Nope I ate him

I'll clarify the below quote, which was from the 1.2 update thread. It basically means 3-6 months of nothing and then a flurry of activity all of a sudden. Don't expect much for this year

Originally posted by Jon Shafer:

I've deleted a few posts which involved a personal argument. I understand the thoughts of people who both are upset with the game's state as well as those supportive of dev efforts, but please keep the focus on the game and not any individual person. If folks want to criticize the game they are welcome to do so here, so long as they don't cross that line.

The updates for the next several months will be light because I'm splitting my time working on the AI as well. If you're looking for large changes I would recommend holding off and waiting for the v1.3 update.

@ BlckKnght: I'll be adding a difficulty setting to the game (probably via the unstable branch) in the next couple weeks. Once this is included you should be able to dial the challenge down, as I agree that the current state of the game is fairly tough for most players.

- Jon

https://twitter.com/JonShaferDesign/status/1194519114561269760

Originally posted by david.froger:

https://twitter.com/JonShaferDesign/status/1194519114561269760

that's so not helpful to post on social media and not on the forums

Originally posted by david.froger:

https://twitter.com/JonShaferDesign/status/1194519114561269760

this is part of the fundamental problem here. spending 2 months apparently doing very little and then stating that he's plugging along and not being sociable is not how you be a dev.

if you want to make the game harder, you do it by actually making competition. the game is easy because you are playing a single player game by yourself (literally). even if you dump some basic civ 5 profiles into the game as a "test,", you will dramatically improve the quality of the game without making any other changes.

there is a very simple way to get the computer to play in the short term, while developing a long term solution. if you make all of the computer players' tribes without any traits, meaning everyone can get along and do every job, then the computer will be able to play. You’ll need to make the computers resources infinite also . Put in a script to change the resource to finite once the player caps it

right now the computer craps out because it can't deal with profiles and preferences; it can't think things through to establish the best decisions. It's hard for players; people who can think and reason. a dumb computer script will never figure it out.

You need to move the ball forward Jon.

Originally posted by clayffo:

Originally posted by david.froger:

https://twitter.com/JonShaferDesign/status/1194519114561269760

that's so not helpful to post on social media and not on the forums

thanks for tracking him down.
...
we can already tell we won't be seeing many improvements in months/years to come

Ya looks like he made the game he pictured and than basically said done.

My guess is he never had DLC plans or to add new features, this is what he wanted to make...

I was expecting more out of a civ head developer:(

Guys... 7 years in development, few months of bugfixing and updates, facing impatient, sometimes rude people in the internet. It's really a lot for a team of 1-3 active devs (I assume Jon was working on it all alone post-launch).

I can't even imagine working on a single project for that long. It must have been such a drain without a support of huge company behind. Going indie usually turns into a 24h job. Nobody simply goes offline for half a year and I believe there was an important reason.

I bet it didn't turn out exactly how he had envisioned it. Bugs, missing features, not the best reception. Please, look at the reviews here on Steam. The game got nuked. You all know this, he knows this, but that's how life works. There's always a time to say "enough" and move on, simply for sanity reasons.

I've bought it for 30 bucks aswell when it came out. Playing it now, so I joined this party quite late. So far it's 40 hours of pure fun with some unpleasant pauses for crashes or for figuring out how to avoid these crashes. And I still enjoy the game so much to work around these obstacles.

Some of you guys have a full right to feel disappointed. Each of us invested 30 bucks. Can you believe "some dude" invested 7 years of his devotion?

Enjoy it or leave it.
It's not the end of the world.

Cheers!


On thing more.
Jon, best of luck for your current/future endeavours!

Originally posted by Charon:

Some of you guys have a full right to feel disappointed. Each of us invested 30 bucks. Can you believe "some dude" invested 7 years of his devotion?

Enjoy it or leave it.
It's not the end of the world.

1. 7 years, one guy team etc.: all this history has nothing special about it, there's a sea of one-guy-team indie games out there.
2. if ppl don't enjoy what they were delivered/promissed, they should not just leave. the whole community idea is mainly about not just leaving if you didn't enjoy smtg.
3. litterally no one here has ever said it's the end of the world, ppl are just asking themselves where are the updates.

I think you know I didnt mean just "people asking for updates". There were some insults posted, some of them are still here. Some other were not maybe insulting, but felt like an attempt to drag developer down. If you take a look at what people put into reviews you'll see what I mean. I can't say it's fair, but I know that's the risk every dev takes.

"Nothing special about" - in my opinion each of these stories is special. They all are stories of extreme effort and a constant struggle. I've been on projects that lasted 1-2 years as solo dev, or 4 years like the current one (though this time it's a big established studio). Long-term development on rough bumpy road can pernamenty change a person. One needs to go through it to understand.

I can see it from a different angle, so I am not mad about the state of the game, I lean more towards compassion.

I don't know what caused Jon going offline for over 120 days. It could be anything. It could be moving from place to place, it could be health issues, family issues, some accident, maybe getting full-time position on bigger company to pay the bills and having no energy anymore. Anything right? I don't know Jon in person to know it, but I agree with you on this - he shouldn't just leave. But he did. And I think it was something serious and important. And because the project was backed by community in large part he might not want to reveal that reason to public to avoid some random internet dude calling it a cheap excuse.

