially the game started going downhill slowly from the time the tech tree was removed. Sure, it would have major new user spikes every few months around year 4-5 onwards but they WERE NOT STAYING. Out of hundreds of people that got interested in Firefall on my recommendation, in the end NONE of them stayed after the rng resource spawn system and tech tree were removed.
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Ultimately I'd say that if you're not convinced that is totally ok.
Just keep watch on us and see how the game develops.
Some cool stuff has happened, more cool stuff is on the way!
I have been keeping watch. Frankly I am severely disappointed. Apparently so much time/effort is being spent on graphics and visuals but very little obvious work done on gameplay.
Instead of arguing about whether or not to make more exaggerated "cow" type female skins, simply add a character creator so people can customize their own char based on a limited number of choices... say 5 base body types 5 base chest sizes etc. etc.
If people want Cows with D, E or F tits let them use VISUAL MODS.
Want your character to have a huge bulge between his legs? download a mod.
Want all characters to be naked on your screen? download a mod. There is no reason at all to make those things part of the core game.
That crap is far too soon to bother with at this point anyways. This is the time that Core ENGINE, Interaction, Stress testing should be the focus. Firefall did great at slowly building a fan base (and collecting the annoying scum known as "fanbois") until someone suddenly got desperate for money. Thus fireFAIL was born.
Want to know what is truly hilarious?
I discovered Firefall because some kid working in a shopping mall in Ottawa, Ontario , Canada was scamming people into buying Firefall Installation cd's... ( Unlike most people I could tell the difference between a printed CD and a burned copy) When I got home, I searched for it online to see if it really existed. Thus my interest and support was generated