176 replies to this topic

[mr31337]

Well, as Michael said, there might be an announcement on Monday next week. That's all we have for now.

Yeah, technically we've had the announcement of a possible announcement of a patch to come. Thanks Michael.

I just hope it opens up the game for modding or I suspect the game/community will die off with ME3 and other titles coming out so soon.

[resonansER]

I suspect the game/community will die off with ME3 and other titles coming out so soon.

That's pure true.

[Kuujis]

That's pure true.

Then again, how long can ME grab the attention? I'll be back for FoW and all other goodies for sure

[delray]

Yea, ME never was that big in replay value with scripted levels and same dialogues. One Adept run and you've seen it all...

[alam maia]

true!!! 4 days and that is it back to BIA...

[Dusteki]

I've stopped playing until I get sector inventory.

[Woozy]

You're just fundamentally wrong on Kalypso, completely wrong. Have no idea what games of theirs you're bitching about but head over to their forums and you'll find a lot of satisfied customers that are loving the shit out of those games. Kalypso is literally my favorite publisher, because they have the balls to publish remakes of all the games we loved as kids but aren't COD/BATTLEFIELD/whatever so no one else will touch them. And they're doing a damn good job of it, especially for a foreign publisher (making localized versions, I mean, no racism intended).

Dungeons/Dark Lord: Okay the devs sort of changed some things from the original, but the spirit stayed the same. Not buggy and plenty of new content has been added to mess with. They've been actively working on these for literally years with new content.

Tropcio 3/4: Fantastic games that they have patched and stuck with content-wise since release. These remakes honestly could not have been much better than they have but could have been a lot worse. Kept active with patching, too. New expansion adding a shitload of content for T4 is coming up, $15 for a new game's worth of additions.

Airline Tycoon 2: faithful remake of the original, got a lot of flak for not including certain features... which are being continuously patched in, at Kalypso's expense. Again, not the publisher's fault, as the game wasn't buggy--just poor design decisions.

Port Royale 3, I mean holy shit who would have thought to remake that? PR2 was so good but a total sleeper, flew right under the radar because of Sid Meier's Pirates (lots of similarities with combat, etc). So pumped about this.

Patrician 4: see PR3, except it's out, was very good but a little dry, totally spiced up the original concept of the series by adding land trade/non-coastal cities in an expansion.

Sure, they've published some bad games. First Templar was awful, but they stuck with it with patches and recently released some kind of add-on or something... But a lot of the flaws were design decisions made by the devs. None of the games I've played from them were bad because they were buggy. They don't release broken games. Like, ever. They hold back on announcing release dates until the devs are god-damn-good-and-ready, which is more than I can say for pretty much ANY other company. And if there are problems, they listen, and fix them pretty quick. They listen to the community--shit a lot of the features they add in sequels and expansions were probably thought of by the community.

Is there any other publisher out there willing to take chances on the unique, challenging games we played as kids? Look at the EAs and 2Ks of the world, their shitty XCOM and Syndicate FPS remakes. Seriously, if you can think of one company that's done more to revive the best games of the late 90s/early 00s, please let me know.

I'm not getting paid to say this, but you clearly aren't very familiar with the company and it irks me to see someone badmouth the one "good guy" publisher out there.

And yeah, I'll say it: If Kalypso were the publishers on JABiA, it would not have been released in the sorry-sack-of-shit shape that it was.

This so true. I'm not one to defend publishers but if there was ever a "good one" Kalypso is it. If any U.S. based publisher had gotten their grubby mits on the JA property, BIA would have been a shooter.

[Farwest]

Now I am eagerly waiting for the Monday...

[Sleught]

You're just fundamentally wrong on Kalypso, completely wrong. Have no idea what games of theirs you're bitching about but head over to their forums and you'll find a lot of satisfied customers that are loving the shit out of those games. Kalypso is literally my favorite publisher, because they have the balls to publish remakes of all the games we loved as kids but aren't COD/BATTLEFIELD/whatever so no one else will touch them. And they're doing a damn good job of it, especially for a foreign publisher (making localized versions, I mean, no racism intended).

Dungeons/Dark Lord: Okay the devs sort of changed some things from the original, but the spirit stayed the same. Not buggy and plenty of new content has been added to mess with. They've been actively working on these for literally years with new content.

Tropcio 3/4: Fantastic games that they have patched and stuck with content-wise since release. These remakes honestly could not have been much better than they have but could have been a lot worse. Kept active with patching, too. New expansion adding a shitload of content for T4 is coming up, $15 for a new game's worth of additions.

Airline Tycoon 2: faithful remake of the original, got a lot of flak for not including certain features... which are being continuously patched in, at Kalypso's expense. Again, not the publisher's fault, as the game wasn't buggy--just poor design decisions.

Port Royale 3, I mean holy shit who would have thought to remake that? PR2 was so good but a total sleeper, flew right under the radar because of Sid Meier's Pirates (lots of similarities with combat, etc). So pumped about this.

Patrician 4: see PR3, except it's out, was very good but a little dry, totally spiced up the original concept of the series by adding land trade/non-coastal cities in an expansion.

Sure, they've published some bad games. First Templar was awful, but they stuck with it with patches and recently released some kind of add-on or something... But a lot of the flaws were design decisions made by the devs. None of the games I've played from them were bad because they were buggy. They don't release broken games. Like, ever. They hold back on announcing release dates until the devs are god-damn-good-and-ready, which is more than I can say for pretty much ANY other company. And if there are problems, they listen, and fix them pretty quick. They listen to the community--shit a lot of the features they add in sequels and expansions were probably thought of by the community.

