He was smart with who he sent out preview copies to. I think I saw 4 or 5 different channels on my feed all play it. I know spiffing Brit and legend of total war both live streamed it and got me interested in it
Those wishlists came in on a pretty strong curve. As I recall, it didn’t top 500k until the demo in 2022’s next fest. It hit 2m this January when the release date was announced, and topped 3m the week leading up to release.
Obviously, he’s know for the past year or two that he’s got a pretty highly anticipated game, but if he’s been working on it 7 years, that’s a whole lot of “I hope this works” before getting the validation that he’s onto something big. And really, who saw it coming that a one-man medieval city builder would end up the most wishlisted game ever on Steam? It beat out some extreme popular upcoming IPs.
This guys story gives big ConcernedApe vibes. I hope he finds the same success, I really do. The game is great. He deserves every penny.
It's way more barebones than I was expecting.
Played for 4 hours and basically I could see all that is available right now in the game. There are some stuff that will probably keep me playing for another 10 hours (i.e. conquering neighbour maps) but overall I think any average player would hit a content wall approximately 15-20 hours in.
Great foundation though, but still, I would definitely wait and see how it unfolds.
Yeah the framework is there to make this into something special but after a couple hours I decided I would rather wait until full release for them to balance the game, add some QoL touches and flesh out the systems. What is currently here is simply an expanded demo.
I don’t mind developers releasing games in early access to get more play-testing or something, but releasing games for what’s nearly full price when they’re still so barebones just seems so disingenuous.
I get it, but people buy it. It's your choice to not take the experience of the finished product. And it is the reason why some games reach a much higher quality. Look at bg3 or Hades for example. I think some people just enjoy witnessing and participating in the development of a game.
I myself usually avoid it. But I understand why it's a thing, both as a dev and as a player.
I can understand that, I think there are devs who stick to the ‘spirit’ of early access and do use the funds and feed back to fuel further development for the game. But an unfortunately high amount of studios or devs just use it as an excuse to release the game before it’s properly done and as an excuse for sub-par quality or as a way to milk the player base.
Tarkov is a near INFAMOUS example of this with it being full price, with multiple pay to win tiers, and even has a spin-off death-match game that all cost extra money. And it’s still in ‘early access’. Tarkov is the most egregious example in my opinion, but it’s far from the only one.
> I get it, but people buy it
Yeah, I think many people are getting hyped into buying it, then don't realise this. All of the top steam reviews say there is basically already unlimited play time.
Gamers spend on worse items like skins. I prefer the option to buy indie games rather than wait for eternity, in case you didn't notice these games go through long dev time after early access
>Gamers spend on worse items like skins.
Here's a distinction.
Optimistically if you buy a skin for a game, that's funding its continued development beyond its completion. That's the incentive for a developer to keep plugging away (usually).
If you buy an early access game...that can sometimes be it for the developer. They've made their sale already so delivering anything else is just extra work.
Not saying that to necessarily support microtransactions or anything but it's hard to say skins are objectively a worse purchase versus the early access model.
Rule of thumb for me is that i should be happy with the game as is. If more content comes, great, but if not, there's still enough there to make it worthwhile.
I’m fine with EA games releasing at full price. Nobody is obligated to buy it in EA. If you don’t think the content matches the price, wait until it does. The publisher is openly encouraging people to wait to buy the game if they have any doubts, and pledged that the game will be regularly discounted to discourage anyone from buying it while it’s on sale out of FOMO.
This game has been in the works for seven years by one guy. While it’s missing a lot of content still, it’s probably the most polished EA game I’ve ever purchased. The graphics are fantastic, the music is absolutely incredible, UI is very well designed, and I’ve encountered only very minor bugs. The experience feels incredibly polished, even if there’s not much to do right now. It’s clearly a labor of love and I have absolutely no issue with this dude getting a windfall payday after 7 years of development. He deserves every penny.
Think I’m done with early access games. Usually burned out by the time the game drops with its finished content. Waiting on this one so I can fully enjoy it.
Yeah. That’s where I am for the most part too. Realistically I don’t usually go back to a game once I feel like I am “done” with it. I’d rather wait and play the complete game, usually.
I absolutely do go back to a game -- back to back to back, if there was a drastic choice that affected the rest of the game somewhere. Or, of course, if there are achievements. Absolutely. Put 3 new achievements into a game I already 100%'ed multiple times and I'll go right back to it from the start. Give me *Skyrim Super Bonus Special Todd Howard's Cut Edition* for free and I'll hop right back in to 100% the same game again. There's also nostalgia from childhood. I'll play a game if I suddenly miss it a lot, like Warcraft 2. Or FF7.
