Hey… Just thought I would do some housekeeping on my Steam following lists and I see Wolcen has had no updates since August, their twitter account is dead since July and their forums have not been updated since August either… Only a few people posting “any updates?” questions without replies and Steam discussions have long since even stopped asking for money back…
So anyone know if they are finally dead?
ps. yes yes… competitior game but hey I am curious and dont like to see things like this where indies try but “hide” when they fail…
I don’t know, but I have read rumors that they are preparing the game for the Chinese market (apparently they sold really well there), therefore they have shifted their focus from Steam to China.
Too bad, the game had huge potential, as long as they kept what they promised on Kickstarter, and of course the pathetic “release”.
Hmm… Interesting Chinese angle… plausible considering the massive Chinese gaming boom… and would explain the lack of communication - something I have found typical for chinese controlled games… not entirely sure how I feel about that as my experience when Chinese behemoths take over has not always been positive… Torchlight 3 is the most recent example that comes to mind. I spent $$$$ playing pay-to-win Perfect World years ago and it soured me for games when I finally realised I was just being milked for the grind.
I didnt follow the Wolcen kickstarter but it did sound damn good as an open world aRPG idea… only to have, as I understand it, an about-face in concept come launch… Real pity.
They aimed too high (A very small studio releasing an open world aRPG, what were they thinking???). Soon they got a reality check. Even so, they received a ton of money, apparently hired a lot of employees to improve/implement the game. That was about the same time that I have read that rumour about China. Coincidence or not, they haven’t released any patch since that rumour.
I am pretty sure they still tinkering on their Chronical Stuff. Second Dawn was a good patch, even though not enough to get the majority of people back. Most people just left the game behind entirely.
The initial sales were way better than any1 could have guessed, so they did made alot of money.
They already talked about some changes that will come, which will make the build creation much better. If they pull of the endgame overhaul and seasonal content at least medicore, they might be a chance some people return to the game.
I am down to giving it a chance. All the patches they did since release were pretty good, they only need better endgame and more meaningfull gear/passive choices (the attribute scaling destroyed basically all the scaling, because everything was addative)
They even did a News Post in June i think, that they got like a dozen new members for the team, which means they almsot doubles their team i think.
Their communication just was never that great. But most stuff that get’s not hyped and worked on behind closed doors is usually the best stuff.
I bought in on Wolcen way early on and it drifted for a while until all the early release stuff that was pretty terrible, but for as much bad word of mouth as it has consistently received it has also continued to improve overall. The main issue it faces is the same as it has been for quite some time in that it still doesn’t seem to know quite what it wants to be. As of right now there just really isn’t enough content to keep anyone around playing.
I think you meant no communication
They posted on Steam that they hire a Communication Manager, someone to talk with the community, but I haven’t seen any post from that guy/girl. Terrible!!!
At least respond to your client in your forums or Steam, but keeping it shut for me means “we have nothing to show”.
Good point about aiming too high (or biting off more than they can chew)… It still sounds like it could still be a good aRPG but I really dislike poor communication that some companies think is appropriate.
I am of the opinion that someone keeping their base/customers informed - even if its negative news - is far more acceptable than keeping them in the dark and disappearing. I dont really agree with the idea that no communication is appropriate even if the company is hard at work trying to deliver on promises. Its like a marriage without spouses talking to each other… It will not last.
I have had the pleasurable experience of enjoying the exact opposite with games like Factorio where a small indie team keeps everyone informed regularly (weekly) for years as they develop… Even one man bands like Banished & StarDew Valley (originally one man) kept their base informed even though I am willing to bet that they did not really have the time.
It really is amazing how little value people place on simple communication… and no, I am not talking about faceless public relations drivel that no-one needs - I am talking about simple honest communication from people who have skin in the game.
