I recently decided to play some more to see what's new.
I can no longer imagine this world existing at all. Your lack of focus has turned an intriguing idea into a mess. There is no RP left. Without the RP, the game can't decide if it is a God Game, Tower Defense, or City Builder, and is not successfully blending the three.
The core idea is that you are a god, directing villagers to create massive amounts of defense in the hope survive an apocalypse. The game intends its world to be SO dangerous that the hazards ramp up beyond the ability to deal with. You as god are doomed to fail, the danger is so great and continues building. BUT-- this danger magically fails to apply to other forces in your game world. There are HORDES of undead roaming the countryside and yet there are people who choose to wander from place to place. You struggle to survive building crazy amounts of defenses and mazes to protect yourselves, and yet, there are caravans wandering the wilderness (not even on roads) TRADING GOODS like nothing bad is going on out there?
There is little godlike left to this game. The 'god' powers are weak and unimpressive, and the villagers too dumb to do anything by themselves, including auto update and repair roads (as you still have to do this one tile at a time, over 5 levels). The addition of a functional market to your 'dangerous apocalypse'? No. Just no!
Your lack of innovation on names and ideas is not cute. This game is not Elder Scrolls (Khajiit merchant caravans). You forgot to mention that your Catjeet come from "Elsewhere" (Elsweyr). Anything and everything that fails to support the core notion that the world is fatally dangerous ought to go. Or else the original idea has to go and you should pick another one (ONE) on which to build a new game, and do that.
An apocalyptic city survival game sounded awesome. But your design is arguing with itself to a point where I can't believe in it any more. Your lore is what held things together. Break that, and it's just a mess now.
Before you add anything else, ask "Does this actually fit the game I'm making?" Focus on your core idea, before the whole thing runs down the drain.
It sounds like you are misunderstanding what the game is meant to be. From day 1 I never cared much about the lore. The little lore that exists, if you can even call it lore, is just excuses for the game design with a fun, sometimes purposely cliche, twist like the Catjeet.
Many of your posts talk about breaking immersion and lazy lore designs (Fanfict names, the catjeet, etc). The reality is they're there just for the fun of it. I could have easily written some little in depth reason why the provisioners exist, made them friendly gnolls, trolls, or something else. But everything done in the game is done for the sake of fun, and to make people smile.
Future content is going to go even father out there, some of the future biomes planned are completely off the wall; like a "candyland" tileset, where the rocks are made of chocolate and the trees are candycanes, or a "Moon" tileset.
The core purpose and direction of RtR is simply to make a fun game. Not to tell an in depth story, or immerse the player into a world. Sadly, you may be looking for something in RtR that wasn't ever meant to exist.
But, the good news is I am going to overhaul the godlike side in a few patches (Not the next though). I have a ton of plans for churches, worshippers, and many more spells.
I don't have the slightest idea where you get the idea that the game was using 'role-play' as a mechanism to tie the game together from but you'll have to take a second look at that thought process my mans.
RTR, as far as I can see it, is a game that relies nigh totally on its pretty vast array of mechanics to stimulate the player's experience; hence the constant updates to the game's content. I agree with you in saying there isn't much science behind it but as the big-man said above me, that's because there was never supposed to be. I think the game is made fun not because of us role-playing as gods and revelling in the "lore" of the RTR world, but because of the numerous different features the devs have thrown together into this melting pot of tower-defense, city-building, real-time strategy, and simulation, rather than due to whatever RP element you thought it had .
I think role-play games are games where you're clearly supposed to be able to craft your own story or at least really feel like you're emulating a certain type of character. Here, all we have is good ol' fashion pixelating fun of that makes no pretenses to affect to any single genre, or at least does not anymore.
My advice to you is that if you want role-playing games, go play Kenshi. If you want a game that's purpose is solely to be fun and hour-consuming, play RTR.
Then the question is, for those looking happy with the lore concept you threw out in the store blurb and were happy to make up their own ideas based on the premise of it, WHY do you purposely cut them out? Why cut out the lore of a game that showed promise to have a rare concept?
As for the game play... this game has low standards for 'stimulating' game play. Without the lore, I find myself uninterested in playing it. I can find all the mechanics of this game done to a FAR better extent by loading up a different game.
I'm sorry but the lazy knockoff names, is really not cute, they do not make me smile, they make me bang my head on the desk. When I told my GAME DEVELOPER husband about it he called it 'amateur programing'. Without a consistent lore, your game lacks design consistency it is scattered and unfocused, a path that will always lead it to be an amateur game.
