You own it, it's all on you...

[Veeblefetzer 32]

Crowdfunding, Kick Starter, Early Access, Backer, Founder, Etc. Have a certain expectation level that comes with them if you so chose to engage in the process. Many negative Nancy's here seem to ignore that fact, or simply make up their own expectation level when they themselves feel that progression is slow or communication is lax from the developers and studio. If you so chose to engage in said process, you should really follow the the studio and developer announcements early on, as I did and many of you did. Once you feel comfortable with the proposed product and feel reasonably satisfied with what the vision of the end result is, then and only then should you be reaching in your pocket. For some that's the first day for others that is three years down the road. I followed the prospect of Identity for almost three years before I reached into my pocket or even made forum account for that matter. Either way, if you don't go into this with the attitude and mindset that you just threw your money on red number 7 on the roulette table, then you have set yourself up for disappointment. The fact is, these projects are a gamble and if you chose to partake, You own it, it's all on you.

[Kattycake 60]

Okay dear thanks

[JoelKeys 412]

You are right. It is our choice to invest, but why do you think that means we can't be annoyed when our expectations aren't met? You have every right to cancel dinner plans with your wife, that doesn't mean she cannot be annoyed at you for it. This is what you need to get into your head, no one is saying Asylum have committed any crimes. No one is saying that Asylum HAVE to listen to us. We chose to invest in a project, and if we aren't happy with the way that project is going, we can be annoyed at that. You are ignorant to blatant facts, which is that the developers of this game have failed on many levels, and while we understood this could happen coming in, that doesn't mean we have to just bend over and take it. We can voice that we are incredibly frustrated. The developers agree with me! Here is a quote directly from beachball to me in private messages.

Quote

Users like you who are critical and levelheaded about development are extremely valuable. You push us to better deliver on the expectations of the community and you allow us to see things from the perspective of the backer. With this, I thank you for continuing to be an active member in the community who provides both constructive criticism and commentary on Identity's development process!

Look, I am not getting into another debate here. I'm not attacking the developers, I am not personally attacking you, I am just tired of the people who think that because we were aware of the risks coming in and chose to back anyway, that automatically means we cannot be annoyed when expectations aren't met.

[dagtag 201]

51 minutes ago, JoelKeys said:

You are right. It is our choice to invest, but why do you think that means we can't be annoyed when our expectations aren't met? You have every right to cancel dinner plans with your wife, that doesn't mean she cannot be annoyed at you for it. This is what you need to get into your head, no one is saying Asylum have committed any crimes. No one is saying that Asylum HAVE to listen to us. We chose to invest in a project, and if we aren't happy with the way that project is going, we can be annoyed at that. You are ignorant to blatant facts, which is that the developers of this game have failed on many levels, and while we understood this could happen coming in, that doesn't mean we have to just bend over and take it. We can voice that we are incredibly frustrated. The developers agree with me! Here is a quote directly from beachball to me in private messages.

Look, I am not getting into another debate here. I'm not attacking the developers, I am not personally attacking you, I am just tired of the people who think that because we were aware of the risks coming in and chose to back anyway, that automatically means we cannot be annoyed when expectations aren't met.

 

I kind of agree with both you and the topic creator on this one, it is true that you get to complain about certain things. However there are people who are asking for refunds once it gets delayed, and to those it does apply that they need to take their time before pledging because complaining is one thing but asking for a refund on the slightest delay is another.

also there are people who have said they committed crimes .

My opinion on all of this is, you have some concerns, voice them, that's all fine. You like the idea behind the project, debate whether you will pledge or not. But once you do pledge, don't give up on them at the slightest delay. and if you do ask for a refund and its not given to you right away, don't go spreading lies about asylum.  

Edited September 20, 2018 by dagtag

[JoelKeys 412]

20 minutes ago, dagtag said:

I kind of agree with both you and the topic creator on this one, it is true that you get to complain about certain things. However there are people who are asking for refunds once it gets delayed, and to those it does apply that they need to take their time before pledging because complaining is one thing but asking for a refund on the slightest delay is another.

also there are people who have said they committed crimes .

My opinion on all of this is, you have some concerns, voice them, that's all fine. You like the idea behind the project, debate whether you will pledge or not. But once you do pledge, don't give up on them at the slightest delay. and if you do ask for a refund and its not given to you right away, don't go spreading lies about asylum.  

