WTF is Sol: Exodus?

[burb2500]

Totalbiscuit has just done a first impressions video of Sol: Exodus and, suffice to say, he lives up to his name as the Cynical Brit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ3Meki2-lU&feature=g-u-u&context=G250852bFUAAAAAAABAA


Although he did not play through the entire game, he raised many of the same complaints that have been brought up on these forums and I would consider it a harsh, but fair review (as is his style). Like most, he compares the game to the standard bearers of the genre (Freespace and Starlancer among others) and obviously comes to the conclusion that a $10 indie game does not surpass them. This inevitable comparison will be an ongoing challenge for Seamless Entertainment going forward.

Interestingly, he was playing the 1.8 version which made strides towards improving the gameplay mechanics. While the developers might take issue with some of Totalbiscuits critiques, I think they should spend some time analyzing his video and how he plays. It will hopefully help them understand where people are getting confused and how and why they are playing it "wrong." (i.e. having no clue how to take down a capital ship, still not figuring out which enemy is targeted etc.).


Some may agree with the review, others may not, but as a hugely influential game commentator, his reviews have significant weight when it comes to the success or failure of many indie games. To the Dev's, be aware that this is now out there and may colour the perceptions of those that may not be aware of your positive efforts to improve and patch your game.

[SeamlessStocks]

nterestingly, he was playing the 1.8 version which made strides towards improving the gameplay mechanics. While the developers might take issue with some of Totalbiscuits critiques, I think they should spend some time analyzing his video and how he plays.

I don't take issue with some of his critiques at all. I think he has some very valid points.

With that said, please try out M2 in 1.10. I think you'll find that it plays very different from what you're used to. The flow is the same but hacking has been diminished, fighters are tougher, and Frigates are as well.

Bottomline, pacing has been improved.

I agree that we need to get better and we're making strives to do so.

To the Dev's, be aware that this is now out there and may hinder your positive efforts to improve and patch your game.

As of right now (and in the foreseeable future) it doesn't hinder us at all. We're full steam ahead on the big joystick patch, additional content, and so on.

[burb2500]

That's great to hear. Out of curiosity, will you at some point be willing to disclose how successful Exodus has been and whether it will allow you to move forward on the planned DLC?

Edit: I reworded the last paragraph in my previous post (quoted by stocks) to be a little clearer.

[SeamlessStocks]

I certainly don't have the authority to disclose how successful the product is.

But, if for some reason, things change with regards to our future plans I will, of course, inform everyone on these forums.

[dgackey]

Like most, he compares the game to the standard bearers of the genre (Freespace and Starlancer among others) and obviously comes to the conclusion that a $10 indie game does not surpass them. This inevitable comparison will be an ongoing challenge for Seamless Entertainment going forward.

I listened to the review this morning, and as Stocks said, I think there is plenty of valid criticism in there; anyone who has spent more than a passing moment on this forum or interacted with us in any way would recognize that we're extremely accepting of criticism and are continually looking to improve ourselves and our product (and to serve the customers who have allowed us to create it).

With that having been said, the continual comparison to Freelancer or Starlancer is a really damaging and unfair one, because it ignores the basic realities of economics. If your argument is "That game came out 12 years ago and it had X, Y, Z", that is an argument that by its very nature takes into consideration development time and cost. The amount of time that has passed is not actually good supporting data in favor of that argument; if anything, it's a negative since costs have only increased over the past 12 years.

And it's pretty clear what happened to the team and the genre after that much time and money was spent: they were all fired and the genre has languished. Why? Because the sales did not justify the investment.

This is one of the reasons I have continually reminded people that this game was done by 6 people on a limited budget; not as some kind of advance inoculation from incoming criticism, but to make sure the expectations are in-line with what is reasonable to expect. It's also one of the reasons we chose to sell the game at a lower price point. Unfortunately, that particular point seems to be lost on a number of reviewers. (Perhaps because they reviewers are usually comped copies and codes, some just don't have a good sense of relative value?)

We chose to focus on a particular portion of the sprawling feature-creep that is "the space game genre", but knew we couldn't do it all, and certainly knew we couldn't do it all to a level we demand of ourselves. We instead chose to do less and try to do it well. I think we did some things very well, and others we've not done as well with, but again, we continue to listen and to work to improve those areas.

