Season Pass - DLC 3 Sneak Peek

[Andar]

@Little Paw:


1) No posts have ever been deleted, they are only hidden and can easily been checked for their true content


2) True, constructive criticism has never been hidden here - you can see dozens of examples for that on other topics. The only posts ever hidden are those who break our forum rules, for example by trying to start flame wars and so on. Some of your posts have been hidden because you always try to start a flamewar, but never give true criticism.


3) that includes the discussion you had with Lunarea (which she shared on the internal boards) where you again failed to understand the difference, as was obvious in your replies.


Just for an example, if you imagine (without any base of proof) that a tileset about trains would be a master vehicle tileset including planes, boats and more and purchase it based on that imagined assumption, then Degica has nothing to do with that error, and then ranting about the pack not including boats and airships is not criticism at all.


(just as an info for others: that was the main point of one of Little Paws posts that was hidden and is still readable to mods several posts above on this very page of the discussion)

 

[Archeia]

Just an FYI and I didn't want to post earlier but since you basically just accused us of hiding 'constructive criticism', which we don't, the season pass descriptions were updated when previews are shown. This happens on every preview reveal. And it was in fact, even quoted in this very thread by the users:

Is this what is included on the DLC 3 I saw it on steam.


DLC Pack 3: Tileset DLC



DLC 3 includes a large and versatile set of tiles for creating a train that's right at home in the standard MV resource environment.

• Autotiles (A2-A5) for creating floors and walls for both the outside and inside of the train
  
• Tile B including a large train, complete with the engine, passenger cars, freight cars, and caboose.
  
• The train faces east and west, and may be used with a scrolling parallax background to simulate movement.
  
• Tile C includes a full sheet of objects and details that can be used to create the inside of train cars.
  
• Animated tiles - such as opening doors, smoking chimney and railroad track switch
  
• BONUS: 8 Train-themed NPCs, incuding the Conductor, Ticketmaster and passengers - complete with walking character sprites and matching facesets with emotions.
  

This portion of the DLC will be live on July 6th.

This is why on the Steam release news, I added the contents of the pack that was revealed way before the release, to refresh people what we said is included in the latest pack. So it is surprising that you got so mad when it's not a master vehicle set and basically accused us of breaking your expectations when we set none in the first place. If we showed a ship, then maybe you have the right to be so disappointed, but It's a pack about trains and its staff. That's it.


A full vehicle pack would not cost 10 USD, which is what the individual Season Pass pack costs.

 

[Little Paw]

@Little Paw:


1) No posts have ever been deleted, they are only hidden and can easily been checked for their true content


2) True, constructive criticism has never been hidden here - you can see dozens of examples for that on other topics. The only posts ever hidden are those who break our forum rules, for example by trying to start flame wars and so on. Some of your posts have been hidden because you always try to start a flamewar, but never give true criticism.


3) that includes the discussion you had with Lunarea (which she shared on the internal boards) where you again failed to understand the difference, as was obvious in your replies.


Just for an example, if you imagine (without any base of proof) that a tileset about trains would be a master vehicle tileset including planes, boats and more and purchase it based on that imagined assumption, then Degica has nothing to do with that error, and then ranting about the pack not including boats and airships is not criticism at all.


(just as an info for others: that was the main point of one of Little Paws posts that was hidden and is still readable to mods several posts above on this very page of the discussion)

Prove it. Unhide the post and prove that nothing in the post was constructive criticism. Let the forum members decide.

Just an FYI and I didn't want to post earlier but since you basically just accused us of hiding 'constructive criticism', which we don't, the season pass descriptions were updated when previews are shown. This happens on every preview reveal. And it was in fact, even quoted in this very thread by the users:


This is why on the Steam release news, I added the contents of the pack that was revealed way before the release, to refresh people what we said is included in the latest pack. So it is surprising that you got so mad when it's not a master vehicle set and basically accused us of breaking your expectations when we set none in the first place. If we showed a ship, then maybe you have the right to be so disappointed, but It's a pack about trains and its staff. That's it.