 

Well I kind of agree but also disagree. You might invest in the idea but change your mind once you see where the project is going, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Although I do agree, refunding for a delay is pretty dumb. You seem very sensible and level headed, thanks for your opinion.

[Veeblefetzer 32]

Nobody is saying you don’t have a right to be annoyed and nobody is saying you don’t have the right to voice your opinions. It’s how those opinions are expressed in this forum that concerns me. There are new potential players that come through this site everyday. For new prospects to read these negative posts and have their minds made up without seeing the polished and finished product, I think is unfair. Voice your opinion, but maybe craft your posts in a fashion that gives a positive twist on  constructive criticism without detouring potential players. A successful game title needs as many players as they can get. Assuming that you as a fellow player would want that as well?  You know, more populated servers, thus more people to play with. Of course there are going to be those here whose sole intent is to sabotage the entire project, I don’t believe that is the motive for all of the negative comments. It just seems to be the same negative content being posted over and over, with a tone of incessant whining. No matter what you’re always going to have your trolls, and those that just have to win an argument. 

[JoelKeys 412]

37 minutes ago, Veeblefetzer said:

Nobody is saying you don’t have a right to be annoyed and nobody is saying you don’t have the right to voice your opinions. It’s how those opinions are expressed in this forum that concerns me. There are new potential players that come through this site everyday. For new prospects to read these negative posts and have their minds made up without seeing the polished and finished product, I think is unfair. Voice your opinion, but maybe craft your posts in a fashion that gives a positive twist on  constructive criticism without detouring potential players. A successful game title needs as many players as they can get. Assuming that you as a fellow player would want that as well?  You know, more populated servers, thus more people to play with. Of course there are going to be those here whose sole intent is to sabotage the entire project, I don’t believe that is the motive for all of the negative comments. It just seems to be the same negative content being posted over and over, with a tone of incessant whining. No matter what you’re always going to have your trolls, and those that just have to win an argument. 

 

You know what I actually agree with this, thank you. 

[Ghost0fDawn 3]

27 minutes ago, JoelKeys said:

You know what I actually agree with this, thank you. 

 

What is this, reasonable discussion between two people with different views on the internet? thats not allowed!

Joking aside, one thing I personally feel about a lot of the refund scares people jump into for many different reasons, is often silly. Its true that you should know what youre getting into before backing the game. That said, its really not *purchasing* the game, its an investment in the development of the game proposed. I have the impression that some do not fully understand this, and jump to think their money is being stolen and they were scammed because they dont have anything yet. Its complete fallacy. Investment inherently means chance of loss, we arent guaranteed that identity will succeed or come out. Things happen and things fail, but if everyone that funded the game in the first place jumped for refunds and bankrupted the project, of course its more likely to fail.

Early acces titles have spoiled gamers with "pay now, get it now". Truth be told you end up playing a botched half of a game and get bored and move on long before you have even got what you paid for. This reason alone is why I have a bit more faith in Identity, modules to give us a taste of whats to come without totally squandering what the whole experience should be but in a broken and incomplete state.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Ghost0fDawn

[JoelKeys 412]

2 minutes ago, Ghost0fDawn said:

What is this, reasonable discussion between two people with different views on the internet? thats not allowed!

Joking aside, one thing I personally feel about a lot of the refund scares people jump into for many different reasons, is often silly. Its true that you should know what youre getting into before backing the game. That said, its really not *purchasing* the game, its an investment in the development of the game proposed. I have the impression that some do not fully understand this, and jump to think their money is being stolen and they were scammed because they dont have anything yet. Its complete fallacy. Investment inherently means chance of loss, we arent guaranteed that identity will succeed or come out. Things happen and things fail, but if everyone that funded the game in the first place jumped for refunds and bankrupted the project, of course its more likely to fail.

Early acces titles have spoiled gamers with "pay now, get it now" because of early access. Truth be told you end up playing a botched half of a game and get bored and move on long before you have even truly got what you paid for. This reason alone is why I have a bit more faith in Identity, modules to gove us a taste of whats to come without totally squandering what the whole experience should be but in a broken and incomplete state.

