new to the community

[nullpixels]

Hi, I'm new to LoL and just wanted to introduce myself to the community. I found this game in a tucked away corner of gamespot, downloaded the demo, and played the crap out of it. Now I just have to wait until my full copy gets delivered.

I really hope this game does well, because the design seems truly worthwhile and you gotta support the indie games. See you all online.

[Sammas]

Yeap, just waiting for my full copy too. Hope we can get a few games in.

[nullpixels]

Yeah, I'm really wondering what the online play is going to be like, and looking forward to the figuring out all the differences in the races. I wonder how easy it is to find an online game, or if you have to schedule them in the forums before hand.

[Sammas]

Apparently the game has a built in lobby for online play - so I'd imagine it won't be too hard to find opponents.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Yeah, we spent a lot of time on the online lobby, trying to make it as easy for our customers (and us!) to find and start games against online opponents.

The one thing I'm worried about is critical mass -- i.e. if we can't get to a point where at least a couple of people are hanging out in the lobby at pretty much all times, then people will log on, see nobody else is logged in, and then log off.

Especially right now when the game is relatively new, you might have to camp out in the lobby a little while to find an opponent, but if you play in windowed mode and alt-tab, you can be doing other things while waiting...

Hopefully we'll eventually get enough people that own the game and like playing online that finding opponents will be much easier.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Hells_Kitchen_Gamer]

I'm in the lobby, but it's empty. Where are the people?

In the future, it would be better if people were ranked based on whether they win or lose they way it's done if you're playing Yahoo Chess for example. This would make every game important and also ensure that you play against people of your own skill level.

Of course, right now, I'd settle for there being just one person.

[Sammas]

Well, it only shipped recently. My copy was on order before release, and it hasn't arrived yet, so maybe give it a couple of days. I'll definitely be on there, although I'll familiarise myself with all the races first.

Also, Shrapnel isn't known for its huge marketing campaigns, so word of mouth and a few player reviews couldn't hurt.

[jeffr]

I plan on trying MultiPlayer after I get a little more experience with the game. I'm currently playing the campaign, where I'm up to the Gnomes.

[Hells_Kitchen_Gamer]

jeffr said:
I plan on trying MultiPlayer after I get a little more experience with the game. I'm currently playing the campaign, where I'm up to the Gnomes.



I would encourage people to not worry about not having experience and just dive into the internet play. The person you wind up playing against won't have much experience either.

It seems to me that the real point of this game is being able to play against human beings. That's the reason why the map is so small, so you can finish a game against a human in an hour.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hells_Kitchen_Gamer said:
In the future, it would be better if people were ranked based on whether they win or lose they way it's done if you're playing Yahoo Chess for example. This would make every game important and also ensure that you play against people of your own skill level.



We had originally planned on doing a USCF-style rating/ranking system, but eventually realized that system has a number of shortcuts, especially where customers only have access to 1 purchased account.

In a rating/ranking system, half of the players will suddenly be at a ratings disadvantage (below the starting point) after one game. On average, half of the players will remain below that starting point. This is a major morale hit to many players, and many players will simply stop playing if they feel their rating is hosed.

It's not as big of a deal on Yahoo Chess, beacuse any player can recreate an account once they feel their skills have improved and want to start over.

So we have decided to follow the trend of other major/popular strategy games and use an experience system. People who usually win will advance much more quickly, but even a player who has trouble winning will feel a sense of advancement rather than punishment.

I understand that many players like rating/ranking systems, and we're among them. In fact, a few years ago we built a USCF-style rating/ranking web application for counter-strike clans.

But when it came down to it, we felt our customers would be best served, and want to play more games, with this system. And that's in everyone's best interest. =)

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Hells_Kitchen_Gamer]

On the one hand, I did give up on online chess once I realized how much I sucked at it. But on the other hand, I doubt that I would have been more likely to stick with it if it used an experience system like Land of Legends.

The rating system has several advantages:

(1) You get to play people of your own skill level. The game isn't as enjoyable for either player if there is a big mismatch in skill level.

(2) It makes every game important because you don't want your rating to go down. When you can just quit a game without losing anything, some people become disrepsectful and just log out because some real world concern comes up.

I think that the people who will find this game will be sophisticated enough to undertand the purpose of the USCF style rating sytem. It works very well for the games at Yahoo or Pogo. I would want to play more games with the USCF style rating system.

