What happened to State of Decay?

[OpheliaNeoma]

I was really looking forward to it, since I followed the blog and site of that Class3/Class4 game thing but this isn't anything they said it would be. I haven't bought the game yet, but I've watched a few AlChestbreach videos of it.

[pheo3309]

Seeing gameplay of it and actually playing it is two different things though. It's why I don't read reviews. I just read the synopsis of it and decide if it's worth it or not. There's a lot that videos just don't do SoD any justice. I've been playing it on the 360 until the Steam version comes out. The thing about SoD is that it's totally random. Some things are like they said they would be, other things can be different. But so far, they've delivered everything they said other than multiplayer, at least in my opinion. I remember it this way, this is UndeadLabs's first game as UndeadLabs. I'd much rather play SoD than Left 4 Dead.

[OpheliaNeoma]

No, I mean I was following the development of the game. I was for about a year and a half before it came out, and the only thing that it has that they said would be in it are the zombies and weapons.

[pheo3309]

No, I mean I was following the development of the game. I was for about a year and a half before it came out, and the only thing that it has that they said would be in it are the zombies and weapons.

 

What things exactly? I'll need specifics to understand your opinion based on videos rather than based on actually playing the game, no offense intended. I was following it since it started appearing on my Facebook feed (which is around the same time and to be honest, it's irrelevant how long someone has followed something), when they were on their first site and they've said -many- things that would be definitely in it as time progressed in development. For instance time progression based missions. If you wait too long, they'll elapse. Not to mention time progression in general. You turn off the game and it still 'runs' based on variables through how long you've been away. They also said that they were going to add to the culture in regards to how you would defend yourself. They delivered. And considering that it's an Arcade game for the moment on XBLA, that's saying something compared to larger developers. People conveniently neglect that all the time. As well as the size of the game and how much HD space it takes on the Xbox. But the main point is, some things you won't experience in a playthrough. However in another playthrough, you very well could. Videos on YouTube don't do the game justice at all. Playing it does. I've played it since it was released on XBLA and the differences I'm seeing with the videos on YouTube are ASTOUNDING. For instance one person was complaining that survivors wouldn't act on their own. Yeah, uh huh, sure they don't. I have had to drag out several of them back to my safehouse repeatedly because they acted on their own.

 

Furthermore on the subject on broken 'promises'... I can count on one hand how many broken promises they have rather than other developers like Bethesda, EA, BioWare back when it was BioWare, and other developers. I'm surprised that they didn't make some of the mistakes the major developers are doing to be honest, especially with this being their first release as UndeadLabs. That's something that goes miles for them.

[OpheliaNeoma]

There were no videos, back in old forum posts from over a year ago people suggested things that Undead Labs promised to put in, like being able to craft your own weapons out of any clutter you find, setting up barricades, being able to use buildings as shelter for long periods of time, having a large multiplayer (they said it would be an MMO), no story, and parkour.

 

I understand what you're trying to say but you're not understanding what I'm trying to say; Yes, when they explicitly talk about "State of Decay". they do stick to it, but when they talked about the game they were going to release (that ended up being SoD) before it had a name, they made a LOT of promises, I wish I could find the forum posts but as I've said they're old, but they still made promises. You can do the searching yourself, but I doubt you'll find anything, because of how old the posts are.

 

I was expecting to see maybe someone who also paid attention to the development and the blog posts for Class3, because they did make a large amount of promises. This isn't the game they promised.

[pheo3309]

There were no videos, back in old forum posts from over a year ago people suggested things that Undead Labs promised to put in, like being able to craft your own weapons out of any clutter you find, setting up barricades, being able to use buildings as shelter for long periods of time, having a large multiplayer (they said it would be an MMO), no story, and parkour.

 

I know there wasn't any videos from over a year ago nor did I state anything of that matter. I think you misunderstood. What I said was: "I'll need specifics to understand your opinion based on videos rather than based on actually playing the game, no offense intended." Nothing about videos being on the blog. Just for clarification. As for the multiplayer issue, it was heavily talked about in the most recent forums. They promised it, but they found out that they couldn't support it. I'm not going to throw a fit because they couldn't get something to work. They found this out right after it's release and told us promptly, however they didn't wait to tell us like Bethesda waited to tell us that they weren't releasing more DLC when they said they were.

