Double Fine to stop development on Spacebase DF-9.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09/18/double-fine-early-access-spacebase-df9/#more-234521

Anyone read this? I actually bought the sucker at the start and I'm pretty POd right now.

 

At least they agreed to release the full Lua source. But I am not so certain that really fixes them abandoning it. I would be pretty far beyond fuming if I had bought it. (And they only said they "Will" release the source. They have not done it yet, and plan to wait to the next beta that they will mockingly call 1.0 to do so.)

 

I bought Spacebase DF-9 in Early Access as well. I have over 100+ hours played, I saw it through most of the early versions, and I was quite active on the forums for a while. I'll say I'm disappointed, and not really angry. I've read some of the reactions of folks in the comments on gaming websites and such (which is generally along the lines of: "You have betrayed my trust, DoubleFIne. You and all things you publish, past and future, are dead to me!"), and that doesn't represent me.

I had hoped for more. Early on, it was all blue skies and smooth sailing. Everything was a possibility, and games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld were mentioned quite frequently as reference points. It's a bit disingenuous to call this a deliberate deception; I imagine, faced with waning public interest and internal studio pressures, plus a slow development process (SB DF-9 had only 2 or 3 full-timers, plus whatever personnel they could borrow from other projects), someone made the call to ship it and reallocate resources to one of the jillion other projects DoubleFIne has on the go.

Compared to what the Devs had initially put out for the direction of Things to Come, Spacebase is little more than (mostly) functional core mechanics, with very little in the way of bells and whistles. I'd consider it a proof-of-concept toy. For what it's worth, it could have been the basis of something much grander. I don't feel "ripped off" - I knew what I was getting into in Early Access, and I really liked communicating with the Devs, hunting down bugs, and seeing it grow over time. But I would certainly not consider paying full asking price for what is now looking like the final product.

*edit* Now that I think about it, though, a rapid series of patches and then a half-price sale literally a week before the abrupt 'end of development' announcement is .. well, it doesn't look good on them.

*edit* As for my thoughts re: Early Access and Clockwork Empires - Gaslamp Games, I'll say GG's level and frequency of communication has been excellent; compared to Spacebase DF-9's update style, I have a much clearer idea about CE's pace, and scope, and what I can reasonably expect the finished project to be like.

 

Thanks for the warning, I was interested in this, happy I didn't buy it. My sympathies to those who have.
I think it's REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad they don't have a warning on the steam store page.

 

Yeah, I'm one of the unfortunates who bought it, but I think it may have been on sale at the time...either way, it really is a horrible state of affairs because the game is barely playable in its current state. I mean, it's playable, but after a dozen hours I've seen and done practically everything there is to do. The AI is nowhere near the state it needs to be for this kind of game.

...oh well, buyer beware, right?

 

Even more unfortunate perhaps is that Double Fine has been implicated in corruption, specifically because their newly released Hack 'n' Slash game was funded by Indiefund, and is an "Indiecade official selection", where the indiefund guys are connected. Talk about rigged. This ties into the Phil Fish/Polytron racketeering scandal, where indiefund guys funded Fez, and then were the judges that gave it awards at the IGF.

Also Tim Schafer has some out as a raving anti-gamer SJW, so there's that.

PS: Please stop using rock paper shotgun, at all. It's an anti-gamer propaganda site now.

 

I hear you've been listening a little too much to propaganda. Harassment has been coming WAY more from the anti-GG camp, including death threats, tons of doxxing, physical items sent through mail(including an investigative journalist getting a syringe full of an unknown substance in the mail), and calling employers to get them fired(which happened to the starter of the #notyourshield hashtag).

http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/

This is gamergate central: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/for...erGate-Discussion-Debate-and-Resources?page=1

It's heavily against harassment from both sides. To say gamergate is about harassing women is intellectually dishonest bullshit of the highest order.

As for 4chan, they're not really relevant, and turns out moot has a SJW girlfriend, is friends with Anita Sarkeesian, went to her xoxo show, and changed his modstaff to a bunch of SJWs. Basically moot chose sides and killed 4chan.

Sidenote: FYAD(something awful)/Weird Twitter trolling group is also known to be in the fray, and a lot of the shit being attributed to GG harassment is coming from them.

At least go read http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate

Before you post propaganda.

 

This is a massive thread derail. Did you have anything to say about Spacebase DF-9?

 

Haven't seen baumgart back up his "well the GG side are harassing people" claim at all, and neither did you. In fact we've been clamping down on anyone doing it, something the anti-gg side hasn't. There's only one side here that's shown itself to behave with any amount of reason and ethics. The antis don't come out against those on their side who engage in hate speech. People like Leigh Alexander, Ben Kuchera, Anthony Burch, etc. Just to name a few. Anyone on the GG side saying anything inappropriate gets called out on it immediately.

You know what a harassment campaign was? When 10 articles were posted in 48 hours saying gamers are dead, gamers don't have to be your audience, gamers are misogynistic shitbag nonpeople.

The SJW side declared it was a culture war, they made it a war. The GG side is a CONSUMER BACKLASH.

Yeah except that's not actually true, you need to do some research I think. There's even feminists who's come out in support, like CH Sommers(also nicknamed as Based Mom), several game devs, especially those who've been mistreated by the SJW camp since before this campaign, people like Devi Ever, a transwoman gamedev.

No I think he's a rabid SJW because he's been talking shit about gamers on twitter and insulting his fanbase.

 

Social Justice Warrior? Is that what is even being discussed? It sounds like a bunch of loudmouthed and opinionated people are being given this "title" by the other side of whatever the hell they are arguing about. I am totally out of the loop on this subject. I had to use a search engine even to learn what SJW *May* mean.

As for gamers and women, they are just subjects that are not worth fighting over. Women deserve respect and equality, and that may even mean that the men (And women, not to mention others of any classification they prefer) who hate them should shut up about whatever they are bitching about and leave it to more civilized people to argue about it. Gamers likewise deserve respect and equality. And anyone who thinks little of gamers can have some choice words I will not bother to type precisely because none of this is worth arguing about. There. My part is done. Have a nice day everyone, regardless of your position on any topics discussed here, and any neglected to be discussed.

 

If we're going to be really specific, they're a bunch of Cultural Marxist, Critical Theory, Sex Negative, Gender Feminist, Misandrists. But that's a bit of a mouthful.

 

There are always loads of people in the world that will hate you regardless of who you are, what you do, or how you identify yourself. It is hard to ignore them, and sometimes impossible, but I have faith in you. Disregard them and they will effectively cease to exist.

If they try harder to offend you, try harder to ignore them. As a dedicated forum-troll, I can tell you nothing is more annoying than that.

Look back on this in a decade and you will have won. No questions asked. Victory is easy when you do nothing at all to achieve it.

 

The problem is that they gained the voice of most of the big gaming sites. Especially Kotaku, Gamasutra, Polygon, Rock paper shotgun, Ars Technica, Destructoid, etc.

They started a coordinated slander campaign against gamers, and it's been 6 weeks and I'm still FURIOUS.

 

Ok deaf ears here.

The problem as noted, is that Indiefund has been both funding, and judging indiegames, both at the IGF and at Indiecade, specifically the chair of the awards jury, Kellee Santiago, in the case of Indiecade. It came out when someone leaked a bunch of files from Polytron.

I'll list a few sources:
http://indiestatik.com/2013/06/13/i...e-fine-for-two-new-games-and-thats-a-problem/
https://archive.today/jZ7KL

https://i.imgur.com/4kIDUNG.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bw9iQSGCQAALPd0.png

And after all that... Hack 'n' Slash, a Doublefine title, has an Indiecade official selection logo on their steam page...