MMORPG Tycoon 2

MMORPG Tycoon 2

View Stats:
T'Variusness Tacktheritrix Dec 16, 2024 @ 1:04am
7
3
This game is essentially a scam - DO NOT BUY
So let's do a little reality check on this game.
Hopefully, whoever is thinking about buying it will decide not to, and those eligible for refund will refund it.

So the premise: a RTS game where you build your own MMO. Cool concept, huh? Players running around, doing dungeons, buying gear... you designing your own mobs and NPCs...
Yeah except that's not what the game is.

You are locked to a set number of slots when designing 3D models, and can only use a VERY limited selection. Once you've made 10 different original models, you've basically made them all. Oh, and have fun with only having the option to use around 10 models. FOR THE ENTIRE GAME, WHICH MAY BE WELL OVER 50 REGIONS. Have fun.
The opposite is the case with designing abilities. Sure, you can tweak a bunch of stuff so that you get a VERY barebones, very rudimentary set of abilities similar to 1.0 vanilla WoW, BUT HAVE YOU SEEN the graphics for the abilities which you can choose from?
Why does the game have so many of them, BUT THE DEVS CAN'T BE ASKED TO GIVE A ♥♥♥♥ ABOUT MAKING GRAPHICS FOR THE ACHIEVEMENTS? After about 6 years of early access? You know, those achievements which are basically a placeholder, and have been for years?
Oh and players buying gear? That would be fun to design, right? Yeeeeeeah, too bad bub. Players will get a gear status, like "adequate" and such. Yeah it would be a fun game addition, but that's not what we're doing here.
There are so many oddities in how stuff is designed and made.

Wanna make some cool dungeons so you get that WoW vibe? Too bad, NPCs will either group up and just stand in one place, or they'll get stuck on geometry/pathfinding in dungeons. NO MATTER HOW WELL YOU DESIGN THEM.
Oh, we have a mechanic for unruly players and griefers, isn't that fun? Well, too bad, enjoy manually hunting them down and clicking them one by one, otherwise YOUR ENTIRE GAME'S REPUTATION WILL SUFFER.
Your game has it's own stats which affect what kind of players will play it, isn't that neat? Except this affects literally absolutely nothing: players will do whatever tech and features you have unlocked.

And loads and loads of endless issues and incredibly bizzare design choices.

Now, let's get to the meat of this post, the reason I'm making it: the endless development hell of early access.
As far as I can tell, there are multiple people working on the game, but those seem to be freelancers working on stuff like new 3D models. The bulk of the game, ie. coding and design, is made by one person, the main dev. Therefore, naturally, I shift all my blame towards that one person.
The one person who treats this like a passion project and a hobby, sporadically updating useless stuff when they feel like it, which would be fine by me, IF THIS GAME WAS FREE, and available to download on like a GitHub or something.
But no, this is an actual product which you pay money for, which gets updated whenever A SINGLE PERSON FEELS CREATIVE THAT PARTICULAR WEEK.
And the updates... OH, THE UPDATES.
Basically, the last major update happened around September 2024. The game was being sold for 4 years at that point. 4. YEARS. And after those 4 years, the game is supposedly the version "0.20". Wanna know what the version was exactly a year ago? 0.19.
That's right, out of 4 years of being out, the last year of updates made the game jump a staggering, unbelievable, single version digit.
But hey, "we are updating the game all the time", right? Right. You mean the random geometry and building models you add 4 times a year, just to pad out your activity log, and shut up any people like me? The updates which, very obviously, are just asset packs commissioned to outside 3D modellers, which are COMPLETELY NEEDLESS AND DO NOT ADDRESS ANY UNFINISHED ASPECTS OF THE GAME, and which, even IF we were to be gracious and consider them actual updates to the game, ONLY HAPPEN AROUND 4 TIMES A YEAR. Now mind you, these updates generally include roughly 10-15 3D models, all done in an extremely simple, cartoonish, low effort artstyle.
So, again, the game dev/s update a couple lines of code a couple times a year, and slap on around 50 VERY low quality 3D models into the game per year. That's it. That's all the activity you're getting.

