Thank you Mortismal for covering Urban Strife! The points you made are valid criticism and we understood them fully. We already changed the wording on the Early Access survey to make it crystal clear that the price WILL NOT CHANGE after the game releases. We believe it will be a fair price too (but that's for you all to decide when the game goes live). As for the AI thing, we use these tools for prototyping to keep up with the RPG scripting. Our core team includes a programmer, a level artist and a narrative designer, so we must outsource 2D work to a talented local artist. He did a lot of work for us this summer for the new interface and the new marketing art. But considering there are over 200 NPCs that you interact with and need faces, we decided it’s best to leave the portrait work for a later date and not let it delay the release even further. Hand painted art is something we love too, but it is a slow process that can't be rushed. If the AI created portraits turn you off that much, we perfectly understand, it is a risk we had to take. We can only hope once the project matures you will give it another chance. Thank you all, the Urban Strife devs.
The fact they gave you a sponsorship of sorts and asked you to check their game out in advance of release and you still give an honest and unbiased opinion and review of their shady practices and redflags is very telling of the kind of character that you are. Well done sir, thank you.
I like hearing that they have the light units swarm. Reminds me of rogue trader doing something similar, where they would have groups of light units act at once to speed up fights with 30+ enemies.
Visually it makes me think of Fallout Tactics, a game I loved. I don't love questionable business practices though, so I'm going to wait and see. Thanks for your commitment to being fair and informative!
That's what I thought at 1st too! Loved Fallout Tactics, but it's been soooo long since I last played it, I wonder if I'd still love it if I install and play it again.
I've thrown quite a few comments in already, but I'd like to gather them all together here in one blob. 😊 • Firstly: yes I am emotionally invested 🤣 • I've been following this game since I saw it played live on stream for a couple of hours in Dec 2022 (the game had already been in quiet development for at least 2-3 years by then) • I'm not giving up on them until they either ship the game and it's really not good, or they don't make it out of Early Access and have to abandon the game when the money runs out (and then the publisher may either allow it to stay up on Steam, or may pull it) • Changing those existing portraits for AI art is a bit odd and jarring, but we don't know why they did it - I hope the final game doesn't ship with it, personally, and that these are just placeholders • The lack of straight answers about pricing - whether price will go up during EA, whether the game will be a higher (or lower!) price than EA when it ships, etc - these are almost certainly questions that they cannot answer, as the publisher may have the right to veto or override in future anything the devs say now about pricing • Although I didn't have that impression from chatting with a game dev on stream in Dec 2022 and reading dev blogs, nuances in English might be missed by them - they're a very small dev studio in Romania, so English will be their second (probably third) language • The core game, as I've seen demonstrated in videos over the last 2 years, has always looked solid - if you liked Jagged Alliance 2 and the 1994-1995 X-COM games, this will feel very familiar • Ultimately, I'm going to let them do their best and wait for the finished product before either fully loving it or regretfully not liking it Already I've seen that there are more videos that have been released in the last few hours - some more than an hour long - of people getting in and playing the early "influencer pre-release" of the game. So far, none of them have had titles or thumbnails suggesting that the video creators were unhappy. I think that's a pretty good sign. I look forward to the game's release into Early Access and Mortym giving us his opinion after a full playthrough, and many other players and "opinion-havers" as well.
Yeah, I was immediately struck by how similar it seemed to Dead State, which is kind of surprising. That’s not a game I really expected to see anything similar to.
I am NOT giving up on them, not yet. I've been following them with great interest since #TurnBasedFest December 2022 when they had the official launch party for their new demo on Zemalf's Twitch channel. One or two devs were in chat, answering questions, and it was a great time. If they survive Early Access, and manage to ship a finished product - well, if it's bad at that point, I'll have to give in. But until then, I'm going to give them a chance.
If the gameplay is similar to Dead State, count me in - depending on pricing. Those portraits look hilarious. They can AI it up if they want but don't do this uncanny valley shit. Price this at 30 - 35. Or ya'll go just play Dead State. Mitsoda be praised.
