devtrackers.gg
Popular game is preparing to launch -> run multiple beta tests -> lots of viewers on Twitch, plenty of WoM excitement -> many players expected to play -> servers still can’t handle the numbers
As someone who works in development, I really wish by now studios releasing popular games would stop giving the excuse, “We didn’t expect so many of you to play!” or “Wow we didn’t expect this surge!” Yes, yes you did, marketing and product have been providing you with analytics for months.
Just give us realistic expectations for when the servers will actually perform as intended or delay the game until your backend can handle the surge. It tarnishes launch day excitement so much and I’d much rather pay £20/$20 or whatever it is to support the devs and help them bolster their architecture than get a free game riddled with server issues. I will gladly help fund the game because it’s amazing and I want it to succeed, but these server issues and the lack of “25 maps” as we were told is admittedly, very disappointing.
We've run scale tests of hundreds of thousands of users to try and plan for this, and done everything we possibly can to simulate our launch day and give ourselves confidence in launch.
Unfortunately nothing can ultimately prepare you for real users all over the world all installing and launching the game at the same time- this is why you see even the largest companies struggling at launch. We're a relatively small indie studio compared to EA, Blizzard etc. and we're doing everything we can at this point!
I think its a strategy many companies have to let the first day sales of the game and premium currencies fund their server costs. it sucks because there is an honest way to go about that, but feigning surprise is not it.
nobody get me wrong i love this game.
As a developer on the title I can promise you this is NOT what we're doing. There's nothing better as a strategy than having as many people playing and enjoying your game, and that's absolutely what we're trying to do right now!
Literally won a game the first game I played and my rewards still have not came in.... ughhhh
Rewards are coming! Our reward processing is backed up in a way we've never seen before from our betas/scale tests. If you play you WILL get your rewards, just not instantly.
EA have never in my life had a successful opening weekend of FIFA and they're EA, these lads are probably shitting themselves lol. Siege had issues for ages, Fortnite was a mess for a few days and like I said big sports games are always effed for almost the entire opening weekend. These are some of the most popular multiplayer games out there.
We got it for free (PS4) players, or for less than 20 on steam, patience is a virtue and from the looks of it, it's worth the wait.
This is a much appreciated message, I can tell you :D
We've done everything we can to prepare ourselves for this but things simply go wrong in unpredictable ways when you hit this capacity. There is simply no substitute for real players and we're working through the issues as fast as we can.
Pay the IT guys a little extra after those long shifts they are doing right now ;)
A lot of the team have been up since 4am, and there's no end in sight right now!
Glad to hear you’re doing everything you can. As a dev myself I understand the challenges, though I do stand by my criticism of not being able to properly support you lads.
Is there no way players can contribute to you monetarily outside of the item shop or buying the steam version? I want this game to succeed, but I’m worried that without a constant stream of new levels, skins, etc. the game could suffer. Money runs the show after all. Especially after Epic and IF - though massive companies - have set the standard for BR games. I know your team/business is not as big as theirs, but players won’t see it this way. They’ll expect your game to compete on a content stream level, but I’m sure you already know this.
Would love to be able to “buy” the game on PS4 too or support through a BP system. You’ll get money out of me through skins guaranteed, but that depends on when things release..
Apologies if my criticism came across as too harsh, as someone in the field I just hate making or hearing about such issues. I recognize you’re doing all you can, I just hope the game is consistent eventually!
Not all! People on reddit don't f*ck about with their opinions and frankly I wouldn't want them to! It's great to have a community that are so passionate about the game and you can't have the praise without the criticism it brings. You're also totally right that players don't really care WHO is making their game, they just want the best content immediately. It's a scary place to be in for sure.
We know that Fall Guys relies on novelty and content to keep people interested, and the team are flat out making new content to make sure we've got exciting new things for them to play. Some of things are straightforward (new maps, new skins), but some are much harder and put us into completely new territory (how the f*ck do we even go about making a level editor and curating content for a 60 player game?!). We'll have plenty of stuff coming out over the next few weeks to help players support the game, but the best thing to do is just sharing the game you know and talking about your experiences.
Some may see this as your uphill battle. You already jumped some obstacles but there is more ahead.
That said, I really like the game and actually can wait for updates, stability, content and so on...
This is a great analogy!
Game development is like Slime Climb and we just reached the yellow logs