To each his own says I. I think rodeo delivered a good TBS, they tried to do more than they were able. This seems to have earned them condemnation from some in this thread. I would rather they keep trying than listen to some of this chatter and decide to play it safe in future.
I agree it's somewhat unfair to judge them too harshly for the stuff they announced and never delivered. However, if I were judging them for the number of empty promises about the first game I certainly wouldn't even be reading this thread. I'm judging them on the number of critical issues never fixed properly in the original game. They updated it ten freaking times and there are still bugs and unresolved issues that affect gameplay, i.e. the Guard Leadership talent still not working after how many ever tries they took to fix it. Simply put, several months of support, ten patches, and they never accomplished more than getting the launch features mostly working. From my p.o.v., I'm being extremely forgiving and generous to take a chance on buying Hunters 2 at launch.
I cloud anyone? Yeah developers that promise updates and then announce a sequel instead always make me wary...
Condemnation is such a strong word and that is simply not what I am going for, in fact I will be buying hunters 2 because the core gameplay was enjoyable. In the grand scheme of things I personally had my moneys worth. But you can't not at least be cautious of what's on the table here, and simply expect they have it perfect the second time round. When as the poster just above me rightly said, the first still has bugs.
Yeh, condemnation is too strong a word. My apologies. I'm just generally tired of persistent negativity smothering some of these threads. The new angry birds thread is also getting a fair few pointless posts about how much they hate AB. A great aspect of the TA forum is the devs involvement, I would not like them to be scared off.
I can definitely understand your point of view in this post. I guess devs could be put off with lots of negativity. I really do hope this game feels like it is good because if it is, then it will definitely be worth screaming about. I can agree some people complain for the sake of complaining, which doesn't look good. If however this game delivers the devs will get just as much positive feedback from me as negative for the first game, that much is for sure! There was one game a few months back I even emailed a dev saying thanks for their game because it was so fun. Think it was a g5 game, took a punt on some city building time management thing and loved it before they released a new free to play model. I released a silly game to the app store myself and would not criticise more than I would be happy to be criticised back in return if that makes any sense. What is nice about this forum though is that people can come to common ground eventually even after misunderstandings, and some places this just doesn't happen. Such as universities... but that's something completely different! To me criticism isn't about bashing a game, if a game is bad I will ignore it. It's more about looking at it and going, improvements needed big time... but potential is there or I wouldn't give it a second glance.
This "chatter" is in no way an encouragement to play it safe. We've been trying to make Rode Games "keep trying", as per your own words, since Hunters 1 was first released. Our chatter is another part of this process. I dare say that every single poster in this thread who expresses any kind of dissatisfaction is strongly encouraging Rodeo to: Only make promises they can keep for Hunters 2. Ensure that this new product is at least predominantly bug-free and playable. Possibly rebuild some trust with the TA player base by swinging by and explaining what went wrong the last time. That is, as far as I can see, all criticism in this thread is highly constructive, and conductive to a pleased player base that invests money and spreads the word of the game, thus enabling the developers to make more games. The above-mentioned bullet point list consists of three typical demands made by players on developers that even the big'uns often submit to. Indie game developers classically take these principles to heart more than any other devs, and benefit from it. You make it sound like delivering an unfinished product, plus making promises which never come to fruition, is an act of noble risk-taking Actually, "pointless" is too strong a word for a thread filled with posts on how they devs could avoid making the same mistakes as last time. The negativity to Rode Games is not a persistent phenomenon. It is a reaction to one of the less professional game releases and upkeep processes in iOS history. It is also a good thing, as it gives the developers additional awareness of player reactions to both game features and developer communication. Hunters 2 is partially a product created from our criticism. (A comparison of the negativity in the Angry Space Birds thread would probably reveal to you some key differences in the nature of the feedback. That alone should be a good indication of the purpose and focus of the Hunters 2 polemic. The fact that many of the critical posts still mention a great hope for Hunters 2, and a desire to buy the product either at launch, or after hearing some positive review, should also have been an indicator of the relatively neutral and clear-headed nature of our criticism.) As basic a part of any indie game developing and post-launch feedback this is, in particular in a case such as Rodeo Games and Hunters 1, I find it strange that it still has to be explained.
I understand that people feel that their experience with Hunters 1 is relevant to a discussion of the level of expectation for the sequel. And until the game is released in the US there is often little to talk about except expectations. That said, this thread should eventually focus on Hunters 2. If you are disappointed, angry, delighted, etc with the original Hunters, and wish to express said disappoinment, anger, delight, etc there is already a thread dedicated to that game. Quite frankly, I feel that paragraphs long dissertations on Hunters 1 are confusing to folks who come to this thread to learn about the sequel.
LOL The game isn't released. If you read ANY pre-release thread all you find is speculation and hopes based on the previous games or teasers. People would be more confused if this thread was anything other than what it is
You didn't read the first paragraph on my post. I know how these NZ release threads go as well as anyone else in this forum. To be clear, I wasn't commenting or offering an opinion about this thread. I was warning folks that paragraphs-long posts about Hunters 1 appearing here after the US launch will either be deleted or moved to the Hunters 1 thread. Sorry if there was any confusion.
