The Early Access sandbox game Planet Nomads [Official Site] has officially dropped plans to include any kind of co-op or multiplayer.
A massive shame, as these sandbox games really do end up boring by yourself. Unless they make the game somehow incredibly good, this move may not go down well with their Kickstarter backers and Early Access buyers. In fact, negative reviews for this are already starting to appear.
They wrote in a post on their official site, which does give some valid reasons. The part that bothers me here is that they did promise it, seemingly without thinking on how difficult it would be. I mean, did they really think implementing proper multiplayer wouldn't be difficult? Here's what they said:
It's about time we stopped contemplating and constantly discussing whether or not to start adding multiplayer. A decision had to be made and has been made. Planet Nomads is not going to have multiplayer or CO-OP game modes. Our focus is going to be 100% dedicated to making an immersive singleplayer sandbox game that's both giving a huge amount of creative freedom and plenty of things to explore and discover, as well as a sense of direction towards a higher goal. We apologize to our Kickstarter backers and preorder Nomads who backed Planet Nomads purely for the multiplayer aspect of it. Here's a more detailed explanation for our decision.
In the more detailed link, it really just reads like like they're saying "It's more work than we planned for.". It might sound like I'm being particularly harsh, but that is basically the reality of what they're saying.
They haven't posted about this on Steam directly yet, I imagine as it would cause an even bigger backlash due to more people seeing it and taking note of it.
I'm not writing the game off completely, since it could end up being a good game. However, now it won't have any multiplayer at all, it's essentially become "yet another survival game" that's in Early Access. Their roadmap doesn't particularly sound all that great either. Planet customization, optimizations, quests (very difficult to make quests actually fun) and monuments.
Still, since they can fully focus on the game being singleplayer only, they might surprise us with having more breathing room to make it a great experience. Last thing we need is another ARK.
Thanks to Marcelo in our Telegram Group for the tip!
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Kuduzkehpan Sep 2, 2017
And single player will make it more.
severuscold Sep 2, 2017
So... Not only should I stop funding kickstarter projects (I never do anymore), now early access is out of the question too.
Weird. To say the least.
But to promise multiplayer as a stretch goal is just completely beyond amateurish.
Every developer worth his money knows that multiplayer is a framework decision, not something you can just "add" later on.
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the developer in this case.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 2 September 2017 at 9:57 pm UTC
If this means it will turn into a fantastic single-player experience (by concentrating on the game balance and content) then that would be great.
GustyGhost Sep 3, 2017
Planet Nomads is a game with, in my opinion, acceptable implementation for early access, and I have not experienced any linux specific issues myself. All issues I have encountered has been cross platform. After looking at the steam forums my impression is that the devs are linux friendly and ask for more information if we provide too little when reporting an issue. I have seen a thread where they ask people to post it on their forum instead of steam forum, but other than that they seem quite decent. This impression is anecdotical though. They also support all linux distros within reason officially, saying "Use Good Measure (Tested on openSUSE Leap 42.1)".
A few months ago I had trouble with performance, but it has been improved, and there is reason to believe they plan to optimise it more as they go forward.
Content wise they are a bit lacking, but for me it was still quite fun in the state it was a few months ago. I'd say it's good enough for at least 15 hours of gameplay, if it is your type of game, but it is a bit grindy, and the tutorial probably still is a bit lacking. When you learn the basics the game gets a lot easier. I'd say too easy even on the survival mode. I used the forums and youtube videos to give me the information I needed to enjoy the game in the beginning. In early access that is fine I think, but I hope they improve the tutorial so that will not be necessary any more in the future. I think they did some work on it the last few months, but I don't need it any more, so I don't really know.
As for multiplayer I never really thought about it until they announced it was cancelled. I bought it because it looked cool, and for the single player that existed in May. From then until now I generally got the impression they wanted to make a great single player game with casual comments from other players that they would like it in multiplayer. Yes it is bad that they don't deliver multiplayer when they promised it, but all kickstarters are prone to change. They should not have made a definitive promise, and failing that they have reevaluated feasibility of multiplayer earlier. Checking out the steam page on archive.org from May I cannot see anything there indicating multiplayer at all. Removing multiplayer is something that probably warrant a refund for those who bought it for the wrong reasons, but for future purchases they should just make it clear that it is a single player game in advance.
Even if this game stopped development now, and stayed the way it currently is forever, I would still be glad I bought it and played it. I have gotten the value I paid for from it, which is more than I have gotten from many games recently that turned out just wasn't my type of game after all.
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