melmer

Project Godus: Don't believe his lies

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Yeah I'm right there with you. It's a goddamn disgrace!

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I get the feeling a lot of lion head people got out after fable 2. The direction of that series took a significant shift and even being a fable studio, they aren't producing anything good with it.

I played some more Godus today. There is a decent God game in here, but you'll never get to play it as it is wholly wrapped in f2p, casual, mobile BS.

The game starts to feel like bnw2 a bit, but less fun, less good looking, less features, and one where you get to wait 40 minutes for a house to be built, or you wait 40 minutes while playing a really boring, puzzle-ish mini game.

Even if they took out the additional pay features for PA the foundation and time tuning is f2p, where you won't be sitting down for a couple hours to play straight through a solid chunk.

Decent ideas, not especially new, but wrapped in a different intention that isn't appealing to me.

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I moved the game to my iPad instead of my phone and have now settled into a rhythm of collecting things in the morning and before bed. It's a nice enough distraction and I like managing to play full versions of classical tunes when collecting Belief.

 

The puzzle aspect of the sailing is interesting in a Lemmings kind of way but it highlights how poor the pathfinding is. Even in the normal game, my followers can climb up to a location but can't get back down despite not affecting the terrain so I have to keep removing a little bit of the edge so they fall down.

 

I'm still stuck on what exactly 22 Cans intend this game to be though. I got an email over the weekend because I played Curiosity and it had all the usual spiel about "have you ever imagined being a God?" but it doesn't feel like any of the existing systems particularly contribute to that if that's the end game, unless I'm a God that likes collecting resources.

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It really winds me up that we're in an age where god/simulation games could be so fantastic and even reasonably playable on consoles thanks to the widespread motion control we have now, yet what do we get? What do we get?

 

Have you tried Skyward Collapse?  I own it, but haven't actually played it yet.  Seemed like a great exploration of god game mechanics, where victory is failure and maintaining a perpetual state of religious warfare between diverse peoples is the goal. 

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Have you tried Skyward Collapse?  I own it, but haven't actually played it yet.  Seemed like a great exploration of god game mechanics, where victory is failure and maintaining a perpetual state of religious warfare between diverse peoples is the goal. 

Skyward Collapse is a very odd, unique game. If you own it and haven't tried it you should give it a go. it might really click with you. It also really might not. The ways you have of interacting with the world are mostly very indirect. Nothing you do feels amazing or godlike. Everything is very unpredictable and impossible to control. But... when you get going, and you think you're getting it all balanced out either some random event leaves you scrambling to adapt there's a delighful, sweary pleasure to it.

 

Nicest touch: you need to earn points to successfully make it through each Age, mostly earned through things fighting. However, you have these powers you can call on that really muck with something. The ones that make balancing the factions harder (say, by superpowering one of their units) award you points when you use them. So when you feel like you have things under control, you start to notice all these neat buttons you could push, for which you will get points, and you start to wonder how bad can it be...

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Nicest touch: you need to earn points to successfully make it through each Age, mostly earned through things fighting. However, you have these powers you can call on that really muck with something. The ones that make balancing the factions harder (say, by superpowering one of their units) award you points when you use them. So when you feel like you have things under control, you start to notice all these neat buttons you could push, for which you will get points, and you start to wonder how bad can it be...

 

That sounds so wonderful.  I really do need to fire it up some night.  I tend to have a lot more hesitancy to start up any strategy or simulation game over something simpler, in part because both the learning curve and total play time can be potentially much higher.  That ends up being intimidating, so I just default to something that feels like it won't take as long.

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I think if you look at it as an optimisation problem it will be a very intimidating game. Certainly there's some learning to do before you can build up a pair of opposing functional settlements. However, from there you can very much take a sandbox view of it that is much more amenable. Things will happen. Try to respond as best you can. Experiment with myth units and god powers. Expect things to go downhill, and enjoy the bizarre show. If you're doing it this way it doesn't matter as much if you dip in and out rather than going for massive sessions.

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Stumbled upon The Universim while seeing if anything else is on the god game horizon. What a sensational trailer:

 

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I love the idea that, no matter what, sentient creatures will inevitably invent standardised shipping containers.

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That trailer was quite evocative. I would like to play that game.

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There's been a few articles about Godus' development in the past few days:

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/09/oh-godus-what-the-hells-going-on/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/11/loss-of-faith-will-godus-ever-have-a-god-of-gods/#more-269889

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-11-the-god-who-peter-molyneux-forgot

 

I'm glad I'm not a backer, because this stuff varies between disappointing and infuriating. The title of this thread seems appropriate. Molyneux has consistently overpromised before, but this time he just seems like an asshole rather than merely charmingly self-deluded. The fact he's now working on another game, described in similar ways his previous games have been, would indicate some things never change.

