MID Discussion, Release Date, Unity Etc Part 2

[bumblebeex3]

@punchy make a new thread pls so your wonderful post doesn't get lost in the bustle of this monster thank you for compiling everything. You rock!

[DPL_93]

@punchy make a new thread pls so your wonderful post doesn't get lost in the bustle of this monster thank you for compiling everything. You rock!

Any chance it could become a sticky thread?

[phoenix star]

Looking at that bit from December 2015, they were still hopeful about releasing it in 2016.....

With that in mind.. I don't know if this has been mentioned or not but the company F84 Games helped make the Codes & Clues game. You can see it on their website. So, HI is outsourcing. Which, in itself, isn't a huge deal, I'm just curious what that will mean for MID.

It's a huge deal to me. ..... Nancy Drew would not approve.

[over 40]

i think they will release it, they might got behind because of codes and clues 2, it may come out this year or next.

[Arianna12]

It's a huge deal to me. Nancy Drew would not approve.

Just because a company is working with another does NOT mean it's a sell out or that the games "aren't their own". I have talked to many professionals in the video game industry, and have many friends in the industry, this can occur for a number of different reasons and it does NOT mean that HER hasn't worked on the games at all. Sometimes it's a collaborative effort, sometimes a smaller studio has an idea but not the means to do something and so takes it to a bigger one, sometimes a bigger studio has the money and resources but not the people with the expertise for that particular type of game. Really, it could be any number of reasons, but having different developers and publishers is far from uncommon in the industry and far from being a bad thing.

I would be very curious to know, has anyone heard anything confirmed or rumored that MID might be worked on, at least in part, by another developer? Has there been anything on the ASB about it perhaps?

~Ari

[tsukiakari]

HeR said they were going in a new direction, also for MID, and that is one of the reasons why it is delayed.

Just popping in to say that to the best of my knowledge, Her has never actually made any official statements about a "new direction".

They said in the August 2015 letter that they would be switching to Unity to provide a better gaming experience, but there were no details given beyond that; the letter focused mainly on listing improvements to the game style for which the fans allegedly asked, not on a "new direction" or any similar phrase. The December 2015 letter talked about Codes & Clues, while the October 2016 letter confirmed that MID would be delayed again and talked more about Codes & Clues. The word "new" is not used in any of the letters except to refer to Codes & Clues.

As far as I can tell, the "new direction" concept stemmed from Lani's statements on why she chose to stop voicing Nancy. This post from her mentions "something new", while this post quotes several of Lani's tweets which touch on "new things" and "diff things". The first usage of "new direction" specifically that I can find is in this post from late November 2014. I searched through Her's tweets from October 2014 to May 2015 when SEA was released and found no mention of a "new direction", and AS blog posts and comments from around the time Lani left also have no mention of it (Facebook is the place I haven't looked at because of how difficult it is to use). By mid-December 2014, however, there were multiple threads with copious discussion of what the "new direction" could be, to the point that this thread was created asking for the source (and note the replies saying that Her has not addressed the matter). Meanwhile, the only in-depth post made by an official Her boards account regarding the Lani situation is here, and it does not go into detail about any changes being made to the games.

Personally, I don't think anything like a "new direction" should be considered a done deal right now. All we have to go by are Lani's comments, which may be less than accurate particularly after two whole years have passed. Without official confirmation from Her (and without firm evidence that things will change in future games, of which we also have none since there are no screenshots or footage of MID) there's arguably no way to ever know if MID will go in any sort of "new direction" at all. Or am I maybe missing a confirming email that someone received, or a Facebook post?

Anyways, I hope that this post doesn't fall under the "off topic" banner, particularly with all the Lani-related links I've provided. I'm not trying to talk about what's been disallowed - rather, I'm trying to point out that Her has not confirmed any "new direction" for MID itself, outside of the usage of Unity and the "more expansive environments, better visuals, more compelling story lines, longer game play, more characters and more dangerous situations with player consequences" mentioned in the August 2015 letter.

