I would be happy with Delusionaltool's suggestion of separating the sun coin items from the main shop, if only for the psychological effect of not having to see them at all, but only if all of the content from the game pre-update can still be bought without sun coins. Another possible suggestion is to have some sort of way to reasonably convert gold pieces into sun coins and vice-versa. Of course, I wouldn't complain if sun coins were completely gone from the premium version and replaced with gold coins either.
feel ripped off the game was great before now i wish i haven't updated. the unnecessary grinding is infuriating to say the least. Before updated i could easily see why the game was the asking price but now i would not recommend it in its current state. Normally i could play with the weapons that offer luck etc and easily level up my character but they have done some serious dial back currency gain that pretty much makes those stat boosting weapons unnecessary.
as i said above, and keep reading im just infuriated with this game right now, i was so excited to get the new ipad and i remember when my ipod touch 4th gen got stolen and i was sad cause i really wanted to play this game.... i buy the game yesterday and realize i could of saved 5.99 and got the same game for free with the same content its the SAME SIZE!!!! as the premium game...i would of dealt with the iap stuff since its freemium.... but when you take the full game we paid for and the patch makes it the freemium version without adds is just a slap in the face.... i really hope you phospher guys understand why people will be upset about this, you kind of ruined your masterpiece... i hope its not you and its your publisher forcing you to do this, i get it you need to make money but dont ruin your game....you might as well take the premium out of the store so people just download the freeone since they are the freaking same.... C.Hannum : i get your saying, but you are wrong they added sun bombs, and health packs which can only be bought with stupid sun coins i have yet to find a health pack lying around... i should be able to use like 2500 gold to buy a health pack or something...or 10000 gold to buy a sun bomb (they kinda make the game cheap)
My opinion is less opinion than simply making an objective observation about game design and how gear systems are employed. I can't change how you choose to feel about a graphical representation of a game mechanic at best, a vanity the majority of the time, but it's not content unless the game has been designed in that way, and the gear in Dark Meadow is definitely not content as it is commonly understood. Bottom line: if you can finish the game and get all story without acquiring all the gear, there is no problem as you understand it and the gear is not content. Achievements don't even deserve mention. I like achievements as much as the next player, but the idea that I am *entitled* to get all the achievements is asinine.
@phosphor: You misled your premium users. What you have done with the original game is exactly what you originally announced. When you retracted that, you gave us the impression that we would get new equipment, areas to explore, etc. without being shoehorned into a free-to-play model. Having separate apps ended up being a complete waste if we are still locked out of equipment and items. I understand the need to earn money, I don't expect a game like Dark Meadow to be free. I also understand that the freemium model has been extremely successful, both for profits and exposing more people to the game. You need to do what is best for your company. I just want you to know that personally I won't participate in the free-to-play model. I would be excited by a sequel or another game from you guys, but if this is the direction of the company then I am not going to buy future games either.
i sent the phosphor guys a long message , i hope they respond on here cause what they did is just made the premium game the freemium game without adds and that is just uncalled for and a bad mistake on there part , tainted a pretty awesome game...i feel like i wasted 5.99 its not alot of money but its the point of the matter...i mean they deserve the 5.99 the game is brilliant they put alot of work into it and polish and it shows and damn if dont look amazing on the new ipad retina, its just they ruined it with all this freemium crap.
According to PhosphorChip, right now you get 1 coin after a 10 kill streak. 2 after 20 kill streak. Etc etc. ghOti's observation says this would take 120 hours cumulative hours of 30 minute sessions to achieve. That seems to me insanely absurd. The solution to this seems very simple, IF they actually care for us paying customers: Make the paid version of the game award a sun coin after every single kill, with an increase in coins every 10th kill. So kill #1 gets you a coin, same for kills 2,3,4,5 and all the way to 10. Kill #11 should yield 2 coins, and keep going to 20. Kill #21 yields 3, etc etc. The result will be 10x faster coin yield. This will reduce the 120 hour grind to 12 hours. 12 hours, though, still sound insane for me for a single item. Half that? Maybe. The other thing I was going to note is that these epic items should have their price slashed drastically. 50# would reduce this to 6 hours of cumulative play, that sounds fair. I also would entirely remove the ability to make in app purchases from the paid edition of the game. Increase the price of the paid edition if you rather encourage people to go for the free version going forward, but don't punish the people that already paid and supported the game this far with this IAP shenanigans. For the time being I would rather there had been no updates at all, and am actually glad I retained a copy of the game to roll back to.