 

I want to believe he has good intentions, but it's difficult in this case.

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The Eurogamer one is particularly damning.

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is Molyneux trying to pretend the whole "consumer" and "business" thing doesn't exist in video games?

 

This is really bad for crowdfunding, because this dude is pretty high-profile if you're a video game enthusiast that learns names in the industry. For him to let a KS crash and burn (essentially) feeds the arguments of crowdfunding being a terrible thing.

 

I know Molyneux had an existing habit of speaking about things to make them seem grand, but even if he didn't fulfill those things he at least put out playable, 'finished' products.

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A programmer friend of mine actually applied for a job at 22Cans inception. He must be so relieved that he never heard back from them.

 

What a disappointing mess. 

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I want to know the full story behind Konrad, because holy fuck, in two years how does someone go from being a backer, to an intern (paid/unpaid?) to the lead designer of Molyneux' abandoned project.

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So I didn't know that Peter Molyneux responded to what's going on. Sadly, it wasn't much of one, because his response is, "If people are mad at me then I won't talk to the press." He's kind of being a child about this, which lead to me saying this elsewhere:

 

"People likened Peter Molyneux to a child for his imagination. Now we can do it cuz of the temper tantrum he's throwing when he's in trouble."

 

I mean, am I wrong?

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RPS had a pretty crazy interview with him after some of the things that have been said this week. The interview isn't an easy read by any means, and John Walker really puts him on the spot. It's hard to see him acting maliciously, but it certainly does make him look incompetent. 

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Was just about to post that, oddly. It's really, really brutal, and pretty disjointed in parts since they're basically just angrily arguing for most of it, but I think it explains some stuff.
Opening question: RPS: Do you think that you’re a pathological liar?
Sometimes John Walker being a total bastard makes for entertaining interviews.

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That interview is a tough read. I'm glad Walker put Molyneux on the spot, but they both come across as a bit petulant and childish.

 

"You said this!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes you did!

*fingers in ears* "No, no, no, no, no!"

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I don't think that's an appropriate way to open an interview. There's a difference between confronting someone and insulting them. I suppose he wanted Molyneux to get off balance, but still.

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Oof. I really feel bad for Molyneux, he genuinely did think he would make a transformative game and I think his hyperbolic marketing was viewed as likeable enough that he never took a hint to curb it before, but now that fans feel personally invested in a game that he had no publisher oversight on, it falls apart.

I mean, I'm not at all surprised that he doesn't know how much games will cost logistically. If your job in EA is game designer, why would you be checking on accounts? Sure he'll have more info than the general public, but the entire overhead of EA is there for more than just cash flow, they take care of a lot of stuff. Publishers are much maligned because of their perceived fixation on pure profit but they are providing services to game studios so that the studios can focus on the games themselves.

But in the end, when Molyneux won't take responsibility for so many of his claims falling to pieces then you can't have faith in him any more. He really does just seem to speak unfiltered and ignore the consequences, and after a point you can't do that if you want any credibility.

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That was really difficult to read. There are some good questions in there, but I agree opening with that question was brutal, and arguably unnecessary. Molyneaux seems to have gone from overpromising visionary to liar since founding 22 Cans. Or maybe it was just before that he had corporate overlords to keep him in check.

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It's hard to see him acting maliciously, but it certainly does make him look incompetent. 

 

Boy, that is a long article. Interesting read. I found this to be the most interesting quote:

 

RPS: So why go to people who trust you and trust your reputation and ask them for half a million pounds and say you’re going to finish the game in seven months, when you know you’re not going to?

Peter Molyneux: Because I absolutely believe that and my team believe that. That’s what the creative process is.

 

I have no clue if he's being honest any more. On the one hand, it fits with his Manic Pixie Dream Developper reputation, but on the other hand, surely even the biggest optimist will have reality break through their bubble at some point. I guess I can't say I believe him, because if he was going to lie about Godus, that's exactly the lie he'd tell. After being caught in what was either a lie, or a truth error in his favour, he said this about Konrad.

 

Peter Molyneux: I was wrong. But it’s not a lie.

 

That gave me a rather dreary epiphany. It doesn't matter if he's lying or incompetent, the point is that we can't trust him. As John put it:

 

Peter Molyneux: What are you trying to do? You’re trying to prove that I’m a pathological liar, I suppose, aren’t you.

RPS: I’m trying to establish that you don’t tell the truth.

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