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kalirion: * Open world / Sandbox / Make your own story
I forgot that point.thanks for reminding me :)
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Geralt_of_Rivia: "Episodic"

This translates to: "We couldn't be bothered to carry the risk of game development, so we release an unfinished game (about 1/5 of the planned content) and finance the rest of the development through selling the unfinished first part. If this doesn't work out we don't care that our customers will have paid for an incomplete product because we *never guaranteed* there would be a next episode. On top of that we are a greedy bunch. We know we could never get away with charging 100$ for a game but by chopping it up into 5 pieces for 20 bucks each we can get people hooked on the first episode and then continue to milk them during the next year until we have the 100$ per customer"

I never buy episodic games until all parts have been released and are sold together for a competitive price.
This is complete bollocks.

What episodic games can you mention where the developer has just stopped after episode 3/5?
What episodic games can you mention that costs $20 per episode for 5 episodes?
What episodic games can you mention where the full all-episodes product can reasonably be labeled as incomplete?
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keeveek: "This game was approved by Gender studies"
...What does that even mean?
*Very hard games
*QTES
*No save anywhere/anytime option
*Lack of singleplayer
*Micro-transactions
*MMO
*Real ending only available in the hardest difficulty
*Too much DLCs
*Many escort missions envolving NPCs with the AI of a suicide lemming
*Time-based missions or the "pursuing wall/rising water" ones
Steampunk: I just have zero interest in most things Steampunk

Focus on multiplayer: This seems to be developer speak for "we spent our entire budget on the multiplayer mode, the single player mode is one hour long".

Lifelike/Photorealistic graphics: If I wanted "lifelike/photorealistic" graphics I would go outside.

Grim: Most games that I've heard refer to themselves as "grim" are beyond cheesy and usually takes themselves way too seriously.

Integrated with social media: No. Just no.

Open world: I actually like open world games, however most open world games aren't open world, they're based on hubs. Being able to wander around a hub in between quests doesn't really count as open world (in my opinion).

Retro Graphics/Gameplay: If I want to play something "retro" I'll go play my old games.

Challenging/Hard/Not for Noobs: This seems to be developer speak for "we couldn't create any worthwhile gameplay mechanics so we just made it really simplistic and overly hard".

Modern take on *enter game/genre here*: Generally seems to be developer speak for "we couldn't really think of any ideas of our own".
OMG, THIS GAME HAS SUPER OP EXPLODING GRAPHICS THAT WILL MAKE YOUR VIDEO CARD GO BOOM!

Yeah......... that. :(
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Geralt_of_Rivia: "Episodic"

This translates to: "We couldn't be bothered to carry the risk of game development, so we release an unfinished game (about 1/5 of the planned content) and finance the rest of the development through selling the unfinished first part. If this doesn't work out we don't care that our customers will have paid for an incomplete product because we *never guaranteed* there would be a next episode. On top of that we are a greedy bunch. We know we could never get away with charging 100$ for a game but by chopping it up into 5 pieces for 20 bucks each we can get people hooked on the first episode and then continue to milk them during the next year until we have the 100$ per customer"

I never buy episodic games until all parts have been released and are sold together for a competitive price.
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stonebro: This is complete bollocks.

What episodic games can you mention where the developer has just stopped after episode 3/5?
What episodic games can you mention that costs $20 per episode for 5 episodes?
What episodic games can you mention where the full all-episodes product can reasonably be labeled as incomplete?
Not sure if he was thinking of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiN_Episodes

Reading that, it seems to fit his description pretty well.

But then, maybe there have been more successful episodic games after that, like Telltale games. To me they may have maybe seemed a bit high priced at least at some point, but everyone can decide whether they are worth it. I have bought the Telltale games that have appeared on GOG, and looking forward to see The Walking Dead in GOG too (or failing that, I guess I could buy them ultra-cheap on some humble bundle).
"Procedurally generated..." - meaning "we were too lazy to actually design levels so we had our random level generator do it for us!"