At the end of the day, everyone has their opinion, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone for exercising theirs. For every person like TB, there are guys like Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica (and now Penny Arcade) who also recognize that our game is flawed but also recognize the potential of the game and the team and most of all keep some perspective about the fact that it's a $10 game, that is only likely to get better as we continue to support and improve it.

But, those kinds of wild, controversial statements don't draw reader traffic, I suppose.

[burb2500]

I agree that the comparison is not fair and that you've done well with what you've set out to do. That you've taken so much player feedback into consideration and made such rapid improvement is terrific and definitely shows us that later products have a promising future.

As SeamlessStocks has mentioned elsewhere on this forum, this game will hopefully have a console release at some point. He also mentioned that space shooters have only rarely made the transition to consoles. I will be interested to see the game's reception from console gamers who likely will not share the same "prejudices" or make the same comparisons as PC gamers.

[RodsOfGod]

I get the problem with the comparison with FS, Freelancer etc. Sure, it IS damaging if someone sais "but this game does not have the same feature like freespace in some way!" (like I also did a few times in the now-last-page of "First impressions: pro's and cons" - fortunatly, no dev seems to have read my posts there *hinthint* ;P). But I see some problems.
First, some people (including me) saw the game on steam, and the first thing that cames in mind was "will at last this game take up the spirit of FreeSpace?", like we did all the other times when some space shooter turned up and made promises. So, our pole is allready set high, and we naturally search for similaritys. In the end, if someone tastes ambrosia once, he's allways disappointed when tasting something else at least a bit, no matter how good the other meal is.
Second, you show intentions which are hinting in the direction of the big F's. It's tangible in the game. And when you encounter a bit of FreeSpace-feeling, you're dissapointed the more if it doesn't continue. BUT: that DOES mean you gave that feeling sometimes, and while SOL is completly independent of the big F's and has no intention to repeat something old, but to develop new ways, it's a great thing to give this feeling sometimes. In my opinion, it's useless to rebuild FreeSpace (as soon as SOL becomes only a bit modable, that will be done anyway by the community), you can only try not to hint the game too directly in that direction.

@burb: console release? @.@ Wouln't that imply the necessity to rebalnce the game heavily in the arcade-direction? :/

[burb2500]

@RodsofGod

Here's a quote from the UI designer found in the "First Impressions" thread you mentioned:



I'll explain why the HUD feels bulky on the PC: during development, we intended to, at some point, release this game on console. So, in order to cater to that audience as well, we had to keep the HUD a bit larger than what traditional PC space sims display on screen. Console gamers are usually used to larger HUD to make it easier to read from farther distances.

Given the limited size of our development team, we didn't have time to explore the possibility of making special case HUD designs for the PC, unfortunately. I apologize for its intrusiveness and if it's hindering your gaming experience, but there's no real way to get around it as of right now.

From my understanding, they released the game on Steam A) because they thought what they had was worth the $9.99 and B) to get the funding to finish the game. I would imagine that if it's successful enough, they'll then port it over to the X-box and Playstation. No rebalancing would be need since the game is already playable on a game pad.

[RodsOfGod]

Xeah, you're right, I blocked out that part. I really hope we'll get some kind of at least a bit adjustable UI...

[burb2500]

The Dev's have stated elsewhere that they plan on making the UI a little more transparent as well as adding a cockpit view at a later date. At the moment they're busy with bug fixes and putting a demo together.

[Koranis]

As of right now (and in the foreseeable future) it doesn't hinder us at all. We're full steam ahead on the big joystick patch, additional content, and so on.

That's great! I really hope you get it done properly and add some significant content (meaning "not more of the same").

I was about to buy it until I saw WTF is SOL: Exodus, but after seeing the same gameplay during his entire review I got bored to death, furthermore I heard there are only 8 or so maps, so I decided to skip it. Unless there is more significant content and the replayability doesn't mean to "REPLAY the same level to get better score", it's not my kind of space sim.

that said I repeat, I am a huge fan of intelligent space sims. Do something like Free Space and my money is yours.

