GD has always been a single player game with a bit of multiplayer added on. The devs have given their reasoning why dedicated servers aren’t happening many times.
And when the game gets mentioned in the same sentence with PoE and D3 by a reviewer I think it’s being taken seriously. Iirc it correctly “At a time when the ARPG market is being dominated by Grim Dawn, PoE and D3 …”.
Yes, there are plenty of players who like seasons and dedicated servers. But there are also plenty who don’t want such things. Different games for different people. If we all wanted to play the same thing the games market would be very small - and I’d find it very boring personally.
A very detailed, complex and well thought out reply. Thank you for your priceless contribution to this discussion.
There can be a lot of reasons given for this not to happen, such as financial, being understaffed or maybe even the engine not supporting the latest technology to meet the today’s networking standards.
However, you cannot go around and say this should not be implemented because GD is different, it is like saying “Fiat is different from BMW, thus we don’t need an air conditioner”. We are speaking about a feature that only adds to the game and generates more interest from players who now don’t play it only because of that.
Your comparison to eggs in one basket is actually working against you in this case. Grim Dawn already has a very good and polished singleplayer component. Add a new basket - a multiplayer component and you have 2 different baskets attracting 2 different user groups. It also allows trickling minor patches and updates in between the expansions, so people follow and don’t forget GD.
In the end, you still have your full blown singleplayer experience, nobody is taking that from you, but now people who want a legit multiplayer can enjoy it.
Server side also prevents cheating, this is so important.
It is a core feature, as a matter of fact it is an industry standard by now.
I base it on what?
>Ubisoft does it to extend the longevity of their games, they add seasons and challenges even to fully single player campaign games for players to come back and complete something new in a singleplayer.
>PoE has been successfully doing it. And no, I am not trying to turn GD into PoE, no need to be so defensive about it however, it is that same air conditioner example.
>Now I am struggling to give any more examples because all other games have strong multiplayer components by design. GD doesn’t have it.
In the end, your argument “not many people care”, “the minority” doesn’t work. This feature is objectively positive and the fact that it reaches the “minority of others” is good, why ignore the minority? And by the way you don’t even know how many people would appreciate it and if they are a minority at all, because I can assure you there are people who don’t look at this game solely because of no dedicated servers and seasons, so you don’t encounter the real numbers. Not to mention, I don’t think you have any statistical data to back up your “minority” argument.
That’s a shame. Surely there are technical challenges and development times, but there has never been a better time to deploy a server with flexible cloud computing going up in technology and low in pricing. Especially with things such as Amazon offering elastic usage plans. Several season themed cosmetic microtransactions to support the servers running the seasons is also not a bad thing. If that is completely undesireable, GD has established a good name already, finding somebody to sponsor a server or two is definitely possible.
The way GD is usually mentioned is as follows:
“Yeah GD is a great game. However it is still lacking some critical parts such as server-side multiplayer and seasons to be compared and compete with the other 2. Maybe when they do that we will be able to look at it more seriously, but for now, it is surely a nice little casual game that is surely enjoyable”.
That’s a shame. Surely there are technical challenges and development times, but there never has been a better time to deploy a server with flexible cloud computing going up in technology and low in pricing. Especially with things such as Amazon offering elastic usage plans. Several season themed cosmetic microtransactions to support the servers running the seasons is also not a bad thing. If that is completely undesireable, GD has established a good name already, finding somebody to sponsor a server or two is definitely possible. And who knows, maybe those mentioned 10% of playerbase will be the 100% left some time later.
The way GD is usually mentioned is as follows:
“Yeah GD is a great game. However it is still lacking some critical parts such as server-side multiplayer and seasons to be compared and compete with the other 2. Maybe when they do that we will be able to look at it more seriously, but for now, it is surely a nice little casual game that is surely enjoyable”.
