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RPGM Abandoned Malise And The Machine [v0.0511] [Eromancer]

3.70 star(s) 9 Votes
Jun 30, 2017
276
345
Wait you tell that a new battle system, that mean there are some change in battle mechanic(skill, effect, attack, defend,etc..) from old one?
 

dd209

Newbie
Aug 2, 2017
40
22
Wait you tell that a new battle system, that mean there are some change in battle mechanic(skill, effect, attack, defend,etc..) from old one?
Technically the new system DOES have new features such as redone grapples and special attacks for grappled characters, but none of these are actually active in the test build. So from the average player's POV it's basically the same. Eromancer made a big thing about not releasing this test build because they want to do a big public release push showing off all the new assets and stuff for v0.06 (God knows when that's coming).

update per year. and here i thought BS was a scam.
In fairness to the project I don't think they deliberately scammed anyone. They did make a big effort to keep backers updated each month and show the progress they've made. The problem is, this project has been around since what, 2014? Yet from the average person's point of view progress has gone BACKWARDS in the past year or so. I think they were just inexperienced from the get go, and effectively recreating all the art assets clearly hasn't helped. I think that if they do a good job of the public release of v0.06 with a bunch of the remastered assets plus some new enemies, and actually keep steady progress after that, the project could survive. Otherwise they're just dying off slowly imo.
 

malodorous

Member
Dec 28, 2016
108
106
Technically the new system DOES have new features such as redone grapples and special attacks for grappled characters, but none of these are actually active in the test build. So from the average player's POV it's basically the same. Eromancer made a big thing about not releasing this test build because they want to do a big public release push showing off all the new assets and stuff for v0.06 (God knows when that's coming).



In fairness to the project I don't think they deliberately scammed anyone. They did make a big effort to keep backers updated each month and show the progress they've made. The problem is, this project has been around since what, 2014? Yet from the average person's point of view progress has gone BACKWARDS in the past year or so. I think they were just inexperienced from the get go, and effectively recreating all the art assets clearly hasn't helped. I think that if they do a good job of the public release of v0.06 with a bunch of the remastered assets plus some new enemies, and actually keep steady progress after that, the project could survive. Otherwise they're just dying off slowly imo.
thanks for the updates man
 
Jun 30, 2017
276
345
Technically the new system DOES have new features such as redone grapples and special attacks for grappled characters, but none of these are actually active in the test build. So from the average player's POV it's basically the same. Eromancer made a big thing about not releasing this test build because they want to do a big public release push showing off all the new assets and stuff for v0.06 (God knows when that's coming).
Do you have system requirement for the new engine?
 

dd209

Newbie
Aug 2, 2017
40
22
Do you have system requirement for the new engine?
I don't think they listed system requirements. This isn't really the "true" new engine anyway as far as I know, they're not moving to URGE or whatever it's called for a long time. So for the immediate future it's using RPGMaker runtimes and stuff. I never noticed any performance issues but I'm running a gaming laptop with a 1080, so...that doesn't tell you much.
 
Jun 30, 2017
276
345
No, there is still the underground lab map that we play in v0.05, and the new contents after we escape and go in to city is in 0.06. They already done with some artworks and planning to realese v0.06 but suddenly they decide to change the suppose engine and re-work with their artwork so... until what we have now.
And did they decide to release v0.06 to public or only patreon "public"
 

dd209

Newbie
Aug 2, 2017
40
22
And did they decide to release v0.06 to public or only patreon "public"
My understanding from what has been said in the patreon updates is that they want to do a full public release (everyone) to show off their progress and new art assets. This is all hypothetical, of course. No idea when v0.06-based builds will be released to inner circle backers, let alone regular backers and finally the public release.
 

rhev

Member
Apr 29, 2017
157
746
Whooooooooooooooooahhhhh kayyyyyy here we go....

TLDR at bottom

Really enjoyed the two demos. Project seems to be very ambitious and I hope it comes together!
damn that's already more than a year without any update... this is starting to look like a dead project
I'm surprised people are still donating on their patreon considering they haven't put out any new content in over a year.
I just hope they don't make people to wait for another year for ver 0.06 =)) or i must wait v1.00 for the rest of my life
Ok, I've steadfastly avoided this thread for a while now, but I think it's time I chimed in on this.

