Friday Facts #20 The release buzz

[kovarex]

I'm very thankful for all of your honest answers and information it will be helpful when deciding the next steps in the future.

[libik]

The demo is fine, but it should be better.

I think that demo SHOULD start in awesome-looking factory with few simple quests which help you understand basics like "bring me these laser turrets", "there is missing one tile of -someting- go there and repair it " with highlighting thing you need to click (and also prohibiting player to do anything else except moving and looking). Players will see that factory can work very well and automated (producing high-level items like laser turrets in preferably enormous speed) and it would be his long-term goal in next missions.

PS : I would not buy the game without demo.

[kovarex]

What I was thinking about is having something lime Mission 0.
It would be on the earth, and the player would travel by train over some distance passing big and complex factories/mining sites/refineries/train stations etc. of different kinds. Everything would be working and moving, it would be huge and the environment would be all dead and ugly.

[libik]

What I was thinking about is having something lime Mission 0.
It would be on the earth, and the player would travel by train over some distance passing big and complex factories/mining sites/refineries/train stations etc. of different kinds. Everything would be working and moving, it would be huge and the environment would be all dead and ugly.

Seems great, reminding the good old beggining of Half - Life 1 . And adding train would be nice to show more in short time. However do not "overcombine" it - at some point player should see that at least part of complex is doing something usefull (like producing these laser turrest which he can take and use).

[CherryKiss]

I get lost pretty easy when there is too much already done for me, so I'm glad the campaigns begin very small as they do. I do wish the train level had a working train up, as I've actually opted to use belts instead of trains every time, and maybe a nearly complete train setup would have made me more interested in working with the train.

[eddiemundo]

I haven't bought the game so far but tried the demo. I found this game from a "Let's Play" series and was intrigued since way back when I played way too much Transport Tycoon.

From a modern games perspective the initial controls of the game seem terrible. Using wasd was counterintuitive and I kept trying to use the mouse to move and mine. Using right click to open up things and build them also felt weird. This really slowed the demo down. I feel like there needs to be more context sensitive controls to make it feel smooth so it feels like I'm making good progress in the demo rather than fight my instincts (built up from other games) when trying to do things. E.g. When left clicking on a building I "deconstruct" it for some reason. Then I need to fish around my inventory and right click the thing to build it. When trying to shoot things I need to press space and right clicking on the monsters doesn't shoot. Lots of little things like that. That's why I think the demo conversion rate is so low.

However, I'm gonna buy this later when I have some more time. The concept and what I've seen so far seem sickeningly addictive and fun.

[Psycho0124]

I disagree that demo should start with pre-built factory. I loved starting with nothing and having the tension what new i discover every minute. Starting with whole factory would probably leave me overwhelmed and spoiled the slow exploring.

Same here. As gamers though, I think most of us here are made of 'tougher stuff' than the average consumer. I tried getting my 10 year old son into Factorio and the steep learning curve just kinda overwhelmed him and he lost interest.
Maybe a pre-built small-scale factory would have gotten him into the swing of things without overwhelming him (frog in boiling water kinda thing. Hehe.). Anything the devs could do to soften up that learning curve in the demo would certainly boost sales. Tricky to pull off without 'dumbing it down' but if anybody could do it, it's these devs.

... having something like Mission 0. It would be on the earth, and the player would travel by train over some distance passing big and complex factories/mining sites/refineries/train stations etc. of different kinds. Everything would be working and moving, it would be huge and the environment would be all dead and ugly.

I think that demo SHOULD start in awesome-looking factory with few simple quests which help you understand basics like "bring me these laser turrets", "there is missing one tile of -someting- go there and repair it

THIS!! Yes!!!^^^^

[ssilk]

What I was thinking about is having something lime Mission 0.
It would be on the earth, and the player would travel by train over some distance passing big and complex factories/mining sites/refineries/train stations etc. of different kinds. Everything would be working and moving, it would be huge and the environment would be all dead and ugly.

Where do I need to sign to build parts of that factory?

[Phantasm]

I think the demo should contain perhaps two types of premade 'look at this' factories. And then allow some amount of normal playback to see how it goes in reality. That way it would both show up what can be done nice and easy. And then allow one to see the actual playback.

