Re: VGStorm Presents Manamon, a new fully featured RPG!
Unless Aaron didn't think ahead to build an editor on his end, a data setup where he can tweak numbers themselves on the fly - and he'd be a huge fool not to have done so with a game so heavy on data management as Manamon - there is absolutely no excuse for what happened to this game beyond stubbornness and laziness. I'm making no bones about this.
Undead is too strong, and its poison immunity pretty much nails the coffin shut on poison manamon. Could've been fixed.
Many attacks are carbon copies of each other, stat-wise, and almost all attacks have some mild accuracy penalty that really doesn't need to be there. Again, could've been fixed.
A few other type tweaks (water being weak to poison, for instance, and steel being super-effective vs. undead while stone resists undead)...same deal.
Tweaking use points and strength of moves to make them more competitive? Bingo.
Giving slightly more varied movesets and better same-type attack options? Good idea.
Tweaking base stats of many manamon a bit so that they became competitive? No-brainer.
I suggested all of this in an email. Was quite detailed and thorough. I'd compiled my date from hundreds of hours of playing and writing my guide. I got the brush-off,a nd it was then, almost a year ago now, that I knew what was going to happen.
The dirty truth is that developers, of any kind, have the right to make their game however they want. Aaron did what he's entitled to do. Decided "hey, I'm not going to take someone else's word for it, because making that concession means I'm tacitly admitting I was wrong and at least one of my players was right". Putting it that way might seem spiteful, but I feel absolutely no spite. Frankly it's no great loss that I'm not interested in Manamon anymore. I got in some nice fun while I took the game apart, and now I can't do anything but see its flaws, both the deeper and harder-to-reach stuff like scripting problems, and the other tweaking I mentioned above. All of that, btw, with the proper editor, could have been done in maybe three hours of solid work. Four, tops. Take half an hour at a time for eight days, and it would be done. Or ten minutes here, ten minutes there, and so long as you did it a little each day, you have all the new tweaks in a month. That wouldn't have saved his online play, but it would've told his players indirectly that he respects more than just their money.
Big-time developers don't listen to individuals most of the time. They don't have to. Their success speaks for itself. The reason I'm hammering on this point in such fashion, however, is because unfortunately the reverse is true. Aaron has developed something of a bad reputation, and instead of crushing it forever, Manamon has, in a way, cemented it. Because yes, he has every right to ignore what we say and to do what he likes. I won't ever take that away from him. But I'm by far not the only voice speaking out, which means I'm probably not a minority. Almost everyone I've spoken to who's played this game cites many or even all of the same issues I do. And that tells me that dozens of players aren't wrong, and further tells me that one's need to be right should never trump one's desire to put out a solid product.
That said, when my game comes out, there will probably be stuff you don't like. You may think something is too hard. You may want me to nerf something because it makes the game too easy. You may see no benefit to a certain class or playstyle, or may have some other issue. I welcome constructive feedback. I'll tell you right now that I won't change a thing just because someone said so. I'll want proof. If you provide proof, or an explanation I can go around and play with, then I will take you seriously. I probably won't spend hours debating back and forth why I'm right, but if I do goof, I'll own it. "Hey guys. Sorry about that. Barbarians now actually do more damage like they should've been. Also, the Stormcrow enemy won't appear in such big groups anymore." Stuff like that. I dunno. I'm not a big developer (not really a full developer at all yet, since nothing's live just yet). But I'm not going to be big. This means I'm producing for a small market, and I'm willing, within reason, to listen to that small market. To do otherwise is to have my game go the exact same way Manamon went, and I don't want that to happen. No no. If I have anything to say about it, my RPG will be at least in the same ballpark as AHC.
Anyway, I'm super-tired, and this was a long, long rant. Sorry about that. Chalk it up to exhaustion.
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