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156Here’s the story about how we almost had something interesting to say this week.
You see, usually around Wednesdays or Thursdays, we gather to make a list of what we could talk about in the blog. The idea here is to filter out the mundane and only keep the stuff that’s interesting. Something noteworthy doesn’t necessarily happen every week, so we start thinking about topics a day or two in advance, just to be sure.
Sometimes, we avoid talking about one topic or another in order to have a reserve of topics for the following week, but only if it’s not time sensitive. It’s usually a good idea to do that, because the following week there’s often new developments to talk about in that particular topic and unless we’re sure nothings is going to happen, it’s best to avoid repeating things over and over every week.
Well… this week it didn’t work exactly as planned. We pretty much failed at every topic in our list. Had we accomplished even one of these tasks, we could have told you about:
Well, we can’t always get everything right.
On second though, we do have something to say: we will definitely talk about one of these topics in the coming blogs, and hopefully, it will be interesting.
Just to make sure that reading this crap blog wasn’t a total waste of your time, here’s a rather fun little soundtrack to keep you entertained for a while. All in Two Sixty Dancehalls by the aptly named Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. I love that name, heh.
Thanks for reading!
They spoke about this in a previous post: http://www.sauropodstudio.com/dev-diary-number-thirty-five/
Poster 1: http://sauropodstudio-wordpress.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/CS_Poster_Daytime.jpg
Poster 2: http://sauropodstudio-wordpress.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/CS_Poster_Nighttime.jpg
Hey, guys. I’s already past 2 weeks without new blogpost. Where are you? I’m feeling lonely
0.o I think you are rather rude and should go lie in a ditch somewhere as most of us would like to play a glitch free game.
Shame on you!
I think it’s only fair they honor their commitment. I am willing to wait, but they lose my interest day by day.
He’s right in my opinion. I’m not interested to know something about shirts and other merchandise stuff. Minecraft had a lot of updates almost every week till it was ready for beta. And they always had unofficial updates to try on your own risk..
Please please please make sure the tshirt size selection includes XXL – IIRC in the preliminary survey you did only had XL or something… :)
Haha, don’t worry about the mistakes this week, guys! We all still love you and will continue supporting you for as long as it takes.
So it’s one of those weeks when everything goes the other way… don’t worry we all have those weeks/days. The important fact is that you get on your feet and carry on… “in every downfall there is something to be learned” (if you learned something then it is not so bad week) remember this… and as all of my comments: keep it up :D
Why do I feel like the guys at Sauropod have taken a big shit on all of us since the kick starter has ended? I feel like you took our money and ever since then, you guys have been dicking around with it!
hey now, game development
is 10% big breakthroughs and 90% daily grind. not every week is going to have a big accomplishment tagged to it.
Would like to see you create a video game that’s ready for the world with multiplayer layer mode in such a short amount of time.
You sure did made it sound so easy.
Why do I feel like Justin have taken a big shit on the developer since he supported them with money? I feel like you took their passion and ever since then, you’re just trolling around with it.
Justin, I can promise you that they aren’t just ‘dicking around’. They’re hard at work trying to make the game work properly. It’s a process, and they aren’t a huge team. Building a game takes time and effort. Minecraft had over a year of development on it before it was made public. These guys didn’t have a huge amount of work already done when they went public, so give them a break. It takes time.
TimberAndStone a game being built by one man that was doing it part time has shown more progress and development than this crew that has more people and more money. There is a level of work expectations and shirts/posters shouldn’t be all we ever hear about.
YAY Space Narwhal has responded with a YAY this blog post is almost complete.
Almost? What more does it need?
@Sam, nothing, he was just adding on to the Blog. :3
@sam
mostly someone laving a reply about a YAY from space narwhal ;-). and a lot of reply about how good the game will be, and about how it is late ( confusing the date of the prototype with the date of the beta [when done i believe] )
HEY, Sauropod! it’s okay :). we all have a week when everything wants to screw us over. don’t worry about it. just dust off the dirt, clean the scrapes and cuts, and get back up for another round. can’t wait to see what you guys do with this game. so much potential!. better luck next week!
Would like to hear more about Beta release date. :)
No worry, keep up the great work and that’s very kind of you guys to give up Demo Night spot for others.
Hey, kudos for showing us Linux dudes some love! And I’d say something about how bad MY week was, so you wouldn’t feel bad, but I’d hate to make it sound like a race for the bottom, so… :)
Love the posts Germain. I feel this way on a pretty regular basis. Haters gonna hate but I’m a game dev too and can confirm that Joshua is totally right on the 10/90. Some weeks it really just feels like you’ve been banging your head against the wall for ages.
Good things come of it tho! Check out my first release “Fruit Flies” on the App Store and Google Play.
PS. Not sure what I’d do without the awesome sound tracks,
The community is getting smaller :(
I remember those days, when you posted something and 10 minutes later there where
about 2000 comments :P
Keep it up, v0.0.2 wasn’t that playable yet, in my opinion.
Good for showing the game, but not good for playing :D
Regards
Tobi
It’s not smaller! People just become quieter. I don’t post comments, but I still check over the site every day.
I check every week the blog… I hope you guys will update it every friday, It’s frustrating waiting 10 or more days to stay update for who backed this project. I really hope to hear something interesting soon…
I’m not asking for gameplay videos or screenshot, something like the first post… They were great, talking about the game and its mecanics…
Yes, this was a good dev spirit at that time. :-)
I was reading all these blogs written with passion and this is mainly why I backed in Kickstarter.
But since Kickstarter phase, it’s more like if Sauropod was managing a poster/t-shirt shop than a video game creation team… It’s a pity how money transform people…
I hope they’ll come back to reality and will soon concentrate more on the game dev than on the goodies :-) (and that beta will be released soon!!!)
Well, you see, that’s not how “money transform people”, but more about how to complete the kickstarter reward goodies. So just keep calm, and as soon as they will get over it, we all will see lots of progress. You can look at the posts about kickstarter preps legal troubles, and understand, that this is totally not so easy to create and deliver a batch of RL goodies.
