[Shodanbot]

necroslut, on 03 May 2018 - 02:47 AM, said:

That would be a valid point, except there's a help screen right where you start. If someone chooses not to read it then it's either because they though they didn't need it when they apparently did - stupidity - or because they couldn't be bothered to take a moment to glance it over - laziness. It's not like it's a 300 page manual; it's a single screen - most of which is backstory which can be skipped over if so desired. It takes like half a second to look it over its contents and see if there's anything of use to you.

I disagree with you just a little bit. Stupidity? No. Laziness? Certainly. In my profession, I wouldn't be quick to call myself lazy. It wouldn't be of any benefit to be lazy. Stupid is relative, but I have been accused of it a few times. In games and other things of this sort, frivolous things, I can afford to be lazy or even stupid. And I completely ignored that info on my first playthrough and I'll tell you why.

First: If you want people to read input information don't EVER call your instructions "Read Me!" It doesn't matter how many exclamation points you put on it, I think the safe bet is to assume most players won't read it. Don't call it something dry like "Instructions" either. Making it a different colour from the rest of the options in the main menu would be a better way to catch the player's attention. Making it "flash" until the player clicks on it, while obnoxious, will get a player's attention immediately.

Second: Don't prominently display the blurb at the top of the screen with the input info in a diminutive font at the bottom. People read from the center-top down, despite the bad efforts of widescreen monitor, TV, and modern OS producers to change this. So maybe moving the blurb to the bottom and the important input info to the top would be a good way to get players to at least skim the input info first, before ignoring the flavour text at the bottom. Even better, move the blurb and tips to a second page and credits to a third page. They may have already read the blurb on the Steam/GoG store page, so why make that the first thing they see on these screens?

Quote

If you're a professional reviewer it's even worse than stupidity and laziness - it's incompetence or negligence. Back in the day that would have gotten you chewed out by the boss, but the modern youtube reviewers don't have bosses to answer to.

Third: Placing that input info with the rest of the key bind options screen might be the best thing to do. I didn't watch Yahtzee play the game, but I read here that he looked for the quicksave input key in the key binds screen and couldn't find it. I wouldn't call that lazy. He did one more step than me. That's a design failure to communicate input info where it ought be communicated.

[Micky C]

Any word on the latest Ion Maiden happenings?

[Lunick]

Micky C, on 13 May 2018 - 07:01 PM, said:

Any word on the latest Ion Maiden happenings?

It's in development

[DavoX]

[xMobilemux]

DavoX, on 18 May 2018 - 09:31 AM, said:

When and where can one get one of these?

[DavoX]

I'm sure more info will be available soon! I don't even know myself There's a high chance that it's at the same time the game releases on Steam but don't quote me on that.

[lamduck]

DavoX, on 18 May 2018 - 09:47 AM, said:

I'm sure more info will be available soon! I don't even know myself There's a high chance that it's at the same time the game releases on Steam but don't quote me on that.

Any impending release heads up you can give on this forum would be greatly appreciated. I would imagine they will go fast. Thank you for the video!

[NightFright]

It's so satisfying to see the 3DR logo on a retail game box once again. The good old times have returned!

[Doom64hunter]

I'm going to be so disappointed if the final version doesn't contain a cheat code called IMMEEN

[Tea Monster]

Wait, "IBM 3.5""?? How many floppies does it come on?

[NightFright]

One. With a USB stick integrated. It has been already announced and presented before.

[blizzart]

Doom64hunter, on 18 May 2018 - 11:13 PM, said:

I'm going to be so disappointed if the final version doesn't contain a cheat code called IMMEEN

http://www.en.magicg...en-cheat-codes/

[stumppy84]

If this does well do you guys think more build games will be made?

[MrFlibble]

Doom64hunter, on 18 May 2018 - 11:13 PM, said:

I'm going to be so disappointed if the final version doesn't contain a cheat code called IMMEEN

To help the players who got stuck in very scary and confusing places?

