Towns
Copper 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 3:30
What a sad tale.
Xavi's (main dev) response has left me incredibly saddened, many of you have accepted his response as okay but I'm afraid I have to make it clear that for me it was far from it. I'll do my best to explain why, for me, it simply isn't acceptable.

Becoming burnt out, it happens, it will happen to everyone who reads this post, it might happen at work or university, it may well happen with a hobby or project, it happens. We should all understand that, i have absolutely no argument with that. But you don't give up, you take a break and sort yourself out, you get back on your feet and you carry on. There are always people out there who will help you if you are willing to ask, you should never have to give up on something that is successful.

The Moral Point
I am currently at University, in my finial year, as well as that I run a small business that makes novelty gifts out of copper (hence the name), this also started out as a hobby, a little like towns, but it became popular and I had to juggle it with other commitments. It isn't easy, but when you sell something to a customer, you take on a commitment, you make the choice to take someones money for something and if you do, you damn well make sure you give them what they paid for, because that is your moral commitment. I actually hired someone for a short while to help me out.

Xavi should have hired someone, and he should have been in contact with his customers either via some form of social media or on these forums. And at the end of the day, if everything falls apart you refund those customers to an extent (not in the case of Towns, we after all do have a product, be it not fully finished) but you show them you'e sorry, at least film yourself giving your response, not a short post on the forums.
I would understand if Towns wasn't a success, but it was, the finances were there to continue the project and for whatever reasons it wasn't. Over 200k copies sold, do the maths on that for what they sold it for on Steam, they could have easily hired people to help out, I think I'm right in interpreting that the reason for this was because Xavi was too burnt out to show them over the code?

He could have even hired someone to help manage things, or bought some friends on bored, I don't know why he didn't do this, probably will never know.

All I can say is, I would do anything for the opportunity Xavi had, he had a chance to run a company with friends, producing content that he wanted and all the time knowing he was financially secure, to many people that would be a dream. How anyone could let that slip through their hands is beyond me. If everything in his life was going wrong for him, he had a community that would have happily accepted him asking for 6-12 months off, to sort things out and form a group who would continue Towns and SMP.

This is a very sorry ending indeed, not really for the loss of Towns, but for the opportunity Xavi had.
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Fizban Frobozz (已封禁) 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 3:39 
1. Did Xavi make a statement somewhere? Or are you just referring to his reported actions?

2. Who are you talking to who think this is ok? Virtually everybody thinks this is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing for Xavi to do and aren't happy with it.

Screw your sympathy for Xavi and his wasted opportunity. He's a millionaire. Save your compassion for the people who were tricked into giving their hard earned money thinking they were getting a full game. MANY of us won't ever even bother to load up Towns again, but Xavi still gets to keep the money.
76561198069409126 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 3:48 
Actually, I could not believe Xavi will ever come back to towns and post anything ever again... I was wrong.

Op is probably talking about people posting here:
{链接已删除}
And as all of the posts are not that much aggressive, probably because nothing good could happen from scaring away Xavi xD, at least until he makes the game open source
最后由 ragnar119 编辑于; 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 3:48
Copper 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 3:56 
引用自 Solo Solitaire
1. Did Xavi make a statement somewhere? Or are you just referring to his reported actions?

2. Who are you talking to who think this is ok? Virtually everybody thinks this is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing for Xavi to do and aren't happy with it.

Screw your sympathy for Xavi and his wasted opportunity. He's a millionaire. Save your compassion for the people who were tricked into giving their hard earned money thinking they were getting a full game. MANY of us won't ever even bother to load up Towns again, but Xavi still gets to keep the money.

He did, on the Towns forum, I should have said.

I understand people are annoyed, they should be. I won't make any excuses but he did have to deal with his wife having cancer, what he did still can't be written off, like selling it as finished, simply not a moral thing to do. However, I won't be so quick to judge him without knowing the guy.

He still has a chance to redeem himself in the future.
Cyborgt 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:10 
引用自 ragnar119
Actually, I could not believe Xavi will ever come back to towns and post anything ever again... I was wrong.

Op is probably talking about people posting here:
http://www.townsgame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11402
And as all of the posts are not that much aggressive, probably because nothing good could happen from scaring away Xavi xD, at least until he makes the game open source

Yeah, I just looked it up myself (and was about to post the link when you did) and apparently he really did post a response. From what I can tell, there isn't really anyone saying it was ok that he vanished for an extended period of time because he got burned out. It's mostly people just being thankful that he actually said SOMETHING and trying to gently push him toward the idea of open source.

