Who knows, it’s been there a couple years already. The dev considers it practically finished now, and was almost ready to call it ‘v1.0’ a while back until fans complained (they didn’t agree it was done). They’re not sure how much they want to keep adding:
"To be clear - we might end development soon, or we might continue it for years. Please buy the game only if you want to play it as it exists now - not based on what it might some day become.”
It’s polished and (re)playable enough now to give many hours of entertainment, and anything else they add is a bonus. I played a bit pre-Steam and it’s my favourite DF-like so far, due to the stories it generates about your colonists as Rod says. I also got into it way more than I did PA.
Yeah, it feels complete to me, “alpha” or not. The interface can be wonky, in so that it can sometimes be difficult to do what you want to do, but once you get used to it, it’s not so bad.
I played it a ton when I bought it last year and then figured I would let it sit and see what happens. I started a world yesterday and then preceded to play 8 hours. It’s very addicting. I can’t say it has changed a ton, but lots of little things were added.
I can see people getting bored with it though. Once you get in a place where you’re established, have a good food source, good defenses, etc, it does slow down a bit. There are things to find and do still, but it does become less exciting. Of course you could always up the difficulty if thats the case.
I may ramble on a bit, but I am an early adopter (not a KS supporter, but a month or so after I discovered the KS and quickly went in). I really liked the game in its early stages but it definitely seems to have become boring after you figure out how to “beat” it. The early versions were survival with a splash of excellent tower defense, where if you waited too long to protect yourself, someone would come and kick your butt. While there is some of that still, it has really changed to worrying more about relationships between characters and trying to find something odd to laugh at. There is less worry about what will be thrown at you next. I definitely had some interesting game experiences with it though, and I may be in the minority here as I often find myself, but the earlier versions of the game were actually much more fun than the current. I am glad I kept all of the versions – though there are some great things that were added, but the focus has changed.
If you watch the KS pitch there is this theme of “The Western Frontier” in space which was intriguing - but after the early releases that never really developed further and the theme really drifted. It also seemed that things did begin to drift from what was a previously coherent theme – for example I recall someone complaining that the animals became more Earth-like as development went on, and focus quickly moved to minutia than to overall rehauling of systems such as tasking/orders to make them run better and have the workers make better choices, truly improve the interface, or how these storytellers get involved. I do not find the story tellers as much more than a difficulty setting. I do not really think they add much more than that, especially after the first 10 minutes of play. That is the impression I have gotten.
The whole Prison Architect angle is fascinating…the graphics were obviously ‘borrowed’ from PA – though I think this art style is perfect for the game. The PA folks did not put up much fuss even though some PA fans did. It was a great marketing win/accident though because it exposed the game to the 1 million PA players that like the similarities. If you look closely the guy that does his music / sound is the same so there must be some relationship there. There are definite parallels in the way the two programs behave, and though there have been some accusations of code collaboration/sharing, I suspect it is just more a case of copying the behavior of the systems.
Overall, IMHO I think some of this is a good case of one dev with a waivering focus, and a few fans driving the narrative of the game and therefore it drifts. As commented above, there seems to be a lot of “this is finished/no it’s not” back and forth, and I recall at one point, it was said there would never be relationships and stuff like that, now it is a big part of the game.
The price point is another interesting thing about the game. $30 is definitely higher than anything like it, but kudos to him as he does seem to be unwaivering as to reducing the value of the product. Will be interesting to see how the ‘almost for free’ culture on Steam handle this. There definitely seems to be a cult of fans that see him as a rockstar dev and feel a personal connection and probably bought his book. The wave of reviews he got on steam in the first day is a good testament to this.
I think he missed the boat as far as release goes. He has boasted over 70K sales over a year ago and that is over $2m (most of which will get steam keys if not all) – and I think the iron was much hotter last year before he took his 6 month vacation. If he was burned out on it, he should have humped to get it in some condition before Christmas last year and released it as 1.0. I think he would have done real well. That being said, he is doing real well regardless so it does not matter…but he could have done real weller! ;>
I do not agree with some of your points. Perhaps the only downside to this release date is that it comes on the heels of the Summer Sale and people may have a number of games already in the queue. Regardless, the game is the #1 seller on Steam right now and $30 is the same price as Prison Architect and Cities Skylines and close to the price of a game like Grim Dawn. So it is priced competitively and it is selling like hot cakes.