[Koranis]

But, those kinds of wild, controversial statements don't draw reader traffic, I suppose.

Hi dgackey, first of all thank you guys for being here with this game. I didn't buy it yet so I hope you don't take what I'm writing as hypocrisy. I just read your post and I base my answer on my gaming experience that begun with the very first games ever released.

I agree fully with your post but I'd like to just comment its meaning (as I understood it of course). You imply that since yours is a budget product it cannot be compared to more advanced, even if older, games that sent their teams out of the door in the end, due to lack of market.

I'd like to point out that:

You've taken risks by investing time and limited resources to produce a game. It is a fact.

You released this game, and it's now subject to hundreds of different opinions. That means you will be receiving praise and kicks. It is a fact.

By releasing this game, even if declaring your low budget in advance, you entered a dead space. That is, a small insignificant percentage of people waiting for a proper space sim that will resurrect the genre. Bring a new Free Space era. And that is also a fact.

That said, either you accept the challenge and strive to reach that goal (and be glorified ever after) or you simply accept that kind of comparisons without taking it personally. Just go ahead with your vision and live with the fact that you will remain a minority within a minority (casual space shooter within the ignored space sim genre).

Anyway I wish you luck and as I wrote in my previous post, I can't wait to see what this game will become.

[dgackey]

Hi Koranis, thanks for your reply.



I agree fully with your post but I'd like to just comment its meaning (as I understood it of course). You imply that since yours is a budget product it cannot be compared to more advanced, even if older, games that sent their teams out of the door in the end, due to lack of market.


Not at all; I think there are plenty of comparisons that can be made and should be made. But a common logical fallacy (IMO) that is employed in such comparisons is to simply ignore the relative development costs of such products OR to state that [Game X] did this [Y] years ago, so why doesn't SOL?

I don't take it personally when people (especially customers) say these things, but I do find it frustrating when professional reviewers do, because they know better. Or they should.

They should know, for example, that the Freelancer team was a significantly larger team (they had seventy people credited to the Digital Anvil dev team alone, as well as external contractors, publisher personnel, etc).

Freelancer had 7 credited designers, plus additional credited writers and contractors. We have one.

They had three lead programmers, four game programmers, 5 engine programmers, and a multiplayer programmer. Again, that's *just* the Digital Anvil team. We had one, who did all the game programming as well as any Unreal hacking necessary to support the gameplay features requested by design.

They had an art director, a cinematics director, nine artists, a bunch of dedicated cinematics guys and too many contractors to list. We have 3 artists and worked with a handful of small contractors on our art.

And yes, this was nine years ago -- costs have increased since then.


I'd like to point out that:

You've taken risks by investing time and limited resources to produce a game. It is a fact.

You released this game, and it's now subject to hundreds of different opinions. That means you will be receiving praise and kicks. It is a fact.

By releasing this game, even if declaring your low budget in advance, you entered a dead space. That is, a small insignificant percentage of people waiting for a proper space sim that will resurrect the genre. Bring a new Free Space era. And that is also a fact.


Well, I'm not sure I agree with the "dead space" characterization; we certainly know this market is a smaller market, but the question we wanted to answer was "just how small is it?" I think that's still an open question.


That said, either you accept the challenge and strive to reach that goal (and be glorified ever after) or you simply accept that kind of comparisons without taking it personally. Just go ahead with your vision and live with the fact that you will remain a minority within a minority (casual space shooter within the ignored space sim genre).


As I said, I don't take it personally; we know we can't please everyone. And, we can't spend infinite amounts of money, either. We have to make tough decisions. Boiling the decision we face down to "either make Freespace 3 or continue doing what you're doing" isn't really accurate. It's not as though we're fully capable of doing so and simply are afraid to or don't want to; my point in providing this context is that it's not really feasible for a team of 6 to make Freespace 3. At least not this team.

Maybe there is a team of 6 somewhere else that is 20 times better than we are, and if so, I hope they make Freespace 3! With that said, even if such a team existed, they would probably turn their efforts towards a genre that would guarantee them a much higher return on their investment.

This begs the question of "why would you guys even jump into this market, then?" and the answers are simple: we love the genre, and we felt like there was room for someone like us to come in and put our own spin on it.