[NightFright]

There were any?

[Sanek]

stumppy84, on 19 May 2018 - 08:49 AM, said:

If this does well do you guys think more build games will be made?

Considering it's not expensive AAA project, it's already evident that IM did well.
However, I doubt there'll be many Build games in the future, at least the commerical ones.
If any other studios show interest in the engine, I'm positive that they'll not use Eduke32...unless Voidpoint will be involved in the development.

[Mark]

Are the sales numbers and development costs posted somewhere?

Without those all I can guess is it was well accepted by the community. Not financially a winner yet.

[oasiz]

I'd argue that time is more of a nuisance here than anything
Most of us have full-time jobs on the side, not to mention family life.

From what I can tell is that the game has been doing quite well for an early access title and we're going to start really counting once the full game is out as you're essentially still pre-ordering the game as it is.

Financially, I've yet to get a paycheck on this, actually I've financed some small parts out of my own pocket as well.
But really, it's a passion project for all of us and I believe any sane person would have quit a long time ago
Hours/cost are hard to compare due to this, many have worked hard until wee hours and everyone has their turf to do.

Maybe some day we'll spill the beans on the details but it has surely been a bit of a ride since 2015 !

[Hendricks266]

Mark., on 21 May 2018 - 03:08 AM, said:

Are the sales numbers and development costs posted somewhere?

This is not information the public is entitled to know.

[Mark]

Which is exactly why I questioned Sanek's post about how well IM is doing.

[NightFright]

Another way of answering: The numbers are somewhere, but not in a place any of us is supposed to see. Or needs to see. If the game is doing well, they'll let you know sooner or later. And maybe make more. After it is finished, that is.

[Doom64hunter]

Mark., on 21 May 2018 - 03:08 AM, said:

Are the sales numbers and development costs posted somewhere?

Without those all I can guess is it was well accepted by the community. Not financially a winner yet.

I mean you can kind of extrapolate the relative success of the game by comparing the total number of reviews of Ion Maiden to the total number of reviews of other games.
Of course, with this I am making the assumption that the ratio of reviews vs. total number of owner is about the same for every game on Steam. This might not be true in every case, since there are a lot of instances where people buy games in bulk on sales but then never play them, but I think it is a reasonable assumption to make when restricting the timeframe to the opening month, i.e. the first month in which the game was first released on Steam, Early Access or otherwise.

It also does not factor in sales through GOG or sites like 3DRealms, although I think it is reasonable to assume that compared to the number of sales on Steam, the sales made through these platforms are for the most part negligible. Furthermore, I think the number of sales/reviews on Steam alone is enough to extrapolate how well a game did, and it is unlikely that if a game fails on Steam, it could somehow perform better on GOG or another third (or first) party platform.

You used to be able to do more accurate predictions using SteamSpy, but Valve changed the default settings of Steam accounts to hide game ownership, and SteamSpy now requires you to have an account, log in and do some other bullshit I can't be arsed to do.
So I will base the following analysis entirely using the number of public reviews for each game on Steam.

In any case, Ion Maiden was released into Early Acces on February 28th 2018, and currently has about 610 reviews. It gathered around 500 reviews during its first month of release.

If we compare this to other modern retro shooters, we get the following results:

• STRAFE currently has about 1020 reviews and reviews were opened in May '17. The review graph shows that during the first month of its release, it got about as many reviews as Ion Maiden did. Furthermore, it did not have Early Access.
  
• Dusk currently has 1050 reviews, and reviews were opened in January '18. It was a bit more successful than Ion Maiden, gathering ~700 reviews within the first month of release in Early Access.
  
• AMID EVIL has around 250 reviews and was put out in March '18. Its launch into Early Access was relatively unsuccessful, gathering less than 200 reviews in the first month.
  
• Hellbound has about 300 reviews and was put onto Steam in early May '18. It's probably too early to make an accurate prediction on this one, but the trend shows that it will most likely perform slightly worse than Ion Maiden in its first month. It also launched into Early Access.
  
