5 Years Later... Still No Year 2?

[Legate of Mineta]

Well, whatever it may be, it looks like we'll have to go on to Greenlight- you are definitely right, though, we're scrambling behind the scenes to set up the campaign. It won't be long, maybe next week, although we won't have a video.

[Schwarzbart]

Irks then better put up the guide video we had way back as no video will give you negative votes by default from many people!

Beside if I remember right a application require 1 video and at a minimum of screenshots, even if you get trough without this at moment it not means the people at valve wont take action at some point.

[freespace2dotcom]

Better safe than sorry!

[Albert]

Tbh, a new game would probably be the best for Greenlight if you have to go that route, it would be more likely to get you the sales numbers you need than a game that's been around for years.

I honestly think Year 2 would be the best candidate as long as it's also new player friendly. Since it's new and could get you the Sales numbers Steam would want. It might not want the order you want to publish your games, but it might be what works best your future Steam sales and "Future sales".

 

Maybe a combines Academagia 1 & 2 pack, as an alternative, I've seen a few such offers on Steam, it might make it an easier sale.

These people are sales people and economists, they will look at the numbers and it would be in your best interest to figure out how to get those numbers so that future releases are guaranteed to reach the massmarket.

 

But it better be ready for primetime if you go that route

 

Just some thoughts, it's down to you and the team ofcourse Maybe you should have a talk about the marketplans seeing as things change and things might not have been what you thought they were.

But normaly, what you truly need, is somethign new and fresh that becommes a hit, perhaps even with a great offer on the side. = Salesnumbers = Respect. = future business

[Metis]

If this Greenlight will be the one chance you get to get Y1 up on Steam before having to throw something else entirely or Y2 at it it'd be prudent to do it right, even if it takes a bit. As for video, I don't think the old one should be used. It's outdated, IIRC it's riddled with errors, and if the UI has indeed been updated for Steam it's going to be nothing short of completely unrecognisable. I don't know how hard it is for a member of the Team or...someone they know to record a video, but if one is required a new one is required. I'd take a stab at it myself but I haven't recorded anything in years, nothing's set up for it and I'm pretty sure an old no-cares-given swearing sailor isn't quite what the team is looking for for what they nominally intent to be a kids friendly(-enough) game.

 

I guess if worst comes to worst you could try to put together a subtitled video rather than a live/post-commentated one, set to the classical music pieces the game actually uses for ingame music (which I'm pretty sure is all public domain stuff). Of course if the Team does that they'd better have a great excuse as to why not a single one of them or something they knew could do something as "simple" as the commentary thing (Hint: There's a difference in quality between what's acceptable for some random dude's hobby and a serious business' sales pitch, and while any fool with a microphone can record themselves only very few of those won't sound obnoxious or like they're about to die while doing so).

[isadorbg]

While it is unfortunate that Academagia also has to go through Greenlight. I am not too worried myself since even tough Academagia is quite old now I don't think it will underperform comapred to Sheherazade.

 

And who knows maybe it will be a good thing ? Greenlight may offer to the game some publicity that a direct release would not.

Trying to be optimist here.

[Schwarzbart]

I think funny as video could be someone disguised as the Headmaster, welcome the new student and introduce him/her to Academagia.

Starting with something like:

Welcome young one to your first year at the famous, if I'm allowed to say that as the Headmaster, school about the magic arts Academagia.

As mentioned I'm the Headmaster of this place of education and you might call me Professor Orsi.

Sadly there was a problem at our office and some info of your past are missing, that why I have called you personal to my office.

Lets fill out the missing papers together.

(open the Background screen and spend the points for some easy standard char that spend the points over 4-5 different pages)

Then some warning to not make trouble or spend to much on exploring or adventuring and end with introducing the video watcher to Oan who should take him/her to the dorm.

 

This way you not have to show much of the game as we all know Academagia is not the greatest thing to watch in a lets play.

[Metis]

I'm afraid that a video is going to have to show the UI no matter how you dress it up. That's kind of the point of the video, to show the game, and as visually uninteresting as it might be to stare at a UI for 99% of the time that's what the game is. I was personally thinking more along the lines of a standard tutorial video, but if the Steam version's UI got changed than that's something the Team is going to have to do, because anything the players might make is going to be rendered irrelevant from the word go.

[Schwarzbart]

I have to disagree with you here Metis as I saw not so few who got greenlight with a video showing nothing about the game it self.

[Metis]

Undeniably, but I prefer to pretend that I still live in an age where that is called "false advertising" and not "gateway to the everflowing wells of fools' money".

[Schwarzbart]

The problem is that this game is actual better shown in picture then in video and if you have to add a video for greenlight then best keep the game at last partial out of it.

[Metis]

Entirely true, though I have no idea of what you'd make a video of that'd be relevant to the game without showing the actual game.

[dyrhet]

Aren't greenlight videos usually more like trailers? So just put a bunch of the game artwork to music, add some captions about making friends, going on adventures, etc.

[Metis]

That could work, but I have no idea how you'd put that together.

[Albert]

What made me buy the game in the first place was the descriptive text of the Game. I actually got intrigued by the great variety of things you could do in the game. Including Crafting, which was minimal in Year 1 but still there to some degree and it was there for some adventures.

What puts this game appart from a lot of other games is the scope of Adventures, random events and the amount of skills and choices you can make and the amount of students you can interact with.