Good check-out vid, thanks for the coverage. Although I don't agree, at all, about employing AI creation tools in developing a game, I get the perspective. The other, non-AI, red flags are some useful color and things to watch out for. Appreciation. I remain interested in this game and confirmed it's on my wishlist, but I'm more wondering about gameplay, story elements, technical state upon release. Well and whatever the price will be.
I know this video is unrelated to my comment but idk where else to make this request. But my guy, we need some rogue trader guides. TH-cam has very little past chapter 2 and basically nothing for chapter 4 onwards. Your content is excellent and guides are 2nd to none imo. Also this game also looks awesome. Going to wishlist asap!
This game looks like it whould be right up my ally as Iove base managemennt and team building. But thank you for pointing out the red flags, I will still be having an eye on this one but my expectation will be lowerd. And I Wonder why they don't come strait abut why changing art to ai.
nuh-uh, game looks interesting enough but using AI assets is a major turn off for me, it's fine if it were like for decals or something in the background but for something as important as character portraits, no thanks
Not trying to start a fight. I ask out of genuine curiosity - why is that an instant turn off for you? To lay my own cards on the table Im thinking about this purely pragmatically or perhaps from a utilitarian perspective. Indie Devs dont have a lot of money to fund themselves so if AI can help them launch the game where they otherwise wouldnt - why not?
@@wintermintmojo2418 I'm an artist, but I do use AI in some social media and commercial stuff to basically have a stock image of exactly what I want, which reduces time taken to do things like touchups, photoshop cuz time is short. And I dislike AI for use outside of stock textures/preliminary concepts etc for some reasons. Now the obvious one aside for the sake of being not biased (which is the cutting corners with art) my main gripe is that the AI generated images have no intention or storytelling behind them. No matter how good a promt you give, and this takes me out of it because it just ...lacks cohesion. For example, a game's artstyle and portraits are just as important as the rest, if the portraits look out of place, then they take me out the game. A good example of this is Owlcat games. The portraits in those games match perfectly, and the personality of the characters has been carefully pushed forward by the illustrators with deliberate strokes and lighting and rendering (best example being Sister Argenta from the latest Rogue Trader game, you can tell exactly what kind of person she is immediately). Art isn't just pretty pictures after all, it tells a story, and Without that story, it just feels bland. It's one of the main reasons I dislike the tech tree of the new Sins of a solar empire game. The AI art there feels very jarring and haphazard. There are places where an AI base can do good and help fit the game, like Colony ship, but in most cases it just feels hollow to me for the lack of a better term. Now I'm all for budget restraits and helping get the game out there, I understand that and all. But leaving it as it is can hurt the game more than help it. And personally, if I do something, I'd rather have it be cohesive and intentional.
@@wintermintmojo2418 all the usual stuff other people are pointing out, but i also think that AI kinda cheapens the overall value of the game, y'know what i'm saying? when you play a game and you find the voice acting to be some TTS AI, i dunno about you, but that just sends a red flag to my mind that this is going to be a janky experience!! i think of AI content like meat extenders on sausages, it's fine if the use is minimal, but you can't replace the meat with meat extenders, you never do that!
AI art can be useful, if they use it to give every NPC a unique face, instead of doing what usually is done: no portraits for NPCs (maybe only the very important ones) or having several NPCs with the same portrait. I don't understand why the fact that they don't have yet settled on the price of the game post EA is a red flag. When it launches, you'll know the price and know if you want to pay for it...
The developer, White Pond Games, was formed by two men in Romania who'd been working as developers with Ubisoft up until about 2020. So it's probably not likely that the game you're thinking of is this game, unless it was a very old personal project of theirs that they restarted from scratch. I'm pretty sure Urban Strife is built in UE4, which wasn't released until 2014.
