At the Gates: New turn based strategy game by Jon Shafer at Kickstarter

Trip, two questions:

1) What, if any, implementation of multiplayer (be it PBEM, or something newer) are you going to attempt and how would you test it and;

2) Why are you asking people to pay you for the job of alpha and beta testing, when it has been shown that hand picking testers with the qualities you want leads to more useful feedback?

Krill said:

2) Why are you asking people to pay you for the job of alpha and beta testing, when it has been shown that hand picking testers with the qualities you want leads to more useful feedback?

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I certainly don't think that's been shown. How would you even pick people with the qualities you want, out of all of the random anonymous users on the internet? The most difficult single property to find in testers is people who actually test the game. For that purpose, people who are willing to pay for access to the beta test are much more likely than average to actually do something with the capacity they have paid for. Obviously, Jon doesn't have to (and won't) limit participation in alpha/beta testing to only people who pay for access. No doubt he'll solicit people he knows in other ways, too.

Krill said:

Trip, two questions:

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Howdy sir, it's been a while!

1) What, if any, implementation of multiplayer (be it PBEM, or something newer) are you going to attempt and how would you test it and;

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ATG will almost certainly be single-player only. As you well know, I'm a pretty big fan of multiplayer and it's something we'd really like to add, but doing so requires a seriously nontrivial investment. Given that we’re only three people (two of which are part-time) our current schedule and budget doesn’t really have much flexibility. However, if ATG is as successful as we hope we'll definitely be considering it for future projects. It's much easier to start with MP in mind than to try and wedge it in later (PTW, anyone?).

I know it's not a "traditional" MP mode, but we are thinking about hotseat for ATG, since that would be quite a bit easier to implement. Can't make any promises right now though!

2) Why are you asking people to pay you for the job of alpha and beta testing, when it has been shown that hand picking testers with the qualities you want leads to more useful feedback?

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It's important to get a wide array of feedback. Anyone who is willing to pay more than necessary to help test the game is going to be passionate about wanting it to work, but the overall group interest in it will be pretty varied. Some are attracted to the game's theme, others find the mechanics promising, and a few simply because they've enjoyed my past work.

Given that 4X games appeal to a fairly niche audience to begin with, bringing in as many passionate folks as possible only helps. You always want to have a large testing group, and one of the challenges I've had to deal with in the past was constantly rebuilding as the best testers gradually drifted off into other hobbies and phases of life.

However, as DaviddesJ said, that doesn't preclude me from inviting people I'm familiar with and already know the talents of. But there's certainly no guarantee that I'll hand everyone a golden ticket, and the higher tiers are a way of ensuring you get seat at the table if that's something you'd really like.

- Jon

Trip, thanks for those answers, and the speed in replying. It's refreshing to see straight forward answers about your aims.

Good luck with you new dream, I hope you do well.

ATG will almost certainly be single-player only.

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Hurrah! I've never cared for MP in strategy games so this is perfectly fine with me.

At the Gates seems to be focused on the Civilization series best scenario era so far, aka the Rome ascension and fall, which was represented by a set of different and progressive scenarios.

It seems good, even if I would have prefered a more Civilization type of unfolding, with several epochs in a same game, and the fall and rise of random countries simulated.

But this dream is just a dream ; I hardly even figured out how such a thing would work myself.

An essay from Jon Shafer.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates/posts

http://forums.conifergames.com/index.php?topic=13.0

I was sort of "meh" about this game at first, because of Jon's past with Civ V (no offense intended), but this essay appears to be him criticizing almost every problem I have/had with Civ V.I did really like your Civ IV mod, and I'm hoping that this game proves to be good as well.

Reading that has given me hope. I especially liked what he said about the focus on resources, removal of 1UPT to allow for massive wars based on production capabilities, and the proclamation that the game will have the best diplomacy AI ever. I will be keeping my eye on this game.

A bit late to the party here. It's interesting to note that Jon Shafer basically admits that most of the major design deviations from Civ 5 from Civ 4 were huge mistakes:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates/posts/404789

And I agree.

I don't get hit. If i understood things right he was Lead Designer for Civ V.

I am not in the gaming business, but I though a lead designer makes the major decisions how a game is developed, has the final say.

Now the game is finished, some things getting polished, some intrinsic problems won't get solved. Now 3 years later he is stomping on his own game for the sake of promoting a new game he is developing?

I would like to know, why did they do such a bad job back then? He was involved in Civ IV BTS - so he knew about complexity and meaningful decisions.

Why is the Civ V AI tactical combat in a state it is? Civs like Mongols are not really useful outside their pay-DLC.