I read it, I just happen to disagree with the apologist angle of downplaying Rodeo Games and Hunter's history. What could be more relevant to would be buyers than the knowledge that, based on what's been revealed, this *second* $5 title from this team doesn't appear to be much more than what was originally promised as a dollar or two IAP add on mission pack for the first game? Or that the first game, a $5 title mind you, has considerably less actual content than many free games and a majority of $1 games and they still could never manage to polish it into a solid experience? I would love as much as anyone to find out Hunters 2 is what the first one was supposed to be and never became, but I also don't believe in sweeping things under the rug. Rodeo Games has a track record of promising big and delivering small and those "rehashing the past" are doing so specifically in light of this release. It's not about Hunters: Episode 1, it's about how what happened with H1 shapes expectations and cautions about H2. It is all very relevant.
Downloading this game now despite my misgivings. I am hoping this is going to be fun. Here goes! Harcore mode is awfully tempting... decided on hard but not hardcore until I played the story line. quick first impressions for me is that it's a much better tutorial at least!
Feel free to buckle under an enormous pressure to report back to us very soon, and detail all differences of and additions to Hunters 2 as compared to the original, with a particular emphasis on the length, variation and quality of the single player campaign
when the tutorial finished I was presented with a black screen that lasted for approximately 2 minutes and a skip button in the top right so I guess there was meant to be some kind of mini movie there... By the way, the tutorial had nice gun emplacements to use which were quite nifty. Just got into the real game now, so the true testing begins! purchase credits button has made a return, I didn't try to purchase any credits but i wanted to see how much they asked for them. Nothing works there I just see a back button... main menu has regular bridge comms and armoury. New interface buttons include TRADE, MANUFACTURING, SETTINGS SETTINGS: has music and effects volume, ability to change the difficulty up or down. Change team colour. You an chose to turn free gifts off so I guess thats good if you don't like the advertising which pleases me Blood can be turned off too, great for younger players or people who don't like mess lol! Reset campaign button there also. MANUFACTURING: You get a mini picture with 2 arrows either side of it to select the weapon style you want to build. There are sliders for damage accuracy and critical, so there is lots of customisation here... What I do like is that you can give your weapon a name. TRADE: Just a basic shop really, lots of options though. BRIDGE: lets me replay the tutorial mission if I want to, and jump into chapter 2. it separates campaign and daily contracts which is a good thing. COMMS: Pretty boring, post to Facebook and twitter (I don't care about those two). Although it does link to achieve and leader boards which is nice. Up to this point, impressions is that it is flawed in a couple of places I have mentioned, but nothing any where near as bad as hunters episode one (so far that could change). But I do think this is a vast improvement in the right direction... Going to mission 2 now. I'l edit this post in a minute to talk about it but won't be leaving any spoilers. MISSION 2: The ritual unit placement is back, that's a good thing. the "background" is quite pretty. The little aliens are odd looking but thats not a gripe at all, the presentation works. Gun fire animation has been given an over haul. The map itself is simple but that is to be expected for a mission just after the tutorial. It asks if you want to continue to the next turn without using ap, nothing new there though. I get the impression that difficulty will increase by a fair amount. On the tutorial I was getting pounded by 5 units on one and not taking much of a scratch, but already damage is normalised and the hits are coming. You need to think about movements carefully. Weapon drops are back. Big explosions from unexpected sources here, without trying to give anything away. If you select something while your hunter is firing it deselects it which could be tweaked I feel. Levelling up gets you a "notification" (not a gc one, just a translucent popup in game). Gun fire could be faster. After completing the mission I have just been greeted by a rewards screen with credits for a job well done (if i do say so myself haha). There is also a character screen which gives info on what each hunter has done, including wether they died or not (guess this only matters for hardcore), healing, kills and such like. If you don't play your moves correctly at least on hard mode, I can see how you would get pond pretty easily especially for some one not experienced in this game. I would definitely recommend staying clear of hard-CORE mode until you know the missions, but I think that would be fun to go through again after the missions with that mode for the skirmishes. Lecel up screen gives what it did in hunters episode one, just redesigned of course, weapon skills, armour skills. No spoilers here you have seen this before just with a different layout! They included a respec button... FINALLY. You can unlock heavy weapons right away from what I can tell too. Loot pickup as normal... I'd recommend it compared to hunters 1. But if you want it totally bug free leave it alone for a few weeks although at this point they would seem to be minor.
So worth the $5? I'm a bit skeptical after having played Hunters 1. Any impressions would be appreciated!
Good first impressions see my post above, its not without a couple of minor faults though. But a definite improvement. I was lucky and already collected a better blue class of weapon on mission one which is nice. Going straight into mission 3, it's worth it for what it is.
Oops sorry did not see that. Hmm overall pretty positive. Might hold out a bit, but I'm probably going to crack later tonight.