 

I suppose there is a lot of people who took this is a purchase rather than investment. I appreciate you two actually talking and explaining now, before it seemed like I was just getting shooed off the thread for disagreeing. Not saying it was you two in particular, but it's nice to have a discussion rather than an argument.

[LordBenji 210]

I can understand both point of views.

I'm myself a pledger since the end of 2016, and when I looked at the project, I was interested to support them so it could become a great game. I pretty much devoured all bits of information they were giving us, then I put it aside and only checked from time to time to see what's going on. Then I've started becoming more active on the forum, and found out about the Discord. Then I've checked the stream clips, looking at those that I'm interested into and so far I wasn't upset.

But let's get to the point, they kept saying things were getting close, but I didn't really mind, since everything was subject to change and they didn't make anything official. When they released the crime video, I was like oh boy. Lots of people were disappointed, and I did have mixed feelings about it. Another time, I was in the voice channel talking with LightBringer and one of the dev blog just came out and it was about the first release date being pushed back. I was like oh no... I knew a lot of people would be really upset and so did I. I started being a bit sketchy about it but I decided to still wait. And when they said they couldn't release it yet and put the task tracker, I was like alright, I'm not caring anymore about those time frames. I'll just wait like a good boy and keep telling myself it'll be out when it's ready.

Once it'll be out, then I'll probably start recording clips where I give my opinion, what I like or dislike. I'll probably mess around and see if I can find bugs too. 

[mm96631 5]

I also backed on kickstarter way back in the middle of 2016. I also requested a refund lately. I just simply cannot see anything close to a finished open world gameplay with all the jobs and all the different activities that promote interaction being completed anytime soon. I simply don't see how that is possible, there is still an entire world that needs added in, and with all the different things we were supposed to be able to do I was picturing something at least the size of a DayZ or even a GTA5 map.

[dagtag 201]

33 minutes ago, mm96631 said:

I also backed on kickstarter way back in the middle of 2016. I also requested a refund lately. I just simply cannot see anything close to a finished open world gameplay with all the jobs and all the different activities that promote interaction being completed anytime soon. I simply don't see how that is possible, there is still an entire world that needs added in, and with all the different things we were supposed to be able to do I was picturing something at least the size of a DayZ or even a GTA5 map.

 

you must have known that development can take up some time before you pledged no? I hope this is common knowledge to everyone... don't pledge if you know that you are gonna back out once its taking some time because that is what development tends to do, a game isn't made on a year time... if you have concerns beforehand, wait before you pledge. But pledging and then asking for a refund can get a project into trouble.

also, its not the map making that takes up most of the time behind a project, the thing that takes time is the programming behind it, getting all systems into place and all that. so the size of the map shouldn't really matter that much...

Edited September 21, 2018 by dagtag

[Ltgamer1978 9]

After all the discussions on pledge ..... I think we need more. What do you think Consuela?

Thats what I thought!

[LuckyDuck 1,444]

On 21/09/2018 at 1:04 AM, mm96631 said:

I also backed on kickstarter way back in the middle of 2016.

2016? That wasn't kickstarter in 2016, that was on this website. Kickstarter was January 6th 2015 until February 6th 2015. 

[mm96631 5]

I could have sworn it was on kickstarter, maybe I am wrong, but that doesn't matter. Of course I know game development takes time, but as I stated clearly already, it has gotten to the point that I no longer see the project being remotely successful. At this point we have one single town block that still has not been released because of one single user interface bug, and no real information on what it is or what is taking so long to fix it. Also, don't forget the fact that back then it was supposed to be a playable game by now.

It is already known that they have ran into problems previously and started completely over again. This tells me they are not planning ahead correctly and the further they get into the project, and the more stuff they try to integrate and tie together the more likely they are to run into similar issues. We are also expected to believe they are handing out steam keys early and at different times to reduce the load on their servers. If that is going to cause an issue for the servers, then how are these servers ever going to power a game like this?

Honestly, it just looks shadier and shadier every day. Another thread was started where OP brought up the fact that if you activate your steam key you will no longer be able to ask for a refund. The thread was locked, (why? That in itself looks bad.) and a good point was being made. It is not out of the realm of possibilities that they have hit yet another roadblock and are hoping that everyone will redeem their keys so they don't have to give every one refunds when they come clean about it, is it? Meanwhile, every other game on steam is capable of refunds.