A full vehicle pack would not cost 10 USD, which is what the individual Season Pass pack costs.

That's an awful argument considering that everyone went MONTHS without having any clue what would be contained in the Season Pass DLC.

 

[Archeia]

That's an awful argument considering that everyone went MONTHS without having any clue what would be contained in the Season Pass DLC.

You're saying it's awful when you pretty much said, "Hey guys I saw this season pass dlc 3 preview and here are the contents. I assumed it's a master vehicle set so I was excited. But it turns out it's just what it is so therefore it's not worth the money and IT SUCKS." When I'm arguing that we already revealed the contents of the DLC pack right on its preview and quoted here even with the entire set contents, so being excited all this way and get so mad that we broke your expectations is not constructive criticism.


The only "constructive criticism" you gave is the tile tracks which is already mentioned a billion times and we know. You are adding nothing to be constructive.

 

[Little Paw]

You're saying it's awful when you pretty much said, "Hey guys I saw this season pass dlc 3 preview anmd here are the contents. I assumed it's a master vehicle set so I was excited. But it turns out it's just what it is so therefore it's not worth the money and IT SUCKS." When I'm arguing that we already revealed the contents of the DLC pack right on its preview and quoted here even with the entire set contents, so being excited all this way and get so mad that we broke your expectations is not constructive criticism.

You're acting like that's the only thing I didn't like about it. Funny how you can control the narrative when you can hide everyone's posts who disagrees with you.

 

[Archeia]

You're acting like that's the only thing I didn't like about it. Funny how you can control the narrative when you can hide everyone's posts who disagrees with you.

Funny how you are saying that's not the case when that's literally your post TL;DR. You already expressed since Season Pass DLC2 that you think it's not worth it, you already mentioned the railroads are bad and have been vocal about it  --we get it--, you think the npcs are meh it's OK, that's it. You can get angry all you want, but this is exactly why we hid your post. You're just a broken record by this point and it is tiring to even discuss anything with you.

 

[Celianna]

@Little Paw how about this, go ahead and rewrite your post. Keep it civil, and don't make yourself out to be some kind of martyr. Don't act all outrageous either. I'm sure you can do it.

 

[Little Paw]

Funny how you are saying that's not the case when that's literally your post TL;DR. You already expressed since Season Pass DLC2 that you think it's not worth it, you already mentioned the railroads are bad and have been vocal about it  --we get it--, you think the npcs are meh it's OK, that's it. You can get angry all you want, but this is exactly why we hid your post. You're just a broken record by this point and it is tiring to even discuss anything with you.

But I'm not the only one who has been vocal about it, it's just that you're trying to hide the fact that the response to the DLC has generally been bad.


http://store.steampowered.com/app/426100/


As I write this post, the ratings for the season pass currently sit at:


0% of the 10 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive.


18% of the 43 user reviews for this game are positive. (Since it was released)


That means 82% of the people that have bought and voted for the Season Pass on Steam have found it to be unsatisfactory.


Compare to some of the other big DLC packs for VX Ace such as the DS Resource Pack: http://store.steampowered.com/app/229754/ (100% of 14 voters approve), which as I've said many times before is the gold standard of what an RPG Maker DLC pack should be.


While you talk about my expectations being too high, and assuming things that were never presented nor confirmed, I don't think my expectations from the start were unreasonable at all. For an official DLC pack, I expected better because you guys have put out much better than this in the past. I know you can do better, and I expected you to do better. I know we previously had the argument about why the MV Season Pass DLC and VX Ace DS Resource Pack were different, and why you can't directly compare them, but your consumers had every reason to expect better from you.


But you're not actually addressing the problem. You're just trying to sweep it under the rug. When your product has an 82% disapproval rating, that's not just the angry rantings of one forum member. It means something is wrong. The question is, are you going to do anything about it? Can you safely say that the "Surprise" last DLC pack of the Season Pass is going to be good enough that we'll just forget that only 18% of your consumers (based on the Steam ratings at least) are satisfied with the product thusfar?


