Medieval Engineers - Update & Leaving Early Access

What about fixing the catch blocks?

 

What about our NPC slav....er 'helpers'?

 

Crash at Steamworks.NativeMethods.ISteamUGC_SendQueryUGCRequest
Crash at Medieval.GameSystems.Building.MyGridPlacer.UpdateLinePlaneBuilding
Crash at Medieval.GameSystems.MyManipulationComponent.OnTargetEntityChanged

what do these fix?

 

What. The Devil.

 

Don't take this update at face value.

The blog says this is the end of ME development, because Marek has decided the title is not worth pursuing. (It doesn't have the numbers SE has.) And (as such) he considers it a completed project.

This is an insult to all the fans, and another Miner Wars, aka. a title that was never finished.

Once again, Keen prove themselves incapable of finishing a project, relying on the community to do what they could not. Finish block sets, add in new features, work on expanding existing features.

I don't agree with anything Marek stated about ME. The title would be far more lucrative than SE if it had the same amount of development. For goodness sake, roofs are still bugged, there are no diagonal blocks, the diagonal blocks that exist don't fit with other blocks, and many many block placement inconsistencies that make it impossible to build entirely with the blocks in the game without modifying them in some way. Which is not Medieval Engineers, it is 3DS Max Engineers, or Blender Engineers. Very disappointing that despite many assurances that ME was not abandoned, the team was just being restructured internally, the game is now officially abandoned.

Marek, you have no creative vision and it's sad that with all you know you cannot create a coherent idea for your team to follow, or to put it quite simply, just tell the truth to your consumers.

It's a sad day to be a Keen Software House consumer. I expected more.

 

Rest In Peace ME

 

Well, this was... unexpected.

I wonder if KSH might be willing to let someone else take over the game?

I also hope KSH takes a "No Concurrent Project" stance from now on. One game at a time is not the worst way to produce a video game.

 

I did not want to participate any longer in this forum after being officially warned as a "troll".
But this ridiculous throwing Medieval Engineers under the bus and calling it success forces me to log in once more and post something, as a former KEEN fan.
"Releasing" the game as it is, with a fig leaf patch and some hollow words plastered on top of that, is like rolling a suffering patient out of hospital on his bed on the parking lot and telling him he is healed now and can walk home, because his hospital room is needed by some better paying patient (insert XBox or any crap).

SELL THIS GAME TO ANOTHER DEVELOPER WHO KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING AND HAS A VISION!
(end of our bromance)

 

well you can see with that video the game is unfinished. I feel very disapointed with Keen Software House, your reputiation it's on floor.

I changed my review on steam for negative one and i asked to refund my money because i paid double of final price. The drop price from Early acces shows us they finished game far away from initial idea.
I feel scamed, i feel you lied to the community with many unfinished features announced. (siege mode, Economy, Npcs...)

After one year without news of game you decide to finish it with hurry and full of bugs. Is that is your idea of quality? I think the game go out from early acces only because they dont want to recognize the project wad dead long time ago.
You had other alternatives like open the source, sell your project to a company who want to finish it, talk with modders...

You sold more then 400k copies of game with the Early acces full of bugs. A good finished game will reach Millions of sales for sure.

And Where is the morality of the company with early acces buyers? you should refund the money or at last the diference we paid from final price.

You still are in time to change your decision and looks for alternatives, i hope it soon. If you wait one year more to react it will be late.

 

At least muster up the courage to admit the project failed! I think most of us could see this decision coming, and personally I would have been OK with it. Early access doesn't always work out, and that's fine. Just be honest. Pouring lies about "completing" the game is a low blow.

 

Hmmm... can you refund a game you spent 881 hours in?

 

I too am disappointed this is the the end. There was so much potential. The squandered potential wasn't just ME, it's KeenSWH.

In my opinion, it was going to go wrong from the start.
Keen made their own engine, that's fine but the engine should've been the center of their focus. If their primary goal would've been designing and refining a voxel engine to license to other game devs, then the development of SE and ME would've gone differently. Instead of each game being thick with lots of it's own unique code, they could just be unique assets and a few plug ins for the games needs (e.g. ME doesn't need airtight buildings).

Also, Keen should've taken those big sales periods to expand. More games, more employees. I admit I'm a bit of a "fan boy", but I would've been fine with them juggling 10 games in early access as long as the team kept growing. A series of games from a variety of genres could allow each team focusing on the aspects needed for their genre which could be tied back into the core engine improving all other games. A team making an FPS could refine combat and the benefits could bleed over to the other games. A team making an RPG could work on character creation and interaction and the benefits could bleed over to the other games. A sim earth style game could work on environmental effects, terrain, and planet creation/alteration and the improvements could bleed over to the other games.

The variety of games could also help sales outside their specific genres. A Keen FPS or RTS and an effort to push it into Esports could push hype to sell their other games also. More games in bundle packs could keep some revenue coming in for games not in the normal genre of people buying the bundles. All the variety of games and their refinement could've resulted in a competitive game engine that other devs could license, with that license revenue coming back to help finish Keen's games.