For everything you say I can literally reverse your statement and use the word “objectively” to validate my arguments as well. Using that word doesn’t exactly prove anything
You mentioned big names or well established names, the ARPG market is flooded with shit. Everyone is trying to make one since D3’s success. But the market is still dominated by PoE and Diablo III. Things will most likely remain this way for a long while. It’s a big risk with very uncertain rewards. The time and effort required to maintain is too high
And I can assure there are many people who don’t bother with game with seasons and servers cause those games. It might come as a shocker to you but people play game for different reasons, the single player only crowd isn’t as small as people think it is.
The big names dominate the market so naturally they set the standards. But being an industry standard doesn’t make it a core feature to this genre. Divinity Original Sin II while not an ARPG is still one of the most popular RPGs atm and even it doesn’t have dedicated servers (not to my knowledge at least)
Even Victor Vran doesn’t have dedicated servers
Closed servers are easy to afford for the big guys, the little ones need to cut corners and this is the best place. You overestimate the reward:effort ratio on dedicated servers for most Indie devs, not everyone is GGG
And you don’t seem to understand what it actually means. They aren’t putting their money solely into ARPGs cause the market is too flooded atm. They are investing into other genres. RTS/Town Builder/Simulation - their next project belongs to one of these.
This is the safest and smartest thing to do
Except closed servers are only considered an air conditioner by you and others like you. There people who probably consider it nothing more than an air purifier (or whatever those things are).
Then you’re reading different reviews to me because I’ve never seen one that said multiplayer was necessary to make the game better. Other things yes, but never that.
Your Fiat/BMW comparison doesn’t work either. PoE is a free to play game that relies on microtransactions to earn money.
Argue all you like, but the devs made their decision long ago not to go that route. If you want closed servers, you’ll have to play something else.
Plus PoE was designed from the get-go to be online-only/server-based. Grim Dawn was never made with this intention. It also helped GGG that by the end of their beta period they had received over 2+ million dollars in crowd-funded donations, thus enabling them to cement their platform in place and make the model self-sustaining.
Crate/Zantai however claims that the “industry” has data that shows that only 10% of players actually make use of multiplayer features in arpg’s/diablo-likes and that these statistics furthermore carry across from game to game quite accurately. Since he is a part of that industry I am apt to take his word for it unless he cares to provide us further proof of this. I see no reason for him to pull it from his ass tho.
What if I told you that Crate isn’t interested in competing with either of them in that area? (at least not where this particular game is concerned)
Spread the word. It is already well known around these parts.
Oh… I might have already noticed your “presence” and influence. I liken it to a blackhole. Things just disappear around your gravitational field. Or maybe it’s a combination of external influences. Hmm. One wonders. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
more like ‘by a small percentage of players that continuously overestimates the size and importance of their group’
It is unquestionably one of the most important things they could add to their game to attract more player attention and make the game be viewed more seriously. It is even more important than any new game mode or mastery.
it also costs a lot more to implement, most likely a lot more than what they will ever recover if they were to add it, especially this late
Welp, another coin in the cookie jar of people asking for this stupid crap.
And no, this is not “objectively positive”, it’s actually harmful for this game. This would take a ton of resources to mantain, resources that can be used to improve the single player, the MAIN point of this game.
Go play PoE and D3 if you want dedicated servers and seasons. Me and many other people play this game for the single player.
complete nonsense, they can do that now just as well, in fact they do. Patch 1.0.6.0 just came out…
It is a core feature, as a matter of fact it is an industry standard by now.
so much so that most of the recently released ARPGs do not have it
In the end, your argument “not many people care”, “the minority” doesn’t work. This feature is objectively positive and the fact that it reaches the “minority of others” is good, why ignore the minority?
because features cost money to implement, at that time the size of the (potential) player base interested in them does start to matter.
And by the way you don’t even know how many people would appreciate it and if they are a minority at all, because I can assure you there are people who don’t look at this game solely because of no dedicated servers and seasons, so you don’t encounter the real numbers. Not to mention, I don’t think you have any statistical data to back up your “minority” argument.
I do not see you providing any statistics for how large a group this is either, you just claim they are important.
