The Start of a Problem
A road
Do you all remember “A road”? If you don’t here it is.
If you didn’t know anything about Unturned II, you’d probably think this is a nearly finished game, the only thing that looks off is the Gravel texture. This was March 2018. A few days later we get our first (and only, so far) look at Pineridge.
Around this time the Inventory system was shown off, the animations on the player were all finished.
Before “A road”
In Devlog 2 we got our first look at the player, we saw hoodies with moving parts, we saw the player responding to taking damage.
In Devlog 4 we get our first look at the inventory, not anything special, but still nice looking.
January 2019, Devlog 18.
Lighting isn’t as good, but we have working guns and cars, people other than creators are getting access to the game, and everything looks cool. There’s a seasons system implemented, along with an improved snow system. And look at those guns, they fire independently and don’t share the same ammo pool, we’ve also been told that we’ll be able to use two different items at the same time, like a revolver and a knife. Not even big-budget games have things like this. The game might come out this year!
July 19th 2019, Devlog 24.
This is the CQC map, the building isn’t detailed and there are no trees anywhere.
This is the Inventory system.
Looks pretty bad ey? To someone who knows a thing or two about games in WIP/Alpha stages, this doesn’t raise too many, if any red flags. But to the average viewer, this looks bad. We’ve taken a step back from Devlog #4, 20 Devlogs later. Animations aren’t done anymore and the player is stuck in a T-Pose. We didn’t see stuff like this in Devlog #3 and #4.
The Big Issue
Nelson has shown off Unturned II as this game that looks nearly done. But now that he’s giving the demo out to more and more people, their slowly realizing it’s a skeleton. Which is why we’ve seen people say “Dead game” and have seen people complain about the lack of content, even though the game isn’t even at an Alpha stage yet. People were and still are expecting Pineridge even though the game isn’t anywhere near that stage yet.
A simple fix to this would make it very clear to the player base that this game isn’t even close to being considered a game. Showing Pineridge and “A road” off so early got people hyped, when there should be little to no hype being built at that point, as the game would have still taken a year or so before it comes out.
However there’s no good solution, we’ve already passed that stage and people have warped views on what is going on under the hood. The best thing to do is to try to correct these views. How do I propose this? I don’t, I’m not any good at coming up with solutions, so instead of doing what I should do, I want to know what you all think the best solution is.
I like this idea for the most part, as a lot of YouTubers showed off Pineridge without reading the majority/any of the blog post. And most people don’t read the blog posts. This is a foolproof way of getting the point across.
Most of the things that can be done boil down to idiot-proofing. Read over it a couple of times and try to figure out what could be interpreted in a way you don’t intend. For example; Back when Masterbundles were being introduced me and a few others (Including Danaby & a few members of the Rio team) thought Nelson was removing asset bundles from the game altogether. Instead, he made a far superior system.
If one person, especially one of high-regard or someone you think you can trust- get something wrong, you’re most likely going to believe the false statement. A ton of YouTubers make “Nelson Interviews” or “History of Unturned II” and usually at the end, they try to get in contact with Nelson to ask a question. Usually “Release Date?” Nelson’s common response is “Hey , no release date or ETA yet!” Personally, I’d say “The game isn’t even in Beta, I’m laying the groundwork still, I won’t be thinking about an ETA for a long time, check the blog if you want an insight into progress.” Probably the bluntest and situationally unaware thing you could say, but it gets the point across.
Domino Effect
After thinking for a while, the early unveiling of Unturned II has had way more of a negative effect than I ever could have imagined. When you look at most YouTubers, even our resident @HoldBaker, you see something a little concerning. “Waiting for Unturned II.” People have been waiting for Unturned II for years now, every update Nelson pushes for 3.x has the same stuff in the comments.
It’s the same stuff, people aren’t happy with the game anymore because they know that something “So much better” is coming, but it’s not coming. At least not for a while. There’s nothing we can do at this point, it’s drilled into peoples heads that Unturned is a dead game, especially when all the content creators jump ship and the “Quality” multiplayer servers dwindle.
this thread is only big because of images
Trying to keep the beta access small still, however I’m planning to post Devlog