Influx of negative review dispute

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Hi, my name is Arend de kok. i’ve played 140~ hours of this game through development and here’s my piece.

From when i first heard of this game from a friend she described it as such
“Really fun, but buggy”

at that instant i was aware the game wasn’t gonna be without it’s flaws (and lets face it, no game is wether it’s bugs or ingame purchases, the way mechanics work etc.)

every couple of months when she played, i would check in with her, and she would tell me about all the improvements and occasionaly things that had yet to be fixed (that by now have been fixed to what i believe to the best of their abilities)

I eventually decided to buy in i think early 2018 (Jan) or maybe even November/December 2017.
and i had a good time for a couple of hours and ran into some issues, i wasn’t to perterbed as i was expecting it. nothing gamebreaking mind you.

Than i did come across some game-breaking bugs (The infamous Campfire idling bug). and decided to pop in the game-menu and click submit bug. got me here, and i posted my issue, WITHIN 20 MINUTES, i got my first response by a radiant representative, inquiring about the problem and asked me to upload my save. And so i did, The very next build fixed this bug. (i imagine it was about 4 days from submitting to solution),

i was astounded by the speed.

Now at release, all over the place i see tons of negative criticism by people who were less gracefull in handling bugs, blame the devs, and resort to what i call “kickstarter harassment” and there’s a reason i quote that, as it bears more meaning than one might think.

I define kickstarter harassment as Undeserved harassment using strawmen examples of what’s happened on kickstarter in the past, projects truely misrepresenting themselves and abandoned. Neither being the case for stonehearth.

Yes content was cut
Yes not every “promise” could be lived up to
Yes there were outside influences which put a deadline on the project

Now start to think, any game you’ve ever played, has content been cut?
without a doubt.
Have promises been broken
maybe not every game, but alot of them forsure, and it’s not always ended in tears.
did the devs willingfully walk away from the project
NO, alot of people seem to forget, not all of the dev team had a choice in the matter to begin with. i’m willing to bet alot of them would’ve loved to work on the game longer, but alas.

In the end, they delivered something along the lines of in my mind, a minecraft situation, a base game with stuff to do (arguably more than minecraft), and a great extent of moddability, which can expand the game beyond even the promises that couldn’t have been kept! no one bitched about minecraft releasing 1.0 atleast not as much as people are bitching about Stonehearth now. and in the current state, it’s a great platform to build off of.

I guess after all this, what i’m trying to say is BE HAPPY with what you’ve got, it is my sincere belief the devs did their best as long as they could. and they delivered a foundation to be built upon further, thats more than most games can offer.

stop deterring people who haven’t been “lied” to, from experiencing the game they could’ve loved, if it wasn’t for your upset feelings about how “you didnt get what you deserved”, kickstarter promises matter fuckall to people who buy in new post-release. so stop trying to make them matter.

Amazing job people at radiant, i wish you a great future ahead and you should be proud of what you’ve made!

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People that didn’t even play the game (reviews with less than 10 hours, where none of those were played in the last month), just ignore, next month they are not even going to remember it. They are all behaving like cattle, following the “trend” to hate on something that they didn’t even care about.

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As it works. This forum is pretty stable in regards to the hatred and venom to the game. Everyone in this forum came here because it was the main place to talk to the devs and fix issues. The people here helped build the game just as much as the devs did… So it make sense that none for that is on the Stonehearth Discourse, for the most part. However on steam and Kickstart, the people rave and rage because they don’t actually understand the process or even a fraction of the story and, as @BrunoSupremo stated, .any of them are just hopping on the bandwagon to hate the game. I agree with everything you are saying, but we don’t seem to have much of a problem here on the discourse. We are all working together to work and make the game better, even after the devs are gone. And it makes sense as to why we are like that. :stuck_out_tongue:

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You know when you put your hand in your pockets and find a money bill that you had forgotten it was there for a long time? And then that sudden happiness you feel as if you had “gained” money?

Many of those people are feeling the opposite. You can see that many - if not most - of them are people that backed the project long ago and just forgot about it due to their lack of involvement. Back then they already considered it “money wasted” and just never thought about it again. However with the recent developments, new Kickstarter mails and messages have been sent and “woke up” all the unsatisfied people from their slumber, reminding them of their “wasted money” - giving them that bitter and angry feeling. So they took a minute of their lives to go on and hate on the game again, without ever really even giving it a chance, getting involved as many of us did and trying to understand things from different angles other than their own pockets.