• Devil Daggers has a staggering 3130 reviews, and was put onto Steam in late February 16'. Definitely the most successful game of its kind. One thing to note here is that this was before Steam Direct was introduced, meaning there was less of a clusterfuck on the Steam Store, and that it had much less competition. On the other hand, it continued to receive hundreds of reviews well into late 2017, only starting to slow down by 2018 (where coincidentally, many modern Retro Shooters, including Ion Maiden, started being released. I wonder if there's a correlation...) Also note that it did not release in Early Access.
  
• Serious Sam's Bogus Detour was released in June '17, has around 150 reviews, and got most of these during the first month. It performed pretty badly, and did not release in Early Access.
  
• Overload was put into Early Access on May '17, has about 220 reviews total, and got 50 during the first month. It also didn't perform very well so far.
  
• Rise of the Triad started pretty slow when it was released in January '13, with only 100 reviews in the first month, but it picked up later on. It currently sits at around 1500 reviews, and of course, did not release into Early Access.
  
• Just for shits and giggles, let's look at Quake Champions. It was released in August '17, and currently has about 3'500 reviews. It got only about 1'400 reviews during its first month of release into Early Access, which is pretty weak for a AAA shooter I have to say.

And to compare it to some Retro Shooters rereleases, let's take a look at how well the Nightdive Studios remasters did:

• Turok : ~400 reviews in the first month (~1350 in total)
  
• Turok 2: ~500 reviews in the first month (~800 in total)
  
• System Shock: Enhanced Edition : ~50 reviews in the first month (welp, 400 in total as of now)
  
• Strife: Veteran Edition : ~70 reviews during the first month (welp, and only 200 overall. Considering it was released in 2014, that's a truly pathetic performance)

So overall, of the listed 13 games, Ion Maiden was at least as good or outperformed 9 of them.
Of course, if you compare Ion Maiden to the usual release on Steam (as in, any game, no matter what genre or how well-known it is), then Ion Maiden is unbelievably successful. Why? Because the average game on Steam gets around 0-50 reviews nowadays.

When considering future performance, one problem here is that we don't really have any data on how an Early Access Retro Shooter performs when it comes out of Early Access. Funnily enough, as of the time of writing, not a single one that was released in Early Access has left it so far.
Though if we look at games like The Long Dark, Subnautica, Darkest Dungeon, Wasteland 2 and Divinity: Original Sin 2 a release out of Early Access usually does come with a massive boost of sales, so we can be very optimistic in that regard.

Judging from all of this, I'd say the game is doing relatively well. Not Devil Daggers "amazingly holy shit wow wtf" kind of well, but it's doing well.

(Damn, that's the second time I wrote a huge essay in this thread)

[Zaxx]

Doom64hunter, on 21 May 2018 - 12:58 PM, said:

When considering future performance, one problem here is that we don't really have any data on how an Early Access Retro Shooter performs when it comes out of Early Access.

At this point Early Access is the only thing that makes me a bit worried about the game's success. The problem with EA is that you basically have to launch your game two times: once when the initial EA version releases and then again when the final game is out. That takes a fair bit of planning I guess and in the case of Ion Maiden the pretty great buzz it got so far could end up being a bad thing because by the time the real game comes out the general public has already forgotten about its existence. I bet that a lot of reviewers who published stuff for the EA version won't revisit the game when it launches properly because there are a lot of games out there and when it comes to 3DR... so far they weren't the shining example of competence when it comes to handling stuff.

[Micky C]

How many of these early access games release the unpolished yet full version, compared to a relatively polished demo as was the case with Ion Maiden? The game's size will increase substantially at the full release, with new levels, weapons, enemies and locations. This will make it easier to advertise, as there'd be a lot of cool new, previously-unseen stuff to put in videos.