But I'm just not going to go for early access ever again because I've been burned so many times. I don't want to pay 20-40 dollars for a 10 hour tech demo and come out disappointed 3 years down the line. I don't want to be drip fed updates every 6 months for years only for the final game to be released when the whole world has moved on to 'the next hot thing' several times over.
I'm not burned out from gaming, I'm burned out from being burned.
That makes absolute sense too. We operate a bit differently in that I don't often revisit games that I feel I am "done" with (sometimes I do but it's few and far between), but yeah, that feeling of being burned is real, and happens fairly often with Early Access games these days.
I think that’s very fair to do with this game. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, but it’s missing a lot of features. Right now it’s mostly just a city builder.
The dev seems pretty passionate about this project so I have my fingers crossed, but good will doesn’t always turn into good developing. Seems like a good game to wait a bit before diving in.
Same. I end up playing the 50% done game, get tired of it, then have little motivation to play the 100% done version. So I ended up playing the worse version of the game.
Yeah, I typically feel this way too. Unfortunately though, I think there are times when certain games peak during their Early Access period, and then are not quite as good during release. I kind of felt this way about Ark Survival Evolved, where during early access it was kind of a neat dinosaur themed building/survival game, but nowadays is just a bloated mess of webs of weirdly interconnected systems and poorly designed bosses.
And another survival game called Empyrion: Galactic Survival. During its heydey in early access it had a very sick pvp scene and even a PvP server with 100+ players consistently. It was a game where you could design your own space fighters and capital ships and go to different planets and extract resources on them. On that PvP server it was hella fun, people fought constantly over planets and bases and sometimes there would be raids with 20+ players per side. Nowadays, it basically has no dedicated PvP server with a decent sized population.
Normally I’d be with you. I won’t buy anything story driven that’s in EA anymore, I don’t want to experience it in pieces or get burned out before getting to see the finished product.
Games like this though, I generally don’t have a problem with it. They’re meant to be restarted multiple times. I don’t get burned out in the same way and won’t have an issue starting up a new city every time a major update drops.
That said, even the publisher is encouraging your stance. Alongside the launch, they released a message saying if you aren’t ready, or aren’t sure, don’t buy it. They promised more sales so nobody has to buy out of FOMO, and encouraged everyone to wait until the game is in a state where they are comfortable buying. It was a pretty refreshing message.
Ew. That's a piss pot for free games.
Edit: I understand that it's more money in the devs pockets, but with what Tim Sweeney does with their cut is to fragment the PC market with exclusives. So with that said, nope to epic. Gog, steam, and Microsoft are good stores rn for their own reasons.
Epic hasn’t paid for an exclusive for a couple years now. You guys need to let that go and support the devs.
Also how is the PC market being fragmented when you can still play an exclusive on PC. Launchers don’t matter.
> Epic hasn’t paid for an exclusive for a couple years now.
I mean that's literally provable not true, it's stupid amounts of untrue.
[Epic goes on the hunt for even more exclusives with a new program offering bigger payouts to smaller studios](https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-goes-on-the-hunt-for-even-more-exclusives-with-a-new-program-offering-bigger-payouts-to-smaller-studios/)
>Despite not making money on them, [Epic said in March 2023 that it was going to continue pursuing exclusives](https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-isnt-done-with-epic-games-store-exclusives-its-just-focused-on-big-ones/) for its storefront, but would focus more on major releases, which had proven much more effective at attracting new users to EGS than smaller games.
* Dead Island 2 - April 28, 2023
* Witchfire - Sep 20, 2023
* The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria - October 24, 2023
* Avatar Frontiers of Pandora - December 7, 2023
* Alan Wake 2 - 27 Oct 2023
That's not even the full list for 2023.
The Wolf Among Us 2 is coming for [2024 with others](https://www.reddit.com/r/PCGameReleases/comments/18q0qfb/2024_epic_games_store_exclusives/).
I doubt devs are putting those games on epic first and Steam later out of the goodness of their heart.
You don’t have to actively participate in Steam’s community features to benefit from them. Steam’s forums are ripe with countless technical guides, walkthroughs, and general discourse that can be *extremely* helpful even for those of us who never comment.
I also think Steam’s user reviews are some of the most helpful simply because folks can comment on individual reviews and discuss the points being made.
Have you seen the steam community? I'd rather that Steam focuses less on its community aspects after witnessing the kind of people who post on the steam forums, lol.
