DescentBB

What do we actually do in this game again? 'Cides shoot at eachother, coz if combat is as boring as it is in these vids i'd rather retreat from fights.

Kida wrote: Im strongly considering buying it, heck i think the descent series was the best 30 bucks i ever spent.

You don't need to - there is now a free playable demo (of the Pre-Alpha )

...BTW Miner Wars is (apparently) being 'featured' by Intelat the GDC in San Fran this coming March.

Gekko71 wrote: ...BTW Miner Wars is (apparently) being 'featured' by Intelat the GDC in San Fran this coming March.

Odd, the only references to this I can find anywhere are in the news blip released by the MinerWars guys.

There's nothing about Miner Wars or Keen Software House at the GDC site.

Here's another thing I found strange: Despite multiple Intel logos and citations, I can't find any references to the "Success Story" article anywhere except the MW site. Is someone at Intel genuinely excited about MW, or is KSH just using their status as an "Intel Software Partner" to play up their marketing?

Foil wrote:

Burlyman wrote:No one ever said they're shady.

... I didn't? Well, I certainly meant to say it looks shady to me.

:)

Yeah, even I am not sure how the thing with the MMO being a different product than Miner Wars came about, but they did make a big effort to make it up to people by giving MMO accounts to everyone who had bought the pre-alpha up till then, and these guys are actually pretty straightforward, not out to screw anyone. Your money does buy the full game - pre-access, single and multiplayer, but the MMO is not any of those things and will be a separate product. I am not an authority on that side of things but I do know that what I have typed is true.

The engine is something Marek has been working on since around 2001, he has been doing most of the writing which is why updates take so long, but that is changing as the money comes in. We have been able to take some of our people full time which helps a ton.

As far as \"should I buy it or not\", hey, its a pre alpha, theres not much to do as far as gameplay yet, no, but it does ensure you a copy of the game for 13$. I personally think everyone is going to wait until theres actual multiplayer before buying into the pre-alpha, everyone has pretty much said so and after all the past attempts at a 6DOF title who can blame them. Thankfully, establishing multiplayer is either next or next-to-next on Marek's list and then there will be plenty of feedback to give.

It's funny that it has been said we are marketing only to Descent players, the staff really wants to make a whole new game and they certainly don't want to market strictly to Descent players. I as well as Dan and Ansel have tried many times to push Descent angles and get them to produce things that would please the Descent community and they do listen, but most of the time they decide to stick to their own ideas. They don't want to make this game into a clone of Descent, and the marketing director strongly disagrees with me that there is a market here in the Descent community. He and I will very likely continue to disagree on that until the project is done and one of us is proven wrong. He feels that the market for our game outside of the Descent community is so huge in comparison that this community is not worth focusing on, and I personally feel that there are about 200,000 previous 6DOF pilots out there in the world total that are waiting for a new game, and that they should be invited in for help with testing and acknowledged and treated as a valuable experienced community. I think its a community that could be tapped into for our title that would instantly establish a pulse in our game, and the veterans could really benefit both themselves and others, as well as our game title. They can finally enjoy a fresh 6DOF game and also show new players the ropes, the way it used to be in the mines.

There is a lot going on in the background that you can't guess at, and in most cases the reality is very far from what you might think. Yeah, if we never finish the game the doomsayers and trolls will be ecstatic that they were right and the pilots will be crushed yet again, but that isn't going to happen. All it takes is for you to look how far we are, how far we've come, and you'll know that we will get to the end.

This game can easily encompass all of what Descent was and then move far beyond it, and when you jump into it, it already feels familiar (I know there are still some issues with stick and config menus and such, but on mouse I can fly perfectly well). Marek did a great job with movement, and when we start on coding in the gameplay it will have elements that feel natural to 6DOF pilots as well as players from other genres. There are 3 of us on the team that are die hard Descent players, and we will do our best to make sure this game satisfies the hunger for 6DOF that we all remember and still feel, but we all want to make a new game as well that allows for more creativity on the players end than ever before in a 6DOF.

