Chris Wilson on "Bachir Boumaaza" aka Athene stream

I'd like to know that too. I don't think it's Grim Dawn though, it's in Alpha and has about 1/3 finished.
But it's sounds very interesting: You can play offline or in a LAN, you can use some sort of rifles and health is rare and expensive so you have to avoid damage a lot.
The setting is: In some sort of steampunk Victorian world aliens invade who bodysnatch humans and turn them into monsters. Then other aliens invade who are willing to destroy the first aliens by all means necessary, so they start killing all humans in order to prevent the first aliens from bodysnatching them. Pretty soon not many humans are left and you are one of them. :)

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Jojas wrote:

I'd like to know that too. I don't think it's Grim Dawn though

I'm pretty sure he means Marvel Heroes. Not sure why he would mentioned that as a positive example. It got a sub-60 metascore and wasn't a particularly impressive game. I thought it was clunky and bland, personally.

It's not Grim Dawn.I suspect Mivo to be correct.

How about that interview though !

Much the same as what was on the table 3-4 years ago.The more things change ya know.....

Jelly path of exile scrubs, athene is the king of gaming

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woodyfly wrote:

Jelly path of exile scrubs, athene is the king of gaming

Indeed he is,just ask him and he'll tell ya. =P

Hail to the king baby.

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CapitalPunishment wrote:

Im not so sure about that. Yeah having planned flaws in the game because it makes them remember the exact D2 experience they had...works fine for the niche hardcore crowd.

If this game wants to grow, and eventually they will need to...they are going to have to realize that its not 1998 and games and expectations have come a long way.

Have to agree that there are alot of things, especially convenient features like Inventar/Stashtab autosort button, that are lacking in the game. But otoh i do believe that it's wanted by quite a large player base to have the game as "hardcore" as possible without being too restrictive. He said that they're trying to hit the sweet spot here, BUT that even when they'd like it if everybody plays their game they won't change their vision of the game just to make it enjoyable for everyone. I respect that alot.

Maybe that's because i'm a long time Dota player (since 2006), and looking at Dota and the philosophy that stands behind it, they basicly have done exactly that: trying to hit the sweet spot without making any compromises regarding the game being hardcore, restrictive, incredible hard to master and punishing/frustrating sometimes. I'm playing it for almost 8 years now and still think that it's the best game ever created, because there are still things i haven't seen, because the game's evolving, because i still can learn, because it's hardcore. And from what Chris said, i see the same vision here. The opposite approach was/is League of Legends - no doubt more people play LoL, but Dota's still a huge game with millions of players all over the world.

GGG don't have the money/manpower to adress things like better accessibility, a thing Valve tackled in Dota2 in many regards but WITHOUT making the game any less hardcore than Dota was.

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You can improve quality of life, give game options and leagues that the developer might not personally enjoy, and keep the game complex and hardcore.

I think that was the main take that I got out of this. Even if there are ways to give people what they want without making the game stray from their vision they probably wont do it.

That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it: they have a vision about the game, and they STICK TO IT. They hear the critizism, they consider different approaches, but in the end it's THEIR game, they want it to be a certain way and they keep it that way.

You're saying: give people what they want! They say: we give the people what they want IF it fits the vision of the game. You also forget that there are alot of people who wouldn't like a Selffound league in the game, just to pick up a common topic. Why give people who don't share their vision of the game what they want, while forgetting about the people who DO share this vision? Also, don't forget that all changes eat alot of money + manpower, and it's not always guranteed that this'll actually mean more players etc.

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Mind you players don't usually start as a hardcore player, the game will turn them to one. When there are major glaring issues in game by design...that turns those players away...you need those players to grow...and eventually they will want to grow.

