Subnautica 2 studio begs rioting fans for benefit of the doubt after leadership axed by owner Krafton: 'The team that has been working on the game day-to-day ... remains completely unchanged' (www.pcgamer.com)
from Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world on 06 Jul 18:18
https://lemmy.world/post/32568659

#games

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SGforce@lemmy.ca on 06 Jul 19:17 next collapse

Were they the team that did pre-release subnautica 1? If not, not interested.

dormedas@lemmy.dormedas.com on 06 Jul 20:07 next collapse

Oops, they just admitted that leadership doesn’t really DO anything.

MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz on 06 Jul 22:05 collapse

Like for real.

Were the people who actually do nothing really the ones to get axe for once?

Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world on 07 Jul 17:39 collapse

Middle management gets the shaft all the time. It’s the yes men at the top who never get touched.

Dremor@lemmy.world on 06 Jul 20:58 next collapse

Honestly I liked a lot Subnautica 1, and despite the leadership change, still look forward to Subnautica 2. Better juge on the product than on internet dramas.

Passerby6497@lemmy.world on 06 Jul 22:45 next collapse

My interest in subnautica 2 is like the actual second game: below zero.

The first game and below zero are so different I’m not confident they know what about the first game was what drew people in.

Zorque@lemmy.world on 07 Jul 00:13 next collapse

Sometimes people have ideas that just don’t work out. Even if the same people make another game, unless they just make a carbon copy they’re going to try and do something different. Sometimes it doesn’t work as well as the original, but at least it’s not churning out the same thing over and over and hoping people don’t notice.

Granted, Gamefreak has basically been doing that for 25 years, so what do I know?

p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Jul 13:35 next collapse

The first game was one of the buggiest mess I’ve ever seen with a game that has so much praise. And this was seven years after it launched.

mysticpickle@lemmy.ca on 07 Jul 15:05 next collapse

I heard it had a lot of issues during testing but I didn’t personally have any issues with it having played it the first time 4 years ago nor have I heard of any widespread game breaking bugs. Might just be your particular system :o

innermachine@lemmy.world on 07 Jul 16:30 next collapse

On final release I never suffered a single bug

p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Jul 21:52 collapse

I find that hard to believe.

  • Draw distance sucks for a vast ocean of plants and sealife. Seriously, I have a really good video card, and this fucking Unity engine can’t draw 500 feet in front of me.
  • So many wall “suggestions”, clipping, other graphical glitches, especially near the end area
  • Incredible music, but it’s barely heard because the game either cuts it off midway through or decides to go silent most of the time
  • Bad save serializations that can sometimes spam a ton of error messages on load
  • You can’t kill anything, including warpers that are more dangerous than leviathans
  • Can’t walk with a Prawn in an alien base, because you end up getting stuck on the floor for some reason
  • Reaper in caves, who can drop you off the map
  • An insulting unrealistic O2 meter, and not enough keyslots
  • The Cyclops is. Fucking. Useless. By the time you get this thing, the leeches in volcano areas fuck you over, when power is already a precious resource. And it still needs full upgrades to make it even remotely useful in Lost River.
  • Torpedos are useless. Flares, Floating lockers, air pipeworks, nuclear reactor, alien containment, all useless.
  • Death might as well be like hardcore, since losing a vehicle is worse than losing 30 minutes of progress
Wrufieotnak@feddit.org on 08 Jul 05:44 next collapse

I also find it unbelievable that the other player never experienced bugs, because I also had a lot of them during my play through.

But your list is a complete mess with a mixture of bugs and design decisions. And the latter aren’t bugs. That’s just not how it works. It would make your argument stronger, if you stay with the facts and not include your personal disagreements with game features.

XM34@feddit.org on 08 Jul 07:49 next collapse

Half of those aren’t even bugs. They’re intendes gameplay elements and they are what makes Subnautica such a good game! No being able to easily kill most creature is what makes the game better. Torpedos being borderline useless is what makes the game better. The extremely limited O2 meter makes the game better!

The cyclops is amazing. You’re just very obviously use it wrong. It’s not meant to explore the volcanic region. It’s meant as a mobile base and it absolutely excells at this!