This is what makes me so mad about the situation. You're not listening to the complaints. You're not listening to your fans and consumers. And you're not doing anything to make us feel better about your product. So far, it's just been empty promises, false advertisement (regarding the music DLC, which you guys could totally get in trouble for, I might add) and ignoring your customer's voices.


Don't get me wrong here, I love MV. I think it's a great program. But I think that if you want your customers to be satisfied with you, something must be done about the Season Pass content, and no, hiding posts and accusing people of trying to start flame wars to deflect criticism is NOT going to fix the problem.

 

[mlogan]

The problem isn't that people have legitimate complaints. The problem is that way YOU are expressing your complaints. For starters, you mix up your legitimate issues with things that are, quite frankly, your own fault. For example, hoping this pack included more vehicle types was solely on you, nothing that Degica did. It was never talked about or promised. If you truly believe that we are censoring all criticism, then why isn't Dungeonmind's post further up the page not hidden? Or many of them in the other topic that calmly expressed their opinion?


Your post in this topic was hidden because of Rule #8 - Do not encourage drama. Again, it's not WHAT you have to say, but how you are expressing it that is the issue. There was every reason to believe that your hidden post would cause drama, much as your similar posts on Release #2 did.


For the record, I have seen you mix some legitimate issues in your posts. However, most of it is lost in the way you present yourself.

 

[Archeia]

While you talk about my expectations being too high, and assuming things that were never presented nor confirmed, I don't think my expectations from the start were unreasonable at all. For an official DLC pack, I expected better because you guys have put out much better than this in the past. I know you can do better, and I expected you to do better. I know we previously had the argument about why the MV Season Pass DLC and VX Ace DS Resource Pack were different, and why you can't directly compare them, but your consumers had every reason to expect better from you.


But you're not actually addressing the problem. You're just trying to sweep it under the rug. When your product has an 82% disapproval rating, that's not just the angry rantings of one forum member. It means something is wrong. The question is, are you going to do anything about it? Can you safely say that the "Surprise" last DLC pack of the Season Pass is going to be good enough that we'll just forget that only 18% of your consumers (based on the Steam ratings at least) are satisfied with the product thusfar?

We get the reception of the DLC is bad. We get it. It is one thing to complain all the time, it is one thing to actually both good and bad things in a product and actually being constructive.


We get that people don't like the track tiles, but Lunarea already explained this to you in PM and you are ADAMANT on expressing your discontent and making everyone out here to be some kind of terrible bad guys. We do not have complete control over what Kadokawa decides to present to the fans, the most we can do is to add stuff to the existing files and make sure that we can present it properly. 


Also how is this not having high of expectations which is what I kept saying we never presented:

This is what makes me so mad about the situation. You're not listening to the complaints. You're not listening to your fans and consumers. And you're not doing anything to make us feel better about your product. So far, it's just been empty promises, false advertisement (regarding the music DLC, which you guys could totally get in trouble for, I might add) and ignoring your customer's voices.



Don't get me wrong here, I love MV. I think it's a great program. But I think that if you want your customers to be satisfied with you, something must be done about the Season Pass content, and no, hiding posts and accusing people of trying to start flame wars to deflect criticism is NOT going to fix the problem.

We are listening and just because we don't taunt how much we listen doesn't mean we don't do it. People like you are giving some people on the staff a hard time to care about the community. Want some examples?

• In Season Pass DLC2, we spent so much time creating matching resources, but no, that's not listening, remember those facesets? I'm sorry we don't do busts, because it's not like MV provided them in the first place. But no, instead people shat over the resources we made for it. The sideview battlers, someone even said that they're ugly which we worked on for 2 full weeks to make sure they function correctly.
  
• When you guys do not want Rm2k resources, I suggested a rare resource that I've seen been requested but suddenly it is  always useless to you guys. And you know what that is? More vehicle resources. However with a 10 USD price point, there is a limit what we can do per pack and a limited budget. When the train tracks happened, it is way too late to do any changes.
  