“How we won’t be showing the game at the IGDA Demo Night” …
Yes, being 3 months late with your product will tend to mess up demo.
Um, perhaps you didn’t read the rest of the paragraph where they said the IGDA *asked* them to *give up* their spot for games that hadn’t already been shown? They have something to show; at the very least they’d have the prototype (and likely at least a little more by now) — they just opted not to do so because they didn’t want to take exposure away from games that have had less than them.
Really regretting buying into the kickstarter… its been nearly 5 months and we have got roughly 1 week of progress…
If you guys aren’t going to spend your effort on the game, i would like my money back! i payed you guys because i thought you were making a game, not… this!
same sentiment here but at least this was a relatively cheap cost ($15 for me) to learn a good lesson: think twice before buying early!
You did not buy the game when you funded the kickstarter. You are providing the creators with financial backing to work on and ultimately launch their product or idea.
I wish people would stop believing themselves entitled to content whenever they please.
Are you calling the v0.0.2 patch “1 week of progress”? Something (my experience in the industry, and with software development in general) tells me that more than one week’s worth of work went into that… and that’s not counting anything they’ve done since that they haven’t shown (like their progress porting to Linux, or the development of the new radial menu, or that they’re making headway on the shirts/posters/etc).
So as usually, ever since the prototype, you’re making no progress on a game beta you promised to release months ago.
How is this a troll? When I kickstarted the game the expected release for the beta was October of last year. That was 3 months ago, and there is still no beta.
@Ethannat – In this case you are the troll. The beta was stated to release in October, which was three months ago. We are still waiting on a confirmation from Sauropod that there has even been a delay! Stop warning against trolls whilst hiding under a bridge yourself.
@James Nurse: the only place it was ever stated that the beta would be released in October was on the Kickstarter page — which Sauropod has said *since before the Kickstarter ended* was inaccurate, but that they couldn’t change it. You hear what you want to hear.
As far as confirmation of a delay (of a release date they never promised), word on the forums and in IRC is that beta pre-orders for non-Kickstarters will be within the next month, and the beta will be coming soon after that.
Hey guys,
I’m glad I supported your kickstarter. Most of the other campaigns i supported rarely give updates and it’s been almost a year since the fact. Keep up the good work and keep us all informed. Thanks,
Lisa
p.s. for those who are whining, try making a game as complex as their’s (just by looking at the prototype, you can see there are a lot of layers to it) and then say something about, okay? Especially when you have a small crew.
Anywho, have a good day
it’s not like there’s no progress, unless they are just taking the piss and making all their reports here up, which I highly doubt. Why don’t you try out http://www.codecademy.com/ to get some basic knowledge of coding. It’s not like they put the game together with a drag & drop procedure or anything…
The only thing about kickstarter is that usually games only get announced when they can roughly estimate the release, but it takes a long time to actually develop a game that is playable! In this case they already put a lot of work in it and went on kickstarter in order to be able to continue. Nevertheless, such a project needs time – especially with such a small team!
I would love to play it now (only got beta access), but to be honest I prefer that they take all the time they need and deliver a good product!
Now let me repeat what I just said.
I know it’s hard.
I know it’s not drag and drop.
But it seems Sauropod didn’t when they set the expected release dates.
I’ve only just found this game but I can tell you as someone who is really into gaming as a whole but esp. indie games, it’s really impressive that you keep up with your dev blog. Most people just don’t and it really helps the community when you keep it up to date. :)
<3 Castle Story… only saw this game about two months ago, but looks as though it is going to be wicked cool :)
Been popping back every now and again, hoping for it to be out…. Can't wait might have to go do a Cartman (Southpark) and freeze myself… ;)
It's great to be informed what's happening, [or not happening =p ]
Keep on plugging away :)
Hi guys, thanks for the update even if not much stuff went as planned. I’m one of 99% of people that are happy to wait, I know it is extremely tough going making a game as big as castle story with only a three man team. Please ignore to rudeness of the 1% of people that want you to go faster and take your time with building the game so the finishing product will be at it’s best.
And also, YAY!
I know alot of us are waiting for beta new. It was said to be released long ago. But we can wait. The pieces we have seen seems amazing. So I’d rather wait until you guys are ready, rather than pushing out scrap to feed the trolls :P
Keep it up Sauropod’s! We will stick around til the end and then some.
Oh man, it is amazing that a whole bunch of people do not understand that there has never been any release date or promise or whatelse for the beta. Learn to read guys. It really helps.
Keep up the good work, take your time.
Look at the KS page, Beta pledge level;
“Estimated delivery: Oct 2012 ”
Now look at the Prototype pledge level;
” Estimated delivery: Aug 2012″
I don’t know what else they would need to say about the release dates but lets take a look anyway.
Look at the Diary 2 where they talk about Prototype release; https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/902505202/castle-story/posts/280511
“The reward tiers say estimated delivery date in August, does that mean the game is ready now?
Ok, let me be frank, we’re stuck with the reward descriptions we’ve written. We wrote August because technically, the Kickstarter ends on the 26th. But in all likelihood, it won’t be ready until September. ”
And prototype is finally released on October 18.
Now lets do some maths; 2 months difference between prototype and beta in original pledge descriptions which they used to get money by giving their word.
You see, prototype was released on October 18 which is almost 3 months ago.
And yes hun, you are right; no mention of beta whatsoever since then. People just want them to keep their promises; that’s it.
However, they received a LOT more money than they asked for and have a lot of backers. So I guess that they had to ‘waste’ a lot of time with financial matters and with handling all the backers and other related infrastructure problems. Furthermore, they received a LOT more money than they asked for, meaning that all of a sudden they were in a position to not only make your average indie game (not that there is such thing..) but actually try to make something that looks like a game from a big publisher. Not only did they have the possibility to spend more time, but also use more tools to enhance the final product (for example recording real sounds with proper gear).
I’m old enough to have learned how to be patient I guess, I just enjoy reading the updates and keep myself busy with other things and I’m very optimistic that one day I’m holding an excellent product in my hands (at least digitally) that was totally worth it!
