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Cube World |OT| Who ever said the world was a sphere?

R

Rootbeer

Banned
"Don't be concerned, we're still working on Cube World. We just have a lot of additional work to do at the moment."

...Okay? What work? A little communication too much to ask I guess.

People bought your game expecting a minecraft or terraria-like experience, where there would be semi-frequent updates and interaction with the devs. That is not happening. It's a complete waste of potential, this game.

It's frustrating because I really dig it on so many levels. Sales clearly started out very strong for this game, and with just a little more effort on their end they could stay steady for years. It's not smart business the way they are handling things.
 
T

truthiness

Member
This game is one of my biggest disappointments of the year, which is unfortunate. I love the idea of the game and the infrastructure is there to make a great game, but the lack of any kind of update has been discouraging. After the development for a couple of years, I was really looking forward to this game finally releasing. When it did release, I played it for a week or so and put it aside to wait for some updates. Unfortunately they never came...

It's also kind of disappointing to see him say that they just have a lot of "additional work" at the moment. I was kind of hoping this radio silence would lead to one day opening up the client and being surprised with a massive update, but I am positive that won't happen at this point.

I did just stumble upon a Kotaku article where they got a bit more information out of him today, so it might be worth reading if you want a bit more information than he had in his initial tweet.

It also annoys me that they had such amazing momentum going into their release. Yes, they ran into the DDoS attacks, but many gaming websites were covering the game (and in a positive light, too!). Now you don't hear a word about it -- unless they are talking about the lack of updates. If they had kept up a steady stream of updates, or at least remained in contact, this game's momentum could still be going and they would still be making sales. Instead they squandered the hype around their release and will only run into indifference going forward.
 
P

perfect free

Member
My concern is that this alpha has taken the edge off the hype for a lot of people, myself included, just because the game is now a known quantity (albeit an unfinished one). it's no longer a case of "OMG, I wonder what this game will be like when it comes out?!" but more a case of "Okay, I played it; that's it? I mean, I guess it'll be cool later, but..." I also worry that the devs' silence in the face of their paying customers may be causing some former fans to instead warn others off the game. Both of those together could mean that even if someone lights a fire under Wollay's ass and Cube World development *does* start to ramp up, it may not garner as much interest unless he makes a serious effort at positive PR—or pays someone to do it for him (I really hope this happens).

If there had been no alpha released and instead we'd just gotten another regular blog update with screenshots showing the game in its current state, I have no doubt fans would still be salivating over it—even now, after I've cooled on it, the game looks really neat in screenshots! But now that lots of people have played it, even just an alpha, it's probably easier for them to mentally shelve in favor of moving on to the next hyped thing. 'Course, Wollay's already got our money, so hey...
 
E

Enco

Member
And this is why you never buy a game (or anything else) based on a promise.

I was so pumped when this was first announced. Shame to see it's an even more boring version of Minecraft.
 
B

BooJoh

Member
Parakeetman said:
Its funny today by chance had looked at their official forums and saw how dead it was, then came here saw this thread basically almost confirming that.

Btw found this news. Its from last year jan tho

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/05/mojang-hire-cube-world-developer/
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, that fell through.

notch: Ack. @wol_lay decided not to move to Sweden and join Mojang after all, valuing his independence more. I fully understand and support him. :)
Click to expand...

https://twitter.com/notch/status/158935692305645568
 
R

Raxum

Member
truthiness said:
This game is one of my biggest disappointments of the year, which is unfortunate. I love the idea of the game and the infrastructure is there to make a great game, but the lack of any kind of update has been discouraging. After the development for a couple of years, I was really looking forward to this game finally releasing. When it did release, I played it for a week or so and put it aside to wait for some updates. Unfortunately they never came...

It's also kind of disappointing to see him say that they just have a lot of "additional work" at the moment. I was kind of hoping this radio silence would lead to one day opening up the client and being surprised with a massive update, but I am positive that won't happen at this point.

I did just stumble upon a Kotaku article where they got a bit more information out of him today, so it might be worth reading if you want a bit more information than he had in his initial tweet.

It also annoys me that they had such amazing momentum going into their release. Yes, they ran into the DDoS attacks, but many gaming websites were covering the game (and in a positive light, too!). Now you don't hear a word about it -- unless they are talking about the lack of updates. If they had kept up a steady stream of updates, or at least remained in contact, this game's momentum could still be going and they would still be making sales. Instead they squandered the hype around their release and will only run into indifference going forward.
Click to expand...

Reading that article makes me wonder what they're adding into the game. That said, while I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of updates, I went into this knowing the Wollay didn't update very regularly initially and that he was only really classifying it as a hobby project. Glad to see it was so popular, but I think too many people EXPECT the level of communication you see from some devs, where other devs just aren't cut out for that, especially a single dev and his wife working on a hobby project.