There will be levels and structures in this game for us to fly through that are far more detailed and advanced than anything we've ever seen as 6DOF pilots, and the editor will let you access the individual meshes used to make it all so you can sculpt out your own asteroid and place prefabs in it to create your own level in your home sector. I believe these will be shareable as well but I don't know for sure. I do know people can visit your sector though. Honestly if we had multiplayer I think it would be awesome just to be in the game fighting after all these years, prefabs or no prefabs. Suffice it to say we beg for it every week in our team meetings, and when it finally comes I think more than one of us will be celebrating extra hard. 16 man drunk tourney anyone? Hahah. Houston.

So the ship in the beginning of the video is a new one modeled specifically for this game from the ground up, and it is of course similar to the others you've seen in my projects, and of course it evokes Descent . Why wouldn't it? I have spent a lot of time making new designs inspired by the Descent Pyro and I have established a very specific style that is definately not a Pyro yet screams Descent. It was meant to be a message from me to you, that Descent players are here and involved with this, keeping the old dreams alive and we are going to work with these guys to make an awesome game that is suitable for Descent pilots, as we respect all the old masters of 6DOF. Also, the art director dislikes that ship and does not want it in the game because it is too iconic and represents Descent too strongly. I have been fighting my butt off to get it in the game, so you can see again that saying they are aiming only at Descent players is pretty incorrect when it comes down to the real facts, regardless of what things may look like to someone without all the info.

All in all, since we are at over 9000 registrations and counting I can see that this project is going to keep moving forward at an increasing rate and we will very soon be in position to go full throttle, and when that happens the game will rapidly evolve. The people who did buy into the pre alpha will have quite a unique and interesting experience as they watch the game evolve from a goalless sandbox to a full blown powerhouse that encompasses the up front excitement and dogfights of 6DOF and the character development and replay value of an RPG.


See you in the roids.
Psion

I boned up and gave them my $13

It's nice to have \"official\" word, if nothing else. Thanks for the post psion!

I'm half-way between skeptical, and being too cheap to spend $13 for a game that isn't complete yet.

Check out the demo first, and save your 13 bucks till we have multiplayer if you want, assuming it will still be 13$ at that point. I have no clue when they're going to stop that pricing.


http://mirror1.minerwars.com/Downloads/ ... sSetup.exe

I keep forgetting about the demo because I've already bought the pre-alpha .

psionik wrote:Yeah, even I am not sure how the thing with the MMO being a different product than Miner Wars came about...

I'm sorry, psionik, but I find that VERY difficult to believe.

Your website and marketing has been advertising MW as an MMO/multiplayer game for the last couple of years, with absolutely no indication whatsoever that they were separate products. [Do I need to quote the specs and game descriptions you used to have up?]

You really expect me to believe that the developers and website/marketing just "never realized they were on different pages until recently"? Come on.

psionik wrote:It's funny that it has been said we are marketing only to Descent players...

Again, no one said that.

I said that MW is being marketed primarily to the Descent community (your response here reflects that).

psionik wrote:...the marketing director strongly disagrees with me that there is a market here in the Descent community.

So the marketing director wants to focus outside the Descent community?

If the marketing is supposed to be focused elsewhere, then why are there so many Descent references throughout your site? Why are you guys running Descent tournaments and posting on Descent forums?

Even more, why are you guys advertising a Descent-ish feel, and talking about how MW is going to "encompass all of what Descent was and then move far beyond it"?

Still looks like an intentional move to elicit $$ from a fan community to me.

psionik wrote:There is a lot going on in the background that you can't guess at, and in most cases the reality is very far from what you might think.

Ah, of course: "We can't show you yet, it's top secret, but it's really cool!" Heh.

psionik wrote:All it takes is for you to look how far we are, how far we've come...

How far you are:
Skeleton demo, with a tiny fraction of the promised features, no online functionality at all, and "not much to do", by your own admission.

How far you've come:
See above... since 2001?

IMHO, that's unimpressive, at best.

