Any news?

[[Einherjar]]

I was thinking it would've come out around this time. Has stoic made a ballpark estimate on its release? surely before 2014, right?

Also is there an estimation of the amount of hours of gameplay?

Looking forward to playing the singleplayer. I think it would be better for chapter 2 if they actually gave a month for possible release date, they can always push it back but at least fans have a date to look forward to, there might be a lot of people that backed saga or played factions just forgot about this great game after several months/over a year lol

[Aleonymous]

Hey rod! Long time...

No news about the Saga release date yet. Just some word that all the abilities have been plugged in and it's being playtested for balancing etc. Stoicstudio was also developing a build to submit at an expo/competition (IGF). Don't know if they want to "position" their game so close to Xmas (Steam sales etc).

For a small teaser/spoiler -- Have you checked the "Lets Play" PAX demo videos? They can be found here ( http://www.youtube.com/user/StoicStudio ).

Aleo

[[Einherjar]]

hi Aleo, glad to see you're still holding down the fort. hope all is well.

yeah thanks I've checked out the PAX videos, cool to see, i think i saw 2 new units/abilities in it, an archer with a lined up attack, and someone that attacks causing allied units in vicinity to attack as well. Those are definitely interesting.

just came back to get into the Wizard Wars alpha, thought i might peek in here to see whats going on and if anything new changed.

[[Einherjar]]

yeah i agree with the steam sale thing, but if they release it post-Xmas, well no one is going to buy it since they will be playing all the games they already bought during the steam sale. Which leaves them only the month of November, and since that is next month and there has been no talk of releasing it, well...that leaves me worried lol unless they release it like Feb 2014, which is so long removed from when they announced it that a lot of people have moved on/forgotten about it. Ah game industry is tough, i hope Stoic succeeds. ttyl Aleo.

[Aleonymous]

The new units/abilities revealed were quite interesting, indeed. A lot of speculation started on how they'd fit into competitive PvP (Factions), but that's a long way ahead. Balancing will surely be needed, etc etc.

For now, we can only hope for the Saga to come as soon as possible. I'd personally love to have it before Xmas cuz I'll have a lot of spare time then, so that I can enjoy it more. But, as you say, it might be as late as Feb 2014... It will be great, no worries about that.

I still play Factions. Not so "fanatically" as before, but I try to do 1-2 matches per day on average. Trying to help new players (at p6+) those who wanna talk that is, testing formations & tactics (at p12), and hoarding Renown for the wondrous things to come! XD

Cheers!

[Kaneko]

Hello guys, I've played Factions for a while when it was released, got bored to dead of playing with people that just stand still until you got in range to give the first hit... I mean c'mon, I remember some dude spend like ten turns just standing there!...

Anyway... I'm posting this 'cause after watching the videos you posted I'm a little surprised of how shallow gameplay is... maybe is just one of the first battles of the game so that's why it's so simple... but to show some toons hitting each other next to the other... it's not what you would call entertainment...

I remember the good old FF Tactics, the buffs and debuffs, the summons, the Math class, the Samurai whose skills depended on the katana he had in hand... well lots of stuff that make the game deep...

I don't mind if they take another year to build the game... just kind of sad to think that so much artistic potencial won't be balanced with a deep gameplay...

[Aleonymous]

Hello Kaneko,

I'll agree that this "waiting/turtling" tactic has been --statistically-- proven efficient, especially against new players. However, there are tactics and builds to tackle them, are actually pretty fun, e.g. throw SnB on them and let them watch the coals... Now really, this issue has been raised many times and I think they (e.g. Stoic) will take some measures against it, for instance to urge players to engage faster.

Now, concerning the "depth" of the single-player battle strategies --- We are not yet really sure how good/bad it is, since we haven't actually played it! It seems that Stoic focuses more on giving you battles where you are (a) outnumbered, (b) out-statted. As you might know from your Factions experience, these two facts are balanced between them due to what we call "turn advantage" (ref to guides for details). This meas that the battles are quite fair "mathematically" speaking, but you might call the AI a little dumb, aye... I guess that was a decision they made because scripting/developing a truly smart AI is quite difficult, especially when there's so many and so diverse abilities... Dunno, perhaps in the future they can update their "AI module" for harder difficulty settings etc.

Closing this post, I mean to ask you, did you refer to "shallow" strategies also for the PvP game (i.e. Factions), or just the single-player demo?