Aside from the ethics of generative AI (all of them being based on non-consented scraping of the work of thousands of artists), the use of AI also just shows that the devs are willing to cut corners/don't have the budget. And if they cut corners on art you can be sure they will be cutting corners elsewhere. Like Billy Bo looks far too cheerful to be in a zombie apocalypse, they couldn't even try and generate something more appropriate for the setting.
This has a lot more red flags than someone with your influence realistically should have to care about. And the game doesn’t even look that good on top of it. Completely shady all the way around
DUDE! I saw that J. J. Adams guy and was hoping to have the Jurrasic Park old man to be part of my shoot em up team. However, the other stuff with questions, and whatnot being "not-answered" does seem a bit concerning.
I don't really see the problem with the second issue. It shows inexperience (and perhaps incompetence) with the model, sure, but it's early access and they may not have everything ironed out. Most devs don't fully decide on pricing until later in early access and announce any price upgrades later on in development from what I've seen. They should be more forthright by saying "pricing hasn't been fully decided upon at this time" then giving non-answers but I think the general rule of don't attribute to malice which can be explained by incompetence comes into play.
Man, I've had this game sitting on my wish list for YEARS, but if they'll be using AI I won't be buying the game. I just can't support people who don't support...people. A shame, but I have plenty to play and won't miss this game at all in the end.
I always wanted a more modern urban rpg of some sort. I love fantasy. I just also want something in our time with an rpg kick. It's a bit of a shame that it comes from this game, but hopefully, It will do well.
I just finished Alpha Protocol last week again. Even with all it's jank it's still one of the best rpgs with modern setting. But it's more of espionage thriller with conversations having big role.
Honestly, I don't have anything against AI art as long as it is disclosed publicly and isn't blatantly taking a specific art style from an artist. The game looks pretty interesting, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here on not being assholes but rather just not being the best at communication. Let's see how they respond to this feedback, you're like THE "KOL" for this genre. I don't think there's ill intent here, and seems like there's a good game in it. All this said, I appreciate you pointing all of this out, even when you were sponsored by them for this video. Have a great day and may you wander in wisdom.
I'm hoping the AI art is an interim thing, until they can access more funding. They're a small studio in Romania, started by two men, and this is their first game as a new company. No idea how many staff they have, maybe it's only five people. Like you, I'm leaning towards them not being the best at communication - which could be because English is maybe their third language, or because all those questions about pricing are going to be set by the publisher based on how good the response to Early Access is.
Thanks, just wanted to point out though that this is not a sponsorship, sponsored stuff means paid and has to be very clearly disclosed. No disclosure = not sponsored.
Doesn't look half bad. it's not really and issue that they haven't figured out pricing yet. Probably don't have a clear Idea what the total dev scope of the project will be. Yes sure they could communicate that better but in itself it doesn't need to be a bad thing
The game has been anticipated by (some) turn-based RPG fans for 2-3 years, and while they have released several demos on Steam in that time, they've all been time-locked and were only playable for a few days. Now a release to Early Access has been announced, and Mortym is telling us about his impressions from the sneak preview the devs gave him. Why not make the video?
Using AI images is definitely a lame choice, especially if they had artwork already. And they should always communicate clearly when possible. They should just say "We have not decided on pricing post EA, but if that changes, we will communicate it." Neither of those things are really related to the core gameplay or quality of the game. I guess I was just expecting more to so dramatically shift your opinion of the game in a cautious/negative direction. Especially since the tone early in your video made me think I was about to hear some extremely shady stuff and/or serious core gameplay issues. If people buy in during EA, then future price increases wont impact them. If they prefer to wait and the dev does not clearly announce in advance that the price will go up, that would be a time to criticize them and perhaps avoid the game so as not to support such shady practices. I guess what I'm trying to say is, there appears to be a couple things here to take note of, but nothing all that serious yet to ME. But of course everyone's threshold for this type of stuff is different and you're entitled to your opinion. Your opinion, however, holds a lot more sway than mine in terms of influencing others' opinion of the game. I guess thats one of the hard parts of being a CC. You always have to factor in how your opinion can impact a game's success once you reach a certain level of influence. But at the end of the day you cant hold back your thoughts over that I guess. I dont know just thinking out loud at this point.
don't even need to finish the video, unfortunately. using gen"AI" is immediately disqualifying, no matter how fun the game behind it might actually be. it's a shame bc what i did see looked interesting enough, but no thanks.