With some more growth based focus earlier, Keen could be massive right now. Possibly at the bottom of edge of AAA game developers. With as many loyal customers as they have, they could've been milking us with a dozen games each with a few fancy skin DLC's and be making a fortune right now. If they put a focus on a competitive combat mode for SE and throw cash at setting up an Esports league for it, they could possibly see another million sales and have a chance at growing again.


I guess that the only thing we can do from here is see what the modders do with ME (if any are still interested in it) and hope that SE doesn't see a sudden drop also.

 

A Community lawsuit action is coming

 

Greetings

Booo Mr Marek BOOOO! Fool me once (Miner Wars) Shame on you, Fool me twice (Medieval Engineers) Shame on me, 3rd time? No chance buddy!

 

You could have at least launched some DLC first, to see if there was general consumer interest if you ran out of money to develop the game. Like you did for Space Engineers.

But canning it like this, was just a complete disrespect to the fans, and those who waited so long for development to resume before actively playing the title again. (like myself)

We were all in the dark. Your so called "numbers" are not an accurate representation of this game's base, or what that base could grow into should the features everyone waited for ever have materialized.

More focus on mechanical blocks, small contraptions, more purpose to existing blocks. More "life". For goodness sake, you have to roleplay a horse just to carry goods around and you are calling ME a completed game?

You are to Keen what George Lucas was to LucasArts. (But arguably much much worse as a disaster.)

 

Dear KeenSWH... I'm unpleasantly surprised by this, though I could have seen it coming. Still gave you the benefit of the doubt though. I'm personally not much affected anymore, as I started a family in the meanwhile and have virtually no time left for games. Still, you have to agree that this is a bit mean to the loyal fans of this game.

According to steamspy, this game sold anywhere between 200.000 and 500.000 times. That is by no means an unsuccesful game. 'Adding up the numbers' and saying the game doesn't pay for itself after a development hiatus of over a year isn't fair. No game is going to do well after being abandoned in an unfinished state for over a year.

You should've added up the numbers when DeepFlame exited. If by then you couldn't turn a profit on this game, you should have actually stabilised it and left it in a proper finished state.

By proper I would mean: making the current state of the game at largely stable and bug-free, and leaving the game to modders. We would have liked to finish this, but in financial and work-scheduling means it is unsustainable. No more features, just getting the game stable and playable as-is.

The beautiful thing is. You can still do this. Assign one or a few people to work a few hours a week on doing this (or taking up an offer from a fan to do the same for free). Release bug-fixes when they happen. Yes it will drain SE and it's console counterpart of a tiny bit of work; but it will also be paying respect to your ME customers. Proper closure. You can abandon projects gracefully, and even long time fans will forgive you if you leave it in a playable state. Mind you, that's not quite what you pulled off here.

Admitting you were wrong doesn't cost any money, just guts to say it.
People WILL understand that Keen does not see a way to continue ME development with dwindling sales. They do not however, if you just cancel it mid-development.

 

Sadly I do not think the CEO of KEEN has respect for any of the fans ME or SE.

 

How is the game complete while it still crashes on exit and has obvious roof glitches?

 

This is a bummer. I've completed my first 450 hours of Space Engineers, and today I had my first session in this game. This feels infinitely more well polished. Granted I haven't got further than wooden housing and rusted weaponry, but so far this seems like it scratches a few itches Space Engineers didn't reach.

 

When you cut down pines, the branches one shot your character and zip across the sky like launched out of a cannon.

This game was never completed. It was simply abandoned.

 

KSH has no moral backbone. They are an unethical and a dishonest company.
ME was only ever there to raise funds for SE. This was obvious from the start. I've had the game since August 2015, only a couple of months after it's EA release. For a while updates were done weekly. But the updates did more to add 'features' than stabilising the game. Customers complained bitterly that their feedback on the game was not being heeded. And it wasn't. KSH was just throwing stuff into the game to see what would happen and then from those lessons learnt, incorporate them into SE.
ME was a testing ground for SE and KSH used raised funds from ME sales to develop SE.

I too feel totally ripped off. I've started a discussion on the ME steam channel called RIPPED OFF!
As has already been stated, I paid over double for the game back in 2015 compared to the current price today. It gets worse when it's on special for even less. What did EA customers get for the extra money paid? A sound track and some banners... So KSH is saying that the sound track and these banners are worth more than the game itself?

I am getting back into playing ME. But worlds have to be done in off line mode as it crashes if steam looses connection to the network for a split second. I'm not using mods as the game is too unstable. I saw one youtube channel where 5 seasons (5 years) of playing ME with mods was abandoned as the frame rate dropped down into single digits. In his words it was 'unplayable'. (

)

I will never trust KSH again. Ever. Their attempts at DLC for SE is laughable at best...

 

Yeah it is really sad to see the way they just tossed ME to the side.

 

Damn, this makes me feel like a puppy abandoned at a motorway restaurant...
If they could at least fix the worst bugs, I'd be more or less okay with the lack of new content, since that can still be provided by our beloved modders.
I hope someday, somebody will come up with some sort of unofficial patch if Keen isn't willing to do it themselves.
And I hope we can at least keep these forums alive for a bit. You guys are cool.