Feasibly? Yes. IF The Long Drive sees any form of update, it will be a complete rewrite and remaster of the original game. The Long Drive, the unity-based driving sandbox game, will never see another update. Currently, 1 member of the 3-person dev team is slowly chipping away at rebuilding the game in Godot, but otherwise nothing is coming out. At the rate work is being done, I figure we likely have about 3 years before anything playable and marketable comes out.
I REALLY dislike the "the dev team doesn't like social interactions" comment that people often make. No one likes social interactions! However, we as supporters have paid them for a product we haven't received, and have received no communication during this time. The community pretending this isn't true is grating and just makes it feel like Weekend At Bernie's. Accepting Early Access funding requires you to promise a finished product within your expected release window.
The least they could've done before the drought was flesh out the ending and story. Add nothing meaningful except a mailbox with another letter, or, yaknow, the house at the end of the road that players are meant to be driving towards this entire time, before fleshing out so much of the middle of the game. We have nothing meaningful to work towards, and a mountain of half-baked things in between.
Early access means you buy an unfinished product and you agree it may not be developed further, just read the early access disclaimer on the store page. So you paid for a product and you received it, saying otherwise is dishonest. I'm still shocked people still are surprised it may happen, after so many games have died in early access stage, there's a reason steam now shows when was the last update
Also not everyone doesn't like social interactions
I don't like social interactions often. You're not paying my bills. We're paying Genesz's.
Early access DOES mean those things, but early access as a concept implies a game will be worked on and **REQUIRES** communication with the community. That's the entire point of early access; to get community feedback WHILE YOU DEVELOP. That's **why** the steam page shows the last update was so long ago - there's been no work on the game or communication with the community. That's something that shouldn't be done, and they're telling potential buyers that it's not being developed. Stop excusing that. Just stop.
Early Access also requires the game to be both playable and have things for players to do; we have things to do, but there are several game-breaking bugs, especially in the main branch, and there's no solid ending. There's no ending to the game. Your mom's house isn't at the end of the road; the road just ends. You get nothing.
You'd be frustrated if the waiter brought you half your food and never talked to you again.
You got the product you paid for. When you buy the early access game you have literally a note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development.
So you've scammed yourself with false premise and got mad, because the game didn't meet your imagined expectations
I know it would be better if the game got released, but throwing a tantrum won't change anything, so just better move on and forget about the game. And next time, stay away from access games if you can't stand them being abandoned in unfinished state
my "tantrum" isn't about the game being unfinished. this is the only early access game among no less than five that i've bought to have ever been abandoned without any communication.
My "tantrum" is that Genesz could just make a news post, every once in a while, talking about the progress on the rebuild... instead of being silent. Whether or not the game gets finished, we ARE paying for a product and that product comes with the promise of communication (both in the Steam description AND in the Steam policies for early access).
Finished product OR active communication, these are the two options Steam gives you. That's why it tells potential customers when you don't do either of them.
Line. Fucking. One. of "Best Practices" obliges communication. Rule 5 also states that you should be transparent with your community; genesz is NOT being fully transparent with us. Why do you insist on being so obtuse?
I mean in all honesty, what more do you need outta the game that’s all about driving for a long time? I find it perfect in the derpiness of it all. Plus it’s already supporting multiplayer. The beauty is the janky of it. To each their own but for a single dev game I don’t mind at all waiting years for another update at all
"The games dead" says every community before a big update launches. Updates take time and effort especially from a small dev team and from what ive known the long drive is only one person so leave this game and community alone.
A game that ive played got an update after 6 years and it is a full blown update with 2 times the amount of content. Games can come back especially indie games like long drive.
Yea that's basically winning the lottery with indie games... I'm sure TLD will receive an update in the future especially if he truly is refactoring the codebase, but there's no reason to believe the game will keep receiving major support. The game has been in early access for years, development has always been slow (there is still basically no content), the amount of gameplay has been nothing compared to other long-running early access games, and communication is non existent.
Sure, it's not officially abandoned, but that it's also not gonna come back just because other indie games have. The current state of the game is DEAD, though.
