My rant video

[Dilsea 116]

So just to clear this up; This video is not intended to bring hate to the developers but more to show them what the community wants and give them some recommendations on what they should do! Leave your opinion; agree or disagree with my points on here on in the comments. Thanks- Aaron.

 

[WalterCash 17]

Really good video man... Look at the trees... Is that a joke?

 

 

[brians999 20]

I mean they said multiple times before that they are working on the other modules as well.

 

And the price comparison doesn't really make sense, they have a team of 20 to 30 people or something currently.
So 14$ a hour times 8 times 3 (just guessing for a small prop 3 days could be longer could be shorter, more detailed models take longer)
Or they just pay for a model in total so modelling, texturing etc.

Besides that, office rent obviously goes off so does taxes for the sold product, and not sure how it works in Canada but overhere you can't just hire a guy if you can pay 14$ a hour, you need money aswell to pay monthly for this persons pension and health insurance and other stuff.
So let's say the base 14$ a hour but on top of that would come another 5$ a hour for these stuff.

Obviously freelancers don't get it, just to clarify not the full amount of that 1 mil can be spend on development it would be more realistic to say about 65% of that money is able to be spend on development.

I agree however that it would be very odd to delay a month extra because a person got a newborn, i mean congratz and it's good news but as you said there's other programmers / coders who could take up his tasks, or is every programmer on hold till the lead programmer comes back?

One more thing about the tree's, not every tree is thick like that just like the after picture there's tree's that are that thin.
However it would be weird if all those tree's would be that thin.

Anyway I backed 2 years ago and always kept faith and defending the delays but even myself am losing a bit of my interest in it.
There comes a point in which you can't defend all the delays that happen.

And ye just like you said I'm not sure that it will come in April either maybe in the Summer?
 

[Dilsea 116]

3 minutes ago, brians999 said:

just to clarify not the full amount of that 1 mil can be spend on development it would be more realistic to say about 65% of that money is able to be spend on development.

Thanks for the reply and to get onto this, that's why I said 100k, and I know its not a realistic to pay everyone 14$ an hour but it was just showing how easy it is to get more manpower cheaper. 

[Decide 7]

if it doesnt come out in april, ill refund.

[Dilsea 116]

1 hour ago, Decide said:

if it doesnt come out in april, ill refund.

 

Unfortunately, I'm the same. I also think this is the case with most people.

[LuckyDuck 1,444]

Hey, I just wanted to correct 1 thing (Not defending), just correcting on your mistake. 3 years not 4 years. This game was only announced in 2015 and was a concept for the duration of the kickstarter. That Milestone I believe is over the duration of the development also. I am not saying anything else. I just wanted to correct you before people get confused....

[Dilsea 116]

5 minutes ago, LuckyDuck said:

Hey, I just wanted to correct 1 thing (Not defending), just correcting on your mistake. 3 years not 4 years. This game was only announced in 2015 and was a concept for the duration of the kickstarter. That Milestone I believe is over the duration of the development also. I am not saying anything else. I just wanted to correct you before people get confused....

 

Thank you for correcting me, ill leave it in the description of the video. 

[misterff1 29]

I agree 100% with you on this mate. It truly is am absolute joke at this point and I think 2025 is actually still too soon at this rate. Also yeah expect town square waaaay later in the year if at all

[BrianHamilton 214]

6 hours ago, GreyFox said:

So just to clear this up; This video is not intended to bring hate to the developers but more to show them what the community wants and give them some recommendations on what they should do! Leave your opinion; agree or disagree with my points on here on in the comments. Thanks- Aaron.

 

 

Hi @GreyFox,

Firstly, excellent video and you make a lot of great points.

 

Now, I'm sure you've seen me around the community quite a lot in the past (with the exception of the previous 2 months due to the death of a very close friend in my life) and you may have even seen just how often I am constantly defending the developers and saying "no, no, it's okay, they are a very small team and the work they have accomplished over the years is incredible". However, if you have seen me posting regarding the developers, then you've most likely also seen me talk about how "with the extreme importance of the Town Square module and the giganticness of it within the community, I am positive (I even used that word numerous times) that they would not give a release date for this module unless they were entirely sure".

I am disappointed. Truly and fully, I am disappointed and I even feel somewhat stupid.

 

I have said many times in the past that, with such a small development team and the pressure of the community, any dates they gave should be expected to be estimates, not specific, factual dates, except for the Town Square which I was certain they would keep their promise on. However, after listening to some of your points about what they have been doing with their time, building concept art and features which won't be needed for anything even remotely close to the Town Square, once again, I feel somewhat stupid.

