Dead State - Release Today

[Archangel]

You can't return opened games nowadays from my experience.

If someone buys someone near release, for near full price, from a company they hate, then they deserve whatever crappy product they get. They are supporting the company they hate and all that comes with it.

EA has a policy where you can return the game 24h after installing it or 7 days after buying it but not installing it.

 

[JDR13]

There is a demo, and it's now for sale on Steam and GoG, although it's not an old game.

Where can I find the demo? Didn't see one on the Steam page..

 

[Thrasher]

Check out the game page here.

The "demo" was Steam Early Access. Now that's not available. A free demo is mentioned for the future.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Why are people bashing joxer for criticizing a game he owns or people who are hesitant to pay for this game? I agree with those people. A game development project might be ambitious and a noble endeavour, but I am not a charity and my time is valuable. Everyone is just trying to feed their families at the end of the day.

I don't understand why they changed the music in the school, the one from the beta was better.

I hope it puts pressure on Vince to hurry it up!

 

[shadow9d9]

Why are people bashing joxer for criticizing a game he owns or people who are hesitant to pay for this game? I agree with those people. A game development project might be ambitious and a noble endeavour, but I am not a charity and my time is valuable. Everyone is just trying to feed their families at the end of the day.

I don't understand why they changed the music in the school, the one from the beta was better.

I hope it puts pressure on Vince to hurry it up!

No one is being "bashed." I simply pointed out that in this day and age, if you purchase a game at release, then you have no one to blame but yourself for issues. Also, people help encourage bad behavior by developers. No one has said that he doesn't have the right to criticize a game. Criticize all he wants. That's what you get though when you buy right away.

 

[figment]

So I've been playing the beta's since August or so. The game holds a lot of promise. I actually have not had time to play the past month which wish I had more time to help out. The upside for me is that I dont know what to expect since they added a lot for this release since I last played.

I did boot it up and found one or two items still not implemented (such as custom portraits still says not in early access) so I will give a caution flag out for people on the fence. I think its going to be fun run through but with some quirks here and there and maybe more than some people may be willing to tolerate. If you think that maybe you then buy it now (to help the developers) and play it later after a few patches or I suppose use your own judgement.

 

[Elhoim]

You can watch a stream here:

http://www.twitch.tv/m_hc

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Dead State shows up among the top 10 in Steams topsellers list this morning - I hope this means good things for you guys. Congrats on release. Looking forward to try it this Christmas Holiday.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Given it a run test the other night.

The product is strongly story driven and they put some effort in smoothing the entrance of the player in it.

For the rest, it is the same, the effort to picture ordinary people facing an apocalypse and what goes with is poor, unsupported by game mechanics.
Scavenging runs suffer from prior knowledge.

A product about story, not gameplay. What binds the player to follow the step by step story is the desire to read the story, not some game mechanics that drives the player to play in a certain way.

Ulterior runs motives are to discover variations in story, take that guy in, push the other out etc

And a Romero movie isn't really about gathering guns and provisions and fighting the undead, it's about the survivors, the ties between them, the relationships, the dialogues, the tension among them, the complex web of emotions and fears, the way each one deals with the situation. The game, again on first glance, appears to cover all that, but the mellow soundtrack and the lack of voice acting is ruining it for me (althouh that didn't come as a surprise, I already knew that… but what a shame).

In Romero's settings, the zombie threat is overwhelming. The story turns to survivors because it is useless to paint an unwinnable fight. The relations between survivors exist because the zombie occupy the field in a manner human beings cant oppose.

In this regard, the product does not do the deal.

 

[Lemonhead]

Yay! Been waiting for this since 2009 or 2010 or whenever it was announced. Can't wait to play it. Hopefully over the holidays. A WL2 and Dead State Xmas... very apocalyptic...

 

[crpgnut]

Hmmm, sounds interesting. Maybe I'll jump from D:OS to this, since I just barely started Sin.

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

Congrats on release. Currently #11 on Steam, and you've toppled the mighty I Am Bread.

Took a peek last night. Looked good, much better than when I last played the beta, admittedly some time ago. Firing it up now. Best of luck with your sales.

