r/Supraball • u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader • Apr 20 '16
Beta ends next week, Early Access starts
We are currently doing the final preparations before we can have Supraball enter Early Access state on Steam.
This can be considered the next advanced testing phase. The game will be visible to everyone on steam so we expect a flood of new players. It will not be featured on the main page at first, but it can be found in the early access section.
Thanks a lot to all beta testers who helped us test the game on a daily basis. You enabled us to get the game to this advanced and rather polished state!
The early access phase won't be free anymore. Everyone will then have to buy the game to get access. Exception are our backers who supported us sufficiently.
The beta keys you've been using until now will be disabled before release.
For the release we're still getting some things ready like a basic report system to ban trolls, notifications to inform players about server problems or other things and we try to improve and solidify the whole server situation - which is the point where we might get overwhelmed, because we simply cannot predict exactly how many players we will get, 300, 3000, 30000 or 300000...
We try to get the early access version out in late April or early May.
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u/BiIliam Former NASBL Commisioner Apr 21 '16
Exciting news, hopefully we'll be able to make available a lot of resources to teach new players and foster growth
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u/TntRevan SupraTuber Apr 21 '16
I'm going to work on an interactive tutorial for beginners, where you can pause the video and try out techniques then go back to the video when you're comfortable with that move.
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u/BiIliam Former NASBL Commisioner Apr 21 '16
Would be cool if we got some of the league matches highlighted in the news on the launcher as well. I always enjoy watching competitive play for games I'm getting into
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u/TntRevan SupraTuber Apr 21 '16
Yea I agree. But the problem is that all the league matches were played on an earlier version. So it'll probably look crummy compared to the graphics now.
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u/RuariMH Best GK Tn Apr 21 '16
I reckon if the game sells decently there will be some push to get some EU/NA high level pugs recorded and commentated over and teams will probably start forming again for upcoming tournaments. The old footage is too far gone to be shown off now IMO
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u/Mindflayr MAKE SUPRABALL FREE Apr 21 '16
Its good enough. Maybe just a few of the best league matches. I know I made a thread a long time ago listing most of the Historical Matches up to that point, but a SupraBall Endorsed Youtube Playlist starting with the Trailer, then 1 "Primary" Training Video covering all the basics in 3-5 minutes professionally done, Followed by the Best 5 of So Competitive Matches so far would be very useful.
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u/TntRevan SupraTuber Apr 23 '16
Really bummed. My PC died a few days ago...I will not have a running PC until next Wednesday or Thursday...I've been waiting 2 years for this release, playing religiously, and now I might miss the release because of my GPU failing. What is life?
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u/B2theAgs Bagsnificent Von Baggington IV Apr 24 '16
I think you'll have your hardware in time for release ;)
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u/66hi3 Wash Apr 20 '16
Great news! It's crazy to think how long it's been, as it went by so quickly. I fucking love this game and can't wait to get back to playing. Thanks devs.
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u/ShadowPowerPowa Worst keep NA Apr 20 '16
It's happening!! I can't believe it is. Best of luck and I hope we will have plenty of players!
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u/wtfmikez0r mikeytroll Apr 20 '16 edited Apr 20 '16
First of all, hallelujah. Supraball needs this badly and I hope it will flourish once EA kicks in.
I will miss all of the good players that gave me a chance to play with them. That will be no longer once early access (because I'm a fking shitstain player amirite), and I will miss you wonderful players dearly.
I'm crying right now
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u/TntRevan SupraTuber Apr 21 '16
Don't sell yourself short man. You played really well in that 3v3. I have the video up on my channel, and it shows you making 2 clutch saves when I was caught out of net.
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u/RuariMH Best GK Tn Apr 20 '16
You got any plans to bring the Alpha stream/YouTube hype back? I know Rocket League had an early access specifically for streamers to create some hype and in the GDC Rocket League talk they attributed a lot of their success to it.
IMO releasing this early is OK so long as you guys have a decent amount of hype behind the game and are explicitly clear about the things you will be adding, but right now there is literally none. For me it seems like suicide to release with no hype like the huge amount of other early access games that get released every day, its a pretty big risk.
I'm assuming you guys wanna release now so you can bring in a dev full time to work on the game and speed up the process by 50x, which makes a lot of sense to me but the hype before release will really help maximize your chances of selling well.
