Author Topic: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again  (Read 8626 times)

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Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
So, you remember those guys who bought the Freespace trademark? Apparently they're making a completely unrelated but very awesome Heavy Gear reboot which is being funded through a kickstarter.

It seems that Stompy Bot is run by the team over at Mektek.net, the same guys responsible for the Mechwarrior 4 Free release a while back. I have faith in their mech experience, so I might give this a kick.

 
Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Related discussion: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=81580.0

Interesting that they're doing a kickstarter, I may have to keep an eye on it.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
I cannot emphasize enough that you should not give money to this, as anything related to the modern Dream Pod 9 is sketchy as ****. This is their second effort at crowdfunding HGA, the team has been evasive and occasionally contradictory on their Facebook page, their productivity dropped during and after the first crowdfund effort they ran themselves, and their efforts so far have been extremely amateurish. Relatively simple things like actually having a funding meter or even a password retrieval option on their website weren't done for weeks after the first crowdfunding effort started. It took them over 12 hours after their big reveal countdown ended to actually get the Heavy Gear Assault page up.

Do not give money to these people. It will be wasted.

If you are in desperate need of a giant robot fix, there's a Robotech miniatures wargame on Kickstarter right now, it's really very good, and it has amazing minis. Give your money to that.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline iVoid

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
This looks really cool! I might contribute some money.

NGTM-1R, could you please elaborate? I'm not convinced what you said would really mean they won't be capable of creating a great game, and you didn't give many specifics...

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
NGTM-1R, could you please elaborate? I'm not convinced what you said would really mean they won't be capable of creating a great game, and you didn't give many specifics...

Quite simply, they're not going to make their targets, they've not shown a hint of talent or competence, they already drastically revised their goals downward once for their first crowdfund they ran themselves and once for Kickstarter, they've not shown a single sign of productive use of the money they already have, and they've openly admitted (and then denied and admitted and denied, these people are sketchy as ****) that if they can't meet their targets no game happens.

And did I mention their reveal trailer? It's 45 seconds long. It's short, but screw it, I'm a giant robot mark so bad I actually bought freaking Lost Planet: Extreme Condition in its PC port which quite literally made ZERO ****ING SENSE and WAS FULL OF INCREDIBLE FINAL-FANTASY-LIKE BULL**** and SHOWED YOU THE CONTROLS FOR THE XBOX IN THE PC PORT. So you know what? I BOUGHT THE SEQUEL WHICH WAS EVEN WORSE. I am the world's worst giant robot mark. And I turned around and I said **** this because it took them TWELVE HOURS WHILE THEIR REVEAL COUNTDOWN WAS AT 0:00:00 TO ACTUALLY GET THIS FORTY-FIVE SECOND VIDEO UP.

But the trailer had eight seconds of actual content showing a Gear, during which they TURNED ON A LIGHT and ZOOMED OUT as the sum total of action, and it wasn't even a ****ing Gear I could recognize! (I actually hit up a couple of tabletop games guys I know who tested for DP9 in the last year and they couldn't recognize it either, with both of them citing two possible models, but not the same ones.) The Stompy Bot Productions logo took up twelve seconds. Let me repeat that. ONE OF THE PRODUCTION STUDIO LOGOS, JUST ONE, WAS ON SCREEN FOR HALF AGAIN AS LONG AS ANY GAME-RELATED CONTENT. THE VIDEO ITSELF HAD TWENTY SECONDS OF BEGGING FOR MONEY, AND 17 SECONDS OF PRODUCTION LOGOS, AND EIGHT SECONDS OF CONTENT, CONTENT WHICH FRANKLY I COULD GET HADES OR ODDGRIM OR EVEN TRASHMAN TO WHIP UP IN AN AFTERNOON. AND THEY COUNTED DOWN FOR DAYS AND THEN NEEDED AN EXTRA TWELVE HOURS.

They can't even advertize right. They took weeks to actually create a funding meter or a PASSWORD RETRIEVAL SYSTEM for their website. These are not competent people. They have actively avoided accountability with your money by action and by obfuscation. Do not give it to them.

And before you ask, yes I'm mad.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2013, 11:40:08 am by NGTM-1R »
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline iVoid

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Oh and also?

I'm watching you, iVoid.
LOL is there something unreasonable about that? I just want to hear both sides. Problem?

