ladyterukiThe Paralives team has posted a very helpful reminder of what Early Access will mean for the game. It's informative AND cute !
Make sure to check it out.
One more month, everyone ! May the countdown begin \o/
YouTube
(the free expansions I buy... it's the 2 years of Early Access for everything they have planned that I will believe when I see it. But then again I play PZ, time spent in Early Access does not scare me)
Ok I think I just got why Paradevs plan for 2 years in Early Access.
A few weeks ago they announced that they had reached 1 million wishlists on Steam (which, as far as I can see, is not a public number, but sure, why would I not believe that, Paralives IS the ~30th most wishlisted game there https://steamdb.info/stats/mostwished/ ). Not all wishlists will turn into sales, but not all sales will come from wishlists, so that's not a bad number to base calculations on.
At $39.99 the Early Access game...
A few weeks ago they announced that they had reached 1 million wishlists on Steam (which, as far as I can see, is not a public number, but sure, why would I not believe that, Paralives IS the ~30th most wishlisted game there https://steamdb.info/stats/mostwished/ ). Not all wishlists will turn into sales, but not all sales will come from wishlists, so that's not a bad number to base calculations on.
At $39.99 the Early Access game...
...and considering that Paralives Studio, when funded by Patreon (which it will stop doing in December once the game is in Early Access), was running on between 39K and 45K a month...
Yeah ok, conservatively, 2 years makes sense. At least if I'm mathing right.
Does it mean they will necessarily have enough of 2 years for the features ? We'll see.
But I guess it at least shows that they want to avoid sounding too open-ended, because they know there are downsides to saying "we'll be done when we'll be done" (or not saying anything at all, which sends the same message), so reasonably they announce 2 years of Early Access.
This is, in itself, IS a business model.
Hey, if it sells better than predicted, they can always hire one or two more people.
I'm OBVIOUSLY not a professional of the gamedev industry, but I feel like so far, people who go "I'm so afraid for the game's funding if they don't make us pay for DLCs" (what you could call Simckholm syndrome...) are really not seeing how every loud announcement about wanting to sell a whole experience rather than paid DLCs and microtransactions, not wanting to spend too much time in Early Access, and so on...
...are BIG marketing arguments too. It appeals to people.
You don't need to look very far. The reactions to the initial gameplay overview video (and I'm referring here specifically to the last two panels of it) are happiness. People are ELATED by the perspective of not to be milked for every pixel in a lifesim game. It makes people more willing to "risk" 40 dollars when they know that's all they have to lose in the worst case scenario, too.
Paralives - Gameplay Overview
Alex, the founder of Paralives Studio and lead developer of the game, has had experience in this industry. I don't remember whether I ever read about Jérémie's career highlights, but it's very clear from the way he talks and discusses the game that it's not his first rodeo either. The studio has invested very early in having a communication role on staff, too. None of this is accidental.
This is not amateur hour, only indie hour.
This is not amateur hour, only indie hour.
(I think I'm going to file for a patent on that "Simckholm syndrome" joke XD I'm giggling in my living room like a dummy)
Oh I'm going to be unbearable for the remaining month until release.
I hope we're all very clear on that.
I hope we're all very clear on that.
On the Paratreon ( https://paralives.wiki.gg/wiki/Paratreon ) we're beginning to see posts from team members starting with "this will be my last post [before Early Access]" and it's like, damn, I was looking forward to that release and now you've just made it bittersweet T_T
*feeling of emptiness*
...The f*ck am I going to do with my life every Friday ? It's been a weekly ritual for 5 years O_o
🎶 I'm head of the class
I'm popular
I'm a quarterback
I'm popular
My mom says I'm a catch
I'm popular
I'm never last picked
I got a cheerleading chick🎶
(one of my theories about how Together Cards will work is getting praise XD )
THIS IS NOT A DRILL !
We have officially the PC requirements for Paralives, ahead of the December 8th release.
In addition to that, there are also changes announced on the Patreon, explaining that the Dev Chats will be replaced by regular livestreams to showcase the progress, in particular related to the Live Mode. Which I feel is a great way to show accountability during that delay, especially regarding people who choose to keep contributing financially, and increases the chances of avoiding another delay 6 months from now.
Am I disappointed ? Of course, a little bit. It seems unavoidable to be.
I also think that I always prefer delays to crunch, and trying to make the December 8th deadline with a game that they were not confident about would have been much worse. Nothing good could have come out of that for the Paradevs' health and wellbeing, and I give a sh*t about that more than about a release date.
On a personal level : GOOD, more time to make informed decisions about a new PC.
I also think that I always prefer delays to crunch, and trying to make the December 8th deadline with a game that they were not confident about would have been much worse. Nothing good could have come out of that for the Paradevs' health and wellbeing, and I give a sh*t about that more than about a release date.