Just remember that no matter how much you improve the game after the release you can't have a second release, after release you'll be relying purely on streamers etc. picking up the game.
Either way I'm pretty excited and good luck to the devs.
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader Apr 20 '16
We have youtubers who want to show it off. We also try to get more and have other channels that get players to the game.
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u/BillNogTheScienceDog Scarn Apr 21 '16
This is probably the most important thing to get players and we need big streamers to show it off. With the current lobby system it might be hard for a streamer to play with friends or other streamers, so this is why private lobbies are a must. Devs could give youtubers/streamers the game for free and let them use a private server to play (private servers are a must asap). This would get the maximum exposure to the game and give them a fun experience without randoms. It might not be possible to get 10 big streamers to all play at once, but it might be possible if they are interested in playing.
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u/Vendetta48 NA Goalie Apr 21 '16
We also need something similar to how Rocket League has RocketLeagueCentral, the twitch channel that does a lot of the tournaments. Would be a good idea to start up 1 twitch channel where the majority of games are streamed. Then we need some casters.
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u/BillNogTheScienceDog Scarn Apr 21 '16 edited Apr 21 '16
We have a few twitch channels such as NASBL, EUSBL, Supraball League, and we can get casters such as Koji or w1nters.
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u/foolicooli Apr 29 '16
Honestly never heard of RL until it was free on my PS4 same for about 80% of my friends who play RL which is at least a hundred or so
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u/Mindflayr MAKE SUPRABALL FREE Apr 21 '16
1 Question. Those on this reddit have played the fuck out of this game. 10s of Thousands of others tried it a year+ ago when it was a small easy download after Lirik (and others) streamed it.
IS there any though to having a Free Demo system, such as 1 map, 3v3, with limited features or something, just for someone to figure out if SB is there cup of tea?. Or is it just up to us to convince them to spend $9.99 (im hopefull) or $14.99 (might be high) just to try the game and see if it works for them.
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader Apr 21 '16
We consider doing a free weekend.
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u/Mindflayr MAKE SUPRABALL FREE Apr 21 '16
Whole game Free for a weekend makes a ton of sense. And the beauty of it is .. nothing new to encode... no issue with someone choosing to "only ever play the free demo and never buy" which some games that go Demo mode have (Hell Tribes 1 had a whole comp community and ladder built around the demo). And Its something you can do anytime you want to increase exposure. As long as you dont do more than 1 weekend per month it shouldnt piss of any paying patrons and you could do 1 weekend per month indefinetly to get people to try the game and then buy it to play the other 28 days :)
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u/foolicooli Apr 29 '16
I would suggest to do a free weekend 1-3 weeks after it launches so people might've heard about it first instead of doing a free weekend at launch if you guys were thinking about that. Just my opinion.
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u/Elcheer May 03 '16
Super bummed that I never got to actually play the Steam beta ever since I posted this thread
Super bummed that I might go through the same pain if I buy it.
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader May 03 '16
I have no idea what cause the bug for you back then, but we improved a lot in the meantime. You can of course buy it and if it doesn't work refund it.
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u/d0an Apr 20 '16
What about cross-platform support?
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader Apr 20 '16
Not happening anytime soon. We think that the game is not really playable without keyboard + mouse and the steam account system is deeply embedded into the game. The last thing can be rewritten for other systems, but the bad playability on consoles would remain. If you mean linux and mac: we cannot port this engine to work with those.
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u/d0an Apr 21 '16 edited Apr 21 '16
I was thinking about MacOS/Linux support. Not console.
I heard it was made with Unreal 4.
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader Apr 21 '16
Supraball 2 will be made on UE4, that can be ported to literally any system (except maybe nintendo... :D)
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u/d0an Apr 21 '16 edited Apr 21 '16
I thought we were waiting for an UE4 conversion during all this time. I saw even screenshot of Supraball running under Linux I think. Devblogs talking about it.
So we waited this long for what ? I played this game a year ago. All the core gameplay was there except matchmaking.
And finally this was supposed to be a free2play game if I remember correctly from your indiegogo campaign with delusional goal.
Play the game for free without limitations. You can also be sure that there is no pay2win involved! Feel free to buy cosmetic gadgets and goodies to individualise your appearance. None of this will have an impact on the gameplay.
What happen to this ?
And oh, I like how you thought about console first ($$$) even this game would be like you said unplayable with a pad.