 

Now, like you, I am not in any way attempting to hate on the developers as I am not a hateful person and I have a lot of respect for the developers and all of the hard work they are doing. In addition, I give my congratulations to the lead programmer on the birth of his son. However, as you said, that shouldn't be any reason for delay and their money should be spent much more wisely. If they are that small of a team, why not continue to hire people? I know they have career positions available but they clearly aren't hiring enough developers or at least not consistently enough and aren't maximising use of their $1,000,000 that they earned.

 

In conclusion, I will always continue to defend the developers against trolls who try to do nothing but trash them for delays (as they will also be the same people expecting a fully-fledged and functional, glitch-free game on April 22nd), however, they have definitely lost a lot of my trust and I do not think I can believe any other dates that they may provide. I'll just have to wait and see if they stay true to their word this time.

 

I also believe - but could very possibly be wrong, it has been a few months so forgive me - that we may have clashed once or twice in the past about this topic, however, I admit that I have been foolish in trusting the developers on their promise. I was strongly looking forward to March 21st and now I simply feel disappointed and frustrated that we have to wait yet another month. I understand that it takes time and "Rome wasn't built in a day" but it's been 3 years for one, small social module with very limited exploration and interaction other than between players.

 

Developers and Moderators, please do not think that this is in any way a hateful or conflict-creating post, however, I am very much disappointed.

 

EDIT / ADDITION:

I also think that we need to see a lot more evidence of work from the developers, without spoiling the surprise for when the Town Square releases, so that we can confirm that they are at least somewhat close to finishing the Town Square. I don't want to see deer or S.W.A.T. uniforms. They won't have any part within this module and I'm a politician not a police officer.

SHOW US MORE OF THE TOWN SQUARE!

Edited March 4, 2018 by BrianHamilton

[LordBenji 210]

You have some fair points, but I'll add my opinion along with that.

First point, I'll touch the GIF pictures. I'm not sure about the SWAT guy, but I know some of the clothing was already done a while ago, like the sheriff one. I know for sure the deer was done a long time ago already though. Remember the old trailer video with the guy hunting? But yeah, honestly I'd prefer to see more Town Square related stuff. The other stuff can wait later.

Second point is about the trees. There won't be uniquely that one specific tree, but sadly I don't have any screenshots on hand to show some of the new trees, which I think I've seen a glimpse a while ago. But it's common to see birch trees being thin or larger. For example on my yard, one of the smallest one is just a few inches of diameter, while the largest (although very old) is over a foot (and a half?) large. But another thing is that there's going to be various species of trees in module one. There's also a park to walk around in. There's a post showing some nice screenshots that will give an idea how Town Square will look like, but it includes paint overs so it's definitely not the final product.

Onto my third point, I'll talk about Asylum. So you've mentioned about the newborn from the lead programmer, I agree that alone shouldn't be a reason to push the release date of Town Square module, but I think there's some other reasons, play testing, server structure reinforcement, etc. Why is it a small team? Because it's not triple A... Since 2015, progress has been very slow as we probably all knew. With a very small team and small funding of a very few thousands, I would probably understand why things has been delayed. But 2017 has been the boom year, where there was a lot of people pledging for Identity, and Asylum had the opportunity to employ new developers. In fact, they always need talented people to join their team. But those people need to find out about Asylum. Sure John could probably put some advertisements which could help, and even myself was wondering where the career page was until I remember to check the Asylum Entertainment website ( http://www.asylumentertainment.ca/careers/ ). It's probably even outdated, but I'm not sure if it's Liam or John in charge of that. They could use more developers and staff with good experience, even though I think they sit at over 20 people working for Asylum. I see John as a very busy person, he's not only the CEO, but he's also a project manager and programmer. But the more people there is, the faster you'll produce as you delegate some work charge onto other employees. I mean yeah they hired a few more people, but I think it's probably not enough, if they don't want to delay stuff over and over.

So after all, I totally understand the risks that I put myself into by pledging $250 into the Identity project. I've been extremely tolerant and patient, and I will still be. But I do agree that Asylum needs to straighten things out. One day, the community manager says that things seems to be on schedule so far, next day, project manager says they need an extra month. Is there a lack of communication in the team of some sort? I was very confident about the official release date, because I knew about that they've put some dates into something (I think they might have referred to a project calendar thing where they put estimated dates for all sort of tasks, which I've learned from my college course in programming and analysis). I also knew about that they mostly needed to work on bug fixing and a few other tasks. But now that they pushed the date to the 23rd of April, I think they have more than enough time to work on what they have left to do. I was saying to one of my friend that if they push it again, I might consider a refund, because it would not be normal to push an official date two times. If not, then it's all good, I'll be happy when it'll release at that time.

