Just to point out, that's exactly what id Software did when they released Keen/Wolfenstein/Doom. They released the game as shareware after only a little beta testing, people tried it/bought it, and then they released a bug-free retail product based on the info people gave them.

In fact the first official public version of Doom was v0.99. It was littered with bugs.

Notch does something similar with Minecraft. It's perfectly fine...

As Joozey said. You can put my name as the starter - i dont mind.

@Redeemer:
Oh, my fault. I must have missed the shareware release of the game then and the massive feedback you got and fixed after that.
Though if this is the "fixed" version, i dont wannt know what your 0.99 shareware candidate looked a like.
Seriously man. You know that you cant compare those two things. Main reason is the fact, that you refuse one vital step of beta testing: the fixing.

And no. Its not perfectly fine to make customers beta testers without them knowing it. Thats a plain rip off and very very very unfair.


I know. Its hard for you and anybody else involved in the game to read the rants and to defend the game.
And you would need to trust me that i wouldnt be that angry if its just about some bugs, or the visual quality, or the lenght of the game aso.
We all here have been at least a few times part of this creation process and we know what the bottlenecks are and the limitations.

The reason why I "rant" is because this game in this state of production CAN NOT BE SOLD. There are quite a bit of reasons why, I mentioned why its unfair to your customers, to the community and how this stuff affects the indie game development movement.

For the sake of all of them I hope you are going to fix this.
Its not too late and the damage can be made undone (most of it), but this requires you to make the next step.

hope to see that happen
cheers

Sure it is fine, but only if you inform the user about that before he buys your stuff. And this should also come with the responsibility to the developer to fix the bugs that occour.


In this point I really disagree with spike, from where ever it was quoted. In my opinion, people like wolfire games, frictional games, dejobaan games and some others are professionals, even though their budget and manpower was and still is for sure quite restricted. What makes them professional for me is that they manage to create fun and successfull games and making a living out of it.

I actually haven't refused to fix the bugs, but actually 75% of them are design bugs.

I could go back and redo the AI of course, which is the one thing that I'm truly responsible for, but only if spike wants me to. I don't make these decisions myself.

Also just to point out, the AI is that bad mostly because of the crummy collision detection in Gamestudio, believe it or not. I did a *lot* of debugging and found that the enemies "teleport" due to a glitchy gliding system... Although as I said earlier, this could've all been worked around if the following two conditions were filled:

1. I had the knowledge that the GS collision system is as crummy as it is; and
2. I had the knowledge to make a better one myself.

Of course both conditions are filled now, so once again, if Spike wants me to redo the AI and/or collision I will do it.


Spike was speaking to the GS community regulars, not the known professionals like the ones you listed.

sid split the thread where the bashing began. i told him to name it lets bash grunts. end of story. now for something of more importance:

i apreciate tis thread. i really do. it shows me where to go as a developer and as a desiger. however, i ahve to tell you that some of your points throught this thread are compeltely and udderly (yes, udderly) wrong.

first off, that is a.) because you are a regular customer and i made the mistake of forgetting that and b.) because of that i havent made it clear enough. i might want to change that.

truth be told, you get PLENTY of information what to do in the game, hints to where the story will go from here. you have the option to shut off the pixelation effect inc ase your eyes hurt. you get alot of information regarding the various quirks of the game and furthermore the game was not developed to be bad. the mistkae here is that NONE of you (well, maybe one or two of you) cared to read the wiki. i packed in three links to the wiki for you to read before playing the game, and you didnt care.
furthermore, NONE of you (and believe me, i know that, i keep track of who buys the game) bought the final game that has not only the story explained, some bugs fixed AND hints at what to do next).

so what i get from your rants, and frankly, those are rants, is that you would not buy quake nowadays because it plays like crap. and donÄt tell me that quake played better than grutns because it didn't. i have just recently played it and it es far worse than grunts.

you tell me i have no idea what i a doing and frankly, that is simply wrong. i know perfectly well what i am doing. you are coming here, bashing a game NONE of you has bought. none of you has taken the time to actually read the provided information regarding the game and none of you has taken the time to at least examine the options screen. i know that, because if you would have, some of your rants would simply not be here.

see, what I learned from all of this, and that is the part that counts really, is that i simply expect too much from my customers. i expect them to actually think for a second before they start playing. i expect them to read the provided information and just think about what the game delivers. that is the biggest mistake i made. i made the mistake of thinking my customers actually have a brain. and you can be sure i will fix this as good as possible in the enxt version.

oh and ps.: i care about the game. i care about the story, the graphics, the elvel design (which is, by the way, a direct homage to an earleir zelda title, so basically you have been bashing the level design of links awakening here for a while. nintendo thanks you) and the music. i care about the presentation and the game in general. the fact that gamestudio refuses to have a good collision system bugs me, but i have to live with that.

and one last word: i respect your criticism. i really do. i am grateful for this thread, as we all can learn something from it. no hard feelings for anyone, on the contrary, i really apreciate it. just try to stay on a formal and nice level okay?

pps.: slin that was from the aum interview

Now that I think of it, this thread reminds me of the Daikatana scandal...