• When we showed the preview, we immediately update the page to tell you what this 3rd pack contains, and suddenly you bombard us with what you expected.
  
• When we gave free generator parts for MV since it is highly requested and giving everyone a notice in advance, people got mad at us for not notifying and we're terrible people to give you resources because how dare we update the program and overwrite their changes.
  
• When we do updates for MV and we're not fast enough, we suddenly do not care about our community.
  

There is a lot more I can say to this. But there is no satisfying this community, it is impossible. We have to filter out what we can and cannot do. I did the DS/DS+ pack and proposed that price point as a good will since I want people to start making games, do not compare it to this one. There is a massive difference. If that is the expectation then I quit. Good luck finding someone who will convert those packs to full. I do not want to create things for people who always think we do not care enough and that we should always perform like art machines. 


It is true you paid for the product but it is wrong to what feels like harassment to the team that is only delivering what we can and make the best on what we can do.

 

[Little Paw]

The problem isn't that people have legitimate complaints. The problem is that way YOU are expressing your complaints. For starters, you mix up your legitimate issues with things that are, quite frankly, your own fault. For example, hoping this pack included more vehicle types was solely on you, nothing that Degica did. It was never talked about or promised. If you truly believe that we are censoring all criticism, then why isn't Dungeonmind's post further up the page not hidden? Or many of them in the other topic that calmly expressed their opinion?


Your post in this topic was hidden because of Rule #8 - Do not encourage drama. Again, it's not WHAT you have to say, but how you are expressing it that is the issue. There was every reason to believe that your hidden post would cause drama, much as your similar posts on Release #2 did.


For the record, I have seen you mix some legitimate issues in your posts. However, most of it is lost in the way you present yourself.

It's not specifically that I expected more vehicle types - I expected more than a train with bad perspective and half the tiles ripped from the default assets. Again, I come back to the DS Resource Pack - for $30 (same price as the MV Season Pass), you get WAY more in terms of tilesets (and everything else) than you're getting from the Season Pass for MV.


I'm not encouraging "drama" (whatever that is supposed to mean, it's an umbrella term that could be twisted in any way to give a reason to delete whatever you want). I'm stating facts here. The numbers don't lie, and the numbers say that your customers are not happy with the Season Pass. I keep asking the question "What are you going to do about the fact that people are not happy with it?" but no one has yet been able to give me an answer. Except delete posts, I guess.

We get the reception of the DLC is bad. We get it.  Which is what happens all the time. It is one thing to complain all the time, it is one thing to actually both good and bad things in a product and actually being constructive.


We get that people don't like the track tiles, but Lunarea already explained this to you in PM and you are ADAMANT on expressing your discontent and making everyone out here to be some kind of terrible bad guys. We do not have complete control over what Kadokawa decides to present to the fans, the most we can do is to add stuff to the existing files and make sure that we can present it properly. 


Also how is this not having high of expectations which is what I kept saying we never presented:





We are listening and just because we don't taunt how much we listen doesn't mean we don't do it. People like you are giving some people on the staff a hard time to care about the community. Want some examples?

• In Season Pass DLC2, we spent so much time creating matching resources, but no, that's not listening, remember those facesets? I'm sorry we don't do busts, because it's not like MV provided them in the first place. But no, instead people shat over the resources we made for it. The sideview battlers, someone even said that they're ugly which we worked on for 2 full weeks to make sure they function correctly.
  
• When you guys do not want Rm2k resources, I suggested a rare resource that I've seen been requested but suddenly it is  always useless to you guys. And you know what that is? More vehicle resources. However with a 10 USD price point, there is a limit what we can do per pack and a limited budget. When the train tracks happened, it is way too late to do any changes.
  
• When we showed the preview, we immediately update the page to tell you what this 3rd pack contains, and suddenly you bombard us with what you expected.
  
• When we gave free generator parts for MV since it is highly requested and giving everyone a notice in advance, people got mad at us for not notifying and we're terrible people to give you resources because how dare we update the program and overwrite their changes.
  