[Dilsea 116]

12 hours ago, BrianHamilton said:

Hi @GreyFox,

Firstly, excellent video and you make a lot of great points.

 

Now, I'm sure you've seen me around the community quite a lot in the past (with the exception of the previous 2 months due to the death of a very close friend in my life) and you may have even seen just how often I am constantly defending the developers and saying "no, no, it's okay, they are a very small team and the work they have accomplished over the years is incredible". However, if you have seen me posting regarding the developers, then you've most likely also seen me talk about how "with the extreme importance of the Town Square module and the giganticness of it within the community, I am positive (I even used that word numerous times) that they would not give a release date for this module unless they were entirely sure".

I am disappointed. Truly and fully, I am disappointed and I even feel somewhat stupid.

 

I have said many times in the past that, with such a small development team and the pressure of the community, any dates they gave should be expected to be estimates, not specific, factual dates, except for the Town Square which I was certain they would keep their promise on. However, after listening to some of your points about what they have been doing with their time, building concept art and features which won't be needed for anything even remotely close to the Town Square, once again, I feel somewhat stupid.

 

Now, like you, I am not in any way attempting to hate on the developers as I am not a hateful person and I have a lot of respect for the developers and all of the hard work they are doing. In addition, I give my congratulations to the lead programmer on the birth of his son. However, as you said, that shouldn't be any reason for delay and their money should be spent much more wisely. If they are that small of a team, why not continue to hire people? I know they have career positions available but they clearly aren't hiring enough developers or at least not consistently enough and aren't maximising use of their $1,000,000 that they earned.

 

In conclusion, I will always continue to defend the developers against trolls who try to do nothing but trash them for delays (as they will also be the same people expecting a fully-fledged and functional, glitch-free game on April 22nd), however, they have definitely lost a lot of my trust and I do not think I can believe any other dates that they may provide. I'll just have to wait and see if they stay true to their word this time.

 

I also believe - but could very possibly be wrong, it has been a few months so forgive me - that we may have clashed once or twice in the past about this topic, however, I admit that I have been foolish in trusting the developers on their promise. I was strongly looking forward to March 21st and now I simply feel disappointed and frustrated that we have to wait yet another month. I understand that it takes time and "Rome wasn't built in a day" but it's been 3 years for one, small social module with very limited exploration and interaction other than between players.

 

Developers and Moderators, please do not think that this is in any way a hateful or conflict-creating post, however, I am very much disappointed.

 

EDIT / ADDITION:

I also think that we need to see a lot more evidence of work from the developers, without spoiling the surprise for when the Town Square releases, so that we can confirm that they are at least somewhat close to finishing the Town Square. I don't want to see deer or S.W.A.T. uniforms. They won't have any part within this module and I'm a politician not a police officer.

SHOW US MORE OF THE TOWN SQUARE!

 

Hello Brian, 

Thank you for your kind words and I am truly sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. 

Don't worry about feeling foolish, I think everyone at the end truly believed that it would come out on March 21st,

From my memory, we have clashed on this topic in the past however the past is the past.

Thank you for taking the time to type out your reply and I can definatley see we agree on 99% of things now,

Take it easy,

Grey Fox / Aaron.

[Dilsea 116]

6 hours ago, LordBenji said:

You have some fair points, but I'll add my opinion along with that.

First point, I'll touch the GIF pictures. I'm not sure about the SWAT guy, but I know some of the clothing was already done a while ago, like the sheriff one. I know for sure the deer was done a long time ago already though. Remember the old trailer video with the guy hunting? But yeah, honestly I'd prefer to see more Town Square related stuff. The other stuff can wait later.

Second point is about the trees. There won't be uniquely that one specific tree, but sadly I don't have any screenshots on hand to show some of the new trees, which I think I've seen a glimpse a while ago. But it's common to see birch trees being thin or larger. For example on my yard, one of the smallest one is just a few inches of diameter, while the largest (although very old) is over a foot (and a half?) large. But another thing is that there's going to be various species of trees in module one. There's also a park to walk around in. There's a post showing some nice screenshots that will give an idea how Town Square will look like, but it includes paint overs so it's definitely not the final product.