Think of it like this: If they hurry and release something that’s just okay quality and only lasts for a few hours, then you won’t play it anymore after a couple of hours, ever ;)
Oh and Sauropod: Thanks for all the fish so far! :)
@leVin
can’t reply to your post, don’t know why, so it’s here.
Yes I know they had shittons of money and yes I know they want to make a bigger, better game. The thing is so far they released a prototype and a patch for that. No additional patches, no automatic patcher and not even a word about the beta release. They told us they would release the thing a few months ago but released a tech demo only and they are refusing to even talk about the beta. I mean just look at this dev post here;
1. t-shirts
2. t-shirts
3. we gave our spot to some other game where you would show our game
4. we forgot to license the linux stuff.
5. we still haven’t done the redial menu.
Just tell me when you will have the damn thing ready! Give me an estimate; a week, a month, 3 months, 5 years? When the bloody hell will you release the beta? When the bloody hell will you finish that goddamn radial menu you won’t shut up about for months?
Those “estimated delivery” dates were screwups, and Sauropod tried to alert potential backers of it even before the Kickstarter ended. The problem is that Kickstarter doesn’t let projects *change* anything after they initially start it up, so Sauropod had no means to rectify that.
Also, word on the street is that beta will be showing up in the next month or two ;)
Damn did’nt see that diary and was wondering why you guys were not there last night at IGDA!
You dont have a spot on their next demoroom on feb 13?
Seems half the community is outraged that there is yet to be any clear progress on a game promised months ago, and the other half is outraged at the outrage. Gotta side with the former. A product which was presented months, even years ago, has yet to demonstrate any real progress towards release, despite the developers receiving nearly three-quarters of a million dollars. Yes, there are certain difficulties with three people producing a game like this, but it has to beg the question: with $700,000, why didn’t they just hire more people?
The community wants a product, especially the community which did not get access to the alpha.
I am starting to agree with this. All they seem to care about is posters and plushies
All we seem to care about is seeing some new footage or at least a screenshot.
Ill have to admit though, If I recieved almost a million, I would probably be inclined to piss off the community to keep some dollars in my pocket. I guess I can’t blame them from having tight pockets. Technically they dont have to release anything. They are not legally obligated to do jack shit.
It is almost like War Z.
Really I feel kinda betrayed, I was so stocked seeing that project on Kickstarter, so I HAD to get me that prototype pledge, but for what? A really really really broken prototype which was only barely playable with the first (and yet only) patch after a few weeks…which is not that bad, I like patches/updates, it makes the player feel how the game is changing and creates a feeling of progress.
I baked some other games, or support their development, like KerbalSpaceProgram, or what would be a way better example: Timber and Stone
As far as I know that is only ONE guy doing most of the hard work, with a strong community behind his back that shoot out bug reports like nothing. And this guy manages to gives us another build almost EVERY WEEK!
Fixing the bugs which were found in the previous build, and maybe some additional stuff for gameplay.
But there is this feeling that even if there is a build that comes up which is just unplayable, you still could think about the next version which is usually ready in under 10 days….check his page and look throught the posts he is writing, every entry is something new or what he is doing or working on.
but you castle story guys….it seems all I read about is those plushies, shirts posters and soundtracks, in short: just effing merchandise…I can see that you want to find other ways to create money from the Castle Story theme – which is not a bad idea at all! Just look at LEGO Minecraft building set…..but those are things you do AFTER you have something to actually show and deserves merchandise…..I wouldn´t want to buy a plushie who gets stuck in terrain after 3 seconds.
I just feel dissapointed because it seems that you guys are just doing whatever you like to, and really a dev blog where you title itself as “crappy”? have some pride for what you do here, or is that just a glimpse at your feelings towars the company and the game? If you already know that this game won´t see the gamers eyesight just tell us that, would be waaaaay easier to avoid the sh*tstorm that would follow…
I am not asking for a perfectly playable game in the next week or so,
I just want to be informed what is happening to the game I supported with my money…
that would take so much anger off the community, and as someone wrote above, I can too recall something about an automatic patcher…so use this to just fix some minor bugs, and the community will start to feel they are getting the attention they deserve and stop bickering about NO PROGRESS – but about bugs – which is less stressful for all of us.
…wonder how those four 2.000$ Bakers are feeling about this…
but, didn’t they promise some backers they would get certain merchandise and so they need to get those out soon in order to complete the backer reward instead of having the higher backers wait till the game is done to get their promised stuff. Either way they did it, I guess people would be complaining about their plushies, posters, and T-shirts.
Of course they did, but the CORE element of the whole kickstarter was the game, not the merchandise and until now it seems that the only they we get updates from is the merchandise stuff remember this is called Dev Diary
Im tired of hearing about swag . Ill buy swag after the game comes out . The way its going at the moment , Im doubting this game is even gonna be successful . I mean im not trying to sound like a douche , but I backed you because I thought you were making a video game , not hustling carnival prizes . I dont even want to hear about clothing , stuffed animals , or posters . I want to hear that the people I had faith in at the start working on a game , not hearing that I basicly invested my money so you could sell kids toys .
SO yes , I want to hear about how you triumphed over a bug , or failed to solve it . Every single week on the same problem if need be . The Dev Diary should not even be talking about swag anyways. Unless I missed something and your making something else , which in that case , I would like my money back . Please address these issues that not only I , but the rest of the people here are having . I only want what I paid for , in the time it said it was to be delivered , and if not , at least some constant excuse other than ” we forgot” Thanks .
I think you’re making a misassumption here. All the clothing, stuffed animals and posters they are talking about are Kickstarter rewards. You cannot “buy” them. Just look at their Kickstarter page and you’ll see that the upper tiers (50+ dollars) all get various combinations of T-Shirts, posters and plushies. They *have* to get that stuff out since it’s what they promised first and foremost to their higher backer tiers.