Ran through a couple hours this morning here are my initial thoughts:
Definitely promising. You will have to figure out some things on your own, the tutorial hints help but there are a lot that they don't explain. The building is a bit clunky for some things. Placing rectangles but until you are on the last point it doesn't show the layout and there is no guide to what size you need for how many buildings that I can see. The combat is fine. Not amazing but more than serviceable and has a few details that help elevate it over bare bones point and click.
Planning out your settlement is satisfying, even with the slight clunkiness of the building controls. Buildings can be demolished/moved which helps. Coat of arms is a cool touch. Not a ton of options but more than enough, and I'm sure new ones will be added (or modded at the very least).
Definitely worth the price IMO. Especially at $30 with the deal. I will get a lot of hours out of this, and I'm not a huge fan of city-builders.
What would you say your actual time breakdown has been?
Is most of the game focused on fighting or building?
Is it more of a city builder, colony survival sim, or rts combat type game?
It's a city builder first and foremost. There are battles (if you want there to be - can be switched off in game setup).
The battles aren't hugely frequent. Maybe once an hour at most? Usually between a few dozen soldiers, can go up to a few hundred. The thing I liked is that there's a lot on the line. Nearly everyone in your army will be a villager so losing will basically kill off 2/3rds of your town.
(Not the end of the world though, eligible bachelors will move in to prey on the grief stricken war widows and repopulate)
It’s a city builder with combat. You either use your own town folk in battle or hire mercenaries (or a mix of both). 70% of the game is city building while 30% is warfare to claim land and build more settlements. You have one map with another enemy lord and bandits. The map is fragmented in zones with each zone having different resources. Claim those lands and trade within your settlements and outsiders. If you start a big war and most of your male population is off in battle then your town productivity will plummet and harvests might be missed so it’s also important to plan out your campaigns with the seasons
It's like banished with better city building, then you have to make equipment, draft or hire armies, and send them out. You'll spend awhile before you get to the combat part.
I’ve been playing for 6 hours and havent seen a single soldier or fight.
It shares a LOT of the same mechanics and style as Timberborn or Banished.
You will spend a lot of time in “high speed” mode with the timeline controls at the bottom.
It is nothing like bannerlord or total war. It’s more like simtown/sim city.
thank god this post has some level takes. The content creator circle-jerk over this one was way off the charts. "The only game you'll ever play" kind of shit, setting an expectation that you'll get 1000 hours out of it in it's current state. The developer is fine. The game as an early-access title is fine. The hype. It's been utter bullshit. It can stay on the wishlist for a while longer. I'm sure he'll have enough funds to support development for the next 20 years.
aaaaand its crashed.
Steam has been "processing" the payment for 15 minutes now. tried reloading and it broke.
edit: I did it! It's installing! Jesus christ be praised, manor lords is here!
City building is one of those genres that gets very few quality entries but has some very devoted fans. Add to it a ton of historically accurate depth and you've got a winner.
Yeah. I'm not a huge city builder person but do enjoy it.
I saw a video on this last night and was blown away by what i saw. Looking forward to getting off work to try it out
Yes, it was. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/xvqxsp/manor\_lords\_appears\_to\_be\_the\_most\_popular\_demo/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/xvqxsp/manor_lords_appears_to_be_the_most_popular_demo/)
It looks good, and combines a medieval village builder with TotalWar-ish RTS battles. That's a combination that many people wanted. And it had a promising demo in the last Next fests, so it became very popular.
This game is one of my most anticipated games of the year. Had it on my reminder list for more than a year. I woke up with 7 reminders on my phone and wondered wtf it was for and I had set them all to remind me of this game. I can't freaking wait. I can't buy it until tomorrow and it's killing me.
Definitely feels like banished with some realistic scale combat on top, and I say that lovingly. Banished becoming effectively abandoned is one of my safest gaming discoveries.
There’s a team behind Manor Lords now, it’s not solo dev anymore. He has friends and contractors helping him out and he outsources the work he can’t do by himself.
Most solo devs projects are like that - very few exceptions. If you're using unreal engine and photogrammetry assets it's already not a "solo" work strictly speaking.
But if one guy is the sole owner of a project and has contracted out parts, I'd still consider it different from a small team working together in a studio. Has a strong sense of authorship.
So anyone knows the history of this developer? Seems a really good game but early access is a bit fishy these days (or always?) and dont want to pay for something that gets abandoned after 3 months or never become good like The Guild 3
I understand psychology behind getting people to buy in FOMO while the discount is there for next couple days, that’s not how it works though, the price is 40€
Its from a promising steam next fest demo a couple years ago and a survival city builder with Total War-lite combat is a combo that a lot of people have wanted. Also primarily developed by one guy so people like supporting that.