• When we do updates for MV and we're not fast enough, we suddenly do not care about our community.
  

There is a lot more I can say to this. But there is no satisfying this community, it is impossible. We have to filter out what we can and cannot do. I did the DS/DS+ pack and proposed that price point as a good will since I want people to start making games, do not compare it to this one. There is a massive difference. If that is the expectation then I quit. Good luck finding someone who will convert those packs to full. I do not want to create things for people who always think we do not care enough and that we should always perform like art machines. 


It is true you paid for the product but it is wrong to what feels like harassment to the team that is only delivering what we can and make the best on what we can do.

You misunderstood what I was saying when I said I expected the DLC to be more. Or maybe I didn't really convey it well enough, First off, I didn't see the post where you stated exactly what was going to be in it, I only saw the preview image, so I had no idea what the specifics of the tileset pack were once it was revealed. But what I mean by "what I expected" is that, my expectations PRIOR to seeing the preview image would have been something roughly equivalent to a multiple-vehicle-tileset pack. I didn't expect just two tilesets (and again, some of the outside tiles are straight from the default assets), a train and a few characters. There's also the fact that it doesn't really mesh well with either the fantasy or sci-fi default tiles yet there aren't enough tiles/characters in that setting style to really make anything with it without it looking a bit off.


Also I'm not saying that nothing you guys do is right, or that I'm going to complain about every little thing. Again, I've praised your DS tilesets many, many times because they're amazing quality and well worth the cost. You keep telling me to not compare that to the MV Season Pass... but really, why? I mean, I get you had a basis to work from, but you still put tons and tons of work into them and it came out amazingly. It's an objectively better value than the MV Season Pass as well, for the same price.


I know Degica isn't responsible for the Season Pass, I know it's up to Kadokawa, but Kadokawa is a big company and you did most of the DS Resources by yourself... so you're telling me Kadokawa can't pay people to produce the same level and amount of content that a single person managed to do? Again, we expect more, we expect better, because we know that the RPG Maker developers and those they commission to do their assets can and have done much better in the past. I'm not blaming YOU for this, I'm not blaming anyone at Degica for this, I'm blaming Kadokawa for this. It's just that you're the guys who I get to talk to because you're the admins and moderators of the English forum.


Again, you seem to think I'm some big bad nasty guy out to ruin your company or something. But I'm not. I like your company and I like your products. And I want to support you guys. But Kadokawa is a big company with lots of money to commission artists, musicians, etc, and they could have done MUCH better than what we've been offered from the Season Pass.

 

[Euphony]

When the train tracks happened, it is way too late to do any changes.

When that's the case, please have a staff member tell us. I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one wouldn't have criticized that part of the set if someone had just stepped in and said, "Yeah, we get that the tracks are borked, but unfortunately we can't change it now." Some of us, at least, are reasonable consumers--we'll understand that you can't make changes to the set after a certain point, and we'll shut up about it, I promise!


Not trying to pile on here, just advocating a little more public relation in the face of criticism so that the situation doesn't spiral out of control. I sympathize with everything you're saying, and I'm honestly sorry for how upsetting this is for you.


I absolutely agree that some of the people in this community have unrealistic expectations. Even though I stand by what I said earlier about people having the right to criticize these packs, I also think it would do the community a world of good if people learned how to be thriftier with them. There's a middle ground here--you can rely on others to make resources, but you can also help yourself, too.

 

[beliziam]

Maybe the structure of the season pass is just bad. I mean in games you can make a season pass without telling the people what exactly they get in advance because they got the game if they like it they get more of it. In the RPG Maker you cant do that because everyone uses the software for different games and settings. Even if you say the season pass will extend the rtp ressources in certain directions it wont work because every user needs other stuff. It's almost impossible to make everyone happy with it. 


My suggestion for the next season pass would be make a themed season pass like fantasy, dungeons,  steampunk or even vehicles.  Then make a clear announcement structure like:


1. Tileset


2. Music


3. Character


4. Facesets


As example i would love to purchase a season pass from the ancient dungeon stuff.I already have the 2 released dlc's and will also buy the jungle set on release. To help support the artist i would pay for the stuff in advance in form of a season pass.   