I'm sorry, but if that is where you plan to go with this game, I'm going to have to change my positive review of it.
You've played this $10 game for over 250 hours, with almost 50 in the last 2 weeks according to your review. Obviously you enjoyed it or you wouldn't still be here.
I'm not changing my direction. If your "game developer husband" had any sense, he would see the game is rated at 92%, realize I'm obviously doing something right, and be more interested in why the game is a success, not nitpick over minor details and make assumptions.
I'm sorry; you're being completely unreasonable. The game isn't what you thought it was, and all I can do is apologize. Most people enjoy this game, including yourself. So a negative review seems very underhanded.
I feel like you just bought into the game expecting something entirely different than what was planned. The game is going in the direction it has always intended to be; a godlike game with village management and tower defense mechanics.
Additionally, if any lore is worked on, it will happen after the game is nearing leaving Early Access. Working on lore in a game like this during Early Access would be a waste of energy, this isn't a lore driven game. I can write canon excuses for why the mechanics exist later. Most games in this genre don't even have lore, it's just how the genre is. After the fact lore is easy, I can simply say "The Catjeet are nomads who travel from village to village buying and selling their wares, monsters tend to ignore them because while they are intelligent and somewhat humanoid, the monsters have a taste for human flesh and Catjeet taste terrible. So, they tend to ignore the Catjeet unless provoked." Boom, there's your canon lore. But, most people who play these games don't care enough to warrant the time for me to write out everything.
And lo, on the third day, THE LORD said unto his high priestess Beverly Crusher, thou shalt deliver this My message unto My people, that they shall know that THE LORD thy god is a busy god, and that when He saith unto thee that a certain tile of thy tiles needeth a road, thou shalt build thereat a road. Thou shalt not build thereat a path, except that thou shalt thence build thereat a log path. Thou shalt not build thereat a log path, except that thou shalt thence lay down cobble upon it. And it is an abomination unto THE LORD that cobble be not covered by board. But when the board covererth the cobble, woe unto thee who neglecteth laying the stone upon the board, for knoweth thou that THE LORD thy god shall visit His vengeance upon thee, and upon thy progeny, yea, unto the seventh generation, driving thee out from Springland unto the wastes of Death Pass. But thou who layeth the stone upon the board, THE LORD thy god shall surely visit thee like a catjeet bearing gifts in the night, bestowing upon thee His blessings.
You are going to tell me, that mindless zombies willing to walk in line though a maze of death, are capable of mindfully thinking 'oh that's that thing that tastes bad' and then choose to ignore it? -facepalm- This just proves my point, you contradict yourself throughout the game. In order for the MAZING tower defense (what YOU ADVERTISED for the game) to be a valid concept, the aggressors have to be mindless enough to fall for it (after all even animals would learn to avoid that area). Considering we are fighting 'Headless', and undead, I was more than willing to believe that idea and follow the lore that design concept brought... Now you tell me these monsters are smart enough to choose not to eat something because it 'tastes bad'? How does something that is headless eat anyway?... Sorry, not believing it.
You also brought to the table the lore concept of this being a survival game, meaning you are scrounging for supplies, and yet there is a fully functional market, two design concepts that simply do not mesh, and goes against what you advertised for the game.
I do not feel it is underhanded to write a "non-recommending' review to a game that is verging off of its core design concepts, because like it or not just the premise of being a survival tower defense has lore attached to it, lore that is completely broken by the newest updates. This game is not becoming what you have advertised it as, and your defensiveness over constructive criticism, shows a lack of professionalism. If you didn't want criticism, you shouldn't of opened your game up to early access and announce that customers get to 'Have a say' in the game design.
Yes, I did put 250 hours into this game. I did it because I enjoy helping game developers and this game intrigued me with its concept and showed promise. I enjoyed the lore concept put forth by the Tower defense survival game. That is broken now, and instead of realizing what you had was good it just needed to be refined and polished, you are pushing forward reaching for something else entirely. I have no choice but to throw this game into the pile with 'Towns' as something that showed promise, received High early access reviews for concept it put forth, but due to design choices became a failure.
I wish to thank you for your replies, now that I know where this game is headed I will spend my time elsewhere. I hope you are right and that no one else really cares about the 'minor details' of lore and design contradictions.
Wishing you the best in your endeavor.
