It's probably time for us to clarify our situation on multiplayer...
We did indeed tease multiplayer on april 1 as a prank. The plan was to tell you it was real in a way that nobody would ever believe, and then show you it was real in a way that nobody could deny in order to get people to talk about it. Unfortunately it seems my writing was too convincing, and many people were even more convinced multiplayer was fake when they saw the videos, so lets make things real clear.
April Fools prank: (These were not true)
- Adding multiplayer to Zero Falls would be as easy as changing one variable. - False. That's not how programming works and I hope you didn't believe that.
- We intend to make Zero Falls early gameplay more difficult for new players - False, it's difficult because the game has strong simulation elements which makes it hard to simply increase the power of the player relative to enemies
- We are releasing some new product soon named Vagabonds - Mostly False, we don't have a product to release nor do we have finalized release plans
- Zero Falls development is being cancelled - False, we absolutely intend to finish Zero Falls and we don't consider it finished.
- We are setting up an online cash shop full of loot boxes and micro-transactions. - False, we hate those things and said that as a joke
Actually Real: (these may have lead to some confusion)
- Multiplayer is real.
- People really did decompile our code and tell us we are programming wrong
- The variable openMP really does exist, it has since the game was multiplayer many many years ago, however that variable did nothing for years while we developed Zero Falls
- Multiplayer likely won't be coming to Zero Falls but will have to be an independent release since we spent years programming things into Zero Falls which we always knew would only work in single player
- The name...is kind of real. We use Vagabonds internally when discussing the project. We haven't decided if we will release under that name exactly
We always wanted a multiplayer game, which is why our original kickstarter was multiplayer. However, people didn't back that kickstarter. Also many people told us multiplayer was too ambitious and that we should refine our scope to single-player only and do another kickstarter. Well we did, and that's why Zero Falls was sold as a single player only game.
However I think at this point we have sufficiently proven that even a single player game can go way beyond scope and take forever to finish. It's made especially difficult by the fact that our plan was to fund continued development of the project by selling on early access, and our customers are all waiting for multiplayer to be added apparently because we'd be making more money flipping burgers.
Using a single player game to fund the development of a multiplayer game is backwards and dumb. We realize that now, and we aim to correct it.
To be clear though, multiplayer didn't start out of some greater realization of the error in our overall strategy...multiplayer started because I was in a really really crummy mood and decided I didn't want to work on NOT multiplayer anymore. I literally turned off social media for a week and hid in my developer cave working on it in secret. For many months, the rest of our team didn't even know I was doing this. I was working on both projects at once and I didn't show it to anyone until I was sure it would actually work. My only regret is that I eventually told them over Discord so I never got to see the look on their faces.
What it is vs what it isn't
Lets be very clear here. It may be possible for me, as a single developer, to hide in my man-cave and make the Wayward Terran Frontier (engine) multiplayer compatible. After all, it did start with the concept of multiplayer functionality built into its spine. However it is not reasonable for me to magically apply multiplayer to years worth of single player only code that was built on top of that engine in the form of the (game) Zero Falls. As such, it was obvious to me from the beginning of my code-tantrum that if I wanted multiplayer, it had to be an entirely new game and NOT an attempt to change Zero Falls.
Aside from the engine and the combat, I decided I would do EVERYTHING different in this new project. Here are some examples.
The Economy:
- Zero Falls supports a dynamic living NPC economy based on supply and demand that can be completely broken by the player's actions. It is an attempt at simulating a real economy.
- Multiplayer will make no attempt at simulating real economics. Players will trade items
Factions
- Zero Falls has factions which are simulated government entities with motivations and goals that are custom designed to advanced a specific narrative that makes exactly 1 player feel important and meaningful.
- In multiplayer we will only have factions if we allow groups of players to form their own.
Story
- In Zero Falls you are a unique and special snowflake. Everyone is shocked by your uncanny ability to respawn after death and enact infinite vengeance against your enemies. You may even change the fate of the universe, who knows.
- In Multiplayer you are a generic Vagabond. (hence the name) Nobody cares what you do unless you find a way to do something extraordinary within the framework of the multiplayer sandbox.
Game world
- Zero Falls is a hand-crafted star system that aims to tell a story and challenge the player with deeper content than what can be made using procedural generation
- Multiplayer is an infinite procedural expanse where the depth will need to come from player interactions
Enemies
- In Zero Falls every enemy has a simulated life. Their faction allegiance, the cargo they are carrying, any damage on their ship, it all relates to things that have happened to them in the simulation itself.
- In Multiplayer endless hoards of procedural enemies will spawn for you and your friends to tear through looking for loot
In summary
So the short version is that we really are making a new game, and that game is multiplayer, and we don't know when or how or in what form we will release it, but we wanted to tease it because it's getting close to ready. The real release announcement is yet to come.
Zero Falls will remain a single player adventure with lots of narrative and characters and a sandbox that offers the type of depth that doesn't work in multiplayer so easily.
Multiplayer will be more of an action RPG loot grinding sandbox in an open world where you make your own narrative with friends.