Daedalic Entertainment announced their in-development real-time strategy game A Year Of Rain is now officially on hold.
Currently in Early Access on Steam and only becoming available there back in November 2019, it was due to come to Linux a little later but that's likely not happening now. Yesterday, Daedalic announced on Steam they mentioned that the "low player base" had caused some major issues for them with it only hitting a little more "than 5000 players worldwide" this week. Looking at the Steam stats for it, they only managed an all-time peak of 244 players and then it just continued to drop, which for a co-op RTS isn't sustainable for an "independent studio with limited resources". Due to this they "decided to put the active development of A Year Of Rain on hold".
As a big fan of such traditional real-time strategy games and always hoping for a resurgence, it does make me sad to see another failed attempt.
It seems it suffered some big technical issues, with a lot of people mentioning the Pathfinding was pretty awful which is one of the most basic systems an RTS really needs right from the earliest release. Sounds like it was promising in a few ways though but needed a big rework in others. That's what you should expect from an Early Access game though; rough but in-development and that is the point of it. In this case, it seems Daedalic Entertainment expected it to do a lot better.
This has already pushed some users to add negative reviews on Steam, so it doesn't have a very good rating overall.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The bases where not very good in my opinion.
Pathfinding terrible yes, but also weird economy, scale, IA and other stuff.
Too many games release in Early Access way too soon in their life.
Pathfinding terrible yes, but also weird economy, scale, IA and other stuff.
Too many games release in Early Access way too soon in their life.
1 Likes, Who?
Man, that sucks. It looked really appealing. That said, I typically will not pay to test alpha and beta versions. Heck, I barely even do it if it's free for me.
2 Likes, Who?
At some point, maybe, developers will realize that classic RTS development with a multiplayer focus just doesn't make sense.
For single player, sure, more than enough successful enough single-player RTS titles out there.
But multiplayer-classic-RTS is a dead genre, with a handful of (old) titles holding the players that are left captive. And those old titles are so well polished by now that any new challenger can only fail. Especially if it is in such a rough state as this one was on early access release.
I was looking forward to playing this game, actually. The campaign, that is.
Too bad it won't happen.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 5 February 2020 at 1:45 pm UTC
For single player, sure, more than enough successful enough single-player RTS titles out there.
But multiplayer-classic-RTS is a dead genre, with a handful of (old) titles holding the players that are left captive. And those old titles are so well polished by now that any new challenger can only fail. Especially if it is in such a rough state as this one was on early access release.
I was looking forward to playing this game, actually. The campaign, that is.
Too bad it won't happen.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 5 February 2020 at 1:45 pm UTC
8 Likes, Who?
Quoting: TheSHEEEPAt some point, maybe, developers will realize that classic RTS development with a multiplayer focus just doesn't make sense.
For single player, sure, more than enough successful enough single-player RTS titles out there.
But multiplayer-classic-RTS is a dead genre, with a handful of (old) titles holding the players that are left captive. And those old titles are so well polished by now that any new challenger can only fail. Especially if it is in such a rough state as this one was on early access release.
I was looking forward to playing this game, actually. The campaign, that is.
Too bad it won't happen.
Yeah, this. Having an active multiplayer community is hard; there are only so many games that can have thousands of players online 24/7. Making an indie game that depends on it seems unwise.
RTS games were the multiplayer hotness once, a long time ago, which probably won't happen again. But the genre goes a lot beyond competitive multiplayer, and there could be a lot (more) of amazing single-player RTS if people stopped focusing all their efforts in online skirmishes (which they do to the detriment of the single-player, of course).
I was kind of excited for this one as well (though only for playing on my own, no multiplayer involved).
5 Likes, Who?
Agree with the other people here.
Focusing too much on multiplayer won't work.
Make a good single player game and allow people to play online if they want.
Playing with friends can be great. I still play the original Majesty with friends on and off again on weekends.
Another good point is that there are too many games and you can't guarantee a player base.