This is going to become a ridiculous back and forth because I don't feel you're seeing my point. My statement on the lore was just an off the cuff example of how quickly lore can be written to justify the mechanics. My actual point was I have no intention on writing any lore for the game, and that's not a deviation from the original game design anyway, but if I do, it wouldn't be that much trouble after the fact. The game is now, and always has been, to make a fun godlike village simulator with tower defense mechanics. Nothing more. You're the one who decided the game needed lore and is broken without it.
I don't actually care if people believe the world makes sense, that was never the point of the game. The point was to be fun. You've decided on your own it needs to make sense, and you're upset I am deviating from a design I never intended from day 1.
I'm also very familiar with Towns and clocked several hundred hours, its failure has absolutely nothing what so ever to do with design choice. The game was abandoned.
I can understand your frustration, but my point is the core premise you are upset about going off the rails was never planned to begin with. I've normally been polite and understanding with your replies, but what you're doing now is blaming the game for not being something it was never intended to be.
If it's simply not the game for you, I can understand that. But you can't fault the game for deviating from a core mechanic that was never meant to exist in the first place, and thus that's why I'm confused by this post and your review.
@Kiyalynn: How many games do you think are out there that even reach the bare minimum, i.e. that are actually fun?
Even triple A games don't reach that standard these days in my opinion. I think we as gamers are at an all time low.
I am already very glad this game is so much fun in such an early stage, you should be too. Especially since you put 250 hours in. Haha I see what you did there. Very cheeky.
@ Rayvolution: Don't let the vinegar drinkers spoil the fun for you, keep up the good work!
This post reeks of something. Sounds like you had fun and maybe got bored? That happens, you know? What I'm really curious about, is how you can propose that the game has "became a failure", despite the fact that it has an above 90% approval rating recently. I'm really puzzled on how you came to this conclusion on the behalf of the 90%.
On a side note, your "developer husband" (that was a joke, right?), should have a look at the actual code before accusing something of having "amateur programing". Get a grip, and have fun in your future games!
I find it HIGHLY unprofessional that you would post my review here for active fans to troll with negative comments, rather than leaving the comments here to the forums.
You and your fans have been harassing me for a month over a single negative review. Thus the deleting comments.
I do not wish to have my steam account linked to these forums. Please Remove the links to my review and from my review here. I do not wish to be harassed by fans and you anymore. Just leave me alone.
My negative review stands. As far as context goes, it remains here for anyone who decides to check out the forums direct links are unnecessary and unprofessional. Especially since Steam does not want ANYONE posting outside links in the comments.
You do realize that by posting your opinion on an open board you've invited others to discuss it? I don't know if you've actually been flamed by people via private messages or not, but no one here is abusing you. You're playing the victim while attacking Ray for sticking to his vision of the game. Lore was never a strong focal point of the game, and as he mentioned, it can be tacked on later. You're focusing too much on one flimsily-explained mechanic (non-villager Catjeet being ignored by monsters) in a game that hardly has any explanations— just mechanics that can be given lore fluff later.
I like to believe that the Catjeet merchants are ignored because they don't belong to permanent settlements. The monsters only start to appear around settled areas. Perhaps the Catjeet work alone, and their individualism/lack of dedication to a "cause" or "home" makes them not apparent targets to a bunch of creatures that may not have eyes, ears, etc. or a need to eat. My point is that it's not difficult to apply your imagination to unexplained phenomena.
If you've played for 250 hours and consider flaming the dev to be "helping", you've definitely gotten more than your money's worth. Personally, I'd remove that negative review and wait for the game to actually have any lore before attempting to judge it based on that, but that's your choice. The rest of us will keep enjoying the developing game and give suggestions as to the course of the game's development instead of attacking Ray for being "unprofessional" because some things aren't fleshed out and the game won't be tailored to our individual visions.
i LOVE this game (i just saw the new particles and i think THAT is a really big improvement that blew me up), moreover i totally agree with Rayvolution that lore in this kind of games should be one of the latter thing to consider for many reasons.
But, if i have to be honest, this game is so well suited for a story (a tragic one), that i literally CRAWL for some clues on what we are (maybe the dead giant near Merrowshore?), and why monsters exists and search for us (in fact they appear only when we try to bring our influence in a region, like defensive mechanism that react to us, maybe we are the bad ones, the creatures that want to exploit humans in order to gain power).
So PLEASE, if it isn't openly against your vision of the game, think of adding some story when the rest is done, i think the game will gain a lot without losing nothing.