How much chance of abandonware?

[xXx]

I like this game would consider a purchase! But i saw that american railroads looks like it was still in development and they abandoned it for this game. How much chance is there for thid to happen again? Also is there a roadmap?

[coenvijge]

It seems that 'they' stopped the development of American Railroads to make a better product (also changing the 'game engine'). For me it's a very good reason. There are very good discounts for the users of American Railroads. I see it more as a continuing development under another name. So for me Americon Railroads isn't abondonware and I think there is also little risk that Railroads Online becomes abondonware.
Both were/are early access. And ofcourse EA has it's risks.

[Congobajeren✅]

Railroad Online have taken off like a rocket Don't think they will abandon it!

[Flying Loot Goblin]

Originally posted by coenvijge:

It seems that 'they' stopped the development of American Railroads to make a better product (also changing the 'game engine'). For me it's a very good reason. There are very good discounts for the users of American Railroads. I see it more as a continuing development under another name. So for me Americon Railroads isn't abondonware and I think there is also little risk that Railroads Online becomes abondonware.
Both were/are early access. And ofcourse EA has it's risks.

Leaving a product in a buggy state only to launch a second product with the fixes to those bugs is the definition of abandoning software. Who is to say the devs wont decide to do another feature update, and make "Railroads online 2: now with a new engine" and abandon railroads online?

[coenvijge]

This is from a post from the dev (august '21).


"
Dear community,

Big news! The Unreal multiplayer build has now reached the closed alpha version! For the last two months we have been testing the entire game under real multiplayer conditions in order to provide a smooth gameplay experience upon release!

A lot has happened during this last and very busy half year: We have added a lot of new rolling stock, various industries and freight types, realtime landscape editing features, and a stunning 16km^2 open world map. Also we have been growing as a team - alongside with our playerbase on Steam and our fanbase on the Discord server counting now 400+ members.

We have built a completely new game in the Unreal engine with more content than ever. Because of the sheer size of the update and the countless hours spent working on it i also have decided to start a professional carrer in this industry as a game developer.

As a result we have decided to release the Unreal version as a brandnew, separate game:

RAILROADS ONLINE!

Besides all the mentioned features above RAILROADS Online! also comes translated into 10 different languages for all railroading fans around the world!
Therefore we will not overwrite „American Railroads“ - keeping it as the nice little Unity game for you to enjoy.

We are truely very grateful for your continuing support and would like to thank you for sticking with us for so long by offering you a special 10% discount in the first week upon release!

Everything regarding the release of RAILROADS ONLINE! will be posted in the following days right here as we are going to launch our first trailer very soon! There is still a lot of work ahead of us but we are confident that we will provide you the railroading experience you all are hoping for.

As always i will let the screenshots of the latest progress speak for itself.

Thank you!
Stefan
"

Maybe technically 'American Railroads' is abandonware but I don't like to see it like that. The step to launch the update as a new game is clearly and open announced on several occasions.
I think Stefan made a good choice and it worked out fine: Like NoNameDK said RAILROADS Online made a very good start.
I wish Stefan and his game a lot of succes.

_______

edit: typo

[Grumpka]

I retracted my comment. After digging into the facts, I realize the dev did in fact ditch the original funders of his venture in many ways. Not sure what the game price was, but I would be mad too if I paid for game that got dropped and left a mess. They should have been given a free pass to the new version as that would be the honest thing to do. At least for those who purchased it in the last six months.

I for one will save my $35.00 and see how things play out. Love to mess with the title, but I'm not going to pay to be a beta tester, which is exactly what I'm seeing out of this title. Early access/beta. I wish the dev luck. Hope scenery editor is added and bugs are fixed. I'll be back to purchase. Otherwise, not a great track record, LOLZ. See what I did there.... 'track' record. Uhg.

[gombicek]

While I agree that it should have been free for owners of AR, I can relate as to why he did it. And at least owners of AR who owned the game before RO where given a discount, and the price of AR was substracted from the price of RO. And you can buy RO in a bundle with AR, thus getting AR for free. Sure it is EA and it as all quirks associated with it, when you are buying EA game, I see it more as supporting the dev, than as buying a game.

[Kitsune Dawn]

Given how much work we're putting into things... (I'm part of the team) zero chance.

[Overland]

I love how my comment was deleted..
really wish you wouldnt do that, as im inching towards buying the game despite my hatred for stefans personal style im very supportive of the rest of the team and absolutely see the great work done... to ...re-add my comment.. i dont think itd be abandoned

as the rest of the team seem to be good hard working people who love what thier doing, its lovely work.. my personal angle on the whole thing is despite the sins of....the father . so to speak . railroads online seems to be a great game . if we all didnt buy products because we hated the CEOs past of any company we'd never buy anything

go on.. delete this again stefan..
your a sad bloke ill give you that but i love your game :)

zero chance of it being abandoned
railroads online deserves its place in the big names of the indie train genre

[Grumpka]

I was hoping to see more constructive feedback from devs here. I like the title more and more via youtube videos, but wonder how things will progress. Early access titles...just not sure the STEAM system of allowing devs to charge for half built titles should even be a thing. It is a thing, and people keep paying despite the risk. I guess Atari burnt me for $65.00 EA on tycoon world. So, even a big dev has no guarantees. We all seem too willing to pay to be beta testers. That's my real issue with Steam and EA titles. We should get some major discount for being early adopters/alpha or beta testers. LOCO is a giant example of such. $20.00 to play a very basic demo of some dev's ideas that weren't even close to a fully functional game. Uhg.