Enjoy your never-to-be-finished, badly executed, badly implemented, badly optimized, and horribly executed WoW bootleg creator.
Maybe, if we cross our fingers and sacrifice a lamb daily, with the current speed of development, the game with it's STAGGERINGLY fast and impressive dev cycle will crawl out of early access and become a full release by the year 2105. 0,01 added to the game version per year, after all.
And I'm sure the dev will drag it out even longer, and many, many people will give him his money for this bait and switch in the meantime.
Last edited by T'Variusness Tacktheritrix; Dec 16, 2024 @ 1:08am
< >
Showing 1-15 of 41 comments
FRH_HerrGeneral Dec 16, 2024 @ 5:20am 
Hi,
I agree with half of your statements about the lacking of game's functionalities.
For your information, the other half of your concerns here is on the way to the next update (more slots, dev management and progression update), which is on the beta branch right now.
Not a fan of call it a scam tho, you could just give a negative review on your expectations and impatience without leading your crusade.
>expectations and impatience

My guy in Christ, I've been playing this game on and off literally since it came out.
There is nothing impatient about what I said, please don't project your own views onto people without knowing actual facts.
Couple the fact that you did that, without hesitation, with the fact that you felt the need to tell me "Hey, I don't agree!"... like, so what? Why would I need anyone to agree with me?
I'm telling people how it is, mainly people who are wondering whether to buy this steaming pile.
Last edited by T'Variusness Tacktheritrix; Dec 16, 2024 @ 6:14am
Golden Dias Dec 16, 2024 @ 9:19am 
I agree with you. The game has been out for 4 years now and the progression of updates is as slow as a high school student doing it in class. Limiting slots of your heroes. Factions that should have been numero uno and priority after 4 years are nowhere to be found. Instead of redoing the whole game because of dungeons, which I stopped using anyway since they are totally boring in idea. Then it took 3 months to translate into different languages. Translation when you have limiting content is really an great and smart idea :)))) . Quests are only, go and come back or go and kill, no other option. Little choice of effects for abilities and one can mention things one would like to see and are not a priority. Inventory when it is a tycoon mmo rpg should be a priority and still nothing. What else does one do in an mmo? Fishing, forging, various crafting, cutting down trees, mining for resources, having some pets to travel on. You have 1 big update a year and then the rest of the useless smaller updates or just new building visuals that are purely visual and add nothing new. Oh my god, how I wish a different studio would come along and steal this concept and overwhelm the egotistical Trevor
Last edited by Golden Dias; Dec 16, 2024 @ 9:21am
Damn son, you mentioned stuff that didn't even occur to me, yet you're 100% right.
Imagine if the game was made by competent people, and you could DESIGN professions, such as fishing, or make your own, like I dunno, demon hunting or something.
=Skleebz= Dec 16, 2024 @ 11:10am 
Originally posted by Golden Dias:
Oh my god, how I wish a different studio would come along and steal this concept and overwhelm the egotistical Trevor
You're in luck. Check out "Let's build a dungeon" on Steam.
Furina Dec 20, 2024 @ 10:05pm 
It's obviously "a side project" for the developers. Like there is 0 chance anyone works fulltime on this. I guess the devs have other full time jobs and don't bother with this game anymore because its not profitable.
Originally posted by Furina:
It's obviously "a side project" for the developers. Like there is 0 chance anyone works fulltime on this. I guess the devs have other full time jobs and don't bother with this game anymore because its not profitable.
Doesn't change the fact that everyone who bought this basically wasted their money, and that the game is essentially fake advertising.
なかの30 Dec 22, 2024 @ 7:17pm 
Originally posted by =Skleebz=:
Originally posted by Golden Dias:
Oh my god, how I wish a different studio would come along and steal this concept and overwhelm the egotistical Trevor
You're in luck. Check out "Let's build a dungeon" on Steam.
"Let's build a dungeon" is no better. I tried the demo of it and I felt extremely restricted about designing a mmo.
I can't even design quests, because the quests themselves are premade. I just have to place the objects and actors for the quest in the world.
gota Dec 22, 2024 @ 8:27pm 
I'm having a lot of fun so far. I did check out that other games store page and it's a bit too cartoony for me. I did see there is a test build is available for the next uldate with frequent chatter on the discord from testers. So hopefully big update soon!
groundzeroday Dec 26, 2024 @ 4:04pm 
lost me at all caps GRAPHICS FOR THE ACHIEVEMENTS? literally who cares
also dude has been developing this concept since 2008, hardly a "scam" to work on something for almost 20 years...
Last edited by groundzeroday; Dec 26, 2024 @ 4:05pm
Originally posted by groundzeroday:
lost me at all caps GRAPHICS FOR THE ACHIEVEMENTS? literally who cares
also dude has been developing this concept since 2008, hardly a "scam" to work on something for almost 20 years...
The point of that was something along the lines of "okay, he can't be asked to make a working product, but not even something as small as making graphics which would take even me, not a developer, 15 minutes at the most"

