Multiversus ends updates, will close servers on May 30 (but will remain playable in Singleplayer)
Multiversus ends updates, will close servers on May 30 (but will remain playable in Singleplayer)
Step into the fray of our MultiVerse, where every match is a wild jamboree of iconic characters throwing down in wonderfully weird ways. Pair Marvin the Martian and Arya Stark, or Velma with Batman — Get ready for a rollercoaster of fun and discover a universe of endless possibilities!
I played it in the "open beta" two years ago. Sad that it's come to this, the game had a lot going for it but.. having all characters locked on start then weirdly shutting the game down for an extended time then coming back with everything somehow worse... everyone saw this coming.
At least it will stil be playable.
So bizarre to me that a game has to be a runaway hit to even remain accessible for any length of time.
Stopping updates I get (and good, most game updates are annoying), but shutting down servers completely and especially delisting it seem so over the top.
Games need to bring back locally hosted servers.
I remember back in the day I could play Warcraft II with a friend over dialup, I'd put his number in and that modem would call his house and he'd answer with his copy of Warcraft and we could play against each other over the phone line with no server.
Even as recently as the Xbox 360 you could system link games and play on multiple consoles without any connection to the internet.
I don't see why it would be so hard to allow for a locally hosted server on most games. They would still be playable indefinitely without need of any kind of central server system.
And they don't need to be mutually exclusive, Halo 2 allowed for you to play both on Xbox live and system link gamesIt's not that it's hard. It's that they see it as interfering with their business model. Not only would that remove the likelihood of you seeing other people's new skins, it also removes a dependence on them, where they can create forced obsolescence. Plus I suspect that they fear more piracy.
It wouldn't be, necessarily. A bunch of games (survival games, in particular) still give you that choice. It's cheap, reliable and doesn't need a ton of people playing your game.
The problem is then you can't do matchmaking, you need a server browser, which is a lot clunkier. And it does get harder to avoid cheating and so on. The experience is also dependent on how close the server is from you, and if it's just some guy's computer the server goes away when they're not playing.
For fighting games specifically, where "room matches" are still a thing in most games, I do see it becoming an option as a separate mode. And man, if you're doing something like Multiversus I do think you should consider having it ready to go as a fallback, because this is a bad look and hurts future games that may want to give this a shot.
Well, that's the problem of GaaS. It used to be games cost however much to make and you were recouping expenses after. These days games cost money to run, on account of all the centralized backend and dedicated server cost to keep everything locked down and enable matchmaking and microtransactions.
The bizarre thing is this zombie state where pieces of the game work, but only if you bought stuff ahead of time. The idea of F2P fighting games makes some sense on the surface, but with the way audiences work in the genre it may not be feasible because... who the hell is going to buy into a fighting game that poofs into the ether the moment someone else gets a Mai Shiranui DLC again?
Looking at you, 2XKO. I played Rising Thunder. I remember.
Rising Thunder was eventually released for free, server binaries and all, years later, but I don't have the same faith in 2XKO.
Wasn't Rising Thunder the one that at least handled part of shutdown right by semi-open sourcing?
But yeah, it's all part of a wider problem. Personally I don't want an invasive devloper over-tuning fighting games all the time, and I don't want any microtransactions. But unless you keep dangling new shiny, very few players will stick with a given game, making it hard to find matches on-demand.
At the very least it should allow locally hosted online games.
There should be a law allowing full refunds of a game if its core service is taken offline without implementing a workaround. It should be treated the same way as planned obsolescence.
Companies aren't motivated to allow self-hosting at launch because there's no money in it. And they're not motivated to implement self hosting after they've made their money and then take the service down because there's no money in it.
Implement the workaround, open source the software, or force the publisher to issue a refund to anyone who requests one. That should be the standard.
Fighting Game of the Year 2022, but apparently even that's not successful enough.
That seems unreasonable to you, because you are a peon. You mean nothing to profits, so you will stop playing and you will like it. Now, buy our other products.
This game already died 2 times
Note: even though the game will be playable locally, they're still going to de-list it, so grab it before then.
Additionally, when Season 5 finishes, the game will no longer be available to download via the PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store, Steam, or Epic Games Store.
Grabbing it before then still means interacting with their freemium currency, so it's an expensive purchase. They could just sell the game for $40, but that would make too much sense.
Why
In case anyone forgot: this game was nominated for Best Fighting Game twice at the TGAs and still failed 😂 Both times ahead of far more deserving candidates—further evidence a good chunk of these awards is promotional crap.
The game wasn't great, but was entertaining at the start of the open beta. I think they did a decent job with the characters, the style, and the moves like Shaggy throwing his sandwich. I had hopes that they would improve the netcode and hitboxes, but still got like 40 hours of fun out of it playing in a group with a friend.
The microtransactions were bad to start and only got worse. Charging for seasons in a beta? Stupidly high priced skins? Ugh. Then the went away for a while and the official release made the game playworse, microtransactions bascially assaulted you constantly, and any shred of fun was gone. They did the opposite of the feedback from the beta to chase microtransactions and that is why the game is dead already. They actively killed it.
Now I'm sad again.
Fighting game characters take too long to make. The tried and true Riot method doesn't work when you can't get new content out at a regular clip, so people would have easily unlocked everything for sale without paying for it. The only option was a huge grind to attempt to make it sustainable. We'll see this problem again when 2XKO comes out.
Great idea, release a fun enjoyable beta with mtx, shut the game off for a year while we rebuild everything from the ground up, then rerelease as a completely different game. I played throughout the whole “beta” release, then lasted maybe a week when it came back.
I've been playing this game ever since beta and have enjoyed it. It's a shame to see it go, but I guess I got my money's worth, since I paid nothing. Still, I can't understand why they can't just let people keep playing online like every other fighting game out there. I would even be willing to pay a one time fee if I knew the basic gameplay would remain available.