Is the game dead?

[Proud Black Women]

I played last month on release and now coming back just a bit over a month later the active players went from over 30k to under 1k???

[pat]

I can't speak for others, but I didn't find anything better than what was in previous Anno's and a few things that were taken away. Game was a massive disappointment IMO. Given what it does, it takes up a gargantuan amount of memory and takes forever to start. Absolutely, positively, the last Anno I'll ever buy. I check back on these forums about once a week hoping that maybe I'll see an announcement that the devs have released a patch that fixes everything.

[madmikmouse]

I will come back if they ever introduce an active pause, like so many have already requested. But i think it's unlikely. Even at slowest speed it's too frantic for me. Shame, cos it looks beautiful.

[msemanko]

I think the game is great. I still play, but I suspect people are moving off to wait for new content. It's not like it's infinitely replayable. At some point you're just upgrading for the sake of watching numbers go up.

[Chompman]

Also remember that steam does not sell the game anymore thus the steam population will appear low compared to the actual amount of players because of it.

[Caz]

Originally posted by madmikmouse:

I will come back if they ever introduce an active pause, like so many have already requested. But i think it's unlikely. Even at slowest speed it's too frantic for me. Shame, cos it looks beautiful.

I'm still trying to figure out how Anno needs an active pause. This is one of the most forgiving and laid back franchises in the gaming industry without switching games whose target audience is children. I'm not saying that to bash the Anno series, it's one of my favorites and I have over 8000 hours across 1404 and 2070. But frantic is not a word that could be associated with any of the Anno titles.

As for the game being dead...

Originally posted by Chompman:

Also remember that steam does not sell the game anymore thus the steam population will appear low compared to the actual amount of players because of it.

Even the official forums are a ghost town compared to what they were like for 2070. 1800 got rave reviews from many sources during the closed and open betas. But keep in mind that you couldn't advance to Engineers and Investors during those, so the glaring issues with the game were still seemingly trivial. After the full game released, and people got over the honeymoon, and started getting into the late game, the train wreck became glaringly obvious.

1800 is gorgeous visually. Game play is fun and engaging (with very few really dumb decisions) up through Artisans. Everything for Engineer and beyond is horrible, though. Steam ships are trash and a colossal waste of time and resources. You have no indication of how you need to lay out your city prior to getting electricity and thus the first time you get there you're faced with a demoralizing decision: Do I bulldoze my entire city I built just for this dumb need or do I start an entirely new map and plan from the start? At no point has any Anno title presented such an insanely horrible decision for the player. I could easily go on about several small things that, on their own are trivial, but when you pile them all together create a massive tidal wave of sewage.

I had high hopes for 1800. I don't regret buying, or the season pass, but I am disappointed that the most publicly known Anno is arguably weaker than 2205 when you get to late game. That doesn't bode well for the franchise's future.

[Destructomonkey]

Originally posted by Caz:

I had high hopes for 1800. I don't regret buying, or the season pass, but I am disappointed that the most publicly known Anno is arguably weaker than 2205 when you get to late game. That doesn't bode well for the franchise's future.

Well this is thoroughly depressing. I did notice that the Anno reddit, discords, Ubi community forums, these forums, and other places have fallen off totally over the last month. I've personally been dealing with a horrible slew of bugs related to ship behavior AI. But for late game evaluated to be even inferior to 2205, that's just too much for me to absorb.

The dearth of discussion and energy around the game was only a little frustrating when trying to discuss this or that aspect of the game as i play, but i didn't think of the greater implications for totally dead activity. I've been seeing those twitch clips of people sitting for 20 minutes just to find a match for a multiplayer session.

This sucks so hard. I was so ready to dive head first back into the Anno series. I'm gonna be sick if it turns out i was better off buying Surviving Mars during its free weekend a while ago or some other title instead.

[Tankfriend]

Originally posted by Proud Black Women:

I played last month on release and now coming back just a bit over a month later the active players went from over 30k to under 1k???

It's just the shortening attention span these days.

[City Builder]

Originally posted by Caz:

1800 is gorgeous visually. Game play is fun and engaging (with very few really dumb decisions) up through Artisans. Everything for Engineer and beyond is horrible, though. Steam ships are trash and a colossal waste of time and resources. You have no indication of how you need to lay out your city prior to getting electricity and thus the first time you get there you're faced with a demoralizing decision: Do I bulldoze my entire city I built just for this dumb need or do I start an entirely new map and plan from the start? At no point has any Anno title presented such an insanely horrible decision for the player. I could easily go on about several small things that, on their own are trivial, but when you pile them all together create a massive tidal wave of sewage.

^This^

My previous goals for previous Anno games used to be to get the largest population possible and expand as much as needed.

In 1800 my goals are only to get one investor, then I'm done and start a new game.

[pat]

Originally posted by Tankfriend:

It's just the shortening attention span these days.

No, it's really not. Other games are doing just fine. The Anno devs/management decided to put all effort into making the game pretty and nothing into gameplay. They could have done a lot more and didn't. They could listen to what the players are begging for and don't.

[Saulius]

I agree.
Forums activity - 6-10 posts a day, same on ubi forums.
Already on massive sale, just month after release.
It's dead

[D I Z Z Y Y]

Originally posted by Proud Black Women:

I played last month on release and now coming back just a bit over a month later the active players went from over 30k to under 1k???

This game cant be "dead" its mostly Singleplayer and Kind of timeLimited. U Play 20-40 hours and its "finished" no need for a Second City/playthrough. Ich think that happened. Most of the Players dont Play it 3,4 Times when they are done

[Saulius]

Lets compare to 1404 or 2070
1800 didn't get true single player random map - every map looks very similar - 4 starting islands and few satellites, same resources same fertilities
No scenarios in 1800
1800 got useless influence system, in 1404 honor and 2070 licences designed much better, much more ways to earn them
Silly items and their utilization system in 1800 - just random grind
Needs, luxuries and consumption - the same silliness, when advancing thru tiers you are forced demolish, rebuild, rearange everything - perfectly working production chains, trade routes. It's just demoralizing grind, not fun game.
etc etc

Doubt Blue Byte got anybody who knows - why people like old annos? Doubt any dev personally like to play any anno.
Blue Byte just made random mix of 1404, 2070 and 2205. But they didn't take best parts of them and they didn't make these (not best) parts to work well together

For new players 1800 is too overwhelming, for anno fans - very good looking repetitive grind fest
After decade a lot of players still playing 1404, 2070 - including me. Forums activity still similar to 1800!!! They are not KIND of time limited somehow.

[Nasenbrr]

three kingdoms is out

[Dracon]

Originally posted by Saulius Lietuva:

I agree.
Forums activity - 6-10 posts a day, same on ubi forums.
Already on massive sale, just month after release.
It's dead

Game is alive, wtf you're talking about lol

[Izzie]

The game looks awesome but somehow it lacks longtime motivation within one session. Played multiplayer for 20h and was bored out of my mind.
It's fun starting the city and beefing with pirates, especially not on braindead difficulty, but with engineers the game becomes a chore. Influence feels useless, city needs to be planned out from minute one. Kinda sucks.