In a post on his release page he mentioned that there was a lot of bugs with the version being sold right now. One issue is that you can't raise her submission above 0, and another one is that apparently a big "ends the game early". Please note that I'm reading these through goggle translate so I could be wildly wrong. He said something about a fix being released on Saturday and Sunday so wait until then before playing it.
yes bcause this bug, there no point to play this game
its playable, but the content itself locked out bcause of bug
and im tryin to fiddle out with editor and its seem he changed the way its game, now its heavily on script rather than just use event/commont event in rpgmaker (cause my limit knowledge with programing cant do anythign else with script)
In a post on his release page he mentioned that there was a lot of bugs with the version being sold right now. One issue is that you can't raise her submission above 0, and another one is that apparently a big "ends the game early".
Please note that I'm reading these through goggle translate so I could be wildly wrong. He said something about a fix being released on Saturday and Sunday so wait until then before playing it.
He said he will "hurry" and if he will "try to shape up something (presentable)" if he "somehow doesn't manage to completely fix the problem by the weekend."
(The "shape up something (presentable)" 「形になってる 」part is modern day business lingo-ese [and technically incorrect Japanese, judging by Japanese grammarians railing against the phrase] that roughly means "to/that fulfil some [implied] standard". Which to irate customers and stockholders wind up sounding like "will halfass it". It's classic fobbing-off-your-customers language similar to the kind that EA engages in.)
Also the comment thread on Ahriman's devblog is filled with so much salt it's not even funny. ...Wait, sorry, it's actually funny, but in a sad way.
Gems include:
(Quick and dirty translations, spoilered for length)
I want you to explain whether the "to be continued" part is a mistake with you accidentally uploading the trial version. If it's actually in the full release, I want my money back.
So this isn't a mix-up between the trial and full release, and we can't play this without a patch?
Last time it happened things wound up being unfixed in the end, so I guess I'd just have to give up and treat the money I paid this time as a "learning fee"...
I was playing the trial version henI went, "Is the game glitching out or something? When am I going to lose a battle lol is this going to go on forever lol... yep, definitely a bug lol did he even debug this?" Or so I thought but it turned out exactly that way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(TN: Original uses a different emoticon. The translation uses one more familiar to English readers.)
So I thought of buying this after coming home, but I saw the comments section so I felt it'd be wise to check the demo first... turns out it isn't fit to be called a game so I'm holding off buying it. Even disregarding the bugs, the "to be continued" part I hear about sounds like you're once again nickle-and-diming us short works at FULL PRICE (for a doujin game). Prolly the same for the content too.
Are you actually the same Ahriman who made Asagi? lol
Can't help but think you're someone else who took over and is now milking us fans dry. lol
How about you stop lying about "being lax with the debugging" and actually make something with more content than this?
I bet you are going to pull the usual act about not making it in time after a year or half and release an update that is barely better than the original before coming up with another product with scarcely any content after things have cooled down somewhat, eh?
Thought it was strange so I tried many things, but turns out it's just a buuug, huh. I was worried, you knowwww, couldn't get through the game at all. I'll wait for the patch, so please, fix it soon! Oh and do the same for Aoi too
Aaaaand a bunch of other ones calling Ahriman a cheat or fraud, or drawing comparisons between Ahriman and other circles infamous for releasing buggy and incomplete games (Circle KAME, Sakurakiji, etc.), or asking for Ahriman to suspend sales, or asking for their money back, or making snide (and/or outraged) comments about Aoi, or complaining about the usual wfAudio.dll issues (there's even one guy who runs Sandboxie and has the same issue as mine), etc. There are also a bunch of people with Stockholm syndrome showing support, but they are the minority (this time).
(I'd like to point out that Japanese users are generally more polite than their Western counterparts and don't usually go around flaming a Dev's blog over a flawed product. This reflects the sheer magnitude of the screw-up, for it to incite them this much.)
Oh and there's also a well-'drawn' (in ASCII) Magical Girl Ai meme with two yukkuri heads saying "This is AWFUL!" (basically an old self-deprecatory meme from Magical Girl Ai 3, which was also infamous for having barely any content). I wanted to include that, but I couldn't get the ASCII to display properly due to different font widths.
