Weekly Steam News (12/08/05)

mrNinya said:
The game supports up to 8 players in multiplayer

map editor

Story mode - A bunch of diffrent levels with cut-scenes between them. (About 20 minutes of cutscene fotage)
Many other singeplayer modes, such as Ninja Onslaught and Shaolin Soccer.
A nice little Movie maker.
Lots of cool weapons.
Nice special attacks.
Could you expand a bit more on these features? Could you elaborate on the singleplayer modes? Can you create new special moves?

More importantly, which mp modes actually are there? Can you play all the storyplayers modes in mp? Is there coop beat-them-up or team PvP?

Thanks. Very interested in this game. Looks more like an artform than anything.
 
Well...

In multiplayer online/lan you've got:

Deathmatch - Just kill eachother, or just fool around.
Shaolin Soccer - You've got a giant ball you should hit to make it fly away and into a goal.
Shaolin Athletics - Compete against eachother - In distance running, distance jumping, hightjumping, distance throwing, distance kicking. (might be more, dont really remember)

In multiplayer with up to 8 players on one computer you've got all above plus a movie maker. In the movie maker you can record demos, or just fool around. (You cant die in the movie maker)

You control the character compleatly with your mouse, so this means you can create your very own style. The only special attacks in the game is fireball-attack and lightning-attack. You power up these attacks by collecting butterflies that fly around the level. (May sound a little weird, but it works very well ^^)

Another cool feature is the mushroom mode. On every level there are mushrooms growing a bit here and there. So you can pick up a mushroom and put it in your mouth and then you get mushroom power. What does this mushroom power do?
Well, it lets you fly around longer in the air than with out the mushroom-power and the game goes into slowmotion.
Oh, and while your at it, you can go up in the sky to visit buddah, very cool. ^^

You can play in teams. Each team have a diffrent colour. There are 8 diffrent colours/teams.
You can add bots in the multiplayer games.

You can't play the storymode in multiplayer.

And I think there will be even more multiplayer modes coming later on.

The map-editor is in progress - so I havnt been able to try it. (It wont be released in the first release.)
 
mrNinya said:
So you can pick up a mushroom and put it in your mouth and then you get mushroom power. What does this mushroom power do?
Well, it lets you fly around longer in the air than with out the mushroom-power and the game goes into slowmotion.

....and while your at it, you can go up in the sky to visit buddah.

:eek:

SOLD :D
 
10 bucks will be a good price, but im never entering my cc # into steam. if he distributes it elsewhere, it may be fun to get.

but alot of people saying its great valve is supporting bla bla bla. valve is simply selling realestate on steam, thats it, it don't matter if its unreal 3, or some mod, they are selling realestate. they want to gain as much control over distribution of not only their games, but other games as well, including their mods, as possible. its a microsoft thing to do of course.

i wonder what the engine is , or if the guy made it himself? I hope these people also put there games elsewhere, unless its strictly mp, then peeps with 56k can't play it solo, but if its available else where, you can download, take to any computer, and install it. just formatted, have no internet yet at home, and of all my games, hl2 is the only one i can;/t do a damn thing with :(
 
The engine is fully made for RDKF. So its not source or anything like that.
 
This game sounds awesome, it's great that valve are giving crazy off-the wall projects like this a chance, I'm going to be happy to pay a couple of quid just to support the idea of these sort of games.

I have a question for mrNinya, can you play multi-player on the same computer with serial mice? Say 1 serial and one usb, or even 2 serial and a usb mouse?
thanks
 
To be honest, I'm not really sure. I think that the multi-mouse thing only works with USB.
 
mabufo said:
This looks retarded.. I won;t be playing this.. ever.
This is your mind:
x
This is what you're being:
[x]
....closeminded....
It looks pretty cool, and seeing as how you're never going to buy this and that is an absolute fact you'd bet your life on, then maybe you could not waste a post.
 
Im happy all those CS freaks are not going to play this game, this way we wont see 'l33t P0wzor' players who say other people suck and are noobs(n00bs).


