Your statements are conflicting. First you say that the release was ‘pretty decent’, then you, in essence, posit that it would be unfair to compare the game to other games that actually had a decent release. The release was not decent, and it’s reflected in the mass drop off of players as people have gotten fed up with the ridiculous, buggy multiplayer experience.
Also, you say that the game is all about the single player, story, etc. Who are you to say this? Did you design the game? Do you know the intent of those that did? Furthermore, do you have the consent of every player that has enjoyed the Homeworld series to speak on their behalf? I think not. The game may be about single player for YOU, and that’s just fine, but don’t devalue the arguments of those that are concerned about the state of multiplayer and demand something more than what is being offered simply because you don’t get the same feels from that experience.
By singling out the single player and ignoring the disastrous multiplayer in your analysis of the success of the games release, you’re not only cherry picking to make your argument, you’re doing the game and the community a disservice in the process.
It’s really tragic how poorly the multiplayer experience has worked out. I personally don’t even care about the bugs as long as I can get a match going, but so many have gotten fed up and left that it takes an inordinate amount of time spent waiting for and/or networking and scheduling matches to get a game going. While I wish I still had the copious free time I did as a child in 1999, that’s no longer the case, and I personally have had to set aside Homeworld as the few times I have actually attempted to play as of late the entirety of my free time was spent playing cell phone games while fruitlessly waiting for a match to start. Knowing how devoted I was to seeing this game succeed, and seeing the statistics play out, I can say with confidence that on its current trajectory this game is indeed dead. I sincerely hope Gearbox gets their act together and revives the multiplayer community.
Yes, this should have been an early access, and later released as a full game once the mp beta was concluded to avoid alienating new players. The core community of what… 2-500 players that still play HWR on a regular basis would have bought the game regardless, but the thousands that apparently bought and no longer play might not have dropped off so quickly had a quality multiplayer experience been offered.
At this point, in my own humble opinion, what Gearbox is going to have to do, once (if ever) they finally get the multiplayer finished, is offer some incentive to existing owners of the game to come back and give it another go, as well as either a free play weekend or a limited trial version of the game to give new players a chance to try the game out and get hooked.
Personally, I wish Gearbox would start doing LoL-style microtransactions for skins and decals and such for use in the standard multiplayer. It would change the incentive for Gearbox to be more involved in the ongoing playability of the game instead of the kind of lipstick-on-a–pig mentality that seems to have driven the game’s disastrous and premature release. Right now, outside of the increasingly unlikely prospect of generating additional sales, Gearbox has little incentive to continue even supporting multiplayer. I can’t imagine it’s profitable right now – why pay one or more employees to continue working on the game no one even wants to buy. I think that’s one reason they are already relying so much on the prospect of community mods, and I would think that eventually the game will shift to being wholly community supported once Gearbox yanks the last employees off of HWR in favor of more profitable endeavors.
shrug I am a player, I played HW1 and 2 when they came out, I played the multiplayer, I’ve played thousands and thousands of games and have been a part of hundreds of game releases and pre-orders, good and bad. I am not saying I am a bigger or better gamer than anyone here(not by a long shot), only that I have a large body of experience to pull from.
So I stand by my statements. I do not take responsibility for your interpretation of them.
I like to imagine the devs reading these ‘the game is dead’ posts, rolling their eyes and continue to put in all those countless hours they have been putting in making all these awesome things happen. At least that’s my headcannon and the dev interaction here on these forums supports it.
They need to know at least some of the regulars here have a decent grasp on reality and appreciate what they have done and what they are currently doing even if others are blind to it.
‘Decent grasp on reality’. Lol, so demeaning, so self-righteous. White knight moar plz.
I was going to try and reason with you, but I realize there’s no point. Any criticism made you will just deflect with straw men like your argument that I’m somehow victimizing the devs by criticizing the debacle of a release. It’s unfortunate that instead of tackling the debate in a realistic way, you’ve just got to put down those with a different viewpoint, those that very much want the game to succeed and are overwhelmingly disappointed at how far it has fallen from what it could have been.
But, I guess I’m wasting my time even participating in this conversation. My only hope is that yes, the devs will indeed read this, and understand there are a lot of disappointed people out there that have a ‘decent grasp on reality’ and aren’t blinded by their fanboyism. Ironically it is so disappointing because of how well HWR has been developed as a game. Indeed, I thank the devs for their hard work. I curse the studio for it’s foolish release plan. I only hope Gearbox (not read ‘devs’… unless this is an exceptional situation the devs generally have no control over release dates, marketing, and overall budgets) actually tries to pull this one out of the fire instead of writing it off.
The problem is we start out with different points of view on the launch. If you start with two wildly different starting points, is it any wonder that anything I say after that is so contrary to what you think is right and vice-versa?
Experience tells me the launch was a huge success based on the various factors I listed in my post (Genre, playerbase, game design, age of game design, focus of gameplay, modern hooks or lack thereof, dev support and nature of the project as a whole amongst other).
My post puts forth the supposition that the reason for the extreme difference in our starting POV is past experience. I mean if we were talking about a newly developed game then I might agree with you on quite a few points. If for example this was shipbreakers I would also be a bit disappointed because I would expect so many of the things we take for granted today to be included. Stuff like integrated leaderboards, matchmaking, level progression, unlocks, skins, microtransactions, etc, etc, etc. But those things just aren’t, and probably never will be, in HW:R. That is what I mean by decent grasp of reality. I accept the possible and the impossible and when you work within that framework you can start contributing.
Realising what is possible and what is not and then recognising where the dev team pushed the envelope on the impossible (and where they dropped the ball) means you can both enjoy and celebrate the achievements and offer valid and helpful critique to improve the game.
