Skeptical of the game

Djepetto

Deepscanner
Oct 1, 2016
64
117
33
#1
I'm really not impressed... 1 year passed our initial kick-starter date and really no info on why. The video updates are so spread apart... Sorry for the negativity but I'm just not feeling it. In the end I see this game being supported by the current community only. I've seen other projects fail headed in this same direction. I see this game ending up being Like Shroud of the Avatar. Dead, no community because promises are made and aren't followed thru and then there are no explanations. Just the typical,"do you know what it takes to develop a game?" I mean how is there a kick-starter date for last year July and here it is almost July 2019 and still no kick-start and no explanation why? How did that get screwed up sooo bad by professional developers. Then we get these videos thrown in here every so often, that aren't exciting to me at all. $250 budget build? 5 minutes of motion cap, where you guys failed horribly. Okay so you got it to work. We know you can get it to work. Its not exciting. We where 100% over the fund me. How the hell is this progress going so poorly? I fell victim...like most people do. To the promise. This is the spiritual successor to Ultima Online (Shroud of the Avatar). Piss, poor shitty. 12 million kick start and still going. This is the spiritual successor to Firefall(Ember) HERE! Take my money! Promises promises promises...... Only reason I'm bitching is because I llllllllloooooooovvvveeeed Firefall. but it's starting to look like I need to let this go now before i get my feelings hurt in the long run. Good luck with Ember. I really hope I return to something epic in the future, but I highly doubt it. Good luck
LONG LIVE Firefall!!!!!

and I'm really not trying to be negative. i've been here from the start.
just voicing my opinion.
 
Last edited:

Mahdi

Firstclaimer
Jul 26, 2016
1,079
2,330
113
44
South Carolina, US
#2
Sorry you feel that way. Em-8ER will be here, dude. If you feel the need to find other interests for a spell, this community will still welcome you back. Not like the rest of us aren't busy with our lives and families. Keep Em-8ER in that quiet place in hope for now. Personally, I feel a calm before the storm here in the next 60 days. Going to be a great spring and summer!
 

Maven

Kaiju Slayer
Max Kahuna
Philanthropist
Jul 26, 2016
262
1,197
93
#3
I'm really not impressed... 1 year passed our initial kick-starter date and really no info on why. The video updates are so spread apart... Sorry for the negativity but I'm just not feeling it. In the end I see this game being supported by the current community only. I've seen other projects fail headed in this same direction. I see this game ending up being Like Shroud of the Avatar. Dead, no community because promises are made and aren't followed thru and then there are no explanations. Just the typical,"do you know what it takes to develop a game?" I mean how is there a kick-starter date for last year July and here it is almost July 2019 and still no kick-start and no explanation why? How did that get screwed up sooo bad by professional developers. Then we get these videos thrown in here every so often, that aren't exciting to me at all. $250 budget build? 5 minutes of motion cap, where you guys failed horribly. Okay so you got it to work. We know you can get it to work. Its not exciting. We where 100% over the fund me. How the hell is this progress going so poorly? I fell victim...like most people do. To the promise. This is the spiritual successor to Ultima Online (Shroud of the Avatar). Piss, poor shitty. 12 million kick start and still going. This is the spiritual successor to Firefall(Ember) HERE! Take my money! Promises promises promises...... Only reason I'm bitching is because I llllllllloooooooovvvveeeed Firefall. but it's starting to look like I need to let this go now before i get my feelings hurt in the long run. Good luck with Ember. I really hope I return to something epic in the future, but I highly doubt it. Good luck
LONG LIVE Firefall!!!!!

and I'm really not trying to be negative. i've been here from the start.
just voicing my opinion.
I'm sure a lot of what I am about to say has been repeated oft times on this forums, having done so myself several times. But these are simple facts that can't be avoided or ignored.

The team is only around 20 odd strong. And of that, Grummz is the only full time member. The others contribute to the game by putting in work after their regular working hours for other companies/on other projects. And this includes the modelers, animators, tech staff, just about everyone essential to get a build for the game working and presentable. Hence, this is in no way comparable to a full fledged team working full time.

To directly address your concern: The game is being funded entirely by the community, yes. And with that comes the caveat that if the team is unable to put out a playable mockup that can truly capture the feel of the game they want, and is incapable of capturing the fancy of the gaming community, that will just about be it. It will not get enough funding, and development will have to stop. Hence, the team has to ensure that they bring in and use the best tools they can, within budget, to produce high quality builds. This means that there will be revisions of dates as they find better ways to improve the tech used and successfully incorporate it into the game. Additionally, priorities and plans may change, which may require additional effort be put in. A good example is the decision to change the Playable Mockup into a multiplayer build.

Also remember that several of these team members are wearing multiple hats, sometimes learning new tools on the go. These factors add into development time. At that point, estimates can be expected to fail. Even the most well planned out and well staffed projects often struggle to meet targets as new plans and targets are set up during development. I believe the team do require some leeway in this matter.

