Did Team 17 have a spat with valve? - Page 3

Ryuubei · 10-20-2010, 07:57 PM

A lot of people i know who want to buy it refuse to because of it's bugs, in both games. You've said loads pf times you have a patch that fixes most of the bugs, so release it already.

People don't want to buy a game that's buggy, and from appearances, unspported by it's devs. Also i don't really consider Ab and AS to be similar games, SP wise aleast. I own AS and want both AB games, only blocking me are the damned bugs.

freibooter · 10-21-2010, 01:40 AM

Yes, that's a huge part of the problem. People, including myself, expect ongoing support for their games.

They don't have to be perfect from the get go, but one of the reasons we like Steam is how easy it is to deploy patches. There is absolutely no problem if only small things are fixed or if there are ten different patches in a row because the user barely suffers any form of negative consequences from it, he'll just notice that things are working that previously weren't working right.

For me there is very little more frustrating when it comes to digital distribution than a fresh and buggy release on Steam that is almost immediately abandoned by the developers without even the attempt at fixing some of the bigger issues.

It's all a matter of trust.
By not investing any resources into the Alien Breed post release although it desperately needed it, by clearly overcharging for the first title, by releasing the second part before the first part was fixed, by using totally unfair Euro vs US-Dollar prices you lost all the trust I gave you when I bought the first part of the series ... so there is very little incentive left to even bother with the rest of the series or future titles.

It just adds up.

I have very fond memories of Team17 back in my AMIGA days ... this is no longer that time and this is no longer the same Team17. I'd rather not ruin my memories any further ...

@billt17
Of course, this is nothing personal. You did some pretty decent community management here, thank you for that. You probably have very little influence on the things that ended up jarateing me off (me and a lot of the other gamers that bought the first part but not the second).

eldo76 · 10-21-2010, 02:37 AM

you guys are making it look like they are bug ridden games, they are not.

I had zero bugs in the Sp part in Impact and just one little in Assault where sometime you can't melee the alien eggs.
they are very solid, polished games IMO.

I agree that the MP part needs some fixes and that it is a shame that the announced patch for Impact never came out but co-op with a friend work just fine.

so yes I agree, a few patches are needed and welcomed but both games offers plenty of gameplay with no issues at all, at least there is no gamebreaking one for sure.
Survivor mode in Assault is awesome and flawless.
I have 15 hours logged for Impact and 23 for Assault so far, so price-value ratio is more than good IMO, if they release the third part again for the same price of Assault I am totally fine with it.

now I just would like to hear from billt17 that Descent is in the making so as the patches for the previous ones, otherwise I would start to feel "cheated" myself for not being able to complete the AB story-experience.

Ryuubei · 10-21-2010, 04:08 AM

Both AB 1 and 2 have a huge bug, the keys can't be remapped properly. Yes this IS a bug, it's been confirmed as a bug, and a fix was promised:

Quote:

Just to let you know, we have fixed the crash in remapping the keys and we should be doing a patch soon. It looks like it was just the arrow keys causing the problems.

Now, before you start about how that isn't a major issue, let me ask you, how many hands do you have? I bet you'll say 2, well, in my case (and those that i know of) we have various disabilities. In my case i only have 1 hand (my right), and i use a custom keyboard designed around being one handed. Remapping keys is there fore a HUGE thing for people like me.

I don't know about you, but i'd call that a game breaking bug. Key remapping is pretty much a core of every game i've ever played. I've never met any PC game where you couldn't rempa the keys in some way.

Also i feel all the more peeved because i was told by blitz17 that they had a working patch that they were testing and it would deployed shortly.

Quote:

I'm not sure to be honest, we need to test it properly internally before letting it out. Shouldn't be long.

So i bought the games thinking a patch was coming that would allow me to play the games. Guess what, no patch has been released yet. Sucks when a game company dosen't follow through with it's promises, just takes your money and runs.

Right now i feel a lot like they said the patch was coming just so i'd buy the game.

10-21-2010, 09:53 AM

I would buy Alien Breed if it came out for the Mac

billt17 · 10-22-2010, 03:48 AM

The patch is still coming with that specific problem with remapping keys sorted. Sorry it's taking longer than we anticipated to get it out.

eldo76 · 10-22-2010, 05:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by billt17

The patch is still coming with that specific problem with remapping keys sorted. Sorry it's taking longer than we anticipated to get it out.

so the patch is coming ...good news !

still no words on Descent ?

is it coming ?

2010, next year ? never ?

