Eeeek! I just came over from Star Citizen and I have to say this forum is pretty dead. Is this vaporware? Shocking really as the engine appears to have a great deal of promise.
Erh⌠youâve been here for literally 18 minutes (and Iâm writing this 13 minutes after you made this thread)⌠were you expecting hundreds of posts to appear in those 5 minutes?
This game is the diametric opposite of vaporware: an actual product with practically zero publicity. Well, an actual work in progress, but ideas are products, too.
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Iâd say this forum is pretty active (mostly from a core group) considering we donât have a final product to sell our souls to yet⌠
87 posts and 20 new users within the last week.
It doesnât take 18 minutes to see a relatively inactive forum - in fact it only takes a periphery glance to see how much inactivity there is. And lets not forget, the public has been aware of this engine for quite sometime now! That being said, it is good to see there is actually people here and I do hope this engine reaches the public. In fact, I would be more than happy to contribute to see this happen, even financially if the engine offers what I am looking for. And although I am a big contributor for Star Citizen, I do believe this engine can most definitely outperform CryEngine. But beautiful graphics does not a game make as we can see from SpaceEngine. To really reach the public you will have to offer more than that, and you will have to offer more than what Star Citizen is presently offering and plans to. But if I-Novae can create a game with decent ships, great gameplay and no loading screens with planet landings? Then all other games, including Star Citizen, will fall by the wayside. Anyway, that is my ten cents and I do hope this Engine succeeds.
We are here patiently awaiting the ks. Additionally, it is well known that any mass public doesnât have a lot of patienceâŚwhich is why you donât see a lot about Inovae being advertised quite yet. It would be a poor move to begin masssive amounts of advertisement that would bring many people to this forum without much to show.
Inovae is holding back on releasing a lot of content so they have a steady stream of new updates during the planned ks. I personally think this is a good move but thatâs only my opinion.
At any rate, welcome to the forums!
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Going public is definitely a two sided sword but galvanizing support can be achieved via updates. Up until recently I can see updates were few and far between. I suppose it is one way of going about it but I fear the secretive nature of I-NOVAE will carry over to the Kickstart and that will lead to missed opportunities. Already a large majority of potential supporters have turned their backs on I-NOVEA because of their seemingly obtuse stance towards them - I see this everywhere on blogs, youtube and other forums. So I have to wonder, is this the mindset I-NOVEA will bring to the Kickstart? Like it or not people respond better to openness than secrecy as can be seen by Star Citizenâs success. Sure there are pitfalls but the benefits far outweigh the negatives! It will be interesting to be sure, moving from a closed, secretive nature to an open public venue. From ignoring the public to asking for their contributions. It will be interesting. Whatâs more a superior product does not always mean success; there have been plenty of superior products that have gone down the tube because they did not understand or capitalize off of public support. I fear I-NOVAE is one of them. But I am still hopeful but I-NOVEAâs support will depend on openness which is crucial for building confidence. At this point I and a great many others are not confident given the secretive nature of I-NOVEA. I say this not out of spite but in the hopes that I-NOVAE takes heed of public support, and I am not talking just in terms of financial support. Because what does it say about a company that only cares about the public after kickstart?
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This is a discussion thatâs been had quite a few times before. Most of us, I think, would love a steady stream of updates, even if the frequency was low, but the devs have been hard at work getting the engine up to speed for the kickstarter, and have been quite conservative with leaking content. I think part of that might have to do with the fact that theyâve been talking about kickstarter for quite some time now, and also about how they will increase content updates as the kickstarter nears (though, more recently, the talk has been about holding back on content until the kickstarter itself, so that they can hit us with a really big flood of stuff weâve never seen before). Weâve been playing the kickstarter dance long enough now that if they started handing out goodies, a significant percentage of the fanbase would assume it means the kickstarter was imminent, which wouldnât go over well if it wasnât about to be launched.
That said, screenshots have been showing up on Twitter at an accelerating rate, lately.
We used to have quite the lively forum, but we lost it due to a hacker attack quite a while back, and quite a few of the regulars kinda went into hibernation after that. Once the kickstarter is launched, things will pick up again, Iâm sure, but we donât know when that is going to be.
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Good points all. But it appears that the Devs donât respect the opinions of its potential supporters. For example, at Star Citizen I pushed really hard to get outside ship designers and a competition up and running on the forums. Needless to say it was a long and at times caustic debate but I won the day and a week later Star Citizen announced the Next Great Starship Competition. This turned out to be a great success and a windfall financially. Moreover, in Chris Roberts own words - and I am paraphrasing here - the Next Great Starship Competition put out such great ships that it upped CIGâs game. And there were MANY other suggestions forwarded by fans that were implemented, also with great success. So I believe the Devs here are making a huge mistake by their insular approach to development. Fans can offer a lot - if the Devs actively welcome it. Unfortunately âactiveâ isnât the first adjective that first comes to mind when talking about I-NOVEA Devs.
But if things are opening up as you say then that is a positive development. But they need a serious mind-shift if Kickstarter is going to be a success. I really do hope they encourage more participation and if they do I will definitely be ready to contribute financially.