Edit: A big thanks for putting together a proper manual. I've included the link to possibly help Joxer and other undecideds reach a conclusion. Combat, for example, gives you a lot more to think about than, say, Wasteland 2. Some might not like how you can only attack diagonally in melee with 2-handed weapons, but I think it gives it a nice old-school gamey feel like, say, the cult classic Gorky 17, though not to the same degree. Less of that than Gorky 17 is just right in my book. Tooltips in game for alternate weapon effects and party commands would be nice in a future patch, though, so I don't have to alt-tab out to the manual. But that's not a big deal, and I imagine I'll remember what they do soon enough.

 

[joxer]

Hmmm, sounds interesting. Maybe I'll jump from D:OS to this, since I just barely started Sin.

Yes please. I'll definetly wait for your input on this one before buying. To me it doesn't look interesting enough to spend money without knowing more about it.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Combat, for example, gives you a lot more to think about than, say, Wasteland 2.

Any example of that? Was it against zombies? Armed human beings etc?

 

[TomRon]

I played a couple of hours last night and have to say I like it. I did try the EA about half a year ago and found it promising, and I have to say it delivers on quite a few areas.

The character system is nice, with you being able to fully choose your skills (with perks every 3 levels of a skill). You gain experience not by killing enemies but by completing goals, which also works nicely. The story is interesting enough to keep me playing.

Combat is so-so. The AI is abysmal, so unless you go Ironman you won't have many problems. There are some tactical options with different debuffs depending on weapon, but I find that I will almost always choose the option to do as much damage as possible, most of the debuffs are to weak to sacrifice damage for (with the exception of knockdown perhaps).

The most annoying thing are not the Zombies, they are easily beaten and more of a mood setter, but other humans. They always attack you on sight, and an option to negotioate with them would have been nice (although I'm not far into the game). Why would humans always atack each other on sight when there's a Zombie apocalypse going on, it doesn't make much sense...

All in all, I'm enjoying the game though and can't wait to play some more.

 

[Hastar]

I played a couple of hours last night and have to say I like it. I did try the EA about half a year ago and found it promising, and I have to say it delivers on quite a few areas.

The character system is nice, with you being able to fully choose your skills (with perks every 3 levels of a skill). You gain experience not by killing enemies but by completing goals, which also works nicely. The story is interesting enough to keep me playing.

Combat is so-so. The AI is abysmal, so unless you go Ironman you won't have many problems. There are some tactical options with different debuffs depending on weapon, but I find that I will almost always choose the option to do as much damage as possible, most of the debuffs are to weak to sacrifice damage for (with the exception of knockdown perhaps).

The most annoying thing are not the Zombies, they are easily beaten and more of a mood setter, but other humans. They always attack you on sight, and an option to negotioate with them would have been nice (although I'm not far into the game). Why would humans always atack each other on sight when there's a Zombie apocalypse going on, it doesn't make much sense…

All in all, I'm enjoying the game though and can't wait to play some more.

The humans must be from Sweden because we all know the Swedes are trying to take over the world

 

[Turjan]

The most annoying thing are not the Zombies, they are easily beaten and more of a mood setter, but other humans. They always attack you on sight, and an option to negotioate with them would have been nice (although I'm not far into the game). Why would humans always atack each other on sight when there's a Zombie apocalypse going on, it doesn't make much sense…

Greed... fear for the own future in view of limited resources?

However, there seem to be neutral humans in the game. At least I heard one player complain he lost morale because he raided a neutral human compound. It's hearsay, as I don't have the game and don't plan on getting it (that's nothing against this specific game, I simply don't like zombies).

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

Greed… fear for the own future in view of limited resources?

Yes. The best zombie stories aren't really about zombies. The undead are more a part of the setting. The best zombie stories are about what people do to each other — how they react — when thin thin veneer of society is stripped away. And this seems to be the way they are treated in Dead State. While I'm no expert, having only played a few hours, I'll offer my latest wipeout as an example:

To answer one of Chien's questions, humans are the bigger threat. Dead States's zombies are shamblers, slow and less than exacting. But if you get mobbed, or one of them sucessfully knocks you to the ground and starts chomping away, it's bad news. Think of The Walking Dead, if you've watched that show. A couple on their own, no big deal. A couple get behind you while you're duking or shotting it out with humans, also bad news.