I also can't see why so many people view it as a waste of money, unless they purchased it and never played it, or didn't enjoy it, which I can understand. Personally I had a decent amount of fun with it and spent a fair number of hours in it (probably close to 50 or so) which is pretty good value for only spending $20. I guess I'll just play some other games while I wait for some updates, and probably get even more worth for my money at a later date.
 
T

truthiness

Member
Raxum said:
Reading that article makes me wonder what they're adding into the game. That said, while I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of updates, I went into this knowing the Wollay didn't update very regularly initially and that he was only really classifying it as a hobby project. Glad to see it was so popular, but I think too many people EXPECT the level of communication you see from some devs, where other devs just aren't cut out for that, especially a single dev and his wife working on a hobby project.

I also can't see why so many people view it as a waste of money, unless they purchased it and never played it, or didn't enjoy it, which I can understand. Personally I had a decent amount of fun with it and spent a fair number of hours in it (probably close to 50 or so) which is pretty good value for only spending $20. I guess I'll just play some other games while I wait for some updates, and probably get even more worth for my money at a later date.
Click to expand...
I hear you regarding his lack of communication during pre-alpha, but I really thought his update schedule would change once the game was released and the game started getting some positive traction both from gamers and news outlets. I hate to continually use Minecraft as a reference, but that game is such a prime example of what regular updates (no matter how small) and communication will do for a game, especially given the fact that it was a one-man show for a long time.

I do not, however, see this as a waste of money. The game, as you say, has plenty of content in it, and if I wanted to I could put more hours in and fully enjoy my time with it. The only reason I haven't done that is because I was kind of waiting for some type of road map to see where this game was heading, but that is completely on me. The game is "worth" the money in terms of content per dollar.

This whole Alpha / Early Access / Not-quite-finished state for video game "releases" is a weird one, so I guess we all just need to be a bit more careful and know what we are getting into.
 
N

Nuklear

Banned
I got my money's worth of the game. Yeah, it sucks the updating has been very slow but they'll come. I've got a ton of stuff to play especially with new consoles coming out next month so I'm not that mad.
 
F

Forsaken82

Member
Enco said:
And this is why you never buy a game (or anything else) based on a promise.

I was so pumped when this was first announced. Shame to see it's an even more boring version of Minecraft.
Click to expand...

It is absolutely nothing like Minecraft...

Unless an over hyped premium alpha release and blocky world are what you consider a minecraft clone.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Enco said:
And this is why you never buy a game (or anything else) based on a promise.

I was so pumped when this was first announced. Shame to see it's an even more boring version of Minecraft.
Click to expand...

Um, have you ever even played Minecraft? Cubeworld is really nothing like it other than in their cubeness. Two very different games....?
 
R

Raxum

Member
Seems like there's an update in the wind.

But seriously, nice to hear this is still being worked on, and I thought I'd post this here in case people missed it.

Quite liking the proposed changes for areas, being smaller and giving regions a power level instead of particular dungeons. Also, not resetting dungeons every day seems like a good way to stop the farming exploits that were happening. Not sure that the changes are enough to warrant jumping back in though.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Raxum said:
Seems like there's an update in the wind.

But seriously, nice to hear this is still being worked on, and I thought I'd post this here in case people missed it.

Quite liking the proposed changes for areas, being smaller and giving regions a power level instead of particular dungeons. Also, not resetting dungeons every day seems like a good way to stop the farming exploits that were happening. Not sure that the changes are enough to warrant jumping back in though.
Click to expand...
I don't know about fast leveling exploits, but if dungeons don't reset quickly, I think that could make it take FOREVER for me to gain levels. I seemed to progress very slowly even when I cleaned out a little tower a couple of times.
 
R

Raxum

Member
And now another blog update, certainly seems like he's trying to get back in the swing of things. Not my first thing for him to work on, but just happy to see that there is an update on the way. Hopefully he allows people to edit their UI somehow, like changing positions and sizes of elements of the UI. Not sure that's what he's looking at but would definitely help a bit.

Honestly, game needs a bit more progression, enlarging the skill trees a bit, maybe adding in some more types of character customisation or maybe more biomes/enemies or something. I really felt like I was in an MMO when I was playing it, but there was a lot less to do than most MMOs. Possibly needs some bigger dungeons, maybe raid-style dungeons that have tanky bosses that scale based on number of people nearby. Also probably needs housing and some reason for having a house, like having some of the materials be farmable in your backyard.
 
L

Lizard with a ladder

learnin' with the blacks!
It's nice to see he hasn't abandoned the game.