I'm not sure exactly how the Yahoo type ratings are calculate, but they seem to go up very fast if you start winning games. My chess rating was low not becuase I got hosed from the very beginning, but rather because I was only able to win against other really lousy players.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hells_Kitchen_Gamer said:
(1) You get to play people of your own skill level. The game isn't as enjoyable for either player if there is a big mismatch in skill level.


Well, if/when we get to the point where we have enough people playing online that people can afford to be picky about who they play against, I'll be much more likely to implement this sytem.

The problem is that with any indie game, it's very hard to find people to play against people online with. We created a lobby to help grease those wheels, but if you look at a lot of CCG's and other smaller strategy games, it's not exactly Warcraft III or MSN or Yahoo. Those services have hundreds/thousdands of people in the lobby at a time. But games like LOL are very lucky to have even a dozen people online at a time, just because of the generally small number of sales.

I think it's also worth pointing out that the recent major strategy games (Warcraft III, Generals, etc.) using experience/level systems. Once you really start looking at it from a development/deployment perspective, they have a surprising amount going for them. =)

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Sammas]

Price point is a bit rough. Not so much for me because my currency is strong against the US dollar, but I still had to think twice.

If you offered digital downloads, you could cut out fixed overheads (CD printing, shipping etc), and then price better for the market, taking into account online player satisfaction (ie. half price, double sales may be equal revenue but the expanded player base would make it a better option).

[Combat Wombat]

We like our CDs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Richard]

Sammas said:
Price point is a bit rough. Not so much for me because my currency is strong against the US dollar, but I still had to think twice.

If you offered digital downloads, you could cut out fixed overheads (CD printing, shipping etc), and then price better for the market, taking into account online player satisfaction (ie. half price, double sales may be equal revenue but the expanded player base would make it a better option).



The overhead from the CD and such is much, much less than half of the price. If we went digital only I could only see cutting off 5 bucks a game (if that). The game has alot of built in single play plus a lobby service not found in most indepdent games.

The problem is I think some people see this as your typical download casual strategy game, however I think this game is head and shoulders above most games in that category. It might not have the complexity of Dom2, but it also isn't a quick strategy game.

Again there is a instant reaction to think the CD an manual are the reason for the price, but it doesn't really figure that much into the final price. The final price is simply based on the quality and depth of the gameplay.

[Sammas]

Land of Legends is a fantastic game, I agree, but sadly optimal market prices are rarely in line with a game's greatness. And it's pitched at an audience which might expect certain price points. $5 does become significant when selling at a lower price.

Anyway, sorry for griping about digital downloads. It's just that a week feels like an eternity when waiting for my copy..

[Richard]

Nope not a problem. We will offer digital downloads for this product as well, but we are waiting for another project to finish before we feel comfortable doing this with a much larger number of our products.

And no problem on griping, we all want the best game for the best price. Just wanted to give our side on the issue too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

I just wanted to step in and give a bit of context to the price here, at least from the developer's perspective. =)

On Shrapnel's side, they have to pay for manufacturing, printing, and assembly. On top of that, they have to pay for the time of Richard, Mindi, Tim, Annette, Scott Krol, and everyone else on their side that's required to keep things running smoothly. And don't forget, they offer free shipping. That's about a $5 value that comes right of the top before anyone else sees a penny. And Shrapnel does deserve to make *some* amount of profit from the game. Otherwise all their hard work, investment, and risk won't have actually earned them anything!

On my side, I have to pay myself (I worked 1.5 years full-time on this project), plus the 4 other people who worked hard to make Land of Legends happen. As it is, I'll be lucky to break even on my debts, accumulated while living on a small fraction of the money I could easily make if I went back and worked at any of the software companies here in Seattle.

This is actually very typical of most indies, except that most of them are not fortunate enough to be working with Shrapnel, without whom I would almost certainly have lost tens of thousands of dollars. Instead, my game will get to be enjoyed by (hopefully) thousands of people, and I should be able to afford to make a second game!

So I want to thank each and every one of you who support Shrapnel as a publisher, as well as indie developers like us (Tiny Hero). You enable us to create unique games that you simply wouldn't be able to play otherwise.

If, on the other hand, you feel that LOL is out of your price range, we totally respect that and hope that you at least enjoyed the demo, and hope that you'll keep us in mind if circumstances change at a later date.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Richie]

I got the game last night in the mail, popped it in, played it until I went to bed,got up and played in the morning before work. That should speak for itself.
It's inspiring me to write my own game. I also just saw an article in Business week about "casual games". Very interesting....