Onto my third point, I'll talk about Asylum. So you've mentioned about the newborn from the lead programmer, I agree that alone shouldn't be a reason to push the release date of Town Square module, but I think there's some other reasons, play testing, server structure reinforcement, etc. Why is it a small team? Because it's not triple A... Since 2015, progress has been very slow as we probably all knew. With a very small team and small funding of a very few thousands, I would probably understand why things has been delayed. But 2017 has been the boom year, where there was a lot of people pledging for Identity, and Asylum had the opportunity to employ new developers. In fact, they always need talented people to join their team. But those people need to find out about Asylum. Sure John could probably put some advertisements which could help, and even myself was wondering where the career page was until I remember to check the Asylum Entertainment website ( http://www.asylumentertainment.ca/careers/ ). It's probably even outdated, but I'm not sure if it's Liam or John in charge of that. They could use more developers and staff with good experience, even though I think they sit at over 20 people working for Asylum. I see John as a very busy person, he's not only the CEO, but he's also a project manager and programmer. But the more people there is, the faster you'll produce as you delegate some work charge onto other employees. I mean yeah they hired a few more people, but I think it's probably not enough, if they don't want to delay stuff over and over.

So after all, I totally understand the risks that I put myself into by pledging $250 into the Identity project. I've been extremely tolerant and patient, and I will still be. But I do agree that Asylum needs to straighten things out. One day, the community manager says that things seems to be on schedule so far, next day, project manager says they need an extra month. Is there a lack of communication in the team of some sort? I was very confident about the official release date, because I knew about that they've put some dates into something (I think they might have referred to a project calendar thing where they put estimated dates for all sort of tasks, which I've learned from my college course in programming and analysis). I also knew about that they mostly needed to work on bug fixing and a few other tasks. But now that they pushed the date to the 23rd of April, I think they have more than enough time to work on what they have left to do. I was saying to one of my friend that if they push it again, I might consider a refund, because it would not be normal to push an official date two times. If not, then it's all good, I'll be happy when it'll release at that time.

 

Hello, @LordBenji,

I'm not sure if this is directed towards @BrianHamiltonor me, so Ill reply anyway,

You have made some good points here, The main reason all these delays are happening in my opinion is because they are a bunch of arma 3 modders jumping into something HUGE, they are way over their heads in my opinion, everyone is killing for work nowdays, put an advertisement on a local job site and I guarantee you will have at-least 30 applicants of experienced developers, I still maintain my respect for the developers however my interest in the game has gone slightly stale, even still if those models are 3 years old, why are we only being shown them NOW, what else have they made in the meantime, a few screenshots of some 3d props isnt going to cut it for me anymore.

( I also think if they feel they are in over their heads, they should sell the idea to a well established game company and let them work on it, instead of ruining this fantastic idea altogether, the game is going to die before its even released! )

Thanks for taking the time to write out your reply, and I am 100% going to push for a refund if its delayed again.

Kind Regards,

Grey Fox / Aaron.

[Narc 212]

just wanted to correct you on the fact that all the content is finished for town square, not sure why you pointed out models and stuff and saying why is this created when its not needed, there was things needing to be redone (like the UI for example) which delayed the town square, not models, not only that but its not one developer making priority models over other things, its a team doing separate stuff to create the game.

[FiftyNine 10]

Wouldn't be surprised if the new website is delayed.

[KIRBYDUDE 24]

Identityrpg forever. Just like Duke Nukem.

[Dilsea 116]

4 hours ago, Narc said:

just wanted to correct you on the fact that all the content is finished for town square, not sure why you pointed out models and stuff and saying why is this created when its not needed, there was things needing to be redone (like the UI for example) which delayed the town square, not models, not only that but its not one developer making priority models over other things, its a team doing separate stuff to create the game.

 

Why have we only seen some concept art and a one or two screenshots if its 'done'

[Dilsea 116]

2 hours ago, KIRBYDUDE said:

Identityrpg forever. Just like Duke Nukem.

 

if its delayed again they will loose 50%+ of their support from what I have gathered. So no, not IdentityRPG Forever.

[LordBenji 210]

7 hours ago, GreyFox said:

Hello, @LordBenji,

I'm not sure if this is directed towards @BrianHamiltonor me, so Ill reply anyway,

You have made some good points here, The main reason all these delays are happening in my opinion is because they are a bunch of arma 3 modders jumping into something HUGE, they are way over their heads in my opinion, everyone is killing for work nowdays, put an advertisement on a local job site and I guarantee you will have at-least 30 applicants of experienced developers, I still maintain my respect for the developers however my interest in the game has gone slightly stale, even still if those models are 3 years old, why are we only being shown them NOW, what else have they made in the meantime, a few screenshots of some 3d props isnt going to cut it for me anymore.

( I also think if they feel they are in over their heads, they should sell the idea to a well established game company and let them work on it, instead of ruining this fantastic idea altogether, the game is going to die before its even released! )

Thanks for taking the time to write out your reply, and I am 100% going to push for a refund if its delayed again.