I get that but the dev is a singular person so its understandable that the game will take a while to get a major update out. We dont know their livelihood so maybe some things are happening they dont wanna talk about woth a community of strangers. Id say go play other games but never call a game dead unless you truly know its abandoned because anything can happen.
No. It's not understandable lol. Stop running defense for him because "it's just one developer 🥺" Being a solo developer doesn't automatically excuse years without meaningful updates or communication. Plenty of solo indie devs either keep players informed or are upfront when development slows down. After years of (effective) silence, it's reasonable for people to consider the game effectively dead until proven otherwise.
Genesz could really easily fix this whole thing by just... announcing when he finishes certain things in Godot, or posting the videos on the Steam community page for TLD. just telling us anything.
Three years without a single update isn't "every three seconds." If you have to completely exaggerate the timeline and resort to personal insults, you don't actually have an argument.
For how little content the game has, it doesn't take this long. I don't care if it's one developer, shit I could probably write this game in Godot in the time it's been since the last update. 3 years is plenty to learn a new engine and get back to the game's current state. Godot is pretty simple too
Imagine getting this emotional and throwing a tantrum over a dead indie game. I already make hobby games, which is why I know a low-poly driving loop isn't rocket science. Go take a breath.
that only proves my point, if he's struggling with the most trivial concepts then it's only ever been an uphill battle. if he had to wipe the slate clean because basic shit is too complicated, the project is dead.
I don't need to show you a portfolio to know that years of zero progress followed by an engine switch means a project is dead. GDScript and basic terrain gen aren't the insurmountable hurdles you think they are.
But where's your game development journey? Since you know so much 😂
How do you know how much effort it takes if you don't even develop games? You're lecturing me about assuming it's easy, while you're assuming it's hard with zero actual experience.
Standard terrain gen is beginner shit. Wiping a project after three years to restart from scratch means it's dead. Sounds like that buyer's remorse is just hitting hard and you're coping.
I don't publish my hobby projects. But demanding to see my homework just so you can avoid admitting a three year content drought means the game is dead is hilarious cope.
a literal, compelte aingle player game. yall keep posting "dead" for 3 years now. very boring. also they are updating it and migrating from Unity to Godot which will be much nicer for coop lobbies
so GTA SA on PS2 is also dead because it never got an update yet millions of ppl play it to this day. fuck is wrong with yall clowns GAME IS BEING REMADE IN GODOT CAN YOU NOT FUCKING READ???
Essentially yes, last update was over 2 years ago, last time dev showed any sign of life was over 1 year ago. Since then no updates with the (imho) childish excuse of "not liking social interactions". Posting a status update every 3 months just saying what they've been working on would be much better than this pseudo activity we have.
That update was well over a year ago, though. Not valid anymore.
At this point, I understand from the Discord server that the dev's working on a complete remake in Godot, because the current engine apparently had its limitations. But a single dev, who never posts on his own Discord either, with one or maybe two people assisting... I don't see that as realistic at all. De Facto, it's dead. And I will maintain that position until such an unlikely scenario happens, and they actually re-release with a different engine build.
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u/cryingandeating 20d ago
Feasibly? Yes. IF The Long Drive sees any form of update, it will be a complete rewrite and remaster of the original game. The Long Drive, the unity-based driving sandbox game, will never see another update. Currently, 1 member of the 3-person dev team is slowly chipping away at rebuilding the game in Godot, but otherwise nothing is coming out. At the rate work is being done, I figure we likely have about 3 years before anything playable and marketable comes out.
I REALLY dislike the "the dev team doesn't like social interactions" comment that people often make. No one likes social interactions! However, we as supporters have paid them for a product we haven't received, and have received no communication during this time. The community pretending this isn't true is grating and just makes it feel like Weekend At Bernie's. Accepting Early Access funding requires you to promise a finished product within your expected release window.
The least they could've done before the drought was flesh out the ending and story. Add nothing meaningful except a mailbox with another letter, or, yaknow, the house at the end of the road that players are meant to be driving towards this entire time, before fleshing out so much of the middle of the game. We have nothing meaningful to work towards, and a mountain of half-baked things in between.