How to punch

[Jacktheawesome]

Gandalf can't help you now. We've been over this, no further lecturing is necessary. He's not a bad guy.

[Cavistus]

I want to try a game before I buy it. If I like the general idea, sure, I'll buy it.

I'm not, however, going to throw 30 dollars at something based on nothing more than youtube previews. There's no demo, no trial, nothing. Just little one minute videos on youtube.

An alpha state of the game is a perfect little taste of what's to come; a small "demo" for me to try out the game and see if I like it enough to put money towards it.

I like the game, but I can already see the community is utter shit, so it's a toss up for me.

I'll keep an eye on the game, though.

[Zelron]

That is a rather poor attitude.

[Jaz]

The community is awesome.

However, we probably won't accept you due to you being an asshole. So good luck with life!

[Endoperez]

You're not acting very awesome there, Jaz...

Cavistus, there might be a demo one day. However, the alpha shouldn't be a free test piece. If, once the game is ready, the alpha is the free thing people check out, they'll think the game is like the alpha. It will be much more, since it's no longer in alpha state.
The only way to stop this is to either not offer free alpha copies for test purposes (what they're doing now), and/or releasing a demo which shows off the full version features better (which they can do even if they don't give free alphas away).

[Cavistus]

The community is awesome.

However, we probably won't accept you due to you being an asshole. So good luck with life!

I've been going over these forums in the past couple days. You know, trying to find a bit of info on the game besides "it's bunnies and ninjas". However, every thread I've seen here where a non-preorderer asks for a bit of info, they get torn to pieces with responses like "Well if you PREORDER you can go into the SPF and actually find out". Rather than actually having their question answered, they get crucified on the forums, and I dunno about you, but that kinda makes me want to avoid the game altogether.

The secret preorder forum doesn't even make sense to begin with. Okay, there's a download to the game client there. But as you said, apparently you can't even use the client if you don't have a preorder key -- So there's no reason for the secret preorder forum to be secret.

I've taken a genuine interest in this game, and so have many others who are ready to lay down some cash on this. Normally, if you haven't bought a game yet, you'd do some research to see if the game is worth buying. You'd visit the forums and read what other people say about the game, and how it works, and read up on all of the new things planned for the future.

However that isn't the case here.

Here, all of that useful information is hidden away unless you pay money. Why does the information have to be hidden? There is no NDA on the game, as evidenced by the dozens of gameplay videos on Youtube. So there is no reason for the information to be hidden. It just pushes away potential buyers. I'm not going to be able to put forth money on this game if I can't even learn about it, let alone try it out.

[Jacktheawesome]

The community is awesome.

However, we probably won't accept you due to you being an asshole. So good luck with life!

^^^
Sorry about him, Cavistus. He's not a very good representation of the community. What you see on this part of the Wolfire forums is often the rough exterior of a forum with a soft core. We generally don't take kindly to blatant, unrepentant pirates, but when they ultimately explain themselves, and get to know us, and generally act as if they are speaking to paying members of a tight-knit community as pirates (like the OP in this thread did) we open up, and accept them. For a more accurate representation, look at Endoperez here. We have a lot of smart, cool people, and we have fun.
As for a demo, well, this is it, pretty much. Since not all of the features are even in, it would be pretty hard to do, a synopsis of an incomplete work. It's not free, but if you don't like how your 30 dollars were spent, you can always email [email protected] to get a full refund. Hope to see you in the future.

[Windlord]

As Jack has mentioned, there are refunds. That alone defeats all arguments which support piracy.

If you perceive that there's too much secrecy and harshness towards pirates of all manners, I'm sorry but you're just being put off for no reason seeing how you haven't invested a single dime on the game, nor done sufficient research at all. You have no right to criticise the function of the SPF as you do not know its contents.

Take Overgrowth Weekly for example, a weekly podcast based mainly on content from the SPF. Development Videos are available weekly and globally. A wiki is maintained from time to time with information about all manners of modding as well as graphic card compatibility and general game information. If from these abundant amounts of information you cannot decide if the game is for you, the game isn't for you in its current state. It's mainly a sandbox at the moment so what you see is what you get.

Also please realise this game is in alpha and therefore issues should not be public. The SPF is mainly for modding and issues. The only time this friendly community is unfriendly to pirates is when they are attempting to solve issues with launching and playing the game which they have obviously pirated. General questions are always well received. Does the public need to know about issues from pirated users? No. Find a decent game which does open alpha testing and get back to this thread, please.

[Zelron]

I am only just recently branching out from the SPF so I can't really speak for the way other preorders act in the other fourms (the only reason I found this thread was because I approved your post =D), I will discuss a bit on the subject of demos and paying.

The game is within the alpha testing stage. This means the game is no where near completion. Having a demo of what is simply a testing prototype would be a terrible idea because it will create expectation. Everything is subject to change. It is possible (but probably not at all likely) that not a single feature currently within the builds will make it to the final product. The best metaphor I can come up with off the top of my head would be trying to sell someone a house, however they are still building the house and there is only the frame so far. This is no representation of what the house will look like in the future. So this will lead to either underestimation of the house where the buyer believes the house will not be impressive enough based on it's current state and doesn't want it, or overerestimation of the house where the buyer has visions of potential that are too high and aren't met by the completed house thus leaving the buyer disappointed.
Furthermore, being that this an alpha test, the builds are not even meant to be "playable". The builds are "leaked" as we aren't really supposed to have them. They are provided as a means to allow preorders to experience the changes made to the game rather than just read them off a list or watch the video updates.

