Author Topic: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds  (Read 5312 times)

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Offline Teeth

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #30 on: December 13, 2014, 07:52:22 pm »
+1
Your argument completely ignores that the main goal of doing a Kickstarter is to receive funding.

Offline Molly

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #31 on: December 13, 2014, 08:40:48 pm »
+3
Your argument completely ignores that the main goal of doing a Kickstarter is to receive funding.
This.
Not to mention that perception is coupled with presentation and that is the main point that bugs me about this campaign. Anyway...

I had a long talk with a friend of mine today about Melee and the KS campaign and he told me his view and impression. It was interesting to hear for me because he never played crpg, he never played Mount and Blade... and those are the people a sucessful campaign needs. Oh, he actually backed at Alpha Access tier anyway...

The very first thing he said was that he wouldn't have heard anything about Melee if I hadn't told him. Most stuff he backed on KS, he knew about it even before the campaign started. I can come up the several examples of prominent campaigns right from the top of my head BUT those had some mighty developer name behind them so it's questionable if relevant or not.

Second thing he came up with was the lack of updates. He said that every other project he backed put out way more updates about even minor stuff and engaged more efficiently with the community that way. Not enough communication.

Then he had the impression that the whole campaign seemed like it wasn't prepared enough and done in a quick and bit sloppy way. Lots of edits and shifting around... stuff like that.

Another point he made was that people might not be able to distinguish between popular projects like Kingdom Come and Melee because on a first glimpse they seem very similar. And buddies of him that he tried to persuade into backing basically said "Why? I already backed Kingdom Come. They look too similar to warrant another backing." Seems it doesn't point out well enough the competitive multiplayer on a quick glimpse. Maybe lack of actual melee fighting footage.

Of course I have my personal opinion but I don't wanna write that down right now. I wanted to write down his views as the experience of someone completely uninvolved in the game, a regular "customer" and gaming enthusiast.
He actually made several other minor points that I can't remember properly right now. I might post those later on if I can remember them...
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Offline Micah

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #32 on: December 13, 2014, 09:02:35 pm »
0
Your argument completely ignores that the main goal of doing a Kickstarter is to receive funding.
It does. Because i am of the opinion that errors are the necessary means to move forward and learn and not get stuck at them. They dont mean a fail if you dont reduce yourself to this context. The nurtured fear of mistakes is what makes people dumb and think small, where instead they shoud be something to strive for and to embrace imo. As a very smart, analytic mind that you are, i hope you agree with me, that errors can be seen as seen as something different than just fail (eventhough they have to be accepted as what they are) ... they might be even more worth than successfull attempts, because they are what makes you really learn and evolve and not just confirm your opinion. IF you are willing to accept them as possible outcome that is.
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I kinda agree with some points regarding the presentation and the distinction part... and i have my own ideas aswell .. but, like you said, they seem not to be that important compared to the overall problem of how unspectacular the core idea for MBG was perceived ... but please dont tell me , you had really known that beforehand .. noone really did .. eventhough the complaining faction of people appear to have been right in this case .. NOONE really knew before it was tested!
I also like to point out that the particular presentation and also many other complaints  are only minor things that would have been overlooked , if the core concept was received better by people. It just didnt cut it for them ... like for instance Epic possibly could(thats just an example). If the core concept is accepted, then many the other problems resolve themselfes .. like spreading the word by word of mouth and constructive criticism would follow naturally.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2014, 11:42:49 pm by Micah »
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Offline Grumbs

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #33 on: December 13, 2014, 09:11:39 pm »
+1
Ofc the main goal is to get funded, but they succeeded in some very important tertiary goals. They know exactly what to use to promote the game next time they present it: Stronghold mode + melee combat details.  These are the things that must be presented in a polished fashion. The "sequel to cRPG" angle doesn't really cut it as a selling point, they need to set it apart in a convincing way. Anyway if they didn't do a kickstarter now they would not have learned all the stuff they learned, and would not have announced that they were working on a game with a bit of fanfair like they did

Playable demo seems to be consuming their attention atm and it might be a bit late at this point
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Offline Molly

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #34 on: December 14, 2014, 10:42:47 am »
+6
That's where I tend to disagree now, Grumbs. I would have said before that Melee combat needed more focus but now I don't believe that anymore...

For us, the most important part of the game is the more involving and flexible, more demanding melee combat, best looked at en detail with a scalpel. For all those people you gonna need for money making, I doubt they look at it that detailed. Actually, I am pretty sure by now that they don't.
They see "Melee sword fighting, like what M&B did and Kingdom Come does too, right?" and are done with it. The combat system is a rather bad selling point honestly because when you have to explain a selling point for 10 minutes, you already lost half the customers after the first 2 minutes in :P

My suggestion: Mass-PVP Multiplayer, huge maps, persistent game modes like Stronghold, shit ton of gear and customization. Those are the points that Kingdom Come, Chivalry and M&B can't deliver.

They all have "melee", ofc not nearly as good as M:BG will have it, but that obviously doesn't sell.

I have another point which I hinted at in my post before, though. But it might be unfair since I dunno anything about the personal situations of the DonkeyCrew members but those have probably a big influence:
I had the impression that the campaign was badly prepared in advance. All the content seemed as it was created with a hot needle instead of having it already half-way done somewhere in the drawer as I would have expected it to be. At least the standard mandatory updates.

