Earliest Access Feedback and Reactions

Just posting here to add how awesome the game feels/looks so far!

Been a long time since I've had so much FUN

 

I really like this game and I have high hopes for it. I doubt that I will ever see a Settlers game with occasional cultism or an option to cook Long Pork. After I noticed that I can click kitchen window's food icons instead of +- marks to make food, my town has grown quite easily...

• There's some problems and the biggest one for me is the lazy pace my colonists do tasks. There's lots of idling for no obvious reason and it's frustrating. I would like to mark some jobs Urgent so that it would go on top of to-do -list.

• Rally -command should make soldiers stop doing whatever else they are doing at the moment and they should go to rally -point asap. It's their main job, after all. Carrying cabbages and protecting people shouldn't be equal tasks.

• Even if I make a stockpile area (only one), my colonists won't bring all resources to it, especially if those are far away. This is annoying, if I mine some ore I really need and after it's mined the colonist(s) head back to town empty -handed. Pricks.

• I would like to see how much each item costs, when I'm building/renovating a house. There should also be a warning, if I don't have enough materials for it.

• High/middle/low class paintings etc. cost the same.

• Some way to tell what's my food consumption/food production ratio would be really helpful.

• People, who are being attacked by fish people, should run towards soldiers. That's what I would do. Probably.

• When the Motherland sends me people, weapons or resources, I would like to see what exactly I got. I might get something that I need at the moment, but I won't always notice it.

• It would be kinda cool, if workshops worked in sync. Like, if I ordered some iron plates, the guy who refined iron ore to ingots would deliver them straight to metalworks and maybe even make those iron plates himself.

• I wholeheartedly loathe Frontier Justice -button. Only good thing about it is the name. With that tiny button I can keep lid on cultists indefinitely. That makes dealing with cosmic horrors an optional feature. Do I feel like fighting with tentacles today? Nah. *clickety-click* Problem solved. It shouldn't be that way. Colonists should deal with cultists without me ordering them to do it. I should only provide them with tools to weed out the chaff from the grain. Maybe it could be possible to make witch hunters if there was appropriate buildings and/or equipment. Maybe those hunters would pinpoint hidden cultists by listening gossip or if other people witnessed cultist acts and told them. Frontier Justice -button is a half-assed feature and I really hope that it's only a placeholder for some better mechanic to come.

 

I like the Frontier Justice button. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It has consequences. I find executing cultists tends to make my colonists MORE inclined to become cultists, ironically enough, simply due to the sheer morbidity of it. I end up having a sharp population decrease after that first death. Next thing you know even the soldiers are doing it, and then you have the soldiers executing each other and then running away and then everyone is running away and dying from starvation because they're too busy running away from nothing... Sorry, I think I got distracted there.

 

If I have 2 options, to let cultists do their thing and summon something that might level my town to ground or kill them and deal with ensuing madness and possible new cultists, I will always pick the latter. I just need some extra booze and opium. Even if they become apathic drunkards, at least they are alive.

 

Hey guys, been watching your dev blog for quite a while. As a long time game development enthusiast, I've seen my fair share and I just wanted to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed the development of CE more than perhaps any other game. Your blog has been exceptional.

Playing the early release has been exciting, and I am really happy with the game's direction. So i just wanted to give some feedback you can plop into your feedback pool.

• I also have the slow framerate issue: 64-bit, Intel i7 2.3GHz, Win 7, 8GB ram.
• I played with all the visual settings just to see what I could break: after lowering them I lost my ground textures and frame rate did not improve. After increasing the ground texture to high, quitting and returning I got the ground texture to return. Similar frame rate as before. Just wanted to confirm that method worked for me.
• UI: The emoticons for conversations seem too big. When zoomed out, they obscure everything behind them. They're already quite brightly colored and symbolic in form, so I could definitely play the game with them much (1/4 sized?) smaller. best case scenario: option to control their size and distance at which they display.
• UI: Took me just a few second longer than I thought it needed to to figure out how to close the top tabs (Commodities, Work crews, etc) they are not floating windows like some other windows, and that threw me off, I kept looking for a red X to close it. Some signifier to identify that its an opened tab may be helpful here. After playing a while, especially after closing other floating windows, I still look up to the right corner before I realize I have to re-click Work crew again. Option to close tabs as if they are windows?
• Work crews: Love the work crews. So much easier to organize your people around a common task than That Other Game. But it still takes some research to organize your individuals between work crews. What if I want to put relatively like-minded people in the same crews, I have to check out each one person individually, etc. Option: project personality trait icons on the character's portrait? AND/OR have an advanced workcrew management where character portraits are not displayed, but listed crews, the crew leaders, crews names, traits and status effects listed as icons. And you can drag and drop people between or out of crews.
  