The videos may seem trivial, however they are integral to the 'communication' part of the development process. It's telling the community that yes, they are working on important aspects of the game that have to be improved before a playable build can be thrown out there. How often have you seen multi-million dollar games released that are poorly optimized and require exceptionally powerful systems to run at acceptable frame-rates. The $250 PC build was the team ensuring that the game is optimized from the get go. Once the foundation is set right, anything you build on it remains strong. It's easier to optimize as you go, instead of having to optimize at the very end.

Further, the team has been quite open about the developmental process. Different members of the team, including Grummz, are in constant touch with the community regarding the development process and the work they are putting into the game. They have even taken to getting the community involved in significant decisions involving game mechanics/features, which is quite refreshing in itself. This continues to tell the community that the team is building a game for the community that supports them.

I cast a look at the gaming scene today, and you have cases like Anthem which stay in dev for 6 years with multi-million dollar funding and is released an absolute mess. The team here cannot and will not do that. And I'm pretty sure none of us here want an Anthem-like mess from the devs that gave us Firefall. It's better to take the time to do things properly than rush everything out the door and fail in the biggest promise you made to the community that supported you. And to that end, I'm sure most would agree with me that the community is willing to be patient while the devs do their job. Let's call it 'looking at the bigger picture'.

100% additional funding is always relative. A better measure is the amount that the game was funded. 500% funding on a 20,000 goal is still only 100,000 which is no way comparable to the 100s of millions that go into the development of a typical AAA title these days.

Your concerns are valid and understandable, however there is a bigger picture here, that we, as the community that wants to reclaim what we lost in Firefall, need to be aware of when we evaluate the performance of the team.

All said, it is unfortunate that you feel 'cheated' or 'betrayed' by the team. Hope to see you back around soon. Good luck.
 

Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
10,079
113
Island of Tofu
#5
Everytime i read the doubts

Em8er GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..... make it so or taking a plane to see you
and set upon my highly trained rooster!
 

Djepetto

Deepscanner
Oct 1, 2016
64
117
33
#8
That's how they sucka us in...with hope. lol 2 months after this initial post @Grummz is still asking for more money. And his excuse is because we wanted more firefall. Lol. No, we wanted a kickstart demo a year ago like what you advertised for the initial funding of the game. Hope I'm wrong, but you guys will see. So many games coming out. So many games already in early access and here's a "professional" game developer who always pokes his chest out saying he worked on WoW vanilla and can't even keep his time frame. Let alone keep us in the loop of why things aren't on schedule. Said we would have updates every two weeks. they stopped and no explanation why. now we're lucky to get an update every 3 months. just disappointing. very disappointing. Embers fire is gonna burn out sooner or later because the lead developer doesn't have the passion like the people who gave him money to make the game in the first place. This dude got fired from two companies and that still didn't throw up red flags. we all thru him money because of the dream of firefall a lone. and he knew he could bank off it. the development of ember is piss poor and slow. Never again in my life
 
Likes: Zebdabar

Djepetto

Deepscanner
Oct 1, 2016
64
117
33
#9
I'm reminded by this when I think of the cost of things.
This scene would cost $200,000.



At least the $49,000 character can be used multiple times in multiple locations as well as vehicles, buildings but you get the picture.
The adverage aaa game developer makes 60k a year. This scene can be created in a day....
 

Djepetto

Deepscanner
Oct 1, 2016
64
117
33
#10
I'm sure a lot of what I am about to say has been repeated oft times on this forums, having done so myself several times. But these are simple facts that can't be avoided or ignored.

The team is only around 20 odd strong. And of that, Grummz is the only full time member. The others contribute to the game by putting in work after their regular working hours for other companies/on other projects. And this includes the modelers, animators, tech staff, just about everyone essential to get a build for the game working and presentable. Hence, this is in no way comparable to a full fledged team working full time.

To directly address your concern: The game is being funded entirely by the community, yes. And with that comes the caveat that if the team is unable to put out a playable mockup that can truly capture the feel of the game they want, and is incapable of capturing the fancy of the gaming community, that will just about be it. It will not get enough funding, and development will have to stop. Hence, the team has to ensure that they bring in and use the best tools they can, within budget, to produce high quality builds. This means that there will be revisions of dates as they find better ways to improve the tech used and successfully incorporate it into the game. Additionally, priorities and plans may change, which may require additional effort be put in. A good example is the decision to change the Playable Mockup into a multiplayer build.

Also remember that several of these team members are wearing multiple hats, sometimes learning new tools on the go. These factors add into development time. At that point, estimates can be expected to fail. Even the most well planned out and well staffed projects often struggle to meet targets as new plans and targets are set up during development. I believe the team do require some leeway in this matter.

The videos may seem trivial, however they are integral to the 'communication' part of the development process. It's telling the community that yes, they are working on important aspects of the game that have to be improved before a playable build can be thrown out there. How often have you seen multi-million dollar games released that are poorly optimized and require exceptionally powerful systems to run at acceptable frame-rates. The $250 PC build was the team ensuring that the game is optimized from the get go. Once the foundation is set right, anything you build on it remains strong. It's easier to optimize as you go, instead of having to optimize at the very end.