There has been research into that, it is about 10% of players that consider this essential and that number has been pretty stable over the years
I only play multi if I want to troll people. Like I join farming sessions and then we kill a boss I drop a modded MI with OP stats. Imagine the joy of clueless newbies:p At least am helping them get loot:cool:
I play GD most of time in single and sometimes with brother in multi. I hate seasons and seasons were my end in D3 and POE because it divided my friends player base to several groups which was slow end of each group.
Fair enough. I’ll give you a little of my point of view…
For me, things like seasons or ladder-only content aren’t core elements. They are things you do to avoid your game to go completely stale. I play D3 sometimes; it’s a good game, but the fact that people usually suggest you to wait for a new season because the current one is ending talks a lot about the game. Isn’t the game good enough to play it in any given time? Well, that seems like a big flaw. I’ve never felt like that with Grim Dawn. I can play it at any time and in the pace I want, knowing that the good stuff isn’t locked behind some season or ladder-only bullshit and that I’m not going to get screwed if my internet gets shitty. I hate when a game tries to force you to play it online even if you’ve never fucking touched a multiplayer game in your life. I never did, not in GD, not in D3, not in PoE. I don’t give a shit if someone cheats; whatever makes your fun, pal. Dick-measuring contests in arpgs are boring for me. I’m a loner. I don’t even like trading, I like finding my own good stuff. That’s why I can’t get behind PoE and its awfully low drop rates. In short words, things like dedicated servers, seasons and ladder-only add nothing for me and can be even detrimental for my fun. GD comes to perfectly fill a niche in the arpg market, imo. Locking content behind multiplayer and seasons would be a big “f*ck you” for people like me. Not that it’s gonna happen, anyways. It’s not part of Crate’s philosophy and they don’t have the resources to implement it. They’ve already explained this, but some people like to bring this topic up from time to time. So again, not gonna happen. You can quit your bullshit and play some PoE or D3 instead. I can assure you that GD will do just fine.
I don’t understand why everybody is so defensive about it. Nobody is going to take your singleplayer experience nor is it going to be destroyed. We are speaking about a new feature to pull in your mentioned 10% of interest group and improve the game. I am yet to hear a single objective reason against it, as the only argument so far was - “it is not PoE, go play PoE scrub” - an answer to most suggestions on this forum. I don’t even like PoE.
This game’s code was not written in stone. The Fiat/ BMW example is fully functional here, because Fiat costs nothing compared to a BMW and yet they both have this feature. It is a standard expectation nowadays regardless how many people like to drive with their windows moved down vs AC on.
Yeah, PoE is free to play. Goes to show it survives solely thanks to seasons and the functional multiplayer. Another hint as to how positive that market is.
It makes no sense why a company should not wish to reach that 10% especially since we don’t even know if it is indeed 10%. It can be less but it can be alot more. Why doesn’t a business want to explore a new sector, especially since now it has its foundation laid down?
To be honest I don’t see why this discussion exists at all. It is not like adding this functionality ruins the game, if anything it brings publicity, updates and a totally new functionality on top of what is had already.
Finally, I am not “arguing”, I am merely suggesting.
The day GD gets seasons is the day I uninstall. I know I’m not alone, though that may be an extreme minority opinion. I despise the concept of seasons, though. Why make arpg content that will only be available for a singular period of time? Seems like a waste, and one that isolates new players for lacking legacy items from earlier seasons.
I’d rather Crate make lasting content and feature additions to their game…as, you know, they are.
Crate already said in a clear way that they are not interested in closed servers with seasons. You suggesting it won’t change a single thing, this has been suggest already many times and Crate has always responded the same.
And yes, it does take away from the single player experience, like i said above. Closed servers that need to be mantained cost a ton of money, money that can be used to improve the single player experience, something me and a lot of people play this game for. And it’s also the vision of this game.
Everyone is defensive because this has been going on for years now to be honest. Every now and then someone like you comes along and suggests it and can’t seem to understand that a) the devs don’t want it in their game and b) it’s far too expensive for them to do it even if they wanted to.
Still, I agree with you - I don’t know why this discussion exists at all. It’s all been said before ad infinitum. And all we do is go round in circles so I’m closing this down.