I'm changing my review to negative. Sorry, Jon, if you read this: you're dropping the ball.

Originally posted by Charon:

I think you know I didnt mean just "people asking for updates". There were some insults posted, some of them are still here. Some other were not maybe insulting, but felt like an attempt to drag developer down. If you take a look at what people put into reviews you'll see what I mean. I can't say it's fair, but I know that's the risk every dev takes.

"Nothing special about" - in my opinion each of these stories is special. They all are stories of extreme effort and a constant struggle. I've been on projects that lasted 1-2 years as solo dev, or 4 years like the current one (though this time it's a big established studio). Long-term development on rough bumpy road can pernamenty change a person. One needs to go through it to understand.

I can see it from a different angle, so I am not mad about the state of the game, I lean more towards compassion.

I don't know what caused Jon going offline for over 120 days. It could be anything. It could be moving from place to place, it could be health issues, family issues, some accident, maybe getting full-time position on bigger company to pay the bills and having no energy anymore. Anything right? I don't know Jon in person to know it, but I agree with you on this - he shouldn't just leave. But he did. And I think it was something serious and important. And because the project was backed by community in large part he might not want to reveal that reason to public to avoid some random internet dude calling it a cheap excuse.

the problem with having compassion is that it's been the same cycle of failure for 7 years. there's always been health problems, or stress, or technical issues, or whatever; over and over and over like he's the only small business owner to have these issues. you can't take $100k of other peoples money and then give them a dated and broken product.

the most current set of broken promises is noted in the V1.2 thread (upcoming 1.3 plans section) stating:

"I'll be providing more details regarding future updates later this year but v1.3 and beyond will be mainly focused on improving the AI and diplomacy. As noted the behavior and mechanics of the Romans will also be fleshed out further, balance will be improved, and of course more bugs will be squashed. I’ll be working on AtG full-time through the end of the year at least, so there’s still a lot more good stuff to come. If you're curious as to what's going on with the game make sure to check out the unstable branch in Steam, as I typically update it every Friday except when I’m on vacation.

That’s it for now. If you have any questions about the game, what’s being worked on, or what’s coming up don’t hesitate to ask!"

NONE OF THIS ABOVE QUOTE IS TRUE. He's clearly not working on the game full time; if he was, then there would be patch notes and updates in the unstable version, which there are none.

he does not respond to anyone unless they're on twitter and one of his friends.

Originally posted by clayffo:

you can't take $100k of other peoples money and then give them a dated and broken product.

I've heard this argument in relation to multiple Kickstarter projects, and I don't think it really holds water. Backing any Kickstarter project is risky. Josh Parnell's Limit Theory (which received $187k funding) never saw any release. Regrettable, but part of the Kickstarter risk. In contrast, while Jon encountered difficulties and made mistakes, he persevered and ultimately shipped a playable game. While flawed, it contains some interesting systems and has given folks some enjoyment.

After release, Jon kept working on the game to try and address some of the shortcomings, while presumably making very little money on sales. (From the low player count, I can only assume sales were low.) From a practical perspective, I don't see how a situation like that could be sustainable for very long. Something has to give, sooner or later. Jon is an individual developer who aleady sold his house years ago in order to carry on development.

Since there doesn't seem to be much commercial justification for further work at this point, I presume Jon was driven to continue working by passion for his project and a sense of responsibility to the players. But practical realities can't be ignored forever.

While I appreciate the passion of folks here, it's a game at the end of the day - and a Kickstarter project that actually shipped a playable product. That product fell short of some of its ambitions, but that is what it is. There were achievements to take pride in, and difficulties to learn from. I wish Jon the best with whatever comes next.

Originally posted by Exsertis:

Originally posted by clayffo:

you can't take $100k of other peoples money and then give them a dated and broken product.

I've heard this argument in relation to multiple Kickstarter projects, and I don't think it really holds water. Backing any Kickstarter project is risky. Josh Parnell's Limit Theory (which received $187k funding) never saw any release. Regrettable, but part of the Kickstarter risk. In contrast, while Jon encountered difficulties and made mistakes, he persevered and ultimately shipped a playable game. While flawed, it contains some interesting systems and has given folks some enjoyment.

After release, Jon kept working on the game to try and address some of the shortcomings, while presumably making very little money on sales. (From the low player count, I can only assume sales were low.) From a practical perspective, I don't see how a situation like that could be sustainable for very long. Something has to give, sooner or later. Jon is an individual developer who aleady sold his house years ago in order to carry on development.

Since there doesn't seem to be much commercial justification for further work at this point, I presume Jon was driven to continue working by passion for his project and a sense of responsibility to the players. But practical realities can't be ignored forever.

While I appreciate the passion of folks here, it's a game at the end of the day - and a Kickstarter project that actually shipped a playable product. That product fell short of some of its ambitions, but that is what it is. There were achievements to take pride in, and difficulties to learn from. I wish Jon the best with whatever comes next.

You just have pretty low standards, not practical ones.
You're ignoring dozens (prob hundreds) of indie tiny-budgets games out there with lower player/review/budget count surviving in "practical realities" without making false promisses like John, at least justifying their eventual absence etc. etc. etc. And guess what, they weren't even spoiled with a 100k kickstarter campaign.

The 'fix'seems easy enough. patch all maps to give double the amounts of food before exhausted, maybe even tripple