 

Some people might get scared of the massive amounts of text but I personaly love it.

 

But, truly, proper marketing and a sound business plan is imporant here. No idea how many business oriented people you got at BCS. But this is imporant, I want you to suceed, and I want more games from you people!

 

It's partialy like those old pen n paper roleplaying games with a bit of the Text adventure games of old and a bit of graphical novel, but the plot isn't entierly set and will play out somewhatdifferently based on your choices in the game and the random events will make each playthrough unique since you can't plan for them and they won't all show in every play through.

[Legate of Mineta]

Haha! I like the Headmaster approach, although it means we'd have to cast Orsi.

 

We're caught on the horns of a dilemma, but it may be that perhaps we should delay until we build a proper trailer. That part of the team, though, is presently working on a Secret Project (originally why we weren't going to have a video), but we'll see how it goes.

[Metis]

If you do go with the headmaster approach do me the Steam crowd, clearly the Steam crowd, a favor and have whatever roleplay happens reflect actual ingame roleplay. It'd be a bit silly to see a trailer present a situation that is entirely absent from the game itself (Hint: Naturally the trailer addresses the player, but no one says that it's the PC being addressed in-universe, right? I'm sure those three last-minute additions could have had some late-send documents get caught up in the bureaucracy ).

 

This is probably just going to paint me as an idiot in some way, shape or form , but if there's questions regarding what should and needs to be done for the Greenlight to work why not ask Steam itself? If anyone they ought to know what minimum requirements there are, what can help boost sales/exposure/what have you, and considering the cut they're getting they should have an interest in seeing Academagia succeed just as much as the Team does. There's even time for them to send a reply while that trailer is being set up.

[freespace2dotcom]

This sure seems like a boondoggle.

 

On one hand I certainly wouldn't mind Y1 on steam with a UI revamp. Especially since I know a lot of people are probably isolated from their bought copies due to the nature of digital distribution. Steam and the plan to give out keys to previous purchasers is a sound plan to alleviate that problem.

 

On the other, I kind of doubt that I'll play with Y1 and DLC 17 very substantially until Y2 comes out and thus gives more story rewards for different choices made within Y1, therefore, Y2 does seem like it should be roughly of equal importance to anything regarding Y1.

 

And finally, this situation means that we're going to have to go through this all over again when Y2 finally is ready for release. Legate, what is the plan for Y2's release? Are you going to wait until Steam would accept it, or would you release it other places first? I can tell you that after waiting so long, It would be extremely frustrating to know that Y2 is effectively ready but also not being released due to bureaucracy in publishing.

[Legate of Mineta]

Metis;

 

We have reached out to Steam- no response yet, though.

 

If we do cast Orsi, it will of course be in character.

 

The UI is partially revamped, actually- it's done and ready for the release. Essentially, the UI now scales, you can click and drag all the windows wherever you like them, and resize them, too. That's what was 'easily' portable to Y1.

 

For Y2, *evidently* sequels are automatic for new AppIDs. So, if Y1 is released on Steam, it should be no issue to release Y2 on Steam. Either way, of course, Y2 will release on BMT- I think if we truly had to wait on Steam with no certain timetable, we'd likely take that route.

[Metis]

Figures . 'Course Greenlight if not Steam itself isn't exactly an activity dead-zone, but that'd only make one think the relevant information would be somewhere easily noticeable and accessible.

 

Are those UI changes going to be Steam version exclusive, or will the changes be added to, like, the DLC 17 download or whatever so that non-Steam users get them too? I honestly can't say which I'd prefer since those UI changes are obviously going to require an updated .exe, but my class skipping bug requires an outdated one. And while I can live with the current UI...

 

You probably want to double-check that *evidently* before it becomes the next Academagia Team Timetable .

[Legate of Mineta]

Metis;

 

It will be for both Steam and non-Steam.

 

And yes, at this point, you have to check and double-check when it comes to Steam.

[DCid]

DLC 17! Noooo! Come back!!!... It was so close. So, so close... *whimpers*

[Schwarzbart]

We still can hope they make a more or less open Beta for DLC 17 so it not that far away as the steam release.

[Metis]

I don't think it was, really. DLC 17 might not have 4 new students worth of content to check, but there's certainly adventures and events galore all the same.

[EllestarRus]

 

 

The UI is partially revamped, actually- it's done and ready for the release. Essentially, the UI now scales, you can click and drag all the windows wherever you like them, and resize them, too. That's what was 'easily' portable to Y1.

 

 

 

 

 

That's nice but UI also requires some fast filters/favorites (different for each spell/action/whatever), suggestions (usually a list of relevant things, like locations that actually give some bonus for a current action, is VERY small, so game may as well color code it and sort it on top), tooltips for everything (so not to wander through interface so to check what some random thing does) and more information in general (for example, all lists should have some relevant data, not just names only) to make micromanaging... Let's say, not really painful.

 

You have waaaay too much content in the game to make it manageable without some interface help. And that content isn't self-describing, so to say. When you see "Barracks" or "Factory" in Civilization, you have a general idea what it should do. When you see things like "Hang Out With Oan", "Courtyard" or whatever, you can't really guess what it is, you need to actually remember thousands of things to play the game... Or check some other interface screen that actually has information you need every single time until you remember all these things.

 

I would say RPG system itself is not really optimal, but whatever.