Our statement regarding save wipes

[kpx_ar]

Hey! We hear you; a few words from our team regarding the save wipes issue.

We're all gamers, and we hate save wipes as much as you do. We wanted to avoid them at all costs. We hoped we wouldn't have to do them anymore. That was our goal and our plan.

We worked to get our tools and technology to a state where maintaining save compatibility between releases would be easier. Unfortunately, this turned out to be more difficult than expected because the number of changes and additions between 0.9 and 1.0 is larger than we initially estimated.

This means keeping saves compatible between 0.9 and 1.0 just isn't feasible. Doing so would require a tremendous amount of manpower that we can't spare—it would divert the attention of our senior programmers from, for example, improving optimization. Having to choose like that, we chose to make the game better for the main release, unfortunately, at the cost of the upcoming save wipe.

We could have not announced that there will be no more wipes, true. But we underestimated the challenge and made a mistake in communication. That’s the reason for this whole issue.

We're sorry we made some of you feel scammed. That was never the intention. We're trying very hard to communicate as clearly as possible, but sometimes the plan has to change to provide the overall best gameplay experience.

To end with, please know that we're putting tons of effort into the upcoming release of update 0.9, as well as the 1.0 launch. It's actually quite close from now (more info coming soon). We believe that the final version of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon will make up for all the troubles on the way! :)

Thank you for all the comments and support during the development journey!

[Bobzzo]

No issues from my side, as long as it help you deliver a polished solid product.
Cheers guys!

[Raykael]

Originally posted by kpx_ar:

Hey! We hear you; a few words from our team regarding the save wipes issue.

We're all gamers, and we hate save wipes as much as you do. We wanted to avoid them at all costs. We hoped we wouldn't have to do them anymore. That was our goal and our plan.

First of all, no: you're not "gamers". What you do in your free time has zero relevance and I could not care less if you're gamers, unicorns or slugs. You are here representing a company that is trying to make a profit out of this. Enough with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ please.

We worked to get our tools and technology to a state where maintaining save compatibility between releases would be easier. Unfortunately, this turned out to be more difficult than expected because the number of changes and additions between 0.9 and 1.0 is larger than we initially estimated.

This means keeping saves compatible between 0.9 and 1.0 just isn't feasible. Doing so would require a tremendous amount of manpower that we can't spare—it would divert the attention of our senior programmers from, for example, improving optimization. Having to choose like that, we chose to make the game better for the main release, unfortunately, at the cost of the upcoming save wipe

This explanation is, to put it simply, a lie (at the very least lie by omission). In your February developer's update you announced that the reason for your decision to continue save wipes is that your team had to focus 100% on optimization, xbox and ps5 ports. Optimization is just ONE part of the story, and I don't think you have more people working on optimization than on ps5 and xbox ports, especially when in order to release on xbox you have to ensure that the game is compatible with the older hardware.

You have decided that the console ports had priority over a feature that you promised in an official update, and that you knew it would have convinced quite a lot of user to buy into the game.

We could have not announced that there will be no more wipes, true. But we underestimated the challenge and made a mistake in communication. That’s the reason for this whole issue.

We're sorry we made some of you feel scammed. That was never the intention. We're trying very hard to communicate as clearly as possible, but sometimes the plan has to change to provide the overall best gameplay experience.

To end with, please know that we're putting tons of effort into the upcoming release of update 0.9, as well as the 1.0 launch. It's actually quite close from now (more info coming soon). We believe that the final version of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon will make up for all the troubles on the way! :)

Thank you for all the comments and support during the development journey!

Frankly, I don't care and I do not want to support your company any longer. You're not working on providing the "overall best gameplay experience", you are working to provide a stable version on an extremely old console, and that's requiring a lot more effort that you initially though, maybe (maybe). But that does nothing to improve the gameplay experience of users who ALREADY BOUGHT your product, especially to those that bought because they were promised a feature that you are now unwilling (not unable, UNWILLING) to deliver.

I don't know your intentions and I don't care, all I care about is your behaviour. And your behaviour has been shady and fraudulent to say the least.

So, once again, the question remains: if you REALLY were in good faith when you promised no more save wipes from 0.9 onward, why are you not reaching out to Steam Support and ask them to allow refunds to every user requesting it that has bought the game in the period of time between your December developer's update and your February developer's update? Because that's absolutely within your power.