I'm pretty biased against AI content in the books/video/games I consume, but even so, its use is jarring here. Those portraits were literally the first thing I noticed once your footage began. 😅 They look completely different from the rest of the game, but that aside, they also look bad too.
i usually watch your videos entirely but the moment you mentioned the AI content disclosure note i had to stop watching because honestly its not even worth it. Why do developers even do that 🙄🙄
Honestly the ai portraits don’t bother me too much, and the gameplay looks fun. If they price it too high, I wait. If the price is fair I’ll probably pick it up now that I’ve gotten to see a little more of it
Yeah it looks like a lot like Dead State with a slightly more modern visual finish, but how they've done the AI art is a weird choice. If you're going to take the risk of using it (And it IS a risk given how divisive it is), you'd think they'd at least use better AI-gen portraits than that. I don't know, with that and the animations, it all looks just a bit low effort. Something to keep an eye on though.
Thank you Mortismal for covering Urban Strife! The points you made are valid criticism and we understood them fully. We already changed the wording on the Early Access survey to make it crystal clear that the price WILL NOT CHANGE after the game releases. We believe it will be a fair price too (but that's for you all to decide when the game goes live). As for the AI thing, we use these tools for prototyping to keep up with the RPG scripting. Our core team includes a programmer, a level artist and a narrative designer, so we must outsource 2D work to a talented local artist. He did a lot of work for us this summer for the new interface and the new marketing art. But considering there are over 200 NPCs that you interact with and need faces, we decided it’s best to leave the portrait work for a later date and not let it delay the release even further. Hand painted art is something we love too, but it is a slow process that can't be rushed. If the AI created portraits turn you off that much, we perfectly understand, it is a risk we had to take. We can only hope once the project matures you will give it another chance. Thank you all, the Urban Strife devs.
The fact they gave you a sponsorship of sorts and asked you to check their game out in advance of release and you still give an honest and unbiased opinion and review of their shady practices and redflags is very telling of the kind of character that you are. Well done sir, thank you.
"Shady" might be stretching it, about the devs, but I have to join you in agreeing that the honest opinions in this video are very welcome
I like hearing that they have the light units swarm.
Reminds me of rogue trader doing something similar, where they would have groups of light units act at once to speed up fights with 30+ enemies.
Visually it makes me think of Fallout Tactics, a game I loved. I don't love questionable business practices though, so I'm going to wait and see. Thanks for your commitment to being fair and informative!
I've been asking him to review Tactics for months now lmao
That's what I thought at 1st too! Loved Fallout Tactics, but it's been soooo long since I last played it, I wonder if I'd still love it if I install and play it again.
Reminds me a lot of Dead State.
Newer game of this type is ATOM
I've thrown quite a few comments in already, but I'd like to gather them all together here in one blob. 😊
• Firstly: yes I am emotionally invested 🤣
• I've been following this game since I saw it played live on stream for a couple of hours in Dec 2022 (the game had already been in quiet development for at least 2-3 years by then)
• I'm not giving up on them until they either ship the game and it's really not good, or they don't make it out of Early Access and have to abandon the game when the money runs out (and then the publisher may either allow it to stay up on Steam, or may pull it)
• Changing those existing portraits for AI art is a bit odd and jarring, but we don't know why they did it - I hope the final game doesn't ship with it, personally, and that these are just placeholders
• The lack of straight answers about pricing - whether price will go up during EA, whether the game will be a higher (or lower!) price than EA when it ships, etc - these are almost certainly questions that they cannot answer, as the publisher may have the right to veto or override in future anything the devs say now about pricing
• Although I didn't have that impression from chatting with a game dev on stream in Dec 2022 and reading dev blogs, nuances in English might be missed by them - they're a very small dev studio in Romania, so English will be their second (probably third) language
• The core game, as I've seen demonstrated in videos over the last 2 years, has always looked solid - if you liked Jagged Alliance 2 and the 1994-1995 X-COM games, this will feel very familiar
• Ultimately, I'm going to let them do their best and wait for the finished product before either fully loving it or regretfully not liking it
Already I've seen that there are more videos that have been released in the last few hours - some more than an hour long - of people getting in and playing the early "influencer pre-release" of the game. So far, none of them have had titles or thumbnails suggesting that the video creators were unhappy. I think that's a pretty good sign. I look forward to the game's release into Early Access and Mortym giving us his opinion after a full playthrough, and many other players and "opinion-havers" as well.