• Game play: Buildings: the building layout/design is very free form. I assume that's a design intent, not to restrict. But I imagine that must be a pain to code and the weird instances that can be created. As an architect myself, I can only say that I would much rather prefer a module approach (with gables tied to the short ends of the module), as modules are historically accurate method of building, and in my non-programmer head, I imagine would be much easier to control under the hood. Now you can still have fun layouts by "overlaying" modules in perpendicular form, and (my favorite part): it may let us have some gabled houses, which I personally consider much more aesthetically pleasing. (See attached files)
• Game play: Personally, I think the game plays faster than I'd care. As in, people run around too fast, complete tasks too quickly. Makes it feel like an RTS. I would prefer a couple notches slower game play. For instance, by the time the first fishman shows up and i see my people running around panicking, the soldiers have already found, and shot him to death before I have, panning. Hopefully, in the future fishmen attacks will be full on "events." There's no tension in them right now.

Anyways. Loving it so far, can't wait to get the slow speed cleared up so I spend more time with it.

Thanks guys!

 

Had been following this for awhile now and saw earliest access so had to try it out.
Strangely game crashed like 4-5 times when i started. after that its been pretty solid. getting audio is pretty random. but i read that its been worked on.
Now I like the vibe of the whole thing. art, audio/music seems spot on atleast to my tastes. So you are in the right track.
Since i don't know what kind of changes you might have in the pipeline regarding gameplay i just list things that i found akward.
currently you can build yourself into a deadlock situation quite easyly. Its not that clear what you should go first and then continue.
Think it was my fourth game when i started to grasp that, make kitchen, farm fields first. let kitchen finish. then start building other stuff. and forage berries for the start aswell.
i like the job system but it obviously needs finetuning, now i tend to get into situation that i have jobs in the queue, but nobody is doing them, even though there are crews ready. they just seem to gossip over the stockpile. stockpile itself seems to be bugged, only things that seem to go there are wheat/cabbages and then stuff from kitchen. also it is hard to find which crew is on which workshop.
Kitchen, i don't know why but my guys wont make steaks from the cows or from the fishpeople. fishpeople just lay there and cows happily wander around. Also some kind of overrall kitchen queue would be easer ie. "do this until you don't have material"
It might also help on the workshops that when you hover your mouse over the thing you want to order, it would also have the material name and not just the icon. most of the time i'm going back and forth between workshops and seeing which produces what.
is there going to be more different biuldings? i remember seeing undertaker and graveyard from some videio.

Very Positive first impressions though. Like i said in the beginning the vibe and feel are there already. just need to add stuff and tweak the gameplay mechanics.
also no way to continue game at the moment, only the replay that in itself is nice touch, but i'd like to continue my games aswell.
Anyways, good job. and keep up the good work!

 

runs very very slowly. Laptop Intel duo core 2.93 Ghz Nvidia GTX 260m. The only issue I have is the low frame rate and I doubt I'll play it much until that improves. Game looks like it is developing nicely. I really like how the building construction works.

 

I just want to say I have been following this game since announced and excited to see the final product, with that said these were first impressions of the build so far.

Tried 2 games, first 1 crashed to desktop about 10 minutes in, 2nd just kind of went into an eternal pause mode, where nothing was moving and had job icons locked on screen in same space no matter where moved screen (and no I wasn't in pause)

Few things I did notice tho, really need a highlighter square when building plots, you THINK your in 1 square to start but it doesn't build there.

Also unless I haven't found the key, is there anyway to cancel farm plots? I somehow wound up with like 4 mini plots trying to highlight a square area and couldn't cancel the setups.

Still unsure on the available area's to build, I get that stuff may block/prevent a plot being built but I had clear areas that wouldn't allow me to build at all and it wasn't any kind of elevation thing either.

Explore jobs don't seem to cancel when they covered that area until I manually cancel.

Not sure if a drag system is just not implanted but would be nice to cover large areas to remove tress/forage, etc.

My colonists killed a few mer folks and I never even noticed til saw the dead bodies, maybe better alert system if not already planned.

Graphically I like the look and while I don't mind giving feedback/testing afterall I knew what I was spending cash on, I may wait for a few more updates to continue.

 

Even in a raw state this game is still fun to play. Any suggestions I thought of have already been covered by someone else so I will just make a post of encouragement.

Good Job!

Consider yourselves encouraged!

 

Thanks for the encouragement. You'll be pleased to know that saved games will be available as day 1 DLC at a very fair price.

Just kidding!

Saved games are my absolute top insomnia inducing priority. I'm having to work around an annoying limitation in 32-bit windows. But I will overcome and produce a saving device of eldritch dimensions and alien beauty. Stay tuned!

 

260M? I don't think you have any room to complain about graphics on your 6 year-old laptop.

 

I've got an ATI HD 5770 and the frame rate is a tad on the low side for me too (stable and smooth, though). Personally I think the limiting factor here might be our CPUs, since we've both got dual-cores, not quad-cores.

Someday, I would like to see Clockwork Empires running on a netbook.

 

Hah! how'd you guess my loathe towards dlc, and even day 1 dlc is like a red flag..

great to hear saved games are coming. Honestly though, you should get on with the 64bit. Though, i know how easy it is just to say it casually like this.

