On paper, yeah, but making demands when you paid $1 for a game that is in development for couple of years, made by several people and will be probably sold at $30-$50 at release seems rather silly.
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I can totally get behind that comment of your’s.
You stated “backers are partly investors, partly supporters.” The thing I find weird, is that some comments seem to take only the supporter side and ridicule those who are stating something on the investors side.
I think that’s clear enough, but just for the sake of it: I’m a backer myself, and I don’t want this game to be killed by too strict deadlines, bankers and lawyers. That’s what happened to a number of projects and games, and I don’t want that to happen to A.C.
I also get this paragraph in the end. Opposed to that, I see that crowdfunding-phase also as a lower risk learning opportunity for the developers to learn about managing expectations and the interaction with customers (in this case backers, this is why it’s lower risk). Shielding them too much from critisism doesn’t help, if you look at it this way (edit: even from a supporter’s perspective).
I think the challenge here is to find a happy medium, that also reflects the two sides of us backers.
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No one is shiedling them ‘too much’.
If they offer a refund it’s because they choose to.
They aren’t under any legal obligation to offer a refund as the project is almost at completion.
We aren’t investors. The definition of an investor is someone who looks to financially gain. Not one of us is going to financially gain. We are backers and as such have no real recourse in terms of demands. Of course it is better for the developers to listen to their community but ultimately they are in charge, not us.
What you seem to miss is that this release isn’t even a beta. It’s still a WIP and as such doesn’t even meet the criteria they set for the tiered release system. They are well within their rights to delay if they feel the game is unplayable.
Would you really want to play a game that is, for example, going to crash every 30 mins because they didn’t have time to fix a critical issue? Or would you wait a few more days until such issues have been resolved and you can play the game freely without any gamebreaking issues?
I understand your frustration that you may have to wait a little longer but it’s like demanding to wear a raincoat that doesn’t have the waterproof layer attached to it. Would you demand to wear a raincoat if it doesn’t meet the minimum requirements to function proerly?
If you feel so strongly that you are being scammed/lied to or whatever then I would suggest asking for a refund and just waiting until the end of the year or maybe even into next year to play the game, pay full price and lose all your perks that you got for backing the game.
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Yeah, that’s what I meant, we’re not really investors, it may sound like it because project isn’t finished, but in the end it’s more like pre-purchase. You can demand changes once it’s done. You can complain, of course, no one can take that from you, but don’t think you’re somehow in charge. Devs can do what they want, if they deliver product worse than advertised there will be damage to reputation, so it’s not really in their interest to cheat on anything.
It’s really annoying to see people paying some ridiculously small amount of money and making demands like they paid for the whole production. You can request changes, fine, but devs can ignore those request. If they ignore too much, people will hate them and stop buying their games, but that’s all. What people pay for getting access to this beta is as much as cost of around 2 hours of programmer’s work. Maybe 1 hour, if we look at senior developer. You’re not suddenly owner of the project because you’ve paid for developer’s dinner.
Also, “I demand this and this or I will refund” has different effect than what you expect it to have. It’s putting pressure on people and being a d***, no one likes it. In life if someone says something like that to me I do the exact opposite. In theory that could result in devs deciding that their supporters are whiny d**** and don’t deserve another beta after this one, because it’s not worth to allow them early access if they can’t appreciate that.
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I hoped you understood by now that, eventhough I definitely was frustrated for me it was never about me having to wait longer.
I always tried to see the bigger picture and adress the way the developers go about things that now resulted in me being frustrated and in future might cause bigger problems.
Would you really want to play a game that is, for example, going to crash every 30 mins because they didn’t have time to fix a critical issue?
YES!!! I want that! I am here to give feedback. I want to contribute to the development. As it was pointed out we all are backers. That is what we are here for. No one expects a game that runs smoothly in any way.
We aren’t investors. The definition of an investor is someone who looks to financially gain. Not one of us is going to financially gain. We are backers and as such have no real recourse in terms of demands. Of course it is better for the developers to listen to their community but ultimately they are in charge, not us.
I won’t go into an argument with you about that. I suspect it would lead us to a similar place as our last discussion.
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You can’t argue because that is the literal definition of an investor. You aren’t an investor, simple as.
Ok, I get you want to help, but as was explained several times the devs don’t want 1000+ people reporting the same problems and have to respond to each individual. Far easier for them to have a few people test the game for major flaws and directly respond to them to resolve the issues quicker. Once those major issues have been resolved you’ll get your chance to help.
That’s all there is to it, there’s nothing you can do about it. So you have two options. Wait patiently until they decide to roll out keys to lower tiers or, ask for a refund and have to wait even longer to play the game and lose all your perks for backing the game early. Which of those two options is more preferable?
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Ok, I get you want to help, but as was explained several times the devs don’t want 1000+ people reporting the same problems and have to respond to each individual. Far easier for them to have a few people test the game for major flaws and directly respond to them to resolve the issues quicker. Once those major issues have been resovled you’ll get your chance to help.
Remember, that we have different opinions on how well this was communicated. I wouldn’t have been opposed to that practice if I hadn’t thought it wasn’t early enough and clearly communicated.