EDIT: Added a spoiler tag, if you want to be surprised like I was.

Spoiler

So, it's fairly early on in the game….day 4, I think. I took it easy one day after the devastating loss of the greenhorn cop, Joel. I'm making a run to the pharmacy for meds to save my feloow survivor of the plane crash. Sans Joel, I'm forced to take with me only Anita, who is super pissed at me for insisting upon taking her daughter, Renee, on my first run as a medic and promptly getting her killed. Renee apparently has a lot fewer HPs than I do or worse luck, as she dropped quickly to two point-blank pistol shots from a human looter. While lying on the ground KOed, a zombie shambled up and started feeding on her: infection, death. She rose as a zombie as I killed her killer, and then I had to put her down. Anita is far from forgiving me when I, out of options, draft her for the pharmacy run.

I bang my way through the first door I see with my sledgehammer and loot a few supplies. Now i see the pharmacy but, greedy idiot that I am, start banging my way through the neighboring door for more toilet paper and rotten fruit. There is a noise meter in the game. Make enough noise, and some zombies will spawn. In this case, it only took one swing to alert three humans, who rushed out of the pharmacy. Two zombies also came from in front of me, another is flanking Anita from the opposite direction, around the corner of the building. My preoccupation with rotten fruit, and the pressing need for toilet paper after eating it, will prove my undoing. We concentrate on the greatest threat of humans with guns, but the flanking zombie sucessfully pulls Anita to the ground to be reunited with her daughter. She can't say I never did anything for her. My faint hope, after seeing some of the zombies turn on the looters, doesn't last long. I am soon mobbed by humans and zombies alike. Game over.

So, there is a good bit more to think about than Wasteland 2. Sound, and what might hear you nearby but unseen. Healing in combat lowers your maximum HP, so how long do you ignore lesser imjuries? Debuffs to enemies through special weapon attacks. Like Tomas, I, too, would like to see greater effects in these debuffs to entice me to use more of them. But, as he mentioned, knocking someone down is extremely useful. I do this all the time. I'm 2H melee, and misses hurt a lot, as I only get one big swing per turn. So, i occasionally use cripple for an arm sprain to lower their to-hit chnace. Got two pistol weilders rushing you with a 2H melee enemy? I find it useful to cripple the melee dude's arm quickly, then start knocking down and killing the pistol wielders, who will tear you up at close range, takking my chances with the 2Her more likely to miss now. Misses really hurt a 2Her. So, flanking is also very important. The to-hit bonuses make a big difference.

Dead State is a bit rough, which will likely put some people off, but I am probably more patient than most with a game that lets me create my own story through mechanics and my own imagination. I have encountered a couple bugs. One wasn't great, giving me the buttons and equipment in combat for one of my allies during my turn, but I was able to jog myself out of it somehow. And it's not terribly polished (What? No game-over picture yet? I'm sure to find myself on this screen many times, and the line of text below a field of black is disappointing, though perhaps appropriate.), but I've found these things pretty easy to forgive in a game that is definitely playable now. They have promised further patches, and it could use a few.

I'm looking forward to returning to Dead State and its black dead screen.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

I'm closing the end of the game. The game feels like a missed opportunity.
I did not play the last couple of updates before this release and the story fell together as the locations I visited let it think.
Many things are on the spot, some character storyline developpments are unexpectively interesting but it is not supported by the proper gameplay relatively to scavenging runs.

During scavenging runs, it does not feel like things could go south at any time. It is all about hitting a location, squeezing it all and never return to it.

Have still to experience the flight: things go wrong, no other option than running away.

 

[Nameless one]

I am on day 10 and I have to say i am bit disappointed so far.Beside non-existent AI is that there is no interactions with other humans outside of shelter.All other humans I encountered either tried to kill me or warned me to get out of their house or they will start shooting.Does that change late?

During scavenging runs, it does not feel like things could go south at any time. It is all about hitting a location, squeezing it all and never return to it.

Have still to experience the flight: things go wrong, no other option than running away.

This has been my experience so far too.You can easily clear maps than loot everything in peace.State of decay was much better in that regard, in that game things could go wrong pretty easily pretty fast.