TL;DR: Yes, this release is the biggest trainwreck out of all Ahriman games up to now.
Just a random opinion, but imho ahriman and others mentioned in your post are those few people who actually make GAMEs. In their unfinished, bugged states they are still infinitely better than 99% of other "games" released on dlsite or by some most english devs, which are usually something like 9 H-pictures hidden behind generic combat with generic sprites from vx/mv, with generic, pre-designed maps and 1+ GB of generic music and sounds you copy with each so called "game".
If anything I really hope Ahriman just ignores all those whiners, his games are awesome, just need a little bit of bug hunting (btw 99% of games released usually come with game-breaking bugs anyway, so all this fuss is really confusing).
At a certain point though the amount and severity of the bugs present on a full release of a game is definitely not acceptable. This game is one such example; there are so many crippling and game breaking bugs that the full game passes off as an unfinished demo at best. You can say they will fix the bugs and make everything better, but it shouldn't be on us to buy and support the game first on the goodwill that it will become how it should have been released as. Plenty of dev's abandon their games in this state and essentially walk away with the money, and its become common enough that not criticizing the practice just adds to the problem. This game is currently a shitty demo at best and i highly doubt he bothered doing much in the way of testing because these are all so blatant and obvious there's no way anyone who plays the game would miss them. In fact, he probably just said fuck it, time to cash in right now and just released it. Its a shit practice, even IF the games do eventually get fixed and become really good.
Yes, he has made good games, and yes, this game can easily be very good. However, right now its currently unacceptable in this state. Us "whiners' are the only thing keeping these guys even remotely honest, because people like you are the reason they pull this shit in the first place. How about instead of blindly defending garbage, you learn to give both criticism and praise where they are due? If you can't understand the fuss, I hope you enjoy getting taken advantage of your entire life.
To put it bluntly, he just didn't test his own game. Thats not a shot at him, thats genuinely what happened, he was playing his developer version and didn't encounter any problems. Thats why he thought the game was fine to release. Ahriman is an awesome game developer, but he has a bad habit of abandoning games and not fully testing his products.
At a certain point though the amount and severity of the bugs present on a full release of a game is definitely not acceptable. This game is one such example; there are so many crippling and game breaking bugs that the full game passes off as an unfinished demo at best. You can say they will fix the bugs and make everything better, but it shouldn't be on us to buy and support the game first on the goodwill that it will become how it should have been released as. Plenty of dev's abandon their games in this state and essentially walk away with the money, and its become common enough that not criticizing the practice just adds to the problem. This game is currently a shitty demo at best and i highly doubt he bothered doing much in the way of testing because these are all so blatant and obvious there's no way anyone who plays the game would miss them. In fact, he probably just said fuck it, time to cash in right now and just released it. Its a shit practice, even IF the games do eventually get fixed and become really good.
Yes, he has made good games, and yes, this game can easily be very good. However, right now its currently unacceptable in this state. Us "whiners' are the only thing keeping these guys even remotely honest, because people like you are the reason they pull this shit in the first place. How about instead of blindly defending garbage, you learn to give both criticism and praise where they are due? If you can't understand the fuss, I hope you enjoy getting taken advantage of your entire life.
Definitely not blind. There is a difference, when people just throw "something" to get initial cash flow and then just peace out (like 99% of all those patreon games that never got finished after they release beta with 2 pics), and devs like ahriman and circle kame who have a history of really good finished games, full of content and interesting GAME elements, NOT just picture hunting.
If anything I am more worried all those whiners actually distract and discourage devs down, they (with their rich history of good games) definitely don't deserve that. Better aim your anger at all those patreon and majority of empty game on dlS - that is exacyly who's taking advantage of you.
Definitely not blind. There is a difference, when people just throw "something" to get initial cash flow and then just peace out (like 99% of all those patreon games that never got finished after they release beta with 2 pics), and devs like ahriman and circle kame who have a history of really good finished games, full of content and interesting GAME elements, NOT just picture hunting.
