Tony
Insider
Exanima 0.6.4.6
- Thread starter Madoc
- Start date
Mr Propellerhead
Insider
Ta muchly for the heads-up - will keep an eye open for updates on situ.
Sgt. Floris
Member
Any idea what the ETA for the new update is?
Deityfierezy
Insider
Bare Mettle say in steam:
We're still at a stage where it's hard to say with any precision how long things will take. We have many things well underway, but few that are truly complete. Story wise we're at a point where we can't release much content until the game is very nearly feature complete. Some yet unreleased features have a huge impact on the game.
Currently it looks like the next update will introduce outdoor arenas, a number of general refinements and items. Outdoor arenas share the same basic functionality as the upcoming story content, which will also bring changes and improvements to the current content. Getting this functionality in the game is one our biggest development milestones and we're very close to completing it.
HypocriticalSituation
Member
I'm dying; everytime I start up steam I check the forums, steam updates, and every comment section on every update forum. It's unhealthy, really.
But then I think the longer we wait, the better the update. (In most cases)
Sgt. Floris
Member
Inb4 here's some more items and 1 arena map. Completing story mode is gonna take longer gais, but it'll come out eventually (never). Fkn scam.
Tony
Insider
Hmm really? Accusing BM of being scammers? That's a pretty serious accusation so I'd like to know what makes you think this accusation has any merit at all... if not then this is spreading libel (which is not cool).
Sgt. Floris
Member
Updates that are taking a really long time and previous updates which haven't introduced all that many new things. We've been on update 0.6 for more than a year now. This whole situation is starting to look a lot like that of the devs of DayZ Standalone.Hmm really? Accusing BM of being scammers? That's a pretty serious accusation so I'd like to know what makes you think this accusation has any merit at all... if not then this is spreading libel (which is not cool).
Tony
Insider
If you're not happy at the rate at which a small development team (consisting of seven members) releases content then perhaps you should wait until the product is complete and out of early access before purchasing it. However, this doesn't mean it's okay to make false accusations when Bare Mettle have been releasing patches with new content on a regular basis; the game has come a long ways since it was first released for early access so progress is obviously still being made.
Sgt. Floris
Member
I hear your arguments and while they are reasonably good, they are not good excuses. I gave Bare Mettle my money, a lot of people gave them their money. While the people that gave them their money knew what they were in for (including me), it's still not very fun to have to wait so long to see any progress (no matter how small or big) being made. If Bare Mettle received a lot of money, what are they doing with it? They're not using it to hire more developers, that's for sure. Granted, they have hired some new people in the past, but there are clearly not enough people working on this. The customers have already made their investment and there is no getting it back unfortunately. It feels like such a stab in the back that Bare Mettle aren't willing to invest themselves or invest the money they got for this game.
Tony
Insider
They are using the tiny amount of funding received so far to pay for the website and content delivery network, basic living expenses such as rent and food, hired an additional 3d artist to help create assets (which is all the additional help they can afford with their limited funding). They've also invested their own personal funds and some have even taken additional jobs just to keep development going and pay for basic living expenses. Most of the devs work 14+ hour days, 7 days a week.
Yes, by giving them your money you were opting to help support Bare Mettle further develop Exanima and Sui Generis, which they are doing to the best of their abilities using their very limited resources. Most of the developers must multi-task and do jobs that would normally be done by 10+ developers at a regular sized company. Madoc has taken less than two weeks off in the past four years since the Kickstarter campaign ended; he eats, sleeps and breathes game development... what more do you expect the devs to do?
@Sgt. Floris, cut the crap, scumbag. Public alpha was released less than a year ago, in Febrary as far as I remember. Since then a great mass of work was made. Ofc updates not showing all content made, and devs make not only content, but instruments for making game faster and complexier. But each patch reveals a good bit of top quality game.
More important that devs warned about that they are not sure when the game will be released, so you buy only at your own risk. Thus make your accusations invalid.
Exanima is worth the money even at current state.
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Despite someone waits to see thaumaturgy, I would like to see ranged weapons more.
More important that devs warned about that they are not sure when the game will be released, so you buy only at your own risk. Thus make your accusations invalid.