[spectre199]

Originally posted by Raykael:

Originally posted by kpx_ar:

Hey! We hear you; a few words from our team regarding the save wipes issue.

We're all gamers, and we hate save wipes as much as you do. We wanted to avoid them at all costs. We hoped we wouldn't have to do them anymore. That was our goal and our plan.

First of all, no: you're not "gamers". What you do in your free time has zero relevance and I could not care less if you're gamers, unicorns or slugs. You are here representing a company that is trying to make a profit out of this. Enough with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ please.

We worked to get our tools and technology to a state where maintaining save compatibility between releases would be easier. Unfortunately, this turned out to be more difficult than expected because the number of changes and additions between 0.9 and 1.0 is larger than we initially estimated.

This means keeping saves compatible between 0.9 and 1.0 just isn't feasible. Doing so would require a tremendous amount of manpower that we can't spare—it would divert the attention of our senior programmers from, for example, improving optimization. Having to choose like that, we chose to make the game better for the main release, unfortunately, at the cost of the upcoming save wipe

This explanation is, to put it simply, a lie (at the very least lie by omission). In your February developer's update you announced that the reason for your decision to continue save wipes is that your team had to focus 100% on optimization, xbox and ps5 ports. Optimization is just ONE part of the story, and I don't think you have more people working on optimization than on ps5 and xbox ports, especially when in order to release on xbox you have to ensure that the game is compatible with the older hardware.

You have decided that the console ports had priority over a feature that you promised in an official update, and that you knew it would have convinced quite a lot of user to buy into the game.

We could have not announced that there will be no more wipes, true. But we underestimated the challenge and made a mistake in communication. That’s the reason for this whole issue.

We're sorry we made some of you feel scammed. That was never the intention. We're trying very hard to communicate as clearly as possible, but sometimes the plan has to change to provide the overall best gameplay experience.

To end with, please know that we're putting tons of effort into the upcoming release of update 0.9, as well as the 1.0 launch. It's actually quite close from now (more info coming soon). We believe that the final version of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon will make up for all the troubles on the way! :)

Thank you for all the comments and support during the development journey!

Frankly, I don't care and I do not want to support your company any longer. You're not working on providing the "overall best gameplay experience", you are working to provide a stable version on an extremely old console, and that's requiring a lot more effort that you initially though, maybe (maybe). But that does nothing to improve the gameplay experience of users who ALREADY BOUGHT your product, especially to those that bought because they were promised a feature that you are now unwilling (not unable, UNWILLING) to deliver.

I don't know your intentions and I don't care, all I care about is your behaviour. And your behaviour has been shady and fraudulent to say the least.

So, once again, the question remains: if you REALLY were in good faith when you promised no more save wipes from 0.9 onward, why are you not reaching out to Steam Support and ask them to allow refunds to every user requesting it that has bought the game in the period of time between your December developer's update and your February developer's update? Because that's absolutely within your power.

Grow Up.

[Raykael]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

@dev team ... keep doing what you're doing, wipe the saves as many times as necessary to provide as polished a game experience as possible at 1.0 release, the vast majority of us realize/understand that feces happens in life and aren't going to toss a tantrum over it ... don't let the few spoil your gamer/developer spirits.

I'm not sure at which point in time to promise a feature and to be paid for it in advance to later not deliver the promised feature has become acceptable, especially when the explanation given is practically "we have other priorities and don't want to do it", but we live in a free country (most of us are, at least) so more power to you if that's how you feel.

I would still like to be refunded though, as any normal business would do when not being able to deliver on what promised.

Thank you.

[Splashbang]

Originally posted by Raykael:

Originally posted by kpx_ar:

Hey! We hear you; a few words from our team regarding the save wipes issue.

We're all gamers, and we hate save wipes as much as you do. We wanted to avoid them at all costs. We hoped we wouldn't have to do them anymore. That was our goal and our plan.

First of all, no: you're not "gamers". What you do in your free time has zero relevance and I could not care less if you're gamers, unicorns or slugs. You are here representing a company that is trying to make a profit out of this. Enough with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ please.

We worked to get our tools and technology to a state where maintaining save compatibility between releases would be easier. Unfortunately, this turned out to be more difficult than expected because the number of changes and additions between 0.9 and 1.0 is larger than we initially estimated.

