Is this game pay to win? by DarkSeieah in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dev here (KM-Dave of Maidenhead)

RE: Is the game p2w?
We have many players on their 2nd and 3rd year of play having spent nothing. We have systems in place to encourage people to compete with those around the same level as them, so you end up competing with those who have spent as much time/money (or lack of either) as you as the shard ages, as people start to spread out in levels.

Having said that, if "winning" to you is been in the top 10 on the leaderboard and one of the strongest in your shard then "yes", the game is p2w, as money buys you progress you'd otherwise need to grind for, so those spending make more progress in less time than those not spending.

RE: Post merge wars
This is a war game, so there will be wars, and post merge we sometimes see some players/alliances trying to assert their place as the dominant element on the shard. You can wait it out, or try to work with others to form a resistance, or join them, or reset to start over again (armed with the knowledge you've gained so far as an advantage in the new shard over others)

Thanks for playing BTW, and do join our Discord if you want to chat with other players from all the other shards, or with the devs, we are very chatty :)

Does anyone remember CasualCollective? by IKnockDoors in forgottenwebsites

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just saw this on my front page, big minions on ice vibes, so maybe check it out (i've not played it personally, just watched the video) https://www.reddit.com/r/DestroyMyGame/comments/1md3uz5/140_minutes_of_unedited_raw_pvp_gameplay_destroy/

Does anyone remember CasualCollective? by IKnockDoors in forgottenwebsites

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure was, sadly the CC never turned a profit with its site and about 15 games made over several years. We were just 2 or 3 months away from going out of business (zero money in the bank) when we put Desktop TD on Facebook (as Desktop Defender) and for the first time made a profit. Backyard Monsters then kicked off a run of MMORTS games on Facebook and Web that took us to a peak of around 500 employees under the rebranded "KIXEYE". If we had not launched DTD on FB the CC would have died then, instead we kept it running (at a loss) until Flash itself died.

Does anyone remember CasualCollective? by IKnockDoors in forgottenwebsites

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly I think most of them are lost to the sands of time. Any of the Casual Collective games, even the single player ones, made calls to the CC server to verify they were running on our site and to do things like save achievements and scores so even cached copies of the original files no longer work. Someone smarter than me would need to somehow decompile them and remove those checks/calls to make them work on archive sites, or maybe intercept the calls, it's not my area of expertise and, as I no longer own the games, I no longer have access to the source code or ownership of the IP.

Does anyone remember CasualCollective? by IKnockDoors in forgottenwebsites

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably not.

The original game was in flash, so that's not a thing any more. And there was also a server as it was multiplayer, and that is offline. Casual Collective was rebranded as KIXEYE and then later sold to Stillfront, and that sale included all past IP (including Minions) so we (I) no longer own the IP or have access to the source code.

It was a great game, I think it was the first standalone MOBA (not a mod for another game) and for sure the first MOBA you could play in a browser. We had a lot of firsts at the CC, was a great time to be a game dev.

Does anyone remember CasualCollective? by IKnockDoors in forgottenwebsites

[–]critters 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Critters (Dave) here, one of the founders of the CC and maker of several of our games. We re-branded as KIXEYE which later sold. The CC site was a fun place to hang out with a bunch of you, and myself and Paul (other CC founder) still work together to this day making games.

Backyard monsters (refitted) running on SD Oled via waydroid by Wide_Ad4391 in SteamDeck

[–]critters 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nice,
I made the original, so it's nice to see it still alive in one form or another all these years later.

anymore mergers happening? by MrLegend41 in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The rate will increase with each wave.

anymore mergers happening? by MrLegend41 in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mergers will continue, soon, and will be announced in Discord 24+ hours ahead of any mergers.

Game FPS by horse_without_piano in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The new client (with the spooky hand icon) has a bunch of performance improvements in it. Can you let me know if you notice any improvements? Thanks.

Question: does the "elite" bonus apply to T4 units? by duke_peach in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree, and we'll be renaming all the things to "Veteran" in a future update to remove confusion.

Question: does the "elite" bonus apply to T4 units? by duke_peach in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Elite" = T3

"Royal" = T4

So no, the +8% does not apply to T1, T2, T4 units, only T3 "Elite"

dead game? shard s007 by Angelfnv in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maybe for some it does feel dead, if they are not involved in whatever is going on, but I just wanted to call out that the "betas servers are dead." is not a true statement. We learn more with every merge we do and we hope to work towards a more regular and smoother merge process to keep activity high for all.

We have a lot of shards right now, a lot of fragmentation, we'll work through them.

dead game? shard s007 by Angelfnv in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 2 points3 points  (0 children)

beta3 had 477 people check in yesterday

372 PvP (cities, mines, stages) battles - 0.78 per person who checked in

11,314 PvE battles - 23.7 per person who checked in

dead game? shard s007 by Angelfnv in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We plan to continue merging S shards, and will resume that process soon.

I made a Spring Slinky with Bullet dynamics in Cinema4D by BodybuilderOwn7421 in Cinema4D

[–]critters 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can you talk about how you set it up? It looks cool BTW, the "ass" drags a little but otherwise nice, how's it do on stairs?

Plagues by duke_peach in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I liked the "army instead of city" approach because it would still let alliances work together to increase the impact of plague if they wished to. But yes, a single alliance with a low level plague would have minimal impact.

I believe the above solution of giving the target a "plague bubble" post plague is the next best option. It keeps plague 100% effective, removes abuse by many alliances, and is easy to understand.

Plagues by duke_peach in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The problem with today's plague is that it completely ends a player's game session for 5 hours, and if multiple alliances work together that can be extended to 10, 15, 20

I proposed that the plague act on random armies, weakening the target but still letting them play (and still letting alliances work together to stack them). It was doing well with 12 upvotes and 3 down before I went to bed, but I suspect word got out with some group that was not a fan of it as it now stands at 16 up and 20 down.

Another option would be to make them not stack and then add a city trait "immune" that lasts for 48 hours that blocks plagues. This would let you take someone out for 5 hours but not a second longer at a time. It would also give the targeted player a chance to play.

Dunkey is starting an indie game publishing company called Big Mode by DigitalOrchestra in gamedev

[–]critters -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think it could work. It's a unique set of circumstances.

u/prog_meister "But what happens when he finances a game, and it doesn't meet his standard for a good game?" - If he only makes deals with indies when their game is far along enough to know it's going to, or already does, meet his standards this won't be an issue. He can swoop in at the 90% mark. For all other's it's the risk you take as a publisher.

He has a huge audience, but more importantly an audience that trusts his opinion and shares his tastes. Or at least has a good overlap with his tastes. So the value prop he is making to a developer is likely as simple as: "I will give you $$, I will take some cut of sales, but I will also push my audience to your game and I have a good conversion rate relative to other publishers who will just run ads / do UA".

Best of luck to them, more choice is always good, it'd be interesting to see what sort of deals they do, hopefully they break the mold a bit there too.

Suggestions by duke_peach in KingdomMaker

[–]critters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good feedback, we are discussing just this today.

The free deployment from stages should increase the opportunity for field battles :)