Is Gen Zero dying?

[SniperGirl]

Since the announcement from the company spokes person, seems the forum has started to die, few players joining co-op and not much going on else where either. I know I do not have as much time to play due to starting a new job, moving and just no free time.

Anyone else notice the same?

[flick]

This is the third time the game has died. It's already been in maintenance a while. I get what you mean, but I think there's probably a couple more thin dlc packs in it yet before they give up.

[znurrad]

Which announcement are you talking about?

One of the last lines in the 5 year anniversary post was:
"We will keep supporting Generation Zero with new content, quality of life, and narrative in the future.
Thank you all so much for being the best community any game developer could ask for."

[SniperGirl]

Mid March:
"Help us playtest a future project
We’ve started construction on a new game (no, it’s not GZ2) and we’re looking for people to help us test a super early concept so we can keep working on it with the Community right by our side.
That’s why we’re organizing several rounds of playtests taking place during the next few weeks. If you’re interested, are playing on Steam, and are over 18 years old (You’ll have to sign an NDA), please join this Discord server and read the instructions on how to sign up!"

Even though the number of posts and replies had been slowing down it seem to take a nose dive shortly after this post. Even new player questions after the last 80% off sale were very few.

But I will say that I also have little play time so my personal poll may lack higher numbers. Last few times I have opened my map up for public, guests are next to zero. And that is being online for a few hours at a time. Not that I mind playing solo.

[Zockopa]

I wonder what they are up to,because the last two games they created tanked pretty badly
(2nd Extinction and Ravenbound). And they simply abandoned 2nd Extinction. I wonder if
GZ gets the same treatment,because without a serious investment GZ is EOL.

[🎮 PalkoVvodets 🔑]

There is very limited end game content. Once you've learned machines weak spots, reached max skill points level and upgraded weapons to max there is not really much to do.

Base building isn't enjoying for solo players since its hard to defend multiple sides at once at Guerrilla difficulty. I never lost but there is no fun in restoring third part of the base each module one by one manually.
Half (if not more) of skill list is worthless crap and the obvious skill choice makes game even more boring and repetitive.

Endlessly farm Reapers? For what? I already have everything.

Absolutely brain dead system with Rivals which punish player for destroying it. And hosts have to beg incomers to not kill Rivals so their hard earned region score doesn't drop to zero. Absurd...

[SniperGirl]

Originally posted by 🎮 PalkoVvodets 🔑:

There is very limited end game content. Once you've learned machines weak spots, reached max skill points level and upgraded weapons to max there is not really much to do.

Base building isn't enjoying for solo players since its hard to defend multiple sides at once at Guerrilla difficulty. I never lost but there is no fun in restoring third part of the base each module one by one manually.
Half (if not more) of skill list is worthless crap and the obvious skill choice makes game even more boring and repetitive.

Endlessly farm Reapers? For what? I already have everything.

Absolutely brain dead system with Rivals which punish player for destroying it. And hosts have to beg incomers to not kill Rivals so their hard earned region score doesn't drop to zero. Absurd...

Last night I played for somewhere around 3 or 4 hours. Had a reaper spawn in the north coast region, which is at level 24 with zero rivals. Not long after I headed to the reaper , I faced several machines. They included, tanks, wolves, firebirds and all the smaller machines that go along with them. It was enough battles and time for a rival to spawn. So I diverted my attention to the rival. My map was set to anyone can join all night.

After the rival was destroyed, I headed back to the reaper. I wasn't interested in destroying the reaper right away, was waiting for others to join, so just stayed close enough to take out all it's runners and then the shield emitters. Nice thing about the north coast is lots of terrain to get good distance shots, but then duck down in a low spot to change positions. The reaper knew where I was shooting from but never got a good lock on me, random volleys of rockets is all he could do.

He got tired of my cat and mouse attacks and came running at me. The area he chased me to is where there is a house, a deep body of water, foot bridge of boards to cross, cave that hides the collectibles for Soviet stuff. I ran into the house.