 

Just wanted to chime in and agree with many others that this game is definitely on the right track. In many ways I'm surprised how well it plays when you look at the complexity of the interactions between colonists. The game is already fun, so at this point it's only going to get better with bug fixes and additional content. Also, I was able to figure out how to play on my own, which is always a good sign for games in this genre! And do I see a hint of a meta-game on that map screen?

Most of my issues have been mentioned by others. The ones I didn't see mentioned:

• Stockpiles:
  • My initial stockpile is never filled. It might get half full and then colonists stop adding to it. As soon as you build a new one all of the loose goods are rushed over to the new stockpile, and the original one is never filled (although it will continue to be used, just not to capacity). Is there a limit on usable size? This seems to only impact the first one I build, strangely.
  • When you build a new stockpile colonists bypass existing, closer stockpiles and carry goods to the newest one. I made the mistake of building two in close succession and the colonists that were walking towards the first one stopped, turned around and walked across the town to the "newer" pile.
• Immigration
  • Doesn't the ability to close out of the immigration screen without selecting an option negate the need for the first option? Or can you have negative prestige? Would be pretty cool if you pissed off the mother country enough that they invaded you.

 

You can also simply ignore the immigration button and it will go away without doing anything.

 

Well, the game actually boots up and runs, so that's a huge plus for its first public release.
I already had lots of fun with it in its earliest of stages
A few remarks:

• It would be handy to be able switch between floor drawing and module placement while planning buildings. Also, is there a way to remove placed modules I'm unaware of, apart from cancelling the entire plan?
• You should able to place multiple modules of the same type in a row, like beds, chairs, etc. How about shift+clicking?
• Walls could be transparent or invisible when planning a building. For now, I can use the grid for module placement when my view is obstructed, but I'm a lazy bum who dislikes counting. Also, walls of neighboring buildings like to Z-fight a lot.
• It's not clearly told to the player when you run out of building materials. I've spent long stretches of time wondering why everyone was idling about, only to remember I actually need to tell the plebs they need to cut down trees and saw logs into planks. A message saying "Job X was cancelled due to a shortage of Material Y" would be nice.
• My carpenters don't use the power saw at all. I know that they'll need a power source, which there doesn't seem to be any of for now. Am I missing something?
• It's fun to be able to zoom in super close and watch the unwashed masses go about their business, but could the camera be zoomed out a bit further as well?
• Cooking is outpaced by the ravenous hunger of the plebs, who eat all my cabbages raw and then moan and whine about. I don't know if this is a matter of job priority, crew efficiency or just me being terrible at planning.
• Stockpiles are pretty much ignored. The plebs will mine for coal and chop down trees, but then leave the resources lying around, in a passive-aggressive manner that really hurts my feelings.
• I'd like to know more about how my subjects are. I mean, I can check their traits, their most recent activities and their biography, but I can't tell if they're hungry or tired, or feel a particular need for anything. Rollercoaster Tycoon comes to mind, where you read your visitors'... well... minds, and know what they think of the place.

 

I have to disagree about the idea that cultists are inherently bad things. I like the idea that maybe instead of quashing a cult, my people can become friendly with various horrific monsters and elder beings and gain their terrible blessings. Nyar'alaothan, The Beast With a Thousand Eyes, The Void Watcher, ia ftaghtn khflutn f'lghtn etc. giving his dark followers the ability to fight things with magic or create Dark Hams or whatever (I'm creating a hypothetical absurdity). I'm guessing this isn't a popular opinion, especially judging by Dungeons of Dredmor's Steam Achievements regarding the Necroeconomics skill tree. The achievement for maxing the tree has been at what, 0.01% of all players? for a long time. I feel like I am literally one of three people who finished the pre-expansion game with a Necro build.

I also felt like I should be able to act diplomatically or culturally with fishpeople and other hostile creatures at some point in the game, but maybe that's the dirty, communist hippie in me talking. It would be nice to have other options than dealing with things Violently.

 

I wish to be able to use eldricht knowledge for my benefit. I know that there's going to be meat trees, hungry coal mines, mysterious machinery etc. and that's great. I also wish that when I want to put a stop on something, it's not as easy as clicking a frontier justice -button followed by a few headshots... I want to see a drama unfold before me and I hope there's a possibility that my loyal subjects fail at their try to stop something I want to be stopped.

 

Hmm after playing a 40 days long game(6 hours) I'd say it's nice but kind of easy/uneventful at the moment and naturally the performance eventually slowed to crawl making me quit. Cultist didn't really do anything even though I did nothing to stop them and fishmen just occasionally wandered in to get killed, I guess I could have tried to provoke them a bit more).
Started playing a 2nd game to try out some stuff but it randomly decided to crash around 10th day.

Anyway I really wish zooming in would zoom towards mouse than the center of screen, it would make moving the camera feel so much nicer! Replays are nice but is there anyway I could skip to certain frame in them? Also I'd kind of like a option to turn off graphics and speed up the game as much as possible until interesting stuff or something I'm waiting for has happened(jobs or resources mostly)

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned but it seems that you can't renovate houses. I built a huge lower class house with 3 cots and a table planning to add more stuff later and couldn't add anything to it