Honestly, the draw distance optimization may be the only valid concern here.

The_Decryptor@aussie.zone on 08 Jul 09:08 collapse

Draw distance sucks for a vast ocean of plants and sealife. Seriously, I have a really good video card, and this fucking Unity engine can’t draw 500 feet in front of me.

If anything Subnautica lets you see too much.

Hadriscus@jlai.lu on 08 Jul 04:50 collapse

Yea it had a few bugs. As far as I’m concerned those never spoiled the fun or the fantastic atmosphere.

Orygin@sh.itjust.works on 08 Jul 06:58 collapse

IIRC, they did not really know what the first game was about while developing it. I remember reading a dev blog about them adding a bug report in game with screenshot attached, and how that helped them understand players expectations and direct the development of the game towards that instead of having a pre-defined vision of the final game.

absquatulate@lemmy.world on 07 Jul 07:17 next collapse

Yeah, this is the right approach, especially with the subnautica community that seems to be really thirsty for drama. I was going to wait for reviews anyway before getting it, so this whole “devs beg community” is probably for the preordering folk.

That said, my money’s on “subnautica 2 will disappoint regardless” because it continues to build on the original instead of being new. What made the original so good was the novelty of that format, combined with the horror aspect and the fresh lore. Now, after two games set in the same world and the same general flow, people know what to expect so they will be extra picky about s2 and I wager they will end up underwhelmed. I’m still hoping s2 will at least be extra pretty because goddamn if I didn’t love the environments of the first two games.

Ulrich@feddit.org on 08 Jul 15:34 next collapse

The “internet drama” exists because the product is a reflection of the leadership.

Dremor@lemmy.world on 08 Jul 17:59 collapse

In which case we’ll juge in the final product if the choices the leadership, previous or current, were the right one or not.

All we have currently are some images, some first hand infos, and a lot of speculations.

tomi000@lemmy.world on 11 Jul 16:17 collapse

Does the same logic apply to shoes hand-sewn by sick children?
How the fuck did capitalism manage to make people care more for inanimate objects or software than actual human beings.

Dremor@lemmy.world on 11 Jul 16:41 collapse

Could you explain the link between both subject ?

tomi000@lemmy.world on 11 Jul 17:25 collapse

Just an example of another situation where the way of production shouldnt be ignored in favor of a good product.

Dremor@lemmy.world on 11 Jul 18:23 collapse

I understand what kind of analogy you want to bring, but that’d be both a false equivalence, as wall as an appeal to pity.

You are trying to portray a black and white picture about a situation we all know little about. It’s word for word, and in such case it be hard to give more credits to either party.

I heard that there is a lawsuit brewing, maybe this will give us more objective informations.

In the meantime, the only way to see if either the founders or Krafton vision would be the best would be to release the EA, even with the lack of content Krafton is complaining about. Like that we would be able to make our own conclusion.

tomi000@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 08:52 collapse

It was exaggerated but I was referring to your willingness to ignore the circumstances of its creation in favor of a good product

Dremor@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 10:58 collapse

I would not ignore if Krafton do betray UW employees. But I also take into account that for now it is word for word, and depending on which side you believe, both sides can be sided with.

If the three ousted exec did abandon their responsibility as Krafton said, their dismissal is justified. If not and that’s a way to not pay the promissed bonus, then a boycot is justified.

There isn’t many way to know, other than releasing the EA now. Like that the customer can have and idea of the true state of the game, without having to base its opinion on a bandwagon.

tomi000@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 11:38 collapse

I agree. But you said “Better juge on the product than on internet dramas.” and I dont see how the game would tell us anything about how Krafton fucks the developers.

Dremor@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 22:40 collapse

Krafton says that the game isn’t yet worthy of EA. Ousted led dev says that it is. Someone is probably lying here. Only way to put an end to that is to lanch the EA this year, for us to juge if it is enough content or not.

tomi000@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 09:20 collapse

Which will not happen because it would cost them $250m, please dont pretend to be so ignorant.

Dremor@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 09:38 collapse

From what I’ve read, that bonus isn’t tied to a specific release, but to an earning target.