I was a VERY VERY early supporter of this game, I don't know the numbers of course, but this game first launched on a now defunct website called Offbeatr (think kickstarter for adult games / projects). I was in early and Eromancer eventually moved over to patreon (smart move). For a while as he was building steam with the first few tech demos, showing beautiful static renders, he was telling everyone that it was a flat $10 per game version and that anyone who purchased two versions would receive the final game if they purchased at least two beta builds. His plan was to sell the final copy for $20, and so anyone who bought 2 or more of the beta builds would get the game for free when it was released. One of the reasons he said that he wanted to do it this way instead of a monthly fee was because he wanted to complete the game and get it out, and this would (in his mind) encourage him to keep putting out new beta builds.

I, believing in the project, and his statements at the time that he had no desire to milk the project paid for several of the early builds. I should be clear this was because I wanted to support the project and the direction that I believed he was going in.

I was in contact with eromancer quite frequently during the early days of the development cycle, and when the project started gaining some heat, he and I actually talked about how to continue to grow it and he and I spoke about coming onto the 'team' he was forming as the media manager. IE someone who would be in charge of driving traffic to the patreon. However I backed out after some very concerning responses from him and very long delays to very simple questions. It was around this time that I started to see a shift in his priorities from putting out a high quality game to a sort of "hey how much money can i make off this?" type of attitude.

I continued to support the project when he shifted the business model from $10 per release over to a flat monthly fee for FAR longer then I care to admit. However since I didn't throw all my money at him every month, I was dropped down into one of the 'pleb' teirs of support. I can tell you that instantly there became this division in people who supported, and that division was entirely how much money you were giving him. To the point where you couldn't / can't even message him any more unless you pay a lot of money.

I watched quietly, silently, because I had to, as the progress reports slowed down, down, down, and content dried up more and more to a bare trickle. Oh there were a lot of promises of what was coming, what was planned, but often what was shown was simply re-renders or new rendered graphics of previous backdrops / settings. Things that made no functional difference to progressing the game, but were things that could be released to the patreons as a 'see we're hard at work' !

Eventually Eromancer announced on the patreon that all the money for that month was going to building a brand new computer, so he could render much faster. This really rankled, but I still stuck with it. Maybe it's worth it, I told myself, we'll finally get faster updates and more content?

Nope.

If anything, after than that, the progress slowed even further. Twice or thrice a month text updates and maybe once a month single images released to patreons, just enough to keep the whistle wet. Finally, I upgraded my patreon pledge for a month and had to ask him. Hey man it's been (double digit) months since I started supporting you, and I've read everything you ever post, but I just have to ask, it seems like there hasn't been progress in the better part of the year. Do you still have the motto that you want to put this out? Is there any time frame? Any schedule for development?

What I got was an OBVIOUS form response. Something that was so clearly pre-written and copy / pasted that I realized I'm not the only one asking this question. So I had to cancel my patreon support, with more money spent on this game then any triple A title put out by a major game studio.

This was.... what.... almost 2 years ago I think? Maybe a year and a half? I don't recall exactly. Since then how much development has been done?

As for why everything is locked for non patreons, that's simple. If you're interested in the game, you might become a patreon. If you become a patreon, you might forget to cancel your recurring donations.

Honestly, I think the game will never be finished as long as patreons are paying eromancer as much as some people earn at a full time job. Why would it? If people are honestly throwing that much money at him and believing the 2-3 times a month bullshit updates... I'd do the same thing. Drag it out till there's no need to do it any more. Keep revamping the same old stuff and putting out just enough to keep people believing that you're spending time working on it. Release a beautiful render once in a while. Then sit back and cash the checks.

When you compare the amount of time versus effort put in on this project and compare it to something like summertime saga, you realize that the only explanation is that Eromancer is dragging his feet and milking his patreons, and will continue to do so.

Sorry to drop the bad news like that, and I'm sure some people will disagree and rush to defend the game. But those are my experiences, and my thoughts.