Some people here seem to grossly underestimate the time and effort it takes to set up a company and work environment, and get (as well as keep) everything moving. If you’re a small company, you’ll probably spend half your time with accounting, taxes, legal stuff and so on even *after* you’ve got everything set up. The first months basically consist solely of these tasks, and you’re lucky if you get any work done. Also, since they got about ten times as much money as they initially asked for, the scale has shifted. If they only got the initial 80000 euros, they would probably be working on the game in their spare time now and not be occupied with all the organisational stuff. :)
Look at it this way: They’re currently mostly busy with setting up an enviroment for their future work, but the potential of the game is improved enormously by that.
-.- I think you guys scared off thierry or whatever his name is. He has not made a single post yet…..
I really don’t mean to sound funny, so don’t take this the wrong way….. But whilst appealing to your $50+ backers is more of a priority, a great portion of your income from Kickstarter came from the lower tiers? And whilst the backers are hearing about their merchandise and various other gifts, we (the lower backers) who have funded don’t hear anything about the “beta” or when it might swing by our way. I can’t help but feel that my $15 of donations went towards paying for merchandise for other people, but I heard nothing in terms of the game itself, no estimates or guesses at when more audiences can join in the experience…
It’s never hurt anyone to give an estimate, even if its a long way away, you would have sustained the larger audience by giving them something to wait for rather than avoiding them.. Since I added the RSS feed out of interest in the progression of this game, I’ve heard many of it’s features, but nothing about it arriving…
I do have faith in you guys, you all seem a great and pleasant team of people… But maybe answering people who seek some form of information would help you out better and make you more sustainable.. I can imagine and appreciate the hard work though guys, so I’ll still say, Keep up the good work!
(P.S .. Not trolling, first time commenting after backing. I do support these guys.. I guess we all have opinions though.. mine aren’t negatives, more like… critiques).
i think all the haters just need to get out i bet the devs are hard at work trying to make this game as good as possable and all your whining does is break thier spirit slowing them down even more… if there is anything im dissapointed with is not that they dont release much information is the lack of respect of alot of the people here.. seriously…
Hey guys. I can only repeat, that being able to read helps very much. A RELEASE DATE FOR THE BETA HAS NEVER BEEN ANNOUNCED. What they meant with the following sentence:
“Our milestone (accounting for all possible delays) is to release something in time for the IGF submissions which is on October 17th.”
was, that something (the prototype) was to be released until October. They have done that. Now, shut up.
Kinda but not completely true. The estimated delivery date of the beta on Kick starter is Oct 17. Its still on there and you can go look if you want. But regardless that’s not what a lot of people are complaining about, there complaining
because the developers have not said a word about the beta or the expected release date. No updates on it at all. I have the prototype so i am satisfied, BUT i can understand why people are getting angry.
You do realize that you’re wrong, right? The Kickstarter does state that the beta was supposed to come out in October. While I understand that there are complications and the like, we haven’t even gotten any updates about the beta in months. It’s just been shirts and posters. People aren’t necessarily angry about the missed release date, we understand that things go wrong, but that they haven’t bothered to inform us about it at all. No explanations, no talking about the bugs that they are attempting to overcome, nothing. Before being a dick and telling people to shut up, maybe you should make sure you know what you’re talking about kid.
Except Kickstarter doesn’t allow bad descriptions to be fixed. They’ve already stated that the dates on Kickstarter are bogus.
Three weeks prior to the end of the Kickstarter (click my name for the link to that update, complete with date of post), they posted an update saying those dates were incorrect, but that KS wouldn’t let them change the dates. This is the fault of a limitation with the Kickstarter platform (imposed with good intentions), not the fault of Sauropod Studio.
The problem is that many pepole doesn’t know what it actually takes to develop such game as Castle Story.
Pepole without game development expirience doesn’t know how quicly can you overestimate your abilities which results in you taking more time to do some task.
Pepole also doesn’t understand the fact that developers actually decided to include even more fatures to the game that it was planned in the first place. Main reason for this is the fact that they feel obligated to do this becouse of how well did comunity support them with Kickstarter project.
So dear developers take your time for developing Castle Story. I would rather wait a bit longer and then get stable and bug-free game rather than get rushed out game full of bugs.
Take Stronghold 3 as an example. Week after the game came out there was already patch for it which didn’t even fix all the bugs. It took more than dosen of pathces before most of the bugs got fixed in Stronghold 3 and we are talking here about a released game and not some beta version of the game. I actually played more stable Aplha versions of games than Stronghold 3 at its release.
People are aren’t angry because the development process is taking longer then expected. It’s because of the lack of communication during the process. Being to busy working on the game isn’t a good reason not to communicate the development timeline to all the backers. It’s almost like sauropod forgot that we the backers have paid for the development of this game and that we are the ones that have made this game a possible. Personally I don”t mind that it”s taking a lot longer then expected, but it would be nice to know when they are planning to release the beta version. Also the weekly updates were supposed to be release of friday, and it’s been a long time since we had an update on friday. for the record it’s monday now.
You are right. I really love that game and I believe that the developers are doing their best to deliver the premium items to backer and develop the game. Anyway, I’d really like to stay updated and knowing “what’s happening”.
I buyed something that did not exist yet and the only thing that link myself to the project is the dev news, until they release the game.
I second that! Take all the time you need to finish the game, make it as good as we all hope it will be. But once a week, give us a little appetizer :) And I personally wouldn’t mind, if it has something to do with the game, not the kickstarter tiers :) Even if it’s only a picture of something you worked on, but I’m so eager to see something new of the game. And maybe you guys could just give us some sort of a timeline, when you are planing to do what. Not exact dates, just an idea (however, if you say maybe “hopefully the beta will be out in April”, everybody will hold you responsible for that date, so maybe no timeline is better for your future state of mind ^^ )
Seriously? Consider using a spelling checker or maybe Websters dictionary before you ever post again. Dictionaries have been around for well over 300 years now, and electronic spellcheckers since the early 70′s. Rejoin civilization please.
I really don’t see how that’s relevant. For all you know their first language might not be English, or maybe they were just in a rush.
Cant wait for the next blog post. Its a bit overdue. The suspense is killing me.
The devs really need to start posting blogs on time or there going to start to loose fans and people follow the blogs.