[Kitsune Dawn]

Originally posted by Grumpka:

I was hoping to see more constructive feedback from devs here. I like the title more and more via youtube videos, but wonder how things will progress. Early access titles...just not sure the STEAM system of allowing devs to charge for half built titles should even be a thing. It is a thing, and people keep paying despite the risk. I guess Atari burnt me for $65.00 EA on tycoon world. So, even a big dev has no guarantees. We all seem too willing to pay to be beta testers. That's my real issue with Steam and EA titles. We should get some major discount for being early adopters/alpha or beta testers. LOCO is a giant example of such. $20.00 to play a very basic demo of some dev's ideas that weren't even close to a fully functional game. Uhg.

We're primarily on the discord. However, there's (on average) about 3000 people there at any given time. So there's that. This, honestly, doesn't see as much interaction with us working on new content, and trying to fix issues.

https://discord.gg/VYT7kh9z

[Ben_Coyote]

Originally posted by Flying Loot Goblin:

Originally posted by coenvijge:

It seems that 'they' stopped the development of American Railroads to make a better product (also changing the 'game engine'). For me it's a very good reason. There are very good discounts for the users of American Railroads. I see it more as a continuing development under another name. So for me Americon Railroads isn't abondonware and I think there is also little risk that Railroads Online becomes abondonware.
Both were/are early access. And of course EA has it's risks.

Leaving a product in a buggy state only to launch a second product with the fixes to those bugs is the definition of abandoning software. Who is to say the devs wont decide to do another feature update, and make "Railroads online 2: now with a new engine" and abandon railroads online?

Then if that's the case, then consider these other games on steam abandoned..
Kerbal Space Program (They're working on 2 as we speak).
Fallout 76. Bethesda got bought out by Microsoft.
Fall Guys. Let's face it, it's dead after a year.
Among Us. No new stuff, no new games.. Same old Impostors.

No the real chance of this is in fact zero. The reason is this. It's still in Alpha. In fact some games have been in beta for years. But then let's be honest here. How many Developers does this game have? 1? 2? 10? 100? You tell me. and then we'll see if this game is abandoned. Of course let's look at it from that same aspect.. when you ar edealing with one developer. it takes TIME for a developer to work out a bunch of bugs.. Kerbal space program 1 for example still has bugs in it , yet the development team (of about 10 or so), actually are still going to be doing "Quality of life" updates even though the game is really in it's final form. Then there's the mod makers... (Yes KSP is modded), and thus that's new content that is created by the community. So if you think KSP is being abandoned totally it's just evolving like a Pokemon.. After all games are meant to be open ended. and in fact that's the thing, People can think what they want and judge accordingly, but to me this game is just getting started. So right now the chance of this game being abandoned is about as much as Fallout 76 being a great game.. which is of course . zero.

[Vinterfjer]

Originally posted by Kitsune Dawn:

Originally posted by Grumpka:

I was hoping to see more constructive feedback from devs here. I like the title more and more via youtube videos, but wonder how things will progress. Early access titles...just not sure the STEAM system of allowing devs to charge for half built titles should even be a thing. It is a thing, and people keep paying despite the risk. I guess Atari burnt me for $65.00 EA on tycoon world. So, even a big dev has no guarantees. We all seem too willing to pay to be beta testers. That's my real issue with Steam and EA titles. We should get some major discount for being early adopters/alpha or beta testers. LOCO is a giant example of such. $20.00 to play a very basic demo of some dev's ideas that weren't even close to a fully functional game. Uhg.

We're primarily on the discord. However, there's (on average) about 3000 people there at any given time. So there's that. This, honestly, doesn't see as much interaction with us working on new content, and trying to fix issues.

https://discord.gg/VYT7kh9z

Well hearing from you guys on occasion on here is helpful to some of us who do not use discord. But all work is appreciated.

[Kitsune Dawn]

Originally posted by Ravenlolkai:

Originally posted by Kitsune Dawn:

We're primarily on the discord. However, there's (on average) about 3000 people there at any given time. So there's that. This, honestly, doesn't see as much interaction with us working on new content, and trying to fix issues.

https://discord.gg/VYT7kh9z

Well hearing from you guys on occasion on here is helpful to some of us who do not use discord. But all work is appreciated.

It's just really difficult right now. I mean we're a TINY team, and discord is really starting to take off.

[Vinterfjer]

Originally posted by Kitsune Dawn:

Originally posted by Ravenlolkai:

Well hearing from you guys on occasion on here is helpful to some of us who do not use discord. But all work is appreciated.

It's just really difficult right now. I mean we're a TINY team, and discord is really starting to take off.

I understand that but hey you guys keep at it :) and don't push your selves too hard.

[boris.glevrk]

American Railroads was meant to be a prototype anyway.

This was said by the devs on the Discord.

So unless you think RO can be another prototype, I don't think abandonware would be an issue.

(more like, how big the successor game has to be if THIS is to be considered "just a prototype"?)