IGN says "TBA 2010"

is that correct ?

oh, I just saw it also says "Exclusively on: Xbox 360"

?!?

sterlingdax · 10-27-2010, 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RaggyRock

I would buy Alien Breed if it came out for the Mac

This. I own the first, played it via Crossover Games, which is shaky, but I enjoyed the game a lot, and am going to buy the 2nd one.

You are missing out by not making a Mac version as you stated in another thread, folks are quick to dismiss our machines as 'toys' or whatnot, but screwem, there are tons of Mac folks out there that will buy damn near any 'real' (not discounting puzzle games, I love them, but we have a LOT of puzzle games offered, as well as point and click, casual stuff) game that comes out.

You can take that to the bank.

eldo76 · 11-04-2010, 09:25 AM

so I clearly take billt17 silence about Descent as a very bad sign regarding the situation/future of AB.

very sad

it seems I am the only one who cares so I will stop asking about it and just hope Descent will be released on Steam sooner or later...

11-04-2010, 10:35 AM

the silence could just mean that T17 don't want to say anything ... just yet.

Ryuubei · 11-04-2010, 02:04 PM

Or they just no longer care.

piydek · 11-04-2010, 04:18 PM

eldo, you're certainly not the only one that cares

. I really hope to see descent out.

SpectralShade · 11-13-2010, 01:44 PM

Just want to point out my 2 cents.

I bought Impact when it was released.
I haven't bought Assault.

I almost never play Alien Swarm, so claiming AS is a reason is a cop-put and refusal to accept stuff that are the reason for people like me.

There were alot of small bugs for me in Impact, some of them even crashing the game/refusal to start missions. A thing like being able to 100% crash my game just by hitting an arrow key in the menus is not what I would consider the best of sales arguments for follow-ups.

Looking at the sales-page for Assault it looked like... Just more of impact. Which led me to wonder why I should bother forking out more money for essentially looked like a run of the mill DLC addition, rather than a full-fledged game. I already felt that Impact was tad too short, and with the experience of impact in mind, I couldn't really see why I would want to pay twice for the same too short game.

Add some design issues in impact that made the thing feel rushed like weapon modding being non-sensical (why would anyone choose anything but more damage as mod? ) Funky multiplayer "rules" and whatever notion I had of trying out assault would be overcome by my past experiences with impact.

So for me it really boils down to Team 17 not having done a proper job of the first game, in my opinion, and thus letting my experience there affect wether I want to make follow-up buyings.

If you want to convince me to buy seperate games, I need to be convinced they are worth buying. Leaving the first as what I felt was an unfinished product and then releasing a "sequel" that looks like just more of the same isn't enticing me in any way to continue my shopping spree in that direction.

Froshbyte · 11-17-2010, 12:26 PM

good job team17 i think your game is great bought all 3.

cheeriokilla · 11-17-2010, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by billt17

To be fair to Valve, they obviously had Alien Swarm in development well before we approached them with our game. To their credit they told us about their plans and as mentioned above they delayed the release, so at least Impact had a decent run. However we have seen a big drop in sales on Assault, mainly because a lot of people don't see the differences and opt for the game that is free, despite the fact we lowered our price to try and get more people interested.

Such is life.

I've kept my eye on these games for quite a while, but I wouldn't buy a game like this one for the singleplayer, I'd buy it for the multiplayer, and when it says that there are strictly 3 levels for coop, I think thats pretty weak. The reason why I never bought is that Alien Swarm is fun and completely coop, and thats how I like my games, I don't give a crap if its free or not

10-21-2010, 01:40 AM	#32
freibooter Join Date: Oct 2007 Reputation: 756 Posts: 2,996	Yes, that's a huge part of the problem. People, including myself, expect ongoing support for their games. They don't have to be perfect from the get go, but one of the reasons we like Steam is how easy it is to deploy patches. There is absolutely no problem if only small things are fixed or if there are ten different patches in a row because the user barely suffers any form of negative consequences from it, he'll just notice that things are working that previously weren't working right. For me there is very little more frustrating when it comes to digital distribution than a fresh and buggy release on Steam that is almost immediately abandoned by the developers without even the attempt at fixing some of the bigger issues. It's all a matter of trust. By not investing any resources into the Alien Breed post release although it desperately needed it, by clearly overcharging for the first title, by releasing the second part before the first part was fixed, by using totally unfair Euro vs US-Dollar prices you lost all the trust I gave you when I bought the first part of the series ... so there is very little incentive left to even bother with the rest of the series or future titles. It just adds up. I have very fond memories of Team17 back in my AMIGA days ... this is no longer that time and this is no longer the same Team17. I'd rather not ruin my memories any further ... @billt17 Of course, this is nothing personal. You did some pretty decent community management here, thank you for that. You probably have very little influence on the things that ended up jarateing me off (me and a lot of the other gamers that bought the first part but not the second). Last edited by freibooter: 10-21-2010 at 01:44 AM.

