Kongregate Sets Remnants of Skystone Deadline

So we have news from beyond the beyond, the deadline for the release of the most anticipated and highest potential premium game Kongregate has to offer is set for the end of June, of 2009.

While at first this may seem like a great gift from the development gods, it is indeed a double edged sword, one that may turn out to be a costly mistake and force the game to go back into testing.

Remnants of Skystone is currently a mediocre platformer programmed in Flash, an accomplishment but that does not give it the right to consider itself among the best platformers around. Currently Remnants of Skystone boasts two areas, fully contained, almost 30 sidequests, and almost 30 different enemy types. None of that is the problem, the main problem here being the fact that there are also two whole areas that are not even close to completion, that have been thrown into the pile of material scheduled for “Post release”. How will normal people, originally attracted to the game for its flashy graphics and smooth combat system, know about these changes? They probably will not take the time to load up this game every day to see what kind of a change has happened, if any at all. The game itself can’t send messages to every player on Kongregate informing them that it has been updated, and Kongregate itself can’t efficiently inform every single player of Remnants of Skystone that say, Area 3 has just been launched this day and that you should go play it “here” (With a conveniently placed hyperlink of course).

And therein lies another problem: Re-playability. While this game is indeed fun to play once you get into it, and there are many “hardcore” Remnants of Skystone players out there, who have played the game many times since the launch of Beta/Alpha, the average player count for the day steadily drops off by around 10-20 per day after a Beta Round is invited in. That prompts the question: What’s going to keep the average Kongregate player coming back to the game after a couple days of playing it? By then you should have seen most of the game, played it a bit, and seen if you liked it or not. Simple put, there really isn’t much. If Beta testers with a promise of constantly updating content can’t be kept active in the game for more than a couple days, people with little or no news about the game will not be coming back any more so.

Ultimately it boils down to a simple question: Why release a game with so much potential before half of its planned areas aren’t done yet? The rumoured 200 sidequests don’t even have 30 done, there are still many bugs/glitches yet to be found or yet to be fixed, and those whole two extra areas? This game, Remnants of Skystone, has much going for it, and Kongregate pushing its release, while getting Kongregate the money it so desires from the game, could also force it to lose more gameplays/ad impressions in the long run. A game released a month or two later than planned, but with more content than when it was supposed to have had on its original release, is better than a game rushed to meet a deadline.

In my opinion this is a foolish and overly ambitious move on the part of the Kongregate Premium Game director. Kongregate is falling FAR short in the realm of “Premium” games. I do believe that it is in your best interests to at least have 55-65% of the game content implemented and tested prior to launch.

We don’t want another Argue!.

Then again, what do we know? We’re only your target market.

People could see the unfinished work and think of it as crap and terrible and short,and not realize/know/care if 2 more areas and more things to do come out,and will never come back again.Otherwise if they waited until it was completely done,and THEN released it,people could see how much it could have to offer to them

Heh, it seems almost ironic to me that one of the first actually serious posts I will make on the forums here will be outside of the Serious Discussion board. But I digress…

This is a problem that has plagued the game industry ever since it became an honest-to-goodness industry, and not just two or three companies making games to boost revenue. Believe it or not, the development and testing process is UNBELIEVABLY costly to businesses. Think about it, the product is essentially ready to be put out in the eyes of the higher-ups, with the rest of the things being processed considered “bells and whistles” regardless of how major (or minor) they may be. Those higher-ups then have a decision to make, do they release a product which they believe is complete (but in truth is actually inherently flawed and unfinished), or do they twiddle their thumbs for a few more months while they continue to pour vast quantities of money into the project. The phrase “time is money” is exceedingly present in the development process of anything, whether it be game, movie, game-movie hybrid (see: Dragon’s Lair), or any other product.

It is unfortunate that companies today are too busy worrying about turning a profit than turning a quality product.

I could see it being released under an “open beta” label (and honestly, end of june seems about the right time to be doing that).

If this is slated as the “full release”, though, then it I do consider it significantly rushed.

As far as we were told, Jabor, this is slated as a “Full release” with updates being provided afterwards.

RoS is a wonderful game created and coded by wonderful people.

