What a disappointment to buy this game for multiplayer.

[KokoLoko]

So I bought this game plus a copy for my wife and we were super excited to play through it together. We started playing but the more we played the weirder it seemed that nothing was happening, no story was going on and no interesting quests were showing up.

Turns out that multiplayer in this game is a storyless sandbox mode, which completely ruins the entire reason for even playing it. You are just building for the sake of it.

The game also doesn't TELL you any of this up front, before buying or when starting to play, happily pretending that you are going to play some version of the actual game. You are left to figure this out yourself off the back of your own wasted money and time, obviously way past the refund period.

I basically bought two copies of a bait-and-switch. I would gladly refund it if I still could, it was nothing but a big disappointment and a total waste of time and money.

[RoKnight]

i dont play a single minut of multiplayer so i dont know very well but i have 300 hours in single player and its very good, but if your mission is to find something to play with your wife well, good to know that the game is void in mp

[mskitty]

Since you are past the point of refund you might as well play the solo mode, it's pretty good, and if you can get past being mad you might actually enjoy the game, unless you are one of those people that can't get any enjoyment out of a solo experience.

[JujuManiac]

Thanks for sparing me that experience, I wanted to buy for the same reason.

[House Gnome]

Like the others have said, since the money is now spent, give the solo a try, it's a top notch experience. If you want to experience it with your wife, maybe play solo side by side or do a joint play where one does the actual work while the other watches and makes suggestions.

I sympathize with your complaints. I bought it for solo but decided to give multiplayer a try (alone) and WOW, it was pretty mid. I was disappointed and it wasn't even the mode I paid to play, I can't imagine how disappointed it would be if that was what you bought it for.

[Aerogems]

Originally posted by House Gnome:

Like the others have said, since the money is now spent, give the solo a try, it's a top notch experience. If you want to experience it with your wife, maybe play solo side by side or do a joint play where one does the actual work while the other watches and makes suggestions.

I sympathize with your complaints. I bought it for solo but decided to give multiplayer a try (alone) and WOW, it was pretty mid. I was disappointed and it wasn't even the mode I paid to play, I can't imagine how disappointed it would be if that was what you bought it for.

I was always hopeful the multiplayer from the EA days would make it back into the game as a post-release update, but it seems that's not going to happen.

While there ARE a few update notices from the EA days that talk about the removal of the story driven co-op multiplayer I took a look over the Steam store page and there isn't anything obvious that would tell you this, so I'll give that point to the OP. If they really went looking they would have found it, but it's a bit unreasonable to expect anyone to go to those lengths.

[Rinareth]

For both Portia and Sandrock, my best friend and I each played the main story and then we'd come up with headcanons about how our builders knew each other and what would change in the story if they were both in it. It's not the same as actually getting to play together, but it's pretty fun.

[mskitty]

Originally posted by Aerogems:

Originally posted by House Gnome:

Like the others have said, since the money is now spent, give the solo a try, it's a top notch experience. If you want to experience it with your wife, maybe play solo side by side or do a joint play where one does the actual work while the other watches and makes suggestions.

I sympathize with your complaints. I bought it for solo but decided to give multiplayer a try (alone) and WOW, it was pretty mid. I was disappointed and it wasn't even the mode I paid to play, I can't imagine how disappointed it would be if that was what you bought it for.

I was always hopeful the multiplayer from the EA days would make it back into the game as a post-release update, but it seems that's not going to happen.

While there ARE a few update notices from the EA days that talk about the removal of the story driven co-op multiplayer I took a look over the Steam store page and there isn't anything obvious that would tell you this, so I'll give that point to the OP. If they really went looking they would have found it, but it's a bit unreasonable to expect anyone to go to those lengths.

I don't think they ever intended for mp to have the same story line as solo, there is a couple comments from the dev about it in this thread, also that they didn't have any experience making a mp game in the first place.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1084600/eventcomments/3722820118827560567?snr=2_9_100015_

The My Time games were always intended to be solo play but due to all of the relentless whining about mp on the Portia forum they caved into adding it to Sandrock, and people were not happy about it because they thought it would end up being a grind fest for the solo player, but the devs said they were going to make sure it wouldn't ruin the solo experience, so I guess making a separate mode was their solution to that.