What about the new game? What are the Lesson learned or will there be a new article in 3 years stomping on some indie game...?

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For the game being top xx for some time does not mean it relies on the same user group Civ IV BTS relied on. Yes Steam relies a lot on Social acceptance, to advertise products. IF a lot of people like x, then X must be good. Which has the internal logic of a small animal that follows others wherever they run (I lost its name) - and over a cliff.

achievement comparison lists treasure hunter (discover an ancient ruin) at 87.2% Global. so 22.8% of all owners never discovered an ancient ruin.

Afforess said:

A bit late to the party here.
And I agree.

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A bit late is in this was alreayd posted twice, once by Jon himself.

I wonder if it will be possible to fail so hard with infighting between the Barbarians that the Roman Empire surges... that would make for a good LP.

essmene said:

a small animal that follows others wherever they run (I lost its name) - and over a cliff.

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It's leemings. I remember it easily because it was a french video game in the past.

Sonereal said:

I can totally blame people for stuff too if I only perform superficial analysis of stuff!

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I can totally make facetious comments which fail to engage in the discussion taking place.

Regarding the game, giving the previous form of John, I'm opening a book with 10/1on odds of John making a game long on ideas but short on execution or balance.

"In Civ 5, every unit needed its own tile, and that meant the map filled up pretty quickly. To address this, I slowed the rate of production, which in turn led to more waiting around for buckets to fill up. For pacing reasons, in the early game I might have wanted players to be training new units every 4 turns. But this was impossible, because the map would have then become covered in Warriors by the end of the classical era. And once the map fills up too much, even warfare stops being fun."

I win...

Brian Shanahan said:

Regarding the game, giving the previous form of John, I'm opening a book with 10/1on odds of John making a game long on ideas but short on execution or balance.

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10 on that

I cant say Im a big fan of your work Jon, but never the less will I wish you good luck with your game, and I hope it will be a succes. We can never get too many TBS in these FPS times.

vincentz said:

I cant say Im a big fan of your work Jon, but never the less will I wish you good luck with your game, and I hope it will be a succes. We can never get too few TBS in these FPS times.

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You have a point - though I would prefer one "deep" / balanced one over 10 quick releases.

E.g. take "Warlock of the Arcane". Fantasy Civ 5 with Civ 5 flaws.

Nice graphics, DLC´s, ... and a sucky AI, that´s not fixed - rather release an ueber AI race to increase difficulty.

Rather fund a huge open beta with players and check if your game works or even delay release if it´s not ready.

Ok a small software company cannot wait - and must release things or they might run bankrupt. But from certain names with cash I expect an attention to details and If they release a game like Civ 5 vanilla - I won´t purchase a sequel in advance - meaning they hurt their own cashfow - and now I am off-topic.

I belief companies are good at raising expectations for their fans and creating an urge to buy a game. But lately I have had a lot of miserable letdowns where the advertisement transported "more" than they actually delivered - and that is across the board - MMORPG, Strategy, ...

gaiko said:

"In Civ 5, every unit needed its own tile, and that meant the map filled up pretty quickly. To address this, I slowed the rate of production, which in turn led to more waiting around for buckets to fill up. For pacing reasons, in the early game I might have wanted players to be training new units every 4 turns. But this was impossible, because the map would have then become covered in Warriors by the end of the classical era. And once the map fills up too much, even warfare stops being fun."

I win...

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Presumably Jon can answer this, but was it ever considered to reduce the actual size of each hex given the 1upt and the larger city radius? I like the 1upt, I like the hexes. However to me the problem was the hexes have always been too big, especially noticeable on snakey landmasses (i.e central America would be 3 hexes wide). I just feel that perhaps the hexes were made too large, or to flip it around, the maps and the map making (i.e example about central America) too small. Even the default zoom being back a little would have been a better feel. Though I'm guessing artwork and visuals meant wanting to show as much off as possible in detail. To be fair, and I'm only just starting to read up on this game, having a small scale of just Europe rather than the whole world will work in this favor.

On topic, while I'm not the sort to donate/kickstart (sorry Jon), I will be following along with at least mild interest. First I heard of it was this thread. Hope it works well, after all having more competition is never a bad thing from the consumer point of view.

Edit: Coming from also a Paradox POV, which was my first thoughts looking at the map and your discussion of supply, will be interested in how your supply system works. While I was rather casual with the HOI2, or more applicable the Rome game, I like the massive scale and while I bought for instance HOI3 the bugs mixed with changes threw me off enough not to get into it so I never really played it after the frustration over the initial 12 months.