Also, the trollish meme comments aren't helping anything either. You make it look like this is a community full of children who wouldn't be capable of any real role play anyways. Even if it does become an playable game at some point, it is only going to be enjoyable on whitelisted servers.

 

[dagtag 201]

36 minutes ago, mm96631 said:

This tells me they are not planning ahead correctly and the further they get into the project, and the more stuff they try to integrate and tie together the more likely they are to run into similar issues.

This is asylums first real game, it is normal that they will run into some problems at the start, however they are learning out of those problems and their mistakes.

36 minutes ago, mm96631 said:

We are also expected to believe they are handing out steam keys early and at different times to reduce the load on their servers. If that is going to cause an issue for the servers, then how are these servers ever going to power a game like this?

uhm that's not really why they are handing out the steam keys in batches. Also the server that this website is hosted on is not the same as the servers that will run the game...

36 minutes ago, mm96631 said:

The thread was locked, (why? That in itself looks bad.)

Because the issue was resolved and there was nothing else useful to add to this thread.

36 minutes ago, mm96631 said:

Meanwhile, every other game on steam is capable of refunds.

Yeah... but every other game on steam has a functional store page. There is a big difference between a game still being added to steam and a game that is already available on steam. Beside that, you have never been able to get a refund of a game that was activated using a key...

Edited September 23, 2018 by dagtag

[mm96631 5]

 

Of course it is not,  but that is what is claimed.

" While you won't get Identity in your game library just yet, you will very soon. Handing out the keys like this allows us to reduce load on our servers. We currently have 20,000 keys in the system and we'll be adding more. "

 

And your point about other games having a functional store page doesn't make sense either. The purchases were not made through steam, surely there is a way to issue a refund via original payment method and block the users key/game from working.

 

 

 

[dagtag 201]

21 minutes ago, mm96631 said:

Of course it is not,  but that is what is claimed.

This still doesn't take away my second point... the servers used for the game are not the same as those used for the website...

24 minutes ago, mm96631 said:

And your point about other games having a functional store page doesn't make sense either. The purchases were not made through steam, surely there is a way to issue a refund via original payment method and block the users key/game from working.

there is your answer

[mm96631 5]

35 minutes ago, dagtag said:

This still doesn't take away my second point... the servers used for the game are not the same as those used for the website..

 

 

and that doesn't take away my point that there is no logical reason to do this

36 minutes ago, dagtag said:

 

there is your answer

 

I can read. That is the BS answer I am talking about. They could still refund through the original payment provider and ban/block that user from accessing the game. Furthermore, even if it is impossible, that does not take away the fact that it looks like a sneaky trap. 

I'm not gonna argue with you, you believe what you want. For me this has scam and failure written all over it.

[LordBenji 210]

On 9/20/2018 at 9:04 PM, mm96631 said:

I also backed on kickstarter way back in the middle of 2016. I also requested a refund lately. I just simply cannot see anything close to a finished open world gameplay with all the jobs and all the different activities that promote interaction being completed anytime soon. I simply don't see how that is possible, there is still an entire world that needs added in, and with all the different things we were supposed to be able to do I was picturing something at least the size of a DayZ or even a GTA5 map.

 

Wait wait wait, hold on a second. I'll disregard the fact you mentioned the wrong year of Kickstarter, but okay about the whole game with jobs and activities in the open world. I get it if you're unsatisfied with the large time frame it would take to release such big game. But in my opinion, it would be impossible to release within 3-4 years with a small team starting from around 5 developers slowly growing up to around 20. Also what takes time is the programming, not level designing. But they haven't got to hire someone for laying out assets on the whole map.

4 hours ago, mm96631 said:

At this point we have one single town block that still has not been released because of one single user interface bug, and no real information on what it is or what is taking so long to fix it.

More like multiple critical bugs that absolutely requires fixing, and lots of heavy feature testing to make sure fixing one bug didn't create a few more. It's not just that bug deeper down the game engine. They went through a bug causing the database to crash with inventory system, the elevators were wonky but it got fixed, and more recently they mentioned about a bug concerning sitting down... Quite odd they didn't see it before to be honest. Although, we're very limited to what information they're giving us, since it's a matter of what John or Motown says and that moderators share (mostly on Discord).

