Do not buy. Abandonware

[HellbentMadness]

....

[Blueberry Muffins!]

If you want a medieval-technology physics based builder this is the best there is and really? It's damned good, the world's got some depth to it, it looks good and gets a lot of what there is to get.

Turns out there's not enough people who want what this is after to fund development of all the glorious ideas anyone could possibly imagine, and there's some stubs left in the game (combat is too crude to be playable, you can use assaults to find weak spots in your defenses but the game's only really about construction, design, engineering, aesthetics, solo and co-op design, not even really pve).

[Johnbeere]

Not abandoned. It still has an active community and the game's development has been handed over to the community, where there's been slow but steady work. You have to go to betas and select Community Edition to get those fixes - the game is far more stable with CE.

[HellbentMadness]

Originally posted by Johnbeere:

Not abandoned. It still has an active community and the game's development has been handed over to the community, where there's been slow but steady work. You have to go to betas and select Community Edition to get those fixes - the game is far more stable with CE.

Think about what you just said. IT WAS HANDED OVER to unpaid community members AND even then Keen still has to approve the updates.....so where are they? Is the game finished? Is there even and end game goal that you work towards......no. Far more stable? Still far from an actual game. Tell me. Ive built my castle. Then what......

[Johnbeere]

Maybe it's not the game for you, but that doesn't mean you need to throw a fit in the Steam forums, lol

[HellbentMadness]

Originally posted by Johnbeere:

Maybe it's not the game for you, but that doesn't mean you need to throw a fit in the Steam forums, lol

Throw a fit? Dude you came here and lied to people saying this game is still being worked on and not abandoned......Seems you are the one throwing a fit. I have 170 hours in game.....

[Johnbeere]

If we're arguing based on hours, I have 5,400 hours in game. I personally know the community devs and keep up with progress on CE. I'm one of the owners of the most active ME Discord, and I'm one of the few modders still around this game. So no, I'm not lying, I know what I'm talking about.

[Getty]

I'm in the same forum JohnBeere is a part of. The active community is rather small, but there are people who volunteer their own time to fix the issues associated with the game, as well as develop mods for it. There are many things besides building/medieval siege equipment now. We have steam/internal combustion engines, trains, automated industrial systems, tracked vehicles, airplanes, submarines, airships, hovercrafts, rockets, modern artillery with offsets, mouse aimed machine guns, the list goes on. It's alot of fun. :)

[Blueberry Muffins!]

Waiting for OP to find another molehill to die on, 3.. 2.. 1..

[2% Milk]

This game is Abandonware. Anyone who justify that its not is ignorant. Keen chose to refuse to update this game. This needs to be removed. The fanatical fanbois banned.

[Johnbeere]

Look, I'm not a huge fan of Keen's decisions at all, but the fact of the matter is that this game is still being worked on and updated, even if not by Keen, and the game still has plenty of players. Keen wasn't really under any obligation to continue updating the game anyway - they hadn't made any promises as to what this game would become. Except for leaving the game a buggy mess, which is fixed with CE, it has plenty of features if you're looking for a Medieval castle building game.

But anyway, I know all these guys are trolls just looking to stir the pot, it's just good to make that clear to anyone reading these forums.

[titanius anglesmith]

Originally posted by Johnbeere:

Look, I'm not a huge fan of Keen's decisions at all, but the fact of the matter is that this game is still being worked on and updated, even if not by Keen, and the game still has plenty of players. Keen wasn't really under any obligation to continue updating the game anyway - they hadn't made any promises as to what this game would become. Except for leaving the game a buggy mess, which is fixed with CE, it has plenty of features if you're looking for a Medieval castle building game.

But anyway, I know all these guys are trolls just looking to stir the pot, it's just good to make that clear to anyone reading these forums.