Or you know “game is dead”.
ps. I’ve noticed the mods on these forums don’t like name calling so maybe tone that down a bit.
Your response gives me the impression you didn’t actually read my post, but really, really wanted to get the last word in and to re-emphasize how incredibly out of touch everyone but you is with reality.
My statement was “on its current trajectory this game is indeed dead,” meaning it is not headed in a positive direction but there is still time to fix it if Gearbox so chooses, either by listening to the many criticisms offered by community members such as myself, or by formulating their own strategy (which I would think them completely capable to do – I mean there was Duke Nukem…but in that case it actually was a case of poor development, and they still had a huge success with Borderlands, so I can’t imagine their people in charge of project management and marketing are entirely incompetent). But why read when you can just insinuate. Moar straw men ftw!
But hey, it’s your world and we’re all just living in it, amirite? Apologies for contradicting your supreme ‘reality,’ your majesty.
Anyway, this is my last post. Feel free to keep rambling to your content and pleasure.
I would have been happy to wait for a properly working game, not this equivalent of a bootleg Yugo suitable to be sold in dark alleys out of trench coat pockets.
Having said that I do appreciate the effort at attempting the fixes. Just hope its not too late to rebuild the lost player base.
I’m slightly set back at some of the comments. I completely realize the situation and at first was all in favor of burning them all at the stake… then I watched as they, time after time helped the modding community and spent their own free time helping people. I’ve come to appreciate the effort they’re putting into this project and realize there’s more to the HWRM team than meets the eye. I have a sneaking suspicion that all this is no surprise to them and is being carefully dealt with. All I can add is… Be patient. It will all be good in the end. I’m sure of it.
For me I have stopped playing as the excitement has gone from somit new and shiny I.e visuals. The keybindibg bug for build toggle has also stopped me as I have to redo it every game so was sick of doing that so not starting it till I know its fixed. Mp was OK but till they sort out most of the balance or bugs I’m again not doing mp either. I played up to the save bentusi mission but lost inteset in finishing it due to above issues tho no big deal as I finished both games in the original releases not the RM.
Visually hw1rm was great but it didn’t feel like hw due to the engine change I.e formations and mechanics. Not touched hw2rm as doubt much has changed and tbh the campaign for hw2 was rushed and wasn’t as enjoyable as the slower but richer experience of hw1 campaign.
Hwrm really needed a solid mp experience from release to be properly successful IMO. Once ppl stop playing it will be hard to encourage ppl to return just because they finished balancing etc which will take awhile. Its sad that they couldn’t have had it sorted from release.
Mods can prolong the life but it will be months if not years till a proper full mod is released that makes it worth playing on mp. Like a full total conversion type mod of say the star trek mods or sw or b5. As all the old mod teams will probably need to redo a lot of their old work to match 2015 quality that the engine hopefully now supports. From seeing in mod forum tho some have done some nice work so far tho the poly count and textures are lacking a little bit to make them look incredible at least to me. But the new engine helps make the lighting look great and the new shaders will make everything look even cooler.
Anyhow just posting my opinions on the state of the game as it is. I hope a patch is out soon even if its small just to fix a few basics like key binding for me then I might play a bit more. Otherwise I’ll just keep enjoying GTA v for now.
Which is odd considering HW2’s campaign can be micromanagement hell quite early on.
The shipyard mission is brutal with the 3 carriers spamming out infiltration frigates and the other carrier harassing your long range resource operation. You can’t even try to cheese it by not repairing the shipyard to delay the carriers arrival, the scripts auto-heal the shipyard after a few minutes anyway.
The HW2 campaign was annoying all the way through, HW1 had so many more missions where you could actually do whatever you wanted to ‘win’.
It would be less annoying and more enjoyable if auto hyper was disabled and let the player decide when to jump. The whole game feels out of control and the player has no vote over fleet command.
That’s kinda the point of the HW2 campaign, what with Hiigara being bombarded while the player dilly dallies. It’s supposed to feel rushed and out of control, because it is
I mean you’re free to disagree with that design choice that the original creators went with I guess shrug
HW, especially HW1 has a powerful story, even so many years after it came out and it’s reflected in how many people actually finished it.
Actually I never really thought about it but I’m pretty sure the HW1 campaign takes a lot of its queues from ‘A hero’s journey’, just like most great timeless stories.
Considering What a rush job the production of HW2 turned into at the end, with the original script and budget being chucked in the bin by management. I bet the original creators weren’t happy with a Lot of the design choices they ended up making.
Rushing your players from one end of the game to the other is rarely going to be a good idea, as it actively removes any sense of agency that your trying to create.
It was a bad idea then… and its still a bad idea now.
and it shows up pretty clearly in the take up numbers for the two games which method of storytelling is preferred by the player.
Updated numbers time
Looks like we are starting to plateau in terms of player retention (tentative)
This is the first weekend to weekend comparison that isn’t showing a large percentage drop off, with Monday comparable to last Monday as well. If nothing else exciting happens at Gearbox’s end, then the weekly drop in numbers should start to be smaller than we’ve seen thus far.
A good Patch/Mod could see the numbers go back up, as would the multiplayer coming out of BETA or the game going back on sale ( this one should be quite noticeable in the charts if it happens)
Should be interesting to see the numbers unfold when the next round of patches and Mods are implemented I reckon.
The stats are available for all to see, the links automatically point the the latest data.
The biggest impact I am expecting to see when a considerable sale takes place. I will say that the game is far from having found it’s ‘groove’ I’m much more interested in the numbers in around 6 months to a year from now. This is also the numbers that GBX and BBI would be looking at for interest in additional HW titles like shipbreakers, HWR DLC and HW3.
