Future of the Multiplayer

Homeworld Remastered Collection Homeworld Remastered Multiplayer
#4

I’m definitely a supporter of paid for DLC, as long as it’s not overpriced I’d love the addition of quality content AND to support the HW franchise.
I personally think that HWR could also benefit from adding curated community maps to the base game, as a cheap way to increase MP variety. They could even try and make it a PR thing, like a yearly or monthly competition for community mappers.

But yes, I must admit the multiplayer being in beta for over a year and being so unstable from my experience is disappointing.
I’m just hoping that with the large patch, which has been being teasing me for so long, fixes those issues so I can FINALLY play with my friends… And see some really good mods released. :slight_smile:

#5

Paid DLC for Homeworld? Sounds like anathema to me.

#6

DOK disagrees.

#7

Hah yeah. Their priorities are a little off then.

#8

Wow, it’s been a year? This saddens me…

#9

Why? :confused:

#10

Well, since I feel that there should’ve been less time before the ‘great patch’, and more time dedicated for the MP. :cry:

#11

I’m unfamiliar with MP on this game atm. What’s currently wrong with it, besides the problems in SP?

#12

Well, the fact that it’s still in beta after one year, and there’s barely anyone still playing it…there are balance issues. You can find lists over this board.

#13

Yeah, I remarked on the dwindling community on another thread, and argued that GBX should be trying to give more updates on the patch progression in the absence of a release date, in order to keep the community more positive and active.
People seemed to mostly disagree with my assessment that much of the community has become negative and disinterested after such a long time after release, but I’ll agree to disagree with them…

#14

I don’t know why people keep being so defensive. It’s been a whole year, not a few months. This project has clearly been put on the backburner, and it saddens me since it was supposed to be the revival of the franchise. Oh well…

2 Likes
#15

Yeah I know. I’m positive that the patch will be great, but it’s been too long coming imo. Something resembling it needed to be released within the first few months of the initial game release in order to prevent people losing faith en masse and the community subsequently losing out on the gains that could have been made with a new installment in the franchise.

Of course, whoever decides these things should have delayed release to give the devs more time to work within the problematic HW2 engine and sort out the main gameplay culprits like the absent HW1 formations. Perhaps have even given them the time and resources to build it on a new engine, in the spirit of a ‘remaster’…but obviously they took the less risky route.

#16

I feel you. I myself wished for the old times to come back. I wanted to meet up old players that I used to play with, but in the end I didn’t even meet anyone. At least I managed to play old good SP with better graphics. Bugged, but with better graphics.

1 Like
#17

Thankfully, I have reconnected with some great people from the past. I continue to meet new players and cool peoples.

Haven’t we met? :neutral_face:

2 Likes
#18

I didn’t agree with your message on the other thread, but this is something I can agree with. I suppose their initial budget was not big enough to be able to make this sort of massive changes (formation I mean). Perhaps it’s only because of the money they earned by releasing the game that they managed to free more ressources and make the current patch they’re working on (big supposition I admit)

1 Like
#19

As I understand it, when deciding to use the HW2 engine GBX (indirectly) decided to accept the loss of formations but allowing them the use of the better engine. It was a marketing decision made on a game they didn’t know for sure would sell well and the community backlash has caused them to change their minds and fix it. They couldn’t have known pre-release and it took a while for enough people to complain for them to see it’s worth fixing.
Besides which, on the implementation side I can see that from a technical perspective (I’m a developer though not for games) trying to control the combination of squadrons which move, with individual fighters which move, all of which have specific locations and guiding AI is not a trivial task that can be completed, tested and released within a month without being a buggy mess.

However, getting back onto the topic of MP, if I’m right (I hope so) they have decided to release one big patch to fix a lot of the game issues/complaints including the MP beta, not just formations. This means we get the individual fixes slower, but is more efficient for the developers as it means only one batch of testing, bug-fixing and releasing.
And much as I’m still admitting it’s been a long time for this patch, I understand that in the meantime GBX has been busy releasing HW DoK, likely taking developers away from HWR to work on what has turned out to be, in my opinion, a very good member of the francise.
I think they’ve overall made reasonable decisions, other than being a bit slow/cryptic on the updates progress, and much as it’s been a year since HWR was released, if the patch is as good as it sounds then I’ll be playing HWR for another 10 years (like HW original) and that year will be a rather small blip in the long run.

2 Likes
#20

I can’t speak for everyone, but I imagine people react badly to that sentiment because a number of us have been helping test the upcoming patch, and have been able to see the constant work on it. Of course we can’t know how gearbox’s internal resources are allocated, and one can assume that the (free) post-launch support of an update of a game over a decade old ranks somewhere well below, say, the launch of a new moba-inspired IP. But to see people talk like the game has abandoned when I know for a fact that people have been slaving away on it trying to get the update out as soon as possible can cause the temper to flare. Would have it been good to have the patch a few months after launch? Of course it would! But the implicit idea that gearbox knew it’d take a year to get the patch done and chose that route rather than another route that’d get it out in a few months is patently absurd to me.

3 Likes
#21

The uproar about HW1 formations and other lackluster HW1 mechanics is primarily from the HW1 multiplayer community, so I find it odd you think the ‘great patch’ isn’t multiplayer focused.

On the other topic… From where I sit it looks like they haven’t closed the door on DLC; it just wasn’t the highest priority. Perhaps the changes they’ve made to certain systems are necessary for whatever DLC they’ve had in mind. Perhaps not. Either way, this patch has taken longer than expected, delaying the decision to create or not create DLC. The time gap between patches and the performance of DoK probably aren’t factors in favor of that decision, but I’m not yet ready to declare the last nail has been placed into the coffin.

#22

Maybe everyone is just playing DOK? Haven’t got around to buying it myself, but it looks cool enough. Anyone know if DOK has the same dwindling community?

#23

According to some people DOK has one 3rd the online games that HW:RM has, so it is almost none-existent.