You need to keep in mind you are not paying for access to the alpha builds, you are preordering the game. All preorder-er's are given access to the builds but you are actually paying in advance to receive a finished copy of the game upon it's completion, should such come to pass.
If i'm not mistaken the large majority (if not all) the revenue from preorders goes into funding the development. Thus meaning that you should really consider "buying" it as more of an investment than a purchase.
Also, should you reconsider and decide that the game was not a satisfactory investment, Wolfire will be happy to refund you should you request it.

[Jacktheawesome]

What you say (Cavistus) about the secret status of the SPF is, indeed, a good point. However, most if not all of the actual info about the game is public; the SPF is really for tech support, and tossing ideas around. We don't want pirates to get tech support, because want them to buy the game, because we like Wolfire and OG and we want the former to have enough resources to complete the latter. The unfortunate side effect is that sometimes undecideds like you who haven't pirated or bought feel left out, but as Windlord said, all the useful information is public. The wiki, the dev blog, the alpha videos; it doesn't get any better than that.

[Endoperez]

Here, all of that useful information is hidden away unless you pay money. Why does the information have to be hidden? There is no NDA on the game, as evidenced by the dozens of gameplay videos on Youtube. So there is no reason for the information to be hidden. It just pushes away potential buyers. I'm not going to be able to put forth money on this game if I can't even learn about it, let alone try it out.

As I said before, the alpha is not representative of the final game.

This used to be much more so in the past. The game now has the playable characters, and they have animations; it took until about alpha 60 (more than a year after the first preorders were available...) until this happened. More recently, throwing weapons were auto-aimed and always killed in one shot. The jump kick is still so overpowered that players tend to avoid it on their own, to keep the game a challenge, and/or fight against dozens of enemies at once when using it. Most of the modeled weapons aren't actually usable as weapons, all of the races are still using rabbit animations IIRC (wolves might have a custom attack, but I'm not sure), specific keyboard keys can't be rebound without changing the script files because they do debug stuff, and so on.

We get people asking about this even in the preorder forum, and have to explain to them that the game is still in progress, and these things will be changed before it's ready.

The alphas are fun, but too many people think that the alpha is a demo. It's not a game with some of the features cut out; it's a game with placeholders, broken stuff, unfinished stuff, unbalanced stuff and random stuff that might get cut out. The game has had surprisingly few game-crashing bugs, but they do appear, every now and then - this week's alpha has several crashes because the low-level stuff that's been changed.

It is, perhaps, not as necessary to keep it all secret as it was before. Well, except for some specific stuff that's going on in the SPF right now. But usually there's nothing that special going on in there. I, however, am just a fan. You should contact the Wolfire developers themselves and ask them about this - if you can convince them, we could either see the SPF become more open, or the forum procedures changed so that help threads are allowed in the public subforums.

Also, just out of interest, what would you do when someone who hasn't preordered asks for help running it?

[Count Roland]

tl:dr we don't want pirates being supported so we make the forum secret, and there's not really much about the game's story, however the blog provides a gigantic resource regarding just about everything from tech to storyboard ideas and art. so you know... not too bad a thing to look at if you want to find out more about the game.

[Jaz]

I noticed how you refused to accept how I've already proven there is absolutely no reason to pirate. You can make whatever excuses you want, but you know I'm right. Pirating is not the answer to anything. I don't even pirate music. Devs need money to be able to allow you to buy a finished or sequel product at all.

Of course it is rather rude to insult you and call you an 'asshole'. However, you seem rather ignorant and I'm not sure you even deserve to get access to the SPF even if you do preorder.

However, the ability to preoder is always available. As noted, only tech support is closed off from pirates, such as the information on 'How to punch'. However, a lot of information you might need is still publicly available on the wiki and other locations.

All I'm annoyed about is that you had the cheek to come here and ask for tech support while playing a game you've pirated. Worse, you asked on the forums moderated and admined by the DEVS of the game itself. Sorry, but that seems a little dumb to me.

And believe me, you're getting off lucky with this community. Both the Halo and Skyrim communities which I am active in, most members are much harsher to pirates than we are here. In fact, on the Skyrim Nexus, pirates are instant-banned regardless of any civil excuses or arguments to their case.
Additionally, I've been active on many other forums temporarily and not one of them has been as kind to pirates as here.

This community is actually pretty incredible and amazingly polite to pirates. I respect every member here.

[Endoperez]

I noticed how you refused to accept how I've already proven there is absolutely no reason to preorder. You can make whatever excuses you want, but you know I'm right. Pirating is not the answer to anything. I don't even pirate music. Devs need money to be able to allow you to buy a finished or sequel product at all.

Why did you tell him not to preorder, and where did you "prove" this? Are you talking about your anti-piracy tirade on the last page?
(edit: seems like you are. so:) why are you bringing it back up now?

All I'm annoyed about is that you had the cheek to come here and ask for tech support while playing a game you've pirated.

During the last two weeks of this thread, the only people in this thread have been preorderers and Cavistus, who didn't pirate the game and didn't ask for tech support.

[Jacktheawesome]

Yeah as far as I could see, you made an anti-piracy rant after we had already made peace with the swashbuckling OP (who turned out to be a nice guy), and then called a potential preorderer an asshole for presenting a valid, if ignorant, viewpoint on the game's sale. You added later that you're not sure he he deserves SPF access because you have developed a personal grudge against him (based on the non-fact that he is a pirate). Whichever incredible, nice community you speak of, you don't seem to be acting a part of it.