I am with ghOti on this one. Equipment is content, specially in a game like this one that is designed more around the loop/grind than the story itself. This is not opinion but basic RPG game design.
very nice man, i just think they should either convert the sun coin items in the premium game to more expensive gold items...and keep the sun coins for only the free version of the game.... simple as that.... you do realize the premium and freemium versions are the same size, and they made it 1 app technically just you can turn off adds in the premium, there should not even be a option for adds anything in a game that you paid 5.99 for...i mean really guys?
Hey all- a lot of great feedback. We really appreciate your honestly and cutting through the issues. It has been very helpful for us to make Dark Meadow a better game. From reading the posts, the take-away summary of the biggest issue is that premium players want to be able to earn special weapons more fairly, that the current sun coin distribution is too balanced towards IAP. We have had lots of internal discussions of how we can achieve this, and we think we have a solution that can work. We are trying to release this in an imminent patch. Once we can confirm it works, we'll share what we plan to do. Also in the patch will be fixing: - iPod Touch 4 crashing - Retina res on mobile
awesome! i knew you guys were reading... i think it would be as simple as just taking out the sun items in the premium version period and those could be bought with gold just be more expensive...only thing you should be buying with a iap in the premium game is gold just like in infinity blade...
I don't know, I sort of like the idea of the sun coins as long as it's handled more like raid currecy in things like WoW. As long as the goal is realistically achievable without IAP, and you can feel progress from every single gameplay, no matter how lenghty (like 2 kill runs getting you 2 sun coins) the system is acceptable for the regular game.[/QUOTE] That's an issue, but not the only one. I am also a developer and I have been working doing a similar thing to my own title, a reason I find your own change intriguing. For what it's worth, here are things I have already decided over long nights and deep consideration: My freemium version will be a separate app with ads. Ads will be disabled for a week in this version after any IAP. The paid version will be increased in price. The in game currency (my game always had it but never gave a chance to pay money for it) will be between 10 to 20 times faster to earn in the paid version. Depending on currency award rate, item purchase will be lower for the paid version. The paid version will never allow IAP because it corrupts the leaderboards. No matter how optional the IAP becomes, it's existence means the leaderboards will always be dominated by those that take advantage of it. This seems extremely unfair to all previous players that fought hard for their existing high scores. Your case specifically I find odd. Your studio, I think, was reported to state first intended the freemium options to go into the main app in order to preserve a single leaderboard. This is a very important point of consideration in my previous list, and one that got a big negative coverage in the Penny Arcade Report recently while covering Flight Control Rocket. At the end of the day, if some one can buy it's way up the leaderboards, these become meaningless for anyone but those that have deep pockets. In the case of converting a game, it can be a big betrayal to the work of all those players that put heavy hours on achieving their high scores, only to have some dude with 10 bucks to spare shoot past them. Unfortunately, at this point this cat is out of the bag, there are IAP now available in the live version of the paid game. But it's something that may be mitigated with an extremely fast update. I have not done this yet, but you may also be able to disable IAP on the App Store, server side (if you were convinced this was an actual concern you wanted to roadblock fast.)
As I said before developers spent their money on cocaine and whores now need a new fix, they blatently lied about not making the premium game freemium. They attended a seminar meeting and now are "selling" the game to us again, whats next a sun coin per arrow? Lets face it game is done, developers stopped developing. Good thing I backed up it up. Now will I tust this developer again, nope. This whole freemium sale will crash and I hope developers like this who burn their customers, go down in flames or get genital herpies cause that shit will stay with you.
