So true

This is exactly how I feel, but in the grand scheme of things, unless you are a big company or get outside funding, MMOs are impossible. Database and server costs are INSANELY expensive.

100% agreed😊

I'd do anything to create a game like the old sso

​@@zixea3318lol not true, you can host your own data storing server on a laptop. That's what I will be doing for multiplayer tests of my game.

YES, YES, YES Stop focusing on the assets and push for a proper gameplay loop!

They have indeed focused on the gameplay, character and map, and not making assets. They haven't done any nature assets yet. I really cannot understand your critique on this part.

YES that keep making character art and other things but updates are broken, a lot of bugs, cant even jump properly, etc they focus to much on character art and new horses

@itz_wolfstreamergirl9549 There's only 2 coders now. Previously was only one, so no wonder things get implemented slowly. Others make 2D and 3D. Why they'd had to hold their work and wait for programmers? That would be wasting time. Working simultaneously on different things in the team is the most effective and normal way to work.

@@littlehufflepuff9790 I get that im just saying they should try to maybe upgrade the jumping system or gates rather then just focusing on horses and characters but thats my opinion

it is far too early, I understand why they couldn't have pushed it out, but right now all I want is a basic game loop. Which we still don't have.

They have stated the game is a pre-alpha.

​@@pizzatime3752and they still sell it as early access lol

The problem is the game is not in any sort of condition to be acceptable for that price. In whatever state it is, that price MUST reflect that, and currently it's not even close.

@@YTRattle yeah you make a good point, for 25 euros I would expect a nearly finished game; since when something is in early access, that usually means it's almost ready for release and only missing some features, or needs to have some bugs ironed out.

Beacuse of the government funding requires they release these earlier. Otherwise they could as well stop making the whole game.

This is a bit of a problem for Astride, the Government funding forced them to published much earlier than they wanted. But yes, it is a very difficult hurdle to overcome and one we, sadly, just can't ignore.

This is a case where a development road map would help a ton. I'm of the mindset that if a dev is going to be sharing their game with the public or requires any crowd funding that they should have an active, public road map to follow. This could help with what Rattle mentioned about peer pressure and the audience demanding different things from what the devs are planning. Honestly I have no clue how this game progressed backwards, but with my previous experience with dinosaur and dragon games, it's not a good sign.

As a game developer this is 100% a bug/ issue with lighting and not a final result. Strange thing to not fix for this build since it makes the game look so much worse, but I'm sure there were reasons they couldn't.

tbh, the early access i really liked was Tales Of Rein Ravine. the free demo was fair and so was the paid demo, its a shame astride didnt do it as well as them

Oh damn, yeah, that's a great point! The areas do feel VERY cramped!

if you guys actually took time to read astrides plans and their streams you would see most the assets right now are place holders. their creating their own but its not done in a day. this game wont be anywhere finished for two years. that was loud and clear before early access was released. no one is forcing you to buy right now.

Oh, okay. So, long hours were wasted adding these assets into the world to have a playable area, now they have to smooth out the terrain, and ensure the trees and terrain has hitboxes. And all that work will be scrapped and redone before the end of production. Marvelous.

@@Anchorlesss assets are not the problem. Even with these "place holders" they could have made a better level design (I'm not asking for excellent one on this stage, just rearrange the objects) for better sense of space. Assets can be re-done and replaced later but if they make flaws in the core of the game then later this will be a nightmare to re-work. They have to think about any possible optimization of models and textures before even creating them

Brilliant comment, and one I wholeheartedly agree with!!!

KAY!!! Thank you! ♥♥ This was a hard vid to make as I'm really rooting for them, but it is what it is unfortunately! And thank you for being such an awesome supporter!!

Oh, hands down! The devs are amazing!

@@YTRattle I know a lot of games that could only ever dream of being as transparent as the Astride team has been. Like SSO, for example - they never tell us anything development wise besides a few paragraphs that only talk about the bigger picture. Astride, on the other hand, gives us updates every other day on things that a lot of people don't even think about - like showing the game in it's greyscale testing world. "Show, don't tell" and all that :')

Thank you, for being so mature, and cackling at us from a distance 💀

Exactly! There are a few who are struggling to understand this, but it's the defenders speaking, of course XD Every game has them!

I feel like SSO is actually improving a lot. The people who are mostly disappointed with the updates are those who have a lot of nostalgia for the old game. I admit, them changing the game bit by bit and making it into Theseus' ship isn't that great, but as a standalone game they're not doing anything to really burn it down imo. The new Hollow Woods are a vast improvement and certainly needed it. Them adding even more gameplay loops with it is amazing.

The game still has years of development left before it's estimated 'finish' date - sometime between 2026 and 2027. I wouldn't write it off just yet, every game goes through weird stages of development puberty before it's finished. The difference is that SSO has been classed as finished for 12 years and is still an overpriced, horribly buggy and poorly designed mess.

