Faster Than Light

Faster Than Light

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Rumpelstiltskin
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Joined: 26 Jun 2012, 18:52

Faster Than Light

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

Faster Than Light - FTL
It's a small game currently 8 bucks on steam.
Its pretty simple but has had me hooked for the last several days.
You manage a ship and move between planets(waypoints).
In every such waypoint there is a scenario that usually evolves you fighting some other ship.

You upgrade your ship and it's systems and subsystems and you micromanage your crew.
You can board enemy ships and accept new crew members and get boarded.
You can run out of oxygen, have your hull destroyed or have fires breaking on your ship.

the game is pretty challenging and unlocking new ships and ship setups is not so easy.
There are different races that have differences, albeit small ones.

Try it, it's fun.
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SwiftSpear
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by SwiftSpear »

I'm incredibly disappointed with the lack of depth of the campaign. Don't get me wrong, the combat is spectacular, and the random encounters are compelling, but the backers on the kick starter put SO much more money than the team was asking for for this game. They had the tools they needed to flesh out the universe a little more and make it feel less like a string of consecutive random encounters and more like a coherent world. Trade and economics are WAY underrepresented compared to what I was hoping this game would do.

I really wanted more X3 in 2D with the strategic ship management. Not a somewhat underdeveloped Oregon Trail derivative.

It just bothers me all the more that what was done is so nicely done, because it could have been the key innovation to something spectacular as opposed to the key gimmick that everything on the game leans on like a crutch.

That being said, I have to concede that the game does succeed in being both fun and addictive. I'm just saying.
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Rumpelstiltskin
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

I agree with what you have written above and i didnt realize they got a lot of money.
Maybe they just released it like this to get a release out and they will still add stuff later on..(yeah right)

I cant say i was surprised at the simplisity though.
I kinda figured that this is how its gonna be after the time i watched their kick starter video.
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Licho
Zero-K Developer
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Licho »

For >> $200k you get pretty simple game based on random generator...

Disappointed.
BaNa
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by BaNa »

Imo looking at the budget and drawing up expectations based on that is misguided. Look at the goal or look at the price. This is a game that costs as much as a mobile phone game and by all accounts is enjoyable for 10-20 hours. If 10 times the people would have wanted to buy it (2mill kickstarter), would you expect blockbuster cinematics?
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Rumpelstiltskin
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

They did deliver what they promised....
Azhukar
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Azhukar »

You're disappointed because people paid more than the developers asked for?

What if they got 10 million dollars, would you expect them to deliver the purpose of life in 2d form?

The game they were going to make was described, they did what they intended to do, people having shitloads of disposable income does not mean they did not create the game they set out to create.

Your disappointment stems purely out of them receiving X amount of money. That's bad and you should feel bad.
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smoth
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by smoth »

Funny thing about giving someone something. They can do whatever they want with it. The probably pocketed the excess.

You guys are going to get burned more and more with these kickstarters. That was the shrewd thing to do, deliver only on what they promised and keep the rest.
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Johannes
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Johannes »

I don't see how anyone was burned here - they got the product they were promised. When they didn't put in any massive stretch goals and the like, like so many others, and afaik their game was nearly finished at the time of the funding campaign, I don't see the big deal.
If you'd bought it after release would it been more acceptable to make a huge profit margin?


How's Minecraft going btw, is it finished now and does it have the features that were promised?
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AF
AI Developer
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by AF »

smoth wrote:Funny thing about giving someone something. They can do whatever they want with it. The probably pocketed the excess.

You guys are going to get burned more and more with these kickstarters. That was the shrewd thing to do, deliver only on what they promised and keep the rest.
Now they've shot themselves in the foot for their next one as they cant repeat the process. Would've been better to have overdelivered visibly without spending the excess
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Johannes
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Johannes »

AF wrote:
smoth wrote:Funny thing about giving someone something. They can do whatever they want with it. The probably pocketed the excess.

You guys are going to get burned more and more with these kickstarters. That was the shrewd thing to do, deliver only on what they promised and keep the rest.
Now they've shot themselves in the foot for their next one as they cant repeat the process. Would've been better to have overdelivered visibly without spending the excess
Or just... Make a game with the money the got from this one, no need for a Kickstarter, then just sell that on release like you would any traditional game. It's not like everyone's embittered at them now and won't buy their game if it looks good. If anything they've got decent recognition now.
BaNa
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by BaNa »

Johannes wrote:
AF wrote:
smoth wrote:Funny thing about giving someone something. They can do whatever they want with it. The probably pocketed the excess.