If people are going to leave for that soul reason…then you know…bye. No ones gonna miss them here. That’s a stupid reason to stop following game progress. Am i right? ^.^
No one will miss them here because there is damn near no one here. But yes, you are right. Not sure if being right is best in this case.
” we misplaced the shipping flyer telling us where to pick up the package” so in the 7 days since then you havnt been able to get the package and simply snap a picture and show? Like yay! Quick update! We are not failures here is proof we got them that is all.
Oh don’t worry, you’re only 4 days late and counting with the next dev diary. We’re totally cool with that.
The general timeline which I use for diaries are a week after the previous one, so that helps a bit with impatience. However, I definitely agree with you on late diaries. POST WEEKLY.
No i’m not confusing them by the way. Its still on the kickstarter you can go look if you don’t believe me
As is their update that said those Kickstarter dates were wrong, but that Kickstarter wouldn’t let them change them. Make sure you have all your facts before commenting, lest people think you a troll ;)
Ryan, is that you? o:
All you impatient asshoes mad them angry now they are not doing dev diaries no more.
Thanks for ruining it for everyone haters.
I seriously doubt they’ve ceased making dev diaries just because some people didn’t care for this one. One will probably be along in a day or two.
+1
you know, one small official comment like this would have made the difference for a lot of people :)
This is not the way of staying in touch with the community, if you do not tell those deicisions. :(
I love you.
We really appreciate the work you guys are putting into the game. I can, however, be related in my annoyance at the lack of any nice input in the diaries. Could we (possibly) have some update as to coding matters please? It would dampen down ALOT of hatred.
For getting $700,000 you guys are being VERY unprofessional. I haven’t seen ANYTHING about the actual development of the game in over a month. I’m about done buying into alpha funded games…
They only wanted $80k for their game so of course they could hire more coder, designers and so on, but too many cooks spoil the broth. So I do not mention if they are slow in progress, if they tell me every friday or which day they prefer how its going on.
;) Of course their being unprofessional. Real “professionals” don’t bother giving their customers any updates about development progress at all.
I really like how this game looks, and I appreciate the dev diaries that at least tell us that these guys are doing SOMETHING, but I honestly want to know how the game itself is coming along
“How we tried to build the game on Linux, but our sound engine decided to stop us from doing so. Again, not a problem on our side, but rather that we forgot to license the Linux version of the sound engine.
How we finished a first version of the radial menu. This week, it finally passed a bug-free testing session, so technically it was ready to be shown, but as of now, it’s still lacking custom icons and things to interact with. So it would have made for a rather lackluster demo, for a feature we have been working so hard to polish.”
THERE… Since none of you dummies complaining about no mention of the games progress know how to read. ^.^
Again, not a problem on our side, but rather that we forgot to license the Linux version of the sound engine.
How is that not their problem THEY forgot to license the thing. That is THEIR fault for forgetting.
And that radial menu better blow us out of the water as it is the only progress we have seen for what? Two months now?
I never said they made huge progress. I’m just simply saying that they DID tell what progress they had made.
Not to mention bugfixes. Do you really want them to post saying “we fixed an off by one error in the resource code”, or “we fixed X issue” (where X issue is one they’d found during testing that the public wasn’t even aware existed)?
Im personally glad i didnt payout for the kickstarter, means i have a little extra money for now, i dont mind that its taking a while, but id rather wait until time of release to pay rather than upfront only to wait, and to be fair despite people defending them being all “they are working tirelessly behind the scenes” that dosent mean a project WONT go under, im not saying it will, but nobody is really in the right place to either whine about the devs nor defend them, becuase to be honest, do you know what they are up too 24/7? no. so everyone just calm down if a few quid is really a big issue to you, perhaps you need a better job and better life priorities?
Admittedly i am a bit pooped i didnt catch the kickstarter in time to get the prototype :I
Kickstarter / Castle Story could use more people like you. You don’t even have money invested into this, yet you understand that game development is not an easy task, and that watching a project 24/7 (and worse, DEMANDING updates) isn’t going to help the devs make any faster progress.
+1 internets to you sir (or madam as the case may be).
I can’t reply directly to this guy but
@Jon ” [...] they lose my interest day by day.”
I second this but I guess since this isn’t a big production like we’re used to with other games they can’t release patches every week because of server load and stuff, at least that’s what I think could be a problem. So they are working on a big patch that will solve a lot. But the game as it is isn’t really keeping me in front of the screen because a lot of elements aren’t good enough. I think they started the kickstarter too early. It felt like years before we got our hands on the Prototype and now I’m sitting here still with a game that doesn’t play very well. I thought I would spend tons of time on this game but as of now this doesn’t really is the case. :3
Anyway good luck to the Sauropod guys so they can give us a patch that hopefully will improve core game elements and that keeps you playing this product as much as it deserves to be played.
Onii-chan, I was under the impression that there are no additional patches planned for the prototype. It’s possible I’m mistaken, but I thought that there wouldn’t be any additional content until the beta.
Well, actually i think they won’t release another patch for the prototype but rather the beta and another video of their actual progress so far. I’m hoping that their reason for being so quiet is that they’re going to release something very soon!! :)
Anyhow good luck to Sauropod and keep working, I’m still one of your followers :P And even though I would love to read new dev diaries more repeatedly, I do not mind you if you rather work than keeping us up to date ;)
Good luck and best wishes to the team
Jason aka SynTeX07
Actually, in this case, the lack of prototype updates may imply that they are almost ready for the upgrade to beta. Always room for a little hope I guess.
Your blog’s really losing steam, and the development seems to have slowed down to a snail’s pace. What’s going on?
I think the game developers will realize after reading the communities comments, there has been a wave of doubt spreading threw the community, mainly because the blog posts have been skimping out on the information relating to the actual progress of the game, and this has left the community to speculate on the current state of progress that the game has made, with the consensus being that there has been little actual progress to the game.