Go play your l33t(yes Im cool :rolleyes:) CS game!
 
I've seen flash games cooler than this.. but you don;t have to pay for flash games do you?
 
mabufo said:
I've seen flash games cooler than this.. but you don;t have to pay for flash games do you?
I bet it won't be that expensive, because if it is, I'm with you, but I'm at least going to wait until it comes out to decide.
 
mabufo said:
I've seen flash games cooler than this.. but you don;t have to pay for flash games do you?
Actually, yes, there are a lot of flash or flash-like games that cost money. Have you ever heard of Bejeweled 2 Deluxe? It's $20.
 
This looks nothing like a flash game!

Just look at the golden 'sunset' lighting... and the intensely detailed, organic environments... and the 3D-effect backdrops, with hazy depth-of field effect (how did they do that?).
It looks sumptuous!

Unless, of course, you mean "OMG its 2d like flash, lame!"

:upstare:

Obviously not everyone will like this game. But I find it annoying the way some people take one look and conclude "it's shit!" - before they even know what they're looking at
 
lol, if you think you can make that in flash why dont you make it and release it for free?! Thats what you expect from Mark Healy and thats what I expect from you... Good luck!

A pro gamedesigner worked 3 years(!) on it and you say its easy, it can be done in flash and it should be free. Thats crazy! You must be an expert.
 
If the guy made it in his free time, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be free. It'd be a breath of fresh air to see a game designer putting something into the gaming community out of love for it, rather than for profit. By asking for money for this game he made in his free time, it just makes it look like he was doing it for the momey all along. Pretty sad really.

Anyway, I refuse to judge the game before a playable demo is available. I'd recommend that to everyone else as well.
 
shakey said:
If the guy made it in his free time, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be free.

Does... not.. compute...

The guy is making a game in HIS time, and not getting paid for it, and this makes it more logical for him to give it away? If anything, he should be more entitled to charge for it.
 
By asking for money for it, he's doing nothing but prove he's a money grabber. He'd probably fit in well at EA.

Lot's of people make games, mods and other things in their free time, and give them away for free. It's called caring about games and the gaming community. Nobody asked him to make this game, or forced him to make this game; he should just be happy that people are playing and enjoying his creation.

By your logic, modders and freeware game makers should start asking for money for their games. I'm sure that would go down well.
 
shakey said:
By asking for money for it, he's doing nothing but prove he's a money grabber. He'd probably fit in well at EA.

Lot's of people make games, mods and other things in their free time, and give them away for free. It's called caring about games and the gaming community. Nobody asked him to make this game, or forced him to make this game; he should just be happy that people are playing and enjoying his creation.

By your logic, modders and freeware game makers should start asking for money for their games. I'm sure that would go down well.
....I bet it won't be very expensive. What's wrong with making money off of something you make? People have a right to do so, and while it's nice if they release it for free, it doesn't make them a bad person comparable to EA if they want to profit off of their hard work.

I'm a mod developer and I don't ask money for what I do but I respect people that do.
 
you got 15 games and you only payed for 1(Halflife2). When Valve talkes about a new game you people always want it for free!
 
Of course they have a right to charge. Charging for something like this just tells me what their real intentions are (money > love for games). I'm entitled to my opinion.
 
shakey said:
Of course they have a right to charge. Charging for something like this just tells me what their real intentions are (money > love for games). I'm entitled to my opinion.

He won't make enough money to make up for all the time he's spent on this game. He knows this, and if he had wanted more money he'd be better off working overtime or something of that kind. The money will be like a bonus, probably.

mabufo said he'd seen flash-games that looked 'cooler', he probably did not mean that the graphics were par to flash-games.

Mrninya: you didn't say anything that seemed to make clear how all the Mario stuff was possible(what with little goomba-opponents and the 1UP thing). Was it something the guy from Lionhead fixed to go with your skin, or did you make it yourself somehow?

Also, people who are coming down on CS gamers like Betelgeuze: you're elitists. You don't want to be elitists.
 
