Hi all, Hunters 2 is nearly nearly here! We're excited, you're excited, everyone's excited...but we'll have to contain our excitement for a tiny bit longer. Turns out we won't be hitting the App Store this week after all. Something has come up in the 11 hour, and we're holding the release until next Friday (23rd March). We are so very incredibly sorry to disappoint all you folks hoping to go on the hunt this weekend. Trust us, unless this was a big huge thing, we wouldn't be holding the launch. So that's the bad news. Onto the good news..... Good news is that we'll be sending out promo codes over the next 48 hours so at least a few of you will get to play this week! It's first come first served. Just tap on the "redeem" button at the bottom of the featured section of the App Store, and type in the code. We'll be putting codes up on our twitter feed (@RodeoGames) as our facebook page and these forums. Could we ask that any Beta testers don't redeem any codes, just so that other people can have a chance to play. Here's a couple to start you off...... ELLEMY4HXHA4 LWMT9JKFN6K3 Once again, massive apologies for the delay.
Holy crap people are fast. Both codes gone. Would the chaps who now have the game please leave us some impressions. I'm proper stoked about this, gutted about the delay. I was hoping to get a go before my marriage on Friday....where life as I know it ends :/
Really? You think finding that allegedly top shelf programmers can run promotional videos and interviews for weeks before release about the gimmick where your contracts refresh at midnight, then launch a game that doesn't refresh at all, then patch that game and only have it refresh at *one* time (midnight where the devs lived) because they never even bothered to use an API for getting the local time, and it's not indicative of anything? Nice rose colored glasses you're wearing there. I mention this because it was a key example of what plagued the first game: ambitious ideas that they lacked the (skills/resources/time/testing) to deliver on. I worked with them over months, emailing back and forth, beta tested some of the updates, etc.. These problems were actual problems, and if I'm being cautious about H2, it's because the history of the first game was one of never actually delivering on promises. Understanding that these games are relatively cheap, the constraints devs work under, etc., doesn't magically make an inability to plan and announce what you *can* deliver go away. So, you'll excuse me if I'm not going to believe the hype on Hunters 2 until I've actually played the game. Which, according to their Facebook announcement this morning will be delayed until next week at the earliest because they found a bug big enough to put off the launch. Admittedly, this is a good sign because the problems with the first Hunters largely stemmed because they promised it in February 2011 months ahead and so they delivered it in February unfinished to meet their promotional materials.
Actually, they announced the delay here, two posts ahead. And whatever bug it was, it can't be that big of an issue since 1) they're giving away codes; and 2) they're only postponing a week. Frankly, the whole midnight-mission-update system was flawed conceptually, so it never bothered me that they never really pulled it off. For what it's worth, I never had any crashes either -- I can almost guarantee that it was an iPod Touch memory issue.
Hey, I wasn't looking to get into an argument. And I do understand you had issues. Buuut, This is a small dev and they very nearly pulled off the best squad based TBS I have played in a while. Its certainly the best (or one of) on iOS....but I respect that is a personnel opinion of mine. I would rather see a small dev be ambitious and fail some of the time than bring out another cut the angry birds clone.
Real shame about release date slipping but these things happen. To be fair to Rodeo games, they delivered a top notch game for a very low price. I downloaded this game the day it came out and didn't stop playing until my hunters reached top levels. Even now i still dip in and out of it. I did get the title screen loop crash when the game first came out but Rodeo Games fixed it very quickly. This is not the first game i have downloaded that promised new levels and extras and then struggled to deliver but i have had more fun from this game than any others on iOS. I am looking forward to the sequel next week and will be downloading it straight the way. Thanks also to Rodeo for keeping us informed of the game status and loving the fact that there will be a large selection of hunters to customise. Cheers.
If you get new contracts once a day, I don't see why you care whether it's at midnight GMT, or midnight local time. Since I travel quite a bit, I'd probably prefer a fixed time of midnight GMT, myself. It also seems hard to have a system where it might go past midnight and then later it would be before midnight again. I think you could end up with a lot of bugs that way.
/facepalm Wow, I am wasting my time here. This was never a big issue in and of itself, it was purely one example of how over promised and under delivered the original game was. One of the chief bullet points for H1 was the new contracts every day starting at midnight, yet they didn't refresh at all at launch, and then they didn't refresh at midnight once they patched that. It took them three tries just to get that right. Then something as simple as matching equipment to hunters level, something promised from a year back was NEVER fixed after 10 different revisions to H1. Again, it's not a matter of it being game breaking, and pre-release reports indicate they opted to ditch the broken system entirely in H2, but, again, the details aren't the point. Hunters 1, as good as it may have been over all, was over promised, under delivered, and seemingly simple things escaped them more than once. As for this bit No, these were crashes from their coding with crash logs. People are suffering a lot of selective memory here. This game was hugely hyped before it came out and then trashed here and on the app store for the quality at launch, and the iffy quality at update. It was over a month before it was *generally* stable on any device with the biggest bugs ironed out as of the third patch (v 1.04) and it wasn't until about four months after launch it really got its act together. Anyhoo, my only point is that I will be downloading this because in spite of all that, the game had enough promise to give RG another chance, but I remain very cautious in my optimism and anyone who isn't equally cautious has much better than 50/50 odds of being sorely disappointed going on past performance.
But that's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking about your complaint that the new missions come out at a fixed time (midnight GMT), rather than different times in different time zones. If anything, the latter seems impractical and unwise, to me. Most games launch their new content simultaneously for all users (the App Store has this weird nonsimultaneous release, who knows why, but it's still based on the store rather than the user's time zone). The answer to why you are complaining about that can't be, "because all of these other things in the game were broken." At least, I hope not.
I was lucky enough to snag a promo code and initial impressions are good. I have only played two missions so I can't be definitive but I think this is an improvement on the first title. The graphics have been tweaked and are more colourful with some good lighting and environmental effects. The gameplay is much the same (good thing) but the hunters ship has had a complete overhaul. I especially like the ability to craft custom weapons, credits you earn in game can be spent on upping the damage and accuracy amongst other things. Hunters can be given extra perks and abilities when levelling up too. These seem to branch so that you may create specialist hunters or create some good all rounders. So far I like what I see. As I said, I'm only two missions in and already I'm fighting aliens and have used emplaced gun positions. If this level of variety keeps up I'm going to be well pleased.
Looking forward to trying the " hardcore" mode next week then. P.S. I've tried getting one on those promo codes today, only to no avail.
Too difficult to snipe promo codes, so the question for me is when will you release it? Are you going to wait till next week at the same time? Or release the moment it is ready?
Looking like the 23rd, and seeing as they are releasing promo codes, I reckon they have resolved the issue that held them back from releasing it today.
I have been playing it a lot last night and today and I have come across no issues whatsoever. I'm on an iphone 4 with the latest FW.
@devensega, congratulations on snagging a code! We're glad you're enjoying it! @Marcus70 and @jonnycache (nice name by the way!). Hardcore mode is insanely fun! You really have to change your tactics and watch what you do, otherwise you just end up with an empty ship! @trystero It's going to be the end of next week. Thursday or Friday.
Bleh... heh. Are the environments destructible in any way? Can you take out walls, etc, with larger weapons?
We tried the whole destructible environments thing. Got very complicated very quickly and wasn't as much fun as we imagined, so it was taken out. We do, however, have area of effect weapons like the Rocket Launcher and Plasma Gun. The Plasma Gun is especially cool, as it can deplete opponents Action Points!
