Head on a Stick

Well, Dan and I were going to go get some exercise, but Kelly let us know that the 300,000th person was about to post to the leaderboards, so we figured it would be better to knock out a quick update instead.

The title update is going well- we spent the weekend testing and testing and testing to see if the fixes work and it is looking pretty good. With any luck tomorrow we will be doing a big multiplayer test with everyone in Redmond. If everything goes well we’ll be moving from the “fixing it” stage to the “verifying” stage. After everything is fixed and verified by everyone and their mother, we’ll roll into the certification stage. If we pass that then we wait for the TU (title update) to be released. With all these moving parts, we are unable to tell you all with precision when the TU will be out, but we are working on it every day.

In the meantime, since I’m not a programmer, I get to do all the other stuff, like unloading the PAX delivery van and putting the trophies back on schedule (yes, AH HD trophy update tomorrow I PROMISE DAN!!!) Here’s a shot of some cool things we took to PAX but never made it out of my suitcase. I had cast 18 bronze helmet keychains before we left, (both Knight and Barbarian), and we’ve been trying to figure out what to do with them. They are very cool and very heavy. The far left is the head of the original figurine, the next is the wax casting, then the first bronze pour. The next one is the first polish and the final one on the right is the final polish.

We are going to keep an eye out for some of the coolest Castle Crasher videos on YouTube and on Friday we are going to give away the first of these keychains. I’m sure we’ll figure out rules and such tomorrow, so check back and in the meantime, post your videos…I mean, can anyone beat these?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fzmTqLToZk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhQM3Xwvt6A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy2fa8kp5tM

Best

john

PS, for those of you who were lucky enough to place an order on our webstore before we sold out, were waiting for our custom boxes to be fabricated before we ship them out. If everything goes as planned, we’ll be shipping this week. Check back later in the week for an update.

42 thoughts on “Head on a Stick”

  1. @ Tony
    How is it silly? I’m describing the past, and without it, we wouldn’t even have games. We’d all probably be dead or not even have been born because our ancestors would have killed each other out, that is if they never looked at their past.

    @Micheal
    If you had actually read any of that, they are in the “testing” stage of the patch, which comes before certification and then release, you’d not be asking 3 times in under a minute for the patch. Impatience is a futile attempt to get something you want, and it’s not healthy. Please remain calm and find something else to do in your time, like W.A.R that came out today.

  2. @Denivire: You say that because 15 years ago there was no online, that people today who are upset that they can’t play online “expect too much from something”.

    Online play is an integral part of modern games and gaming culture. To use your example – 15 years ago people played locally with family and friends. Well, what if 15 years ago you bought a game and it refused to let your family play with you – some glitch prevented the other controllers from working, or the game would freeze with more than one player. You’d no longer be a “happy consumer”.

    Fast forward to today – and online play has become just as if not more important than local multiplayer / split screen. In fact there are games that only provide online multiplayer and don’t include local… so when people are upset that an integral (and widely advertised) feature of a game they purchased doesn’t work correctly, it’s not irrational.

  3. i freakin love you guys. i’m waiting for my barbarian in the mail right now…

    let me say that i was one of the suckers who got screwed on a data loss. a friend and i BURNED a night on this game and collected tons of weapons and animals, had a great time. woke up the next day to do it again and whammo, everything’s gone. i was bummed. I left the game alone for about a day after that, in spite, and read page after page of forum posts on similar issues.

    but the game is too damn good. i couldn’t help it. it scratches a beatemup itch i forget I had stopped scratching. eventually the controller found it’s way into my hands, and with a little security (the log-in/log-out method) i started all over. that hurts because i’ve yet to find all the weapons i had after that night, dozens of hours later (that baseball bat and two-pronged sword are a beetch to find).

    this stands as testament that you sirs have made a fantastic gaming experience. i risk sabotaging my slowly accumulating collection by continuing to play this game, always hoping the data loss doesn’t hit me again. i know you guys are working hard and i thank you, i’m sure you know that gamers like me are waiting for an update with baited breath. online play is one thing, i can excuse that and wait for it…but the data loss hurt. i haven’t felt hurt like that since my Crystalis save got deleted many years ago…

    maybe a few thousand of those keychains could be smelted for all of us suckers?