Exanima is worth the money even at current state.
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Despite someone waits to see thaumaturgy, I would like to see ranged weapons more.
Sgt. Floris
Member
I would expect at least a rough roadmap of planned features and estimated release dates for these features. Instead we get barely any significant update in the past year, and very little information on any progress on their future plans. We are paying customers, and frankly, I am not that concerned with the personal situation of the developers. I paid for a product expecting it to be finished in the not-so-far future.
It's not unreasonable to be disappointed with how slow the development is going, especially considering the near radio silence from the developers themselves. Either way, I am not going to argue about this any further. There will always be people with post purchase rationalization who just can't admit that things are not going the way they should be with the product they bought. The fact remains that updates for Exanima are too slow considering the amount of money they've earned and the elapsed time since the Kickstarter.
Tony
Insider
It's not Bare Mettle's fault you had unrealistic expectations. Bare Mettle are creating new and innovative things which not even companies with hundreds of developers have been able to accomplish. Of course this is going to take time when being done by a tiny team with only seven developers. There is more than five times the amount of content in the current version of the game when compared to the first version released which is amazing progress considering the limited resources Bare Mettle have at their disposal. Concerning the funding so far they've made zero profit and in fact had to invest their own funds and also work other jobs just to pay for basic living expenses (as I previously mentioned). Again, it is unrealistic to expect them to hire more employees to speed up the development process when they simply don't have the funding to do so.
A roadmap has been posted but BM choose to avoid estimated release dates because they simply don't know. Doing things which haven't been done before is literally impossible to accurately predict when it'll be completed since it involves lots of prototyping and trial-and-error until a viable solution is found. Yes, they realize that communication has been sparse recently and Madoc has been working on a rather significant update that discusses what they've been working on and what's to come.
Voicing your opinion that updates are too slow is fine; however, making false accusations that Bare Mettle are scammers when they've been actively working on the game as much as humanly possible is totally inappropriate. When you purchase an incomplete game you are purchasing only the content available at that time since there is no guarantee the product will ever be anything more. Bare Mettle have been releasing updates regularly and with each update the game is closer to completion; this is the complete opposite of being a scam.
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The curse of the Kickstarter for small devs. If they put ETA as 4-5 years to realise the complete product, people probably wouldn't buy in.
On the other hand, devs are supposed to pitch the Kickstarter with a target for funding that will realise the product advertised at the time specified.
The fact that Bare Mettle have seemingly far underestimated the budget/time required suggests either scope has not been managed or was too ambitious. You can't dismiss people for being upset that the delivery does not match the proposition.
Luckily for the most part Exanima is high quality already and it appears development continues. But what if the dev's real life workload increases or a situation changes, our investment is at risk under the current model and we rely on faith that Bare Mettle can continue to find a way to get there.
Appreciate the effort and still look forward to the progress, but it is definitely nowhere near the expectations set in the Kickstarter (May 24 2014 release).
I love the game so far btw, itching to get into Sui Generis...
Tony
Insider
You do realize that plans have changed quite drastically since the Kickstarter for SG, yes? Such as the devs creating two games instead of one? And deciding to take into consideration community feedback and polish things way more than originally planned instead of releasing a rough and incomplete early version of SG and then continuing to work on it post release (their original idea during the KS). Look at KS projects such as Star Citizen that have raised millions of dollars, a development team consisting of hundreds of developers and an original estimated release date similar to that of Sui Generis, yet that game is also delayed and still in development despite having vastly more resources available than Bare Mettle. Considering the tiny amount of resources BM have at their disposal what they've accomplished so far is quite impressive.
Sgt. Floris and I were discussing Exanima since he was complaining about the updates for it taking too long, saying that BM were scamming people because of this. The current content in Exanima is already worth $15 so even if BM never release a single patch more those who have purchased Exanima have not been scammed. However, BM continue to work as hard as humanly possible to complete the game whilst taking into consideration community feedback instead of just ignoring the community like many developers do. The current arena mode with progression exists largely due to community feedback. Exanima itself exists because of community feedback.