If anything I am more worried all those whiners actually distract and discourage devs down, they (with their rich history of good games) definitely don't deserve that. Better aim your anger at all those patreon and majority of empty game on dlS - that is exacyly who's taking advantage of you.
I understand your thought process but this is kind of a breaking point. Doesn't help that people paid for a broken game that they claim isn't worth the price given the amount of content lacking and the amount of time it took for the game to come out (plus the lack of refunds and its still being sold despite it being broken). Furthermore in the case of Ahriman, he has the history of a good finished game, that being Asagi, which makes it even worse because he just hasn't released anything near that level of game since. I don't encourage outright insults but criticism, even if a bit harsh, is certainly deserved right now and we can just hope Ahriman takes that criticism and use it in fixing and creating his next game. Just my opinion though.
More gems popped up after the last time I checked the comments. Most are people ranting about never going to buy another game from Ahriman again, but there's one guy who have dug into the code and found some ominously-named scripts. He didn't explicitly accuse the author of anything, but the way the scripts are named seem to indicate Ahriman deliberately shipped an unfinished game instead of "lol, forgot to debug it thoroughly." Of course it could just be "accidentally left some legacy code in", but judging from past stunts, ehhhh...
(The above is just speculation and I'm unable to confirm whether what the comment says is true, so take it with a generous pinch of salt.)
Yes. Game ends abruptly after two missions, judging from the comments. (Prolly less content than Ep. 1 too, even if they fixed all the bugs). Because "money, dear boy." (to use the adage). Ahriman's sold >2000 copies already, so he had already made bank.
Someone on the previous page also posted a link. I haven't tested it (because, hey, I already know the game in its current state is going to suck), but this poster should be reliable.
As far as I can tell, the game isn't discounted yet. What is discounted at 50% is the previous game (Nord Ep. 1). Also other previous releases.
Also I think the sale predates the release of Nord Ep. 2 (and its fiasco), because it's part of a DLsite promotion that started last month. It ends on the 7th of October... wait a minute. I can see a blatant (potential) motive for rushing the release of Ep. 2 now. Keeps visibility of the circle up with a new release so other people can see the older games that are up for sale. Especially for Nord Ep. 1.
Edit: Also, anyone wants to open a new thread? Think we should move the discussion over.
More gems popped up after the last time I checked the comments. Most are people ranting about never going to buy another game from Ahriman again, but there's one guy who have dug into the code and found some ominously-named scripts. He didn't explicitly accuse the author of anything, but the way the scripts are named seem to indicate Ahriman deliberately shipped an unfinished game instead of "lol, forgot to debug it thoroughly." Of course it could just be "accidentally left some legacy code in", but judging from past stunts, ehhhh...
at this point, i wouldnt be surprised. between this and many other greedy asshole devs in normal and h game industry, my faith in indipendent devs is quickly fading like how my faith in publishers already has.
Yes. Game ends abruptly after two missions, judging from the comments. (Prolly less content than Ep. 1 too, even if they fixed all the bugs). Because "money, dear boy." (to use the adage). Ahriman's sold >2000 copies already, so he had already made bank.
Oh hey, this is turning into a PR disaster. Ahriman just said, and I quote, "there's a demo...", "it's common knowledge as a buyer to play the demo first" and "don't like it, don't buy it."
Naturally the next comment response is, "You're trolling us, aren't you?"
Things are flaring up again. And it was starting to cool down earlier too.
its sad seriously. ahriman its falling already. the momment he couldnt ignore what ppl say and start working for update or patches. means that he already dont consider working on projects anymore or its tired. i hope not. i do indeed think this work and the previous one of same saga are the worst games in ahriman works. i think he do better work in sprites games than just Cg ones. but still why say that? even if play the demo. wont change. since the demo itself its short. anyway i hope the hype go down fast or else we can expect that this would be the last game of ahriman. something i hope not
Watching the death of a Dev whos game play I actually enjoyed is kind of amusing in its own way. Although it sucks to see him burning himself down, at least the fireworks are entertaining.
