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Post by gunlord500 on Jul 1, 2019 22:30:05 GMT -6
Absolutely not. Don't get the wrong idea--I think Bloodstained is a great game, and 505 and IGA have restored my faith in them. I think a second crowdfunding campaign with 505 at the helm would go MUCH better than the first--no ludicrous stretch goals, ports, and poorly chosen partners. However, crowdfunding is simply an inherently exploitative and unethical model. I am never, ever giving a penny to any Kickstarter, indiegogo, or similar campaign again.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jul 1, 2019 10:24:04 GMT -6
I got rank 9 in augment gold but it didn't turn into a skill shard. Heard that other players have the same problem too. Don't know whether this problem is switch specific. I am scared that this cannot be corrected as it has already saved. Hmm, yeah, I dunno why it wouldnt show up as a white shard after rank 9. Be sure to report this in the bug report form so the team will definitely see it
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 29, 2019 6:22:14 GMT -6
:jiggles:
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 29, 2019 0:13:20 GMT -6
When are the physical rewards going to be sent out? I'm going to be moving at the end of July, and I'm actually really concerned now.... August, I believe. You'll definitely want to update your survey with your new address.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 27, 2019 19:17:53 GMT -6
Yay!
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 27, 2019 19:16:47 GMT -6
lordgrade well just to make sure you understand, Mike was just joking around with his comment, he didn't mean to imply anything bad about you. I was just saying that in general sense, it's always a bit of risk sending and receiving packages online without the benefit of either some sort of middleman (like Amazon or whatever) or when the two parties have known each other for a long time. But in any case, if you feel that strongly about the problems with the Switch and there's nothing I can say to sway you, then you can try the address Mike provided (5145 Douglas Fir Rd, Calabasas, CA 91302) or give the game to someone you know. But if you want me to lock the thread, I'll do as you ask. If you need to talk to anyone else about it, my PM box is always open. I hope this will at least do something towards giving you closure. Thanks for your time, and sorry the problems with the Switch ended up being a deal-breaker for you.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 27, 2019 18:32:04 GMT -6
Yeah, the bikini is great but the face looks much more...masculine >.> <.<
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 27, 2019 18:08:41 GMT -6
Easy now, I wouldn't say Spanish from Spain is 'weird' or anything like that, my friend. Language is language, and they're all good in their own ways. But I agree with you, in practical terms it might be best to have the Spanish translation done in the Latin American dialects since so many people live in that region, so it makes sense to translate for the folks who'll be buying the most copies In any case, though, even the Latin American spanish localization needs work, so keep paying attention to the script and highlighting mistakes, everyone, all this is really helpful!
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 27, 2019 17:10:36 GMT -6
In terms of pure pragmatism, Lordgrade, if you're that displeased with the game you're better off selling it than returning it. If you're making a decision based on an emotion--in this case, disappointment--however justified that emotion may be, it doesn't take into account other more practical roads of action. There's simply no real reason not to put up your copy and your backer rewards up on eBay or something, no matter how much you think the product sucks, because at least that way you can get some return on the 125 dollars you spent rather than simply casting it to the whims of USPS or some other postal carrier. Some of the 100 dollar rewards might also have some value to collectors too. However, I can vouch for Mike, he's one of the most honest people I know. Due to that, however, I don't want to see him taken advantage of...yes, I know how it sounds, but again in practical terms like he said, he doesn't want to get anything bad in the mail so it would be better to give your copy to someone you know IRL than mail it to someone on the forums.