[cathwaitress]

I was looking up 'new direction' on facebook and I found this interesting comment from Her

Nancy Drew Games Hi Erin Duke - The reason we are so focused on Nancy Drew: Codes & Clues right now is because we are about to launch it. We will turn our full attention to Nancy Drew: Midnight in Salem once we get past this launch. I can't give a specific launch date on Nancy Drew: Midnight in Salem. I can only say that it will be released later this year. As soon as I have more news to share, I will post it here. We really appreciate your patience. We understand that this is frustrating for those fans waiting to hear more about the PC/Mac series. Thank you for supporting Her Interactive and Nancy Drew games.

This is from April 8. Maybe a quote from this could be added to the 'timeline'? Hard to believe they sounded so honest and descriptive at some point. Although we're back to hush hush politics now

[iLoVeNaNcYDrEw]

My problem is, they had NO trouble telling us they anticipated a 2016 release (and then later said fall 2016) for about a full year basically, but now all of a sudden it's "oh we have no release date, no timeline, no idea, etc etc"

I don't understand why they can't say that they now expect it to be 2017, or "hey guys, it for sure WON'T be 2016," when they had given us some semblance of a timeline (albeit, an incorrect one apparently) for so long. It just doesn't make sense to me.

[MrsSleuth]

My problem is, they had NO trouble telling us they anticipated a 2016 release (and then later said fall 2016) for about a full year basically, but now all of a sudden it's "oh we have no release date, no timeline, no idea, etc etc"

I don't understand why they can't say that they now expect it to be 2017, or "hey guys, it for sure WON'T be 2016," when they had given us some semblance of a timeline (albeit, an incorrect one apparently) for so long. It just doesn't make sense to me.

The only thing I can think of is maybe they don't want a repeat of what happened - they don't want to say 2017, if the game ends up getting delayed again until 2018. But the thing is, I feel like the fans would be happier with that, even if it kept getting delayed, because it shows they're actually trying.

[iLoVeNaNcYDrEw]

The only thing I can think of is maybe they don't want a repeat of what happened - they don't want to say 2017, if the game ends up getting delayed again until 2018. But the thing is, I feel like the fans would be happier with that, even if it kept getting delayed, because it shows they're actually trying.

I think the biggest complaint I see everywhere is the lack of communication. Obviously we all want the game, but I think we all care more about just knowing what's up. I know I would be much happier if they flat out said, "Hey, so we know we said 2016 was going to happen, but it's not. Here's a small explanation for why. We now expect a 2017 release, or worst case scenario early 2018. Sorry." haha

And it all begs the question, why say 2016 in the first place and stick with it as long as they did? IF they truly didn't work on the game at all, or even just barely, in the last year, they had to have known WAY before October that an October release/2016 release was not going to happen. It's all just very confusing and frustrating to me. They had to have seen this coming. So why wait til now to tell us, yeah, fall 2016 isn't happening, and now we have no release date?

Sigh.. It had to be MID, too. A game we've all wanted for so long. haha. But it looks like we're going to have to wait quite a bit longer.

[MrsSleuth]

I think the biggest complaint I see everywhere is the lack of communication. Obviously we all want the game, but I think we all care more about just knowing what's up. I know I would be much happier if they flat out said, "Hey, so we know we said 2016 was going to happen, but it's not. Here's a small explanation for why. We now expect a 2017 release, or worst case scenario early 2018. Sorry." haha

And it all begs the question, why say 2016 in the first place and stick with it as long as they did? IF they truly didn't work on the game at all, or even just barely, in the last year, they had to have known WAY before October that an October release/2016 release was not going to happen. It's all just very confusing and frustrating to me. They had to have seen this coming. So why wait til now to tell us, yeah, fall 2016 isn't happening, and now we have no release date?

Sigh.. It had to be MID, too. A game we've all wanted for so long. haha. But it looks like we're going to have to wait quite a bit longer.

I definitely agree. I don't know why they didn't speak up sooner and tell us 2016 wasn't going to happen. Instead, they didn't, they released photos with jack-o-lanterns in them and let people believe that the game was going to be released for Halloween... then shatter that thought with an October newsletter. I don't get it.

[actress19]

So, on the latest post on the ASB, I asked LJ if she had any idea when we might get screenshots or environment art. Her reply was interesting:

Sorry Sarah, I do not know when we will have worthy screenshots to share.