 

If you don't want to play it because of that, that's fine. I'm not trying to say "YOU MUST PLAY", I'm just saying that there's a lot that I disagree with and without specifics of what you're talking about (there was a lot of talk based by the community making fake promises that UL never made as well) I can't see what complaints there are that you have, and to me it sounded as if the videos are evidence of this. If you're expecting more of us who followed the development to know exactly what your grievances are, or respond to them, you should know exactly what they are. This is why I must respectfully disagree with you until you state such. I'm not you, so I can't search for what exactly was promised and failed to meet your expectation. :tongue:

 

 

 

I understand what you're trying to say but you're not understanding what I'm trying to say; Yes, when they explicitly talk about "State of Decay". they do stick to it, but when they talked about the game they were going to release (that ended up being SoD) before it had a name, they made a LOT of promises, I wish I could find the forum posts but as I've said they're old, but they still made promises. You can do the searching yourself, but I doubt you'll find anything, because of how old the posts are.

 

Again, I understand what you're saying. You complained about promises being broken. Every video game that comes out makes A LOT of promises and a lot of them are broken. But the fact of the matter is that most of the promises that are and were being discussed in the past and now the present is the fact of that it's not an XBox exclusive game, multiplayer isn't functional due to the limitations of the game itself, and that the MMO part would be Class 4 (which the MMO was always known as Class 4), not to be confused with Class 3. I think you're confusing the two. I in no way feel as lied to as much as I've been lied to by Bethesda, EA, BioWare, Valve, Blizzard, Nintendo, Square-Enix (and back when it was Squaresoft too), etc. I still play and enjoy them though. Except Diablo 3. I prefer that game and I keep a 25 foot berth between us.

 

I was expecting to see maybe someone who also paid attention to the development and the blog posts for Class3, because they did make a large amount of promises. This isn't the game they promised.

 

Name a video game industry that doesn't make a large amount of promises because I sure can't name one. Also, just because I'm saying that I'm happy with the game that they didn't deliver on all promises made. I think you're assuming that I am, because I'm not. Your opinion was first based on video game footage on YouTube and on old forum posts, which that's okay, but I find it funny that people do that, while praising other video game makers like Bethesda, Blizzard, Microsoft, etc that promised even more and delivered less. Just look at what they promised in Skyrim. Major let down there. Major. We were promised a new engine and we got the same one with the same bugs only painted differently. Anybody remember how long it took them to fix that Navmesh bug? A long time. Proof it was the same thing. Among other things. They said that there was more to come for Skyrim after Dragonborn and then that fizzed out like soda going flat. UL at least took our opinions, ideas, thoughts, and criticisms into play. And you know what? They're still working on it. It's not been out over 2 months and people are already forgetting that.

 

Sorry, but regardless, I won't base an opinion on a game until I actually play it. Despite 'promises' being broken. Putting the same thing into context I was expecting people to actually recognize the size of their team. It's not big at all. Not to mention what they had to do to get funding for the project. Do you see any other gaming franchise stepping up to the plate? Because I sure don't. Not in the direction that UL took me. I don't expect people to play the game before they buy it, but in the sense that this very small group of individuals stepped up to the plate and -listened- to it's followers is a better promise fulfilled in my opinion than huge developers like the previously stated. So I'm just going to respectfully disagree since nothing is being brought to the table and I can't go searching for what may or may not be your grievances, not to sound disrespectful or anything. It's just that I've got a few projects that I'm working on, I'm a firm believer of the Burden of Proof thing (meaning I don't go searching for evidence in people's arguments or opinions as they already should do that), and there's a lot of things going back and forth from various other sites. I just don't have the time or patience for that sort of thing, so I hope you understand that. :smile:

 

In closing, since this isn't going anywhere, it's up to yourself to decide what you want to play. If you feel lied to by them, state it on their forums. Talk with them about it. Sanya's responded to me loads of times about bugs, things that they've promised and I felt lied to as it wasn't addressed, until she actually explained it me in terms I could understand why it wasn't implemented. Which is loads better than what others do.

 

Edit: Had an incomplete sentence. Fixed it.

Edited August 22, 2013 by pheo3309

[robsmith]

The idea is that State of decay is a test game, all the stuff they promised, building houses and multiplayer etc is going to be in Undead Labs next game, known as Class 4