This means keeping saves compatible between 0.9 and 1.0 just isn't feasible. Doing so would require a tremendous amount of manpower that we can't spare—it would divert the attention of our senior programmers from, for example, improving optimization. Having to choose like that, we chose to make the game better for the main release, unfortunately, at the cost of the upcoming save wipe

This explanation is, to put it simply, a lie (at the very least lie by omission). In your February developer's update you announced that the reason for your decision to continue save wipes is that your team had to focus 100% on optimization, xbox and ps5 ports. Optimization is just ONE part of the story, and I don't think you have more people working on optimization than on ps5 and xbox ports, especially when in order to release on xbox you have to ensure that the game is compatible with the older hardware.

You have decided that the console ports had priority over a feature that you promised in an official update, and that you knew it would have convinced quite a lot of user to buy into the game.

We could have not announced that there will be no more wipes, true. But we underestimated the challenge and made a mistake in communication. That’s the reason for this whole issue.

We're sorry we made some of you feel scammed. That was never the intention. We're trying very hard to communicate as clearly as possible, but sometimes the plan has to change to provide the overall best gameplay experience.

To end with, please know that we're putting tons of effort into the upcoming release of update 0.9, as well as the 1.0 launch. It's actually quite close from now (more info coming soon). We believe that the final version of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon will make up for all the troubles on the way! :)

Thank you for all the comments and support during the development journey!

Frankly, I don't care and I do not want to support your company any longer. You're not working on providing the "overall best gameplay experience", you are working to provide a stable version on an extremely old console, and that's requiring a lot more effort that you initially though, maybe (maybe). But that does nothing to improve the gameplay experience of users who ALREADY BOUGHT your product, especially to those that bought because they were promised a feature that you are now unwilling (not unable, UNWILLING) to deliver.

I don't know your intentions and I don't care, all I care about is your behaviour. And your behaviour has been shady and fraudulent to say the least.

So, once again, the question remains: if you REALLY were in good faith when you promised no more save wipes from 0.9 onward, why are you not reaching out to Steam Support and ask them to allow refunds to every user requesting it that has bought the game in the period of time between your December developer's update and your February developer's update? Because that's absolutely within your power.

As others have mentioned.

Grow Up..

[Somamint]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

@dev team ... keep doing what you're doing, wipe the saves as many times as necessary to provide as polished a game experience as possible at 1.0 release, the vast majority of us realize/understand that feces happens in life and aren't going to toss a tantrum over it ... don't let the few spoil your gamer/developer spirits.

Excatly

[Raykael]

Originally posted by kpx_ar:

bla bla bla

Just to make sure that you don't "accidentally" lose my question in the stream of replies: are you going to contact steam support to inform them of the fact that in light of a feature that you promised and are now unwilling to deliver, you would like to allow customers to refund the game if bought in the period of time that goes between your December developer's update and your February developer's update?

Yes or no?

Thank you

[Heebe_Jeebe]

Thank you for apologising. It's great to see developers take ownership and accountability for their mistakes. It's great to see emerging developers take a player first approach.

I'm keen for the 1.0 release

[Raykael]

Originally posted by Heebe_Jeebe:

Thank you for apologising. It's great to see developers take ownership and accountability for their mistakes. It's great to see emerging developers take a player first approach.

I'm keen for the 1.0 release

As a note, this is not an example of taking "ownership" or "accountability" by any stretch of imagination.

Taking ownership would have meant addressing the issue before some users started to protest about this over the community, and would have also meant not trying to gaslight users making it look like the only reason for their refusal to deliver what agreed upon was to improve optimisation, while it's clear that the big reason behind it is prioritisation of the console ports.

To be accountable would have meant to proactively reach out steam support, inform them of what happened and ask them to refund players who bought the game in the period of time between the two updates if any request would come through in the 2 weeks following their developer's update from February, then announcing to the community that refund for those users was available if requested.

That's something that they can absolutely do and not only refused to do, but are now also refusing to provide a clear and explicit answer about when asked.

So, to the developers I'll ask again: are you going to contact steam support to inform them of the fact that in light of a feature that you promised and are now unwilling to deliver, you would like to allow customers to refund the game if bought in the period of time that goes between your December developer's update and your February developer's update?