The overall size of that market is the question we're answering now; and yes, it's true that negative reviews that hold us next to $50 games made a decade ago do hurt us in this regard.


Anyway I wish you luck and as I wrote in my previous post, I can't wait to see what this game will become.

Thanks for your support! We're pretty interested to see what happens too :)

[Timer84]

90% of professional reviewers are part of corporate payroll, if you're not part of a big company your games are worth jack. i learned a long time ago to ignore all the big publications like ign and gamespot (and even paper publications) and listen to end user feedback only (friends or random users on the web).

you're probably familiar with jeff gerstmann, former gamespot journalist that got fired when he gave kane & lynch a 6/10 and some harsh words along with the score. eidos invested heavily in publicity and even created a K&L theme for gamespot, which forced CNET to fire him due to eidos' pressure. another 5 or 6 journalists left with him and giantbomb was formed so thanks CNET, your loss our gain.

[FLN]

Well, I'm not sure I agree with the "dead space" characterization; we certainly know this market is a smaller market, but the question we wanted to answer was "just how small is it?" I think that's still an open question.

i hardly believe we can meet Ishimura in SOL...lol

[Cats777]

90% of professional reviewers are part of corporate payroll, if you're not part of a big company your games are worth jack. i learned a long time ago to ignore all the big publications like ign and gamespot (and even paper publications) and listen to end user feedback only (friends or random users on the web).

you're probably familiar with jeff gerstmann, former gamespot journalist that got fired when he gave kane & lynch a 6/10 and some harsh words along with the score. eidos invested heavily in publicity and even created a K&L theme for gamespot, which forced CNET to fire him due to eidos' pressure. another 5 or 6 journalists left with him and giantbomb was formed so thanks CNET, your loss our gain.
Yeah, except Totalbiscuit specializes in reviewing indie games.

[SeamlessStocks]

Yeah, except Totalbiscuit specializes in reviewing indie games.

Yea, unfortunately he also reviewed the build BEFORE all the gameplay improvements we've made.

Unfortunate timing.

[Odra]

I gotta say, this game keeps itching at me.

I'm more of the exploration/trading type (with the occasional "Fire a missile at a frigate then run like hell and see if they respond" mishap), though action-focused titles entertain me as well.

I believe I have taken note of all the positive and negative perceptions on this title and need only one specific clarification.

There was an arcade oriented space fighter game that was similar to this title, whenever I fought in space I would reorient the ship for different strafe approaches to capital ships, only to be automatically leveled-off to match a preset horizon.

Entertaining title, though lacking in the replay department; This "feature" was a downside (for me at least) as I prefer to actually feel like I am in space and not depend on preconceived notions of "up/down".

So the question is: Will the vessel in SOL level-off automatically?

[Kelius]

There is a toggle, I think it is in the control settings screen, to allow automatic re-orientation after not rolling for a moment. There is also a way to map a hotkey to a 'quick reorientation' if desired.

Edit: The toggle is off by default.

[Odra]

Ah, perfect.

The game has been sitting in my purchase cart for a few hours.

EDIT: On an unrelated note: Why does the UCS Atlas look familiar? (http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/200410/ss_487b4856fdcd3cc94fae9b5731265385f98cf82d.1920x1 080.jpg) Maybe its just the angle of the screenshot and it will look different in-game...

still...

[dgackey]

Yeah, except Totalbiscuit specializes in reviewing indie games.

Yeah, I don't really think there's any conspiracy, just that a lot of reviewers honestly don't care that much about the context of their reviews, making sure they're comparing apples to apples, etc. Some do and take great pains to make sure they're being objective, because they realize the impact that their words can have on a company. A lot just don't seem to realize or care, though, which is kind of sad.

In Totalbiscuit's case it's not like I expected he was going to go easy on us, given the Cynical Brit moniker and the persona he is selling. I get the schtick. Some of his gripes were valid, some were about things we actually took to heart and improved based on feedback we received from you guys, but he hadn't seen.

I don't really think that would have changed his impression, though. What he wanted to see was a game that had a lot more content, more missions, more music, more weapons, more everything, all of which is fine, but bringing it back to my original response: he failed to account for the fact that doing all of that really was not possible with the constraints we were under. And, he didn't temper his criticisms with the fact that we priced the game to be super affordable, either.

