Multiplayer Story News

[Poptart]

Am I the only one extremely disappointed the Multiplayer won't have a story at all? I'm not even sure why we'd play it ( we as in my circle of friends ). Only one person likes building workshops, and everyone gets bored doing every day commissions.

[Dex]

Yes, you are the only person :) (check the news comments)

[Ihateeverybody]

I am willing to see what they bring to the Table in the next test.

I genuinely enjoyed Public Beta Test 1. I felt the whole Idea of the Prequel had merit and was very interested in experiencing the Boom Times in Sandrock. I did NOT like the Builders Platuau though. Felt it removed me from the Town Proper.

Public Beta Test 2 I failed to like. Qi's Virtual Reality solved all the Story problems but again, it made it no stakes. What's the point of doing anything, its all fake?

I can't imagine what they will roll out with the next Beta and the Final Product. But I remain interested. Sceptical mind you, but interested.

[Belz]

Same. I don't think I'd enjoy playing anything that doesn't have a goal.
I was really excited to share the whole My Time series experience with my friends, and to me the best thing is the story and NPC quests. The workshop and "design" part feels more like a job that I only did to complete the story.
I do understand their reason being resources and time, etc., but I had hope that the multiplayer project could even take longer if that meant it could be something more complete.
I'll try it when it's out and hope it can be better than what it seems rn in my head, but if it's really no story or goal, sadly I don't think I'll last a week.

[Nan]

We were looking forward to the multiplayer implementation for the game as my GF and I were needing a replacement for Stardew Valley. However, as sad as these news are, we still have other options, such as Roots of Pacha and Coral Island, so it's not all bad.

[JVC]

It's sad if the work they put into giving Sandrock a past if that is just wasted. Hopefully they'll eventually reuse that story in some kind of form.

[rinofwater]

I won't be disappointed at them nixxing story in multi as long as there are still overarching goals of some kind to work towards (tbh, the "story" that was already there pretty much felt like a list of building projects instead of a cohesive narrative anyway, so nothing much lost there for my experience with it), but this is not the kind of game that it's fun to play without some sort of concrete goal to work towards, so I would hate to see this mode end up being a pure sandbox-type experience

I *am* a little...eh...on how they decided to describe the dropping the story. "We decided it wasn't good enough for you guys" feels a bit like saying "well since you all HATE what we're working on, we just won't do anything with it, are you happy now?" Which I can understand the frustration, and the idea of the "compressed timeline" isn't a bad one, but this being a game about day-to-day work and living, that was never going to be a very good framework for that sort of storytelling in the first place

What I would have been happy to see is if they just picked an era and stuck to that. A lot of what has historically been going on in the multi setting suggests that it's centralized around the time the warning signs of ♥♥♥♥ hitting the fan for Sandrock started popping up. If they had just kept that as their consistent setting for the timeline of that mode, I think it would work out a lot better. It was really cool to see the younger versions of some of the NPCs, and the NPCs who aren't in town anymore in the flesh. I hope they'll revisit the "past of Sandrock" idea but with a tighter focus in the future. And in the meantime, yeah, there needs to be something to work towards or else all those towns are going to end up with really short playtimes

[Poptart]

Originally posted by rinofwater:

I won't be disappointed at them nixxing story in multi as long as there are still overarching goals of some kind to work towards (tbh, the "story" that was already there pretty much felt like a list of building projects instead of a cohesive narrative anyway, so nothing much lost there for my experience with it), but this is not the kind of game that it's fun to play without some sort of concrete goal to work towards, so I would hate to see this mode end up being a pure sandbox-type experience

I *am* a little...eh...on how they decided to describe the dropping the story. "We decided it wasn't good enough for you guys" feels a bit like saying "well since you all HATE what we're working on, we just won't do anything with it, are you happy now?" Which I can understand the frustration, and the idea of the "compressed timeline" isn't a bad one, but this being a game about day-to-day work and living, that was never going to be a very good framework for that sort of storytelling in the first place

