Interesting Massively OP Column

So the article is clearly misleading when referencing the state of the game. That is a fact.

Also, I do hope I'm mistaken when I'm reading these posts that are attempting to argue the difference of games being released from one state to another.

If a game is released as alpha, early access or beta. That is fact and not up for logical debate.

If someone maybe does not understand those game states from a finished product then hopefully this helps them to understand they are not the same.

The game was officially released as early access on steam, that's a fact. Whether it's beta or alpha, it is NOT released as a finished game and it is very hurtful to imply that it's in a finished stage.
That's not fair to the game, the Devs or the community. It misrepresents the truth.

So I do hope there isn't any more confusion of the state of the game, at very least.

In regards to the post from massively OP.... good lord. This guys rant was almost as bad as beating my own face with a blunt object.... he goes on about such stupid little nuances and critiques like the games at fault for not being witty enough? I mean he's so smart he had me almost lost as to what his point even was. Is this the level of concern for the majority.?

In fairness to him, we are all entitled to our opinions and I'm not faulting him for his opinions.
But it almost seemed ironic to me that it sounded like he is picking the game apart for things that are making the game hard to understand, or complicated or what. And by the end I'm more confused by his article then I am the game...


I guess really my only thing is, IMO not any of his " cons" with the game made any sense enough to give it any more attention.

I was generally fine with the Massively article, although it's possible I may have skipped over large parts of it while oggling its really awesome cow screenshots. I wasn't that impressed with the cons section, but different people, different priorities...

I thought the comment at the end was interesting, though:

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If Heimburg had a bigger budget, an established IP, and a larger team, I’d wager his game would pose a very real threat to the current market. As it stands, it’ll just delight the small contingent of discerning old-school MMORPG explorers who stumble into it.

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Now, I'll admit that I've been eyeing SotA's cash accumulation very jealously and wishing that I could transfer some of that to PG. I think it's an interesting thought experiment though whether a bigger budget would have made PG a better game. Generally, bigger budgets come with strings attached which can often work out to "let's make the game more like those other games that are selling well, so that our game will sell well, too". Since what I really like about PG is its uniqueness, I don't think that would really help all that much.

Now, I'd be perfectly happy if some discerning millionaire donated a few strings-free millions to PG and I bet they could do some really cool stuff with that. I don't know if that would necessarily turn PG into the next WoW though. To me, the main thing PG is lacking is better graphics and I don't know if just better graphics would make people flock to a game if they didn't before. Well, maybe "better graphics and a large advertising budget." :)

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Originally Posted by Tagamogi

Now, I'll admit that I've been eyeing SotA's cash accumulation very jealously and wishing that I could transfer some of that to PG. I think it's an interesting thought experiment though whether a bigger budget would have made PG a better game. Generally, bigger budgets come with strings attached which can often work out to "let's make the game more like those other games that are selling well, so that our game will sell well, too". Since what I really like about PG is its uniqueness, I don't think that would really help all that much.

Now, I'd be perfectly happy if some discerning millionaire donated a few strings-free millions to PG and I bet they could do some really cool stuff with that. I don't know if that would necessarily turn PG into the next WoW though. To me, the main thing PG is lacking is better graphics and I don't know if just better graphics would make people flock to a game if they didn't before. Well, maybe "better graphics and a large advertising budget." :)

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From what I've seen so far, a big donation like that would probably be put toward the stuff that they outsource/commission people to do, like the modeling and animations. Some stuff would probably just get sped along, though with the way they want to keep the team small and do much of the core work themselves the majority of stuff would probably continue at its current pace. That they've done so much already with the smaller sum of money they've gotten from Kickstarter and other crowdfunding really says a lot about the team they've got.

I think if they had some kind of multi million dollar budget, they would for sure have better graffix.
the game would probably be fully optimized and ready for a full release, The creators could themselves keep working on content to add in new releases at any point.

Here is an old interview I found where Eric talks about hoping someday they will have the budget to have the graphics resemble games like " Skyrim".

Which I think is totally fucking cool. could you imagine this game but with SkyRim graphics????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp76eMD5QR4

MMOs are never really 'finished' though, and EA is a disclaimer but nobody considers it a hard rule. Given that its now being sold it could be fair to say it 'released', but what does 'released' even mean? What does it mean in comparison to 'launched'? The biggest argument against it being 'somethingd' is not what it is being officially called, but the fact that there is still some sort of wipe planned and they are not yet selling the vip subscription they plan to. The first mmo i ever played back in the 90s started as a 'beta' but it did not hard wipe, and so it was never considered that when it did finally officially come out of beta that anything really happened but a version number changed and the developers considered the game now 'officially acceptable', and moreover it then a few months later went up another major version number which radically changed the game and left people considering that to be the official 'start point' of the current/modern/real version of the game.

Whatever words you want to use you can call an mmos 'starting point' to be the last hard wipe it experienced, because everything after that point is still part of the same continuum one way or another. In that case then, the game was launched well before it was released, and its not yet gold ;^)

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Originally Posted by RancidAngel

I think if they had some kind of multi million dollar budget, they would for sure have better graffix.
the game would probably be fully optimized and ready for a full release, The creators could themselves keep working on content to add in new releases at any point.

Here is an old interview I found where Eric talks about hoping someday they will have the budget to have the graphics resemble games like " Skyrim".

Which I think is totally fucking cool. could you imagine this game but with SkyRim graphics????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp76eMD5QR4

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Wow I had never seen that interview, thanks for sharing!! I don't think Eric still feels the same way though about having a large budge. He seems to desire to keep his team small and isn't super interested in making the graphics as good as skyrim.. though that would be amazing If he still feels that way and they eventually did produce those kind of graphics. Haha.

The author of the article criticizes the game for not having a streamlined easy-access McDonald's style skill progression. I think a key point of appeal for the game is that skill progression does hit obstacles and roadblocks. A character can't just choose a skill line from the login screen and grind XP to cap for it.

The article also rambled, but I get the challenge in writing a cohesive MMO article. They're big games that are incredibly hard to fit into 1500 words.

I think the hardline position on "release" gaming sites takes is because so many gaming neanderthals want the media to hold a flame under indie crowdfunded projects. If they don't they're accused of pandering to the developer and shilling for the publisher. I think the rabble-rousing has gotten out of hand, but what do you do when people can generate public outrage on Steam, Reddit, etc.

I read the review and thought it was pretty ok. It's just one review, i feel like people are getting sort of worked up over it, but meh idk.

Agree, being to sensitive about his opinion is a little silly. Over all at the end it was pretty positive.

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Originally Posted by drivendawn

Agree, being to sensitive about his opinion is a little silly. Over all at the end it was pretty positive.

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Yeah, it's not a bad article and more publicity is good. I feel like he's trying too hard to be insightful and dig deep. Also, you have to consider that a critical article is going to receive a critical response. Throwing out provocative judgments will get a similar reaction from the readers. I think it sets a tone. It got people thinking about those points which got them talking about them.