At the end of the day we were an easy target for him, and he wouldn't be terribly popular and entertaining if he wasn't picking on games, so none of this is wholly surprising.

About the only thing I have really strong feelings about were the shots he took at the end with respect to saying that he was afraid if this game doesn't do well, it will be perceived as proof that the genre isn't viable when in fact we just made a bad game.

I obviously don't agree with that on a number of levels. I don't really want to get into the details of it, but suffice it to say that is one area where he has no leg to stand on IMO.

[Friendliest]

interesting points by dgackey and frankly i think he gives professional reviewers far too much credit. (luckily for most game makers, however, I do not.)

wasn't interested in this game -- i have about a 3 year backlog, thanks to steam sales! -- but I am now ;)

BTW as far as TB goes ... that guy giving credit to bad games hurts his credibility more than being critical of decent titles, IMO. it's all highly subjective, and all TB is doing is selling a product, just like anyone else.

[Timer84]

Yeah, I don't really think there's any conspiracy, just that a lot of reviewers honestly don't care that much about the context of their reviews, making sure they're comparing apples to apples, etc. Some do and take great pains to make sure they're being objective, because they realize the impact that their words can have on a company. A lot just don't seem to realize or care, though, which is kind of sad.

In Totalbiscuit's case it's not like I expected he was going to go easy on us, given the Cynical Brit moniker and the persona he is selling. I get the schtick. Some of his gripes were valid, some were about things we actually took to heart and improved based on feedback we received from you guys, but he hadn't seen.

I don't really think that would have changed his impression, though. What he wanted to see was a game that had a lot more content, more missions, more music, more weapons, more everything, all of which is fine, but bringing it back to my original response: he failed to account for the fact that doing all of that really was not possible with the constraints we were under. And, he didn't temper his criticisms with the fact that we priced the game to be super affordable, either.

At the end of the day we were an easy target for him, and he wouldn't be terribly popular and entertaining if he wasn't picking on games, so none of this is wholly surprising.

About the only thing I have really strong feelings about were the shots he took at the end with respect to saying that he was afraid if this game doesn't do well, it will be perceived as proof that the genre isn't viable when in fact we just made a bad game.

I obviously don't agree with that on a number of levels. I don't really want to get into the details of it, but suffice it to say that is one area where he has no leg to stand on IMO.


get ready for the swarm of fan-boys (lol@steam censoring the actual word) comming to rip you a new one saying hes the best thing since sliced bread.

[iplop]

get ready for the swarm of fan-boys (lol@steam censoring the actual word) comming to rip you a new one saying hes the best thing since sliced bread.

http://www.varbak.com/images/black-kettle-nb4460.jpg

[Timer84]

trying to prove im correct?

[Vessekai]

We chose to focus on a particular portion of the sprawling feature-creep that is "the space game genre", but knew we couldn't do it all

I think SOL Exodus largely achieved what they set out to do - to create a fun, accessible space sim. They started simple, and that's fine. Remember, other current, established space sim games like X or Evochron have had many releases, over which the quality of those games has increased drastically, and they needed fans to support them along the way.

Space sims are tough to make. Here's an article about some of the difficulties space sim developers face. Hopefully it sheds a little light about why making these games are so difficult.

Gamasutra: Challenges of Designing a Space Sim (http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SeanLindskog/20111013/8663/Challenges_of_Designing_a_Space_Sim.php)

[mriguy]

Yea, unfortunately he also reviewed the build BEFORE all the gameplay improvements we've made.

Unfortunate timing.

It needs to be clarified that Total Biscuit's WTF series is NOT a review, it is a first impression. He states this disclaimer regularly.

If you feel that the build he played was 'unfinished', perhaps the game should not have been taken out of beta until a 'finished' product was available. I am upset with this recent trend with developers to release titles before they are ready, falling back to patches as justification of any criticism of the current state of the game. It is a form of pseudo crowd-sourcing which inappropriately utilizes digital distribution sales channels.

on a side note: I do feel that Steam needs to offer a 'kickstarter' program in which users could fund titles in alpha/beta. Maybe such a service would avoid indies releasing product too early because funding ran out.