Countless drops of runners and thermal blasts, I exited out the back, looped back around. Then another rival spawned, so left the area to take out the rival. Back to the reaper and had my first visitor just as I destroyed the last emitter. Shortly after, two more players joined. I was already back in the house so deployed field radio. It was strange, for the few hours of solo play, then players joined all in short order. Could be steam causing the issue and not lack of players. lack of posts on the forum seems to suggest it is lack of players.

We quickly destroyed the reaper and I was ready for bed, so closed my game. The game, for me was fun to play even if most the time I was solo. It would of been more fun, I was in the mood for co-op play, if players joined right after I logged in, that has been the norm.

I hope I am wrong about the game development is coming to an end, but it has given me thousands of hours of fun, both in game and on this forum.

Thank you Gen Zero team and those hundreds of players I have met in game and chatted with during that time.

[~V~]

Originally posted by SniperGirl:

Originally posted by 🎮 PalkoVvodets 🔑:

There is very limited end game content. Once you've learned machines weak spots, reached max skill points level and upgraded weapons to max there is not really much to do.

Base building isn't enjoying for solo players since its hard to defend multiple sides at once at Guerrilla difficulty. I never lost but there is no fun in restoring third part of the base each module one by one manually.
Half (if not more) of skill list is worthless crap and the obvious skill choice makes game even more boring and repetitive.

Endlessly farm Reapers? For what? I already have everything.

Absolutely brain dead system with Rivals which punish player for destroying it. And hosts have to beg incomers to not kill Rivals so their hard earned region score doesn't drop to zero. Absurd...

Last night I played for somewhere around 3 or 4 hours. Had a reaper spawn in the north coast region, which is at level 24 with zero rivals. Not long after I headed to the reaper , I faced several machines. They included, tanks, wolves, firebirds and all the smaller machines that go along with them. It was enough battles and time for a rival to spawn. So I diverted my attention to the rival. My map was set to anyone can join all night.

After the rival was destroyed, I headed back to the reaper. I wasn't interested in destroying the reaper right away, was waiting for others to join, so just stayed close enough to take out all it's runners and then the shield emitters. Nice thing about the north coast is lots of terrain to get good distance shots, but then duck down in a low spot to change positions. The reaper knew where I was shooting from but never got a good lock on me, random volleys of rockets is all he could do.

He got tired of my cat and mouse attacks and came running at me. The area he chased me to is where there is a house, a deep body of water, foot bridge of boards to cross, cave that hides the collectibles for Soviet stuff. I ran into the house.

Countless drops of runners and thermal blasts, I exited out the back, looped back around. Then another rival spawned, so left the area to take out the rival. Back to the reaper and had my first visitor just as I destroyed the last emitter. Shortly after, two more players joined. I was already back in the house so deployed field radio. It was strange, for the few hours of solo play, then players joined all in short order. Could be steam causing the issue and not lack of players. lack of posts on the forum seems to suggest it is lack of players.

We quickly destroyed the reaper and I was ready for bed, so closed my game. The game, for me was fun to play even if most the time I was solo. It would of been more fun, I was in the mood for co-op play, if players joined right after I logged in, that has been the norm.

I hope I am wrong about the game development is coming to an end, but it has given me thousands of hours of fun, both in game and on this forum.

Thank you Gen Zero team and those hundreds of players I have met in game and chatted with during that time.

I agree there have been good ole days for us veterans. I play the game less for the same reasons mentioned here. An important question is.... Can new players help keep it going? Will we come back for new content?

[Muisteloinen]

Why to play anymore, i have play this game full finale.

[Roop]

I see a few vets on occasionally. It still has a core base of players who appreciate what it has been trying to do, who'll play it "warts and all". Myself among them.
Personally, I prefer to play solo these days as quite a few weapons are way too OP and coupled with random low-hours players treating it like an arcade shooter and the modders ruining multiplay the game has never quite reached the heights I'm sure it was aiming for.

[Socipat]

It is a single player/Co-Op game that has already finished its actual development cycle.

Its not dead it is finished.

