News Item: Preorder Prelim Results, Video CDs
Preliminary Results for the Preorder Survey
Just wanted to post a quick note about the preliminary results for the preorder survey. The response we've had has exceeded our expectations by a long way! We've received close to a hundred responses to date, the vast majority of them encouraging about what we're doing. We'll need to do some analysis on the gathered data to figure out exactly what the most popular packaging option and price point would be, but it looks like everything is working out. We'll let you guys know as soon as all of that has been determined.
To address a couple of quick points of concern in the comments we've received:
- We're not planning to release the finished, complete version of the game freely on the internet, just another preview version. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't any confusion about that. To those who misunderstood, I apologize for that confusion if I wasn't clear enough in my previous posts.
- There were some comments about the desire for more DDR-like elements (such as a counting combo meter, DDR-style arrows, etc). We're not planning to do those things because FoF isn't meant to be a DDR clone for the DC, it's meant to be its own game which has some similarities. We'd love to see one of the DDR clones for PC step up with a DC port, and I'd be happy to help the authors of those clones get their code running on the DC!
- We're aware that the game is a little too difficult in the preview version (well, WAY too difficult unless you've played some DDR!) so some easier songs and easier steps are definitely in the works. An older build of FoF actually contained a demonstration mode that showed graphically how to play the game, which would go a long way towards making it easier for beginners to pick up. We're fully planning to reintroduce that demonstration, and perhaps some simple tutorials.
- There has been some very good feedback about "problem peripherals". We'll be attempting to track these down and get the support for them fixed in KOS (and thus FoF). Hopefully fixing a couple of these will iron out many problems across the board and get more of them to work. I've also been told that there are some weird DDR pads out there which have very strange button mappings ("ghetto controllers") so a configurable button system is in the plans. That way you can map any button on your pad to any action in the game like a standard DC game.
- Swap CDs are a pain! Everyone agrees on that point. That feature has been very well received, however, so a lot of effort will be spent on getting it to be more user friendly. There is still a Windows-based editor program in the works for both step data and Swap CD layout. There has also been some concern about getting the timing right in step files without wasting CDs on a trial and error process. This should be taken care of by the step editor with a preview command. If at all possible, we'd also like to have the in-game step editor in place so that you can have "edit data" for existing songs. Don't count on MP3 support in the final version: this proprietary audio format would require royalties to Thomson Multimedia, and we unfortunately don't have a suitably licensed playback library. The Swap CD creation utility may be able to help with this, however.
- Typing of Fury has been a very popular feature, despite us not having released a demo of it yet! We'll continue to work on this and our other new modes and bring everything up to a high standard of gameplay.
- Button mashing is an issue with the game as it stands. We modeled the gameplay after DDR as far as user input (i.e., you can hold down buttons that aren't required) because that allows you to play it on a floor mat properly. However, several of my friends have discovered easy ways to "button mash" to work around that, and they don't actually have to play in order to win a round. There have been several survey comments about this as well. We'll probably have something like a setting switch that counts off for pressing an arrow when it's not called for in the music, for controller-based play.
- A lot of people are concerned about being able to take orders outside the U.S. (in Canada, Europe, South America and Australia, specifically). We're aware that a large part of our fan base is outside the U.S., so this is definitely something we'll keep our eyes on and try to accomidate you.
Those are the major points I remember from reading through the survey responses so far. Phew! Sorry for all that verbosity, but that should cover most comments. We'll keep everyone posted on what's going on.
RedOctane Promo VCDs
We worked with the popular internet-based game distributor RedOctane to add the Feet of Fury preview/beta to one of their promotional VCDs. I've been told that about 200 of these combo CDs shipped during the Christmas season. They were a combination of a VCD, an autorun Windows CD, and a DC bootable MIL-CD. Let us know if you got one of these, we'd love to hear from you!