2:58 didn't expect to see Col. Sanders in the zombie apocalypse lol
Or Lucy Liu lol
Urban Strife looks like a modern Dead State, they look near identical, speaking of which i'm suprised you never covered Dead State
Man I played so many hours in that game!
Ah yeah, I was wondering why this was so familiar!
Yeahhh, You're right! it looks totally like Dead State
@@xZeroGunnerx i loved Dead State, it was janky af, but it just hit all the right notes for me :)
Yeah, I was immediately struck by how similar it seemed to Dead State, which is kind of surprising. That’s not a game I really expected to see anything similar to.
I just checked out your stalker 2 acheivement progress. You are actually insane, love your dedication!
Thanks! would probably be done if it wasn't for Thanksgiving, but it'll probably be up this weekend
That's a bummer to hear. I've had this game wishlisted for like 3 years after Splattercat covered it back then.
I am NOT giving up on them, not yet. I've been following them with great interest since #TurnBasedFest December 2022 when they had the official launch party for their new demo on Zemalf's Twitch channel. One or two devs were in chat, answering questions, and it was a great time.
If they survive Early Access, and manage to ship a finished product - well, if it's bad at that point, I'll have to give in. But until then, I'm going to give them a chance.
If the gameplay is similar to Dead State, count me in - depending on pricing. Those portraits look hilarious. They can AI it up if they want but don't do this uncanny valley shit. Price this at 30 - 35.
Or ya'll go just play Dead State. Mitsoda be praised.
So many people have mentioned Dead State, but I don't know it - I'll need to check it out
Good check-out vid, thanks for the coverage.
Although I don't agree, at all, about employing AI creation tools in developing a game, I get the perspective. The other, non-AI, red flags are some useful color and things to watch out for. Appreciation.
I remain interested in this game and confirmed it's on my wishlist, but I'm more wondering about gameplay, story elements, technical state upon release. Well and whatever the price will be.
I wish you and your family a very happy thanksgiving 🎉 you deserve some rest after pumping out great quality vids no stop
Thank you, happy thanksgiving!
I know this video is unrelated to my comment but idk where else to make this request. But my guy, we need some rogue trader guides. TH-cam has very little past chapter 2 and basically nothing for chapter 4 onwards. Your content is excellent and guides are 2nd to none imo.
Also this game also looks awesome. Going to wishlist asap!
This game looks like it whould be right up my ally as Iove base managemennt and team building. But thank you for pointing out the red flags, I will still be having an eye on this one but my expectation will be lowerd. And I Wonder why they don't come strait abut why changing art to ai.
Thank you for the informative and insightful video. And thanks for being so upfront about things!
Not gonna lie, misread it as Urban Strike and was disappointed with the lack of helicopters with winches.
Have you seen Cleared Hot?
@ hahaha no, but I just checked it out. Brilliant
@Philopoemen81 megacopter also is like the strike games and has a great pixel art style. Ive had cleared hot wishlisted for a while
nuh-uh, game looks interesting enough but using AI assets is a major turn off for me, it's fine if it were like for decals or something in the background but for something as important as character portraits, no thanks
Not trying to start a fight. I ask out of genuine curiosity - why is that an instant turn off for you? To lay my own cards on the table Im thinking about this purely pragmatically or perhaps from a utilitarian perspective. Indie Devs dont have a lot of money to fund themselves so if AI can help them launch the game where they otherwise wouldnt - why not?