@@MusicComet With all due respect but I strongly disagree. I have no nostalgia towards old games since I played SSO for two years and wasn't aware of it's history when I started playing, but when I discovered old games, things just looked so much better (maybe not graphically), and the story wasn't a total mess and characters seemed so much better (case in point Lisa). I'm also not against updates as I think SSO could make great updated characters, but what angers me to no end is that we the player, and main character, got the absolute worst of it (it is a taste issue I know, but conicly our character suppose to be 17-20 years old and to me they absolutely don't look their age now, and in most cases don't even look like a girl, which is fine to have as an option, but what if I want my character to look like a girl and have all the famine parts and be skinny? Huh SSO?). And SSO instance to completely rebuild stuff from the ground up instead of simply updating it is pretty infuriating in my opinion, and doesn't help my opinion that they really don't care about game's legacy.The worst is that with all the changes this game no longer feels like SSO, but more like some cheap SSO mobile knockoff. So yeah can't say about the state of a game since July since I left then and all knowledge I have comes from my friend when she sprinkles some (I don't ask and quite frankly don't care), the last thing I remember is something about Western Camp or something, and even though people liked it (I think) I have a lot to say about it replacing Midsummer. Just a friendly reminder that this is just my opinion, I am a fan of agreeing to disagree, I'm totally fine with other people liking the game, that's no skin off my back, heck my good friend still plays, likes the updated characters and other changes and we are still cool, so no shade towards anybody, you can like whatever you like, all power to you.

@@aquamarina5216 Nah, I'm all for seeing others' opinion on SSO. I admit that SSO isn't a total wreck in a lot of areas, but compared to when they were pumping out new horses 24/7, I think they do try to improve it a lot recently, although they have been sacrificing a lot of the old spirit to create something new more fitting of their current vision. Besides that, though, it doesn't seem entirely bad imo. It was nice to hear your side of the story!

⁠@@MusicComet As someone who's been playing the game for 8, almost 9 years, I respectfully have to disagree. It's impossible to have nostalgia for something that has hardly changed - yeah, the graphics look drop dead gorgeous in comparison to how they were 9 years ago, but the actual core gameplay is still the exact same as it was 9 years ago. Most of the gameplay is just reading text on a screen and doing 'point A to point B' quests, or buying horses and doing 'point A to point B' races. If you don't have friends on SSO, then that is literally all you have to do in the game. Even their championships are laughably bad - comparing SSO's championships to, say, Alicia Online is like comparing hot wheels to F1 racing. Another example is with the whole thing with Galloper and the witch lady where you're supposed to run away from them, you can literally escape them by taking a leisurely walk or trot as they follow slowly behind you. SSO relies *way* too much on the community to keep people playing the game rather than just making the game interesting and challenging. So no, it's not because of nostalgia, it's because the game is just horribly designed overall.

No idea. Unbridled is not visually appealing nice either, I LIKED the earlier version of Astride, this is just such a downgrade.

Even RoR’s free demo was better than this.

Overall we need more horse games that 'don't go for the glory' while still in full development.

LilCat coming in with the sound reasoning again! I agree 100%, Astride needs to pull back a little on the amount of sharing and focus on ensuring they are making a game that is feasible not only appealing to the masses. I always say "players don't know what they want" games that people LOVE today would never have been made if players had their way, because most players can only think in very specific ways, which stifles creativity. But yes, wholeheartedly agree with this comment! :D

I wanted to mention that one! Had it in the script and everything, but scrapped it cause I felt like the point had been made. But YES that game has an awesome stride mechanic!

I loved that game! It was my favorite (only one I'd seen lolol) striding system until ToRR. Really stood out against the other jumping games.

LOLLOL 😂😂😂

I hate, hate, HATE ! When games use false advertising trailers.

Oh man! Sorry about that! I'm glad you're happy that's it's in the video, but if you do end up making your vid let me know and I'll be happy to link it here! ♥

One thing I will add though is that the reason you don't see negative feedback in the discord is because apparently your comments get deleted and you are silenced if you speak out, I've seen instagram comments pertaining to this, it's a shame!

It's a pity that so many people who had good criticism for the game just... left. A lot of people think they were banned, but they weren't, they just left, Which is terrible when you think about it. I've had this experience in this discord, where if you suggest something you're almost immediately dogpiled into silence. But, I would like to point out that just because the discord is dead NOW does not mean players did not have a slew of demands the second the first EA landed, which means a tonne of things were planned and promised to appease upset players. Which in turn is understandable as the EA was a bitter disappointment and the devs wanted to make up the ground and prove they had a good product. I could of course be wrong, this is really just guesswork from an outsider's perspective. But yeah, it's a disappointment to be sure.

i hope too

LOLLOL I doubt that will happen! The mods and devs are seriously awesome people, and take the criticism they get with a lot of decorum and understanding. I have a lot of respect for the devs, but the Astride community is becoming interesting, to say the least.

@@YTRattle Thanks for your response! I guess I'm just kind of cynical at this point. As someone who has been lurking in the server and posted maybe once I've seen the dogpiling you mentioned. (PS: While I don't always agree with certain points you make in videos, I really appreciate your poise and tact. Here's to more awesome videos!)

I'm not always that tactful in comments, Annoyed Rattle comes out XD But yes, the dogpiling is next level in that Discord XD

This

Who can have the best ideas* cause none of the great ideas they suggest ever make it into the games lol

Exactly lol

I'm hoping to do so in the new year! :D

Oh yeah! I'm only judging because of the price tag, if this game was free this would be a completely different video! And I agree 100% there's a lot that can change :D

@@YTRattle Oh yeah definitely! I honestly thought that this price would apply when the game fully released and is… well done. 😅 But I love that you addressed this toxic positivity topic. It‘s such a big problem everywhere in the horse game industry.

yeah sure! ytrattle@gmail.com

They didn't change engines, they implemented a system called 'dots' essentially. Not an engine change, just a system change, XD

Also, wait, Rein Ravine is changing engines?

FFFFFFFFFF - Leah!!!! Stop being awesome! Thank you, so, so much! ♥♥♥ :D

@@YTRattleyou deserve it 🥰💕