Gamezone
Gold Member
This guy is cool. I spoke with a lot on Twitter, and he always answers.
I hope this means that these guys get more time to work on another AAA project.
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Turtle Rock ends their support of Evolve
- Thread starter Rocketz
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This guy is cool. I spoke with a lot on Twitter, and he always answers.
I hope this means that these guys get more time to work on another AAA project.
Cabbagehead
Member
Expected.
It's funny though, my entire life all my favorite multiplayer games are those which essentially force you to play as a coordinated team for success. Counterstrike, Enemy Territory, Left 4 Dead, Overwatch. I even liked Rainbow Six way back in the day, but I haven't played Siege yet. I don't really care for deathmatch or the idea of a chaotic multiplayer free for all playground. I never really got into stuff like Quake 3, and while I played a bunch of Unreal Tournament and Killzone 2, I can't really say they had much staying power.
I like playing with friends I know, and I like using voice chat to coordinate and plan as a team. It's more satisfying than playing solo for kills. If I wanted to do that, I just play a good SP shooter with solid level design.... if I can find one... lol.
The problem I had with Evolve when I tried it out with friends during the beta is that the game was just a mess. It was poorly optimized and slow. The UI was bad. The classes were poorly explained. The art direction felt really boring. And the biggest problem of all... is that the quality of the match depended so much on the person who is playing the monster. It can either feel like a waste of time cake walk, or feel like a really unfair slaughter, or feel like a boring ass wild goose chase. Where L4D succeeded is that when playing Versus, no matter how good or bad the Infected team is, the game still progresses at a minimum pace. WIth Evolve, the pace is entirely determined by a single player. Kinda weird.
Trojan
Member
I was just going to post this exact sentiment but just quoted you since you said it better. This game was always kind of designed for a more niche audience because it relies solely on team-play in a world where a lot of people either just want to play for themselves or don't have friends online that they can always play with.
Turtle Rock should have expanded to more modes that catered to traditional multiplayer experiences if they ever wanted this to have mainstream appeal.
Gamezone
Gold Member
I think the biggest problem with Evolve was the time you had to spend looking for the monster.
This game was all flash right from the outset, a vertical slice that never had any legs, the perfect 15 minutes that bags you a million E3 awards and offers nothing else.
The core concept is completely flawed. For an entertaining match to happen all 5 players have to be in on it and playing well (but not too well if they're the monster).
If the Monster is terrible, you're going to have a boringly easy game as the hunters.
If the Tracker/Medic/whatever is terrible you're going to have a terribly frustrating game as the Hunters and a boringly easy game as the Monster.
The esports push was also completely flawed, numerically asymmetric MP just has no chance of taking off, since it leads to a totally fucked team structure.
All the DLC bullshit was just icing on an already shitty cake.
The core concept is completely flawed. For an entertaining match to happen all 5 players have to be in on it and playing well (but not too well if they're the monster).
If the Monster is terrible, you're going to have a boringly easy game as the hunters.
If the Tracker/Medic/whatever is terrible you're going to have a terribly frustrating game as the Hunters and a boringly easy game as the Monster.
The esports push was also completely flawed, numerically asymmetric MP just has no chance of taking off, since it leads to a totally fucked team structure.
All the DLC bullshit was just icing on an already shitty cake.
I think that would mean the core aspect/appeal of Evolve simply isn't enough, at least at the price they initially charged for it on top of the microtransactions just drowning people. If you're saying 'here's our new amazing game that focuses on this, along with other traditional things' then you've kinda watered your product down and run the risk of that mode falling out of favor.
So true man.
ashecitism
Member
Figured this would happen. Stage 2 launched well, but numbers have been dropping since.
Re: L4D3 posts. People realize that's Valve's IP right? Not up to TR.
Re: L4D3 posts. People realize that's Valve's IP right? Not up to TR.
Cabbagehead
Member
I smelled bullshit the minute, i saw the gameplay footage. Then proceeded to watch how nothing really changed from E3 to release. All the while the PR machine babblered on about "long" lines, limited pre orders and all the fabricated hype and awards you could shake a fist at. It was too overboard for something so early and NMS was the same thing. Funny enough.
I'm kinda bumped that two developers of my favorite multiplayer games have failed to find success after making those games. Splash Damage really surprised me with Enemy Territory and totally failed to recapture the same magic in any of the subsequent games. Turtle Rock blew everyone away with L4D1 and now they're struggling in the shadow of that too. So sad. 
Serious Sam
Member
I find it fascinating what short lifespan unsuccessful multiplayer games have. If a single player game is not that great you can still pick it up and play it 10, 20 or even 30 years later. But with online games as soon as servers go offline or community leaves, it's over.
Battleborn is next?
Battleborn is next?
Dalibor_San
Member
Yep, this is also why I dislike online-only games, once the servers are off say goodbye to the game.
ashecitism
Member
TR is working on a new IP btw.
mercenar1e
Member
To think the majority of "journalists" hyped this turd for weeks without ever mentioning the repetitive and boring aspects of the game in previews. I only needed two hours of actual playtime to figure it out.
SomedayTheFire
Member
The game being shite and no one playing it is probably what's up.
I'm kinda bumped that two developers of my favorite multiplayer games have failed to find success after making those games. Splash Damage really surprised me with Enemy Territory and totally failed to recapture the same magic in any of the subsequent games. Turtle Rock blew everyone away with L4D1 and now they're struggling in the shadow of that too. So sad.
I actually liked Brink
Gamezone
Gold Member
At least they added offline bots with good AI to Evolve.
Spiral Insanity
Banned
Damn, thats quick. I've had it installed but never had a chance to try it out.