Sadly, what i'm seeing from his response is that he seems to be looking for a way to maintain complete control over his broken product while still being able to string us along. Call that a pessimistic viewpoint but when he starts talking about how open source "affects us" and how he's starting to like the idea of hiring someone else to work on the game, I can't really see it any other way.

引用自 TheCopperBaron
He still has a chance to redeem himself in the future.

That's going to take a TON of work for me, especially given he's still talking about the game as if it isn't a broken PoS. If he does hire someone and we haven't seen significant progress within the next 6 months (after hiring the guy,) i'm writing him off completely. I'd still suggest everyone assume this game is just as dead as Ben claimed until we actually see a regular patching schedule emerge. A couple new patches aren't gonna cut it to prove that claim wrong.
最后由 Cyborgt 编辑于; 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:10
Copper 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:15 
I guess I feel in a different boat, I'm annoyed that it wont get finished. I personally would put money on that.

But, I did buy it for £5 on the bases it was an early access, in which case I knew what I could be getting myself into. The issue is when it came onto Steam as a full game, it was an outright lie, and as it won't be finished I feel for those of you who purchased it at full price.

It isn't acceptable.
76561198069409126 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:16 
Well, my other thread name is wrong now, Its not 100% dead anymore, more like 99% xD.

Ohh boy hope it hits open sources, before someone scares him away.
Copper 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:19 
I'm not sure Valve would like that, and from what I've seen so far it isn't likely that he will want to. I wouldn't be half surprised to see the website go down at some point.

I'm not sure if valve can do anything about it, it is something they will need to address (unfinished games from early access) It is also an awkward point legally as well, i'm not sure it is covered in consumer rights etc
Cyborgt 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:22 
引用自 ragnar119
Well, my other thread name is wrong now, Its not 100% dead anymore, more like 99% xD.

Ohh boy hope it hits open sources, before someone scares him away.

Indeed. I think the responses in that thread were the right way to go, which is one reason why i'm not going to be a part of that thread. That being said, i'm not holding out hope that it will end well.
Copper 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:27 
If I'm honest, I think games in the same spirit are already being worked on, such as Stonehearth (http://stonehearth.net/)

One of those will manage what the Niche want, Towns proved surprisingly popular on Steam ... that will be noticed by smaller game studios.
Fizban Frobozz (已封禁) 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:32 
For the record, Towns wasn't ever Early Access, though I do agree something needs to change with that system.

Also, check out Banished, it's looking really promising, too. And there's still Gnomoria.
最后由 Fizban Frobozz 编辑于; 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:32
Copper 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:34 
It was never early access on Steam (should have been). However, it was sold as early access through their own site years ago when it first went on sale in Alpha or Beta I can't remember, which is when i got it.

Banished does look nice, not seen it before so thank you! (I've loved games like this ever since I got into Dwarf Fortress, which i still believe nothing has topped yet) I will look into Banished some more.
最后由 Copper 编辑于; 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:35
Cyborgt 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 4:47 
引用自 TheCopperBaron
However, it was sold as early access through their own site years ago when it first went on sale in Alpha or Beta I can't remember, which is when i got it.

It was sold as alpha on their website. One of the biggest controversies surrounding the "release" of Towns was that it was officially alpha right up until its launch on Steam with the supposed beta (taking place with a limited group) only being minor patch work to get it working properly through Steam.

As for the other titles, it's unfortunate for them but I think i'm done with this particular niche for quite some time still. I'm more insterested in the DK clones being made right now.
napalmeddie 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 7:09 
Once bitten, twice shy. I learned a valuable lesson from Towns, and it had nothing to do with building a town. :)
muzzy (已封禁) 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 7:11 
Banished, Gnomoria, Stonehearth ... all of them games I've been really excited about, until I realized all of them are being developed windows-only at the moment. Banished promises to consider porting to Mac sometime later, but not very soon. As a mac gamer, all of this saddens me very much.

At least Clockwork Empires says it supports Mac at launch day, and the launch happens "Spring 2014" which should be reasonably soon, I hope.
Cyborgt 2014 年 2 月 10 日 下午 9:06 
引用自 muzzy
Banished, Gnomoria, Stonehearth ... all of them games I've been really excited about, until I realized all of them are being developed windows-only at the moment. Banished promises to consider porting to Mac sometime later, but not very soon. As a mac gamer, all of this saddens me very much.

At least Clockwork Empires says it supports Mac at launch day, and the launch happens "Spring 2014" which should be reasonably soon, I hope.

Well at least they're being up front about the fact that their games don't actually work on anything but windows. Didn't Towns have a problem that prevented the game from being playable on Mac?
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