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I figured the game was abandoned, to be honest. Their updates have been unreasonably slow and what little they did release was insultingly barebones. With how much money they made during their unexpected COVID success, you'd think your first order of business would be hiring a top notch PM and experienced devs to keep your development on track.
Edit: I want to add that Enshrouded, in my opinion, seems like what I had hoped Valheim would develop into with more time.
In an age where everyone rags on live service games that will inevitably lose support, a cheap, fun, well made, feature complete game (and was that way on release) that gets infrequent updates is "abandoned" and "insultingly barebones". Classic 2024 gamer moment right there
It's not feature complete, though? The store page literally says Early Access, and within that description the devs explain what is missing and their rough estimate for how much time is left before version 1.0...
But, classic 2024 gamer moment, sure.
Sorry, should say I mean feature complete in a relative sense. Ie, some EA games are essentially tech demos, and you're funding a theoretical game when you buy. If those games stopped getting updates, you're left with a mostly empty unreal engine project, not a full video game.
Valheim was a full video game on day one. A buddy and I played many hours when it first came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. If no updates came out, I might have felt like there was some unmet potential, but I certainly wouldn't have been insulted. Bottom line, take away the roadmap, I still see a great game with enough going for it to stand on its own.
What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“Most planned core features of the game have been implemented. Single-player and multiplayer modes are fully functional and we have a separate dedicated server tool if you want a server running 24/7. There are currently six fully developed biomes out of a planned total of eight (plus the Ocean). There are hundreds of different items (weapons, materials, armor etc) in the game, to be found or crafted by the player. We have over 200 building pieces, and about 50 different types of creatures including monsters, animals and bosses.”
It sounds like the game's getting Ashlands plus one more biome, but not much for new features. So depending on your definition of feature complete it's at least pretty close anyways. From this point on it's theoretically more of the same.
I'm pretty much on the same page as you, although I started playing a couple months ago with a couple friends. The game is obviously not abandoned, and it's a pretty full game even with more to come. We finally built a hot tub on the weekend and I don't know how I'm supposed to expect more from this game than chilling in a tub with your naked viking bros.
For the price, what was there was fine, but it was sold as early access and the later areas were basically empty.
This is literally the first major update since Mistlands was on the docket at the time it blew up. To call the updates merely infrequent is an understatement. They were going fairly strong until they made an unexpected butt load of money and they themselves said they didn't know how to handle the success.
I think the devs have a pretty healthy attitude, really. Sure, they take their sweet time, but I prefer that over half-assed rush jobs and selling out. The last updates were also absolutely great and the game gets better and better. It’s in early access since forever, but it is more balanced, polished and refined than 90% of fully released games out there. And it doesn’t feel hollow after twenty hours either. It will keep fucking you up, even after hundreds of hours. It’s an absolute gem and I don’t really care if it takes them three more years to finish it…
If you consider taking 4+ years for 1 biome expansion and a few other smaller content updates to be a reasonable development cadence, you are definitely welcome to have that opinion.
To me that’s reasonable if it means the devs get to have a life and get to make something they really love. And it’s definitely reasonable given the fact that I paid fifteen euro’s for hundreds of hours of fun. They definitely do not owe me more, quite the opposite, really.
Okay but I don't think you can just assert that this is a binary without much more information. Would hiring more devs and a PM with the gobs of money they made cause any additional crunch? Obviously at extreme ends, it would, but I don't think anyone is suggesting that. For what it's worth, I like Valheim too, but they absolutely did not end up maintaining the huge amount of hype they had. That may have been intentional, but it cost them.
They made the game with a small team and apparently they want to finish it with a small team. I kind of respect the fact that they didn’t want to go (much) bigger, just because there was a lot of hype and money. And I also respect the fact that they don’t seem to care that it “cost them”.
If you want game development to be less about money, this is a pretty good example of what that could look like. It’s not the most efficient way of doing things, you are definitely right about that, but it’s great. And given what they have delivered so far, I think it’s hard to complain. There is a ridiculous amount of gameplay, for a low price. And everyone who bought it knows that it is unfinished.
Oh for sure, I don't disagree. If this is what they want, power to them! I'm also a developer, so I completely understand it. As a consumer though, I am not obligated to like their game more for it, and Valheim looks to me like a lot of potential I would have otherwise consumed left nonexistent and money/hours I would have spent on their game not happening. That's all I'm saying. It's totally fine if they read that and say "that's okay!".
It’s been less than two years since major patch. Mistlands was released Nov ‘22
I love valheim but there are things that keep me from putting serious time into it that i just cant figure out. Its probably a bunch of little nitpicky things. Mods help for sure with that. Saying that i have about 70 hours in enshrouded and am about 2/3 “complete”. And am loving every minute. Its gets out of its own way and pretty much lets you do what you want. Im an old fart gamer and prefer a slower casual pace in this genre. Enshrouded ticks that for me
It’s a matter of taste. I got bored of Enshrouded after 20 hours (which is decent, and worth its money), but Valheim is easily one of my all time favourites. I find it a lot more rewarding.
I played solo deep into mistlands and now I’m rediscovering it together with a friend.
I love Enshrouded but I do love Valheim more.
I still have hope with valheim. My son just got it so im sure itll be more fun with him. I dont hate it at all.
and what little they did release was insultingly barebones
I mean OTOH for those who bought it, the content there at the time was worth the money asked. Sure it was somewhat barebones but the game is also cheap-ish and if you get a bunch of cool hours out of it with friends, well worth.
Yeah enshrouded rocks. If you like valheim you'll love enshrouded.
I tried enshrouded beta and performance issues didn’t allow me to leave the starting area into the shroud so was basically softlocked