In regards to the wavering focus, I think that is why Ty took his vacation. He was apparently quite burnt out and by taking time off he seems to have come back with a number of new ideas. We will see how this shakes out in subsequent releases. But I do not think the reviews have anything to do with any cult of personality. If the game was not good then the reviews would not be good. The major complaint from new players is not the content but the lack of a tutorial.
I do agree that there needs to be more mid to late game content to keep things fresh without being too punishing. This can be done with everything from stories to cosmetic content to make your base more attractive. But much of the core game can create some unique situations and that is a rare thing. It is quite funny when your husband-and-wife team get into a fist fight in the middle of the dining hall.
Dove back into this because of steam release. Haven’t played in a long time and I’ve really enjoyed the demise of several colonies on permadeath challenging classic. Although what I try to do stays the same for each start the starting conditions are different enough to keep it fresh. Bummed that I’m at work cause I want to start another doomed adventure!
Are there any true numbers besides the ranking on steam. As you mention it is right after the sale, so there probably is not a great deal of action. I am not saying no one is buying it or that he is in a bad position, quite the contrary, and I am sure there were some waiting for the Steam release to buy, but I don’t know if I would call it hotcakes. Steam Spy is showing 35K owners as of this post, and while I am sure some of those are new, he has at least 70K keys to give out, possibly a good deal more as I have heard rumors that the ‘no keys after’ rule may be lifted.
Interesting that you refer to him as “Ty”. This is what I am saying, essentially he has successfully been able to make a personal connection with many of his players. If you look over user comments, many of them refer to him in this way, and when negatives come up, he is defended for reasons they feel they understand on a personal level like what you said about the burn out. I am not saying he is evil or you are a sucker, just observing that he is very successful in reaching out and connecting to fans. If you look at his six month vacation from a business/customer perspective, one would have to ask if he is really being true to his customer base…but IMHO he definitely got a pass with that compared to what you see with people complaining about other projects in similar circumstances.
EDIT: Oh, and I wanted to point out that a product like PA may list high, but is rarely sold at that cost. I know I got my copy for like 7 bucks several years ago and is always on sale…I suspect Rimworld will rarely go on sale if at all. I would not compare the game in quality/budget to Skylines.
[quote]
If you bought before today, you can still get a key. However, I’ve been forced to stop offering Steam keys for those who buy today and in the future. We’ve been getting hammered by fraudsters who are obviously more experienced at this than I. Shutting it down for now is the only way to avoid thousands of dollars in chargeback fees and lost sales. It’s time to take a breather, because I can’t fight this ‘live’.
The game is, of course, for sale on Steam if you want a Steam copy. Buying from our site will give DRM-free copies as before, but no Steam key.
All the stolen keys are being cancelled, and should be deactivated before they can be sold (or soon after, depending on how fast Valve does it). The funds they were stolen with are being returned to their rightful owners. If you don’t want to get ripped off by fraudsters, be sure to buy direct from Steam.[/quote]
I am not sure that Steam Spy is the best source for numbers played in regards to a game like RimWorld. There are so many mods that I am sure many existing players are still playing the non-Steam version.
[quote=“mok, post:146, topic:73715”]
Interesting that you refer to him as “Ty”. This is what I am saying, essentially he has successfully been able to make a personal connection with many of his players. If you look over user comments, many of them refer to him in this way, and when negatives come up, he is defended for reasons they feel they understand on a personal level like what you said about the burn out. I am not saying he is evil or you are a sucker, just observing that he is very successful in reaching out and connecting to fans. If you look at his six month vacation from a business/customer perspective, one would have to ask if he is really being true to his customer base…but IMHO he definitely got a pass with that compared to what you see with people complaining about other projects in similar circumstances.[/quote]
Ty has been excellent at customer service, marketing and communication. He earned his pass on his six month vacation by delivering a product people could enjoy before going on vacation, very clearly explaining why he needed one, very clearly discussing who was going to continue to work on the game while he was absent and what the plans were when he returned. Contrast that with many other games where the developer has gone dark for months on end without advance notice or taking a break before their product was fully playable. That is the difference and that is why he did not get as much grief about his absence.
Of course he almost buggered that up. He originally planned to release the game on Steam and then take his vacation. Some of us provided council to him that it was a bad idea and that the Steam community would be much less forgiving about taking that kind of break. He was smart enough to listen and wait.