5 hours ago, mm96631 said:

Also, don't forget the fact that back then it was supposed to be a playable game by now.

We all know they missed it and underestimated the amount of work needed. Probably shouldn't have put any optimistic estimations.

5 hours ago, mm96631 said:

It is already known that they have ran into problems previously and started completely over again. This tells me they are not planning ahead correctly and the further they get into the project, and the more stuff they try to integrate and tie together the more likely they are to run into similar issues.

Yep, it's known they have redone TS 3 times, UI 2 times, and how many times for character models, no clue. And what's wrong to restart something you don't like how it ended up at the beginning? Well okay I get it, they've redone it a few times, which costs lots of time and resources. But I think it was just on the visual side of things, since they've mentioned about how the original version of TS was flat and dull.

I won't deny that they might have not planned correctly at first, because we all know they've done mistakes, and it's a learning curve. But for the issues, I'm not sure what you're talking about to be honest. They've only changed the visual layout of Town Square as far as I known. Sure they'll encounter issues when integrating different systems together, but that's irrelevant to TS being redone or their planning.

5 hours ago, mm96631 said:

We are also expected to believe they are handing out steam keys early and at different times to reduce the load on their servers. If that is going to cause an issue for the servers, then how are these servers ever going to power a game like this?

The website itself seems to be on GoDaddy, but unsure about some other features. Game servers are different and shouldn't be affected.

5 hours ago, mm96631 said:

It is not out of the realm of possibilities that they have hit yet another roadblock and are hoping that everyone will redeem their keys so they don't have to give every one refunds when they come clean about it, is it?

It's possible to not claim the key too, and ask a refund... 

5 hours ago, mm96631 said:

Meanwhile, every other game on steam is capable of refunds.

Yeah but there's some policies and conditions in order to be able to be refunded. Although, I never really tried to refund a Steam game that was purchased from an external store.

4 hours ago, mm96631 said:

The purchases were not made through steam, surely there is a way to issue a refund via original payment method and block the users key/game from working.

If you purchased the game from PayPal, it's not under Asylum's control, plus they're inconsistent with how refunds are handled. Plus it was clearly said that once the keys are claimed on your Steam account, it's permanent.

3 hours ago, mm96631 said:

I can read. That is the BS answer I am talking about. They could still refund through the original payment provider and ban/block that user from accessing the game. Furthermore, even if it is impossible, that does not take away the fact that it looks like a sneaky trap. 

I'm not gonna argue with you, you believe what you want. For me this has scam and failure written all over it.

Banning or blocking a user seem to be a lame way to prevent someone from accessing the game after issuing a refund. But that's just my thought. Also why do you think it's a trap? If you claim the key, it's because you want access to the module/game. If you don't want it for whatever reason, and request a refund, it would be more wise to not touch the key.

Oh and one last thing, do you want to know the real definition of scam and failure? Nine to Five... Enough said.

[ZanderiusMaximus 56]

14 hours ago, mm96631 said:

and that doesn't take away my point that there is no logical reason to do this

I can read. That is the BS answer I am talking about. They could still refund through the original payment provider and ban/block that user from accessing the game. Furthermore, even if it is impossible, that does not take away the fact that it looks like a sneaky trap. 

I'm not gonna argue with you, you believe what you want. For me this has scam and failure written all over it.

 

Yeah.....that is kinda shady....thank you for bringing it to my attention....i didnt even seen that post

[SynC_187 11]

16 hours ago, mm96631 said:

and that doesn't take away my point that there is no logical reason to do this

I can read. That is the BS answer I am talking about. They could still refund through the original payment provider and ban/block that user from accessing the game. Furthermore, even if it is impossible, that does not take away the fact that it looks like a sneaky trap. 

I'm not gonna argue with you, you believe what you want. For me this has scam and failure written all over it.

 

Why would they want to refund it after you have claimed it? By doing it through Steam it gives them a sales portal, deployment method and change control, but its not free. Under normal circumstances with sales via Steam, they pay a percentage to Valve. By giving us our keys through Steam, it is likely they have to put a value to that product and give Valve a cut. Blocking you and refunding you even though you didn't follow Steam's terms means a loss for them, as Steam aren't going to give their cut back if a refund is given outside of their terms.