Let's say Bare Mettle followed Sgt. Floris' recommendation of using the KS funds to hire more developers in order to speed up development. If they hired a small number of developers, let's say ten, then yes, it would greatly speed up development for a few months until funds were completely exhausted at which point game development would stop altogether, their site/store would have to be taken down, etc... the game(s) would be dead and Bare Mettle wouldn't have made even a fraction of the progress they currently have. Instead of going that route Bare Mettle have wisely used their limited funds to keep development going and now Exanima is getting very close to being completed and they've also made significant progress on SG as well.
Making assumptions and conclusions such as "Bare Mettle have received money so therefore the game should be done by now" is a gross oversimplification and not taking into consideration all of the facts or relevant information regarding the situation. Then proceeding to slander Bare Mettle based upon these false assumptions is, quite frankly, disrespectful and uncalled for. A much better approach would be to offer constructive criticism, voice opinions without adding unnecessary insults, raise concerns in a respectful manner, etc.
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gugand
Member
I fully agree with tony. When Bare Mettle starts ks campain i thought that was a great idea, but the project was so challenging that i prefered give a small money amount to them. There was not enough reasons to pay more at time. In fact the project is still quite far from to be ended. They surprised me when they released exanima. They gave me something that worth more than i payed for. It was not what i payed for, but it is an enough good prize for my trust in them. Also if SG will never be released i am satisfied by BM job. I am patient also cause BM shows us that their are still developing the game and improve Exanima too.
My only concern is about their official website. I think they should work a more on the official website and give community more media and infos about the world they are building. That should keep hype more high and maybe new players will buy exanima too.
My only concern is about their official website. I think they should work a more on the official website and give community more media and infos about the world they are building. That should keep hype more high and maybe new players will buy exanima too.
Roryn
Insider
When I read the first disgruntled comment, I chuckled, thinking it was a joke, probably because I could never have imagined anyone to think that BM were really scammers.
When I read the second comment -- the reply from Tony -- I thought he had misinterpreted the joke as an actual accusation...
Frankly, I still find it hard to believe that BM could look fraudulent to anyone.
When I read the second comment -- the reply from Tony -- I thought he had misinterpreted the joke as an actual accusation...
Frankly, I still find it hard to believe that BM could look fraudulent to anyone.
Madoc
Project Lead
The reason it's taking us this long to complete Exanima is because the scope of the game keeps getting larger, and that we've spent more time improving things in response to feedback and criticism than anything else.
Adding content is not the issue, it's adding major features. We have been making some very major additions compared to our original goals, and we work really hard to deliver a level of quality that our rather demanding player base seems to expect.
We are indeed doing things that are unprecedented, inherently much more difficult to do and also have a very significant impact on many core aspects of the game. We've created this and tried to bring it to a level of maturity that can compete with industry trends established over 30 years, that players have certain expectations built around.
You can look at our animation, interaction, combat, inventory system, AI, lighting, all game mechanics and various other fundamental things and see that we've tried to set a new and different standard, that is in competition with the cutting edge in existing gaming trends. It's all unexplored territory, it all has implications that can't be easily understood, and we're engaged in a constant effort to satisfy the requirements and wishes of a substantial player base that keeps a close eye on every detail as it is developed.
Again you might expect that we should just be steadily releasing additional content because that's what a game following a known model and using established and readily available technologies might do. The reality is that everything we do has to be developed entirely from scratch, and we make a huge effort to always bring something new and interesting to the table instead of something easy and commonplace.
I don't expect people to understand what's involved in development, but suffice it to say that many things that might appear entirely trivial on the surface involve an enormous effort. Apparently small additions can have huge ramifications in already complex and delicate systems. We don't take shortcuts, we always try for the greatest potential in current and future features.
As for hiring, we do hire, as much as we can in our situation. Hiring more people is not in itself a solution, every new team member requires training, direction and constant attention. We have high quality standards and unique ways of doing things. We've hired and fired a few people you don't know of that didn't work out, this has cost us a lot of wasted time and money. We certainly don't have the luxury of hiring countless people and leave them to do their own thing in the vague hope that they'll produce something suitable and useful.
You seem to also grossly overestimate how much money we've raised, or perhaps just how earning and spending works in the real world, where there's endless expenses and taxes to pay and net profits are a thing for the ultra successful.