Yes or no?

Thank you

[Post Nut Clarity]

Originally posted by Raykael:

Originally posted by Heebe_Jeebe:

Thank you for apologising. It's great to see developers take ownership and accountability for their mistakes. It's great to see emerging developers take a player first approach.

I'm keen for the 1.0 release

As a note, this is not an example of taking "ownership" or "accountability" by any stretch of imagination.

Taking ownership would have meant addressing the issue before some users started to protest about this over the community, and would have also meant not trying to gaslight users making it look like the only reason for their refusal to deliver what agreed upon was to improve optimisation, while it's clear that the big reason behind it is prioritisation of the console ports.

To be accountable would have meant to proactively reach out steam support, inform them of what happened and ask them to refund players who bought the game in the period of time between the two updates if any request would come through in the 2 weeks following their developer's update from February, then announcing to the community that refund for those users was available if requested.

That's something that they can absolutely do and not only refused to do, but are now also refusing to provide a clear and explicit answer about when asked.

So, to the developers I'll ask again: are you going to contact steam support to inform them of the fact that in light of a feature that you promised and are now unwilling to deliver, you would like to allow customers to refund the game if bought in the period of time that goes between your December developer's update and your February developer's update?

Yes or no?

Thank you

*repost from a different thread, but still applicable.

Brother. You're all over the forum, and dedicating so much energy to this. I urge you to step away from PC, and find joy and meaning in something else.

Most everyone is ok with EA save wipes despite your valid claims that it was advertised differently.
I respect that you're not ok with it, and I respect that you believe it was deliberate, (fact is we don't know the truth because we are on the outside looking in.)
But you can't demand anything from anyone (especially the devs), and your attempts at trying to control something much bigger than yourself, is just going to add more negativity to your life. Trust me. It's draining and not worth it.

You can place that time and energy somewhere else, where you'll be happier. Wish you the best man.

[Scumdrop]

Originally posted by Raykael:

Originally posted by Heebe_Jeebe:

Thank you for apologising. It's great to see developers take ownership and accountability for their mistakes. It's great to see emerging developers take a player first approach.

I'm keen for the 1.0 release

As a note, this is not an example of taking "ownership" or "accountability" by any stretch of imagination.

Taking ownership would have meant addressing the issue before some users started to protest about this over the community, and would have also meant not trying to gaslight users making it look like the only reason for their refusal to deliver what agreed upon was to improve optimisation, while it's clear that the big reason behind it is prioritisation of the console ports.

To be accountable would have meant to proactively reach out steam support, inform them of what happened and ask them to refund players who bought the game in the period of time between the two updates if any request would come through in the 2 weeks following their developer's update from February, then announcing to the community that refund for those users was available if requested.

That's something that they can absolutely do and not only refused to do, but are now also refusing to provide a clear and explicit answer about when asked.

So, to the developers I'll ask again: are you going to contact steam support to inform them of the fact that in light of a feature that you promised and are now unwilling to deliver, you would like to allow customers to refund the game if bought in the period of time that goes between your December developer's update and your February developer's update?

Yes or no?

Thank you

But there is no issue, the game is still in development, it's not a finished product, I could agree with you if the game had been released and save wipes could happen, but again the game is not a finished product and still being developed, like all development there's going to be set backs and issue that arise that need to be tweaked/edited/altered, but that just doesn't seem to sink into your head

[Heebe_Jeebe]

Originally posted by Raykael:

Originally posted by Heebe_Jeebe:

Thank you for apologising. It's great to see developers take ownership and accountability for their mistakes. It's great to see emerging developers take a player first approach.

I'm keen for the 1.0 release

As a note, this is not an example of taking "ownership" or "accountability" by any stretch of imagination.

Taking ownership would have meant addressing the issue before some users started to protest about this over the community, and would have also meant not trying to gaslight users making it look like the only reason for their refusal to deliver what agreed upon was to improve optimisation, while it's clear that the big reason behind it is prioritisation of the console ports.

To be accountable would have meant to proactively reach out steam support, inform them of what happened and ask them to refund players who bought the game in the period of time between the two updates if any request would come through in the 2 weeks following their developer's update from February, then announcing to the community that refund for those users was available if requested.