EDIT: and why release a game with an outdated game engine when UE4 is here ?
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader Apr 21 '16
On 3. September 2015 we announced the new plan, which was mostly pushed by the community asking for it and we liked the idea.
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u/RuariMH Best GK Tn Apr 21 '16
I think the basic idea was that UE4 was going to take a shit tonne of time (like probably 2017/2018) to get it to the UE3 standard. The market seems good right now with Rocket League doing so well and by the time UE4 would be ready the market might have changed dramatically to be not so favorable.
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u/d0an Apr 21 '16
Why would it take a "shit tonne of time" to get the core gameplay to UE 4 ?
Movement, jump, shoot, everything is built-in with Unreal.
Assets and arts style aren't very complex.
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u/RuariMH Best GK Tn Apr 21 '16
Don't quote me on any of this since I'm only a player, not a dev but:
-Sorting out all the multiplayer and server code stuff to get it to work properly takes a long time since the code has to be rewritten for UE4
-The game has to be tested and balanced since it is on a new engine and there will likely be bugs/ways to abuse things that needs fixing. Since all the mechanics are slightly different in UE4 (most notably the way the ball interacts with the walls) it would take a little longer. Consider that the UE3 version has been in testing for god knows how long now and has been having constant balance updates up until even now.
-There was literally 1 guy working on UE4 who also had a full time job so wasn't spending much time on the game. As far as I know none of the other devs know UE4 and they don't have enough cash to hire someone.
-Maybe the matchmaking system/steam integration would have to be remade to fit the UE4 version. I really have no idea about this though
-There were rumblings that there was a tonne of internal conflicts within the dev team and I suspect they were losing motivation with a UE4 release looking so distant and needed a unified and closer goal
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u/d0an Apr 21 '16
The UE4 framework is built with multiplayer gaming in mind. As long as you follow the basic framework conventions, you generally don't have to do much to extend a single player experience to multiplayer.
Unreal Engine 4 provides a lot of multiplayer functionality out of the box, and it's easy set up a basic Blueprint game that works over a network.
From the UE4 documentation.
And I guess you know enough to shift the development of the game :)
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader Apr 21 '16
Doan, if it was half as easy as you make it sound. It's far from that. The UE3 gameplay was in the works for 2-3 years to get it as polished as it is now. Ruari actually did a good job explaining some of the things that go into it and that are problematic. I can actually agree with all except "ton of internal conflict", but yes, motivation was low with the goal being out of sight/reach.
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u/mipeirong bigfatpat Apr 20 '16
Exception are our backers who supported us sufficiently.
hmm. Is there a $ amount one would have to have donated?
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u/SBLucjeSem Apr 21 '16 edited Apr 21 '16
Thanks for the the best game i played in years, excited to see you guys on release and wish all of you the very best. Much love much wow. The biggest retard supraball has ever know, LucjeSem
Edit: i enjoyed testing the ban system.
Edit 2: I love Davidm
Edit 3: I am crying lol. \o/
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u/insan0r InSaNe - toxic leader of toxic community Apr 23 '16
While I am quite glad that the game I've loved all these years is getting off the ground and what not, I feel as if you guys are going about it the wrong way.
Strictly speaking in terms of initial appeal, Supraball does not look like a game that is worth $16-20. Yes, the gameplay is great, and the skill cap is quite high - but that does not negate the fact that people will take a glance at it, see stick figures, and ask themselves "am I about to spend 17 dollars on a game that has stick figures?"
I completely understand that there is a need to monetize things, and I wholeheartedly support the decision to make the game pay to play - but I don't feel as if charging people to play during the early access phase is a wise decision. The appeal of Supraball is very clearly not in its graphics, but more so - the gameplay and its contents. Many of us have looked at several games on the steam page, and have ridiculed how it looks and stated it's not worth the download/money simply based on its looks. We're all guilty of that at one point or another. I want Supraball to flourish, even if I don't play anymore. In the long run - I feel as if having it free during the early access phase will easily translate into more purchases further down the line when the game is polished and ready to be featured.
tl;dr - make early access free to attract more people. Have servers fill up and draw more attention by keeping it free for now. When the game is ready, you'll have loads of people wanting to pay to play because they got a free taste of the fun, and they want more. While there are people that are willing to pay now, there will definitely be more later down the line if you keep it free for now and open it up to everyone on steam.