---

Last year, I was hopeful about MW. It looked like a legit indie-developer project, and perhaps it was.

But then MW started hype-marketing to a niche market... pre-selling a pre-alpha without any online functionality... asking for donated help while obtaining investor $$... backtracking on features...

Sorry, but I wouldn't touch MW right now, especially not with any of my hard-earned money.

You shouldn't touch a keyboard either, Foil.

My post was not aimed at one person, I felt like the pilots were owed an update on our project since i see so much misinformation flying around here.

Everything I said is true and people can try as hard as they want to break it apart and act like they have something to say about it all but the fact is, they don't. Keep your hard-earned money. Enjoy the free demo.

http://mirror1.minerwars.com/Downloads/ ... sSetup.exe

If you can deliver on what you said, great.

if you can't, then stop yanking people's chains.


The only person here with anything on the line, is you.

Let's talk about something else now. -.- Besides, now I keep thinking you guys are taking about Modern Warfare 2 for a second, something I'm not interested in. :P

Frankly I am embarrassed, I think I will ban all game manufactures from vising the DBB we can't do anything without trashing these people over the coals!

I'll be damned if I would work with this crowd of ingrates!

psionik wrote:My post was not aimed at one person...

Neither was mine; I'm pointing at red flags throughout the entire MW project here, not you in particular.

But okay, let's keep it impersonal and professional:


Psionik, in the interest of the fans here who would like to see MW someday, can you please answer the following?


1. Is there a projected release date for either MW game (not the demo, not alpha, not beta... the full release)?


2. Is there a date users should expect online functionality in the demo?


3. Is there a guarantee for pre-purchasers (i.e. will they get a refund if nothing is released in, say, a year)?


4. Would you explain exactly how the following advertising indicates two separate games?

Original Miner Wars descriptions, before they were changed wrote:"Miner Wars is ... a combination of single player story game and MMO."

"Gameplay is led by an epic story and is a combination of a single/multi-player game, cooperative, or you against everyone."

"...Single-player Mode and MMO Mode..."

5. MinerWars.com claims the game will be "featured" by Intel at the Game Developer's Conference a few weeks from now. However, there is no information anywhere by GDC or Intel to corroborate this. Can you provide any outside confirmation?

KoolBear wrote:...we can't do anything without trashing these people over the coals!

KB, please go back and read my posts. I am speaking in the interest of our community of Descenters here!

The fact is that they are specifically targeting this Descent community (and others), selling and soliciting investment a piece of software which is not only unfinished... it's not in beta... it's not even an alpha, for that matter!

Yes, it appeals to you. It appeals to me, as a Descent fan! The videos, the cool website, the Descent-ish 6DoF, and all the other "unfinished, but coming soon!" features... sounds great, doesn't it?

They've taken your $$, they've taken the $$ of Descent fans all over the world. Yet for all their marketing, they have no more than an entirely-offline "proof of concept" demo, and vague hints about future release.

---

I'm sorry, but I do not appreciate someone coming in and taking monetary advantage of the DBB.net and others due to the fact that we all desperately hope to see another Descent-like game.

Honestly, KB, as a founding member of the online Descent community... I personally think this should bother you, too.

Foil wrote:

psionik wrote:My post was not aimed at one person...

Neither was mine; I'm pointing at red flags throughout the entire MW project here, not you in particular.

But okay, let's keep it impersonal and professional:


Psionik, in the interest of the fans here who would like to see MW someday, can you please answer the following?


1. Is there a projected release date for either MW game (not the demo, not alpha, not beta... the full release)?


2. Is there a date users should expect online functionality in the demo?


3. Is there a guarantee for pre-purchasers (i.e. will they get a refund if nothing is released in, say, a year)?


4. Would you explain exactly how the following advertising indicates two separate games?

Original Miner Wars descriptions, before they were changed wrote:"Miner Wars is ... a combination of single player story game and MMO."

"Gameplay is led by an epic story and is a combination of a single/multi-player game, cooperative, or you against everyone."