And I am not really criticizing here. I thought as well that the 360° combat would be the best way to go. I think more of it as a résumé, a conclusion.
It ain't over yet, there were a lot of projects which got funded in the last 2 days. But we, as supporters, have the luxury and time to already start thinking about it...
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Offline Grumbs

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #35 on: December 14, 2014, 12:31:53 pm »
+1
The most popular thing thats got people talking about the game is a gif of the 360 degree combat (http://9gag.com/gag/aNoRRp0). In a game about medieval guys hitting each other, thats what you want to show people imo - what is unique about the combat. Then you want to show why people are hitting each other, what are the reasons to fight and play the game (stronghold, mass pvp, levelling up,character customisation, improving your own skill etc). I think when they first presented the game it was pretty slick and professional, but didn't really show off the melee combat enough (and even made it look worse imo with the noscope360 attacks, and I don't think it looked that good when you first see someone getting hit when going up a ladder) and it didn't show stronghold with enough detail

I also feel the 360 combat needs to be explained a bit more - why does attacking in 360 degrees improve the game if you block in 8 directions? Weapons as physical objects needs to be explained. Will you need to aim for certain body areas to get past armour? Will you do more damage if you hit certain areas so need full control?
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Offline The_Bloody_Nine

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #36 on: December 14, 2014, 01:17:31 pm »
+5
Molly is right, the detailed presentation of how combat works is mainly interesting for people already familiar with M&B or similar; or people who already got interested. The more important thing is how to get that first initial interest. And yeah, it is pretty obvious that devs wasn't certain about this. KS main video was pointed exactly at that (getting people not familiar with M&B), but the title was 'crpg successor' and the whole KS article was to less focused, loosing in detail without making noobs clear what this game is about.

But you all really have to listen what Nessaj and others keep repeating, even if the presentation had it's faults it was not the actual problem. The problem is that waay to few people had the chance to have a look at the project at all. From the few thousands that had a look at it I guess the quota who then pledged was not too bad, what we need is millions who have a look at it.

Offline Mr_Oujamaflip

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #37 on: December 14, 2014, 01:35:21 pm »
0
I agree.

I said before the best idea going forward would be to get to playable alpha stage, send it to some reviewers and Youtubers, get some early access games going to showcase the size of it and especially how cool stronghold is. Get some interest going with a set date for another kickstart, generate all the interest before it starts and off we go.

Offline Thomek

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #38 on: December 15, 2014, 01:20:19 pm »
+1
what we need is millions who have a look at it.

This is prime mistake IMO. Failure to get enough views and attention. There are 3 components to this I think:

* It didn't go "viral" as in spreading all by itself. (Perhaps partly my fault. But how the fuck do you make something like this go viral anyway ?) :D I think somehow, it is near impossible to "plan" something to go viral, unless you have some great sensibility for it.

* Failure to Push It Out There. Theorethically we could have engaged the community in a much stronger way, but alas, we have little manpower to do even that, and active community has not been very active, and is not longer as big as it once was. 26k views on the youtube KS video is pathetic.

* Failure to get the sympathy of the press. It's really sad to me, that IMO who free press is for, is people like us. Who KS is for, is people like us. Uknowns, not fat and established old game devs, riding old names. Not people who have a marketing department and huge resources and experience to put behind a KS. In stead they choose to spend page up and page down, and video on video, pushing Far Cry 4....

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Offline Grumbs

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #39 on: December 15, 2014, 02:25:25 pm »
+1
I think Christmas is just a bad time all round. A lot of games come out so the press has stuff to talk about. People are already spending their dough either on new games or on their family for christmas. Kickstarter is unpopular atm. Even Early Access is unpopular and that lets you play something straight away.

I don't think there was enough new territory explored in the KS video for it to go viral. Its kinda same old stuff if you saw Chivalry or M&B. No mention of 360 combat. The mention of genuinely new stuff like Stronghold comes a bit late in the main video and is pretty vague. The cinematic intro with the guy going up the ladder is decent but not 100% polished. If I did a new video I'd make it more straight to the point without being too flashy. I'd explain straight away what the game is basically while showing cool footage or i'd make the "story" style intro a bit quicker or shorter. Anyway it wasn't a bad effort and probably can't be blamed for the Kickstarter not working out

BTW I think theres a risk of assuming this was a complete failure. 26k views might not seem like much, but thats a lot of people for a game that just appeared from nowhere. I bet it could have been way worse for some random indie game like this is. Thats a lot of people that know about the game that didn't before
« Last Edit: December 15, 2014, 02:31:31 pm by Grumbs »
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Offline Molly

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #40 on: December 15, 2014, 02:44:14 pm »
0
[...]
* Failure to get the sympathy of the press. It's really sad to me, that IMO who free press is for, is people like us. Who KS is for, is people like us. Uknowns, not fat and established old game devs, riding old names. Not people who have a marketing department and huge resources and experience to put behind a KS. In stead they choose to spend page up and page down, and video on video, pushing Far Cry 4....

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This went pretty well, I think. RPS, Warhorse, PCGames.de... I've backed projects with less press exposure :?
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Offline Riddaren

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Re: The scale of Melee Battlegrounds
« Reply #41 on: December 15, 2014, 07:43:55 pm »
+2
One of the reasons I'm on a horse in cRPG is to skip those tedious walks from spawn to battle.
That's also the main reason I don't play siege at all...

With that said and after looking at this video, a horse won't be enough in M:BG. I need a dragon!

:wink:

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Awesome work! So looking forward to this game.