[Zaxx]

Sure, there's a pretty fat chance that the full version will be an irresistible package of awesome but there is just so much shit on Steam these days that visibility is a problem even for good games. Long story short 3DR has to promote the game correctly at launch because I've seen too many great titles that failed simply because they got buried under all the asset flips and shoddy mobile ports that pollute the land of Gaben lately.

Edit: Also: a Switch version is a must, that's where the money is for indie games these days.

[TerminX]

I'm not worried.

[MetHy]

That's a good analysis Doom64hunter, but some of these comparisons don't seem fair.

I'm sure Strife VE was a lot more successful than it seems, I got the game, beat it twice, and it never occured to me to post a review simply because it's an old game most people should know about and I felt it was not necessary.
Serious Sam Bogus Detour is a top down shooter, and afaik that's not a genre as popular as FPS, even counting exceptions like Hotline Miami.
I've never heard of Overload so perhaps they want to wait for full release before advertising more. It also says "VR" in the tags, so if that's correct and the full version supports VR, it may gain more attention.
Devil Daggers is not as ambitious as the others, as far as I understand it's just an arena mode, as if all there was to IM was the QOTH mode. As a consequence it only costs 5 bucks, so it's more likely to have impulse buys looking for a cheap quick fun, as it appears under the filter for cheapest games on the store. Also that's 5 bucks at full price, since 2016 it probably was on sale a few times.

Still a good analysis, which gives a rough idea.

[Doom64hunter]

MetHy, on 21 May 2018 - 11:55 PM, said:

That's a good analysis Doom64hunter, but some of these comparisons don't seem fair.

I'm sure Strife VE was a lot more successful than it seems, I got the game, beat it twice, and it never occured to me to post a review simply because it's an old game most people should know about and I felt it was not necessary.
Serious Sam Bogus Detour is a top down shooter, and afaik that's not a genre as popular as FPS, even counting exceptions like Hotline Miami.
I've never heard of Overload so perhaps they want to wait for full release before advertising more. It also says "VR" in the tags, so if that's correct and the full version supports VR, it may gain more attention.
Devil Daggers is not as ambitious as the others, as far as I understand it's just an arena mode, as if all there was to IM was the QOTH mode. As a consequence it only costs 5 bucks, so it's more likely to have impulse buys looking for a cheap quick fun, as it appears under the filter for cheapest games on the store. Also that's 5 bucks at full price, since 2016 it probably was on sale a few times.

Still a good analysis, which gives a rough idea.

True, the remasters probably aren't a good comparison because they're older games, and people may not leave reviews for them since most people already know what they are. So there's probably a different ratio of reviews to total sales than with entirely new games.
Bogus Detour I wanted to include since it stems from a series of FPS games, and because it derives a lot of inspiration from other First Person Shooters. Also, I already knew it didn't do very well in terms of sales and popularity, so I wanted to see if that was reflected in its reviews. This seems to be the case.
Overload had a kickstarter, which is probably why there's not that many reviews. I assume many people are also waiting for the full game before reviewing it, which may also be the case for Ion Maiden. I probably should have separated the games by Early Access and non-Early Access in that case, but oh welll.

About Devil Daggers, that's actually true, the pricetag definitely does determine how many sales there are overall. It's also a much more lightweight shooter, easy to pick up and play for a short period of time, which may attract more people.
My analysis right is just an estimation of the relative number of sales based on how many reviews the games has, and not an estimation of how much money it made in total through those sales, so it's quite possible that Devil Daggers, despite seemingly having tons more sales than Ion Maiden, made a similar amount of money overall. I guess to extend the analysis, we could now take the price of each game during its first month of release, and then rank them based on that.

[NNC]

The good thing about IM is that it used an upgraded old engine and pushed into its limits (well, the limits of Build engine are in discussion since 1997), instead of using a relatively new engine like Unity and making an intentionally ugly game like Dusk. It's a much more authentic way to make a retro game imho.

[Forge]

TerminX, on 21 May 2018 - 08:41 PM, said:

I'm not worried.

You shouldn't be.
There are bigger fish out there than Ion Maiden.
IM is quality bait.