If i had the time to reply but i have to keep it very short:

Blaming the user for your lack of design knowledge is as pathetic as it can be.
Shame on you!

cheers

Sorry for not bashing G.R.U.N.T.S! or any one participating in this "argument". But I think the commentary mode of the Half Life 2 games/episodes is pretty interesting for any game developer, because they tell alot about different parts of game creation/design (in my humble opinion)

I played the Demo too and can subscribe all of the critics.
I was very disappointed of how so many elements that showed potential were not or just barely (and badly executed) used, such as the humor, (only the third time in my long lasting gamingtime, that I turned off the sound, because the speakers voice was scouring unconvincing and fastly annoying, and to concentrate on the other elements of the game) the graphicstyle (The downloadreason and still a great idea) is too repetive and plain in execution, the sound in general sounding cheap,
and most annoying: enemies penetrating walls (and killing me this way), enemies resistant to attacks some rare times and being unescapeable stuck.

Long thing in short: I was hot to buy it, but after playing the Demo (several times) I will never do.

Also some attitude makes me wondering...

Quote:"you have the option to shut off the pixelation effect inc ase your eyes hurt."
A: Its all the Whiteout, thats cause the irritation and tireing of the eyes (and headache of others, I had none)

Quote:"the mistkae here is that NONE of you (well, maybe one or two of you) cared to read the wiki. i packed in three links to the wiki for you to read before playing the game, and you didnt care."
A: I think it is the wrong way of speaking of "mistake" to someone, who just wants to play a game. Only the desinger makes the mistakes to not make it accessible and simple enough. I (A little simple I-play-in-my-rare-spare-time-player)dont want to read a wiki. I dont even want to read a phoukheoun Manual (except for more complex games as roleplay or RTS-Games). I want the game to take me by the hand and show me, where the fun begins, where it evolves, where it reach its peak, and finally ends. A complete Whole, a satisfying experience, worth to go throug a second time just because of the pure and accessible Joy.
Everything else wastes the players time and does rarely much for the game or the experience itself.

Besides, many AAA-titles also lack the descripted above (sadly).

Quote:"furthermore, NONE of you (and believe me, i know that, i keep track of who buys the game) bought the final game that has not only the story explained, some bugs fixed AND hints at what to do next)."
A:The Demo should show the Games full potential, not vice versa...

Quote:"so what i get from your rants, and frankly, those are rants, is that you would not buy quake nowadays because it plays like crap. and donÄt tell me that quake played better than grutns because it didn't. i have just recently played it and it es far worse than grunts."
A: Well, I wouldnt call it a very questionable statemant, but for me, Quake 1 and II was one of the best well-oiled Controls-Leveldesing-Gameplay-Machines until Half-Life 2 raised the max-level.
You cant never compare GRUNTS with Quake except for that you shoot at something egoperspectively.

Quote:"see, what I learned from all of this,"..."is that i simply expect too much from my customers. i expect them to actually think for a second before they start playing. i expect them to read the provided information and just think about what the game delivers. that is the biggest mistake i made."
A:Its not about, what you expect from the player (or costumer, if more valuable for you), its again vice versa.
Its what a player expects from you. It is your task as a designer to find excatly that out and create a media, that combines your personal ideas with concepts fitted and adapted to the expectation of the audiences of whatever kind of media.
And at the very front of everything, the player wants to be entertained, and good entertained.
Everything else has a secundary grade and must be "smuggled" to the player, WHILE he is playing the game, even if it is, to let the player start question things to think about them and make them change their point of view on different or even fundamental things the game brings up to the player.
But saying nothing else as thats the player is too stupid to see the goodness\greatness of a game is... not as good as a lot of sales.

Quote:"i made the mistake of thinking my customers actually have a brain."
A:Well, after all I wrote, I think this statement is quite self explaining. I doubt that this would be a wise strategy to treat (potential) costumers and increase the sales.
Respect for the Audience is fundamental and the only thing thats even higher than the priority to entertain.


This is meant constructive and free of any negative emotions.

The existence of proper feedback received from a direct hit may be questionable at times but the player's attacks are never "resisted." Aside from that comment, though, I pretty much agree with what you say.

@spike: I do agree with much of the criticism in this thread. 80% of it is good advice. I had very little control over the design of this game but it is a fact that I did question it at times. At the least I remember agreeing with Rondidon when he said the dialogue should be trigger based rather than a looping track, and I remember telling you to streamline your levels and apply lots of invisible blocks to optimize and smooth the player's movement.

I have also taken responsibility for the last two big problems, the AI and the collision, but that was an innocent lack of ability than anything else. Honestly, I was led into believing that the GS collision code actually worked, and when I realized it really didn't, I personally fretted a lot about it and I always looked for ways to improve it. I rewrote the player's movement code multiple times to streamline it as best I could, and although I now have the ability to actually perfect it, the greater part of the GRUNTS code is more than a year old and at the time of writing I simply didn't have that ability.

Anyway those are my two cents.