As I understand it, it was the demo at some show, and the players there liked it so much they decided to make it be the first thing players see.
Yup, Greenfang was the official game demo at Pax 2012 (unsure which), which was the one that Total Biscuit filmed. They retooled it and added it back in the game during mid-beta as a a pre-tutorial since we kept nagging them about the missing dragon... (or at least, maybe partially due to us nagging and partially due to having it pretty much setup already) Edit: Also, recently remembered this one. Deserves to be seen if you haven't...
Yeah, I understand the rational behind it and the history as well (I remember dying to get into the beta back when I saw Penny Arcade first mention the game). I was just hesitant on how many people pass it and feel overwhelmed. But if they have metrics showing people don't get overwhelmed then it probably is a good idea to keep it. Curious why the Yogscast didn't show it though ... looks like they are playing on an account with the Basic Edition or something since they have 100 gold and 2 figures per character unlocked.
Also, it should be noted - the Yogscast effect rippling into other youtubers doing their own videos (of very varying quality, some quite decent though). Checking for videos made this last week shows quite a few new ones, and even a classic attempt to leech views with a saucy picture. That's youtube success for you!
Yeah, I made one but it is pretty bad. I don't really have the time to dedicate to video editing it. I'll probably stream games and go over advanced strategies later on though when I just normally play.
One thing about the Greenfang fight, it is rigged for the players. The card you will draw are predetermined. It is quite difficult to lose that fight due to the auto-targeting feature. First time I did it, I didn't understand some mechanics of the game, just clicking cards until he's dead.
The original Greenfang module (shown at PAX) was not so forgiving - you had to beat it in order to win a prize, which was either a numbered polyhedron, a tshirt, or a cape. Heck we even wrote a special loot drop algorithm to track how many of the better prizes it awarded vs our stock.
That's awesome. I remember watching the video that Penny Arcade linked and watching it multiple times since it was so interesting. I was working on a similar game design (except just cards and no board) so I was studying it heavily.
They really gonna need to add a tutorial telling people to be cautious when selling items, some might be needed later on to counter specific enemy. And another tip to not buy items above your renown level At least they can buy back the items though, before the store reset. So if the game drop a robe, you guys hand out a t-shirt ? Sounds fun
Best example imo would be the drawback items. It seems totally useless till you get all the quests unlocked.
Yeah, I was so happy I saved all my items when I saw that. I can just imagine the frustration of a player who just discovers it after they've sold everything they thought was "worthless"... lol
Still says "next episode coming soon", so my guess is they'll at least complete the wizards tower adventure. One map per video is a bit short though, I'd say...
I'd imagine going over 10-15 min per a video meant for large masses of people probably drops the viewer numbers radically. I know I myself seldom even start to watch anything over that on the Internet unless the subject is extremely interesting to me. 3-4 min max would be even better for casual viewing (but would of course offer very limited content providing opportunities).
Looks like this is the end of the series. Let's hope a lof of our new people decide to stick around on a permanent basis!
So that number was approximately 15,500 when the streams went up. ~45% increase in 15 days? (Also worth noting, the number of people in bad standing—~500—hasn't changed.)
Impressive enough, but it's not the full picture. Farbs started running his statistics Jan 1st-2nd, 2014. The game has been live since Sep 12th, 2013. The 45% increase holds only for 2014, not for total player numbers. The release of a game usually sees the most activity so the difference could be rather significant. The increase is still a big one, to be sure.