TLDR: As an early supporter, and someone who was almost on his team, I believe that this game will never be complete and eromancer is milking patreons for money.
 

bigpenniser

Well-Known Member
Aug 7, 2016
1,910
2,572
Whooooooooooooooooahhhhh kayyyyyy here we go....

TLDR at bottom









Ok, I've steadfastly avoided this thread for a while now, but I think it's time I chimed in on this.

I was a VERY VERY early supporter of this game, I don't know the numbers of course, but this game first launched on a now defunct website called Offbeatr (think kickstarter for adult games / projects). I was in early and Eromancer eventually moved over to patreon (smart move). For a while as he was building steam with the first few tech demos, showing beautiful static renders, he was telling everyone that it was a flat $10 per game version and that anyone who purchased two versions would receive the final game if they purchased at least two beta builds. His plan was to sell the final copy for $20, and so anyone who bought 2 or more of the beta builds would get the game for free when it was released. One of the reasons he said that he wanted to do it this way instead of a monthly fee was because he wanted to complete the game and get it out, and this would (in his mind) encourage him to keep putting out new beta builds.

I, believing in the project, and his statements at the time that he had no desire to milk the project paid for several of the early builds. I should be clear this was because I wanted to support the project and the direction that I believed he was going in.

I was in contact with eromancer quite frequently during the early days of the development cycle, and when the project started gaining some heat, he and I actually talked about how to continue to grow it and he and I spoke about coming onto the 'team' he was forming as the media manager. IE someone who would be in charge of driving traffic to the patreon. However I backed out after some very concerning responses from him and very long delays to very simple questions. It was around this time that I started to see a shift in his priorities from putting out a high quality game to a sort of "hey how much money can i make off this?" type of attitude.

I continued to support the project when he shifted the business model from $10 per release over to a flat monthly fee for FAR longer then I care to admit. However since I didn't throw all my money at him every month, I was dropped down into one of the 'pleb' teirs of support. I can tell you that instantly there became this division in people who supported, and that division was entirely how much money you were giving him. To the point where you couldn't / can't even message him any more unless you pay a lot of money.

I watched quietly, silently, because I had to, as the progress reports slowed down, down, down, and content dried up more and more to a bare trickle. Oh there were a lot of promises of what was coming, what was planned, but often what was shown was simply re-renders or new rendered graphics of previous backdrops / settings. Things that made no functional difference to progressing the game, but were things that could be released to the patreons as a 'see we're hard at work' !

Eventually Eromancer announced on the patreon that all the money for that month was going to building a brand new computer, so he could render much faster. This really rankled, but I still stuck with it. Maybe it's worth it, I told myself, we'll finally get faster updates and more content?

Nope.

If anything, after than that, the progress slowed even further. Twice or thrice a month text updates and maybe once a month single images released to patreons, just enough to keep the whistle wet. Finally, I upgraded my patreon pledge for a month and had to ask him. Hey man it's been (double digit) months since I started supporting you, and I've read everything you ever post, but I just have to ask, it seems like there hasn't been progress in the better part of the year. Do you still have the motto that you want to put this out? Is there any time frame? Any schedule for development?

What I got was an OBVIOUS form response. Something that was so clearly pre-written and copy / pasted that I realized I'm not the only one asking this question. So I had to cancel my patreon support, with more money spent on this game then any triple A title put out by a major game studio.

This was.... what.... almost 2 years ago I think? Maybe a year and a half? I don't recall exactly. Since then how much development has been done?

As for why everything is locked for non patreons, that's simple. If you're interested in the game, you might become a patreon. If you become a patreon, you might forget to cancel your recurring donations.

Honestly, I think the game will never be finished as long as patreons are paying eromancer as much as some people earn at a full time job. Why would it? If people are honestly throwing that much money at him and believing the 2-3 times a month bullshit updates... I'd do the same thing. Drag it out till there's no need to do it any more. Keep revamping the same old stuff and putting out just enough to keep people believing that you're spending time working on it. Release a beautiful render once in a while. Then sit back and cash the checks.