Aside from that, though, I would ask you to at least take a little time before writing off the Switch port entirely. I know, it sounds like I'm doing damage control, but to tell the truth just a little while ago I felt very similar to you--despairing over the incessant troubles that have beset this project, and so depressed over the non-stop drip-drip-drip of bad news that my hype for the game had been completely destroyed and I wanted nothing more than to wipe my hands of it. And since I'm a mod, you know this is a significant admission. However, after talking with Question and watching his responses to people, it's re-ignited my hope for the game, my passion for it, and my belief the project is worth supporting. Yeah, you're exactly right, the Switch port was mega messed up and it's definitely a black mark on 505, Artplay, and IGA's record. However, note their reaction: They're not trying to sweep this under the rug or leaving us out in the cold as they just choose not to address it. They've forthrightly admitted their mistakes and are directing all their resources to correcting them. Question already mentioned they have a plan to get things back on track for the Switch:
So from my perspective, I was on the verge of despair and giving up on the game entirely, but doing so would have been premature and I'm glad I stepped back from the brink, because if I'd just abandoned the project, I would never get to see how it might 'rise from the ashes' (so to speak) and end up snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat through close attention to criticism and an iron-clad determination to improve. I think the same might apply to you, friend. Yeah, again, you're feeling really depressed and saddened by the crappy port, just like I was a few days ago. But think about it this way: What if you gave away the game and all your stuff, but 505 and Wayforward end up patching the game and solving all of its issues, making the Switch version a high point for the system where it had previously been an embarrasment? Yeah, they should have done it by now, sure, but even so, if a game ends up being great after a slight delay, wouldn't be a waste to give up on it early?
Also notice the mention of Wayforward. Now, I dunno if you're familiar with them, but they've done a lot of good work on the Switch, most notably Shantae: Half-Genie Hero and The Mummy Demastered. Given a little more time, I'm confident they'll be able to do good things with the Switch as well. So if nothing else--even if you've lost faith in IGA, Artplay, and 505--it might be worth waiting to see what Wayforward manages to do, because they're very good at what they do!
So, yeah. If you *really* wanna give your stuff away, you can do that, though it might not be wise to send it to Mike or me or anyone else online; you'd be better off doing it IRL. But I would really encourage you to reconsider and at least wait a while rather than making a snap decision you may end up regretting down the line. Just give it a little more time and wait until you've calmed down a bit and then see where things stand. You may end up seeing it's not as bad as you thought.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 27, 2019 15:40:40 GMT -6
I mean, steamspy shows that there are 200k-500k owners on Steam alone, and for a $40 indie game that's pretty nuts. I wouldn't worry too much about it. That's very good, but one thing to keep in mind is that the game has probably cost far more than 5.5 million dollars to produce. IIRC, though I'd have to ask around to find it, not long after 505 came on board, Igarashi said the 5.5 million Kickstarter funds had already been "long gone." I believe, though again I'd have to ask to make sure, that 505 added in a decent bit of its own money to the project to do things like get Wayforward on board. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to estimate how much the game cost, especially after the delays relating to Inti, I'd say 15 million dollars as a conservative estimate.
Now, add to that the costs involved in
A: Getting out the free DLC, which was promised on Kickstarter, intended to be part of the base game, and therefore not anything the team can make money off of. They might be able to profit off of costume and story expansion DLC in the future, but the stuff we're looking forward to at the moment is not making us money in return for the continuing development costs.
B: Fixing a lot of bugs, which seem to be much more severe than anyone hoped for, especially at launch (the bad press of which might drag on sales at least slightly). Given the number and severity of those bugs, especially in regards to the Switch, I imagine fixing them is going to take a a considerable amount of cash.
So, with these two factors added in, I think they'd add anywhere from 5 million (at most) to let's say 2 million (if the "free DLC" stretch goals encourages a few more people to buy the game, and if the DLC is relatively easier to make thanks to the basic game systems and assets already completed). So again taking a conservative estimate, we're at a total of 17 million for development costs.
Now, going from the stats you gave, Mourning, if there are 200k sales on Steam, and the game is selling for 36 dollars (not 40, they're taking 10% off at the moment), we get
200,000 x 36 = 7,200,000, or 7 million and two hundred thousand dollars.
At the higher end, 500k copies, we get
500,000 x 36 = 18,000,000 or 18 million.
Now, the higher number alone would seem to net us a profit of 1 million over the initial estimated dev costs of 17 million. But keep in mind there are always Steam fees, taxes, and other things eating away at our profit margin. So I think under the most generous assumptions, we're making in income 60% of what steam reports in sales. So that would be 60% of 7.2 million or 4.32 million for 200k sales, or 10.8 million for 500k sales. So even being as generous as possible for Steam sales, we're still a good deal in the red. If PS4, Xbox, and Switch sales are even comparable to the higher end of the steam sales, that could push us back into the black, but I get the feeling we were relying on a lot of Switch sales and the problems with the Switch port might be severely eating into our sales on that front, which would leave a hefty impact on our end profits.
