The Curse of Dwarf Fottress-likes

[mrbunnyban]

I'm just a little worried. Let me explain.

 

Quite a few dwarf fortress style games have had issues during development and left incomplete. The games which come to mind are specifically Towns, Gnomoria and Clockwork Empires (check out the reviews on steam).  While some other games have positive reviews, they are mostly still in early access (that includes Rimworld) or very simple in features. I call it the curse of the Dwarf Fortress-likes. My running belief is that the problem stems from uncontrolled scope of development which tends to happen because Dwarf Fortress-like  games are stupidly complex and difficult to craft well. Without enough features, they get stale very quickly. Enough features to make the game interesting send the game into complex spirals of development hell.

 

BUT! Klei has an excellent track record in producing games, producing high quality and innovative games. I am very impressed by the innovations in Mark of the Ninja, and the sheer sales figures of Don't Starve. And thanks to the success of these games, the studio probably also has funding to keep development going for some time. After my first few hours of playing Oxygen Not Included, I felt quite satisfied and thought Klei already have a winner.

But then I played more and started discovering issues. Then i started trying to read the forums here and discovered more issues. Learning that contaminated air is almost harmless. Water and gas being destroyed by tiles and doors. Pumps and valves also destroying these important resources. heat working in strange ways (although that is something to be fixed on the roadmap right now thankfully)

 

Sure the game is still early in development. But that is what the other developers said right up to the point their games were released in an incomplete state. Then I remember the haunting words concerning the release date, "When it's ready!"

 

Klei has a lot of experience and talent, but I believe that making Dwarf fortress-likes are a dangerous undertaking. The studio Gaslamp Games which produced Dungeons of Dremor, one of the early successful Rouge-likes for the masses, was badly burnt by their attempt to make a Dwarf Fortress-like, Clockwork Empires.  It seems that the staff members are leaving, and the company nearly dissolved. I don't want to see that happen to an established studio of experienced talent like Klei.

Please be careful, is all I'm saying.

[Zezarict]

There is no reason at all to be concerned. There is no "curse" or anything of the sort. Klei, like you said, has a track record of being able to produce completely different types of games. From the survival/exploration Don't Starve, to the stealth and turn based Invisible Inc, and of course Mark of the Ninja.

There's literally no logical reason as to why this would be any different. The game is in Alpha, of course there are going to be bugs and reworks needed. This happened in all of their games.

[Oatmeal]

This could also have been said about Don't Starve. Many survival games are still early access, even after many years of being 'in development'.

I mean, sure; there is always a chance that something can mess up and cause issues, but I think Klei has enough experience to handle this game. It may be a while till it actually IS finished, but there's plenty of trust in Klei at the moment due to their track record.

Though asking them to be careful goes without saying. After all. They seem to be all about being careful if their style of games is any indication.

[emperor187]

I think this is an excellent reason to not be on Steam "proper" (with reviews) at this stage of an Alpha. There's a lot of work to do still and you don't want that work to be hampered by whiny negative reviews by people not understanding dev work, pushing down your game in rankings, never to recover. 

 

Klei is doing an excellent job overall imo, and their track record looks great. Not worried without evidence to the contrary. 

[Oatmeal]

i have to say. I love that they didn't even put this up on Steam as 'early-access' on the main store page. You have to go through the backdoor just to play this game, and that is just so nice. It is clearly not ready, and no one should start playing this game and expect for everything to do and play as it is supposed to.

Basically. Expect to restart a lot.

PS: We need some ONI icons.

[Rosten]

After Don't Starve, I have total faith in Klei to deliver this game. I don't know if you were playing back then, but back in DS's beta, the game was almost as (if not more) barren than ONI is. We had to make walls by growing trees for gods sake! And look what it is now. ONI has the foundation for an amazing game, and I trust Klei to build onto it with the community's feedback in mind.

[mrbunnyban]

4 minutes ago, Rosten said:

After Don't Starve, I have total faith in Klei to deliver this game. I don't know if you were playing back then, but back in DS's beta, the game was almost as (if not more) barren than ONI is. We had to make walls by growing trees for gods sake! And look what it is now. ONI has the foundation for an amazing game, and I trust Klei to build onto it with the community's feedback in mind.