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Oh geez, if your rant didn't have me convinced NGTM-1R that admin certainly got me. I can't imagine many things less professional than picking fights on internet forums.

 

Offline iVoid

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Well, here's what sums up the way I see it: "When we discuss we show our intelligence. When we argue we show our ignorance."

Now I'll just wait and see before making up my mind. It all depends on what his attitude will be.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
I should add that as a sign of general incompetence they chose to base the game on the rules for Arena, which are depending on who you ask the worst or the second-worst set of rules ever published for the universe.

I mean, they could have chosen any edition of the rules, and DP9 might be a terrible company at the crunch now, but there was a shining time in the 90s when they could do no wrong, when no one would review their products negatively, when even the bundle of hate and masochism that was Middle Finger Evolution said openly that Dream Pod 9 was above reproach. And Stompy Bot could have chosen any of the editions of this game and any set of rules it could be played with as their guide.

And they chose (one of) the worst products ever released for the universe.

These are not smart people.

And they're not going to make it, here's some proof.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline iVoid

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
I was a little offended by your childish stalking on my posts NGTM-1R, so I didn't read your rant before. Now that I've read it here's what I have to say: I see you're some hardcore fan of the old heavy gear games, and your heart bleeds because of the direction they chose. My personal case is that I couldn't care less about how the games/franchise was before, I had never heard of Heavy Gear before, I just wanted a fast paced mech game with lots of customization options and I liked what I saw. This is me, I can understand that you feel betrayed, but that is not an issue at all for me, and I think it's not unlikely that the majority of people has also never heard of heavy gear (no idea, I didn't know about it before). I think we all know how oldschool purists can be when they feel they messed up their beloved games, so I'll just wait and see, that's the reasonable thing to do.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Well if the argument that is made is that the choice they made was a terrible one, then it's irrelevant if someone's feelings were betrayed or not.

But if they are going to fail their objectives, then it's also a moot point.

 

Offline Tankero

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Hey folks,

I'm one of HGA's followers (not related at all to mektek.net or Stompybot), and I kinda want to see this project succeed. I'm posting here because iVoid mentioned the thread, and reading NGTM-1R's comments compelled me to offer a response...

Everything NGTM-1R points out about the kickstarter campaign is true. It was mismanaged, mistimed, and they didn't have the content they needed to make a convincing argument anyone should support them. But that wasn't due to malice; it was due to inexperience. Mektek.net was a modding team that managed to do great work with MW4. They kept that game alive for longer than anyone thought reasonable or possible. However, they're not a full-fledged developer. They're a small team of like-minded people trying to revive an abandoned franchise. If their efforts don't seem professional, it's because their knowledge and interest is in *development*, not marketing. The unrealistic goal for their kickstarter is another sign of this. Why post a huuuuuge goal if they never intended to make the game? If they wanted to fleece the community, there are far, far better ways to do it. They were being as honest as they could when they posted the kickstarter. They didn't do their marketing research properly though, and they panicked when they realized what had happened. That's why you see that equivocation.

As for the project itself... well, they have to show more. They absolutely have to. They're caught in the catch-22 of money-for-content and content-for-money... so they made a quick demonstration of what they can do in the Paxton trailer and the Gear Bay video on their spare time. They showed their technical proficiency then. They just haven't been able to work on this for long enough to make their case. They're paying the price for their mistake now, but the game they want to make, and CAN make if they got the support, would be glorious.

If you'd like to know more about their intentions, the one guy they have working full time on this talks about their vision and goals here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6ZCYLciylY

I'm not posting this to try to convince anyone to pledge to their kickstater campaign, but I did want to address the perceived "sketchyness". It's a shame they launched when they did. They're trying to revive an excellent franchise and they want to do it -right-. They just have no clue how to sell that idea.

As for choosing the Arena... You do realize that Khayr Ad-Din has been part of the universe well before the computer games came out, right? There was this lil' ol' book called The Duelist Handbook, where the Arena setting was described, and the new Arena game DP9 made published was a refactoring of that. You're praising the old DP9? This is part of that world. In fact, you'll see far more variety in the Arena than you'd see in the battlefield, as far as Gears are concerned. Listen to the podcast I linked, you'll see why they made that choice.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2013, 12:34:48 pm by Tankero »

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Hey folks,

I'm one of HGA's followers (not related at all to mektek.net or Stompybot), and I kinda want to see this project succeed. I'm posting here because iVoid mentioned the thread, and reading NGTM-1R's comments compelled me to offer a response...