If you think this game should be for free, let me show you why it shouldn't

-this game was made by one person not a huge devolopement team
-he needs the money, I mean, who doesn't, if he releases this game for free it'd be a waste of 2 years of his life.
-this games was planned and made about 2 years ago, you expect a game that takes 2 years to make to be for free, give me a break.
-'If the guy made it in his free time, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be free. It'd be a breath of fresh air to see a game designer putting something into the gaming community out of love for it, rather than for profit. By asking for money for this game he made in his free time, it just makes it look like he was doing it for the momey all along. Pretty sad really.' this is no reason not to realease it for free, he MADE the game, same with all game developers so don't say he he should release it for free is like telling EA to stop making crappy games...it wont happen.
 
Dead Man said:
If you think this game should be for free, let me show you why it shouldn't

-this game was made by one person not a huge devolopement team
-he needs the money, I mean, who doesn't, if he releases this game for free it'd be a waste of 2 years of his life.
-this games was planned and made about 2 years ago, you expect a game that takes 2 years to make to be for free, give me a break.
-'If the guy made it in his free time, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be free. It'd be a breath of fresh air to see a game designer putting something into the gaming community out of love for it, rather than for profit. By asking for money for this game he made in his free time, it just makes it look like he was doing it for the momey all along. Pretty sad really.' this is no reason not to realease it for free, he MADE the game, same with all game developers so don't say he he should release it for free is like telling EA to stop making crappy games...it wont happen.


Bravo!
 
well one thing he'll and most developers will learn that steam isn;t all its cracked up to be. steam only caters to hl and cs fans. and theyre all ( including me) whiney picky bitches
 
Well, whatever this little game is, it stirred up quite a hell on hl2.net, which is good. Heck, if I had a credit card I'd buy it for sure. Why doesn't VALVe make up some othe alternatives to this credit-bull, they could use again vouchers and stuff...
 
Sharrd said:
Mrninya: you didn't say anything that seemed to make clear how all the Mario stuff was possible(what with little goomba-opponents and the 1UP thing). Was it something the guy from Lionhead fixed to go with your skin, or did you make it yourself somehow?
I made it myself.
I added the 1up's in adobe premiere.
And the goombas was just a skin with goombas as feets.

shakey said:
If the guy made it in his free time, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be free. It'd be a breath of fresh air to see a game designer putting something into the gaming community out of love for it, rather than for profit. By asking for money for this game he made in his free time, it just makes it look like he was doing it for the momey all along. Pretty sad really.

Anyway, I refuse to judge the game before a playable demo is available. I'd recommend that to everyone else as well.
That must be one of the dumbest comments I've ever heard about RDKF!

I mean, come on. Imagine that you've made a game that took away most of your sparetime for three years. Wouldnt you want to get something for that?

And he didnt do it for money at all, first. But after spending more and more time with it and seeing that lots of people wanted it/'asked for it' he decided that he wanted to sell it, and work even harder on it.
 
I guess that justifies me charging people to play my NWN Mod which took 5 years of spare time to make. Cool.
 
DanteZone said:
I guess that justifies me charging people to play my NWN Mod which took 5 years of spare time to make. Cool.
Well, sure, I guess you could, if you found someone that could distrubute it for you.
And then I think there is a bit diffrence in a mod and a game build form the ground.
 
How so? If a person completely customises an engine, using their own models, battle systems, etc etc, they've effectively made an entire game. We even see actual game companies using engines from games like Quake 2 or Half-Life and then re-designing them and charging $40 for the game at retail. If a Modder takes years to make a Mod, which some do, what's stopping them in the future from charging?

If this guy wants to charge for this game, then that's cool. But I think the "spare time" thing is something that can be argued either way. We might start to see people charging for Mods in the near future, especially the big ones that get a lot of coverage. If the Mod is distributed over Steam, then it'd only benefit Valve to support charges, since they'd be getting a cut of the money too.
 