@@wintermintmojo2418because AI only exists on the back of peoples art that was likely fed into the algorithm without the artists permission
@@wintermintmojo2418 I'm an artist, but I do use AI in some social media and commercial stuff to basically have a stock image of exactly what I want, which reduces time taken to do things like touchups, photoshop cuz time is short.
And I dislike AI for use outside of stock textures/preliminary concepts etc for some reasons. Now the obvious one aside for the sake of being not biased (which is the cutting corners with art) my main gripe is that the AI generated images have no intention or storytelling behind them. No matter how good a promt you give, and this takes me out of it because it just ...lacks cohesion.
For example, a game's artstyle and portraits are just as important as the rest, if the portraits look out of place, then they take me out the game. A good example of this is Owlcat games. The portraits in those games match perfectly, and the personality of the characters has been carefully pushed forward by the illustrators with deliberate strokes and lighting and rendering (best example being Sister Argenta from the latest Rogue Trader game, you can tell exactly what kind of person she is immediately).
Art isn't just pretty pictures after all, it tells a story, and Without that story, it just feels bland. It's one of the main reasons I dislike the tech tree of the new Sins of a solar empire game. The AI art there feels very jarring and haphazard.
There are places where an AI base can do good and help fit the game, like Colony ship, but in most cases it just feels hollow to me for the lack of a better term.
Now I'm all for budget restraits and helping get the game out there, I understand that and all. But leaving it as it is can hurt the game more than help it. And personally, if I do something, I'd rather have it be cohesive and intentional.
@@wintermintmojo2418 all the usual stuff other people are pointing out, but i also think that AI kinda cheapens the overall value of the game, y'know what i'm saying? when you play a game and you find the voice acting to be some TTS AI, i dunno about you, but that just sends a red flag to my mind that this is going to be a janky experience!! i think of AI content like meat extenders on sausages, it's fine if the use is minimal, but you can't replace the meat with meat extenders, you never do that!
Wow feel like I’ve had this one my wishlist for years.
My favourite videogame channel.
AI art can be useful, if they use it to give every NPC a unique face, instead of doing what usually is done: no portraits for NPCs (maybe only the very important ones) or having several NPCs with the same portrait.
I don't understand why the fact that they don't have yet settled on the price of the game post EA is a red flag. When it launches, you'll know the price and know if you want to pay for it...
You'd be right if the AI art wasn't
1) made from stolen IP
2) destroying the biosphere
There was a game that was almost identical to this back in 2012/13 that never made it out of early access, wonder if its related?
The developer, White Pond Games, was formed by two men in Romania who'd been working as developers with Ubisoft up until about 2020. So it's probably not likely that the game you're thinking of is this game, unless it was a very old personal project of theirs that they restarted from scratch. I'm pretty sure Urban Strife is built in UE4, which wasn't released until 2014.
If you can remember/find out what the game is you're thinking of, though, that would be awesome to look into …
Will you cover the things added on WOTR Game of the Year edition? I think they said they added some new stuff on a youtube post.
He already did. The final content update is everything that was new, everything else has already been covered before by him.
Aside from the ethics of generative AI (all of them being based on non-consented scraping of the work of thousands of artists), the use of AI also just shows that the devs are willing to cut corners/don't have the budget. And if they cut corners on art you can be sure they will be cutting corners elsewhere.
Like Billy Bo looks far too cheerful to be in a zombie apocalypse, they couldn't even try and generate something more appropriate for the setting.
If they're willing to cut corners by putting AI garbage in the game then god only knows what else they're willing to cut corners on. It's shady af
This has a lot more red flags than someone with your influence realistically should have to care about. And the game doesn’t even look that good on top of it.
Completely shady all the way around
What? Early access?? Finally!!