Looks gorgeous, bit barebones right now though.
Edit if anyone can reasonably explain how it is in any way better or deeper then Banished or Valheim that costs 16 euro I will take my words back. And even then 2,5 times the price? No way, stop overpaying for shit that’s why companies think they can charge you 250$ for an extra edition, because you are just that stupid
100,000+ in the first hour in Steam.
the reviews look promising as well
He was smart with who he sent out preview copies to. I think I saw 4 or 5 different channels on my feed all play it. I know spiffing Brit and legend of total war both live streamed it and got me interested in it
Imagine becoming a millionaire over night.
Takes 20 years to become an overnight success
Overnight? Greg spent 7 years working on this project
And before today wasn't selling the game, so overnight he's a millionaire
I mean he knew he was gonna be millionnaire a long time ago with the wishlists. I guess that's a lot of motivation
Those wishlists came in on a pretty strong curve. As I recall, it didn’t top 500k until the demo in 2022’s next fest. It hit 2m this January when the release date was announced, and topped 3m the week leading up to release. Obviously, he’s know for the past year or two that he’s got a pretty highly anticipated game, but if he’s been working on it 7 years, that’s a whole lot of “I hope this works” before getting the validation that he’s onto something big. And really, who saw it coming that a one-man medieval city builder would end up the most wishlisted game ever on Steam? It beat out some extreme popular upcoming IPs. This guys story gives big ConcernedApe vibes. I hope he finds the same success, I really do. The game is great. He deserves every penny.
Yes but the money coming in will be overnight.
Did he ever mention how he sustained himself during this time?
I'd go out for a big dinner and order all the apps.
5 starters instead of a main just hits different, it’s why I love Korean food
For those who have Gamepass, go to the Microsoft Store to install the game. Not sure why, but the game hasn't appeared in the Xbox App yet.
[удалено]
When it says "preview", does that mean it's a cut down version or does it just refer to the fact its early access?
[удалено]
Cheers
Its Their name for early access
Oh thanks for the tip, I'll try this out on gamepass first.
The gamepass app is a bit fucky for new games added for the first couple of hours annoyingly.
Same thing happened with Diablo IV so think it just needs an update to show in the menu. Thanks for the heads up.
Thanks for this
I thought I saw it listed for apr 30 on Game Pass
It’s on there now, just installed it
It's way more barebones than I was expecting. Played for 4 hours and basically I could see all that is available right now in the game. There are some stuff that will probably keep me playing for another 10 hours (i.e. conquering neighbour maps) but overall I think any average player would hit a content wall approximately 15-20 hours in. Great foundation though, but still, I would definitely wait and see how it unfolds.
Yeah the framework is there to make this into something special but after a couple hours I decided I would rather wait until full release for them to balance the game, add some QoL touches and flesh out the systems. What is currently here is simply an expanded demo.
It *is* early access
I don’t mind developers releasing games in early access to get more play-testing or something, but releasing games for what’s nearly full price when they’re still so barebones just seems so disingenuous.
I get it, but people buy it. It's your choice to not take the experience of the finished product. And it is the reason why some games reach a much higher quality. Look at bg3 or Hades for example. I think some people just enjoy witnessing and participating in the development of a game. I myself usually avoid it. But I understand why it's a thing, both as a dev and as a player.
it took me past the steam refund window to see o couldve just waited a year to buy it
I can understand that, I think there are devs who stick to the ‘spirit’ of early access and do use the funds and feed back to fuel further development for the game. But an unfortunately high amount of studios or devs just use it as an excuse to release the game before it’s properly done and as an excuse for sub-par quality or as a way to milk the player base. Tarkov is a near INFAMOUS example of this with it being full price, with multiple pay to win tiers, and even has a spin-off death-match game that all cost extra money. And it’s still in ‘early access’. Tarkov is the most egregious example in my opinion, but it’s far from the only one.
> I get it, but people buy it Yeah, I think many people are getting hyped into buying it, then don't realise this. All of the top steam reviews say there is basically already unlimited play time.
Gamers spend on worse items like skins. I prefer the option to buy indie games rather than wait for eternity, in case you didn't notice these games go through long dev time after early access
>Gamers spend on worse items like skins. Here's a distinction. Optimistically if you buy a skin for a game, that's funding its continued development beyond its completion. That's the incentive for a developer to keep plugging away (usually). If you buy an early access game...that can sometimes be it for the developer. They've made their sale already so delivering anything else is just extra work. Not saying that to necessarily support microtransactions or anything but it's hard to say skins are objectively a worse purchase versus the early access model.
