- Jun 6, 2021
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I'd milk the shit out of my Patrons too if they're completely fine with 10 minutes worth of content every 3 months lol
Unreal Engine Subverse [v0.9] [Studio Fow]
I'd milk the shit out of my Patrons too if they're completely fine with 10 minutes worth of content every 3 months lol
- Jun 6, 2017
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he is a paid shill you can ignore all his posts
My main issue with the 4 year (3.5 if you feel so inclined) development cycle is that from what we can tell, (a lot hinges on 1.0 naturally) it has not been 4 years of efficient development or even time well spent. We had the debacles with terrible community engagement and the whole china thing in the first 18 months or so, which credit where credit is due, they did improve on with the dev diaries, but when you look at the actual game it is really hard to shake the impression that they either bit off more than they could chew or have completely mismanaged a confused vision from the outset. What we have is a mix of a very shallow xcom clone and a slightly more in depth twinstick scroller. They haven't added much depth to the actual gameplay systems despite a lot of vague promises about doing so, this could change in future but the foundational gameplay here is just pretty mediocre (obviously enjoyment is subjective but the lack of depth is not).
Then we have the porn which is meant to be the main selling point of the game, whilst they have maintained fairly high (if sometimes inconsistent, but EA so whatever) production quality, their actual management of the content has been messy to say the least. The whole point of ongoing early access updates is to provide content that players actually want to engage with, giving some girls 3x the pandora scenes of others and then deciding to hold back all pandora content for final release is a bad choice from a marketing and player engagement perspective and speaks to several uncomfortable possibilities. Like you said they only took 1 batch of funding and whilst I'm sure they have found ways to secure more money behind the scenes (this is normal) it may be running very thin and they simply haven't created enough content to both supply a drip feed of solid updates through EA as well as sufficient new content for the full launch. It was admirable for them to want to avoid the star citizen issue of ongoing milking but if they didn't sufficiently budget according to their first and only batch of public funding then the game was on shaky ground from the start and would explain a lot of what seem like wider internal management issues at FOW.
The problem with comparing Subverse to other games is that it doesn't really even know what it wants to be to begin with. This is not mass effect with porn like initial marketing wanted to position it as. It isn't a low prod value VN with some porn stapled on either. It isn't Xcom, or The Ascent. It occupies a weird middle ground with a confused design philosophy that has clearly taken a toll on development and it is all well and good to say it has raised the bar for you, but in terms of actual comparison there is no bar to be raised because you cannot make apples to apples comparisons to any other game, since it doesn't know what it is in the first place. What Subverse does well it does really well: the character designs are great, it commits very hard to its writing approach (whether you like that or not), and has a fairly cohesive aesthetic (despite the assets taken from Paragon lol), FOW are good at visual storytelling and so is Subverse but as a game it falters on so many levels that I struggle to see what 1.0 can do to meaningfully fix that.
- Jan 21, 2023
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Don't think we'd ever hear entirely how development goes. Devs don't usually go into details like that until after the game is done. There were some hurdles for sure, like the pandemic starting by the end of 2019 and making life difficult for everyone. I can imagine it was even for a team that's divided around the world and not focused in a singular workplace. As for the China thing, I wouldn't call that too big a deal. It basically boiled down to FOW picking one form of Chinese for translation, China having a fit and review bombing the game, and FOW capitulated and agreeing to do both versions of China.
Gameplay wise it is not meant to evoke XCOM vibes (people just naturally click to that because its the most well-known one), its more evocative of the Final Fantasy Tactics games (so much so that one of the older dev blogs talking about it is named Tactics Ass-Vanced, a ref to the GBA game Tactics Advance). It isn't meant to be complex, they've said as much during the early stages, the gameplay was designed to be simple, its their first game after all. Even so there's been plenty of feedback regarding difficulty. While it might seem shallow or easy to you, it may not be the case for everyone. It definitely isn't Mass Effect, which they never claimed it to be, that was articles writing about it.
Regarding Pandora, this is a bit of an oddball topic, because as much as I see comments on it, either complaining about their length (5-second gifs, like we're in the tumblr age of smut), or the content not being connected to the game, they still want to see the rest of it. Personally I knew things wouldn't go smoothly when the game launched with about 8-10 scenes for the first 3 gals and that's all we had for 7 months. It wasn't a great first impression, I knew that much. While more scenes were added up to Taron (her amount was a side effect of working on the experimental 360 scene in her mission. Which proved to be more hassle than its worth), around Sova's update they decided to change their release strategy. So each update purely focused on the new lady in question, and added a sizable amount of their scenes to start. As for why the rest hasn't been added I'd say is about the same reason why they didn't add the costumes they've been teasing for several diaries now, you gotta save for the end. Adult game or not, if they gave you every scene except for the devotion quests before the main game is complete, you wouldn't feel as inclined to replay the entire game again only for the cinematic scenes that lay buried in the game files.