*I personally have nothing against AI generated art as long as its not marketed as anything else
DUDE! I saw that J. J. Adams guy and was hoping to have the Jurrasic Park old man to be part of my shoot em up team. However, the other stuff with questions, and whatnot being "not-answered" does seem a bit concerning.
Thanks for the video. 0:53 and that is what truly separates your channel from the rest. Onward to 400k. All glory to the algorithm.
Steam set out some customer friendly rules for dev to follow so maybe some of the red flags you mentioned could be solved.
I don't really see the problem with the second issue. It shows inexperience (and perhaps incompetence) with the model, sure, but it's early access and they may not have everything ironed out. Most devs don't fully decide on pricing until later in early access and announce any price upgrades later on in development from what I've seen. They should be more forthright by saying "pricing hasn't been fully decided upon at this time" then giving non-answers but I think the general rule of don't attribute to malice which can be explained by incompetence comes into play.
After Broken Roads didnt score well on release I was hoping this game would be good. We will see...
That cover reminds me of Rogue Warrior with Dick Marcinko
Oh god not Dick Marcinko 🤣
04:00 thanks for telling me to skip this game.
Reminds me of tunguska. I love that game.
Man, I've had this game sitting on my wish list for YEARS, but if they'll be using AI I won't be buying the game. I just can't support people who don't support...people. A shame, but I have plenty to play and won't miss this game at all in the end.
Let's wait and see, for all we know it was a decision made for them by the publisher…
Devs should leave the use of AI portraits to the user.
I always wanted a more modern urban rpg of some sort. I love fantasy. I just also want something in our time with an rpg kick. It's a bit of a shame that it comes from this game, but hopefully, It will do well.
I just finished Alpha Protocol last week again. Even with all it's jank it's still one of the best rpgs with modern setting. But it's more of espionage thriller with conversations having big role.
@@ossihurme7572alpha protocol is a good shout. Might be time I finally check it out
Honestly, I don't have anything against AI art as long as it is disclosed publicly and isn't blatantly taking a specific art style from an artist. The game looks pretty interesting, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here on not being assholes but rather just not being the best at communication. Let's see how they respond to this feedback, you're like THE "KOL" for this genre. I don't think there's ill intent here, and seems like there's a good game in it. All this said, I appreciate you pointing all of this out, even when you were sponsored by them for this video. Have a great day and may you wander in wisdom.
I'm hoping the AI art is an interim thing, until they can access more funding. They're a small studio in Romania, started by two men, and this is their first game as a new company. No idea how many staff they have, maybe it's only five people. Like you, I'm leaning towards them not being the best at communication - which could be because English is maybe their third language, or because all those questions about pricing are going to be set by the publisher based on how good the response to Early Access is.
Thanks, just wanted to point out though that this is not a sponsorship, sponsored stuff means paid and has to be very clearly disclosed. No disclosure = not sponsored.
Good to know. Will never touch it with its ai generated art, ect.
Yeah switching to AI portraits is a big nogo for me. If they dont wanna pay for artists i dont wanna pay for their game.
Try SPARTA 2035
Comment for Al Gore Rhythm.
free comment.
Doesn't look half bad. it's not really and issue that they haven't figured out pricing yet. Probably don't have a clear Idea what the total dev scope of the project will be.
Yes sure they could communicate that better but in itself it doesn't need to be a bad thing
What's the reason to make videos about such games?There are some many excellent games in this genre...Better play in something else definitely
The game has been anticipated by (some) turn-based RPG fans for 2-3 years, and while they have released several demos on Steam in that time, they've all been time-locked and were only playable for a few days. Now a release to Early Access has been announced, and Mortym is telling us about his impressions from the sneak preview the devs gave him. Why not make the video?
Yay! Oh wait. Red flags? Shit.
Won't touch anything with AI, so appreciate the headsup.
Real shame about the AI art stuff. Massive turn off for me I'm afraid, especially on a game I was looking to get.
I don't see why is it bad that they use new AI generated character profile pictures.