On a personal level : GOOD, more time to make informed decisions about a new PC.
Plus, a 6 months extension is 1/4 of what they projected Early Access to last (2 years, for the record), so I imagine a lot will be done in that time.
If the game is disappointing in May, we'll revisit ; but for the time being it makes me confident that it won't be.
If the game is disappointing in May, we'll revisit ; but for the time being it makes me confident that it won't be.
This doesn't feel a WildCard-like delay to me, the kind that comes from negligence/incompetence and still delivers a suboptimized product eventually.
Instead, it feels like it's grounded in feedback they got, which they've historically always taken very seriously ; and it's going to lead to even more transparency and feedback, which will never be a bad thing in my book.
I don't doubt that a lot of people will hate this. I haven't dared open reddit yet XD
But I'm fine with it.
How I imagine the community sounds like right now.
Crowd Panic
Honestly the part I'm the most annoyed about is all the pages on the Paralives Wiki that I have to edit XD
So yesterday Paradevs posted the VOD of a livestream that took place before the delay *for Patrons only*. It's almost one hour long, and it's unedited. It has a few minutes of character creation (only the personality aspect) followed by uninterrupted gameplay.
Obviously I am not supposed to describe it further, but something I can and will say is : judging by that livestream, ok, that game is not 1.0 ready, but it's really not as bad as the delay makes it sound for an Early Access game.
There are SEVERAL systems in place already in regards to gameplay mechanics we already knew about (Together Cards, Needs, Wants, Goals, Emotions, as well as the upgrade mechanisms for personalities, careers...). These are not people who have been slacking off.
There are pathing issues. There are bugs when it comes to buying things in town (plus a number of non-priced items at a cafe where it's hard to tell whether it's a bug or something unready). I don't feel like these things are -
There are pathing issues. There are bugs when it comes to buying things in town (plus a number of non-priced items at a cafe where it's hard to tell whether it's a bug or something unready). I don't feel like these things are -
- game-breaking bugs, though I don't deny they're immersion-breaking.
The Para autonomy is vastly imperfect when you leave a controlled Para alone for more than 2 minutes. It doesn't seem to me (thiugh I freely admit to not being a dev) like it's hard to fix and/or improve. Evidently NPC autonomy is close to non-existent (which we knew about already).
There are also aspects of gameplay I don't think we had heard about. I certainly didn't and I've spent hours researching things for the wiki.
There are things about the UI that could (and in some cases should) be better.
There are questions about how some things are balanced (within 1h of gameplay, the Para in the stream was already close to maxing out something).
This is ABSOLUTELY NOT a case of a game that doesn't have anything to do. I can buy "not enough varied things to do", maaaybe (we saw only 3 days of a life afterall), which admittedly is not ideal.
But that thing has legs, people.
The 6 months delay will do it a world of good, I'm sure. It can't hurt any game to have more time... especially since that time will involve, among other things, more livestreams in front of the community (Patrons especially) where hopefully our feedback will be used productively.
I think Paradevs were scared that people were not ready for a game *this much* in Early Access, and that seeing how much of how much sausage was left to be made would damage the game's chances in the future.
I think Paradevs were scared that people were not ready for a game *this much* in Early Access, and that seeing how much of how much sausage was left to be made would damage the game's chances in the future.
But the people who would have you believe there is nothing to do, that there is no gameplay to show, that this game is all Paramaker+Build Mode and nothing else, and that the delay proves that Paralives is doomed to fail...
...are absolutely not honest, or at best haven't seen, the gameplay.
I know the #Paralives community is pretty sparse here, so the DRAMAAAA has not touched Fedi much. But there are people ready to bury the game, and that's not what I saw.
People out there acting like Godzilla has destroyed Tokyo, when it's just that our trip to Japan has been postponed.
After a few Patreon-only livestreams, Paralives will organize a PUBLIC livestream on November 25th to show the live mode in its current state !
Don't say you weren't warned.
For us French people, according to my calculation, it'll be on Tuesday at 6pm.
Alright good people, 10min before the #Paralives stream starts !
Paralives - Live Mode Gameplay
This is the kind of thing Paralives has been working on since the delay announcement : the town now has public transportation !
An incentive for players to explore the open world environment, without feeling like they're wasting ingame hours crossing long distances on foot. Teleportation, but immersive.
And that sound !
https://youtube.com/shorts/DZf65sKyAyU
There's more exciting small improvements on the Paratreon, but we are sworn to secrecy over there... Just lemme tell ya, it's good stuff.
here's how to get around town faster in Paralives! 🚌
It took months of reeducation, but Youtube is finally giving me a label for Paralives.
...Granted now it has decided I'm into podcasts, FOR SOME REASON, and ARK no longer appears, but hey, baby steps.
Today, Paradevs have made public a Patreon-only exclusive from last January showcasing the Paramaker :