Kind Regards,

Grey Fox / Aaron.

 

It was just a response to your video and didn't have anything to do with Brian. I took two hours of my time to clear things up and give a bit of my opinion.

I'm not sure if they're over their head or not, but all I know is that they decided to start this project because no one else did. If they sell it to another game developer company, I would be very worried that the game ends up differently than what it was originally meant to be. Imagine if AAA company decides to make it pay to "win", and add features that would break the immersion, sort of like Rockstar with GTA V. That would be a big turn off for me...

I know they've shown some old assets, but I'll still wait to see what they have to show for Town Square. But if it ends up being delayed again, it'll be very painful. Already that I've seen a few friends of mine being frustrated about TS delayed to April.

As you already know, I've pledge a good amount of money in this. At first, I didn't want to spend that much, because it was still very early. First pledge I made was $30 because I wanted to have at least access to the modules and beta when it would come out. I eventually made it up to $250 progressively, not only because I could afford it, but because I wanted this game to succeed. I wanted to give support to the developers because I knew that Asylum wasn't a triple A company. I pay my respect to everyone working hard into the project, but they'll definitely need to work harder concerning the delays.

[Guest BentBot]

Hello GreyFox,

As an Identity developer, I need to tell you it's not minimum wadge we are paid. We need to support developers as independent people and we are paid fairly for the work we do. I have seen good work at our new studio, but it is a small team. 

It's not just salaries we need to cover to be a studio. There are a multitude of operational costs. Our office, our internet bill, power bills, etc. We are hiring many international workers who are working on the game, but honestly it's hard sometimes to get great quality out of these people. 

Keep in mind we only want to show you the best we can do, so as a player you get many hours of enjoyment out of the game when it's released. I know you want play-ability, and I do too, but Townsquare has had many hands mold it into what it is today, and so it has had many engine tweaks and updates along the way. We are working diligently to produce an up-to-date version of the product which will look and play the best. 

Please know that we appreciate the advice you have shared with us about the tree textures and animations. We are still working to get the best out of our game devs and animators. Thanks for the feedback.

BentBot

[Narc 212]

10 hours ago, GreyFox said:

Why have we only seen some concept art and a one or two screenshots if its 'done'

 

theres a video on apartment customization? ... but thats probably not good enough.
I said the content is done, not the backend systems like it literally says in the devblog the reason why its delayed is because
'' we need time to reinforce our server structure and do more internal playtesting ''

and then went on and stated that

''To help ease the pain of waiting for a taste of Identity, we're going to start throwing more media out 
for you, including a Town Square trailer video overviewing the features you'll find inside''

Edited March 5, 2018 by Narc

[misterff1 29]

Just something I see popping up here... You all speak of getting refunds if <insert scenario here> happens. Keep in mind that you can no longer refund after 180 days as your buyers protection has expired by that time.

Just something to keep in mind.

[Dilsea 116]

10 hours ago, Narc said:

theres a video on apartment customization? ... but thats probably not good enough.
I said the content is done, not the backend systems like it literally says in the devblog the reason why its delayed is because
'' we need time to reinforce our server structure and do more internal playtesting ''

and then went on and stated that

''To help ease the pain of waiting for a taste of Identity, we're going to start throwing more media out 
for you, including a Town Square trailer video overviewing the features you'll find inside''

 

Well narc, the video on apartment customization came out ages ago, we have seen nothing since then.

they STATED that the first module would release on march 21st, and we all know how that turned out...

[Dilsea 116]

Thank you for your reply, @BentBot,

I am sure you don't get paid minimum wage, I was just stating how easy and cheap it could be to get experienced developers. 

as I stated in the video I know you have an office and that has its costs and same with salaries,

but as I also said in the video : you don't spend 1 million dollars that easily...

I  hope you got something from the video and can see it was intended as constructive criticism and not hate.

 

Kind Regards,

Grey Fox.

[Jaxrud 2]

On 5.3.2018 at 5:16 PM, GreyFox said:

Thank you for your reply, @BentBot,

I am sure you don't get paid minimum wage, I was just stating how easy and cheap it could be to get experienced developers. 

as I stated in the video I know you have an office and that has its costs and same with salaries,

but as I also said in the video : you don't spend 1 million dollars that easily...

I  hope you got something from the video and can see it was intended as constructive criticism and not hate.

 

Kind Regards,

Grey Fox.

 

I understand the dissapointment, but I think you'll be good finding talented people working minimum wage anyhow. You don't hire a gardener to build your house