[Uber Conan]

When I started playing Gen Zero, I was warned by a few players to focus on solo until I'd gotten the quests and collectibles taken care of, so I'd pretty much run solo until I'd maxed skill points, completed the story missions and gotten all the collectibles I'd wanted (this depended on the update that fixed the Clearing the Path mission.) I've just started getting into coop, and have seen it pretty active, but I'm still dabbling in Skirmish and know that most of you prefer harder difficulty.

Regarding player activity- It's not near the peak and has been declining if you look at the year view, but still fairly active. Here's the GZ SteamDB page:
https://steamdb.info/app/704270/charts/

[goatfish]

Originally posted by Socipat:

It is a single player/Co-Op game that has already finished its actual development cycle.

Its not dead it is finished.

thats not the point of the OP.

they're referring to the playerbase, cause from they're perspective, it's dwindling.

i feel like this is going to be one of those games though, that in 5 or so years, it will have a very small community mixed between veterans and random people picking the game up for the first time, or people wanting to play it again.

lets just hope that they fix at least the render distance to back to what it was (like 425 meters or something) and that big building at the airstrip that i fall through the roof. i haven't been there on my current playthrough yet to know if its still there or not.

[~V~]

Originally posted by goatfish:

Originally posted by Socipat:

It is a single player/Co-Op game that has already finished its actual development cycle.

Its not dead it is finished.

thats not the point of the OP.

they're referring to the playerbase, cause from they're perspective, it's dwindling.

i feel like this is going to be one of those games though, that in 5 or so years, it will have a very small community mixed between veterans and random people picking the game up for the first time, or people wanting to play it again.

lets just hope that they fix at least the render distance to back to what it was (like 425 meters or something) and that big building at the airstrip that i fall through the roof. i haven't been there on my current playthrough yet to know if its still there or not.

Count me in!

[Zockopa]

I guess the crash chaos after the flakmoped update let even some long time fans move
on to other games. Also,with no full mod support even skilled die hard fans cant keep the
game fresh through added content. A thing that so far helped many fps prolonging their
lives. Occasionaly even longer than the devs wanted. I remember Crysis had a large and
dedicated fanbase that added over years a ton of new stuff - untill Crytek suffocated it
through "community management"......
On the other side a old game like HOI IV - i know its a different genre - has now on
average more players than after its release. And why ? Mods.

[SniperGirl]

Originally posted by ~V~:

Originally posted by goatfish:

thats not the point of the OP.

they're referring to the playerbase, cause from they're perspective, it's dwindling.

i feel like this is going to be one of those games though, that in 5 or so years, it will have a very small community mixed between veterans and random people picking the game up for the first time, or people wanting to play it again.

lets just hope that they fix at least the render distance to back to what it was (like 425 meters or something) and that big building at the airstrip that i fall through the roof. i haven't been there on my current playthrough yet to know if its still there or not.

Count me in!

I don't have a lot of spare time right now but things are moving in my real world that will free me up for more "me" time and you can find me hunting reapers then on my map.
i also have a nice collection of old save files that I can romp through the map before a lot of the map changes.

One of my favorite times of the game is before there was a reaper and we farmed machines to level up all the rivals. I only need about 3 for a complete 64 rivals. One of the nice things about the game, playing offline and before some of the updates.

Originally posted by Zockopa:

I guess the crash chaos after the flakmoped update let even some long time fans move
on to other games. Also,with no full mod support even skilled die hard fans cant keep the
game fresh through added content. A thing that so far helped many fps prolonging their
lives. Occasionaly even longer than the devs wanted. I remember Crysis had a large and
dedicated fanbase that added over years a ton of new stuff - untill Crytek suffocated it
through "community management"......
On the other side a old game like HOI IV - i know its a different genre - has now on
average more players than after its release. And why ? Mods.

Since the modding community is more private with Gen Zero, I will have to disagree about the modding of the game extended it...only for a few I would think. I would think the reason the player turned to using a mod would be because the game is not a good fit. And most cases, the game can not be changed enough to make it a good fit for them so they still leave it. But we all can believe what we want to believe.

I did notice a few of the regular posters on here over the years, that knew a lot about mods, and the game, have not posted in a long time.