Still not enough for me to jump back in though. The skill tree feels too bare bone and the loot could use some improvement. Until these things get addressed, I'll keep waiting.
 
microtubule

microtubule

Member
Wuthering_Heights said:
Apologies for the (seemingly) necro bump, but has there been any more progress on this game or is it dead in the water at this point?
Click to expand...

This is the most recent blog post on Picroma's site here.

I'd like to give you a preview of the new quest system that will be included in the next update.

There are different types of quests:

Dungeon Quests are "Defeat the ruler of that dungeon" quests. They're depicted as a red dungeon icon on the map.

Monster Quests are about defeating big monster bosses like trolls, saurians etc. They have a red skull icon on the map.

Mini Quests are quests that can spawn randomly everywhere in the world. They can be discovered while traveling and, if you have already discovered the part of the map, have a silver shield icon on the map. They are meant as small side quests that you can do during your explorations.

Main Quests are random quest lines that are generated for each land. They often send you to various locations in the land, like dungeons or ancient ruins, and sometimes just into the wilderness. Target locations are marked with a golden sword icon on the map. The objectives are varying and can involve fighting gangs, finding NPCs, examining objects, carrying things around and more.

During development, there were several challenges: I wanted to have complex quest objectives while keeping data representation of quests simple and also usable in multiplayer. Thanks to the procedural generation of quests I came up with a nice solution which requires only storing a small set of variables for each quest. Also generating quest texts for random quests isn't trivial. I had to create a basic grammar system and dictionary to be able to generate texts for arbitrary combinations of creatures, objects and locations.

Currently we're adding more quest variations to make it as non-repetitive as possible. In the screenshots below, you can see a few samples of what to expect.
Click to expand...
 
R

Raxum

Member
Blizzard said:
That looks like 3 months ago. It's such a cool-looking game to vanish into the void. =(
Click to expand...

In all fairness, Wollay was always reasonably slow giving updates on the game even before it came out. On top of that I'm quite sure he said the game was a side-project that he was working on for fun.

I kinda wish he'd just push out something even if it was unfinished for people to play around with and test, or maybe bring someone else in on the project.
 
A

Archaeopteryx

Member
I know I'm bumping an old thread, but Wollay tweeted a few times today:

vxCuibK.png


I hope we see an update soon, this was such a fun game and I had high hopes for it last year.
 
T

Tak3n

Banned
So where are we at?

I remember the clamber to play this when it came out, I can not believe the owner just let his game die like it has...

I honestly felt this could of been massive, I can only presume this game is now dead to most people
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
B

BigEvilTurtle

Banned
Mengy said:
Thats just the fan forum going away, not the game Cubeworld itself. With no updates whatsoever it just seemed silly to Cubeworld Forums to even stay open, seeing as how there hasn't been any real news in over a year.

That said, I sure am glad I didn't buy this game in early access, LOL.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it... Sigh.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
wwm0nkey said:
This is how I learned my lesson with Early Access / Alpha games
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I learned a lesson from it, since Cubeworld is perhaps the ONLY early access / alpha game I can think of that I've backed and has ended up with virtually no news or updates. I've pretty been happy with other such games like Minecraft, Project CARS, and Starbound.
 
W

wwm0nkey

Member
Blizzard said:
I'm not sure I learned a lesson from it, since Cubeworld is perhaps the ONLY early access / alpha game I can think of that I've backed and has ended up with virtually no news or updates. I've pretty been happy with other such games like Minecraft, Project CARS, and Starbound.
Click to expand...

I meant it in a way where I will only buy Early Access if what is already in the game is good enough for me. Like Massive Chalice looks pretty good and seems to have all the stuff I want in it for the price tag so i might hop on that soon,
 
R

Raxum

Member
wwm0nkey said:
I meant it in a way where I will only buy Early Access if what is already in the game is good enough for me. Like Massive Chalice looks pretty good and seems to have all the stuff I want in it for the price tag so i might hop on that soon,
Click to expand...

I guess it depends on what you wanted to get out of it. I bought into the game because I thought it looked fun as is, and updates would've been icing on the cake. Bit annoyed/sad that there have been none, but was still happy with the overall product as it was, despite broken bits.

I am rather cautious with my Early Access purchases though, and tend to mainly buy into things that look good already.
 
R

r1chard

Member
For Early Access the game was fun. Myself and a friend spent hours in it, and were very keen to see more. It's just unfortunate the "more" never appeared. There was no way we could have known, back at the time we bought it, that this would happen.

Like others, it's certainly not stopped me from buying into other Early Access games, just because this one game stalled (based on available evidence).
 
R

Rootbeer

Banned
Shinjica said:
http://www.reddit.com/r/CubeWorld/comments/26wjtc/cubeworldforumorg_shutting_down_probably_forever/

The project is dead
Click to expand...

