The Castle Doctrine Forums

Fliael

Member

Registered: 2015-07-02

Posts: 2

I've got a few questions...

I came here from an article, wherein Mr. Rohrer states his feelings towards sales. I watched the video, did some research, and decided I liked the game. I went to steam to check the reviews, and was shocked to find a multitude of negative reviews, mostly revolving around the playerbase being dead. Does anyone play this game, aside from the 8 frequently mentioned who have unbreakable homes? I'm afraid I have an incredibly limited income, and that is why I wait for sales. A great many people complained that it wasn't worth the 16 bucks, that it was worth 5 at the most. I'm here to be disproved. I'm here to be won over. I didn't come here to troll, I came here to be convinced to purchase this game. I'm somewhat obsessed with the Strategy Genre, and this seems like a marvelous title, yet at the same time I cannot ignore the -incredible- amount of people who state that this game is dead, that this game is not at -all- worth paying for. SO. Convince me, community, if there even is one. I'll give it 48 hours before I give up and decide to not purchase the game.

Last edited by Fliael (2015-07-02 21:30:19)

Leaf

Member

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 44

Re: I've got a few questions...

It should be free to play... with an option of paying $5 to revive your home.

There are 8 homes up right now, 4 are unbreakable without prior scouting.  The other 4 are noobish and breakable.

Not worth $16 atm.

Passive

Member

From: England

Registered: 2014-09-18

Posts: 420

Re: I've got a few questions...

If if I were you i would wait. The game is a lovely idea however with the player base being so small it doesn't really work that well right now. Check this forum for news on Terminal Hiest which is a re boot that Cullman is currently working on.

cullman

Member

Registered: 2014-03-21

Posts: 424

Re: I've got a few questions...

Yes. Terminal Heist will be launched in Beta by August (barring disaster).  I hate to say to not buy Jason's game as it is my favorite game ever and TH obviously owes everything to TCD. However, the game has died down to almost nothing, and I can't say that it's as nearly as fun as it was when there was 100s of players.  I myself no longer play.

Just by way of quick summary. TH is based on the TCD source code, there are no changes to the game mechanics at all except for the fact we are getting rid of random user names to make it easier for the community to spot and report cheating. Also, TH runs on iOS  (including the iPhone) and Android (that part already has worked for quite sometime). There will be a free to play mode. TH also has a space theme to cut down the violence in the game, as I think there are a number of kids that play Minecraft that would love this game mechanic, so in TH you don't shotgun a wife or kill a cat with a brick you disable bots and droids.  There will be in game purchases, probably a small fee like $5 to unlock the whole game mostly so if someone is cheating getting banned actually hurts.  Anyway, there is lots of TH talk in the forums if you want more detail.

Sorry to answer you question with a blatant and self serving advertisement. I do intend to give Jason a kickback in the unlikely event the game turns a profit.

-cullman

Last edited by cullman (2015-07-03 02:51:03)

Fliael

Member

Registered: 2015-07-02

Posts: 2

Re: I've got a few questions...

So, it'll be released at a lower price, despite what he has said in the past?

cullman

Member

Registered: 2014-03-21

Posts: 424

Re: I've got a few questions...

No. Jason has said TCD will never go on sale, and I have never seen him waiver. I believe there is a community server you can play on for free, look for posts by Frosty for details. I was taking only about Terminal Heist pricing which is my version of the game based on the Castle Doctrine source code.

joshwithguitar

Member

Registered: 2013-07-28

Posts: 538

Re: I've got a few questions...

I think Jason's decision never to go on sale was a mistake given the nature of the game. Sales would allow for regular injections into the player base with the advantage that a whole bunch would come at once, giving the new players more (and easier) houses to rob and so increasing the chances of them sticking around.

cullman

Member

Registered: 2014-03-21

Posts: 424

Re: I've got a few questions...

I disagree. We have the free community server which is also empty and we had Fortress Theory early on which was free. Just look back at the forums at the number of people that got frustrated with the cheating and announced they quit for good. That's why I eventually gave up. What's the point of spending 12 hours perfecting a house if someone can crush you with map hacks in a few minutes. Anyway, maybe I'm wrong. But I think the game needs to be harder to cheat at, improved continuously, and easier to learn to succeed. That plus a broader marketing push. Just my two cents.

joshwithguitar

Member

Registered: 2013-07-28

Posts: 538

Re: I've got a few questions...

Well, sales show up on steam and so are instant publicity. The free server is quite obscure and there is not likely to be an event that causes a bunch of unknowns to join at once.

The map hack thing is tricky...

Having the house state calculated on the server and sent to the player would be slow and require a lot of server resources per player, though would solve it. Are you thinking about doing this? I have thought of methods of making the electronics a fair bit more efficient if you are, which could save a lot of server time. Still, having to wait for the server every move could be a bit off putting.

Now, if you want the client to calculate the house state instead, then it could be tricky to hide the house from the robber. The biggest issue here is pet movement. I can think of a system to make the electronics more abstract so that what the server sends the house doesn't give much of an idea of the structure of the house but still allows the house to figure out electronics perfectly.

But pets are going to need to know a lot about the structure to move about correctly. And a lot of houses rely on not knowing what pets are doing behind the scenes to work.

One solution to this would be to make pets only move only while visible - I think Jason might have tried this out at one point. This would have a dramatic impact on the game and make magic dances much less easy to construct (though still possible).

Another possibility is a hybrid approach in which pet movement is calculated on the server but electronics are calculated by the client to reduce the server load. This would still have some lag issues for movement though.

cullman

Member

Registered: 2014-03-21

Posts: 424

Re: I've got a few questions...

Right now my current plan is to encrypt the map and keep the code closed source and then also have non-random names so people can complain about someone that seems excessively lucky.  As for serverside being slow, my coder Max actually implemented a webversion of TCD in about a day over a year ago...I mean it's not polished at all, but it's not nearly as laggy as I thought, check it out

Press right arrow to start :

http://ec2-54-197-125-240.compute-1.ama … mid=pq6U7O

You can replace any castle draft code in that url and play it server side...that's with zero optimization.  If I continue to have map hack problems, I will probably go server side.

Last edited by cullman (2015-07-06 19:40:19)

joshwithguitar

Member

Registered: 2013-07-28

Posts: 538

Re: I've got a few questions...

Making it closed source will make it trickier to hack - still a memory hack should be able to get the map after it is decrypted.

I guess with the lag it is playable, I generally play with 'enter' confirmation anyway, though I imagine the EC2 server American based and I'll be getting more lag here in Australia. My concern is more that with a bunch of people playing it could require a lot of CPU power serverside to compute. Some maps had noticeable lag playing them on my not too old laptop and just one player taking up an entire CPU's worth of power could be quite expensive for you.

cullman

Member

Registered: 2014-03-21

Posts: 424

Re: I've got a few questions...

Again, I'm not planning to make it server side unless I have to.  I am also not planning on leaving the map anywhere decrypted in memory but I don't want to say anymore than that.