I don't think all is lost--it's been less than a month since release, and if we've already got a high end of 500k sales on Steam alone, it is conceivable we'll have well over a million (Steam combined with other platforms) before the year is out; even 50% profits of a million sales of 36 to 40 dollars (as the steam sale will end eventually) will allow us to turn a profit on 17-20 million development costs. And this is all napkin math anyways, it may be I've massively overestimated the development costs and/or the cut Steam and taxes take too. Still, even with very strong sales for an indie, I don't think we're entirely out of the woods yet...let's hope the coming DLC encourages a ton of new folks to buy the game!!!
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 26, 2019 21:28:07 GMT -6
During the kickstarter campaign, there were 3 backers who pledged the US$10K tier
Is there any news about the IGAventure so far?
Yeah, I've been wondering about that for quite a while m'self ;3
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 26, 2019 3:26:07 GMT -6
Even the English version is flat-out missing words from the dialogue. They may have bug/play tested, but I don't think they proof-read. It's not the end of the world but it's a bit jarring to see part of a sentence missing every now and then. I know someone who does Spanish translation work for Ubisoft as a contractor. If anyone at 505 needs help, I could try to reach her. Yeah, I noticed that too, though with the dialogue it's not as jarring, so it didn't irritate me too much. Since there's no spoken dialogue for the other languages aside from Japanese, I can see why it would be more irksome.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 26, 2019 1:12:48 GMT -6
I've heard bad things about the Chinese translation too, Angel specifically mentioned to me they'd be taking a look at it. I'll tell him the Spanish translation seems to have problems, though I suppose I might as well tag him...hey Angel-Corlux , the Spanish translation of Bloodstained RotN seems to have a lot to be desired as well.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 26, 2019 1:07:40 GMT -6
Yeah, I'm with you there, dareka . That said, judging from the reactions on Twitter and other places to the latest kickstarter post, it seems like 505 and the team might be regaining a decent bit of goodwill. People are impressed by how they've forthrightly admitted the problems with the Switch port and are making fixing it their top priority--as one person mentioned on reddit, "seeing them address the problems people are having with the Switch port this quickly backs up why I have faith in this game and company behind it. They have yet to give me reason to not have faith." If 505 does follow through, they may be known for their quick response to criticism and their determination to support their fans, which will outweigh the notoriety of releasing a shoddy port.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 26, 2019 1:00:13 GMT -6
Well I'll be damned, I really ought to have been paying more attention! Welcome to the team Clear!
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 23, 2019 2:33:11 GMT -6
We certainly don't want to be exclusionary to outsiders, but keep in mind that the digital guide tier reward is in the pipeline, and that should explain most of the stats and all that Though now that I think about it, an in game help button might have been nice, yeah.
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 22, 2019 1:21:37 GMT -6
I can't find a crash report for it, but I had an interesting event earlier, where I went to open a book on a bookshelf at the same time that a harpy girl (I forget their name, but it was in The Entrance) used her wind spell. The book started to open, the spell impacted the floor, and the game froze up and crashed. I don't know what might have caused it, but that's the circumstances as I recall them. Please put that information into this form:
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 20, 2019 5:06:30 GMT -6
Yeah, you can click on it in the OP but for some reason you can't in my post. Hmm, thats weird. You can copy and paste it though
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 20, 2019 2:09:55 GMT -6
Everyone, always remember to use the bug report form, as that gets reports to the devs faster than only leaving reports here: bit.ly/BSROTNBugForm
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Post by gunlord500 on Jun 17, 2019 22:34:51 GMT -6
But I thought I'd re-post it here with some minor edits (some hyperlinks to my own writing removed, since I'm already postin a link to my own writing). I hope you enjoy!