What I would have been happy to see is if they just picked an era and stuck to that. A lot of what has historically been going on in the multi setting suggests that it's centralized around the time the warning signs of ♥♥♥♥ hitting the fan for Sandrock started popping up. If they had just kept that as their consistent setting for the timeline of that mode, I think it would work out a lot better. It was really cool to see the younger versions of some of the NPCs, and the NPCs who aren't in town anymore in the flesh. I hope they'll revisit the "past of Sandrock" idea but with a tighter focus in the future. And in the meantime, yeah, there needs to be something to work towards or else all those towns are going to end up with really short playtimes

It actually surprised me that they removed the story portion. Their initial story premise sounded really thrilling.

I was even still behind it when it was suggested that the MP was a VR experience of Sandrock's history of some fashion. I thought that could also lead to some fun / funny interactions ( including potential 4th wall breaking moments of encountering Elsie or someone in it with a ' I know I ain't supposed to be born yet, but that don't mean I ain't allowed to play too ' lines or something.

I was looking forward to seeing where they were gonna take it.

[JdogthaCowboy]

Shocker another game company thats going back on its word. they sold the game stating it be my time at portia but with multiplayer. Experience a new story solo or seamlessly in coop. Since they completly scraping the story cause it require to much work.
Its safe to say they lied to us and just trying to tie up loose ends an leave us with another half ass game.

[样]

(Hi, we have clarified this a bit more in the comment below the news post. Please allow me to paste that here)
We would like to clarify the multiplayer situation and address some unclear parts. The decision to remove the old story mode was carefully considered player feedback, expectations, internal input, and development constraints.

The code base wasn't initially optimized for multiplayer, and our inexperienced team decided to develop multiplayer as a separate game with its own code base and gameplay due to concerns about replicating complex story and NPC interactions. Beta test feedback showed design issues, a lack of replay value, and the risk of not meeting the game's launch deadline.

To address these challenges, we reevaluated the gameplay and shifted the focus to four-player collaboration in building up the town of Sandrock through activities like building, fighting, dating, and so on. We also tried many ways and expanded gameplay options to enhance the experience. We sincerely invite you to try it out next month, we belive the rearranged systems will offer a fun game with dynamic leveling for both single-players and multiplayer groups.

Again, we apologize for the disappointment regarding the multiplayer, and we acknowledge that many things could have worked better. Nevertheless, we must accept the decisions made and work with what we have now. We may explore more possibilities for the future.

[Hauntings]

We still don't know for sure there will be no story elements at all. Because there will still be some town goals and NPC interactions etc.

[☠Marie☠]

Yeah I'm pretty disappointed too. II only bought the game to have the full multiplayer experience with my sister, and the story was a huge (if not the biggest) component for me. The last time I touched the game was during a multiplayer test, because I literally don't care about the single player mode, I've already played My Time at Portia and didn't want another single player experience (I did like My Time at Portia but at that time I actually wanted to play a single player game) We will probably give it a shot still ,but now I'm not expecting very much. If it's bad then I will know to wait before buying future games from this developer, until the game is released,to avoid the early access blues of unfulfilled promises and let downs. Too many times there are discrepancies between what we are promised vs what we get.

[Coltrek]

Maybe the developer can look at Palia, Astroneer for examples.

[Frieren]

I'm not disappointed - in saying that - I wasn't going to be playing multiplayer anyways so my expectations were low.

[Tanya]

Originally posted by 样:

The code base wasn't initially optimized for multiplayer

Then you shouldn't have made it seem like you had multiplayer in mind all along.

Building, fighting and dating are CHORES that you do while you progress the story - without the story, you don't have anything special. There are far better building, fighting, and dating games out there for people who want something focused on that.

[样]

Howdy, we have posted an Steam article to clarify this situation further. Please refer to this news for the reason behind the decision：

Multiplayer Explanations News Link