Are you sure they want to grow? Not to mention that this is a fundamentally broken way to approach game design - see where it has led Blizzard. They made 4 INCREDIBLE games between 1998 and 2005 (D2, SC, WC3 and WoW), but managed to ruin the Diablo Franchise, they're losing more and more players in SC2 because they don't care and they're on their best way to ruin the Warcraft Franchise once and for all. They made games and design decisions based on how many people would enjoy that long enough to buy their game, but forgot to make good games. Don't make a product the people want, rather make a product so good that everyone will want to have it. Blizzard failed badly here in the last few years, let's hope GGG will do better.

And who says they won't grow while sticking to their vision of the game? There's still more content coming, they're trying to improve desync, they have 4 month ladders that keep changing

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Also on a side note. Ive been dabbling in another ARPG made by some guy who made d1/d2. There is no trading, everything decent is BOA. Having no trading and actually playing it...changed my views to a true believer. This is how it should be. Get geared by playing not by trading. Also not a single RMT spam EVER in that game and its free.

I think its sort of a mistake to think the lack of trading ruins the game...it removes way more issues than it creates, and the created issues...well...I don't think people realize how little they will miss trading until they actually are gearing up with the only option to do so...playing. Oh and this game does have an AH, poe.xyz...no point pretending there isn't an AH in the game.

I'd like to have something in between pure BOA and tradeable only. Good gear that is BoA and is in reach for most people who play a certain amount of time (say, lvl80 and 80 hours game time, roughly), but that the best gear's only accessible when you really play alot. BoA gear that enables you to play your build to some extend, say 30-50% efficiency and have fun with it, without the need to trade. Reworking the Quest Rewards would be an easy way to tackle this. But i do agree with GGG that it's cool to be able to trade, even the best stuff. I rather have it the way it is right now than "everything BoA".

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I know the defense supporters will put their fingers in their ears and go "lalalala" but like I said, eventually this game is going to need to grow beyond its niche crowd.

Oh and its great to hear the developer shrug off desync as a fabricated issue. Not good for me when im on break for my second time because of the issue.

No, it won't need to grow beyond it's niche crowd. I strongly believe you're wrong here. Never ending growth isn't the only way.

And yes, Desync still is the game's biggest flaw, but the more i learn about it, the more i also learn to deal with it. What they're saying is reasonable. Keep in mind that they do see the issue and work on it - if they'd just deny the problem, it'd be a completely different matter.

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ahcos wrote:

That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it: they have a vision about the game, and they STICK TO IT.

Except, they don't. Short allocation party loot mode was how they envisioned the game to be played. But they caved in and gave us PA.

So yeah, they are definitely compromising despite their vision.

Yeah, right, when you've a vision you can't aknowledge that you were wrong and make it better.

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ahcos wrote:

Yeah, right, when you've a vision you can't aknowledge that you were wrong and make it better.

Except they weren't wrong, their vision of "loot tension" went far too much against the "fun" factor for far too many players, that's why they changed it. Their vision didn't change, their tastes didn't change, and they were not "wrong" either because a subjective opinion cannot be wrong per se.

They compromised for the sake of the players.

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ahcos wrote:

Why give people who don't share their vision of the game what they want, while forgetting about the people who DO share this vision?

Pretty much this. I don't understand some threads on these forums that are considered as "feedbacks" or "suggestions", but in my opinion they are not really, they're demands about changing some core features of the game, core features that brought the large majority here in the first place, and these features make the game what it is. If I dislike the core ideas of a game, I just don't play it, I don't come to the forums and say "Hey love your game <3 but please take an other direction with it otherwise I and 1567 friends of mine are gonna leave". Feedback is like "that skill could be improved that way" or things like that. But threads going like "great game but crafting sucks, rng sucks, map system sucks and dsync sucks" are not. Asking for no trading and BoA items is clearly in that type of so-called "feedback", as it is 100% against what the devs want their game to be. It is not "suggestion", it's just being in the wrong place.

In my opinion, if I had to summarize all what Chris said in this interview in one sentence, it would be "we're opened to good suggestions, but keep in mind we designed that game the way we wanted and we're gonna stick to it".