That they're having the save files wiped upon 1.0's launch is a good sign that the game that comes out of early access is not liable to be the same thing we've been testing out the last few years. The progression system is changing to lessen the grind, planet missions and descriptors are being redone, as is the dating system in the bar. Coupling that with the number of costumes teased, the length of the devotion cinematics, and there still being another waifu with her own scenes to add to the rest in the future afterward, its gonna be quite the substantial update when that day comes.
I agree with some of your premises but it doesn't do much to change the situation. I reference Xcom because most people have not played FF:T or Tactics Ogre, which I know are the primary points of reference. The issue of shallowness (which is not the same as difficulty) remains and is not subjective. If people enjoy the gameplay for its simplicity that's great for them, but a lot of people have complained about it so it's certainly worth discussion. The Mass Effect comparison is fair because whilst FOW never directly discussed it, the early marketing and game itself is full of references both indirect and direct, its an unavoidable comparison even though obviously a game of Subverse's scale should never really be expected to be comparable, but they walked into that trap with their own marketing decisions and use of terms like "revolutionary" and other general hyperbole.
You are right about community response to Pandora, it has taken a long time for people to accept it for what it is (you even still see occasional comments about camera control, even though FOW have been very up front about that not happening and why exactly it won't be happening). But I fear a lot of the cognitive dissonance in the community is a direct result of the poisoned chalice of bad marketing choices early, a confused design, constantly changing approach to early access content drops etc. As unfair as the community has been at times, FOW has laid so many traps for themselves it is a bit embarrassing to watch.
Regarding distribution of content. Yes of course they need to hold back stuff for 1.0, I think not showing the full devotion cinematics was the correct decision both design and business wise. That does not explain the lack of pandora content though, Pandora is a core driver of engagement throughout the early access process, to stop releasing content for it is directly harmful to that process and the only reason you would do it was if you did not have enough content to provide both satisfying amounts for EA updates as well as 1.0. All evidence points towards them having a severe resource crunch and needing to shift content to 1.0 in order to drive sales, something they can only do if 1.0 is a decent value proposition = has enough porn.
If we are to believe that there is no resource issue, then they decided to consciously tank the appeal of EA updates for *some* reason other than a resource issue, which requires us to disregard all the evidence to the contrary. I don't know man that is too many hoops for me to jump through mentally, I really hope I am wrong and 1.0 comes out and is everything you have suggested it will be, but it is just blind hope in spite of evidence at this point.
- Oct 15, 2017
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I have been waiting for a long time to see this promising game ends its EA. I hope Fow can make it before 2025.
There's nothing new you can't see in the base game already, nothing featuring other characters.
- Jan 21, 2023
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Blythe’s content ends with a scene of ‘wrap everything else cuz the final stuff is coming’ line. So we’re not there yet. It’s expected by the end of the year
Still a few months, we should be around 95% completion. Only the "ending" (I mean broadly, like I hope it's not just a single mission) is missing because they focused on devotion quests first. Probably before 2025 we should get the full game.
I sincerely hope we'll get some stuff even later, like some more Pandora scenes. I don't even care if it's just some already existing scenes but with different characters.
Having no scenes with the queen is just messed up unless they have something special for the ending which I doubt
- Jul 28, 2020
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The queen? You mean Celestina? She's technically an empress which is higher than a queen :3
- Jun 1, 2022
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- Feb 4, 2017
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Considering they were mostly know for gang rape videos before this, I have to admit I'm surprised they actually managed some semblance of a plot and gameplay.
So let me get this straight, Studio FOW which before starting work on this game was mostly just known for making porn animations (and pretty decent ones too) didn't put enough porn animations in this game they've been making for years?
But why? Also why is this game so fat?
But why? Also why is this game so fat?
- Jan 21, 2023
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No they've been holding onto the rest of them for the 1.0 release. You don't need to test out the smut in an early access game.
As for the game size, that's down to the game having 1080p and 4k cinematic files in it.
- Mar 17, 2023
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that must be hours upon hours of footage then for it to balloon up to 50gb, unless it's actually uncompressed... Which would be extremely dumb.
But not as dumb as letting the opinion of them and their game go down the drain by holding back most of their hentai animations for the final release of the game, now THAT is some real low-iq shit right there, so low-iq in fact that I just kinda don't believe you, i will probably play this at 1.0 anyways, but you know, pressing x to doubt here.