First ready factory could be quite basic. Like a short tutorial to show around basic factory building and little research. Nothing too complex so it would open easily. This would allow player to continue playing after little explaining.
Second ready factory could show up little more complex features and demonstrate various ways to automate large chains. It would either show everything possible in the demo or even more. No free play allowed.

Then the actual playback in the demo could be done in a way that isn't the actual campaign of the full version. Instead it could start with fixed map allowing quite plenty of doing but with a lot of limitation compared to full game.

[slpwnd]

Big thanks to all of you for support and insightful comments.

@ Exposure

It is a shame that it takes so long, but after 0.9 release we will focus on finishing the trailer at last (basically just needs a graphical facelift). Afterwards we will finally be confident pointing someone to our webpage (at the moment we are not because of our crappy old trailer). Also 0.9 comes with doo-dads which make the game visually more pleasing (good for the LPs). So after the trailer is done it will be a good time to try some more targetted Youtube marketing / contacting the game blogs as many of you mentioned (we did this intensively a year ago during our Indiegogo but without any success - but we have progressed a lot since then ).

@ Controls

Thanks for the inputs. We will give more natural key bindings a thought, actually for some of the next releases we would like to make it possible to control the game way more with just a mouse (having some additional in game control panel, move by clicking, etc.). The problem is that we all are already so accustomed to the key controls that it feels like second nature.

@ Demo

Yes, the demo (and first level especially) is a bit tedious. We did some improvements (bit better UI as shown in the FFF and removed some useless content) for the 0.9, though nothing drastic. Some in game maybe earth-based prelude as couple of others and kovarex mentioned sounds intriguing.

@ Graphics

We are working on that At the moment Albert is really busy finishing the machines for the 0.9 but afterwards he will take some step back to polish the existing objects at the game that are falling behind (assembling machines, radars, etc.)

[Olreich]

@ Controls

Thanks for the inputs. We will give more natural key bindings a thought, actually for some of the next releases we would like to make it possible to control the game way more with just a mouse (having some additional in game control panel, move by clicking, etc.). The problem is that we all are already so accustomed to the key controls that it feels like second nature.

Having key controls is great, WASD + mouse feels good. The awkward parts are things like right-click building, and having context-insensitive cancel keys. I made a post to try to consolidate all the complaints of awkward controls on the suggestion boards. Change that stuff, and show the game to a brand new player; they should be much less confused and put off by the control scheme.

I fear that adding click-to-move and in game control panels will not help if the basic controls are still so disconcerting when people try to do things.

[gustavoghe]

Hello you all,

Reading throughout this post i came to think that Factorio has an especific apeal to a particular gamer. I bought factorio, right after peeking the site and watching the trailer ( back in version 0.5). This ckind of game, sandbox building is my thing. So Im inclined to think that the demo isnt the problem.

I have played this game a lot, and in the latest versions the game is showing lots of progress. It has morr objectives and purpose for a sandbox gamer.

The progress this game is showing, contrary to gnomoria for exemple, is someting that makes me believe that the conversion rates will increase.

So I would suggest reaching the beta, and see where it goes from there.

The game, factorio, is to good to be left behind. I mean its just to much fun to build a base and expand and defend. Thanks a lot.

[sjwt]

The issues I have seen so far that might need work on the help your conversion rates..

The demo game is extremely tedious in that it keeps wiping your base as you move up.. honestly I got very sick of that very quickly, why not keep the base as built and just extend the viewabel terrain?

You seem to have identified that their is a big gap between 2nd and 3rd science potions, but I think you are going around it the wrong way, 3rd level ones are overly complex, and then you get 4th level ones.. Both of these feel like a excuse to pull out a very long grind..

[ludsoe]

The issues I have seen so far that might need work on the help your conversion rates..

The demo game is extremely tedious in that it keeps wiping your base as you move up.. honestly I got very sick of that very quickly, why not keep the base as built and just extend the viewabel terrain?

You seem to have identified that their is a big gap between 2nd and 3rd science potions, but I think you are going around it the wrong way, 3rd level ones are overly complex, and then you get 4th level ones.. Both of these feel like a excuse to pull out a very long grind..

I didn't feel like grinding, (Other then clearing out alien bases) but that was fun. Until i got my power armor with 3 exo suits and 2 fusions and the rest shields I had huge battle sieges against the aliens. After that I used destroyer capsules to cover me while i ran into a base to drop down 10-20 distractors while also shotgunning spawners.