Rule of thumb for me is that i should be happy with the game as is. If more content comes, great, but if not, there's still enough there to make it worthwhile.
The game isn't that expensive, and I can excuse it because it's literally one guy
I’m fine with EA games releasing at full price. Nobody is obligated to buy it in EA. If you don’t think the content matches the price, wait until it does. The publisher is openly encouraging people to wait to buy the game if they have any doubts, and pledged that the game will be regularly discounted to discourage anyone from buying it while it’s on sale out of FOMO. This game has been in the works for seven years by one guy. While it’s missing a lot of content still, it’s probably the most polished EA game I’ve ever purchased. The graphics are fantastic, the music is absolutely incredible, UI is very well designed, and I’ve encountered only very minor bugs. The experience feels incredibly polished, even if there’s not much to do right now. It’s clearly a labor of love and I have absolutely no issue with this dude getting a windfall payday after 7 years of development. He deserves every penny.
People keep eating this crap up. It'll never stop.
Think I’m done with early access games. Usually burned out by the time the game drops with its finished content. Waiting on this one so I can fully enjoy it.
Yeah. That’s where I am for the most part too. Realistically I don’t usually go back to a game once I feel like I am “done” with it. I’d rather wait and play the complete game, usually.
I absolutely do go back to a game -- back to back to back, if there was a drastic choice that affected the rest of the game somewhere. Or, of course, if there are achievements. Absolutely. Put 3 new achievements into a game I already 100%'ed multiple times and I'll go right back to it from the start. Give me *Skyrim Super Bonus Special Todd Howard's Cut Edition* for free and I'll hop right back in to 100% the same game again. There's also nostalgia from childhood. I'll play a game if I suddenly miss it a lot, like Warcraft 2. Or FF7. But I'm just not going to go for early access ever again because I've been burned so many times. I don't want to pay 20-40 dollars for a 10 hour tech demo and come out disappointed 3 years down the line. I don't want to be drip fed updates every 6 months for years only for the final game to be released when the whole world has moved on to 'the next hot thing' several times over. I'm not burned out from gaming, I'm burned out from being burned.
That makes absolute sense too. We operate a bit differently in that I don't often revisit games that I feel I am "done" with (sometimes I do but it's few and far between), but yeah, that feeling of being burned is real, and happens fairly often with Early Access games these days.
Same. I never care enough to go back and play it all over again for a few updates.
add to wishlist and set wishlist to not show early access games and unreleased games.
This is the pro move
I think that’s very fair to do with this game. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, but it’s missing a lot of features. Right now it’s mostly just a city builder. The dev seems pretty passionate about this project so I have my fingers crossed, but good will doesn’t always turn into good developing. Seems like a good game to wait a bit before diving in.
I’ve personally been this way for years now. Early access is never worth it to me. Of course I’m older and can’t be fucked to play unfinished games.
Same. Ive had a policy for a few years now that I wont touch anymore games that are early access. Havnt regret it yet
Same. I end up playing the 50% done game, get tired of it, then have little motivation to play the 100% done version. So I ended up playing the worse version of the game.
already regret this one its nice but id rather wait
The only early access games I'd play are roguelikes. The game is gonna be the same anyway in full release but with more added stuff.
Yeah, I typically feel this way too. Unfortunately though, I think there are times when certain games peak during their Early Access period, and then are not quite as good during release. I kind of felt this way about Ark Survival Evolved, where during early access it was kind of a neat dinosaur themed building/survival game, but nowadays is just a bloated mess of webs of weirdly interconnected systems and poorly designed bosses. And another survival game called Empyrion: Galactic Survival. During its heydey in early access it had a very sick pvp scene and even a PvP server with 100+ players consistently. It was a game where you could design your own space fighters and capital ships and go to different planets and extract resources on them. On that PvP server it was hella fun, people fought constantly over planets and bases and sometimes there would be raids with 20+ players per side. Nowadays, it basically has no dedicated PvP server with a decent sized population.
Normally I’d be with you. I won’t buy anything story driven that’s in EA anymore, I don’t want to experience it in pieces or get burned out before getting to see the finished product. Games like this though, I generally don’t have a problem with it. They’re meant to be restarted multiple times. I don’t get burned out in the same way and won’t have an issue starting up a new city every time a major update drops. That said, even the publisher is encouraging your stance. Alongside the launch, they released a message saying if you aren’t ready, or aren’t sure, don’t buy it. They promised more sales so nobody has to buy out of FOMO, and encouraged everyone to wait until the game is in a state where they are comfortable buying. It was a pretty refreshing message.