You guys are going to get burned more and more with these kickstarters. That was the shrewd thing to do, deliver only on what they promised and keep the rest.
Now they've shot themselves in the foot for their next one as they cant repeat the process. Would've been better to have overdelivered visibly without spending the excess
Or just... Make a game with the money the got from this one, no need for a Kickstarter, then just sell that on release like you would any traditional game. It's not like everyone's embittered at them now and won't buy their game if it looks good. If anything they've got decent recognition now.
Yeah they seem to have predominantly positive feedback on the KS and even here Swift acknowledged it is addictive to play.
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SinbadEV
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by SinbadEV »

What I feel is the problem is that it doesn't look like $8 worth of digital fun...
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smoth
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by smoth »

Johannes wrote:I don't see how anyone was burned here - they got the product they were promised. When they didn't put in any massive stretch goals and the like, like so many others, and afaik their game was nearly finished at the time of the funding campaign, I don't see the big deal.
Because the funding was to go towards the development of said project. In recieving extra funding, it would be expected that they use it to on the thing they asked fund for. If the money was given with out strings attached as a gift that is one thing. However because it was raised to be spent towards a goal, then the money should continue to be spent on that goal. they may have met the loose requirements of the initial project but to pretend that they could not do more, that is silly. You can always do more in software development, even if a feature is done, I promise you that you can still find ways to make it better.
Johannes wrote:If you'd bought it after release would it been more acceptable to make a huge profit margin?
Irrelevant.
Johannes wrote:How's Minecraft going btw, is it finished now and does it have the features that were promised?
Minecraft had no kickstarter, but they are still adding features. A bit non-sequitor but I can see why you would use it as a way to make an indirect attack. So I will bite your bait.

Minecraft promised that by purchasing into the alpha I would get to keep my access. Done. They promised that I could get free updates. Done. Many features talked about in random tweets are getting done.

Y U MAD THO?
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PicassoCT
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by PicassoCT »

And thus the blacklist of the intertubes was errected, carved into blackrock, were allready the names Jon Romero and P. Molyneux are chiped in, never to be forgotten.
Azhukar
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Joined: 16 Apr 2012, 10:48

Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Azhukar »

It's almost like professional jealousy going on here. Only people are not actually making money off of the games they make. Or have a stable playerbase.

Why so bitter guys?
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smoth
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by smoth »

your bait post is poorly constructed. Reword it.
Azhukar
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Azhukar »

smoth wrote:your bait post
Every post I make is made with the intention of provoking some form of a response, not necessarily a negative response. The choice is on the recipient and I enjoy surprises.
smoth wrote:Reword it.
I like it when you talk dirty.

What I intended to point at is that maybe the reason behind disappointment is monetary jealousy. The focus on money and how people believe that it could have been used better, implying own superior ability of judgment, dedication and/or skills to that of the actual developers of said game.
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Rumpelstiltskin
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

SinbadEV wrote:What I feel is the problem is that it doesn't look like $8 worth of digital fun...
Simple and moral solution:
torrent the game.
Play it, see if you enjoy it and it entertains you enough for a 8$ price tag.
If it does, pay it.
They sell these games in an official manner but all it is is a donation system since you can get the game from a torrent in a split second.

You pay and should pay only when you are sure its worth paying for Personally.
I do not think it is morally consistent to ask a person to buy a game if he is unsure he will enjoy it(because a game is not a physical product and trying it does not diminish from its value).
There is no demo for this or most contemporary games and even a demo cannot fully tell you if you will enjoy the game as much as you should for it's price tag.

the most honest solution is to make a game, allow people to donate(cause its not fair to pay a full price if you only found a small part of the game fun and its not fair to pay nothing if you still enjoyed it for a bit) and place a full game price tag as the company's evaluation of how much this game should be worth based on its feature's, the rest of the market and their hard work.

Trying to force players to pay X$ for a game they did not experience themselves is dishonest.
Not helping the devs according to how fun and rewarding you found the game is also dishonest.

Morals aside and back to reality, it's clear why some companies and devs try to sell their game upfront to players(cause many just dont pay if they can get it for free despite finding it to be awesome) but we should not agree with it personally just cause some gamers do not fairly pay devs who made a game these players enjoyed.

also, if you think you can be honest with yourself than torrenting a game you know you would not have bought(lack of funds can be one reason) anyway is morally sound as nobody loses anything by you doing so.
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KingRaptor
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Re: Faster Than Light

Post by KingRaptor »

It's pretty good, but it's really more addictive than it is fun.

Combat is pretty good despite a few balance issues, though it's really easy to get to the final boss without anything resembling proper equipment for the battles.
You have four basic weapon types (laser, beam, missile, bomb), and there are lots of variations on these four basic templates, including a number of special effects - some do paralysis damage, some start fires or breach hulls. Throw in boarding actions and combat drones into the mix and things get quite interesting indeed.

Ship management is rather simplistic (even if venting the air to put out fires is pretty ingenious). Your crew are largely interchangable, faceless goons, whose stats can often be easily farmed by playing target practice with a weak opponent that can't actually hurt you. Having more assignable crew positions would have been nice for a start.

The game has 9 ships (each with an alternate "layout" unlocked by certain achievements). You start with one, can get two more simply by progressing through the game and winning it. The others require lots and lots of replaying the game (grinding in all but name, really) to get the RNG to bless you with the right events you need to unlock them. In 46 playthroughs (though this counts early restarts/quits) I still had a couple of ships left locked before I said "screw this" and hacked my save file.
That said, there's a lot of interesting diversity in the ships. One starts with a cloaking system instead of a shield, one has an integral shield-piercing beam, one starts with no weapons and relies entirely on boarding actions to defeat enemy ships.
Azhukar wrote:It's almost like professional jealousy going on here. Only people are not actually making money off of the games they make. Or have a stable playerbase.

Why so bitter guys?
unsubstantiated ad hominem is ad hominem that is unsubstantiated
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