Is there any other publisher out there willing to take chances on the unique, challenging games we played as kids? Look at the EAs and 2Ks of the world, their shitty XCOM and Syndicate FPS remakes. Seriously, if you can think of one company that's done more to revive the best games of the late 90s/early 00s, please let me know.

I'm not getting paid to say this, but you clearly aren't very familiar with the company and it irks me to see someone badmouth the one "good guy" publisher out there.

And yeah, I'll say it: If Kalypso were the publishers on JABiA, it would not have been released in the sorry-sack-of-shit shape that it was.

You are conscious that most of your lines end up with bad dev decisions right ?
If this is not bad game producing i don t know what it is.

You are conscious that all those game were dead franchise right, fallen into limbo, prossibly with dead autoral copyrights.

The 2 above toghether are called in gaming: Zombify game franchises. "Raised from the deads games" that usually shown short post mortem livespan.
Those are usually traps that almost automaticaly attracks old nostalgic players and guarantee minimum income.
Its a perfectly known and viable niche of market, which Kalipso has chosen as its primary stategy.

The same way EA, realease new version of any game every 3 month/ 1 year to keep people hooked, and always do the same again again and again. Most of their sequels are in reality mere GFX packs. Usually aimed at pre adolescent/adolescent public that are usually more impulsive and gregarious, and certainly more inclined to visual need than good gameplay needs.( hard to find such public playing King crusaders 2, A10C Warthog, or other more complex games)
Both are strategies that are condemnable in my book but certainly ain t illegal.

I only use Metacritics to read what people have to say and decide if the flaws reporteds are bothersome to me or not. But on titles you shown...
Metacritic
user score:
Dungeon: 4.3
Tropico 3: 8.7
Tropico 4: 7.0
Airline tycoon 2: 1.0
Port royale 3: NR(not even one person)
Patrician 4: 6.0
JIA: BIA: 5.6

Aside from Tropico....not much of a proud record. Its understandable why you will encounter a certain number of pissed of people toward that brand.

[MagicBaker]

Mon...Day...Mon...Day...Mon...Day...Mon...Day

[Niseg]

JIA: BIA: 5.6

I think JA:BIA payed the price in the rating for being rushed through the half bakery. I think the game is at least a 7.5 . Another things is that it shatter some JA fan's expectations . I wonder what's the standard divination . Edit: I just checked it the "distribution" favorable,neutral,negative = 33,10,26. This indicates that people either loved it or hated it. Those who liked it never gave it a 10 usually near 7-8. The average of the low one is around 2-3.Maybe people voted strategically (voting higher or lower in order to give more weight to your score).

Mon...Day...Mon...Day...Mon...Day...Mon...Day

Monday Monday,
can't trust that day
Monday Monday,
sometimes it just turns out that way.
("Monday Monday" ,John Phillips 1966)

Well we'll wait and see maybe until Monday next week .

[Farwest]

I hope it won't be the other Monday...

[Sleught]

I think JA:BIA payed the price in the rating for being rushed through the half bakery. I think the game is at least a 7.5 . Another things is that it shatter some JA fan's expectations . I wonder what's the standard divination . Edit: I just checked it the "distribution" favorable,neutral,negative = 33,10,26. This indicates that people either loved it or hated it. Those who liked it never gave it a 10 usually near 7-8. The average of the low one is around 2-3.Maybe people voted strategically (voting higher or lower in order to give more weight to your score).


Monday Monday,
can't trust that day
Monday Monday,
sometimes it just turns out that way.
("Monday Monday" ,John Phillips 1966)

Well we'll wait and see maybe until Monday next week .

I am of the one that haven t voted but can t give more than 5 on JA:BIA.
Its too basic to be more than mediocre. We see no evolution at all in the genre. I really hope patches anounced are more than mere cosmetic changes, and affect gameplay and strategy.
Though i have some doubts, engine is a bit weak as it is only 1 store for example. Limiting a lot gameplay options, building cleaning etc, even if the combat options and AI wouldn t do a great job in the actual state it would have been fun.
I still a bit miffed that FOW or even unknown placements of opfor or neutrals and unindentified positioning(noises out of LOS for example) will only come on the second patch as it is a most requested feature.
Sadly this mean the game will probably only get interesting at the second patch for a lot of people, unless modders get on it first.

Nice finding on monday i loled at this.

[Vandal]

[bitComposer_Michael]

By the way: we're finishing up the patchnotes. Don't know if they'll be released today (since there are also a lot of bugfixes and it's yet a question if we're going to post them too or not. Also it takes some time to create the patchnotes out of all the infos). So what I want to say: It could become tomorrow until you'll see the notes. The patch is (nearly) done. What follows now is an extensive testing-time.

[BGratz77]

By the way: we're finishing up the patchnotes. Don't know if they'll be released today (since there are also a lot of bugfixes and it's yet a question if we're going to post them too or not. Also it takes some time to create the patchnotes out of all the infos). So what I want to say: It could become tomorrow until you'll see the notes. The patch is (nearly) done. What follows now is an extensive testing-time.

Please post them too. Its bether for the modders, because they know so bether for what they have to look.

Excample if you edited the Charakters.txt where Conrad have the Wrong legs assigned, the modder know that he should do it in his own files too, or he should use the new files.
If this is the only change in this file (a propper modder will know if he see the Bugfixes and Updateinfo he would not have to Search the whole file for edits) Its no Work for you but will help the Modders much. maybe you can Release all this Small bugfixes in a Extra Version here at the Board in the Support, Modding or Information part, so your Official Patchnotes stay clearly for the Mass of 0815 players.

(maybe you can move the magazines to add a short note or Link for the Full Fixlist here in your Forum, if there are enough small fixes it could be a good idea for them , (and you ))

[bitComposer_Michael]

Thread closed cause new thread is available with new infos and stuff.