You canât compare Infinity and Star Citizen, though. INovae and Chris Roberts are in two completely different boats. For one, Roberts has a boat load of funding, has the ability to check funding and time constraints, and has the manpower to actually expand the scope of his project. Without funding, INovae doesnât have that luxury. They canât make any promises about changes in the scope of the project without knowing if they will be funded, and how much funding they will have.
Plus, before the Star Citizen crowdfunding drive was announced, the only thing on Robertsâ website was a countdown clock. You canât make a fair comparison to the INovae devsâ involvement with the community today with Roberts and crewâs involvement with their community at a later stage in the gameâs development. Itâs apples and oranges.
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A few years ago when games like Elite, Star Citizen and whatever else werenât on radar or even remotely known of, INS had nothing to lose. Back then they didnât have this overshadowing competition we see today. Now INS have everything to lose! They only have one chance to get this right or else it could end in a crash & burn kind of scenario.
Theyâve been in the methodical decision-making process for awhile and I fully understand why they chose this path for reasoning stated above. Besides, anyone with a bit of concern about their own finances will protect their greater investment.
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Actually I can make a comparison. In fact if I-NOVAE had of managed themselves better they could have had equally if not more funding than Chris Roberts - that is how much potential Infinity has. But that was blown by inactivity and shortsightedness. But most of all it was blown by being secretive and ignoring fans.
First you say youâre ready to hand over money but then come back with insulting, irrational remarks.
I do see how a methodical decision-making process can have its benefits. But it can also send the wrong signal which it has. This could end up in a all or nothing crash and burn scenario as you stated. I certainly hope not because I think Infinity could be the future - but the future isnât written in stone. Personally I think that re-configuring an engine not designed for space and atmospheric flight, like CryEngine, is the wrong way to go; it is a short term solution especially when you consider how fast technology is moving. Of course you canât say such a thing on SC forums without fanboys foaming at the mouth and SC moderators toying with the ban button - but itâs true. Infinity could very well go beyond Star Citizen and I hope it does because loading screens should be a thing of the past, and will be. Hopefully I-NOVAE can achieve this sooner rather than later. But as I said, pretty graphics does not a game make and there will have to be good ship design, solid gameplay and the ability to walk on ships and planet surfaces. If Infinity meets all these requirements I may just sell all my SC assets and invest in Infinity.
Such statements smack of fanboyism. You know, the kind of people who take opinions about their preferred game personally and are more than happy to ignore potential problems.
You are not alone. Your point has been made by several people over the last year. Mostly out of frustration.
Yes I-Novae missed the train. They had an advantage and didnât capitalize it. Yeah but ⌠as I said in the past:
I-Novae plans to ramp up ⌠we are comparing projects in different stages as said above. The I-Novae team hasnât the best track record when it comes to public activity or finess, though they seem to have learned a lot about that this year. As we donât have prove they will act differently when the Kickstarter phase kicks in we can just trust their words or not trust them. Itâs up to you if you do.
I do hope something materializes but waiting on PR is the wrong way to go about it. I-NOVAE should let the fans do the talking as is the case with Star Citizen. Star Citizen has used this formula to great effect keeping expensive advertising to a minimum. That is the great thing about keeping fans engaged - they can not only become an asset but also an army of PR agents!
Contrary to Star Citizens we donât have proof for the question that will be asked and have been asked in the past ⌠not unlike this situation here.
I believe most of us on here will reach out everywhere we can once the Kickstarter goes online. But right now we have a problem. We as a community arenât able to answer all the question those new people arriving here will pose. Or if we can answer them we canât provide enough prove for them to be satisfied. Question like âŚ
- Where can I throw money at this?
- Why did it take so long ⌠what did they do all those years?
- What are the plans gameplay wise?
- Why is the team not as active as I wished it to be?
Most new people donât expect or understand the situation at hand and arenât acclimatised like most of us are.
We are in the transition phase of:
High requirements of patience
Low regularity of updates
People investing their hope
To:
A roadway to the game
Regular updates
People investing their hope and MONEY
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The most glaring issue with this is that I-Novae currently donât have a big enough fanbase to do this yes, nor is there any useful content the moment to back it up.
Scenario 1: I-Novae releases some stuff early, generating a bit of interest and slightly increasing the fanbase. However, some teeth are therefore removed from the KS and their funding is put at risk, jeopardising the future of the project and making people angry. Fanbase is then lost again.
Scenario 2: I-Novae save their big guns for an all out campaign alongside the KS, possibly converting sceptics, pulling in new fans and encouraging them to hand over their money in the âinitial excitementâ. Battlescape is then funded and I-Novae has the opportunity to build reputation as well as a game (Chris Roberts already had his reputation to swing around, as has already been pointed out).
I know which I prefer. As Kichae said, this discussion has happened many times before and it is all properly considered.
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Yep those points can be a problem. lol. But I donât think fans need to answer every question. For example, people ask fans all the time when Star Citizen will finally be online and the response is usually sometime in 2015. And they ask why is it taking so long and the reply is usually because CIG is making a game in unprecedented scale and it has never been done beforeâŚand so on and so on. But I have to hand it to CIG, they pushed the dream and people signed on. In fact when people signed on there was NOTHING! Just a video. So to be honest I think there is a lot to be said about getting people behind an idea even if there is little to nothing to show for it. And to be honest, people do want something to believe in and Infinity could certainly be that something.