"...Single-player Mode and MMO Mode..."

5. MinerWars.com claims the game will be "featured" by Intel at the Game Developer's Conference a few weeks from now. However, there is no information anywhere by GDC or Intel to corroborate this. Can you provide any outside confirmation?

I think this is a much more healthy dialogue and so I will do my best to get these answers for you. I will put them forth to the team and see what we can come up with, and I will post back with the answers. I can tell you that Marek will say that it's very hard to really establish any kind of dates because he simply doesn't know exactly how long it will take him to finish what he is working on. That said, I have heard him say Multi is roughly 3 months out, and that was about two months ago, so it's possible we could be looking at it in a month, but again that could change. Regarding the MMO split, I have nothing to do with it and I honestly cannot defend or answer any questions regarding it but I can tell you that from my perspective that Marek has always spoken of the two entities of Miner Wars as being separate. Perhaps I can get him to explain the exact details of what happened, but I think we should just go with the flow, I really don't think any harm came of it and they certainly didn't intend to cause any.

Foil,

It's not the questions or the desire to seek the truth, it's the way that we as a community have always treated the developers and their messengers.

As for the 13 bucks I invested so what I invest over 26busks a month to keep you guys with the DBB. (sorry it's in such dis-array)

I am glad that you guys ask the questions that we all want to know me included. It's how some choose to communicate that screws things up.

Be constructive not destructive, this keeps people from getting defensive and causing rifts, when rifts open communities split!

Ask questions get answers but what ever you do don't kill the messengers! Look psionk doesn't set any schedules, he doesn't program any backend stuff he doesn't pay any bills! He is however one of us and he is here trying to provide us a chance to have a pipeline to the developers it might be a small one but it is a pipeline if we are smart we can use it or close it off.

Foil I appreciate your last approach that should be the template for the way we all propose questions.

Obviously we lve up to our title .... Descent'rs

I love all of you the .com peeps to you see all of us have a common bond! Descent!

you have to look at it from a more grounded perspective KB.

We want something like this to come to fruition. we really do. It's been such a long time that we're clamoring for any information to be released.

But when you're told that from the developers that you can't see it yet for one reason or another, it should give you reason to pause. If anything a developer should be absolutely excited to show you any content available. It should be a flood of information. Screenshots, teasers, trailers, gameplay clips, weapon, enemy and graphics info for example. Every devhouse has done this, including 3drealms released content for duke nukem forever when they were working on it. But not KSH for some reason. And I'm with foil on this one. it's unsettling.

We've seen many projects come, and many just disappear into the abyss, never to be heard from again. So, it stands to reason that there's a few of us who are rather skeptical of what's already been posted.

It seems we each have only one part of the fair and balanced viewpoint that we each should have. Someone wanting to get all the information would have to read all the posts in this topic instead of just one. Fair and balanced viewpoints are hard, for sure... but they shouldn't be this hard. We each have our own bias based on past experience. (Learning from experience is not always a good thing )

To be fair, I don't remember any project like this before that actually reached a playable state (and yes I consider the Pre-alpha to be playable... it's actually very fun).
I'm not going to mention what Foil has on the line here since he didn't, he probably doesn't want to. He may not even remember.

Personally I'm an optimist/idealist rather than a pessimist/realist. It makes life more fun. So I'm still optimistic about this.

(Stupid keyboard. The backspace key is stuck).

Alter-Fox wrote:I'm not going to mention what Foil has on the line here since he didn't, he probably doesn't want to. He may not even remember.

If you have something you want to say, say it.

Alter-Fox wrote: To be fair, I don't remember any project like this before that actually reached a playable state (and yes I consider the Pre-alpha to be playable... it's actually very fun).

Uhm, Into Cerberon was "playable". and it was fun. But it looks dead now to me.
BUT, I'm keeping my ear to the ground in case it should resurrect.

I generally err on the skeptical side of things. I'm not saying I don't believe this project has potential at least, but I was never a pre-order guy anyway. Especially under circumstances like this where there is some question as to the integrity of the project.