Whether the game suceeds of not, we will see. I am happy to leave the money I pledged in the project and see what happens, because I didn't buy a game. I bought in to an idea, and I have to wait to see if it pays off. I can understand people getting impatient and don't blame them for getting frustrated.

When it comes to the refund side, its up to you to understand the policies. It's not out yet. There was no reason to rush to add the key to Steam. If anyone is unsure and thinking of asking for a refund, don't carry on trying to get access to the product. Why add it, knowing its not finished yet, and then cry refund a few days later? People doing that and calling it a scam is the BS.

Edited September 24, 2018 by SynC_187
Typo

[LuckyDuck 1,444]

19 hours ago, mm96631 said:

I could have sworn it was on kickstarter, maybe I am wrong, but that doesn't matter.

I didn't say it wasn't on kickstarter, I stated it was not on kickstarter in 2016 because the kickstarter was January 2015. You misread my statement.

[mm96631 5]

3 hours ago, SynC_187 said:

Why would they want to refund it after you have claimed it? By doing it through Steam it gives them a sales portal, deployment method and change control, but its not free. Under normal circumstances with sales via Steam, they pay a percentage to Valve. By giving us our keys through Steam, it is likely they have to put a value to that product and give Valve a cut. Blocking you and refunding you even though you didn't follow Steam's terms means a loss for them, as Steam aren't going to give their cut back if a refund is given outside of their terms.

Whether the game succeeds of not, we will see. I am happy to leave the money I pledged in the project and see what happens, because I didn't buy a game. I bought in to an idea, and I have to wait to see if it pays off. I can understand people getting impatient and don't blame them for getting frustrated.

When it comes to the refund side, its up to you to understand the policies. It's not out yet. There was no reason to rush to add the key to Steam. If anyone is unsure and thinking of asking for a refund, don't carry on trying to get access to the product. Why add it, knowing its not finished yet, and then cry refund a few days later? People doing that and calling it a scam is the BS.

 

I did not activate my key and have no intention of doing so. I think you are missing the point that there might be a chance that they are passing out the keys hoping that everyone is gullible enough to activate them and therefor ineligible for a refund. Theoretically they could drag the TS module out for another 20 years at this point, and there is nothing anyone can do.

It is not out of the realm of possibilities, is it? This game has already seen all the hype it is going to get, they know damn well it is not going to generate any real revenue until it has some real game play or at least close to it. There is no game play in the TS module, people are not going to buy a game when there is nothing to do. Play chess? Sing karaoke? They WAY WAY underestimated the amount of work that it is going to take to produce a game of this caliber. This is far from a new idea, why do you think the top game makers in the business have not attempted it? Years have past, people don't work for free, the small budget they had is probably all but used up. At this point it might just be in their best interest to do so.

If there was some transparency and communication about what is taking so long to finish a UI bug, I may feel different, but there isn't. This is the part which annoys me most. I'm not going to sit here through boring ass Twitch streams or rely on Twitter/Discord for information. This is the community forum, this information should be here. If they are finding more bugs as they are fixing that one then at the very least the tracker, wherever it went, should be updated to include them instead of saying "last updated 24 hours ago" when it hasn't been touched for over a month. I'm not a programmer, but I can write code in a few different languages. From my point of view, if it is taking this long to figure out one small bug, then you have some serious issues with the underlying code. Which is a very good possibility, why else would they still not even be able to give a release date?

Put 2 + 2 together, and tell me I don't have any reason to be suspicious of their intentions.

[dagtag 201]

1 hour ago, mm96631 said:

From my point of view, if it is taking this long to figure out one small bug, then you have some serious issues with the underlying code. Which is a very good possibility, why else would they still not even be able to give a release date?

the bugs they found were buried in the engine... and as you said, you are not a programmer. try to write thousands of lines worth of code and then try to fix bugs... one bug that gets fixed will result in another bug popping up. it isn't just a matter of finding a bug and fixing it anymore, it also takes rewriting whole chunks of code differently.

1 hour ago, mm96631 said:

the tracker, wherever it went, should be updated to include them instead of saying "last updated 24 hours ago" when it hasn't been touched for over a month.

It has been touched... this "last updated 24 hours ago" lets people know that the task tracker is accurate and isn't slacking behind. the task tracker doesn't get updated automatically on the website but manually. so just because nothing has visually changed doesn't mean it hasn't been touched for months...