The efforts of EHG in this regard - even the simple updates by @Sarno and @Hackaloken (not even counting announcements by Mox et.al ) - go a long way to keeping the brownie points up. Because of this (for me at least), if EHG came out and said the shit had hit the fan and they expect a delay or had to change something dramatically, I may not like it, but I would be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt - purely because of their track record in communicating honestly with us…
Anyway… don’t wish anything negative on the Wolcen team and I hope they can eventually deliver on their promises (that people paid for) but hell, they have a lot to learn about the business & customer relations.
Wolcen was borne dead and they try to reanimate it and make stuff even worse. They begung to include alpha and beta tester feedback with their 13th patch (iirc maybe even the 15th) and still the game is lackluster.
The communication skill of the Wolcen team is a joke by it’s own and after the design changes from alpha and what they promised on kickstarter they are a mere meme because they promised a different product in their campaign.
Wolcen was and is a pretty big disapointment with a lot of bad mechanics, bad patches, bad balancing, bad bugfixies and a lot of exploits that already made the whole economy and city building progress a joke.
The story part so far was fun but the endgame sucked a lot from my point of view because it was the same stuff over and over again without the slightest change to it. On the other hand I’m no fan of blunt mapping even more if you have to play the most broken stuff to get going while skills you might want to use are underperforming by a mile. I think Wolcen has to much issues for a comeback but on the other hand no mans sky did the trick quite well.
As for Crate Entertainment - they really made a great work. If I remember correct they planned Grim Dawn to have only Act 1, but things went well and we now have full game and 2 DLC.
P.S: BTW, did you have account on GD forum or Discord?
I know, I was being sarcastic. Grim Dawn was an open world aRPG made by a very small studio so clearly that in itself isn’t “aiming too high”.
I’m not sure where you got the “they planned to have only 1 act” from, they gradually released more content fleshing out the areas they added and extending the area until they got to where they are now.
I’m, unsurprisingly, Llama8 on the GD forums as well.
Medierra & Rhis - the two OGs had originally envisioned having only 1 act. This was way back in 2010-11.
I am not sure what changed but they eventually decided to expand upon the world.
We eventually got a 4 Act Base Game, 2 Full Fledged Story DLCs, 1 Endgame Mode DLC and now have gotten a free patch that expands upon certain of the game areas.
You can find evidence of it if you look through the GD boards or just ask the two forum mods eis or medea for help on the topic. They are very efficient with looking up old, nearly forgotten information.
As for the original topic regarding Wolcen, I don’t recall hearing anything about them catering to the Chinese audience but I do remember seeing a teaser image indicating that they had a DLC or patch or atleast some new content planned for 2020 release.
The recent patches have been in the right direction so if they can make them game better with eventual updates then it’s good for everyone. I just don’t have too strong opinions on it.
I played Wolcen only at release, it felt like a Beta game to me.
There wasn’t much to do in the main story besides proceeding further, the only reason for me to repeat a zone was to prep myself better for a boss fight.
I did like the graphical style though,. Wish they had modding support like TL 1 & 2 or GD that had custom game modes.
Check it out, new content announcement; Chronicle 1: Blood Trail. Sounds like they are moving things in a new direction with the wording of their release? Otherwise not sure what the need for the economy reset and “Legacy” mode would be, or maybe just creating a fresh start type of environment for this update.
They even addressed the fact they had been silent for many months stating they were working away on the game, lol. Hey at least they addressed that they’ve been poor at community interaction.
The speculation seems to be that the game is going to move to a seasonal set up in the vein of D3/PoE models. This seems to make sense with the new update being called “Chronicle 1: Bloodtrail” as being the first season in this new model and also helps the “Legacy” thing make sense. Might make it more enticing to play, to me, as something I go back to in between seasons of other games and to check out what sorts of seasonal gimmicks they run to keep things fresh. This definitely draws my interest back if they’ve actually managed to clean up some of the nuisance issues and if they have a plan to release fresh content regularly. I wouldn’t even care if they added a PoE style cash shop in order to continue funding it as long as they were as good as GGG has been about keeping it purely cosmetic/inventory based.