It was absolutely not meant as "OH GOD PLEASE NOT THE ACHIEVEMENT GRAPHICS", although I get why that exact interpretation is funny. :Khappy:

Also, rage is hell of a fuel to write a rant with.

Also also, "literally who cares" is not a healthy attitude. It's this attitude that caused the world to absolutely ♥♥♥♥ itself into it's current state: you can only go "who cares lmao, have you seen this tiktok" so much before the Rome falls around you. Weird comparison, but hopefully you get the point.
I care. I bought a game. I didn't get a game, I got a barely functional pet project. I want my money back, purely based on principle, and I can't get it back. I care.

And I will continue to sh*t on this circlejerk until the day that this becomes a functional, reliable, optimized ACTUAL game, if only to be a constant nuisance in the discussions to remind would-be buyers that no, you shouldn't waste your money on this.
Last edited by T'Variusness Tacktheritrix; Dec 26, 2024 @ 7:58pm
夜寻 Dec 26, 2024 @ 7:58pm 
I want to say that I completely agree with your opinion. I'm a Chinese player. MMO used to be the most popular game genre in China. I bought this game at its launch and spent 210 hours on it. What you said is indeed these problems, but what puzzles me the most is the community. Every time I see months of waiting only result in a few building updates, I hope to see the community criticize the developers and urge them to fill in more substantial content. But instead, I see the community praising his work. Maybe they are too rich and don't consider the game's price as a consumption. Some people in the community have been praising for four years, and the developer has been coasting for four years. Dead game
Originally posted by 夜寻:

Well said.
As the guy above me said, "literally who cares".
That's the attitude of the community. Too much money to spend, too few braincells. They literally don't care that what Trevor has done is actually illegal in some countries, like mine.
WIbigdog Dec 27, 2024 @ 6:29pm 
Can I ask a question about the game that jumped out to me right away. Do players always have to turn quests back in to the place they got it? Can it not be "go talk to this person" and talking to that person IS turning in the quest to get the rewards? Seems like players always have to travel back to the original quest giver?
sudonym Dec 28, 2024 @ 5:40am 
Originally posted by なかの30:
Originally posted by =Skleebz=:
You're in luck. Check out "Let's build a dungeon" on Steam.
"Let's build a dungeon" is no better. I tried the demo of it and I felt extremely restricted about designing a mmo.
I can't even design quests, because the quests themselves are premade. I just have to place the objects and actors for the quest in the world.


FWIW, in the full game for LBAD you are able to customize every aspect of the game -- you can create your own quests / objectives, write your own dialogue with the conversation editor, even draw your own custom NPC sprites or edit existing ones.
Last edited by sudonym; Dec 28, 2024 @ 5:42am
< >
Showing 1-15 of 41 comments
Per page: 1530 50