While you may have purchased PA for 7 bucks, currently it retails for the same exact price as Rimworld. Big Pharma, Stonehearth and Folk Tale are within 5 USD. Clockwork Empires is the same amount. When you look at some of the premier indie games that Rimworld would be competing with I do not see it as overpriced at all. Just because it is an indie game does not mean it needs to be cheap.
As far as his discounting strategy, that remains to be seen.
Steam Spy is excellent of determining real steam numbers. The 70K+ number is from Ludeon’s own website before he stopped updating his sales numbers in more than a year ago - closer to that Nov’14 date. I am sure he has probably sold 80-100K, maybe more, prior to the Steam release. So if Steam Spy says he has approx. 35K owners, that many keys have been redeemed. I would expect that number to reach higher than that quickly, as owners redeem their keys. It will be interesting to see if this stolen key business impacts those numbers.
Retail means nothing in the steam world when it is so regularly discounted, so PA is just not a good comparison. Stonehearth is several years old from a very successful KS launch, and is a better comparison as is Clockwork though they are ~20% less in retail. Clockwork’s numbers are miserable, and they recently just had their first sale. I have not been following the pricing patterns of Stonehearth, but they have a surprising number of owners (~150K), though it is easy to see the appeal for that genre.
There is no need to defend his price to me. I bought the game long ago. My original point was the vocal part of the steam community has shown a different perspective on how they value games from a monetary POV. The acceptance of his price by that community definitely remains to be seen. Based on his history of not discounting and his own comments on the subject, I do not anticipate to see the game sale for sub-$25 anytime soon.
Mok, if I understand you correctly, your complaint is the game is not what it could have been. That’s is fair, but all I can say is to everyone else, the game is a blast now. It’s a fun Dwarf Fortress type game that is really addictive. It might not have long term legs for some people, but it easily has enough content to keep you busy for dozens of hours.
Ironically, the Alpha 14 has events turned off. A patch should be out today to turn them back on.
Do you guys generally restart if you don’t get a crash with good (both in terms of coolness as a pet and usefulness) animals near you? I’m finding myself continually restarting and spending forever trying to get halfway decent colonists and a start that has animals that aren’t separated by a body of water or mountain.
I don’t, but I might be ignoring that part of the game (interacting with animals). I generally keep whatever I am dealt as far as the map goes. I do re-roll villagers to make sure the important skills are covered though. As far as I can tell, animals change anyway. A year into my game a pack of muffalos just moved in. And there are a bunch of ibex around that weren’t there at the start.
In this current game I started with a wolf pet, but I can’t do anything with him because my best animal handler is skill 6 and it says that isn’t high enough. I did have a rat tame itself, and my guy can train him, but uses for a pet rat are pretty much nonexistent. I could send him to attack people, but what’s the point? He can’t haul or rescue, either of which would be really handy.
Good to know that animals move in/out. I’m trying to get a decent spot in Boreal Forest where the temps are comfortable in the summer but very cold in the winter. Found one that’s at about 60-65F in summer and 0F in winter and now I need to decide if I want to keep the animal roll, which I guess I will.
I guess I could work on improving my guys handling skill on the rats and squirrels until he could tame something bigger, but we don’t have the time. I screwed up and didn’t grow enough food for my first winter in a boreal forest, so quickly had to research inside crop growing, which drained all my power. So I had to keep building solar panels because wind seems almost nonexistent on this map. I have so much to I need to do…
I am not defending the price but merely showing how it is in line with like games of scope and size. I do not believe that most anyone cares about the “vocal part” of the Steam community who goes on every single forum and comments how they think the price is too high. Ty is selling his game well enough to be on the leader board on Steam and getting paid full price for it. Good for him.
Oh absolutely. Like I posted earlier, kudos to him for maintaining the value of the game when there is always a race to the bottom.
One of the other factors where price that impacts the Steam community is backlog. People may be interested in the game, may even be in their wish list, but the backlog may be large, and RW is certainly a game time sink, and the buzz on it is not what it was last year. The price point could play a huge role in prospective players putting it off as it is weighed against the probability as to whether or not it would actually get paid. They would wait for a sale at a less expensive price point to add it or for the backlog to clear out. The latter almost never happens for gamers, and in this case the former may never occur. We will have to see.
