Terraria 2, though? Excuse me for being cynical, but the thing looks like a cynical attempt to cash in once he realized that people would buy another game of the same type. I'm not exactly impressed to see this come to light only after 1) promises to deliver a lot of what Starbound is promising fell through for Terraria, 2) Terraria development was apparently all but abandoned once the sales dried up, and 3) suddenly Terraria 2 is announced after the Starbound preorders show that there's an audience... promising essentially Terraria+ the stuff that... Starbound is adding anyway.
It's interesting, having been a big critic of how Redigit has handled things, to find myself defending him. But I think he's presented some very straight forward reasons for a sequel. The game is limited by the original code. There's clearly a market not just for games with the blocks, but Terraria 2.
I think it comes down to the original game code. It's been described as spaghetti code by many, even though the game has always run and presented very tightly for me. Maybe not all of the original code is truly "his." Maybe it's code written by various people that helped along the way, or maybe back before the game even had a name, he ganked something.
Red's an interesting character in that I find him hard to pin down. At times he seems like what I'd consider your average indie developer. Other times, he's seemed kind of shady. I don't disagree that there's plenty of room for skepticism about his motives (maybe even his methods.) I just don't share it in this regard because....put yourself in his shoes. He might make as much as another million off the 1.2 update. He's still rolling in cash from before. He has all the time, luxury and resources to think big. What would you do in his position? Keep plunking away at Terraria, ala Toady One style? There's merit in that. He could easily make money doing it, because his updates always generate new sales due to how much content he puts in them. There's also the warm, fuzzy, Dwarf-Fortress inspired ideal of a developer living their game for the rest of their lives.
But realisitically, he's doing what lots of successful indie developers do. McMillen and Binding of Isaac? Sequel. Hotline Miami? Sequel. Notch? All sorts of shit that's got nothing to do with Minecraft.
This is the thing with outrageous indie commercial successes: they have a chance to grow beyond what made them successful. And to me that's kind of their right.
I probably feel this way because I long ago wrote off loyalty to Terraria as a product, because of how little I appreciated his abrupt change of plans. But he's continued to do a square by all the people who bought the game by not charging a dime, and doing things simply to keep them happy. He could have never done the 1.1 update and be an extra year into Terraria 2.
So yeah. I think the guy deserves a break, or at least, the presumption of nobler intentions than the cynical money grubbing that's being attributed to him.
Author
Topic: Terraria - 1.3 released. Big Patch! (Read 1261044 times)