Miner Wars looks a lot like several projects I started but never finished development-wise. This makes me more suspicious.

The verdict is that I'm way more likely to go after a finished product then a "questionable" pre-order.

Hello,

I am Marek Rosa, founder of Keen Software House and author of Miner Wars.

I respect Foil's opinion and his doubts, so I am not going to try to change his mind. I just hope we will be able to convince him after the game is finished.

For others, I want to clear up few things:

- I started creating Miner Wars in 2001 (C++, OpenGL), but I was distracted by other side projects I had to do for living... so there were huge delays. Later, I decided to manage my life so I could focus only on Miner Wars development. This happened in 2008, and since then I work only on Miner Wars (fulltime)

- pre-orders are a great method how to convince investors that this is a perspective business!!

- I am still giving my personal money into the company and honestly, I haven't had salary or anything like that in last 2.5 years - but it doesn't matter... this project is more important than my life

Thanks to everyone who is supporting us!

Bye,
Marek

Hi Marek,

Thank you for stopping in. I am excited about your effort and as I have supported other efforts in the past I will support you in anyway I can. I too lean towards optimism anything else is ... well it's negative

I and many of us here still play Descent or D2 or D3 the key word is we STILL play. I guess we are true fanatics of Descent which is 15 years old! This alone will make us a tough crowd. But if your efforts pan out and we have something new, we will still play Descent

Now I am babbling, best of wishes and when you stop around us, be sure put on your hard hard and bullet proof vest ... we don't pull any punches!

But you can rest assured that there are several hundred thousand Descent'rs that have been waiting for a game that would be worthy!

My hat is off to you and the team you have pulled together!

KB

Foil kind of made a bet on PD. Let me see if I can dig out that thread.

Foil wrote:Tell you what. If they release a playable online version anytime in the next year, I will let the PD community pick a horrifically embarrassing method of apology for me to do. (But it's not gonna happen.)

I'm not sure if this is just a one-sided bet either. If it's not, I have no idea what he's going to make us do if he wins.

BTW I was not around in the community at the time of most of these other projects. (I only signed up here in 2007). So this gives me a bit more optimism towards new projects I guess.
Miner Wars really has a lot of potential and I definitely hope it will be finished. And they do have a large (very large and larger) fan base already.

BTW @Foil - I have a policy of respecting privacy whenever I'm not sure whether someone will mind me repeating something that they said.

Yep, I posted that on October 15th.

I have no problem honoring it here, too.

Great to hear that you have passion for your game. I hope you finish it and it is a success!

MinerWars wrote: - pre-orders are a great method how to convince investors that this is a perspective business!!

No one is ever getting any (non-refundable) pre-order cash out of me on an incomplete game or beta. Finish the game or at least have a release date firmly set then I'll think about it.

psionik wrote:

Foil wrote:Psionik, in the interest of the fans here who would like to see MW someday, can you please answer the following?
<Questions>

... I will do my best to get these answers for you. I will put them forth to the team and see what we can come up with, and I will post back with the answers.

Thank you, Psionik. When should we expect those answers?

Foil,

Didn't Marek answer your questions?

Do you need to hear the same thing from Psonik? He was going to Marek to get answers for you Foil.

Am I missing something here?

MinerWars wrote:Hello,

I am Marek Rosa, founder of Keen Software House and author of Miner Wars.

I respect Foil's opinion and his doubts, so I am not going to try to change his mind. I just hope we will be able to convince him after the game is finished.

For others, I want to clear up few things:

- I started creating Miner Wars in 2001 (C++, OpenGL), but I was distracted by other side projects I had to do for living... so there were huge delays. Later, I decided to manage my life so I could focus only on Miner Wars development. This happened in 2008, and since then I work only on Miner Wars (fulltime)

- pre-orders are a great method how to convince investors that this is a perspective business!!

- I am still giving my personal money into the company and honestly, I haven't had salary or anything like that in last 2.5 years - but it doesn't matter... this project is more important than my life

Thanks to everyone who is supporting us!

