[ck3D]

For the curious, while chatting with Pavigna I just remembered and retrieved the original photo that inspired AWOL's Dubai map and its concept in the first place:

[Sanek]

I was a bit worried about Mikko since he was inactive for a very long time (despite new releases), but he finally made a news blurb today about AWOL, so I suppose there'll be a review at some point: https://msdn.duke4.net/index.php

[Sanek]

[Fantinaikos]

[Radar]

I couldn't take his attitude seriously watching that. He just comes off as ready to crap on anything he sees.

[Reaper_Man]

Unfortunately, "taking a crap on things", and just general negativity and vitriol (usually under the guise of "cynicism"), seems to be an incredibly popular form of entertainment online these days. I don't think it's very new - I've always referred to it as "the AVGN syndrome" - but it definitely seems to have hit a new tenor the last several years. I don't know if I can get particularly upset at the guy, this is what his audience wants and if he isn't the one making it for them, then someone else would and we all gotta eat somehow, right? It's just a shame that no one at any point in the transaction stopped to ask themselves, "Is this really what I want to spend my precious few years on earth doing?"

Not that AWOL is without criticism, much less faults or bugs, even the handful of ones that he saw during the first 12 hours or so the game was live before we pushed the first patch. Which I do appreciate he says right up front. That said, there's a certain amount of Build weirdness often just called "jank" that people familiar with the engine and its quirks just accept that average audiences don't, and I'm not sure I blame them for it either. For example, right at the start of the 2nd map he clips through the sprite ceiling where the M4 is. This is definitely Build being weird in a way we all have seen a thousand times, but 99.9% of people playing the game won't understand that.

I guess my point is that, all of these factors combined, I can say on behalf of the rest of the team, we don't take it personally or let it bother us. I mean the guy clearly had fun if he played it for 4 hours straight. It's a shame he fought it every step of the way, and it's disappointing he played it immediately after release before most of the glaring bugs he ran into were fixed, but it is what it is.

(Also for the record, I have never seen his content before and only knew of his name in passing but didn't watch his stuff.)

[Jblade]

I wouldn't worry about his opinion anyway, since he did a video on AMC and used the worst possible screenshot for the video which completely sold everything we did short. When he tried to cover our last release, he played on a harder difficulty than he should of done and spent the whole time complaining about the design. It was a proper head hitting desk moment; but you guys are on Steam and loads of people really enjoy the game so that's much more important than one minor YT farming the bugs for clicks.

[Danukem]

Jblade, on 02 October 2022 - 07:39 PM, said:

I wouldn't worry about his opinion anyway, since he did a video on AMC and used the worst possible screenshot for the video which completely sold everything we did short. When he tried to cover our last release, he played on a harder difficulty than he should of done and spent the whole time complaining about the design. It was a proper head hitting desk moment; but you guys are on Steam and loads of people really enjoy the game so that's much more important than one minor YT farming the bugs for clicks.

I don't remember who it was, but there was a youtuber who played Demon Throne and he picked the hardest difficulty without knowing anything about the game. He quit in frustration complaining about the bullshit deaths (which were caused by his difficulty choice and not knowing the game). I think this sort of thing is very common. So yeah, just focus on your actual fans and building a real fan base and try not to worry about the occasional random youtuber who doesn't understand what you are doing.

I think if we give into that kind of pressure we will end up making games that are more bland and easy -- typical stuff made for mass audiences with long tutorials and simple mechanics and level design (to reduce confusion).

[Jblade]

Quote

I think if we give into that kind of pressure we will end up making games that are more bland and easy -- typical stuff made for mass audiences with long tutorials and simple mechanics and level design (to reduce confusion).

Yes - at the end of the day there's now dozens of relatively simplistic shooters on Steam; there's space for much more complicated offerings especially since we're not even charging for them.

[oasiz]

Jank in Build is like Jank in atari 2600 games.
One was designed to run combat & Pong and the other was for Duke Nukem III (To be released late 94) along with other doom-like competitors.
In the end both ended up being pushed way beyond what they were intended to do, and that's where a large part of the identity & charm comes from.

At the time being rather state of the art while being budget conscious helped with their popularity, but neither have an easy time appealing beyond their generation.

They do offer an experience that's hard to capture elsewhere, it will never appeal to everybody and that's ok.

[Šneček]

I enjoy the game a lot. Unfortunately, in that skyscraper part of the Dubai mission, the game is lagging so much that it's quite hard to play. Does anyone have the same problem?

[Mark]

Many players have a lag issue with that map. The whole thing is barely playable for me with areas down in the single digits for framerate. But I run an old system.