Maybe there has been a lot of programming and game development progress going on behind the scenes, whatever the case, I do expect the developers to solve this matter shortly
You know what would be cool, is if all these hater would shut the hell up. Gee that’d be nice. Making a GOOD video game with only a handful of people, not easy. I see a lot of you comparing Castle Story to Minecraft. While they both are sortof voxel based (sortof, minecraft isn’t really) they are totally different. Minecraft was able to be progressed on so quickly because it was so open, with very few rules on how it all had to work. Castle story NEED structure, and structure takes a while. The Alpha was more of a proof of concept and a chance to experience the game before it is actually ready, which is really what an alpha IS… Just because it is broken actually means nothing. Yes, I would like some progress reports, I do hope at the very least this round of missed blog post tells them they should still post a blog every week just to let us know, however let them do what they need to. They havn’t given up, they havn’t vanished into the aether. The game will be here, have some bloody patience. Most PC gamers have been waiting WAAAAAAAY longer for HL3, I sure as hell havn’t given up on that, either…
Ehhh. I have faith. I’m so in love with this game i don’t care how long it takes.
Ok people please calm down. Work is in progress. We talked a lot about what happen in the past week and there are news comming. just calm down now. Also, just a reminder, people didn’t pay for a game, they fund for a project. We are working every day of every week so this game comes out someday. just don’t expect when you fund a project of that size to see it come together magically. it’s true that money help, it help a lot but money can’t code faster than a programmer.
I will start filtrating the comments because insults are clearly not the kind of ”motivation” we need right now.
For everyone, thanks for your patience.
Sorry, mate. I know you’re stressed out to hell, and that it’s hard to keep on going strong when you’re hearing a lot of insults and stuff thrown your way, especially when you’re dedicated to the project. Keep on trucking, and try to only skim over the comments section. The people who post most are the people who are frustrated and irrational. A steady stream of news can help, but above all, keep your head above water. I believe in you guys, and I know you want to see this project through. =)
That some people forget their decent behaviour and start insulting is of course very frustrating. Filtering stupid offensive posts is a great idea. ;-)
But I am some kind of dissapointed by you cause you said there will be a blog post last week and it did not. Please stay reliable in that case!
Sorry, I have no control over what could happen. I was only the messenger. I don’t make them and I seriously don’t know why the posts’wasn’t there this week-end.
Problem is you do not give us anything; you do not show what progress you have made, you do not tell us how the game is coming together, you do not tell us when the beta is coming. So far you have only posted about merchandise, licenses to forgot about, merchandise, a broken radial menu, merchandise and more merchandise.
Beta was supposed to come out 4 months ago and still no word about it. I mean yes we aware that we funded a not-yet-ready project and and we don’t expect stuff to magically pop out of nowhere but we just want some information.
just a correction, but the beta never was supposed to be released 4 months ago ;) you confuse it with the prototype, wich had been delivered somewhat on time. so stop bitching about it, there never was a release date for any beta, just that it will take some time!
Also, I don’t think you realize how much work it takes to make a game like this. So before you realize that, again, and to everyone, stop bitching about it.
That’s very reassuring. I think a simple post like that can easily keep people at peace. But with no comments at all it just becomes frustrating.
Enought of that bla bla bla it should or should not have been here 4 months ago .
LACK OF INFORMATION TOWARDS THE COMMUNITY
That is what 95% (inlcuding me) of those “haters” are pissed off about.
I did not invest in the freaking stock market to check a year later if the choice was good to back you up.
Yes some comments are way out of line….but check your previous DevDiarys and you will see that it started to build up step by step. For some people this is just the end of the line. I have thrown away friendships because of money, sadly this is what the whole world is about -> money. And of course people will get VERY frustrated when they give their money away and it seems like the will never get anything back.
And why just one crappy patch for the already crappy prototype. How much bug reports you guys could have gotten from us if you improved the protoype with some patched to make it ENJOYABLE to “play” with this.
Again I am supporting Timber and Stone, which is an exual small team like Sauropod, or even smaller. and he trows out update and/or blog posts EVERY SINGLE WEEK! oh and yeah he only got 80k$ for his game instead of 800k$
And why is that? because he needs to get rid of those bugs only true player will find out by playing the game.
I think it is time for you guys to step and man up, get in front of a camera and make us a small video why the hell there is almost no sign of progress at all. Any small thing that gets YOU guys closer to the game would be a huge motivation for us to be more patient and keep on going.
Last but not least: prototype AND beta are overdue, I don´t care what other people are saying, they are overdue, and I don´t care by how much – I would rather wait a month more to get a bug free game rather then what every big company pulls these days by throwing some garbage at us.
Or tell us how you distribute your money, like are you guys getting a new office? (I think I saw a news regarding this) How about you make a post about your comfy office space where your magic happens, even that would make me a little bit less frustrated.
We just feel left behind, I mean 800k is alot of money, but by now you guys should have had enought partys and so on….yes that is what people think if they don´t get any information at all, their brains go wild!
Oh and here you have it from the kickstarter page:
15$
Get the BETA at a pre-release price and get your name in the final game. The BETA WILL BECOME THE FINAL GAME, we are going to update that version to you for free, forever until the final release.
Estimated delivery: Oct 2012
30$
Get the original PROTOTYPE soon after the Kickstarter is over! You also get the BETA at a pre-release price with free updates for life and get your name in the final game. (see reward above)
Estimated delivery: Aug 2012
So THIS is what people are reffering to, in my eyes totally clear why they are so pissed off – A set deadline which could not be hold (but this is still acceptable).
what is not accaptable is the fact that we don´t get any statements about stuff Sauropod told us. I don´t care what some other dev blog says, kickstarter is where they got all of their money, kickstarter is where I have fallen in love with that game, and of course I will keep reffering to the kickstarter page because that was the place where I got all the information and the impulse to bake effing 30$ to be one of those “lucky” ones to get their hands on the prototype.
funny how this devdiary starts to convert to the “main forum” :D
You didn’t read the kickstarter updates, then it’s your fault. the information about the beta is there. They also said that it was impossible to changes those descriptions.