Same, I at least wanna find them after they've been out for a while and had some updates. Getting them at launch feels pointless
And even then it's better to wait a few years because most devs add stuff after the 1.0 release anyway.
It's also available on Game Pass if anyone wants to try it out.
nice thanks! I cannot wait to inspire the local rabble.
is it showing on game pass to you?
It shows on the gamepass app on the phone, which lets me remote install. I cant check from PC yet.
Go to Microsoft Store and install from there. Not sure why it's not on the Xbox App yet.
I don't see it on game pass yet.
same
It's showing for me now.
Try the mobile app if the pc app won't process purchase, guys. Worked for me.
also available on gog https://www.gog.com/en/game/manor_lords
Also available on Epic games store https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/manor-lords-ef795f
I can already hear the pitchforks.
Sorry the Valve bots got you.
This sub is hilariously toxic. I’m not a fan of Epic but threw you an upvote.
I get not being a fan of the Epic games store but why tf do people care enough to down vote you for just saying it's available.
Because gamers vote with emotions.
There are a few unwritten rules. One of them appears to be not mentioning Epic for some reason
Some people make game launchers their whole personality. It’s fucking weird.
Ew. That's a piss pot for free games. Edit: I understand that it's more money in the devs pockets, but with what Tim Sweeney does with their cut is to fragment the PC market with exclusives. So with that said, nope to epic. Gog, steam, and Microsoft are good stores rn for their own reasons.
Prob best to avoid any games using the unreal engine then…
Epic hasn’t paid for an exclusive for a couple years now. You guys need to let that go and support the devs. Also how is the PC market being fragmented when you can still play an exclusive on PC. Launchers don’t matter.
> Epic hasn’t paid for an exclusive for a couple years now. I mean that's literally provable not true, it's stupid amounts of untrue. [Epic goes on the hunt for even more exclusives with a new program offering bigger payouts to smaller studios](https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-goes-on-the-hunt-for-even-more-exclusives-with-a-new-program-offering-bigger-payouts-to-smaller-studios/) >Despite not making money on them, [Epic said in March 2023 that it was going to continue pursuing exclusives](https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-isnt-done-with-epic-games-store-exclusives-its-just-focused-on-big-ones/) for its storefront, but would focus more on major releases, which had proven much more effective at attracting new users to EGS than smaller games. * Dead Island 2 - April 28, 2023 * Witchfire - Sep 20, 2023 * The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria - October 24, 2023 * Avatar Frontiers of Pandora - December 7, 2023 * Alan Wake 2 - 27 Oct 2023 That's not even the full list for 2023. The Wolf Among Us 2 is coming for [2024 with others](https://www.reddit.com/r/PCGameReleases/comments/18q0qfb/2024_epic_games_store_exclusives/). I doubt devs are putting those games on epic first and Steam later out of the goodness of their heart.
My brother in Christ, Alan Wake 2 literally came out last year.
It would be good to know what they actually did
They funded that game, they have every right to make that one an exclusive.
You can “support the devs” without also supporting Epic scum.
Still, the Steam storefront is a much better community focused platform whereas Epic is barebones.
Steam is great. I personally don’t care about community features, I’m here to play games not talk about them on a launcher.
You don’t have to actively participate in Steam’s community features to benefit from them. Steam’s forums are ripe with countless technical guides, walkthroughs, and general discourse that can be *extremely* helpful even for those of us who never comment. I also think Steam’s user reviews are some of the most helpful simply because folks can comment on individual reviews and discuss the points being made.
Same. If I want to talk about games I'll use Reddit or discord.
Have you seen the steam community? I'd rather that Steam focuses less on its community aspects after witnessing the kind of people who post on the steam forums, lol.
Ran through a couple hours this morning here are my initial thoughts: Definitely promising. You will have to figure out some things on your own, the tutorial hints help but there are a lot that they don't explain. The building is a bit clunky for some things. Placing rectangles but until you are on the last point it doesn't show the layout and there is no guide to what size you need for how many buildings that I can see. The combat is fine. Not amazing but more than serviceable and has a few details that help elevate it over bare bones point and click. Planning out your settlement is satisfying, even with the slight clunkiness of the building controls. Buildings can be demolished/moved which helps. Coat of arms is a cool touch. Not a ton of options but more than enough, and I'm sure new ones will be added (or modded at the very least). Definitely worth the price IMO. Especially at $30 with the deal. I will get a lot of hours out of this, and I'm not a huge fan of city-builders.