Not being able to get to that target is tied to the fact that Subnautica 2 EA should have been a huge cash influx, which now isn’t possible due to the delay, and the only remaining way would have been either a sudden renewed Subnautica 1 and BZ success or for the mobile version to be a incredible success, which I doubt.

Releasing the EA wouldn’t be an “I win button” from UW. It could go both way. Either the current state is enough for user to buy it, and not refund it, or it will be a resounding failure, with huge refund percentages. In the first case, this may allow UW to get to that target, but in the second case, it may in the worst case make the studio go under before Subnautica had any chance to be released completed

vxx@lemmy.world on 07 Jul 14:07 next collapse

They should just answer one question: Will Subnautica 2 have microtransactions under the new leadership?

iamtherealwalrus@lemmy.world on 07 Jul 19:12 collapse

Developer Unknown Worlds has shared a letter asking for patience from Subnautica fans after publisher Krafton announced the departure of its senior leadership⁠—including studio co-founder Max McGuire⁠—and the installation of Dead Space producer and Striking Distance (The Callisto Protocol) CEO, Steve Papoutsis, as the new studio head.

The letter does firmly deny that the game will be live serviceified or otherwise experience a monetization change.

13igTyme@lemmy.world on 07 Jul 19:28 collapse

The answer is always yes. No details needed.

lefixxx@lemmy.world on 08 Jul 06:03 next collapse

Fuck off. Replacing the leadership is a clear sign of enshittification. If you want the benefit make a meaningful statement about monetization .

captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works on 08 Jul 08:41 next collapse

Corporate fuckery is not a good smell to gamers. Smells like month old genital pus.

Just starting an article by explaining “Unknown Worlds Entertainment has been acquired by Somebody Interactive, the parent company of Hunka Chunka Studios and Rumpy Pumpy Inc” and we’re already suspicious, because corporate acquisition means the game now has more parasites to fund - layers of upper management, investors, etc.

Then we hear about major names that are the people that had the vision for the original game being replaced “immediately” in a press release full of bullshit corpowank marketing boilerplate…it means this game is almost certainly going to be cancelled, the studio shut down and the staff laid off, probably after a lot of players have purchased the game in early access.

There’s quite a bit of overlap in Subnautica and KSP’s player bases, and we’ve already had our asses burned by Take Two Interactive.

So, I’m not going to be joining any early access campaign. I’m not paying for the game before it is finished, I’m not playtesting it for free, I’m not pre-ordering anything and I’m not buying any merch, and there’s a reasonable chance I’m not buying the game at all, because it has already been smeared with the aforementioned month old genital pus.

I don’t think I want to buy games from companies that have parent companies. Parent companies make everything fucking suck.

Adalast@lemmy.world on 08 Jul 14:15 collapse

Absolutely. I won’t touch shit until I see the EULA. The fuckery with the ownership of mod code was enough to burn me for KSP. How the fuck do you seize ownership in completeness for an entire code base just because it happens to extend your product. That is like Pillsbury claiming ownership for your grandma’s cookie recipe because it contains their flower as the primary component.

“Wah wah DOTA wah wah.” So fucking what. It isn’t a stand alone, just because someone makes an entirely different game inside of your game and it is more popular than your game does not give you the right to claim their code and profiteer off someone else’s passion project without compensating them. You want to own the code, buy it. All of the players still have to buy your game to play the mods, so you are still making even more money you dillholes.

Cyberflunk@lemmy.world on 08 Jul 12:53 next collapse

I’ll trust you when you trust us bro. Remove drm, have an offline play mode.

No? Gtfo

mhague@lemmy.world on 08 Jul 14:49 next collapse

I’d rather have another team try to execute Subnautica. Unforgivable to make a survival game where enemies go through walls, you can fall through your ship, and your save becomes corrupted if you build too much.

It’s a AA game that was rough around the edges. Not much there to make you think “without the original devs the game will be totally wrong.”

Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world on 08 Jul 15:10 collapse

Maybe if we stop paying for unfinished games we won’t have to care about the drama the comes before the release. We can just see the finished product. Then we don’t have to guess how crap like this might effect the game.