[dgackey]

If you feel that the build he played was 'unfinished', perhaps the game should not have been taken out of beta until a 'finished' product was available. I am upset with this recent trend with developers to release titles before they are ready, falling back to patches as justification of any criticism of the current state of the game. It is a form of pseudo crowd-sourcing which inappropriately utilizes digital distribution sales channels.

on a side note: I do feel that Steam needs to offer a 'kickstarter' program in which users could fund titles in alpha/beta. Maybe such a service would avoid indies releasing product too early because funding ran out.

No game has ever been released when a developer felt it was ready. Ever. That's just the nature of game development. A game is always going to be an imperfect thing and you have to decide when it's ready "enough", and let it go.

Ready enough differs greatly from developer to developer, but there is also a big difference between "the game had bugs that should have been fixed" and "there are things that our customers would have preferred we do differently". You're conflating the two.

The number of emails we have received in our support box numbers less than half a percent of our total customer base, which is incredibly low, lower than any game I've ever launched in my career. This indicates that the game certainly was not "buggy" by any metric. The vast majority of the things we've changed are improvements we've made in response to our customer feedback, and I don't see how that can be seen as an inappropriate use of digital channels at all. It's one of the things that makes this method of distribution so powerful; a positive, not a negative.

Kickstarter is a good idea for games that are being made by self-employed teams who are literally not working, and can get by on ramen noodles while they build something. But the vast majority of kickstarter projects I've seen have raised 10-25k, which doesn't buy much if you're trying to pay a team of developers a salary (which we do).

I'm not saying any money isn't helpful because it's all very helpful, but the value of kickstarter is going to be a lot higher to a 2-man team making an iOS game on weekends who need to buy a couple of iPhones and some Mac Minis than a professional team of developers.

[burb2500]

dgackey is quite correct in saying that kickstarter campaigns, while a great way of showing support, generally don't provide enough income for a full team.

A perfect example is Nexus 2 (sequel to Nexus: the Jupiter incident which was just released on Steam but originally released in 2004). They are a team of thirty with approximately 10 support staff and they need to raise 400,000€ to make their game. While it seems like a lot of money, that works out to a yearly salary of 10,000€. That goes even lower when you factor in marketing costs, and the costs of equipment and renting a building etc. 400,000€ is probably the cheapest that you could make a AA title. The problem is that funding that with the community is difficult and they've only reached a quarter of that goal (with only a few days to go until the fundraising ends).

http://www.games-plant.com/nexus2/

As various teammembers from Seamless have stated, space games are too niche and impossible to get funded. That a successful team like the one making Nexus 2, which has a proven track record and a reasonably popular game to build off of, can't get funding only shows the difficulty of jump starting the genre again.

In regards to the "proper perspective" re: reviewing indie games, here's a well balanced review from RockPaperShotgun:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/31/wot-i-think-sol-exodus/

[Merkoth]

Maybe not kickstarter, but I'd love to see a system where soon-to-be published games can recruit testers and, I don't know, give them a 25% off coupon when the game finally releases, instead of the usual 10% off from indie launches.

[dgackey]

Maybe not kickstarter, but I'd love to see a system where soon-to-be published games can recruit testers and, I don't know, give them a 25% off coupon when the game finally releases, instead of the usual 10% off from indie launches.

Generally speaking, beta testers should expect to get a 100% discount. We certainly did that with ours.

[Merkoth]

Generally speaking, beta testers should expect to get a 100% discount. We certainly did that with ours.

Well, you won't see me complaining!

[FredLC]

Perhaps a kickstarter area would not generate many funds per se, but by showing conclusively that the project sparks interest, it can attract investors?

[dgackey]

Perhaps a kickstarter area would not generate many funds per se, but by showing conclusively that the project sparks interest, it can attract investors?

It's possible, but again, the relatively small amount of funds that Kickstarter projects raise is largely a reflection of the user base that is making them.

Without getting into gory details, let me just say that we spent a year making this game, and during that year we talked to almost every publisher we could think of.

We ended up self-publishing on Steam. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to draw the their own conclusions.