Emphasis mine.

I could be reading too much into LJ's wording, but the inclusion of "worthy" actually makes me a little hopeful. This reads to me like possible confirmation that they're into the rendering/actual production stage (not sure what the actual term for it is). Could they have some environments built already, just not with enough detail/completion yet to actually share? It reminds me of when I beta-tested SEA, several items or entire environments in the game were still gridded and not fully rendered, but definite progress was made.

Once again, it could just be wishful thinking on my part, but I wanted to share to get other people's ideas.

[Tedbear2]

but the inclusion of "worthy" actually makes me a little hopeful. This reads to me like possible confirmation that they're into the rendering/actual production stage (not sure what the actual term for it is). Could they have some environments built already, just not with enough detail/completion yet to actually share? It reminds me of when I beta-tested SEA, several items or entire environments in the game were still gridded and not fully rendered, but definite progress was made.

Once again, it could just be wishful thinking on my part, but I wanted to share to get other people's ideas.

That word "worthy" actually complements nicely what Her said to a poster on Facebook today:

Nancy Drew Games Hello Gnillet, and thank you for sharing your thoughts and concerns. Before, with our previous games we were able to share more tidbits and behind-the-scenes news for the progress of the game. We had a regular rhythm to our game-making process, so we could anticipate what would not change and remain true once the game came out and matched the readers' expectations. With all the changes and updates for our next game, we cannot anticipate what will stay the same and what will change along the way. The last thing we want to be is untruthful with our player's expectations. (An example would be the anticipated release date, which originally changed after all.) Until we have more solid news to share on MID, we do not want to share things that could change later, as we are still learning a new process. Thank you for being understanding, and for being a fan of Nancy Drew. We hope to share more news with everyone in the future, even little things.

It makes sense to me that they don't want to share any screenshots, etc., until they know that what they are releasing is final. And that's probably what LJ meant.

[all_4_you]

So, on the latest post on the ASB, I asked LJ if she had any idea when we might get screenshots or environment art. Her reply was interesting:



Emphasis mine.

I could be reading too much into LJ's wording, but the inclusion of "worthy" actually makes me a little hopeful. This reads to me like possible confirmation that they're into the rendering/actual production stage (not sure what the actual term for it is). Could they have some environments built already, just not with enough detail/completion yet to actually share? It reminds me of when I beta-tested SEA, several items or entire environments in the game were still gridded and not fully rendered, but definite progress was made.

Once again, it could just be wishful thinking on my part, but I wanted to share to get other people's ideas.

I completely agree. I was super discouraged yesterday because I found out that the C&C website they always link to on Facebook isn't a herinteractive.com website. It is a totally brand new only C&C website and talks about licensing opportunities and stuff at the bottom of the page (If you guys want to discuss that, I've started a separate thread about it on the C&C board). However-- the wording of that post makes me really think that they are working hard and they don't want to give us sub-par work. Yeah, maybe the character profiles were old, but I think we all can agree that the artwork was still gorgeous. Would we really want our updates to be sub-par screenshots just because we are impatient? I think the marketing team is really trying to communicate to us that they wish they could tell us what was going on, but contractually they can't. You know?

[phoenix star]

And it all begs the question, why say 2016 in the first place and stick with it as long as they did? IF they truly didn't work on the game at all, or even just barely, in the last year, they had to have known WAY before October that an October release/2016 release was not going to happen. It's all just very confusing and frustrating to me. They had to have seen this coming. So why wait til now to tell us, yeah, fall 2016 isn't happening, and now we have no release date?

This so much. It confuses me so much about why they would say it's coming out in 2016 if they obviously haven't done any work on it. Maybe the game is being outsourced and they expected it to be out by now, but do they like...not keep up communication with whoever they're outsourcing it to?

Would we really want our updates to be sub-par screenshots just because we are impatient?

Yes. Companies share development shots all the time even when they know they're not final. We just want a confirmation that MID is being worked on at all. If they wait to share final screenshots, we will hear nothing for at least another whole year.

At least that Facebook reply is somewhat optimistic that maybe the game is actually being worked on by someone, somewhere.