Some of you people need to calm down. I bet most of you don’t know how to make a voxel based game. When people like the people above write almost like a page complaining about the progress of the game it just makes the sauropod team more stressed out and it makes them feel guilty. I can see why some of you might be disappointed that the game is a few months late, but they can’t know exactly when they can make a game. It probably is a lot harder than they thought it would be so it would postpone the game release date. You “haters” try to make a voxel based game in a few months.
It’s been said before but it feels like you talk at cross purposes. So I’m going to point the problem out again and I hope this times it’s understandable.
The problem is not that the game is late – cause it isn’t. Its been stated at the kickstartet page that the named dates are wrong so no one can complain about that.
What is the problem is the lack of information. People, by nature, are pretty warily when it comes to money. Especially when you pay money to and get nothing for it for the next half year. All we want is a little update from the developers that says: “Yup, we’re still working on the project – and no we don’t live in Hawaii no and laugh about you while we spend your money on blackjack and hookers.”
Its been pointed out often that we founded the project and not just bought a game but founding is something that works two-ways and I think they own it to us (the bakers) to give us some informations about whats currently going on – even if its “nothing finished we just keep on working on feature xyz”
Exactly the point, dhyr!
Its funny how there are three groups here:
1. The haters who keep saying “the Beta ist overdue, Fuckers!”
2. The Fanboys who keep saying “We support you no matter what. You dont have to talk to us, we are unworthy” and
3. The rest (like you, me and at least 30 other people here) who say “we still believe in you, dont worry, but it sure would be nice to hear something from you, because we are looking forward to the new dev diaries every week and we are totally disappointed, that you missed it two weeeks in a row. So, you dont have to give us the Beta or another Alpha-patch, but at least have the decency to post at little text (doesn’t have to be long) if you have nothing to post this week, so that we stop reloading the mainpage every hour, becaus we really really really would like to see something new :) ”
I think I’ll leave it with that. Still I will reload every hour untill I see the new dev diary, but thats my problem :D
To anyone that reads this comment, please read it in its entirety before adding a reply.
Many people, myself included, feel like the development of the game is taking a back seat to posters and t-shirts. Many people also believe that more could be done with the money that was awarded to you guys. I am not up to speed on your financial situation and I don’t know how difficult it would be to add more people to the team.
However, I do know that I, personally, would like for you to include every boring, mundane development detail that you can in these posts. Don’t feel like people will stop reading the blog just because you “bore” them with tedious information. I assure you that you will not lose any followers by posting more about the actual development of the game.
When I read “Dev. Diary”, I expect to see a detailed breakdown of the development that has taken place within the previous week. I want to know, for example, if someone tried something and it didn’t work so they had to change something, etc.
I suggest the following:
Include all of the fluff (by “fluff” I mean non-development information, stuff about shirts, posters, etc.) at the beginning of the post. Then, get into the “nitty-gritty” details of the current development status.
That way, people who want to know about the fluff can read it without having to dig through a bunch of change-logs. Also, people who thing that progress is becoming stagnant will be able to see exactly what you are working on and how you are going about it. I am sure that many of your fans are programmers, developers, game designers, etc., and can maybe provide suggestions or tips on how to go about achieving certain results. You never know.
Not posting very much at all about the game’s progress really does make it seem like nothing is getting accomplished, even though you may be working 20 hours each day.
On a side note: At the moment, the only thing the game has to offer is the interesting mechanic of building castles brick-by-brick. At least, that’s all I am aware of, since there hasn’t been anything posted, otherwise. I want to know if there is going to be some sort of storyline. I really feel like there should definitely be a single-player campaign that tells the story of the bricktrons and the corruptrons. If there isn’t going to be a story, then this game is not going to be interesting for very long. You can only do the same monotonous tasks so many times before you just grow bored of them and stop playing the game. Unfortunately, I have pretty much reached that point.
Another thing you could do is release versions of the prototype relatively often. There is no better way to find bugs than to let your fans play it. Just keep changing the version number so that you can still play a stable version of the game even if the latest update is unstable. This concept has worked very well for other games, like Minecraft.
All in all, I really like the game. I like the concept. I like the visual style. I think that it has enormous potential. I just wish that you guys would be more open with the development. Including the technical detail in the blog posts would certainly bring some peace of mind to many of your fans, myself included.
Thanks
Still no Dev Diary Sauropod???? I am lost for words right now….. This is not acceptable coming from a team that raised as much money as you did……
Nice dev dieres in past 2 weeks, yea?
Gimme back my wasted money… Completly changed my oppinion about Sauropod Studio
irresponsible bunch of freelancers
I’ll go talk to Thierry and see about getting you a refund — and of course your Sauropod account closed, since you won’t be needing that prototype/beta (whichever you backed for) any more. Would that make you happy?
Ahhaha troll meistah
1) Thierry or any body else GIVE 0 FKS about “someone wants to contact us”
So good luck on contacting Thierry
2) Assuming how much butthurt they had while making a database for backers at castlestory.net it is IMPOSSIBLE to make any changes or refunds.
3) I, as HUNDREDS of other guys who registered on cs.net BEFORE the key-giving stuff got an error message and I HAVE FAILED TO REGISTER MY ACCOND WHICH I’VE PAID FOR. So that mean that I anyways paid for NOTHING. Even if they will release it untill I die and my children will die, I still can’t get any log-in or other info.
So go troll someone else, smartieboy
Were people expecting something more?
So we didn’t get an update last week… Big deal -_-.
How entitled some people can be. The weekly updates are a nicety and no way part of the deal. There is NOTHING promising weekly updates on the KS project page. So grow a pair, and try to pretend to be big boys.
Devs can’t make up thing that are being worked on. If they have something that need an update, then they’ll tell us.
Did you expect the game to be magically finished because you put your money in? Again, try to act as big boys and think before pledging your money, the product was a work in progress. There is no real way to know exactly when it will be done. You should have known that before going in.
Estimations are merely estimations. They don’t have a checklist with the number of code lines to be done to reach the end. There is no % status progress. Even when you are done with some mechanics, as you’ll work on the game you’ll need to come back and modify/fix them, again, and again, and again.