Is it possible to sell items for sun-coins? a-la infinity blade? That reduced the grinding significantly in that game. Also I have to agree with Hannum that not all items are content. Some of it, especially the ridiculously high end equipment beyond what is good enough to finish the job, is simply there for people who treat it like content. As far as I am concerned, it's the devs way of saying that here is something extra for you, if you are interested, but work real hard for it, or pay us a bit for giving you those extra goodies. Perfectly reasonable as per me. I don't need a separate "Sun Coins" category or "toggle switches" to distinguish that content. Edit: By the extension of the above line of thought, I don't need separate currency items to buy stuff either. Since when was gold not enough in games... now we need "sun coins"! That said, I agree with Ghoti that achievements can't be a part of IAP pricing for premium titles. Personally i don't yearn for every achievement for every game, but I get why a gamer would like to have to have all boxes in the achievements section ticked. (I have that obsession for finishing everything in platformers).
Hi, wanted to let u know another issue I'm having. I have the freemium version and i don't mind the ads as its only on the menu, but the ads are not letting me go to the option menu as the ads are displayed right above it. Is it a bug? or is that how the ads are supposed to be displayed? Edit: I'm so sorry, but i didn't know the menu could be scrolled up Ignore this
Gotta to say I'm with Ghotti and everyone else's negative comments about this update. I'm gutted I forgot to save my original ipa and cleared out the bin without thinking, but I thought it's ok Phosphor said they're keeping the original game and the free separate, what do I find on first play, a whole new game where I'm back to the beginning and I have grind like crazy or pay for the best stuff. In the original I thought the progression of levelling up and collecting cash to buy gear was about right and loved the game overall. Thanks Phosphor I feel lied to and punished for supporting you in the first place, doubt I'll play this again unless there's a major update to put it back how it was.
Yes, I'm not impressed with this update either. ( Actually very PO'd !) At first I thought, Awesome 1/3 more map, then the more I looked at what the premium game received. a few sun coins, health kits. I realized that the original owners got Bamboozled. The whole point of updating the premium version is too keep your fans/customers happy ! Not slap them in the face. We're definately not fools, we can see through these tactics. I really think this game rocks, in all facets but I'm not going to spend weeks trying to get to the new level. That's just not cool !! It will be interesting to see if the Devs, get a quick fix for us, Premium users. Like a few people have mentioned. For premium users, we should have to purchase weapons via gold, just like in the original game. That way we can advance much quicker. Instead of spending endless hours trying to acquire a few bogus sun coins. That is the right thing to do.
The Pact: F- Hello, all! Last night, I had a chance to download the new FREE Dark Meadow: The Pact. Simply out, whoever thought of this idea should never make a decision for Phosphor again. Within an hour of playing this game, I deleted it from my iPad. Now, I was a HUGE fan of the original, and am pretty knowledgeable about the product. However, this "upgrade" is an absolute disaster. My biggest complaint is the Sun coin mindset. So, let's see. I kill 10 creatures in a row and I get 1 sun coin. However, to buy any of the choice equipment, I need HUNDREDS of sun coins, which means either I pony up the money to buy sun coins, kill tens of thousands of creatures in endless grinding, or complete those ridiculous referrals. The shame here is that the developers do care about the series. But this greed is evident. Other comments are: Maps. The maps are a welcome change, though how can someone with no memory instantly know the layout of the hospital? What should happen is that the map should appear only after you complete a floor. Kill Streak. To me, this goes against the spirit of the game. Unlike Infinity Blade, you are not a bloodthirsty warrior, but rather a person trying to figure out what is going on in this hospital. New Area. OK, that may be interesting, but to be honest, I was so peeved about the money grab that I deleted the game. Here are my suggestions, for what it is worth. 1. Either make the game free (and NOT freemium) or don't make it free. And don't have all of the great equipment available through either an IAP purchase or useless grinding. Nobody is going to pay or grind needlessly. That is not the intent of the game, and you should not change it. 2. Before making these decisions in the future, let the community know about them. Believe me, we will let you know if they are good ideas or bad ones. 3. Bring back the old equipment, and don't have the choicest equipment be available by buying these idiotic sun coins. 4. In fact, get rid of the sun coins altogether.
>>Like a few people have mentioned. For premium users, we should have to purchase weapons via gold, just like in the original game. That way we can advance much quicker. Instead of spending endless hours trying to acquire a few bogus sun coins.<< Yes, we are doing something to correct this