That being said, it is still far from completion. It has yet to be stress tested. It has yet to have its content fine tuned and balanced to a point that it is as near perfect as possible. There are still a large number of potentially game breaking bugs that might need to be found.

Compared to DW or AAE, RoS is a much more complex game, and it would be very disappointing if such a wonderful game flops because of a desire for profit over quality. This game is a lot of potential in store, and I honestly think it is worth the wait. I think it is better to release a full game with all its features completed and unique than release it early, have the community realise it’s not spectacular and lose money on that.

In my opinion the game shouldn’t be released before more of the story and side-quests are complete. They could wait a little with the release of fourth area so that the players are forced to come back, but right now you play trough the game way to fast.

Remnants of Skystone is a great game that shouldn’t be rushed to a release, it will just leave a bad impression of the game for all those that doesn’t keep themselves updated trough the forums. Release the game when it’s ready!

Originally posted by Kyru:

In my opinion this is a foolish and overly ambitious move on the part of the Kongregate Premium Game director. Kongregate is falling FAR short in the realm of “Premium” games. I do believe that it is in your best interests to at least have 55-65% of the game content implemented and tested prior to launch.

We don’t want another Argue!.

Then again, what do we know? We’re only your target market.

This this this this this this this. THIS.

It’s nearly a FACT that: More rushed deadline yields a Suckier game. People are going to quit RoS due to lack of things to do before it even has a chance to release more stuff. The director is obviously very foolish to think that this move will help bring in more money in the longer term. Of course it’ll bring more in the short term, duh, but in the long term there’ll only be a few people in a core audience that’ll continue to play the game after new things are released.

Just look at Shift 4. They had 4 days to make all the levels. If that isn’t proof enough, I don’t know what is.

Call it an open beta. It’s just plain smart marketing.

You get tons of people to pour in for the open beta, and then you can release the game, again, as a “full version.” Not only do they get to release it fully (at a later date), but they get even more revenue because it’s put up there twice. It’s even better marketing than releasing it fully or as an unfinished version.

Call it an open beta. It’s just plain smart marketing.

I disagree. Open Alpha is where it’s at.

Hey gang –

Thanks for all of the concern over Skystone, we’ve been working hard along with Kongregate towards launch, and I know a lot of you have been putting in a lot of time testing the game for us.

We haven’t been strong-armed into releasing earlier than we wanted – we were actually aiming for the same release time-frame, so it was nice that everyone was on the same page. If anything, we’re way later than we wanted to release, but that’s our own fault for adding more to the game than we expected!

Concerning the eventual launch though, we in no way think of that as the game being “done” or being a full release. We’ve built the game around the idea of updating content, with new co-op maps appearing nearly every other day, and we plan to keep updating with new quests, clothing, furniture, and entirely new World Areas as they are cleared of haze (as we get them made). In that sense, the “launch” of the game isn’t meant to be the be-all and end-all of Skystone, but merely the starting point which we can keep building on over time.

We do have the issue of how to get the word out to new players and once-players when new content is launched, which is something we can work on with Kongregate to figure out the best solution – I’m sure we can come up with something to keep players in the loop. Keeping players engaged after they’ve consumed all of the current content is definitely an issue as well, which we’re still thinking about to find a good solution.

If you have any suggestions about replayability (or anything else), drop us a line in the forums or the Uservoice feedback

Wow, a post from the developer himself!

hey i wannt to play it sonds good

It looks like a good game to me…

Personally being one of the people that have had the opportunity to play the game LOVED it. i didn’t care if it was not finished, i just wanted to play it. i mean unless you are a unemployed bum who has nothing else better to do who is gunna be able to complete the 30 levels that are done in two days. i think having an updates section on the log in screen would be complemented but other than that have no complaint. So Stop Putting The Game Down IT ROCKS

I hope the second half of the game is being worked on. All is quiet on the development front, and the beta community seems rather dead. Doesn’t really bode well for the game if we have thousands of apparent beta testers and the game is completely empty these days.

It’s soon October now, not released yet

man i really cant wait to play the game it looks fun,awesome,cool,entertaining and it looks like the best game i am ever going to play