Those AI generated character portraits are... ehhhh
Gronk!
Oh man, I can't comprehend why they'd want to change the portraits like that. Makes me wonder where their line was.
Using AI images is definitely a lame choice, especially if they had artwork already. And they should always communicate clearly when possible. They should just say "We have not decided on pricing post EA, but if that changes, we will communicate it."
Neither of those things are really related to the core gameplay or quality of the game. I guess I was just expecting more to so dramatically shift your opinion of the game in a cautious/negative direction. Especially since the tone early in your video made me think I was about to hear some extremely shady stuff and/or serious core gameplay issues. If people buy in during EA, then future price increases wont impact them. If they prefer to wait and the dev does not clearly announce in advance that the price will go up, that would be a time to criticize them and perhaps avoid the game so as not to support such shady practices.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, there appears to be a couple things here to take note of, but nothing all that serious yet to ME. But of course everyone's threshold for this type of stuff is different and you're entitled to your opinion. Your opinion, however, holds a lot more sway than mine in terms of influencing others' opinion of the game. I guess thats one of the hard parts of being a CC. You always have to factor in how your opinion can impact a game's success once you reach a certain level of influence. But at the end of the day you cant hold back your thoughts over that I guess. I dont know just thinking out loud at this point.
Well, that game is off my wishlist.
Using AI art when you can use real one is already a bad decision.
Will give the game a skip based on the choice to switch to ai portraits alone
Looks great to me. AI generated art is fine. I know a lot of people have different opinions, but AIs are inevitable and, in my opinion, quite useful.
You can’t tell me what to do
He can but you can ignore him
@@ashuggtube You can't tell me what to do either
@@opethmike and I didn't!
@ yes you did
AI equals a pass for me. It’s a shame as the game looks like a cool concept but it’s such a slippery slope towards the death of creativity.
don't even need to finish the video, unfortunately. using gen"AI" is immediately disqualifying, no matter how fun the game behind it might actually be. it's a shame bc what i did see looked interesting enough, but no thanks.
Looks cool but it uses AI gen so it's a no buy from me.
I'm pretty biased against AI content in the books/video/games I consume, but even so, its use is jarring here. Those portraits were literally the first thing I noticed once your footage began. 😅 They look completely different from the rest of the game, but that aside, they also look bad too.
Welp, no reason to bother with a game that couldn't bother to draw its own art
They did earlier… as indeed, Mortym said. With zero proof, I think this has come from the publisher …
A bunch of Red flags😮 - ai portraits and devs didn't decide on the pricing yet
Exactly my thoughts. lol :)
Two = a bunch? lmao. ai looks like crap but small issue, being deceptive on pricing is wild, but just play Dead State.
It uses AI generated content? I’m 100% out.
AI generated art is a hard no from me
looks sweet to me
llm generated art is a instant no go. its unbearable to look at for me.
AI? No buy.
i usually watch your videos entirely but the moment you mentioned the AI content disclosure note i had to stop watching because honestly its not even worth it. Why do developers even do that 🙄🙄
AI art ruins every piece of media that it oozes into. Instant repulsion.
Honestly the ai portraits don’t bother me too much, and the gameplay looks fun. If they price it too high, I wait. If the price is fair I’ll probably pick it up now that I’ve gotten to see a little more of it
Billy Bo = Eminem, Kaylee= Amber Heard, Lucy Li = Lucy Liu (they didn't even try hard on that one)
This game using AI Art is a big no for me. Skip.
Yeah it looks like a lot like Dead State with a slightly more modern visual finish, but how they've done the AI art is a weird choice. If you're going to take the risk of using it (And it IS a risk given how divisive it is), you'd think they'd at least use better AI-gen portraits than that. I don't know, with that and the animations, it all looks just a bit low effort. Something to keep an eye on though.
Such a sad, strange decision with the AI. Hopefully they use Early Access for what it's for, feedback, and revert the changes.
Hi
Hello
Eyurt
first