That's something that they can absolutely do and not only refused to do, but are now also refusing to provide a clear and explicit answer about when asked.

So, to the developers I'll ask again: are you going to contact steam support to inform them of the fact that in light of a feature that you promised and are now unwilling to deliver, you would like to allow customers to refund the game if bought in the period of time that goes between your December developer's update and your February developer's update?

Yes or no?

Thank you

I can see that the issue is important to you. I don't know what you feel, but I could appreciate if you felt betrayed or let down

I don't know what the developers are thinking or how they will respond, though publicly acknowledging a mistake and giving an apology is enough for me in this case. I can see you want some sort of action or compensation as a follow up

The developers are only human. We all make mistakes. I personally support your request for a refund, though I believe you would be denying yourself a real gem of a gaming experience in doing so.

As I said in another thread, save wipes suck, and the developers probably should have said nothing, yet I am prepared to forgive mistakes when I believe the developer is acting authentically

In a sea of problems plaguing our hobby, this is not a hill worth dying on

I hope you get the outcome your looking for

[Raykael]

I appreciate your concerns for my wellbeing, but I would still like the developers to answer the question that they are currently avoiding:

Are you going to contact steam support to inform them of the fact that in light of a feature that you promised and are now unwilling to deliver, you would like to allow customers to refund the game if bought in the period of time that goes between your December developer's update and your February developer's update?

Yes or no?

Thank you

[Raykael]

So, that's how it's gonna be: you lured people into buying the game with a mix of promising a feature you knew many interested potential buyers were waiting for, announcing a price increase and giving a small discount, then waited for their refund terms to expire, announced that you were not willing to deliver the promised feature that convinced them to buy, published a pathetic statement were you try to gain sympathy by calling yourselves "gamers" and gaslight the reason why you're not going to deliver what you ensured in an official update that you would implement, then ignore each and any question related to taking REAL ownership of the issue and contacting the distributor to allow refunds for users who bought under false advertisement.

And you'll probably get away with this, because your small playerbase seems to be formed by lobotomized people who are somehow happy to fund scamming practices (oddly enough though, an awful lot of them are level 0 private accounts who only posted for this issue for the first time, what a striking coincidence) and your game has absolutely not enough traction to get taken seriously by gaming journalists, even in light of this pathetic little scam you ran on Steam.

Good for you, you scammed a handful of players and maybe even got some bonuses out of it for hitting some sales quota in time.

In the words of a very well known gaming journalist I contacted, "it's unfortunately one of the very many small frauds that the gaming industry classifies as inevitable and online retailers chose to allow to slip between the cracks of their trust and safety departments as not big enough to justify the investment of taking them down"

Here, print this, frame it and hang it on your desks, in lovely memory of the time you successfully scammed steam and its users.

[Splashbang]

Originally posted by Raykael:

So, that's how it's gonna be: you lured people into buying the game with a mix of promising a feature you knew many interested potential buyers were waiting for, announcing a price increase and giving a small discount, then waited for their refund terms to expire, announced that you were not willing to deliver the promised feature that convinced them to buy, published a pathetic statement were you try to gain sympathy by calling yourselves "gamers" and gaslight the reason why you're not going to deliver what you ensured in an official update that you would implement, then ignore each and any question related to taking REAL ownership of the issue and contacting the distributor to allow refunds for users who bought under false advertisement.

And you'll probably get away with this, because your small playerbase seems to be formed by lobotomized people who are somehow happy to fund scamming practices (oddly enough though, an awful lot of them are level 0 private accounts who only posted for this issue for the first time, what a striking coincidence) and your game has absolutely not enough traction to get taken seriously by gaming journalists, even in light of this pathetic little scam you ran on Steam.

Good for you, you scammed a handful of players and maybe even got some bonuses out of it for hitting some sales quota in time.

In the words of a very well known gaming journalist I contacted, "it's unfortunately one of the very many small frauds that the gaming industry classifies as inevitable and online retailers chose to allow to slip between the cracks of their trust and safety departments as not big enough to justify the investment of taking them down"

Here, print this, frame it and hang it on your desks, in lovely memory of the time you successfully scammed steam and its users.

Going from insulting, slandering and defaming the developer to insulting the community on top of it?

I'm not sure that's a good idea..