https://www.gamesradar.com/games/rp...aft-were-changed-under-unrealistic-ambitions/
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Update - June 27: Original Hypixel Studios founder Simon Collins-Laflamme says he'd "put 25 millions USD by myself to finish Hytale, that’s how much I believe in it," seemingly half-jokingly suggesting a buy-back from Riot.
"No kickstarter, just raw passion, high pressure and high risk taking,"
he said in a tweet. "Reduce scope: legacy engine, pc only first, open source some parts, small team, cut unfinished features to accelerate towards beta. Get players in ASAP to support development. I even already have a dozen of Hytale legacy engine veterans working with me.
"That’s what I would do, but I have not reached out, I’m just thinking about it now because of the bullying haha. This would be a massive challenge and impact all aspects of my life so I would probably need to consult with my family first!"
Following the cancellation of Minecraft-inspired sandbox RPG
Hytale, Simon Collins-Laflamme, the original founder of developer Hypixel Studios and owner of the Hypixel server network, says the game didn't seem to be all that far from release when he last worked on the project before the studio was sold to Riot Games.
"During my time working on Hytale in 2016-2019, it was maybe to the absolute maximum 2 years away from a PC release with the legacy engine and vision," he said in
a lengthy Twitter post. "I still have videos, screenshots and old client builds to attest to that. All developers from that time that I've talked to say the same."
Collins-Laflamme was
responding to a post from former Hytale principal engineer Kevin Carstens, who implied "feature creep" was at the heart of the game's protracted troubles. "Systems that were already far ahead of Minecraft at the time were completely re-invented to make them 'even better' resulting fuck all," he said bluntly.
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So basically they were almost ready to ship the version of the game written in Java to production in 2019, but then Riot bought the game in 2020, the founder immediately stopped working on it, and the team that Riot had working on the engine rewrite to C++ completely failed to deliver a playable game in the last 5 years.
From these facts we can determine that it might be Riot's fault. The founder seems to still prefer Java, talking about how he has "a dozen legacy engine veterans working with him" (on what?). Java is shit and should not be aspired towards. Hypixel Skyblock is very technically impressive, but the only reason why it was made the way it was, is because of Minecraft. If you're making a new game then you shouldn't limit yourself to something that is so obviously a hindrance. And everyone knows Java fucking sucks.
Just look at Factorio. Kovarex was also inspired by Minecraft and wanted to make his own game. He recognized the shittiness of Java and chose C++ for his engine as well. When it released, it looked like shit but people didn't care because the gameplay was solid. Fast forward to today, and you'd be hard pressed to name a better example of optimization, polish, delivery on promises, and just overall excellence in terms of game development, because the devs just kept updating the game. It's not entirely a fair to compare a mostly singleplayer 2d game to a massive 3d undertaking, but they didn't have to develop the greatest game of all time immediately, they just needed to get something working that was fun.
That's what should have happened with Hytale. Whether the rewrite was a good or bad idea, I do think it was ill advised at that stage of development, if what the founder says about less than 2 years to a release date is true. However it probably would have been best to acknowledge the nature of Java while also acknowledging how much work had already gone into the game at that point. They could have released a Java build while explicitly laying out their plans to migrate to the new engine in the future. Considering how they literally shut down while trying to rework everything immediately, it's safe to say that was the wrong choice.
"There are already dozens of stories like this from former devs coming out in the past few days. and we didn't need to release in a 'perfect state,' in my opinion."
Yeah it was probably Riot's fault. I wish some of these developers would just come out and say it. But instead you get chucklefucks like this, the former security/IT head:
https://x.com/DevSlash_Null/status/1937504953162969569
Hytale: what could possibly go wrong when you hire new leadership that thinks the original team is incompetent? Oh the whole project ends up going in circles until it dies. The community should be angry at the mismanagement that stole the opportunity for hytale to flourish.
>Did Riot Games ruin Hytale with their corporate greed?
Riot was an absolute pleasure to work with, from people to leaders. They understood the power of empowering and giving folks agency. The issues were all internal to Hytales leadership.
Okay, so who fucking hired the new leadership? The old leadership, before quitting? Even though the founder wanted to release a Java version of the game? And why did the problems start happening in 2019-2020, right when Riot bought the studio? This shit doesn't make any sense. If Riot was such a pleasure and they gave "folks" "agency", then maybe they gave too much. Maybe they greenlit a retarded plan that shouldn't have been executed, exactly as it was laid out.