    big thanks you guys, you did good…best microsoft points i ever spent…

  4. @ Tony
    Okay, I see your point. I wasn’t being baffled that people are agitated by the fact something that was advertised was bugged or flawed, though. I was more baffled that people need the online.
    I see people coming to the forums wanting their money back from losing everything, because they went online and lost everything for the 5th-12th time. You’d think they’d know by the first or second time that the online feature is bugged and could cause a save file corruption, but they insist anyways, and then expect their money back from choosing to risk everything. That’s more silly then stating 10-15 years ago there was no online. 😛
    Also find it kind of strange that you say it’s not irrational to be upset about an advertised feature to not work when I never said anything about it being irrational. Online is still fairly new, and there are still many factors that are being worked out even with some of the most popular games (CoD4 for example). People expect it to be flawless right away, and I just find that rather baffling, especially from a small team of people who have never had to code online for 4 player co-op or battles before, and had their first go at it.

    They did fairly well with a first try, they only forgot about some connections are not very compatible with other connections. 😀

  5. I just randomly lost my data (weapons, gold, pets) after only doing single player and no online. Will the patch give me it all back or do i have to get everthing all over again FOR THE FORTH TIME??!

  6. Well, as THE CC YouTube guy, I’ve pretty much gotta enter this YT contest, don’t I? =D

    By the way, John, I e-mailed you guys on the 10th regarding participation in my charity DVD project (100% of the proceeds go to Toys for Toys)… If you could please e-mail me regarding that ASAP, I’d truly appreciate it, even if it is a mere rejection (I’d like to start adjusting time slots for the DVD very soon since we’ll be shipping them in… oh god, about two weeks… yikes…). Thanks guys!

  7. I also upset with the devs. I paid 1200 points for a working game i get a good game but it crashes all the time. I can understand slight glitches but total meltdowns are unforgivable

  8. This is getting ridiculous. Its been a month since this game has come out and STILL no patch or anything to address the issues with the game.

    I want my money back.

  9. We are still progressing on getting a Title Update out. (see Dan’s wonderpost above!) I should point out that some games that were released earlier in the year on Arcade have yet to even address the possibility of a title update even though they are in need of them, so I think we are pretty good being up front with everyone who has purchased our game. Remember, it isn’t a matter of changing a single chunk of code and uploading it for you all; it is a process of finding the causes of the problems, fixing them, testing, then submitting the update to Microsoft to certify before they release it (and they have to test it too!). This is why other title updates on Live Arcade have taken months to release, such as Alien Hominid HD, whose TU released 4.5 months after the game was released. And that was a quick update 🙁 Hopefully CC will break all TU update records!

    We are very optimistic that the CC update won’t take nearly that long since we are almost through with our part of the process and MS is committed to getting this out ASAP. I should point out that for those of you experiencing problems, your specific reports to us about what you are doing and how you are doing it has helped us find some really obscure issues that we wouldn’t have otherwise found. Thank you! Please continue to post on our forums (http://forums.thebehemoth.com/viewforum.php?f=13) so that we know what to look for.

    In the meantime: The best way to avoid data loss is to play CC only on the Xbox where you purchased the game. 90% of data loss issues are popping up after people move their HDD or their profiles to another box. If you have had data loss, and have not played since your data loss, you might try signing out of CC from the main menu and then back in again. For many people this brings the data right back, but you will have to do this every time until the TU is released.

    If you never moved Castle Crashers or your profile to play Castle Crashers (via HDD swapping or MU), and you are playing it on the console you downloaded it on… then please check out this thread (http://forums.thebehemoth.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1265) on our forums and let us know the details of your situation! You may have information that will help us out if this is a new situation.

    -John

  10. Something that the publishers of this game seem to forget is that not everybody is swimming in money and as such buying a live gold subscription is a very expensive treat for them (I am talking about myself too). In my case I actually bought live gold specifically to play this game online online to find out it doesn’t work properly.

    In the meantime I will off course keep myself busy with other games but my 3-month gold subscription will end eventually, and I would have had less time available to play CC online. Which would be a waste of money :(.

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