Bye,
Marek

KoolBear wrote:Didn't Marek answer your questions?

No. Marek's statement was about development delays, fundraising, and his personal sacrifices.

It did not answer any of the questions I posed. I assume Psionik is still working on them, and want to know when they will be answered.

eek Foil's got fangs.

Not at all. I'm simply interested in the specific answers to those questions.

[Edit: It doesn't matter to me whether the specifics come directly from Marek, or Psionik collects and posts the answers as he promised. What matters is that the issues need to be addressed.]

Ah, I misread... as usual..

Hi Foil,

here are answers for your questions:

-----
1. Is there a projected release date for either MW game (not the demo, not alpha, not beta... the full release)?

A: yes, end of 2011.


-----
2. Is there a date users should expect online functionality in the demo?

A: yes, summer 2011.


-----
3. Is there a guarantee for pre-purchasers (i.e. will they get a refund if nothing is released in, say, a year)?

A: Not a \"deadline refund\". If anybody thinks that buying MW at this moment is too risky, then just don't buy it... I am fine with that and we are not forcing anybody. We wanted to give people something to play while we finish the game, not to start fights on discussion boards.


-----
4. Would you explain exactly how the following advertising indicates two separate games?

Original Miner Wars descriptions, before they were changed wrote:
\"Miner Wars is ... a combination of single player story game and MMO.\"

\"Gameplay is led by an epic story and is a combination of a single/multi-player game, cooperative, or you against everyone.\"

\"...Single-player Mode and MMO Mode...\"

A: Miner Wars is term describing whole Miner Wars universe, our game client, our game server, and most important - all Miner Wars games. It's an umbrella term. Then there are or will be specific products, each one carrying its own name: Miner Wars 2081, Miner Wars MMO, ... people will purchase the product, but it will just unlock the feature in Miner Wars game. There will be always just one game client (or game copy on your hard drive).

I don't see how we could be trying to scam with this... we actually gave up few thousands Miner Wars MMO copies to people who purchased just the Miner Wars 2081, to clear up the confusion.


-----
5. MinerWars.com claims the game will be \"featured\" by Intel at the Game Developer's Conference a few weeks from now. However, there is no information anywhere by GDC or Intel to corroborate this. Can you provide any outside confirmation?

A: Intel probably wants to announce it later, right before GDC, ... I don't know exactly. We really didn't made up this document: http://mirror1.minerwars.com/Downloads/ ... l_2011.pdf

We got approval that we can publish the document now.

-------------

All these answers are available on our webs site, our forum and we talk about them on regular weekly meetings with the fans. Everything is public.

People please don't forget: we are the good guys -> brave, honest, modest and fantastic!

Bye,
Marek

Marek,

Thank you, I for one will remain optimistic. AS I stated before I am willing to provide any assistance I can.

Again, thanks for your time and effort to answer Foils questions.

Posted the link over on the Eve Online forums. Be interesting to read responses. The \"100k on one server\" ought to attract some attention. Though I ought to warn you Marek, that with the large server loads considerable lag will be a problem and I hope you do a better job managing lag than Eve does. So far Eve has not had more than 50k players on at one time and depending on systems and amount in that system, lag can be so bad that people are being black screened with log-ins well nigh impossible.

Thank you for the specific answers, Marek.

From what I've seen, I still doubt you will ever be able to meet those dates, and I'm still very bothered by the fact that you are pre-selling something that's not even in Alpha yet. However, it's good to have official word from the primary creator.

Foil, I agree with the \"date doubt\" thing... the only thing I am 100% sure and confident is that we will finish Miner Wars, sooner or later.

I've waited so long for another 6DoF game, one more year, or even two or three, isn't going to make a difference. To be honest, TrackMania 2 is looking worse and worse (no progress updates for the last year, and they already missed one deadline), and MW is looking better and better.

Everyone remembers Duke Nukem Forever right? Well it's now slated for a March or May release after 10 yrs. Anything is possible.