Cancelled my order: why?

[Velvet]

I preordered the game a while ago. The game has looked like very promising, and I generally like to support the RPG-genre, since so few true RPG's are released. However RPG dot's news, and these complaints I have read on these forums worried me enough to have my order cancelled.
Apparently some of the issues are fixed on this new patch, but if the character customization (which was apparently completely removed from the game) and the right-handed combat aren't implemented before the European release, I am never going to buy this game.

This is sad, but the aesthetics matter me alot more than they do to many others.

[Xlaxx]

Death To Right Handed Combat!

[Zothen]

I have to agree, Xlaxx. I cant care less about which hand my primary weapon is in as long as there is dual wielding implemented.

Character customization, okay, thats very important for me too, cause it's a crucial part in atmospherical roleplaying.

[txa1265]

Apparently some of the issues are fixed on this new patch, but if the character customization (which was apparently completely removed from the game) and the right-handed combat aren't implemented before the European release, I am never going to buy this game.


Look, you do what you want, but if character looks and which hand a weapon in in matter enough to cancel an RPG order ... you really aren't much of an RPG fan ...

Mike

[ond]

Look, you do what you want, but if character looks and which hand a weapon in in matter enough to cancel an RPG order ... you really aren't much of an RPG fan ...

Mike

On the other hand this details are saying much about how much work had been done generally on other parts of game.
I dont understand how this could go throught testing at all. Something like this would suggest that changing combat to be right handed was so difficult that they didnt correct it.
And this is saying much about DL code programing. It looks like adding something new or correcting old mistakes is very difficult....So i dont expect that "possible future patch" would change lots of things. --- And this is reason to cancel order.

[txa1265]

On the other hand this details are saying much about how much work had been done generally on other parts of game.
I dont understand how this could go throught testing at all. Something like this would suggest that changing combat to be right handed was so difficult that they didnt correct it.
And this is saying much about DL code programing. It looks like adding something new or correcting old mistakes is very difficult....So i dont expect that "possible future patch" would change lots of things. --- And this is reason to cancel order.

That is all very reasonable, and agree that looking at the customization as evidentiary of greater issues is perfectly logical. And a good reason to say ... I'll wait a few months and check again ...

But that is different than saying - even if the fix everything *but* the handedness and appearance customization I'll not get the game - seems to me to be missing the point of RPG's.

Mike

[Zothen]

You mean its a reason to cancel an order just because you believe that developers have problems implementing/fixing things?

Jesus, do what you think you must do.

[txa1265]

You mean its a reason to cancel an order just because you believe that developers have problems implementing/fixing things?Well, I played the Republic Commando demo, and it just felt 'good' to me, and despite being a *huge* FPS *and* Star Wars fan, I cancelled my order and put it on my birthday list (my parents just gave it, a month or so late!).

So I don't debate anyone cancelling any order for any reason ... it is only when the justification makes no sense that I ask questions - about the rationale, not the cancellation.

Mike

[Zothen]

I fully agree, Mike.

I just cant understand why people come in this forum, using their first and only post just to announce that they cancel their order or returning the game.

It seems to me those players havent yearned for this game like I do. Well, thats okay, but if they did not, why are they disappointed so very much? The game is not finished yet and there is no reason to doubt that the game will be top in the "final" version.

I am not a very patient guy, believe me, but as long as it won't take months to fix elemental aspects of the game, I can pull myself together.

[Velvet]

Look, you do what you want, but if character looks and which hand a weapon in in matter enough to cancel an RPG order ... you really aren't much of an RPG fan ...


Role-playing is all about control over your character and interaction with enviroment. If I cannot create a character I like in first place, how I'm supposed to role-play it? Looks do matter, especially when you see your character all the time on the screen. I don't want to be left-handed 45 years old housewife, which happens to be default look of human females.
Also, everyone being clone of each other makes online playing extremely retarded for those, who appreciate such features as multiplayer. (I'm not really one of them).

Anyway, as “ond” suggested, absense of these features -- which were supposed to be in the game -- indeed reflects the overall detail and quality of the product. If such easily implemented details are missing, what else that they promised isn't there?

I don't want to buy unfinished game, even to support promising developer when there is such deceitful publisher behind it.

