Pier Solar may be released soon?!?

[Joe Redifer]

Oldskool, maybe some of the discs turned out OK.  They can't ALL be bad.

Anyway, the game design is really starting to frustrate me and I am going out of my way to let the developers know it.  Way too many random battles that you can't run from and it takes a very long time to level up.  You are trying to solve a riddle and you keep getting interrupted by battles, none of which are ever quick.  They need to know that their work has begun to annoy and frustrate me.  And not because I suck at gaming as I've beaten tons of RPGs.  Instead it is due to design flaws.  I have noticed that homebrew games tend to be more difficult than real games, not sure why that is.

[Mathius]

Yeah, I have noticed that it takes FOREVER to level up in PS. It took a took an eternity to go from level 2 to 3. Level increase should come fast in the beginning, and then level out.

[Arkhan]

I often wonder why games that take so many years to complete have problems such as this.

Like you mentioned basically, if you've PLAYED RPGs before, you should know what works and what doesn't, especially if you are talking Genesis RPGs.

There are do's and don'ts.

Anyone remember that awesome mirror maze in Lunar 2?  f*ck that.  With random battles in between? it was a lesson in patience.

[nikdog]

I guess when I got an offer to beta test it I should have took it.

"This shit's too hard! Make it easier!"

[nodtveidt]

While I do agree that the few of us that actually had faith in them do deserve "extras"

Emphasis mine. Never put faith in anything. Ever. EVER. And that goes for everything.

And furthermore, that statement is arrogant and self-serving, which is really what people are opposed to. I don't see any homebrew-slamming in this thread at ALL. Do you even know what homebrew-slamming looks like? No one's ragging on the game because it's homebrew, it's because of the ultimately idiotic things that some of the dev staff and die-hard zealots are saying. It's no different than when people (although this happens in the magnitude of MILLIONS, not just dozens) rag on Blizzard for whatever they f*cked up this week. If it was homebrew-slamming, it would involve people making half-assed comparisons to commercial games, saying that this game sucks because it wasn't made by a licensed third party, etc etc etc.

[Necromancer]

Never put faith in anything. Ever. EVER. And that goes for everything.

I have faith that I'll get a copy of Mysterious Song... eventually..... probably before I die....... maybe. 

[Arkhan]

yeah theres a difference between bashing the game itself, and bashing the pretty moronic publication events that are transpiring.

Honestly, they've done no better than SFT because of this.  The initial print may be of a higher quality, but the broken CD and events that followed post-launch along with the planned quality of run #2 don't really set them above SFT.


Maybe slightly, since the cart itself has the neat little guy on it and stuff, but..... yeah.

[nodtveidt]

Well, I'm not so sure if WM's people are approaching SFT-level nonsense, but it seems as if people are getting more and more upset. That's never a good thing.

Necromancer, we might have found someone to fill in for B_T while he's away, so put that faith away because you don't need it.

[Arkhan]

All I have to say is don't wave your dick around if you don't plan to deliver, or at least be humble when you've screwed up.

[Joe Redifer]

Fonzie says there are many reasons why a CD-R would work better.  No reasons were provided.  But the fact that a pressed disc is no longer offered says something about it.  It would be more reliable to download and burn your own.  As for the extras, I finally popped in my disc and checked them out.  Basically it is an HTML file that opens in your web browser and plays some flash images and music.  It shows a few pics from the development and lets you play back a few of the PCM songs (probably re-encoded to play in Flash). You can also "download" wallpapers to your desktop.  There are 3 redbook audio tracks, one long one saying that the game only works on Sega CD in many different languages and then CD versions of a couple tracks.  The extras are kind of cool, but not really necessary.  I'd put the HTML on my site for people to see/use, but I don't think they'd like that very much.  Eliminating this stuff probably made the ISO a smaller download, though I have heard reports of people "padding" the image so it fills the whole CD thus making it behave more reliably, but that doesn't make any sense to me.

[nodtveidt]

A CD-R is going to work better because most CD-Rs are not made in China, but in Japan (extremely strict quality control) or Mexico (under supervision by a company in the USA, so again, extremely strict quality control). Sad, really.

And if anyone actually says that "padding the image so it fills the whole CD makes it more reliable" then you need to shoot them in the face with a bazooka. Ugh... the stupid, it burns...

If I ever make a Sega CD game (don't count on it... I can't stand the graphics limitations, I'd rather do a Dreamcast game), I'd at least have it pressed domestically.

[bluespeed]

I'm one of the lucky ones, in the game my CD works on all my Sega CD systems, music plays flawlessly.
But here's the strange thing, the redbook audio tracks don't work on my Sega CD or CD player... they skip. I've NEVER had that problem before.

I guess when I got an offer to beta test it I should have took it.

"This shit's too hard! Make it easier!"

The game IS easier compared to the beta. 
But the game design and layout and everything was already finished by the time beta testing started.

[Arkhan]

It really amazes me what kind of stupid reasonings people come up with for why a CD isn't working.

Padding the ISO?  Whuuuuuht?  Real CDs are made with things a Sega CD cant read?! whaaaaaaaaat?  So how are cheap ass CD-Rs working fine then?

Here is the REAL reason why the CD doesnt frikkin' work.

1) China sucks at pressing CDs

Also, did the master work on multiple machines?  If so.. HMMMM, maybe they got a bad pressing.  2400 CDs, JUST the CDs with no booklets and such, would have cost <1$ a disc from where I got things pressed.  500 discs was around 600$ w/ jewelcases and inserts.  If you're just printing off CDs with no cases, maaaan is it cheapcheap.

Why they picked CHINA, land of low quality horse shit, is beyond me.

Someone better scan the frigging enhanced CD artwork so I can make my own for my burnt copy.

[nikdog]

lets you play back a few of the PCM songs (probably re-encoded to play in Flash)

They are actually MP3s on the CD in one of the folder, it's just a flash-based mp3 player. (It might actually be Java)

Why they picked CHINA, land of low quality horse shit, is beyond me.

Local Shipping. Possibly no shipping.

[Joe Redifer]

And if anyone actually says that "padding the image so it fills the whole CD makes it more reliable" then you need to shoot them in the face with a bazooka.

Yeah.  I think the person who did it said something like "The Sega CD tries to seek in areas which have no data, causing issues".  That doesn't make any sense.  You'd have to have a horribly broken TOC or directory to do that.

And Arkhan, I'm sure they picked China because it is el-cheapo.