"Permadeath" meaning "we were too lazy to design actual challenges so we made it so you have to start the whole game over again when you die once which is an inevitability with like every single game where you can die at all ever made!"

^There are actually several games that fall in those categories I like but one they pull off those elements purposefully, creatively, and overall well, and also they're not their entire selling points and have more to offer besides just that. However most of the time when I see those descriptors I immediately click on the "back" page button.

"Rougelike space managerial role-playing strategy building crafting survival tactical sim" that requires a manual so large it will overload your computer more than installing Crysis 3, Metro: Last Light and Arma III a dozen times each simultaneously to learn to play and whose screenshots consist of generic outer space backdrops with lots of colorful swirling rings representing nothing while surrounded by a billion boxes of numbers and stats and coordinates and things that you can click that do things that do not tell you what they do unless you've read pages 33,006-34,023 of the manual and the occasional generic spaceship avatar so you know it's a "SPASE SIM!!1" and looks about as much fun as killing myself by slowly cutting off my own head with a rusted butter knife.

MOBA-style games - a bit of a market saturation here it seems. Are there any of these games anyone cares about besides League of Legends and DOTA 2 anyway? Oh and I have not a single goddamn clue how these games are supposed to be played anyway even after trying to read about them and watching gameplay videos, and these are already well dominated by people who've played these things since Day One so starting a round of these will just make me feel like I'm starting off a beloved and long episodic TV series by watching the last half of the penultimate episode or something.

On a similar note, tower defense games. Go away.

"Voxel graphics" that aren't even remotely voxel but a bunch of polygonal cubes piled on top of each other to give off a pseudo-"voxel" look that looks like shitty Legos and not remotely like games like Robinson's Requiem or Outcast which actually did have voxel terrain.

Second only to zombies in that "there are too many of them go away" are dwarfs. Also every single game with dwarfs in them for some reason must have "dwarf" mentioned somewhere in the title so you the consumer knows for damn certain that they're going to be getting some REAL pulse-pounding dwarf action in their purchase as opposed to those other games which... don't have dwarfs in them. It's probably Dwarf Fortress to blame for this, since also coincidentally (not) all these dwarf games are basically watered-down versions of Dwarf Fortress with better graphics (which is fine really, as I'd probably rather play one of those than Dwarf Fortress itself but still, just... STOP already!).

"Retro" graphics that are butt-ugly and do not resemble remotely any games of yesteryear I know of. There was a lot more to those games' graphics than just ugly, chunky, featureless blocks. Look at Donkey Kong. They had limited hardware and resources to work with but used those to create a character with very distinctive features whom we now know today as none other than "Bob Hoskins." In general even Super Mario Bros., the first one, looked much better than most "pixel art" games that look more like crappy Flash/MS Paint doodles.

However unlike most of you who are on the retro Haterade, I don't think "retro" look or design is in itself a bad thing. If done well there are some very nice-looking games that imitate the GOOD parts of the 8/16-bit area and with gameplay that actually does capture what made those games so good in the first place.

In lieu of that, games that know they are incredibly simplistic looking and make up for it by GIVING YOU AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE HOLY SHIT WHO SLIPPED ACID INTO MY MOUNTAIN DEW WHILE PLAYING THIS TWO-COLOR, NOW BAZILLION FLASHING COLORS AT ONCE PIXEL PLATFORMER AND BLASTING THIS RAVE MUSIC INTO MY EARS ON A CONTINUOUS LOOP MAKE IT STOP AGGGHHH

Those steampunk games with the really groan-inducing Victorian British stereotypes as "humor," made all the wackier when they're robots! Victorian British robots, who wear aristocratic gear like monocles and top hats, drink tea and talk Britishly! How positively ZANY!

I too hate QTEs but has any developer really used it as a bullet point to market their game? If so those people should really be kicked in the head.

I agree with those who are wary of FTP aka "P2W" games. Unless there is strong reassurance I can go into the game without worrying about having to grind for a billion hours to be on the same playing level as those who bought their way to the top them I'm not bothering.