And now it seems that Evershine will be mp, so only time will tell how that turns out, and what kind of a negative affect it might have for solo play. A lot of the time mp games turn out to be kind of mediocre.

[House Gnome]

I think the big issue is the marketing. It's not super clear on the Steam page (I don't know about other platforms, I don't use them) that multiplayer is just a building simulator. If you know what it is when you go in, then great, but it's super opaque. The only way to know is to search the forums for 'opinions', and that's just a horrible way to go.

The onus should never be on the consumer to have to dig for clear information. This game doesn't say much more than "multiplayer mode", so a plain reading of that implies a multiplayer version of the solo play. If multiplayer is fundamentally different than solo play it should be clear and obvious. I mean, that link is an article from 2022, a year before launch, not exactly something a 2024 purchaser would think to look for.

[mskitty]

Originally posted by House Gnome:

I think the big issue is the marketing. It's not super clear on the Steam page (I don't know about other platforms, I don't use them) that multiplayer is just a building simulator. If you know what it is when you go in, then great, but it's super opaque. The only way to know is to search the forums for 'opinions', and that's just a horrible way to go.

The onus should never be on the consumer to have to dig for clear information. This game doesn't say much more than "multiplayer mode", so a plain reading of that implies a multiplayer version of the solo play. If multiplayer is fundamentally different than solo play it should be clear and obvious. I mean, that link is an article from 2022, a year before launch, not exactly something a 2024 purchaser would think to look for.

I agree potential buyers wouldn't go digging that deep for info, but there are many games out there that have both a story mode and a sandbox type mode, so it didn't seem odd to me that the story is only in the solo mode. And it's not like they can't play and enjoy the solo mode as well.

[tadeos_trollhammer]

Thanks OP, was close to buy 3 copies.

[BadMelody]

Glad I looked this up before buying it. Was gonna buy this to play with my girlfriend, but I'd rather get something else during the sale if the multiplayer is pretty bare bones.

[House Gnome]

Originally posted by mskitty:

I agree potential buyers wouldn't go digging that deep for info, but there are many games out there that have both a story mode and a sandbox type mode, so it didn't seem odd to me that the story is only in the solo mode. And it's not like they can't play and enjoy the solo mode as well.

And if it was clear the multiplayer was just a sandbox that would be fine, but it's not. Just because other games have that system doesn't mean this one does. And they didn't buy the game for solo mode but specifically for multiplayer so solo may be of no value to them.

[mskitty]

Originally posted by House Gnome:

Originally posted by mskitty:

I agree potential buyers wouldn't go digging that deep for info, but there are many games out there that have both a story mode and a sandbox type mode, so it didn't seem odd to me that the story is only in the solo mode. And it's not like they can't play and enjoy the solo mode as well.

And if it was clear the multiplayer was just a sandbox that would be fine, but it's not. Just because other games have that system doesn't mean this one does. And they didn't buy the game for solo mode but specifically for multiplayer so solo may be of no value to them.

Sure it should be explained better about the modes, that mp is only sandbox. The 2 modes were designed for 2 different experiences, perhaps they thought people would want to experience both.

Alot of people will play solo in a mp game and be fine with that, but it rarely goes both ways with mp only players being fine with playing solo. I guess I'm just jaded from all of the whining for mp across the forums of solo play games. /shrug.

There won't be a problem with that in Evershine as it will be mp. And it remains to be seen if it will turn out to be a grind fest for the solo players due to bloated content to keep 2 or more players entertained.

[Froot Loop Lux]

The multiplayer mode's development is a bit tumultuous. It was started quite a while after the single player campaign (multiplayer was a kickstarter goal) and originally, the multiplayer mode DID have its own unique storyline where it basically took place 50 or so years before the main game. But, because storylines would have to be condensed in an odd manner and the fact that a lot of people just didn't enjoy them in the first place (the pacing felt really weird imo), they just canned it in favor of a sandbox mode.

Beyond that, the fact that they don't make that apparent on the store page for the game is a bit ridiculous. They could just put "Includes Sandbox Multiplayer Mode" or something. Seeing this post actually made me go double check just to be sure and yeah, that's not made obvious anywhere. I don't know how they expect anyone who wasn't around for the game's development to even know about the differences between MP and SP.