[Kaneko]

Hey Aleonymous, thanks for the response, When I said "shallow" I was refering to the Single player demo, it only shows a brawl of toon and not too many ways to solve one situation(which is one of the pillars a deep gameplay must offer if you ask me)...

I remember watching an interview when they(the devs) said that Final Fantasy Tactics was a strong influence while planing the game, they won me over with that as FFT and Vagrant Story are the best games of the PS era(IMO)... but I don´t see much of it so far, which is quite a let down...

The time I played PvP I saw many people playing nice "chessy" strategies and got dashed really quickly, good battles I must say(I'm not a bad loser as you see, ha!)...

Then you encounter some @$$holes that only played for the ranking... and that's when the "turtling" begins... killed it for me...

I also remember soon after that they added the paid packages... and that was it(more like a moral defeat)....

Anyway I still have faith in Stoic as I have faith in any team that puts the artistic value of gaming as a banner(pun intented, ha!)... as there are not so many out there...


So maybe I'll wait or even give Multiplayer a second chance and learn the ropes again...

Cheers!

[Aleonymous]

Hmm, I understand your concern. I think that the difficulty and the diversity of battles will probably scale as you progress along the game. It makes sense for the first fights (i.e. the ones we saw at the demo videos) to be relatively simple/easy, so that the players grasp the way of things slowly. Also, It seems like only 2-3 bad-guy (Dredge) unit-types were revealed, and my guess is that are many more to come, each bringing their own strengths & weaknesses. Furthermore, the devs have confirmed that you are gonna battle against human & varl teams too (i.e. like in Factions, but AI-controlled), where the unit variety will probably make battles more interesting. As I said before, it all seems to depend on how the AI is scripted. We can't safely tell at the moment.

As for Factions, things are pretty much similar, but I daresay the turtling/waiting techniques are getting scarcer (or I am getting better so that they don't annoy me!). The paid packages were just for vanity and for those that want to rush to higher team-powers -- only to be beaten more badly at the hands of the more experienced players... Why did it bother you so? Actually, that is a big misconception. TBSF is not a pay-to-win game (and I am confident that it will stay that way). This means that you can have interesting battles at power-1 or at power-18, depending on your skill, taste and "renown" (in-game money, directly corresponding to how much time you have devoted playing)...

You could give Factions another chance, and see how things are for yourself. I am definitely sure that Stoicstudio has big plans for Factions, and they are not gonna let it "die" in the ways we are discussing (e.g. become pay-to-win, desolate, totally unbalanced or generally unfun). We're just going to have to wait for the single player, the Saga, to be released, and then...

See you!

[That Guy]

Kaneko eredeti hozzászólása:

Hello guys, I've played Factions for a while when it was released, got bored to dead of playing with people that just stand still until you got in range to give the first hit... I mean c'mon, I remember some dude spend like ten turns just standing there!...

if it went for 10 turns and neither person got hit then you were standing just out of range aswell . lol .

pretty sure they said some where its sometime in 2014 months ago (probably febuary or march going by industry standards). so the reach goal of xbox360/ps3 port means nothing . some people probably want there money back but stoic cant change the past and they just have to trudge toward a release or go bankrupt

[Grahor]

2014, no doubt about it; hope for Febuary/March, but it can be longer.

Generally, a game, any game, takes a hell of a long time to develop. People, developers even, always underestimate the time and money needed, by lots. :)

No worries. It'll be ready when it's ready. The studio is financially stable, so it's all good.

[[Einherjar]]

OK well thanks for the replies. Yeah I guess I am fine for 2014, its bad news for Factions because they really cant work on it until they finish Chapter 1, but ive already moved on from Factions, just gonna buy the singleplayer now

[strange_carrots]

An announcement is due very very soon :).

I think the recently released single player demo videos should be taken as a preview.

The early builds of the game were presented for informational purposes and still don't show the complete game with all the abilities, polish, and bells and whistles.

It does however give a good idea of where the devs want to head with the single player and what they've done so far. They can go through a hundred iterations of the game in a week, just cos of all the stuff that's going in.

[Aleonymous]

Seems like its gonna be a merry Xmas after all... Cross your fingers guys!

[[Einherjar]]

January 14th, 2014!

[Aleonymous]

That's Tuesday. At what hour? :-P