Actually, any MMO game I have to pay for, really. When the players stop logging in then there's no longer a game worth playing. When the servers shut down then, well there's no longer a game at all, period. Tribes Ascend (OK so this is a FTP game but hold on for a minute there) for the brief time I tried it I thought was pretty fun but I came into the game fairly late. One time the only servers I could find one morning were empty. I played a map and for around half an hour I was just skiing around by myself like an idiot while nobody ever showed up. Now the devs have stopped support of the game altogether and the game is apparently overrun with cheaters and other ruffians. And to think I was considering buying the "Game of the Year Edition" of the title! See unless you get on that bandwagon on practically Day One you're not gonna be getting anything from the game and by the time you jump into it less than a year later everyone will have abandoned it. Why would I PAY outright for such a game let alone fool around with it for free? There are extremely few MMO games I've seen whose player base has lasted longer than a year and about 80% of those games have "Blizzard" scrawled on them in ink made from a mixture of gold and a sacrificed virgin's blood.


































Oh and screw all of you (puzzle) platformer haters, just, screw ALL y'all.
Post edited December 27, 2013 by cannard
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Geralt_of_Rivia: "Episodic"

This translates to: "We couldn't be bothered to carry the risk of game development, so we release an unfinished game (about 1/5 of the planned content) and finance the rest of the development through selling the unfinished first part. If this doesn't work out we don't care that our customers will have paid for an incomplete product because we *never guaranteed* there would be a next episode. On top of that we are a greedy bunch. We know we could never get away with charging 100$ for a game but by chopping it up into 5 pieces for 20 bucks each we can get people hooked on the first episode and then continue to milk them during the next year until we have the 100$ per customer"

I never buy episodic games until all parts have been released and are sold together for a competitive price.
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stonebro: This is complete bollocks.

What episodic games can you mention where the developer has just stopped after episode 3/5?
What episodic games can you mention that costs $20 per episode for 5 episodes?
What episodic games can you mention where the full all-episodes product can reasonably be labeled as incomplete?
That's definitely not "bollocks".

To answer your questions:

1) Foreword: I consider games where development has been delayed indefinitely or no release date can be given for the next part to be stopped.

*) Thanks for mentioning timppu, I would have forgotten about Sin Episodes. Stopped at 1/9.
*) Half-Life 2 - Episode X. Stopped at 2/X.
*) A Vampyre Story. Stopped at 1/2.
*) Alternate Reality. Stopped at 2/6.
*) Bone (Yes, even Telltale is guilty of interrupting a series.). Stopped at 1/X.

Honorary mention goes to:

*) On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Original developer stopped at 2/4. The series was then handed over to a different developer who made 3 and 4 completely different games than the first two. That's also a good way to ruin an episodic game. My guess is that 4 episodes were promised by the publisher and season passes (or however they called it) were sold for them and when the hired developer jumped off the project for whatever reason they had to finish the game somehow. You can watch the result at Humble Bundles weekly sale right now.


And these are just the games I can come up with without thinking too hard about it. I'm sure there are lots of titles that were left unfinished (especially from lesser known indies) that you and I have never heard about.


2) If my memory serves me correctly that was the standard price for any episode of any Telltale game back in the days when they started. Granted, they probably had high initial costs (for developing their engine, securing some popular rights like Sam & Max, etc.) which they needed to recoup at least partly as quickly as possible or they wouldn't be able to continue. And since Telltale was pretty much unknown at the time they couldn't get enough money with cheap episodes since they wouldn't sell enough.

I have just checked what their current pricing is. It seems that today where Telltale is well known and their games sell like sliced bread they can afford to sell the whole season right from the start for 25$. That's still not really cheap considering how short their games are but it's definitely reasonable!

But that doesn't change the fact that you pay for the whole game in advance while only getting 1/5th of it in the beginning. You only buy the promise of 5 episodes. If Telltale Games go bankrupt that promise is worth squat. And you even pay more than 20$ right from the start.