That’s all there is to it, there’s nothing you can do about it. So you have two options. Wait patiently until they decide to roll out keys to lower tiers or, ask for a refund and have to wait even longer to play the game and lose all your perks for backing the game early. Which of those two options is more preferable?
I am trying to go a third route. I will voice my complains, try to explain what lead to them to my best ability and hope the developers will learn from it. I basically treat it as a bug report of the way they are interacting with us.
You are right I’m not an investor, I am a backer.
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The thing is the team is so small that they have to keep things manageable. The first public version was deemed to have lots of bugs, the devs would rather receive 3 exact same reports than 100 exact same reports. Once these most reoccurring bugs are fixed, then Lords will be able come in to help with more issues.
Do not forget, the dev team has much on its hands (including the possibility of expanding the team!).
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It was clearly voiced. It would’ve taken you a maximum of 10 mins to find the relevant sub-forum and read the top post saying that’s how it would be done.
As stated before, you can voice your opinion that you ‘feel’ they didn’t communicate it properly but the vast majority of us knew exactly what was going to happen.
Why all so dramatic, you can’t wait few hours?
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okay guys, lunch break is over… back to work 
Guys, I feel like things could easily go nasty again. Please take care of keeping civil
Regarding Fusi’s post:
I totally agree. Every backer as two sides. And the worse is those two sides may get the best of us depending on circumstances and periods.
I’ll have to take my case, even under the risk I may seem egocentric, but I think most backers could recognize themselves, even if probably a good part of them may stop agreeing sometime along the steps hereunder. For instance, “Investors” would agree to the first step, while I go to the 3rd, and probably it would be easy to add a 4th step for fan-boys – that I don’t count myself in as I fancy with keeping a personal opinion:
- when I read “16th of July”, my first thought was “YES!!! At last!!!”. That was my “investor” part shouting aloud its satisfaction.
- when I read “from 16th of July”, the second thought was “Ok. Yes. But…”
- when thinking a few minutes over the devs arguments and their vision (giving the backers a first version totally playable even if incomplete), it appears this totally matches my supporter side.
After all, if I’m asked if I prefer
a) a non working first version that risks damaging the whole project and its very survivability, or
b) a more polished version delayed by a few days, which is permitted by beta testers work agreeing to deal with bugs and issues of any sort so that everyone may get a more polished and working version and have fun…
Then I easily and without any remorse choose b).
Now, there is this thing about “Why am I not a beta?” That’s a fair point. And I totally understand that, you’ll never see me criticizing you or anyone else about that.
The first and most asinine answer could be: “Those who gave more money are served first, and life is a bitch, period.”
Now, there’s also to think that any other choice would mean asking for candidates, receiving answers, picking those that seem fitting, and losing development time and fixing time.
Note my word: I think the money argument to select to select the first testers is not that good. After all, they’re supposedly “richer” than most backer (that sounds like a cliché, we agree on that!). So, there’s a very high chance their tech characteristics are far above those of most common future players. Hence, this is very far from being a perfect solution.
But it’s clear, it’s honestly stated, and it’s far more efficient regarding the work-in-progress version, so that’s better for the whole community (even if felt as annoying), so that’s better for the whole project.
So I’m perfectly fine with that. In French we say we can’t have both the butter and the money for the butter. The trouble is some here clearly want the butter, the money for the butter, the cream and the dairywoman. Hence sometimes conversations may get heated 
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We differ on the definition on what we see as clear communication. I used subjective qualifiers with the goal of not starting this discussion again.
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Vast majority of people knew exactly this would be the process.
It is there in the forums and has been for over 2 years. If you haven’t read it, that’s on you, no one else. It can’t get any clearer than that.
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Details posted in the forum are irrelevant to a “purchase decision”. Access is only granted after purchase …
Their Twitter with last call founding links to Ancient Cities game
There it clearly state “Rewards will be provided when available.” under their reward table
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It’s on twitter too… It’s pretty much available where ever you were to look.
It is also irrelevant about ‘purchase decision’ because it is clearly stated there is no set date for release.
EDIT: Only reason I used the forums as an example is because this user has had over 1 month to read the forums and find out that that is the case. It wouldn’t take more than 10 mins to find the relevant sub-forum and it is the first post in there.
How is it the entitled gamers of the universe feel they can make demands - as the devs have repeatedly said this is a WORK IN PROGRESS version not the actual closed beta that comes with your backers tier, so to be clear you are entitled to nothing at this point. There is no fixed guaranteed time line, you knew this when you backed a brand new 3 person Indy studio. I personally think this release plan had some serious flaws by releasing the WIP the way they did but it’s THE DEVS choice not ours and no amount of freakout is going to change that. Most of us have waited 2+ years with hope but no real expectations as there’s a lot of unknowns in a project like this. So in short calm your emotions if the WIP is stable enough for a bigger test group LORD tier will get it if not we wait until they can bug fix more. And we will get on the next WIP release. @UncasualGames as always you have my support, keep your collective chins up and thank you for giving us a sneak peek at the future.
@Marko you beauty thank you for this post!
Overview of development builds and release plan details
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Haha, I’m blushing 
Thanks 
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