While others have already added clarity to your post, it does make me wonder what if any effect its closure has had on Wolly.

When CW launched it was met with a TON of excitement, a community quickly sprung up around it creating that forum and a lot of other resources. They did this because it was expected to be a living game, similar to minecraft or terraria, that fans could participate in and enjoy the new features as they slowly rolled out. This is what inspires a fanbase of these sorts of indie games.

That of course did not come to pass, and it's not that the fans aren't willing to be patient -- afterall, look at something like Dwarf Fortress which has both a highly devoted and vary patient fanbase sometimes waiting more than a year between releases -- it's that Wolly is very uncommunicative and does not engage with the users of his software AT ALL. That is what has killed this game's community, not simply the lack of patches.

It still really saddens me because this game is truly beautiful and I want to see it grow and do well.
 
B

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
So this is dead, huh :(

The project looked so promising back then. I even bought two copies on a whim to play with my little brother, haha.

(Sorry for the bump, by the way, in case anyone entered this thread with hopes of a new update.)
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Brazil said:
So this is dead, huh :(

The project looked so promising back then. I even bought two copies on a whim to play with my little brother, haha.

(Sorry for the bump, by the way, in case anyone entered this thread with hopes of a new update.)
Click to expand...
Your apology is...begrudgingly accepted, since I did wonder. ;_; The last blog or youtube post was 7 months ago.
 
B

BooJoh

Member
I feel like I got my money's worth of fun out of it, but it sucks that it was left in limbo, especially when they were still teasing major changes.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
I'm so glad I didn't buy this during the hype. It looked great and sounded like it had so much promise, but man the developer just completely abandoned it afterwards. It's like he just lost interest after getting all of that money. Such a shame.
 
rbanke

rbanke

Member
Zulithe said:
Cube World is no longer available for purchase. NO official announcement as to why, or if it will become available again. Registration is also disabled.

If this is indeed the end, let's make sure to keep an eye out for any future projects from Wolfram von Funck so that we may make the appropriate appeals to potential buyers.

If it turns out to be prolonged maintenance? Just another in a very long line of worst-in-class communications from Wolly.
Click to expand...

I've typically stayed away from anything 'early access' or kickstarter. This was one of the few games I actually bought before release. At the time I just wanted to look around at it and check out what was available. I quickly decided not to keep messing with it so as not to burn out on it when it released. I just downloaded the game from my account just in case that's all there ever will be and it disappears. Definitely a bummer considering how there were quite a few interesting aspects to this game. I don't really feel ripped off because I have the mentality that I buy what a product is at the time that I give the money, if it gets better...bonus. I haven't really followed the ups and (seemingly mostly) downs of the project so I don't know how nefarious the whole thing is outside of not releasing what was promised. As stated though, to me the loss is the game it could have been not the few bucks I kicked in.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Zulithe said:
Cube World is no longer available for purchase. NO official announcement as to why, or if it will become available again. Registration is also disabled.

If this is indeed the end, let's make sure to keep an eye out for any future projects from Wolfram von Funck so that we may make the appropriate appeals to potential buyers.

If it turns out to be prolonged maintenance? Just another in a very long line of worst-in-class communications from Wolly.
Click to expand...
I fired up the executable yesterday -- I don't know if it's the newest one, but whatever version I had installed works without logging in -- and ran around briefly for the nostalgia. I still had a pet, and still farmed a few monsters with a water staff that was kind of awkward to use.

It's still quite a pretty game, has a nice atmosphere, and the climbing mechanic is neat. Pity it never got extended further or at least open to modders so people could increase draw distance or add more stuff.
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
I came here to see if anyone had an update and I'm pissed. $30 down. Actually, that and Stomping Ground means $60 down. I'm not done with crowd funding, but I'm going to be a lot more careful.

The asshole should have taken Notch's offer. He could have had the help he wanted, but insisted on being an egomaniac about it. There was a certain "look what I'm playing that you can't" about his posts before launch and then with the never-to-arrive update patch post-launch ("questing is soooooo fun...but you can't have it!").

Fuck him.

I'm going to check out Trove.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
I'm assuming it's abandoned.

The above point is a good one about Notch though. It's one thing to want to abandon a project because of life, other jobs, relationships, just getting tired, etc. I'm a developer. I understand that stuff and I've been there.

What's weird is having one of the most well-known and wealthy game people on the planet be like, "Yo, want some free money so we can take over your game", and choosing to have it die abandoned rather than take that. Maybe some people would view that as taking some sort of idealistic stand, but just disabling the store and not posting anything at all? That doesn't even seem like idealism to me. It's just kind of empty.
 
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