Does this game even support dedicated/private servers ? or are you reliant on their own ?
Focusing too much on multiplayer won't work.
Make a good single player game and allow people to play online if they want.
Playing with friends can be great. I still play the original Majesty with friends on and off again on weekends.
Another good point is that there are too many games and you can't guarantee a player base.
Does this game even support dedicated/private servers ? or are you reliant on their own ?
3 Likes, Who?
[quote=eldaking]
It's amusing to contrast the call for single player with the hue and cry when Ravenfield definitely stated that no, there would not be multiplayer even though that style of game was almost always done with multi in mind. As it happens, Ravenfield did very well at crafting a good single player experience, so they made the right decision. But wow, were there a lot of people giving up on the game at the time for that reason.
Not that I disagree. More well crafted single player experiences would be more than welcome. Heck, doing that with an almost inherently multiplayer genre like RTS would set them apart, I think. But they'll be a hard sell for sure.
Quoting: TheSHEEEPRTS games were the multiplayer hotness once, a long time ago, which probably won't happen again. But the genre goes a lot beyond competitive multiplayer, and there could be a lot (more) of amazing single-player RTS if people stopped focusing all their efforts in online skirmishes (which they do to the detriment of the single-player, of course).
It's amusing to contrast the call for single player with the hue and cry when Ravenfield definitely stated that no, there would not be multiplayer even though that style of game was almost always done with multi in mind. As it happens, Ravenfield did very well at crafting a good single player experience, so they made the right decision. But wow, were there a lot of people giving up on the game at the time for that reason.
Not that I disagree. More well crafted single player experiences would be more than welcome. Heck, doing that with an almost inherently multiplayer genre like RTS would set them apart, I think. But they'll be a hard sell for sure.
0 Likes
Quoting: Nezchanan almost inherently multiplayer genre like RTSI think I stopped playing RTS games when multiplayer became the focus. Warcraft 2 was probably my last one.
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Mountain Man Feb 5, 2020
Quoting: TcheyToo many games release in Early Access way too soon in their life.I don't understand this statement. Isn't the whole point of early access for developers to charge customers for the dubious privilege of beta testing their broken and unfinished games with no guarantee that it will ever reach a finished state? There's a reason I stay far away from any game with the "early access" tag.
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soulsource Feb 5, 2020
I must say, I'm a bit sad about this.
The developers had a presentation about the multiplayer tech of that game at UnrealFest last year, and it looked quite intriguing. From a technology standpoint, that is. No idea if the game is fun.
The developers had a presentation about the multiplayer tech of that game at UnrealFest last year, and it looked quite intriguing. From a technology standpoint, that is. No idea if the game is fun.
0 Likes
Quoting: Mountain ManEarly access, just like anything else, can be done right or done wrong.Quoting: TcheyToo many games release in Early Access way too soon in their life.I don't understand this statement. Isn't the whole point of early access for developers to charge customers for the dubious privilege of beta testing their broken and unfinished games with no guarantee that it will ever reach a finished state? There's a reason I stay far away from any game with the "early access" tag.
A game that is mostly finished, but just needs some more months in the oven for bugfixes, balancing and "polish", would be done right.
As would be a game like RimWorld or Rise To Ruins, where even the unfinished state is actually very polished and fun already and just grows from there.
A game like this, however, in a barely even playable state with tons of bugs, myriads of missing features and mostly incapable of delivering its own core gameplay - well, that is definitely done wrong.
They should have done a closed alpha or something like that instead.
Funny enough, I think the game would have had a better chance (still small, but nvm) if it had been kept in the oven until now and then announced and released in early access during the whole Warcraft 3: Refunded desaster. Not that that was foreseeable, but it should have been kept in the oven longer anyway.
You aren't wrong that many developers simply use early access completely wrong and due to that it is always a good idea to be very careful around early access titles.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 5 February 2020 at 4:19 pm UTC
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