Ill say this, the demo sucks. I agree that the base wiping shouldn't happen, and you should give the player a little more access to the game.

Ill be blunt here. I saw factorio from youtube, and I decided to try it out. I'll be honest and say I pirated it, to try it. And after a couple hours of gameplay I was hooked so i recommended it to some of my friends on steam. (They bought it straight up.) And when I had some spare money I got myself a copy. If you guys want to hear my 2 cents even after that, I believe you should give the demo players the ability to play with a wider range of techs. (Say about half the tree) But you restrict don't allow "solar power", "express belts", and any of the logistics/rocket upgrades or unlocks. And to top it off don't allow mods in the freebie version. This will allow people to play factorio for basically free but they will always want to upgrade and get the shiny new stuff. (Plus having a semi free version would let a wider range of people to play and spread the news/joy of factorio.)

Now if you guys are interested in that. I'm willing to add onto that suggestion and give you a sharper idea.

[_0rbit_]

I was convinced by the demo and I like buying games early in the dev-process. Firstly because I hope to stimulate the creators and secondly, I love getting the updates and see how the game progresses.

As for the low conversion rates; I think a tutorial mode should be more evident and more of a story line should be presented. Factorio has a very sand-boxy feeling to it, which perhaps a lot of new players do not like. They first want to play the story line.

Perhaps a second group of players, finds it too early in development to buy the game. Perhaps conversion rates will rise automatically.

[aussiegaylord]

demos are always a good thing. i still have demos that my brother was given on cd 15 years ago and i STILL play them. the whole point of a demo is to give people a look at what can happen in the game so i think the idea of having you on a train riding past massive factories would be really cool, having logistics robots flying over you train and in the fields would make for some awesome visual effects and also give future players awesome ideas about what they can build. keep up the good work

[Zourin]

The trailers need a bit of work, particularly since they seem to all be footage of old versions, and don't particularly dramatize the gameplay too well (it seems to barely skim the parts of the game that make it fun, such as the self-inflicted complexity and the pressure the alien presence gives).

There's barely a presence on Youtube. I can probably name two that have used a somewhat recent version of the game, and I have to admit, that there's a significant jump in quality between some of the older stuff and 0.8.8 (forget about the quality jump in 0.9)

Admittedly, we have to come to terms that not everyone may be looking for a 2D Sci-Fi Engineering-Survival game.. which to be honest, this is the first its kind I've seen that even tries to blend that together (although plenty of engineer-minded people did rediculously spectacular things with Redstone in Minecraft).

The other possibility is Steam. Given the quality and relative success of some other alpha-beta-indie Greenlights such as Rust and Starbound. It may be a sales opportunity to explore for something that is already so well put together. Squad saw some pretty big gains doing this with Kerbal Space Program, and that's an incredibly technical game.

Until then, you'll have to rely a fair bit on word of mouth, and try to brush up the Demo experience so that it lets the player see more of what the game is really like.. and that isn't the first 30m-1hr of play where you're manually chipping rocks. Give them a small pre-built scenario base to skip past the 'stone age' and let them try to build their own (first) factory, and give a few hints and suggestions along the way (without interrupting play). Also let the player in on some offensive play rather than turtle-defense.

[kovarex]

There's barely a presence on Youtube. I can probably name two that have used a somewhat recent version of the game, and I have to admit, that there's a significant jump in quality between some of the older stuff and 0.8.8 (forget about the quality jump in 0.9).

That is the reason why we want to take our time before trying the bigger youtubers (like nerd cubed etc).

[Zemalf]

I'm anxiously waiting for the 0.9 experimental - how much longer? And speaking of YouTube presence, I will return to Factorio with the 0.9 version to spread the word a bit again. I mostly played 0.4-0.5 and hadn't played at all since 0.6, and it was awesome to play 0.88 after 9-10 months away from the game and see how far the game has come.

[tbarros]

this waiting is killing me...

i cant even start to imagine all the goodies the devs are putting in place for us..
but just that one little single piece called oil... thats the cherry on top of the cake.

and gentlemen this cake is not a lie

i want to try it before i go home...cause you know, st valentines,
the Miss is waiting and all that jazz.