Probably they realized that many people bought the first episode and didn't like it because it was too short, too expensive (or for whatever reason) or people would wait for the finished season before buying. This way they make more money from one time buyers (25$ instead of 20$) and get 'Complete Season' buyers to pay earlier. That makes sense if only very few people actually bought the game episode by episode. That's pretty much standard business/marketing practice.

But that Telltale got their act together in this department (at least for the most part) doesn't change the fact that 'splitting up a game to squeeze more money out of the customers' is a common tactics nowadays that is not only practiced by episodic game developers but also through DLCs.

3) Please read more carefully. I never said that the full seasons are incomplete. I said that single episodes are.
Turn-based (not counting Worms and X-com series)
Mmo's and 'Pay to win' games
Single player and always on-line
Episodic content
Micro transactions
DLC's
Internet based DRM in general (Steam, UPlay, Origin)
Other invasive DRM schemes (Tages, SecurROM, Starforce, etc)
Slice-of-life shovelware like the Sims
Sport and manager games
Anything browser/cloud based.
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Geralt_of_Rivia: 1) Foreword: I consider games where development has been delayed indefinitely or no release date can be given for the next part to be stopped.

*) Thanks for mentioning timppu, I would have forgotten about Sin Episodes. Stopped at 1/9.
*) Half-Life 2 - Episode X. Stopped at 2/X.
*) A Vampyre Story. Stopped at 1/2.
*) Alternate Reality. Stopped at 2/6.
*) Bone (Yes, even Telltale is guilty of interrupting a series.). Stopped at 1/X.
That's a pretty loose definition of "episodic". Seems more like "games that end on a so far unresolved cliffhanger with vague intentions of following up" to me. Then I can mention lots too.

I think the episodic format makes a lot of sense for a small developer to seek to "exploit" their consumer base's trust to get an advance on profits to improve cash flow, and I encourage people I know to buy into that trust.

Of course, I expect an episodic game to come at a lower price point than a full retail release. Telltale have hit a good price point. I actually consider their games fairly cheap, at less than half of "accepted" retail price ($50-$60) for a "season" of one of their episodic games (pre-order price). Seeing as how they're expanding the episodic model to yet more games and licenses, it seems enough consumers agree with me.

I don't understand why people get worked up about this stuff. It's a valid model that can be good for everybody when executed right, so there's no need to blankly refuse a game just because it comes in whatever number of episodes.
Post edited December 28, 2013 by stonebro
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Geralt_of_Rivia: ~snip~
I never knew A Vampyre Story was an episodic game ... Haven't played it yet. Wasn't there two Bone games, or is The Great Cow Race just an "expansion" to the first game? Still unfinished though, in any case.

Anyway, what about Insecticide Part 1? PC development for part 2 was scrapped and the story was completed only on the Nintendo DS, I think. Or Lylian, Episode 1: Paranoid Friendship? Never heard any mention of Episode 2 so far. Or that commercial Premium Module for Neverwinter Nights, Witch's Wake, that remained a short introduction to a planned series that never saw the light of day.

Btw, does anyone know what happened to Winter Voices in the end? Was the series finally completed or did it remain unfinished? I remember it was stalled for a long time and IIRC the dev team was dissolved or something? Did it change the dev?

EDIT: Apparantly Winter Voices returned and was eventually completed, but only re-sold on Steam, screwing everyone who had bought the first episodes from other stores?
Post edited December 28, 2013 by Leroux
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gandalf.nho: *Very hard games
*QTES
*No save anywhere/anytime option
*Lack of singleplayer
*Micro-transactions
*MMO
*Real ending only available in the hardest difficulty
*Too much DLCs
*Many escort missions envolving NPCs with the AI of a suicide lemming
*Time-based missions or the "pursuing wall/rising water" ones
This covers it for me but I would add hardcoded framerate limits as well.
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keeveek: "This game was approved by Gender studies"
"Tough guys, tanks and tits! You male? You like!" :P
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keeveek: "This game was approved by Gender studies"
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Leroux: "Tough guys, tanks and tits! You male? You like!" :P
: D