That's the assurance I needed to hear! *phew*

Had no idea about the track record of survival games of becoming abandoned before completion. It's also reassuring to know Klei has managed to make such a wildly successful game out of another genre which is known for failures.

 

As you can probably tell, I'm a little sad by the departure of Gaslamp Games. I was hoping they would just move onto new projects after Clockwork Empires didn't work out but the blow was too big to recover from.

[Oatmeal]

Well. Judging from how much this game has spread, it is clear that their popularity proceeds them. Heck. I even told people about the game and they didn't show much interest, but when I mentioned it was made by the same people as Don't Starve, they jumped on it. Now THAT is what a trusted developer looks like.

I mean... not to say we should raise our hopes up too high; it will be what it will be after all. But the trust is good with Klei right now.

 

[PhelsarusBeel]

While concern is obvious understandable we should also consider that Klei at this point isn't the small little indie studio it used to be. I mean damn they recently bought out another studio if that doesn't show how much they've grown over the years than I don't know.

As for the curse of these types of games. Most of that comes from developers not really expecting how much of a huge task these games are. And most studios don't expect them to be this huge what in turn leads to them abbandoning the project because even though they try really hard to make it work it's sometimes a lack of experience that leads to the downfall of those games.

Why I have so much trust in OnI and Klei. I this a massive task? Yes most certaintly. But Klei has show so many times that they have the passion to get these games to work and make them as best as possible.

At the moment OnI may stand at a very early build. But even the first week of release showed how much effort there is in the project. We got daily bugfix updates and communication as usual is very good.

Really if there's one company I can see that can make a game like this work and feel finished it's Klei.

[goldberger]

I've stopped to buy early access games but when i saw this game in youtube i just had to consider buying it and specially when i heard it was from klei i actually stopped to worry that its going to be another early access game that devs abandon.. i have no problem for certain games to take forever to get finished, specially these days there are 1 or 2 man projects so you need to understand that it will take a long time. I vote with my wallet so there is at least 1 company now that i will not buy anythin early access because they totally abandoned one game that i bought. 

That said this game looks already full with all kind of promising things and it looks so really good. Don't starve was one of those games i really enjoyed too and bought as early access.. I doubt klei will screw things up because bad reputation is something that is best to avoid and i think they got pretty competent people working on these games they make

[Phydeaux]

I only bought this game (especially in its current state) because Klei. I have complete faith in them.

[DockLazy]

The big difference between ONI and those games is that ONI is already fun. Those other games had a lot of glaring issues from frustrating user interfaces, path finding issues, and worst of all they often felt like a random collection of good ideas. ONI has none of those issues and more importantly it has a solid gameplay  foundation to build on.

 

In my experience it's not possible to fix a game that doesn't start with a solid foundation. If you play an EA game for the first time and it doesn't immediately grab you chances are pretty high that it never will.

 

[Ned_Fland]

26 minutes ago, DockLazy said:

 

In my experience it's not possible to fix a game that doesn't start with a solid foundation. If you play an EA game for the first time and it doesn't immediately grab you chances are pretty high that it never will.

In my experience if you play an EA game you will cry

[chromiumboy]

I've already spent more time with ONI than some fully released AAA titles that I have played all the way through to their end. And I'm still having fun figuring how to impove my base set up. And this is just a taste of what to come?

This game is gunna be awesome!

[Escaped]

Games like Rimworld are still early access because developers are still trying out anything they want with the game, IIRC. Klei is a very professional and driven company, they would not release something into the public they were not 100% working on and planned out for. I'd like to imagine Klei has a wealth of great games and great ideas and bring us the most solid, most innovative ideas that they are determined to see through. Even in TTA/ANR Don't Starve Together, they announced their work and waited until they could let out the updates slowly rather than throwing things at us and seeing what sticks. Klei's too professional to let such unpreparation happen, have no doubt, 

[Collic]

One of the most notable failures I can remember was Space base DF-9. I think that games' main issue was the art cost to developing what was intended to be a complex, systemic game. Klei are sticking to a 2d approach, and they seem to have a very mature, efficient art pipeline. I'm not worried about them failing.

They're also taking quite a focused approach. It's already clear this game is going to take an in-depth, physics based approach to liquids, solids and gases. That's a unique starting point compared to other games already in the genre.