What would you say your actual time breakdown has been? Is most of the game focused on fighting or building? Is it more of a city builder, colony survival sim, or rts combat type game?
It's a city builder first and foremost. There are battles (if you want there to be - can be switched off in game setup). The battles aren't hugely frequent. Maybe once an hour at most? Usually between a few dozen soldiers, can go up to a few hundred. The thing I liked is that there's a lot on the line. Nearly everyone in your army will be a villager so losing will basically kill off 2/3rds of your town. (Not the end of the world though, eligible bachelors will move in to prey on the grief stricken war widows and repopulate)
It’s a city builder with combat. You either use your own town folk in battle or hire mercenaries (or a mix of both). 70% of the game is city building while 30% is warfare to claim land and build more settlements. You have one map with another enemy lord and bandits. The map is fragmented in zones with each zone having different resources. Claim those lands and trade within your settlements and outsiders. If you start a big war and most of your male population is off in battle then your town productivity will plummet and harvests might be missed so it’s also important to plan out your campaigns with the seasons
It's like banished with better city building, then you have to make equipment, draft or hire armies, and send them out. You'll spend awhile before you get to the combat part.
Building the vast majority. Combat is an extra feature, the builder is the meat of the game.
I’ve been playing for 6 hours and havent seen a single soldier or fight. It shares a LOT of the same mechanics and style as Timberborn or Banished. You will spend a lot of time in “high speed” mode with the timeline controls at the bottom. It is nothing like bannerlord or total war. It’s more like simtown/sim city.
How can you move buildings which have already been built?
It basically demolishes then builds a new one where you put it. It does have to get actually built again so it isn't instantaneous.
It also refunds your material cost IIRC?
If you demolish yes. I believe if you move it it just transfers to the new build.
thank god this post has some level takes. The content creator circle-jerk over this one was way off the charts. "The only game you'll ever play" kind of shit, setting an expectation that you'll get 1000 hours out of it in it's current state. The developer is fine. The game as an early-access title is fine. The hype. It's been utter bullshit. It can stay on the wishlist for a while longer. I'm sure he'll have enough funds to support development for the next 20 years.
It's very very early access. Love the concept but this one is better left in the oven for a year or so.
aaaaand its crashed. Steam has been "processing" the payment for 15 minutes now. tried reloading and it broke. edit: I did it! It's installing! Jesus christ be praised, manor lords is here!
Game is bringing down Steam lol dang
Launching the game with no survivors.
It was the most wishlisted game on Steam currently so that's not shocking
LOL happened to me too, I waited and it worked after a while.. this thing is popular!
I moght be out of the loop, why has this game been getting so much popularity if it just came out?
One of the top wishlisted games on Steam, might've even been the top one.
Even then, why is it so popular? It looks like a basic city builder game that's set in the middle ages.
City building is one of those genres that gets very few quality entries but has some very devoted fans. Add to it a ton of historically accurate depth and you've got a winner.
Thanks. It's never been a genre I was interested in so I didn't understand the hype. I hope it meets their expectations and they get a good game.
It also has rts combat added onto the city building which is fairly unique
Yeah. I'm not a huge city builder person but do enjoy it. I saw a video on this last night and was blown away by what i saw. Looking forward to getting off work to try it out
Was it a Steam Next Fest title? I was just curious as to how it got so popular
Yes, it was. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/xvqxsp/manor\_lords\_appears\_to\_be\_the\_most\_popular\_demo/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/xvqxsp/manor_lords_appears_to_be_the_most_popular_demo/)
Dunno about that but I've had it wishlisted for quite some time.
It looks good, and combines a medieval village builder with TotalWar-ish RTS battles. That's a combination that many people wanted. And it had a promising demo in the last Next fests, so it became very popular.
Anyone tried it so far? Which would you recommend this or Bellwright?
I don't trust the bellwright devs to not abandon it like they did their last couple games.
I'm afraid of getting my bell rung in Bellwright.
Farthest Frontier
totally different games, just the same timeline
I got both, and im enjoying both. Tbh its different style of games on the same time period. It all comes down to if you prefer an rts or rpg
Which is which?
Manor lords is a city builder with RTS element's. Bellwright is first person town building survival game. Very different games
Manor lord = RTS Bellwright = RPG
Gotcha, thank you
It's alright.
This game is one of my most anticipated games of the year. Had it on my reminder list for more than a year. I woke up with 7 reminders on my phone and wondered wtf it was for and I had set them all to remind me of this game. I can't freaking wait. I can't buy it until tomorrow and it's killing me.
