Re-inventing the Wheel

[snabbott]

...or more likely, there would be no more episodes.

[kindofdoon]

Looking from the outside, I can see how people would say, "They spent 8 years, and this is all there is?"

The sad thing is that this is a very common misconception among people who do not follow the project but read about it on gaming websites. People just grab phrases like "after 8 years of development" and "download here" and then draw their own conclusions.

[snabbott]

Yeah - hopefully, they'll give the other episodes a try and redraw their conclusions.

[kindofdoon]

Ideally, yes. But in reality...

[Fierce Deity]

Ideally, yes. But in reality...

And what a reality it is. I wish everyone could look before they step, but apparently there's not enough time in a day to do so. I was quite bitter towards those who were quick to judge this game on Episode 1 alone, but after many debates and arguments, I have begun to see how people are viewing this project. In regard to many of their rebuttals, I have to sincerely reject their perspective for its lack of detail. When one argues that all of Episode 1 was a "waste of 8 years", it almost feels unfair to direct them to the Episode page to show them that there are five episodes in the making. C'est la vie.   

[wilco64256]

I think that the vast majority of people who disliked Episode 1 will at least give us a second chance with Episode 2 since we have been very vocal about it being a much lengthier (is that proper grammar? I'm no writer) and more adventure-game-type experience.  We're putting a tremendous amount of effort into really hitting things out of the park with Episode 2 and hope to regain a lot of interest from those who weren't impressed with the first episode.  We haven't really seen that many people say, "Episode 1 totally bombs and I'm never going to play any of the others."  What we have seen is, "Episode 1 wasn't quite what we were hoping for, Episode 2 better really seriously deliver."

[Lambonius]

"Episode 1 wasn't quite what we were hoping for, Episode 2 better really seriously deliver."

This seems to be the general consensus, yes. 

I love to criticize, but you know what?  I KNOW I'm going to like Episode 2 a lot better.  If for no other reason than a number of the issues that seriously irked me with the first episode simply aren't going to be present.  So for what that's worth...

[kindofdoon]

Once Episode 2 comes out and we can see the download figures, we will see how many people of the original 24K came back.

[KatieHal]

The downloads are actually over 30K by now. (That was the last number I knew, and it was a little while ago.)

[wilco64256]

We're at about 33,000.

[kindofdoon]

Thanks for the update. I didn't think that so many people would download the game after July 10th, but I was wrong.

[liggy002]

Yes, people are indeed not necessarily wrong in their opinions.  As was said by kindofdoon, people should just give the project a chance.  That is all I am saying.  People are entitled to their opinions and the team as well as others can only make the whole "wait for episode 2" point so many times.  There is no point in trying to make a pig sing.  Opinions will abound wildly in this creative business but what is most important here, in my own opinion, is that the game would experience enough success to maintain and even fuel interest in the adventure gaming genre.  From what i've seen, I love the game so far.  This is only a small fraction of what Phoenix Online Studios is capable of, but that's just my thought on the matter.