And no, even if they got 800% more than they asked, doesn’t mean it will go 8x faster. You can’t double the size of the team just like that. They have a one time income with KS. Before thinking of going bigger they need a sustainable income stream. Or the 700k they got will just wither away.
It is had to wait, but there are great games being released right now. Grab one while waiting, and it will make it all easier.
Meh, I didn’t get to kickstart this but I have watched it, sadly for the company here, they actually do have a legal commitment to make good on their kickstart offerings. If they don’t they are responsible for full refunds. For those that did the kickstarter I suggest to read the help section, particular to this section…
Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?
Yes. Kickstarter’s Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don’t. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.
So yes, the company has to make good or refund. All depends on what is considered “within reason” or in this case the time it takes to fulfill. At a point if enough backers start requesting refunds as a denial of service rendered, then yes this could definitely happen.
I believe the devs here are really trying, but I think they best know what liabilities they are falling into if their trend continues the way it is.
As a backer, I think we are entitled to be regularly informed of the progress of this game, especially if we laid out 100+$ for it. The last update(this one) was on the 21st of January. It has been OVER 2 WEEKS since we have last heard from Sauropod, and we can all agree that we are itching for another post.
Also: most backers have backed the non-shirt and non-poster levels, so posts focusing on media are generally not a good idea right now.
As a backer who put down over $300, I’m quite satisfied with the frequency of updates I’ve seen. Quite frankly, I’d be happy with monthly dev diaries.
At least you’re honest and admit you’re impatient ;)
There is a LOT of angst here… And I understand and agree that the lack of information was disappointing… But I wonder how many people posting here so passionately actually bothered to look for the information?
1. The prototype will NOT be patched again…. They have stated that it is separate from the actual game now, so the beta (whenever it comes out) will be different… They can’t continually update the PROTOTYPE because it isn’t being worked on.
2. They don’t HAVE to do dev diaries… They probably should have filtered out information earlier stating not to expect one for a while but there is nothing at all in the kick starter or anything else that commits them to weekly dev diaries.
3. Check the official forums from time to time….
Eg… From Thierry
http://castlestoryonline.com/threads/whats-happening.3228/#post-39647
yeah sorry we are a little busy here. we were suposed to have a blog post last week-end. Friday when I leaved everything was under control, but nothing was posted. I will keep you updated of what may have happened.
Anyway, Here are the information I have:
new website is coming together, the flow for creating an account, buying the game, getting a key… was really too complicated and not scalable for other platform like steam for example. We had to rethinck almost everything. Paolo (the multiplayer guy) and I worked with humblestore and a design company to help us out with that. We just need to fill the blanks and Germain’s artwork to say it is finished.
sauropodstudio.com was migrated to different scalable system. We first migrated from dreamhost to appfog. it was down too much often and the access to the mysql was trough a tunnel that broke most of my queries. then we switched to cleardb instead of the mysql that came with appfog. It was quite better but appfog was still really complicated and unusable for some framwork like Symfony. Then finally we went with the big guy Amazon. everything seem to work flawlessly, the migration was very easy to do and no downtime I’ve heard so far. We also put the temporary site for the backers who had to give us all their information there. It worked well except for the mailing system who bugged a little.
63% of the backers answered the form at this point. I’m very happy because in a week or two we could start shipping all the things and get rid of that task that took too much of our time.
François is working on a new AI system that will allow the bricktron to be a little more independent and think by themselves. With the first proto they got stuck very often and it was because the AI was based on how the player would create his castle instead of creating the castle then letting the AI deal with it.
Paolo worked hard on a building machine that will help us keep the game updated. We switched to Git and now that sort of thing is possible. Every night the system create a new build for PC and Mac that will be pushed trough the update system.
We also found our patching solution, we are still under NDA but I’m really happy that we found it. We contacted multiple system like SSN and Pando but their price was just not for our platform. We could created our own system but that would mean mobilizing someone on that task instead of the game and we didn’t wanted that.
We saw our first glimpse of multiplayer. No gameplay, just that two player where able to connect to each other. it’s not that much but it’s something.
The new radial menu was a big deal. It implies so many changes in the code and completly change the workflow. the way to create group, cut tree, dig hole… almost everything go trough that menu. in the last blog post we were supposed to have a video of that. when it is uploaded I will link it here. I’m not sure how to talk about this since it’s a really big change but what I can say is that I tried the new menu last week and in was really more intuitive than the first build we made.
We will go to PAX east. that’s the plan, it was complicated since they never recieved our first form in october. Took a lot of time and effort on both Pax and ours side but we finally were able to fix the problem and now we have our place. (still need to find the hotels…).
there is a lot more to say but heh, it’s monday and i’m not yet completly awake
There is more discussion in that thread in the negative impact the comments in this blog is causing on the team… So I would suggest people tone down the sense of entitlement and support them, abandon them, or quietly wait for it to be finished.
There is also more information in that forum on the future of dev diaries
Great comment mate! Why do you even come here to check the dev diary page if you don’t want to read the dev diary… The bulk of that is effectively the latest dev diary copied from the forums…
sooo….at this point i have pretty much lost most of my interest in this game and almost to the point where i regret buying all do to what seems like ZERO progress to release…. seeing that prototype buyers at least got their game a couple months after promised and here i am a beta backer and still no game now being about 4 months later….
Sorry to hear you’ve lost your interest… rest assured, the beta is in progress. Hopefully once you get your hands on it, that will help renew your interest ;)
To all of you who are complaining about the release date..
1) Make a game yourself before you criticize
2) would you rather have a good game or a game that is released because they said they would.
3) It takes time to make a game, considering it took a large team of blizzard to release diablo 3 and they delayed it… (How many Years!?)
…you did not read this entire comment section,
again it is NOT about the game not finishing, of course it takes time – most of the people here are very aware of that.
It is about NOT posting ANY progress about the GAME at all – this frustrates people – and thsi is not the first time some game dev´s can´t keep the deadline, this is more or less normal these days, but not telling anything about the game progress….
please check the last couple of updates and make a new comment on what have been done in the last weeks – about the game, not the merchandise – and you will see that there is almost no information at all.