Further, the team has been quite open about the developmental process. Different members of the team, including Grummz, are in constant touch with the community regarding the development process and the work they are putting into the game. They have even taken to getting the community involved in significant decisions involving game mechanics/features, which is quite refreshing in itself. This continues to tell the community that the team is building a game for the community that supports them.

I cast a look at the gaming scene today, and you have cases like Anthem which stay in dev for 6 years with multi-million dollar funding and is released an absolute mess. The team here cannot and will not do that. And I'm pretty sure none of us here want an Anthem-like mess from the devs that gave us Firefall. It's better to take the time to do things properly than rush everything out the door and fail in the biggest promise you made to the community that supported you. And to that end, I'm sure most would agree with me that the community is willing to be patient while the devs do their job. Let's call it 'looking at the bigger picture'.

100% additional funding is always relative. A better measure is the amount that the game was funded. 500% funding on a 20,000 goal is still only 100,000 which is no way comparable to the 100s of millions that go into the development of a typical AAA title these days.

Your concerns are valid and understandable, however there is a bigger picture here, that we, as the community that wants to reclaim what we lost in Firefall, need to be aware of when we evaluate the performance of the team.

All said, it is unfortunate that you feel 'cheated' or 'betrayed' by the team. Hope to see you back around soon. Good luck.
its optimistic people like you that they're able to get away with what they're doing. Hope ur not let down bro
 
Likes: Zebdabar

Maven

Kaiju Slayer
Max Kahuna
Philanthropist
Jul 26, 2016
262
1,197
93
#11
its optimistic people like you that they're able to get away with what they're doing. Hope ur not let down bro

I appreciate the concern. Also, I must commend you for making your opinions and concerns known without resorting to vitriol and in a moderately reasonable manner.

I've made my points quite clear in previous posts.

Here's an example of what gives me some of the positivity: Echtra games are developing Torchlight: Frontiers, an mmo version of the Torchlight universe. They have a full team, working full time, and are financially backed by Perfect World Entertainment, and it took them two whole years to put out a section of the first zone, with basic mechanics and two characters. Considering that the team here are working with just a fraction of those resources, I am indeed willing to remain positive.

The issue here is that, having the community involved in such an early stage of development often skews perspective. Most games are not revealed to the public until there is something substantial in terms of content (or something close to it). So the work that goes on in these early stages remains unknown. And unless the person evaluating the work (an individual in the community, say) is heavily involved in game development and has handled such projects, I doubt they can have an accurate measure of the amount of work/resources involved/required to put out content. All they can do is work off what they 'believe' is correct.

Are they delayed? Yes, indeed. Are there valid reasons for these delays? Of course. Is there a reason why Mark wants to bring in more of Firefall? Yes to that too.

Am I willing to give this more time? Absolutely. After having experienced the disasters that are some of the games out there today, it's the least I can do.
 
Last edited:

Mahdi

Firstclaimer
Jul 26, 2016
1,079
2,330
113
44
South Carolina, US
#12
Disasters that are some of the games today.

I like that, nice touch.

It is refreshing when someone can talk about controversial topics and not start a fire. I pledged enough for DD: Awakened so that my wife and I can both get keys. That raised nearly $500 with a full studio and dev team. Is anything going to be ready by October? I sure as hell dont expect it to be. I was part of the early beta DD2 and I know how this team works pretty well.

It's all what we believe and are comfortable with. I dont see anything wrong to red flag with Em-8ER. The mock up is going to have much more in it that originally planned and I'm comfortable saying it will be more polished than anyone thinks. The 10,000 here are strong. And nothing in the world is done without hope.
 

Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
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Island of Tofu
#13
Imagine taking on the responsibility of a game developer doing all the things that were set to do.
On top of that reading and hearing all the doubters and reminders of the past.... it gets really tiring to a point I'd get duct tape and wrap all the doubters together so that they can complain to each other and keep each other company.

1558400623696.jpeg
Does look fun :p

I am giving the benefit of a doubt that last time with Firefall was out of reach and control.
This time round with Em8er is a new chapter with more control and more in favor to the fans in my opinion.

This quote is nice:

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.

Edward Everett Hale
 

Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
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#17
This is great i am going to save these trello links, satisfying see the completion of things and those still to do in a simple way that doesn't have a ton of writing.

But what if we had pie charts and graphs and smiley faces and predictions of how it could turn out etc etc

It would be called Em8er Inside, where we could have a kaiju reporter going through the details perhaps even speak it in its own mother tongue ... and must decode certain words by watching the kaiju language series giving us clues to more seriously good secrets oooo
 

Temp

New Member
Jun 1, 2019
12
20
3
#18
I'm reminded by this when I think of the cost of things.
This scene would cost $200,000.



At least the $49,000 character can be used multiple times in multiple locations as well as vehicles, buildings but you get the picture.
This is not how game develoment works. There are several factors to how costly it can get and every game studio today uses contractors to pay people peanuts.
Player Unknown's Battlegrounds used for the most of the part UE4 and UE3 assets found in the store. That includes buildings. They also used a script to procedurally create those buildings you find around the island.
A freeroaming Mech game can become much cheaper if all you have is a landscape with trees created in speedtree and biome consisting of free floating textures such as flowers and grass.