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10-20-2010, 07:57 PM	#31
Ryuubei Join Date: Jul 2010 Reputation: 125 Posts: 1,200	A lot of people i know who want to buy it refuse to because of it's bugs, in both games. You've said loads pf times you have a patch that fixes most of the bugs, so release it already. People don't want to buy a game that's buggy, and from appearances, unspported by it's devs. Also i don't really consider Ab and AS to be similar games, SP wise aleast. I own AS and want both AB games, only blocking me are the damned bugs.

10-21-2010, 02:37 AM	#33
eldo76 Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 40 Posts: 306	you guys are making it look like they are bug ridden games, they are not. I had zero bugs in the Sp part in Impact and just one little in Assault where sometime you can't melee the alien eggs. they are very solid, polished games IMO. I agree that the MP part needs some fixes and that it is a shame that the announced patch for Impact never came out but co-op with a friend work just fine. so yes I agree, a few patches are needed and welcomed but both games offers plenty of gameplay with no issues at all, at least there is no gamebreaking one for sure. Survivor mode in Assault is awesome and flawless. I have 15 hours logged for Impact and 23 for Assault so far, so price-value ratio is more than good IMO, if they release the third part again for the same price of Assault I am totally fine with it. now I just would like to hear from billt17 that Descent is in the making so as the patches for the previous ones, otherwise I would start to feel "cheated" myself for not being able to complete the AB story-experience.

10-21-2010, 09:53 AM	#35
RaggyRock Guest Posts: n/a	I would buy Alien Breed if it came out for the Mac

10-22-2010, 03:48 AM	#36
billt17 Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 453 Posts: 915	The patch is still coming with that specific problem with remapping keys sorted. Sorry it's taking longer than we anticipated to get it out.

11-04-2010, 09:25 AM	#39
eldo76 Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 40 Posts: 306	so I clearly take billt17 silence about Descent as a very bad sign regarding the situation/future of AB. very sad it seems I am the only one who cares so I will stop asking about it and just hope Descent will be released on Steam sooner or later...

11-04-2010, 10:35 AM	#40
ARUG Guest Posts: n/a	the silence could just mean that T17 don't want to say anything ... just yet.

11-04-2010, 02:04 PM	#41
Ryuubei Join Date: Jul 2010 Reputation: 125 Posts: 1,200	Or they just no longer care.

11-04-2010, 04:18 PM	#42
piydek Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 52 Posts: 266	eldo, you're certainly not the only one that cares . I really hope to see descent out.

11-13-2010, 01:44 PM	#43
SpectralShade Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 168 Posts: 1,220	Just want to point out my 2 cents. I bought Impact when it was released. I haven't bought Assault. I almost never play Alien Swarm, so claiming AS is a reason is a cop-put and refusal to accept stuff that are the reason for people like me. There were alot of small bugs for me in Impact, some of them even crashing the game/refusal to start missions. A thing like being able to 100% crash my game just by hitting an arrow key in the menus is not what I would consider the best of sales arguments for follow-ups. Looking at the sales-page for Assault it looked like... Just more of impact. Which led me to wonder why I should bother forking out more money for essentially looked like a run of the mill DLC addition, rather than a full-fledged game. I already felt that Impact was tad too short, and with the experience of impact in mind, I couldn't really see why I would want to pay twice for the same too short game. Add some design issues in impact that made the thing feel rushed like weapon modding being non-sensical (why would anyone choose anything but more damage as mod? ) Funky multiplayer "rules" and whatever notion I had of trying out assault would be overcome by my past experiences with impact. So for me it really boils down to Team 17 not having done a proper job of the first game, in my opinion, and thus letting my experience there affect wether I want to make follow-up buyings. If you want to convince me to buy seperate games, I need to be convinced they are worth buying. Leaving the first as what I felt was an unfinished product and then releasing a "sequel" that looks like just more of the same isn't enticing me in any way to continue my shopping spree in that direction.

11-17-2010, 12:26 PM	#44
Froshbyte Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 0 Posts: 61	good job team17 i think your game is great bought all 3.