Mods serve purposes other than getting immediate profit: You just want to give something to the community, you want to draw industry attention to your team in an attempt to get jobs, or you just do it as a learning experience. If you plan on selling your game you should license the engine rather than making a mod. If you use the "I worked on this game for years so I should get payed" logic you have to apply the same logic to the people that actually made the engine you happen to be using because you either lack the time or the experience to make one from scratch or modify an open-source one to fit your needs. If you don't you'll probably have legal trouble when trying to sell your game.

It's a different situation when you build a game from scratch (or use an open-source engine), you already have a job in the game industry, and you don't really need practice anymore. Sure, they can still do things for free... but you shouldn't just expect it to be free.
 
a positive thing isthat lionhead is genius, and they have brillian people working there that ate very innovative. they don't do simple garunteed games like fps's with physics, they make different games with wild controls that ive never seen before.

black and white was absolutly amazing, fun, great ai and you could play the whole game without a freaking keyboard. to me that tells me they think about reducing my carpol tunnell possibilities. plus their nice folk, and they sent me a nicee personalized rejection letter when i sent them my demo reel. acclaim just sent a postcard thats standard
 
Mods should never be for profit. Anyone who's in it for the money is in it for the wrong reason.

$.02
 
Para said:
The entire gaming industry is dying, that's most likely the reason why Gabe wants to push this game thru Steam.

Betelgeuze said:
No its not about the games anymore its all about the money!!!
Gamers are never happy when they see original games and thats why we never see original games like this because they dont sell.

shakey said:
If the guy made it in his free time, then I see no reason why it shouldn't be free. It'd be a breath of fresh air to see a game designer putting something into the gaming community out of love for it, rather than for profit. By asking for money for this game he made in his free time, it just makes it look like he was doing it for the momey all along. Pretty sad really.

Anyway, I refuse to judge the game before a playable demo is available. I'd recommend that to everyone else as well.

^ The three most significant posts in this thread. Each one makes some interesting points, although those points are often times at cross purposes.

1) It's certainly interesting hearing this talk about the videogame industry "dying." It's really not dying, just reaching the maturation point. Like any industry, it had a brief period of unbeleivable growth and innovation, followed by consolidation. Gaming's not dead, it's just reached a plateau point. From here on things are going to move in regular steps, not in wild spurts of speculation.

2) Gaming's always been about the money. Pong cost money, arcades cost money, consoles cost money, hardware and software cost money. It's the exact same economics as any other entainment industry.

3) Playable demos should be a legal requirement for all video games. Nothing's worse than putting down $50 and finding out that game that got great reviews was nothing like what you were looking for. I'm mad if a movie review is off, and that only costs me a few bucks.
 
Why do you people keep arguing, hes not gonna release it for free so stop saying he should, and i bet most of you are gonna pirate it anyways so why care about if it costs money? Bottem Line is: YOUR NOT GOING TO GET IT FOR FREE.
 
DanteZone said:
If a Modder takes years to make a Mod, which some do, what's stopping them in the future from charging?
EULA? With a mod, you have to spend money to make money. i.e. negotiating a liscense with the person who designed the game on which yours is based. With your own creation, you can do what the hell you like. Modders don't just not make money from their games because they don't want to: they don't do so because it's not commercially viable.
 
We might start to see people charging for Mods in the near future, especially the big ones that get a lot of coverage. If the Mod is distributed over Steam, then it'd only benefit Valve to support charges, since they'd be getting a cut of the money too.

As I said, it would benefit Valve to charge for good mods. It would please the Modders and it would please Valve. It would give Modders more incentive to make better Mods, thus justifying Valve charging for them through Steam. If a license is needed, the Valve could do it for a nominal fee as an incentive to get more Modders on board.

In the end, Valve are a company, and companies desire profit to please their Shareholders. Why do you think they use Steam in the first place? So that they don't have to lose money via Publishers. Charging for Mods would be a great way to make more money. But obviously, it would only work with the very best Mods that people are willing to pay for.
 
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