If you’ve been paying any attention at all to my entries for…well, more than the past few weeks, more like the past few years, you’ll be able to tell that by all appearances, I’ve been doing very well for myself. Every Saturday (or Sunday at latest), every Friday a little while ago, I post an entry titled “Living the Good Life” like clockwork. My days pass by without any real care or worry. I’ve done well enough for myself since graduate school that I can enjoy fine food just about every day, I can spend my time reading good books, watching good anime, or playing good videogames (like the upcoming Bloodstained, obviously ;D) as I like, I’m in pretty good health, and there’s essentially nothing that really stresses me out or threatens to elicit any particularly negative emotion in me. That’s particularly because I’ve accomplished essentially everything that was or could be especially important to me, in terms of my personal sense of self (and not just basic professional necessities). I’ve got my Ph.D, and more importantly, I finished up my million-word magnum opus for the Fire Emblem fandom back in 2015, which is pretty much my life’s work. After completing that, I could die at any moment and still feel quite fulfilled. You could certainly say I’m living a charmed life.
This is especially ironic when you consider how troubled I had been for most of my life. Up to my mid-twenties, I was almost invariably some combination of angry and unhappy. In high school and college, I was always obsessed with “proving” myself academically, pushing myself to get the best grades I could, and raging when I couldn’t do so. In terms of my personal life, while I did try my best I was foolish and naive in many ways when it came to interpersonal relations. I’d always be getting into conflicts with friends, particularly online (in the Fire Emblem fandom), doing foolish things and then getting massively stressed when my friendships suffered for it, especially when everyone around me was probably more patient with me than I deserved! And then, in college, I got involved in trolling, acting even more foolish and getting into even more dumb fights that were a complete waste of time. I also fell into some very silly subcultures which led to me being angrier, stupider, and much more resentful than was healthy, though thankfully I escaped *those* without getting myself into any real trouble.
Thankfully, all that is long behind me now, for reasons I’ve also described elsewhere. I’m in a much, much healthier place, and instead of angry and resentful, bashing my head against the wall of a dumb, misguided ideology and silly fights that weren’t worth having, I’m as happy and content as I’ve ever been. By discarding misogyny as well as the various resentments that led to me being angry and confrontational, I've been getting along very well with pretty much anybody from any background, making productive, mutually beneficial relationships with just about anyone of good faith, and quietly and nimbly avoiding anyone less reasonable with an absolute minimum of fuss. So yeah, it’s pretty easy to see why I’ve been able to make well over a hundred posts titled “Living the Good Life.” That kinda life is much easier to have when everyone around you is interested in sharing it rather than arguing with you about it!
And yet…this is something I’ve never really mentioned publicly, at least not until now. Despite the objective goodness of my life, recently I’ve sort of been feeling unfulfilled. Not very much so, but…I realized that I was no longer feeling any emotion very strongly. Over the past few months, I realized I felt a general sense of contentment, that things were going “pretty well,” and that I was “pretty happy,” but also that I was just…sort of existing, rather than doing anything important. I never felt miserable, or even very sad, but I also realized I never felt joyful, or like I was doing anything new. In fact, sometimes, even when I was playing a good game or having good food, I felt…bored, almost. And strangely enough, I think an anime I’ve been watching recently explains why.
I mentioned in my last entry that I found a great quote from the latest episode of One Punch Man (season 2) that really captured what I was feeling lately. I said I’d say more about it, and I’m keeping that promise today! But first, a bit of brief background on One Punch Man, just in case you don’t remember the other entries I’ve made about it.
One Punch Man is a parody of all those shonen anime about superpowered heroes, the ones who can break buildings with energy blasts or sheer strength or whatever. In a fantasy world still like our own but beset by giant monsters all the time, people with superpowers–telekinesis, incredibly strength, whatever–become “Heroes” to fight those monsters. They’re organized into classes, with S-class heroes being able to destroy entire cities easily, and sent off to fight aliens and monsters capable of the same. Our protagonist, Saitama, started out as just a regular guy, but one day decided to try his hand as a hero fighting monsters. He began as a weak human being fighting weak monsters, but he undertook an ironically mundane training regimen (situps, pushups, and a 10 km run everyday), and for some reason this made him incredibly strong, far stronger than even the most powerful S-class hero, capable of killing any monster, even the most horrifying, with only one punch.