[Vessekai]

Was landing a publisher difficult, or were the contracts they offered crappy?
Other than the lack of marketing support, do you see any downside with publishing on steam rather than a traditional publisher?

[SeamlessStocks]

Was landing a publisher difficult, or were the contracts they offered crappy?
Other than the lack of marketing support, do you see any downside with publishing on steam rather than a traditional publisher?

Publishers don't believe in space games or the genre. That's the crux of the issue.

Or they'll offer the worst possible deal imaginable ("give us the game for free and we'll take 50% of your revenue").

But if one ever proves to mega-successful they'll all try to replicate that success.

[dgackey]

Was landing a publisher difficult, or were the contracts they offered crappy?
Other than the lack of marketing support, do you see any downside with publishing on steam rather than a traditional publisher?

The reality is that most indie games that "secure" publishing deals don't get much, if any marketing support from publishers anyway. If you want marketing, you pretty much have to do it yourself these days.

As Stocks says, publishers simply do not believe space combat is a viable genre.

The only downside to Steam is that they are completely overwhelmed. Good people, fair to work with, just overworked. But we know the feeling so it's all good :)

[Vessekai]

Interesting.

Many of the more recent space sims are uber-complex. There's nothing wrong with that - some people really dig the complexity. But I'm sure that limits the audience to some degree. I hope SOL: Exodus introduces the genre to a wider audience.

[FredLC]

Wow, that is a bad deal just to insert a publisher's logo in the presentation screens.

I guess the publishers do need an epiphany. Sometimes it takes a while.

I remember that for years I, as a long George Romero's fan, and crazy for his living dead trilogy (in the early 90's there were still 3 movies only), and how I pityed that no one would make a decent zombie movie.

Than Danny Boyle came up with 28 days later, and now, BANG - zombie apocalypse. There are so many movies and games about zombies (and every possible variation, from space zombies of "Dead Space" to vampires that behave like zombies from "Salem's Lot") that even I am getting fed up.

For all reasons mentioned in the many threads in this forum, I don't think SOL, in it's current incarnation, is the game that will create that magic, but still, I can't help but hope...

Regards :).

[dgackey]

For all reasons mentioned in the many threads in this forum, I don't think SOL, in it's current incarnation, is the game that will create that magic, but still, I can't help but hope...


I'm not sure exactly where that meme came from, but it sure wasn't us. We weren't out to singlehandedly revive a genre that has been largely neglected for close to a decade, we just wanted to make a fun, entertaining, accessible game.

This may be obvious to some folks, so pardon the proselytizing, but:

-- It's really, really hard just to finish a game.
-- Doing it well is even more difficult.
-- Doing it well AND being a commercial success is ridiculously hard.
-- Doing all of this with limited means and no marketing budget is virtually impossible.
-- Doing all of the above on your first try with an engine you've never used before? Well, you get the idea.

The hope here is that this game is but the first step. Time will tell if that's the case, ultimately.

[DrkWaters]

Ah, perfect.

The game has been sitting in my purchase cart for a few hours.

EDIT: On an unrelated note: Why does the UCS Atlas look familiar? (http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/200410/ss_487b4856fdcd3cc94fae9b5731265385f98cf82d.1920x1 080.jpg) Maybe its just the angle of the screenshot and it will look different in-game...

still...

Kind of reminds me of the Prometheus from Star Gate.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1989/prometheuscg4.jpg

[Timer84]

Kind of reminds me of the Prometheus from Star Gate.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1989/prometheuscg4.jpg

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/651004031675412945/D384A1365EA2C44177EC94E58AD098F4E9A38E72/

from another angle. (with a few tweaks through nvidia inspector for increased quality :p)

edit: thats actually my wallpaper right now lol.

[Eilarais]

Not at all; I think there are plenty of comparisons that can be made and should be made. But a common logical fallacy (IMO) that is employed in such comparisons is to simply ignore the relative development costs of such products OR to state that [Game X] did this [Y] years ago, so why doesn't SOL?

I don't take it personally when people (especially customers) say these things, but I do find it frustrating when professional reviewers do, because they know better. Or they should.

Professional reviewers do understand this, but they do not make a living by communicating this sort of thing to their readership.