I remember there being so much hype for Evolve at E3. Game journos on podcasts were calling it the next best thing... They really screwed it up.
I remember there being so much hype for Evolve at E3. Game journos on podcasts were calling it the next best thing... They really screwed it up.
Dash_Riprock
Member
The moment they went F2P that should have warned people the end was near.
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
That's damn sad. I haven't played Evolve, but I'm a huge L4D fan and I'm a big sucker for Predator...Seemed like a match made in heaven, but the DLC bullshit pushed me away from the game. I remember hyping my friends up about it, before all of the shenanigans were revealed...
I would have tried it on consoles if Stage 2 ever came out. What a clusterfuck.
I would have tried it on consoles if Stage 2 ever came out. What a clusterfuck.
Kwansu Dudes
Member
I'm still dumbfounded how this game got so many prerelease awards. The beta wasn't fun and something about the visuals or controls made it extremely hard to understand what was going on. Felt like a hectic disoriented mess to me.
As another poster mentioned, this game had potential to be good.
As another poster mentioned, this game had potential to be good.
Cabbagehead
Member
Lets relive that experience with a little retrospective;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M4RwGwQslM
Kagoshima_Luke
Gold Member
Shame. It's one of my favorite multiplayer games in recent years. The DLC stuff was awful, but I never understood the backlash against the asymmetrical multi and monster hunting. The slower pace and mind games you could play as the monster were fantastic.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
I was talking from games that focus on a competitive environment. Similar pressure is felt with RTS games I feel, or fighting games.
Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th are 1 vs X games, but those feel more lax in nature, like fun games to play with friends. Whereas Evolve was designed to be an eSport with a steeper skill curve, etc.
Oof. I remember one of their first trailers or whatever had esports commentary on it right out of the gate lol.
This is why a part of me will always love old games like Age Of Empires II where you can still do direct IP address matches. As long as the Internet still uses IP addresses it will be possible to play that game online.
Cabbagehead
Member
I highly doubt it's the developers themselves that have much of a choice. If they know it's bad as well. They kind of have to keep going down with the ship until they either fix it, cancel it, try to reboot it or get shut down as a studio. At that point it's the publisher money/investors. Trying to get a return.
Eventually everything is going to move over to IPV6 though and Age of Empires 2 probably doesn't support that. I guess there's always the Steam version.
I don't see how this makes a lot of sense. Personally I was very excited for Evolve's potential. The game just didn't end up being fun enough for me to commit, but I wish it did. I think people did want to play what Evolve offered, or it wouldn't have gotten so much attention and buzz in the first place. People just didn't end up enjoying the actual experience enough to stick around. That's a failure to retain an audience, not a failure in coming up with an interesting idea. The market is competitive, and balancing multiplayer experiences can be very hard.
It never got that low (3000 vs 200), but it was kinda clearly losing steam.
A couple people mentioned already but the main killer for the game was simply the super high skill floor relative to other games. It's not something you can pick up and enjoy immediately. And like duckroll said, the experience is so tightly dependent on your team and the monster. One bad hunter on a team fucks it all up for everyone else. A bad monster is boring and a pro monster will destroy you before you get a chance to even learn.
They had issues that they slowly were resolving as far tutorializing, but the game is just inherently very skillfully demanding. It's one of the most anti-newbie friendly multiplayer games. There's no "I win" or "Feel cool" button: no ultimates like overwatch or dota that make it more scrub friendly and let you feel like you can at least help out even if you're not skillful. Nothing like that in evolve. Just pure consistent high skill team work, positioning, and skill management.
And I loved that about it. Unfortunately that severely limits user base growth and retention.
What a shame really because this game was damn good and most of the issues people had levied last year were fixed in stage 2.
But surely it's the developers who come up with the premise in the first place?, anyone who played the alpha for Evolve could tell that it wasn't actually that good a game, should the game have been put out to pasture then?
I guess it's not an easy question, because there are lots of other things going on in the background, and you don't know what promises have been made.
I think the idea might have been a good one, but the game wasn't, so it could just boil down to good idea, poor execution?
Sure but that doesn't make the development misguided. I think you underestimate how hard it is to take an idea, especially a multiplayer idea, and execute it well. That's why the successful ones are very successful, and there's a whole sea of failures along with titles with low userbases no one ever talks about.
This is a tougher question to answer. Is it a bad move to launch a game anyway when the alpha or beta has gone poorly? Absolutely. But that boils down to a publisher choice so it's not the call of the developers. FFXIV was the same way. Terrible beta, clearly not ready for market, S-E launched it anyway.
Maybe my wording was incorrect.
Stage 2 resolved most of the general issues people had. The game they made was just very demanding and had an insane skill curve. Player retention was a struggle from the get go.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
It's more fascinating watching developers go from denial to realization to bargaining to acceptance so quickly when they release such an anti-consumer game that everyone and their mother warn them about.
As much as the execution was flawed I think the concept is great. The game would've been better off launching as a f2p title since it had all the f2p stuff in it anyway.
The dumb marketing and the giant push the game got didn't help. I mean, they had e sports style presentations for some reason.
The dumb marketing and the giant push the game got didn't help. I mean, they had e sports style presentations for some reason.
Cabbagehead
Member
Quota, Quota, Quota...obligation.
I'm sure one team or small group had a great idea about the game in theory but i'm more then sure. Not even one at Turtlerock wanted to work on Evolve more then a new IP that explored more concepts and game ideas. Other then a you know, L4D with playable monsters vs hunters. (could be very, very wrong but it's plausible)
You can be positive they had a pitch period and someone there latched on to the most potentially profitable IP, that fits the studios "strengths" to be developed or something to that affect early on.
Oh no, For Honor! D:
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