 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
I was a little offended by your childish stalking on my posts NGTM-1R

Sorry, I actually check that forum regularly. (Also I should point out that it's kind of normally considered bad form to call in the forum warriors of another site to invade this one.)

I see you're some hardcore fan of the old heavy gear games,

Nope. Actually that's my wife. You want to see me really fan rage out? Let's talk about the Jihad storyline from Battletech.

and your heart bleeds because of the direction they chose

Nope.

Look man, I give it to you straight. These guys ran their own crowd-fund and it bombed. They came to kickstarter and asked for as much money as the most successful Kickstarter in history, so at the least the hubris level is high and the sanity level low. (They reduced it to the level it's at now. It's not going to make that either.) You want to learn all there is to know about the HGA project?

Hit DakkaDakka. You can literally watch the countdown trainwreck unfold before your very eyes in the first two pages, and the rest be deconstructed as it happens.

Check out the actual Dream Pod 9 forums where people comment on times where the people in this project have lied or vacillated on the issues and how bad their public presentation is. (Note that they start doing this from the first page of the thread when the kickstarter went up, not when "they realized they should panic" and also note they should have realized it was time to panic after the first crowdfunding attempt failed.)
« Last Edit: June 17, 2013, 12:52:03 pm by NGTM-1R »
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Or screw it let's just talk about Stompy Bot, or as most of us know them, Mektek. (Because the only employees of Stompy Bot they've confirmed are employees of Mektek.)

GBL from Dakkadakka lays it out
Quote
ell some background on the developers.

Their main team was formed out of Mektek, a team of modders that has imploded several times during their lifetime.

For their most recent project, they managed to get the rights from Microsoft for MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries.

They released MW4 for free under the terms they struck with Microsoft.

They added all their mechs to the game, broke and fixed the game about 5 times, promised that the game would be fixed and updated with new multiplayer modes.

Then Heavy Gear came along, and they dropped MW4 completely. They tried to move the rights to another modding group, but Microsoft wouldn't allow it. So that project is in limbo, because of their actions, and they refuse to take responsibility for it, or comment on the current state of the license. So far MW4 isn't even legally hosted anywhere anymore. You aren't allowed to discuss this fact on their forums.

Not to mention several other destroyed projects in their recent history.

Assault Tech 1: Battletech
Solaris Assault Tech

Each of these were abandoned in turn.

Now they call themselves a "AAA" game studio but they have left us with a significant amount of reason to doubt they can complete a project.

PS: If I post once more to this thread I will have replied as many times in it as the average official HGA forum on MekTek has posts in a topic. (As a group, we've already exceeded that metric. It's 7.4)
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline SypheDMar

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
... Also I should point out that it's kind of normally considered bad form to call in the forum warriors of another site to invade this one.
That's the only thing I saw wrong in this thread. Please don't do that.

 

Offline iVoid

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
(Also I should point out that it's kind of normally considered bad form to call in the forum warriors of another site to invade this one.)
So many edits... If it wasn't for SypheDMar pointing that part out I wouldn't have read it. It was never my intention to call in "forum warriors" to invade this one, I just wanted another view to the subject and since there was an admin on the mektek forums saying he would do just that I wanted to send him a PM, he's an admin so I wouldn't expect him to come here on a warpath, I expected him to just politely present his view. But then I realized I wasn't allowed to send PMs until I had 10 posts over at the mektek forums so when I couldn't find the PM button, frustrated, I gave up on sending a PM and just foolishly posted on the thread without realizing the implications. I apologise, won't happen again.

 
Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Instead of kickstarting something as ambitious as this, why don't they instead try to do a tactical computer-based program instead like Battletech's MegaMek or even the newer versions like Mechwarrior Tactics?

That seems more within the scope of a kickstarter.

Could even go with say, toon-shaded models (going for a style similar to the books) which might be easier to texture and save costs that way instead of trying to do a AAA mech combat game.


 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Stompy Bot Productions Strikes Again
Like planet annihilation?