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Any other longtime supporters feel like they were lied to?

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Kushmeyer:
I got a watered down game with unfinished content cut and put into a DLC that needs it's own kickstarter despite the original game getting 3 times it's intended goal. Oh, and the company threw in the Workshop as some kind of positive. Because spending more of my money on a game that has yet to deliver it's original promises is a positive thing.

Picture too big to attach: http://puu.sh/kTrHc/b8b371dfa7.jpg

Byron Cavendish:
I feel ya man but you're late to the party. Now the rage is the complete abandonment of GOIO (except for "new" maps that are cut down versions of bigger maps), and a watered down half promised delivery of "Alliance", the new not adventure mode dlc.

But silver lining, you weren't lied to, at least not intentionally. They meant well, but I have heard from multiple ex-employees that the micro-management and constant dis-organization, and changing of direction on a monthly basis lead to a complete breakdown in any organized dlc development.

Still, they are nice, good people and I still like 'em. Except Eric.

So quite simply (and sadly), it is what it is.

Dev Bubbles:
Oh Byron, here you go again. I appreciate the support, but the talk about multiple ex-employees... We talked specifically about this last time, and yet, here you go making these claims again. Not sure what to say to this. It's your freedom of speech after all. One thing I would say is that, if somehow you feel that what we're doing with the expansion is not what you thought you backed in KS, I would love to give you a refund. I think our communications about everything has been clear and transparent. However, if somehow you still feel like you were cheated out of something, I would love to refund you asap. Just email you and let me know.

Kushmeyer, I'm not sure how much of our communications you've been following.  Firstly, if you're not happy with the KS, please email us at feedback@musegames.com, and I will give you a refund asap. Secondly, I'm not sure if the watered down game you're referring to is the PvP game or the expansion. If you're referring to the base game, there are a few things to note. One, 35K is not enough to make what we've made over 3 years. I can't tell you how far away $35K is from the cost of us making the game. This I need to rely on you a bit to understand how much game creation generally costs. Two, if there are unfinished aspects of the game you're referring to specifically, I'd love to hear them, as it could be great feedback for us to improve. However, do keep in mind that we've been updating the game for 3 years now. If you were in the original KS, I don't think it'd be too difficult to see how much work we've done since then. Three, with Workshop, it is a positive. We've had so many players who've asked us for it, and it took us a long time to make it happen. I'm not sure what confusion there is about in game stuff, but again, you're not obligated to spend a cent. Also, the majority of the workshop items the creators want to gift to the community free for all. 

Lastly, we know full well what we said between the original KS and the expansion KS. We've gone at length to explain the rationale for the expansion KS, and also make up for the poor planning and stupid communications we've made with the original.  We were up front with our mistakes as well. We've make a number of postings in numerous places and have talked openly about this whenever asked over the last 2 years. Somehow, none of what we said reached you, and for that I do apologize. But again, I'd be happy to give a refund. Thanks.

Byron Cavendish:
Personally, while I do feel that the Alliance is not delivering what the adventure mode kickstarter promised, I am able to accept the reasons why. I still support you guys enough, as people, and as a company, to stand behind it. And I'm still interested in seeing what Alliance can deliver. I'm still not 100% happy it, but like I said it is what it is. Despite the problems, I accept them, and I still support ya guys.

However there are problems, and not everyone is as understanding. Those that are angry, I understand them too. So I have never held back from stating my mind, (for good or bad) and I do have to offer them my insight and my compassion to them.

I always think the bad and the good have to be heard. There is a ton good about GOIO, but the thing is we've all said the good, there's only so many times we can say it. Our small community of vets wouldn't be here after 2-3 years otherwise. But as time goes on, the good has been toyed with, we get very little "new" to praise as good, and we start getting agitated as GOIO vanilla gets covered in dust while we hear more of the missed content in Alliance then what is actually in it. At this point, other than Muse, who actually knows the difference between co-op, alliance, or adventure mode? What differences define what game they would and will be? All we see is the slow decay of GOIO, and the poor balancing of it. So that does leave us angry, but in my case, still supportive.

Dev Bubbles:
Hi Byron, thanks a lot.  Really appreciate it.  Yeah I hear you and agree that having negative feedback is actually really helpful.  Didn't want to sound like I can't take the criticism.  Well, I did rant a bit before I replied hahaha.  I did feel a bit that with the ex-employee assertion stuff, it's more at a personal level, and I felt like we already talked about this, so I was frustrated.  But it's cool though. 

About the specific points, again, I think with what is missed vs what we're working on, I felt like we've been through this quite a bit, so it's probably not needed for me to blabber on for too long here.  With co-op/Alliance/Adventure, firstly, co-op is Alliance. If this was causing confusion, we might have used a development code name like project x?  Not sure, but co-op should pertain to more of an actual game genre, while Alliance is more of a naming term we're coming up with.  Because, ultimately, we need a name to call what we are working on.  And we tried to articulate this in the KS update post.  Contrasting this to Adventure, we cannot call what this is "Adventure" because we did not reach the thresholds and tiers for the KS fully, and so if we deliver what KS backers back us up to, we should call what we're delivering something else.  I think this is the responsible thing to do.  I do feel like we've tried pretty hard to communicate this openly and clearly, but yeah, we could do better.  I think whereas with the original KS where we were totally stupid in how we communicated scope as Kushmeyer pointed out, we tried to be pretty careful with the expansion KS. 

With the issue of decay or balancing.  I can't say balance is perfect, and in some ways the balance of a game should never be perfect.  But while we see debates about usage and "OPness" of some guns (ex. hwacha etc.) I do think that we've improved with balance compared to when we first started.  You may argue that well, that's not saying much.  But when we first started, as you remember, we had plenty of times where 1 gun dominate usage and win rate.  Ex. heavy flak, artemis, merc, and so on.  Looking at usage and win rate data recently, I can at least confidently say that there are multiple viable builds in play in pub matches as well as competitive.  You're a better player than I, so you can probably say that I'm not in a position to argue about individual use cases and tactics, but I don't think I'm off here either. 

As far as the feeling of the game in decay.  One, we're continuing to update the game while working on the expansion. I totally get that you feel that we're not doing enough, with new contents, features, or balance. At some point though, look at it from my point of view, there is almost no win. If I update something, or change something, balance wise let's say, I could be causing decay in people's minds, as I would be risking eroding balance from an expected golden mean.  I can look at a gun's data, and say it's OP.  And even if people agree, and I balance it, I'm bound to piss off people who use that gun.  If I make new features, I can have some people yell at me and say, hey, why am I not working on the expansion, or hey, why is my specific ideas not implemented.  If I work on the expansion, I can get yelled at for not doing more to update the game, etc.  The point I'm making is, at some point, say after a few hundred hours of play, I might be fighting a losing battle with some people.  I change and get yelled at by some.  I don't change, and get yelled at by some.  So honestly, I can only say that we'll keep trying our best, with the understanding that at some point, a given player would get everything he/she could get out of the game experience and move on to the next great game.  And I think I need to be ok with that and be thankful, as there are a lot of great games out there. 

If you decide tomorrow or today even that GOI just isn't worth your time anymore, I'll definitely be sad and will miss you a lot.  And I'll of course take the criticisms and try to do better.  But, I think I should also be supportive.  If I've given you at least a few hundred hours of enjoyment, I'm actually pretty proud of that. 

Anyways, I might have gotten off track.  Appreciate the support Byron! 

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