Unfortunately that’s the way it is, they’re not bad or wrong, they just went a different (and more mean) way :frowning:

It made me super sad the other day when I was reading the credits and started noticing a lot of people that used their “Name in credits” space to put phrases like “These devs are horrible”, “This game sucks”, “Money wasted”, etc;

Honestly, @Team Radiant – you all have no obligation at all to give voice to such hate-spreaders :stuck_out_tongue: Since stuff has been cut and promises have been broken already anyway, just embrace it and cut these offenses from the credits list :smiley:

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i have checked the credits and there isnt any off this - thats their normal kickstarternames xD also i think their are only the kickstarter names and not of the paypal supporter from the start

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I’m pretty sure I read stuff like this on that huge list of credits, though maybe with different wording there was definitely specific messages about Stonehearth disappointment.

Maybe it was removed already (I checked it right after it was added :stuck_out_tongue: )

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i have the version from the first 1.0 release ^^ and their are only kickstarternames: Most HateD, I-HaTeD2, dont @ me, Estimated delivery Dec 2013

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Looking again, found one called “2013, 2018, same thing” Stonehearth Dev Team (or something like that)

I did get an e-mail asking me how I wish my name was displayed in the credits, so I don’t think it’s usernames :stuck_out_tongue:

edit:
and if it is, then these people must be really upset to change their usernames to direct messages to Stonehearth :joy:

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Just found “F**ckThisGame.5YearsLate”

That’s what I’m talking about :glum:

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oh ok ^^ havent get this email because i have supported via paypal on kickstater (no creditcard - its not normal and needed in germany xD)

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ok i will deleted them in my creditslist ^^ its already changed so that all form the special thanks list with a special name on discourse have them their also xD

just founded: lolisthisgamestillalive

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“I want my money back”, “I was disappointed”, “Outdated” – I mean… These could definitely be removed, no reason for TR to give voice to these people after all they’ve been through :heart:

Not saying they don’t have the right to be disappointed (of course they do) but that’s not how you point it out, it just makes the credit list ugly :<

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idno, i’m not really thinking along the lines of, they’re wrong, the game is great, it’s more like, dont hate the game cuz you refuse to acknowlige the “glass half full” perspective.

the main argument i get infuriated by is “these promised things didnt get put in >:c”

and i will say, it’s a relatable argument, i’m sad-ish not everything made it in, but at the same time, there must be a good reason for every piece of cut content, and especially with kickstarters, i personally expect cut content, cuz overpromising is an easy thing, and not realising the magnitude of certain promises is alot easier when you build your own engine (that’s a badly worded compliment if ever i heard one)

I’m not not all for “lets hate the devs cuz rabble”
I’m more along the lines of “happy we got what we got in the end could’ve been a whole lot worse”

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I’m pretty sure that some shall we say… statistically anomalous stuff is going on in the steam reviews. If you want to strike a blow for truth and justice, I’d ask you to go and upvote genuinely helpful reviews (both positive and negative) instead of what looks to me like angry ranting. On the whole though, I try to remember that the real value of the game is to people who actually play it not to people who want to merely have an opinion about it.

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what i dont understand … all the crying because there are some promised things not in the game - but i have never seen so much cryies when a politican dont hold any of their promises? and i know lots of this politicans xD

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i personally suspect its because of Kickstarter reputation, being infamous for abandoned projects, and i fear it’s a reputation they will never shed, so any piece of cut content in backers eyes = heresy

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I wrote my steam review after my first 4,5 hours, and despite bugs i had no problem giving it the recommended tag.

it just frustrates me that people see the “recent reviews” tag and think “oh no, better read the reviews” and then they get a biased done of anger chucked in their faces rather than an objective view of the game and what to expect going forward.

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There are just heaps of folks out there who don’t know what professional work means in terms of cost, time and quality. And that failures, even partial ones, don’t necessarily mean they’re being scammed. Instead they feel wronged by what’s essentially life how it goes sometimes. But yelling at clouds doesn’t feel as satisfying because someone surely is always to blame, right? And god beware you make false promises. See No Man’s Sky. Hard to argue with them if they’re out for blood and feel like their surely and unmistakably on the right side. So, better ignore them altogether, I’d say, it’s healthier that way.

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For your example No Mans Sky it was a deep impact … but i dont understand the lots of people who have send them threats and death threats … that was really really really to much - and i can understand why they have contacted the police to protect them

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Yep, totally blown out of proportion. Social media in a nutshell.

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