When you compare the amount of time versus effort put in on this project and compare it to something like summertime saga, you realize that the only explanation is that Eromancer is dragging his feet and milking his patreons, and will continue to do so.

Sorry to drop the bad news like that, and I'm sure some people will disagree and rush to defend the game. But those are my experiences, and my thoughts.


TLDR: As an early supporter, and someone who was almost on his team, I believe that this game will never be complete and eromancer is milking patreons for money.
I actually believe it will be complete... Except with an exact definition of complete, and not what you expected it to be when the promise of the game at 20 bucks was still up or when I found about the game (that probably was as long ago as when you started donating).
What is that exact definition? I honestly think that they are going to release 2, 3 maps like the one on the demo refering to length tops, and that is what the game is going to be.
It is a shame really, because this game could have been really good, but when they announced they were basically remaking the game, it smelled too much like it was just so they didn't have to create anything new. And the fact that they already pushed back the release of a new demo to release that "battle test" only reinforces that thought.
 
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Reactions: rhev

stoper

Well-Known Member
Game Developer
May 4, 2017
1,104
6,897
Bailed out the moment they went to monthly support, I was just worried the steady flow of cash would tempt them to abuse the system and get lazy. Since then this has become an obvious scam. With all the talk about re-building the engine, new art assets, new mechanics, the author going berserk on ULMF, when a simple show of work-in-progress would've defended his point...
Don't get me wrong, if you think he deserves your money, go for it. But if you really believe there is a development team working hard on the game in this past year, then you are an absolute fool.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rhev

dd209

Newbie
Aug 2, 2017
40
22
the author going berserk on ULMF, when a simple show of work-in-progress would've defended his point...
Do you have a link for this?

Re: rhev's points, I have no idea about the personal stuff mentioned between he and Eromancer, but as another early backer who got sick of the lack of progress and unsubbed for a long time I definitely identify with his feelings about how the game's progress seemed to get slower and slower, despite repeated claims that the "behind the scenes" work would eventually speed things up.

That said, I resubbed very recently and I'll keep backing for another 2 months to see how things go. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up let down again, but whatever. Live and learn. I really hope things work out as it's by far No. 1 on my wishlist for these games.
 

Danlorn

Member
Game Developer
Dec 25, 2017
435
1,274
I'm reading all this stuff here and starting to feel really sad. The game seemed to be soooo promising and fresh, female characters looks very sexy and unusual, decent gameplay, cool scenes, and really awesome atmosphere and ost. And now it looks like the project turned out into milking machine. Damn it Eromancer! Shame on you!
Really, what's wrong with some people on Patreon? They have talent, ideas and resourcers, and most importantly the eager to create something. But then instead of making something interesting, new and fresh, they start milking patreons and being lazy and peevish. Spoiled cunts :(
 

156_163_146_167

Engaged Member
Jun 5, 2017
3,138
2,501
Really, what's wrong with some people on Patreon?
I think it's a flaw with the Patreon system, to be honest. People can just ask a certain amount of money every month, and as long as people stay pledged, their motivation to actually deliver something will dwindle. Why would you actually release something when you could not and earn money for longer?
 

Archast

Active Member
Game Developer
Aug 6, 2016
526
1,908
I think it's a flaw with the Patreon system, to be honest. People can just ask a certain amount of money every month, and as long as people stay pledged, their motivation to actually deliver something will dwindle. Why would you actually release something when you could not and earn money for longer?
To be fair that's a problem with human nature, we're greedy bastards. Patreon is a way to give a bit of money to help an artist/dev/whatever, it was never a store where you'd pay for something in return, the rewards are there to motivate fans (as patreon puts it).

But, and that's a big but, if you promise something you have to deliver, and if you fans are expecting updates you should give it to them, not empty promises. Aside all of that I really hope to see this project finishing, it was one of the first I played and it surely motivated me to start my own game, so it will always have a special place in my heart.
 

lilithcp

Member
Jun 10, 2017
119
125
I have been milked for 15$, I don't know why they have to take so much time,maybe half or one whole year to release a new chapter,what the hell
 
3.70 star(s) 9 Votes