[Velvet]

I fully agree, Mike.
It seems to me those players havent yearned for this game like I do. Well, thats okay, but if they did not, why are they disappointed so very much?

I have waited for this game for a long time, and the demo looked like very promising. Of course I'm disappointed, when I hear that the game is buggy and extremely unfinished.

[AxiomOnline]

Sheesh if left handed people didnt buy a game when there were only right handed avatars to play... we wouldn't buy a game ....ever.


Nice to actually see left handers get some loving...for once.

[ond]

But that is different than saying - even if the fix everything *but* the handedness and appearance customization I'll not get the game - seems to me to be missing the point of RPG's.

Mike

Ok, i agree with that.

Want i would like to express is that this small things that are missing "left, right handed, customization, missing imap" indicated that
1. Developers are not experienced in RPG games...which is highly unlikely...we have Bradley as part of team
2. They didnt have time to add this things ... the game is rushed.

I am playing games over 10 years , so i was eager to have this one "RPG from old school", instead we have another rushed game on market that could be much greater with more time.

What is most disappointing that even with Bradley name everything is today about making "money".

[Zothen]

This was never meant to be an old school RPG. In fact, knowing Bradleys former titles, its some kind of experiment. To me, its not that surprising that the game got starting problems, apart from being released too early.

The most important fact is that the whole team is working on this issue, obviously very interested in our feedback, to make this game as good as it can be.

EDIT:
@Velvet:
I understand your point, that customization is an important RPG feature.

[malvado]

I believe that the whole project was doomed allready from the first day, I am no programmer but if you have a look at the file structure of the game and compare it to more recent games you can see that it is a mess.

I believe that what has been done is an intense modification on an old engine, namely the one used in W&W, probably most of the programming has been done by D.W. Bradley himself and such things as shaders and more advanced programming techniques were added on a later stage. The geometry is very like the one used in W&W game and even though that isn't a bad thing the problem is that the engine used was written between 98 to 2000 so it's quite dated even with it's modification. Evidence to support this can be found in your game folder, just have a look at the DEEP6 file which is dated 98, this file is also found as is in the W&W game folder.
The game is probably very limited because of the use of this engine and a lot of problems appeared because of it's use and that's probably also why we have such limitations such as the number of npc's , the empty houses and worst of all the lack of depth in the game.

As such I can understand the decision to remove NPC's from the game just based on this fact, since they would probably just add even more problems to the game in form of bugs and broken conversation lines, probably this lies in how the game is organized as it seems that each npc needs his own file for everything (behavior, speech, walking path etc.).
To be honest, the game just looks like a bloody mezz from the way the game files are organized and I wouldn't doubt that this is what is giving them so much extra work.

But I am starting to understand D.W. Bradley now, and that is that he is a very brave man who with very limited funds made a very good alpha of what the game could be someday and that he probably never had too much funding to help him out anyway. If he just could have made the decision to wreck the old game engine and made a new and modern one from scratch, even a good solution would even be to have borrowed engines such as painkillers which has pretty decent graphics allready.

It's a pitty that the game has come to what it is today, mind you it's not an Bad game as it can be entertaining and fun from time to time, but if you would have to compare to todays standard then the game dosen't even achieve the average status.

Also instead of just removing completely the button's which make character customization it would be nice to see in the Readme file an statement about if this is going to be an feature or not.

Now let's cross our fingers and hope that I'm wrong in most of my statements, and that it will be easy to fix the issues the game have, at least those which seems most important at the moment :

Ghost towns (get some furniture so you don't feel they are empty shells).
Broken skills (parry, Alchemy, and a few others).
The opportunity to take quests for which you don't fullfill the requierements.
Fix the Logbook with more entries and more information about each quest.
Hopefully character customization.
ALT + TAB.
Right Handedness.
Auto-map.

[Crimthan]

I preordered the game a while ago. The game has looked like very promising, and I generally like to support the RPG-genre, since so few true RPG's are released. However RPG dot's news, and these complaints I have read on these forums worried me enough to have my order cancelled.
Apparently some of the issues are fixed on this new patch, but if the character customization (which was apparently completely removed from the game) and the right-handed combat aren't implemented before the European release, I am never going to buy this game.