"plenty of players" ermmm nope

[Monkaygab]

Originally posted by HellbentMadness:

Originally posted by Johnbeere:

Maybe it's not the game for you, but that doesn't mean you need to throw a fit in the Steam forums, lol

Throw a fit? Dude you came here and lied to people saying this game is still being worked on and not abandoned......Seems you are the one throwing a fit. I have 170 hours in game.....

i mean it wasnt a lie you can publicly look up the website for the community version and see the two devs solely responsible for it have been steady PUBLICLY listing any and every bug/update they are/have finished and there is hundreds of it but ofc since they're unpaid it's taken them a very long time

[Swiss_Spetsnaz]

to be honest, ME is a slowly dieing game. Most active players are longtime-fans and some newbies coming and going. If there is another game coming with close features, this game is totaly dead. The best ME server had 10-12 players at best time - for ME its many but in real its nothing. Updates coming very slowly and the game needs years to be "good". There are Dev's & Updates, its not dead atm. but its a revived zombie. I think thats closer^^ Im still playing ME with mods, but just because there is not another game like this. Best is for you dudes here to try out mods and if they dont fit you, its better to look for another game. Im also still waiting^^

[Drizzt]

short version (for as much as i am capable of brevity):

- there is no other game like this
- modders have made thousands of incredible mods to build on the unique engine
- some modders (who are also experienced software developers, volunteering their time due to their passion for the game, and out of sheer generosity) have now been allowed access to the code to fix the previously unstable engine
- the Community Edition is stable and playable in vanilla
- the Community Edition allows the thousands of incredible mods to be played and enjoyed in a stable environment

also - it's really great fun - possibly the most fun sandbox physics based building game there is - especially since the modders have taken the physics and dialled it up to a million - so that you can take the technology from carts to cars to freakin' rockets - with trains, balloons, and pretty much every kind of engine and mechanical device that has been devised by humans

===========
longer version
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i too was sad when the game was abandoned in a broken state, since i had had some fun with it over the years - but i ended up putting in no more than a few dozen hours since i could not deal with the unstable state the engine was left in (i mostly got to playing it after development had stopped. even though i bought it soon after it entered Early Access)

since i decided to come back and install the Community Edition, i have added at least 100 hours to my playtime - which is already enough for me to feel i have gotten good value from this game

i am also finally able to play with mods - since previously the vanilla game was so unstable that i never even got to the workshop - now i have played a lot of vanilla and vanilla+, and have a bunch of "always use" mods - as well as hundreds of other more game changing mods that have impressed me greatly when i have tried them - and i am still planning to get to a proper industrial age playthrough at some point - as well as a proper water based playthrough etc

plus unlike space engineers this game still allows planet size to be modded without needing to resort to a third party tool - which is nice

anyway - i am sure i am simply preaching to the choir, and am unlikely to change anyone's mind - since some people just seem to love to look for the negative rather than acknowledge the positive

but the truth is that the Community Edition devs have given owners of this game what i expect most of us wanted most of all by the end - a stable version of the game - that can be played in vanilla, or loaded up with mods - and can be played for double digit hours long sessions without crashes, or getting killed by the tree you just chopped down etc

and they have done so, and are continuing to do so - not for money - but because they wanted to do it, and found a way to do it, and had the talent to do it - and they are doing it in their own time - and i for one am endlessly grateful for their efforts

so for existing owners, the Community Edition is the "true" edition of this game - and i imagine it will become the main branch of the game one day

and for anyone looking to buy this game - i would expect they would do some investigation - especially since the review average is "mixed" - and they can decide for themselves if they think it's worth 5 bucks or so for the only game like this that exists

and if anyone accidentally buys it without realising that the CE is the only stable version - then luckily for them they will only have to ask to be directed to it - and will get a working version of the game straight out of the box

also, the Community Edition is pretty much front and centre on the store page - so any new customers will have to be pretty unthinking in their purchases to not be aware of what they are buying

either way - this game certainly needs to remain on Steam, if only so that existing owners can continue to use the game and the workshop - and so that the Community Edition can continue

any new purchaser will be getting the only game of this kind that exists - with a workshop of mods that is so vast that i truly wonder if and when we will see another sandbox physics simulation of this depth

and hopefully even if those purchases don't cover their expenses, Keen will still keep the machinery running - since i am sure they are still doing pretty well with Space Engineers (although personally so long as i can access the current CE edition and the workshop i will be happy - since there is enough content there to last a lifetime - and CE 7.3 is stable enough to play it for that long)

anyway - that's enough waffle from me

all that is left to say is:

Thank You Community Edition Devs For Saving This Game :-)

[Johnbeere]

One thing that's often overlooked is that the very thing that enabled all of those mods to be created is ME's abandonment. If it was continually updated, modders would expect their work to break and, like in earlier versions, make less impressive mods since there wasn't much point to making mods that would then break. Having a stable version of ME where nothing breaks has been great for allowing mods to really become more in-depth and capable.

Now, I'm not defending the abandonment as some kind of way to help modders, but it ultimately did just that.