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[hemmingjay]

I would think secretaries/assistants trained to throw out hate mail and answer phones would be cheaper.  Seriously, I can not overemphasis how important good support staff is to any professional.

That is excellent advice, especially for small-time devs who tend to be introverts or at least a little less adept at dealing with people. Anyone lucky enough to have at least some friend or family that can filter media/communications for them is a godsend, making it that much easier to focus on the important things, like making an awesome game for awesome players like EuchreJack.

The Internet can be such a scary place

(Been stalking this thread since the beginning, btw, in the good sense )

We need 30% good support structure and 70% of growing the f--- up by all parties included. Developers get accused of being overly sensitive but I challenge you to share you personal art with the world and deal with game forums as your feedback source.

[MaximumZero]

Well, you could always just look at it like I looked at being booed in the cage: if people are giving you shit, they a) know who you are and b) you've affected them.

So, fuck 'em. Let them squawk. That just means you're marketing properly.

[Kyzrati]

So, fuck 'em. Let them squawk.

Yes, but

Developers get accused of being overly sensitive but I challenge you to share you personal art with the world and deal with game forums as your feedback source.

It's tough to not take things personally... I've been lucky in that I only work on games for a relatively small and mature niche community. Once you expand to include the Greater Internet and all its anonymous filth, immense pressure from the sheer amount of rude negative feedback can be tough to bear, even when it's so obviously unfounded. The fewer people you have working on a title, the more personal it feels, so this issue pops up quite a lot in indie development.

In fact I am fairly certain if Rock Paper Shotgun does indeed cover us, we won't garner positive words.

Not sure why you think an RPS review would be so harsh, hemmingjay. I haven't tried out your game, but after following development it seems to be doing good things.

[Zrk2]

So, I just saw this, and I don't have time to read 30 pages. Is it actually happening? I would totally buy this if I could.

[Kaje]

It is actually happening, it's currently in development - having played one of the earlier Betas I can say it's great fun and shaping up to be really addictive!

[Fikes]

Hemmingjay is pushing to release a completed version of the game this month and he has said some people will get access to an updated version some time soon.

It is had to believe how many pages this is...

The abbreviated version is that Hemmingjay is pushing to release a complete game and avoid early access, betas, and a soft launch. He has repeated that he is confident the game will release this month.

[hemmingjay]

The current plan is to release this month as a true beta, feature complete, and release gold within 2 weeks after for two major reasons.

1) Primarily, we don't have the resources to test our game on the enormous amount of hardware combinations and I don't want to get slammed in reviews for basic launch troubles. We intend to patch any problems with 3 scheduled patches in the first 12 days.

2) Secondly, there is a benefit to doing things this way. Steam puts you on the early access release window for at least 1 million views, which tends to work out to 2-5 days depending on the release schedules(not taking into account the top sellers chart). When a game goes from early access to gold release, it get's placed on the main store page again, for 1 million views at least again. This means Arms Dealer will get twice the front page exposure over the course of a month. This should run right up until the AAA games start to launch on October 10-21 at which point we all get pushed off of the front page.

[hemmingjay]

I need feedback on an idea for the game.

I want to add in moral decisions. I want to add in special requests from Terrorists, Drug Cartels and Religious Zealout groups who ask you to bypass the official channels to deliver them weapons even though they are prohibited. The player is already dealing in a grey market, but in this case they would have to decide if they are willing to have innocent blood on their hands in exchange for much higher profits than usual. The risk of being caught is also much higher. If caught once they get blacklisted from all official suppliers and all normal nations. They can then only deal with the bad people and a private supplier plus the occasional auctions and opportunities from pirates and such. Getting caught again is game over.

The reason for it is to add some moral depth to the game, as well as making a second path/strategy viable. Some players will want to play as white knights, some as bad guys and some straddle the line. What are your thoughts on this? I need to pull the trigger in 2 days to include it in the trailer or not. I also think it could be good for the game's media coverage as issues like that tend to garner attention and conversation.

[MaximumZero]

If you have time to add it into the game, hell yes. The more paths/choices, the better.

[BlindKitty]

Well, I'm back from holidays and I see a new, good idea here, and I like it. I'm not sure about this idea business viability, though - it's a great thing to have in game, a moral choice, especially in a game like this; it's all too easy to go the silly/not-so-bad-after-all route, which all the movies and most of the games dealing with crime do. But the mere possibility of dealing with terrorists may have some negative feedback. I would think that effect might be strong in the USA, but I'm not from there, so I can't really be anything close to sure. Just keep in mind the outrage that started when in one of Call of Duty games you had to shoot the civilians in one of the missions.

But as I said, I would love a game with some real, serious dark side stuff. Not like GTA, where 'killed' civilians get revived by paramedics and walk down the road like nothing happened, or some other 'you-only-kill-bad-guys-you-dirty-criminal' games...

[Sartain]

I need feedback on an idea for the game.

I want to add in moral decisions. I want to add in special requests from Terrorists, Drug Cartels and Religious Zealout groups who ask you to bypass the official channels to deliver them weapons even though they are prohibited. The player is already dealing in a grey market, but in this case they would have to decide if they are willing to have innocent blood on their hands in exchange for much higher profits than usual. The risk of being caught is also much higher. If caught once they get blacklisted from all official suppliers and all normal nations. They can then only deal with the bad people and a private supplier plus the occasional auctions and opportunities from pirates and such. Getting caught again is game over.

The reason for it is to add some moral depth to the game, as well as making a second path/strategy viable. Some players will want to play as white knights, some as bad guys and some straddle the line. What are your thoughts on this? I need to pull the trigger in 2 days to include it in the trailer or not. I also think it could be good for the game's media coverage as issues like that tend to garner attention and conversation.

Depends on how "getting caught" works. If the player can take steps to prevent it, sure, but I don't think I'd like a mechanic that would basically be a game path that you can't leave again and has X% chance of game-over.

[Fikes]

I need feedback on an idea for the game.

I want to add in moral decisions. I want to add in special requests from Terrorists, Drug Cartels and Religious Zealout groups who ask you to bypass the official channels to deliver them weapons even though they are prohibited. The player is already dealing in a grey market, but in this case they would have to decide if they are willing to have innocent blood on their hands in exchange for much higher profits than usual. The risk of being caught is also much higher. If caught once they get blacklisted from all official suppliers and all normal nations. They can then only deal with the bad people and a private supplier plus the occasional auctions and opportunities from pirates and such. Getting caught again is game over.

The reason for it is to add some moral depth to the game, as well as making a second path/strategy viable. Some players will want to play as white knights, some as bad guys and some straddle the line. What are your thoughts on this? I need to pull the trigger in 2 days to include it in the trailer or not. I also think it could be good for the game's media coverage as issues like that tend to garner attention and conversation.

Depends on how "getting caught" works. If the player can take steps to prevent it, sure, but I don't think I'd like a mechanic that would basically be a game path that you can't leave again and has X% chance of game-over.

I agree with this. If it comes down to X% chance of greatly changing the game than I will probably just avoid the option.

Maybe instead it should come with a large global boost to suspicion if you get caught.

[Duuvian]

I'm a little late but I like the idea of having to make choices of morality.

[hemmingjay]

Easy and normal settings will allow the player to recover from being caught initially. Hard mode will severely penalize a player who chooses profit at any cost AND gets caught. Just like in real life, people who do bad things don't always get caught/pay the price.

[MaximumZero]

Would anyone here play on anything other than hardmode? This is the Dwarf Fortress forums, remember.