This is sad, but the aesthetics matter me alot more than they do to many others.

I do also care about character appearance customization as evidenced in the other thread I started. There are MANY more people like that out there. Having other people say they don't care for it is NOT going to make this go away. There are enough of us that do want it, and WERE EXPECTING IT, to warrant this as an issue worth seriously addressing.

One thing that bothers me about the online community: If some don't care one way or the other about something that others want, they'll speak against it, even though having said feature will not affect the naysayers' game whatsoever. Why do people do this? There are features people want that I don't care about - like automapping. HOWEVER, it is important to many people, so it should be in the game, and they were EXPECTING IT; thus it should be delivered.

Those of you that post against expected ideas just for the sake of it: stop trolling and go about your business. Have a touch of empathy.

[Zothen]

Hi Crimthan!

Youre absolutely right about not speaking against wishlists from others. But I think the important word is priority here. Regarding myself, the developers can add hundreds of new features in the coming months as long as they realize that bugs/quest/balancing/multiplayer issues have to be fixed first.

Character customization as a start feature is important, too, for further gameplay and developing a more unique character especially in multiplayer play.

We all can definetely play AND enjoy that game without an automap at this point, just as an example. There are simply more critical things to fix first, then theres no point in not adding an automap feature.

[NFLed]

... these complaints I have read on these forums worried me enough to have my order cancelled.

Hence the problem with message boards like these. The very loud and immature people who post over and over and over the same complaints not seeing the forest for the trees (so to speak) get read much more by people like you than those who are more reasonable and that paints an unclear picture of the game.

That is *not* to say that anyone who doesn't like or even hates this game is loud and immature and it is *not* to say that there are few who don't like the game. However, on any forum loud and immature people tend to be the ones who don't like a game and they are also the ones who tend to dominate a forum. I've seen it happen on umpteen million PC game message boards and it is sad.

[Nox]

Hence the problem with message boards like these. The very loud and immature people who post over and over and over the same complaints not seeing the forest for the trees (so to speak) get read much more by people like you than those who are more reasonable and that paints an unclear picture of the game.

That is *not* to say that anyone who doesn't like or even hates this game is loud and immature and it is *not* to say that there are few who don't like the game. However, on any forum loud and immature people tend to be the ones who don't like a game and they are also the ones who tend to dominate a forum. I've seen it happen on umpteen million PC game message boards and it is sad.

I'm sorry, but you'll have to show me where the picture is unclear. Let's be honest about this - the game has some good gameplay elements but the content appears to be completely missing, other than quest critical npcs.

The rooms are bare, there's nothing, and I mean -nothing- anywhere even doors, rugs and chairs - no decorations, no -anything-

I don't know what happened to this game, but it's almost like they had no content designers or they didn't let them at the game.

This game is bare, bare bones and it's buggy and incomplete at that. No char customization is the least of it, but numerous undocumented disabled features, lack of any flavor content or npcs, lack of side-quests, lack of scripted encounters, lack of good design.

What's unclear about this? It's fixable, but it's not a complete game.

[Xyyth]

I don't think anyone associated with the game can really say much of anything about what happened at this point. If the executives at Dreamcatcher get ticked off, they could pull all support for this game and just dump it. So nobody is talking. Nobody really knows for sure which side is at fault for the pre-mature release and we only speculate.

I suggest we just drop it and let them fix it. What has happened has happened and they know already that the majority of their customers are unhappy about it.

[dhvyse]

I preordered the game a while ago. The game has looked like very promising, and I generally like to support the RPG-genre, since so few true RPG's are released. However RPG dot's news, and these complaints I have read on these forums worried me enough to have my order cancelled.
Apparently some of the issues are fixed on this new patch, but if the character customization (which was apparently completely removed from the game) and the right-handed combat aren't implemented before the European release, I am never going to buy this game.

This is sad, but the aesthetics matter me alot more than they do to many others.

Velvet, although we do complain alot on the forums, and yes this is a VERY buggy game for something you can pickup in stores right now, but that doesn't stop it from being a very promising game. Most importantly its fun.

Combat is great, multiplayer is fun, story is there, it just needs some patches. The complaining from me is just to keep the devs on there toes to let em know we want fixes fast!