 

[bgillisp]

. We have to filter out what we can and cannot do. I did the DS/DS+ pack and proposed that price point as a good will since I want people to start making games, do not compare it to this one.

@Little Paw: I think you missed this point right here in Archeia's post. It says here the price point of $29 was as a gesture of good will. Which means it was not priced at the cost it should have been, but lower. Chances are Archeia took a loss on that pack in the end in terms of how much work they had to put into it and the final price. If it were priced at a proper price, it would probably be $59 or higher.


Chances are, to get more for the season pass, they would have to charge more. And who wants to pay $80 for a season pass so they can afford to hire people for 4 massive DLC packs? Anyone? *crickets chirping*. After all, you have to consider how much artists charge, and how many people are likely to buy the pack, and with all of that factored in, what they can release and still make a profit as a company after all the steam fees and such are accounted for. And remember, most artists charge $20 - $30 an hour, so for every hour someone works on the DLC they have to sell one more season pass just to pay that artist their wages. 


(That being said, @Archeia: I'd pay $59 for a DLC that had the content equivalent to the DS pack. Those music tracks alone probably saved me $60 - $90 on music commissions in the long run).

 

[mlogan]

It's not specifically that I expected more vehicle types

But yeah, when I first saw the preview, I was expecting it would be some sort of all-inclusive Vehicle Tileset DLC, with the train tileset, as well as one for boats and airships. Buuuut no, it's just the train and it's teeny tiny track.

^^^ From the hidden post, as seen in Archeia's screenshot.

I'm not encouraging "drama" (whatever that is supposed to mean, it's an umbrella term that could be twisted in any way to give a reason to delete whatever you want).

So, in this topic, you did not get into a insult "war" with another member that had to be hidden? It is exactly that topic and your posts in that and the drama that resulted that were the cause for your post being hidden in this topic.


@beliziam I would honestly be shocked to ever see another Season Pass again, given the reception. Why on earth would anyone want to put in hard work to get that in return?

 

[Lunarea]

Not trying to pile on here, just advocating a little more public relation in the face of criticism so that the situation doesn't spiral out of control.

There are a lot of things that we're not allowed to share publicly, due to our contractual obligations. I would absolutely love to be able to give everyone a peek behind the scenes so things like "why isn't this pack out yet" or "why are you charging so much for XYZ" can be answered. But I can't.


What we can say is that our team did their best to try to enhance the DLC so that it's useful to our international customers, despite being created for the customers in Japan. What a lot of people forget is that sometimes decisions concerning content made to please the Japanese market are not the things that fulfill the wants and needs of the English-speaking community.


At the end of the day, it's just resources. It's not the kind of situation that warrants the bile, anger and harassment our staff has gotten over it - and repeatedly from some individuals. It's disappointing and demotivating to deal with. While we remain professional and listen to all complaints/criticism, we're not obligated to invest our free time, effort and energy when we feel unappreciated.

 

[Euphony]

At the end of the day, it's just resources.

Very true. People tend to prioritize weird things. First world problems, I guess.

 

[Lunarea]

Very true. People tend to prioritize weird things. First world problems, I guess.

It's ok. People are passionate about their games, which can translate to being passionate about their resources -- and we totally get it. It's the kind of thing that keeps your motivation and drive up, and also the kind of thing that gets people excited about resources in the first place. So, don't feel bad about it.


But it does help to keep things in perspective now and then and remember there's a person on the other side of the screen - and not a faceless corporation AI or an anonymous customer robot.

 

[felsenstern]

I don't want to side with Little Paw, because I don't share his opinion, but is it always necessary that moderators group up against a single person? That's rude and far from constructive and most importantly, it doesn't change anything.

 

[Andar]

@felsenstern we didn't group against him, we tried several ways to explain to him where he is wrong when he attacked degica by falsely accusing us of censorship and other things, when all we ever did was enforce the (public) rules that he broke.