But…despite his incredible power, Saitama realizes he also lost something along the way. His hair, for one (he’s bald now). But more than that, throughout the series he comments on how he no longer feels anything anymore–no thrill of combat, and no other strong emotion either. Now that he stands on top of the entire world, he no longer feels strong joy or any other form of excitement. In the context of the story, he literally can’t fail, so he can no longer feel the sense of accomplishment that comes from overcoming a challenge. He’s just…bored, and his attempt to find something to make him feel again, to bring back some passion into his life, is actually the main driving force of the plot, much more than the fight against evil, because he can defeat any foe with one punch.
Strange as it may sound, that really resonated with me. No, no, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any superpowers. I’m not that strong or that fast. But I realized that when it comes to what’s most important to me, I’m similar to Saitama in one respect:
I no longer have to fear failure, and because I’ve beaten my “opponents”–that is to say, met all the goals I once set for myself–I can no longer really feel the joy that comes from overcoming challenges and growing.
I no longer have to fear failure in terms of accomplishments–I’ve done everything I felt I really needed to do. I no longer have to fear failure in terms of getting along with people–I’m at peace with just about everyone around me online and off; I’m now friends with most folks I butted heads with earlier in life, my virtuous work for the mecha, castlevania, Bloodstained, and various other fandoms has given me a devoted cadre of excellent friends, I’m mature enough to get along well with anybody new I meet now, the only ‘enemies’ from my past who might still bear a grudge have long since forgotten about me, and the only enemies I sorta-have now are the sort who are everyone's enemies anyways.
Now that’s a good problem to have, if I dare say so myself. Even so, is there no way of solving it? Am I condemned to just ‘contentment’ rather than anything else? I’m not so sure, and the answer to that comes from the exchange I quoted in my last entry, between Saitama and one of his friends, the character ‘King:’
Silly as it sounds, King might well have been talking right to me. I’m bored…so why aren’t I doing anything about it? If I no longer have to fear failure in anything that’s important to me, why not challenge myself with something new, just to see how far I can get? The ‘something new’ is the important thing…as you know, I’ve been in the history biz for quite some time, ever since I was in high school, then college, then grad school–so just over half of my 30+ years on Earth! It’s been good to me, sure, but if it isn’t exciting me like it used to, and if I can afford to change my orientation, why not give something else a shot? It’s not as if getting some new skills will make me less employable, quite the contrary in fact; a jack of all trades might be a master of none, but if you’re already a ‘master’ in one subject, acquiring competency in another one, especially one that’s widely used, can be pretty useful.
So, what am I alluding to here? Bluntly stated, this. I’ve been feeling content yet bored, feeling like I wasn’t really growing or being challenged, so I decided to go back to school. I’m gonna be attending some local college classes for…computer science!
Now, don’t think I’m being too silly about this, I have some pretty sober reasons for wanting to get into compsci, and I’d been thinking about it long before I started watching One-Punch Man. I’ll describe this more in a later entry, but if you “just” have a Ph.D in history, that makes you a good fit for academia, and it makes you a little more attractive for some other jobs (in library science or whatnot), but if you have a skill in addition to your Ph.D, there is a TON more stuff you can do. Back in grad school I noticed a lot of other grad students with a bit of programming experience managed to do really well for themselves. Some made websites like Historian’s Eye, others helped digitize materials (audio and visual), and so on. So I think getting myself a nice degree from the subject (and the place I’m going to isn’t Ivy League, but it’s quite well respected) might do quite a lot of good. But on an emotional level…the desire for both a challenge and for something new I’ve never done before also spurred me to make the decision, and it’s something I happened to find reflected in some dialogue in one of my favorite shows. So, my fellow Bloodstained fans, I hope you guys wish me luck on my next adventures. I'll be busier than I used to be, but not so busy I won't be able to hang around here as much as I usually do...that's the nice thing about college I suppose, tho the crunch is serious during exam time!
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