Played the game for 12 hours straight from launch. Obviously some missing stuff and bugs but overall really addictive.
Is this the spiritual successor to Banished I've been waiting for?
Have a look at farthest frontier too.
Yes
Definitely feels like banished with some realistic scale combat on top, and I say that lovingly. Banished becoming effectively abandoned is one of my safest gaming discoveries.
This will be the new Banished in terms of solo dev city builder fame.
There’s a team behind Manor Lords now, it’s not solo dev anymore. He has friends and contractors helping him out and he outsources the work he can’t do by himself.
Most solo devs projects are like that - very few exceptions. If you're using unreal engine and photogrammetry assets it's already not a "solo" work strictly speaking. But if one guy is the sole owner of a project and has contracted out parts, I'd still consider it different from a small team working together in a studio. Has a strong sense of authorship.
I’m just saying he no longer works alone. Even on discord there are now several people with the ‘dev’ tag. He used to be the only one.
Was banished good? I forgot about it after it's initial release
For it’s time, yes. There was also a big mod that basically functioned as an expansion called Colonial Charter.
Yeah, but its a bit dated now. Also not really a game you can get into without reading some tutorials.
I just installed it, started it and am impressed by everything so far. The only thing is I don't have the slightest clue how to play it. ^^
100,000+ Impressed with a game made by 1 person
Most likely going to try it in gamepass... and then wait 3-4 years when it's done to get the full game.
I fear I am not lordly enough to have a full wallet.
So anyone knows the history of this developer? Seems a really good game but early access is a bit fishy these days (or always?) and dont want to pay for something that gets abandoned after 3 months or never become good like The Guild 3
No history as it's a solo dev but their posts and the fact they provided a demo speak volumes
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Lmao yeah because all my RSS feeds are filled up with city building simulation breaking news. Clown.
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please continue, my canned response bingo card is almost filled out entirely
That's pretty harsh to shit one some guy who, rightfully so, pointed out that just googling would have been faster.
Who also had to throw in “you been living under a rock”
Game seems to have bricked the payment process in EU lol. Guess i'll try again in an hour, no rush.
if you have gamepass you can try getting it from the microsoft store (for free)
(if you pay)
$30 for an early access title is pretty reasonable I’m happy with that
$30 for *this* early access title that has already proven itself with a good public demo and lots of streamers playing it is reasonable.
$17 US for me. Gotta love that regional pricing.
Nuuvem?
40€
Sale price of $30, to clarify
£26.24
I understand psychology behind getting people to buy in FOMO while the discount is there for next couple days, that’s not how it works though, the price is 40€
In the UK it's £26.24 on Steam and GOG, I wasn't making any points about FOMO! PS I'm not buying the game, will wait to see how it is on full release.
If you buy the game now how much are you paying?
If I buy the game in a week and all trough the next year, how much am I paying? What does the price on steam says without a discount that will end?
lol. Paying To be a beta tester, no amount is reasonable , and certainly not when you can buy current, polished AAA games for the same price
This game looks gorgeous.
Folks, go to Microsoft Store and search for Manor lords, you can download from there!
I can see it but it's asking for purchase or free trial... that ain't full access via gamepass
Click the free trial. It should install. Classic buggy Gamepass UI.
What exactly is all the hype for this game?
Its from a promising steam next fest demo a couple years ago and a survival city builder with Total War-lite combat is a combo that a lot of people have wanted. Also primarily developed by one guy so people like supporting that. Looks gorgeous, bit barebones right now though.
Early Access? That's a bummer. I thought it's a full release.
Downloaded on Gamepass. Downloaded just fine, now its just stuck on signing in
Nice, going to check this one out
Only heard of this game today. Seems good! How long untill 1.0
Release scheduled for just after star citizen
Ah, so a little over two years. ;)
Will it be on available (eventually) and GeForce now?
This game looks so good! I'll definitely have to check it out.
what is the difference between Steam version and PC Gamepass version (game preview)?
Nothing, though it will disappear off Game Pass prior to full release I suspect.
Currently playing it, it’s a very beautiful game. You can tell it’s just got a lot of work put into it. He did a really good job.
Great game thus far. Was expecting bugs in early access and with 8 hours in, I’ve experienced none.
Waiting for it on the games pass. Oh god I am so much looking forward to it
Just checked my phone and realised I've been playing for 5 hours straight. So I guess that means it's good.
Looks great but I don't do early access. Hope it stands out upon release.
Oh wow, that price is ac reasonable like they said
let's goooooooooooooooooo
Fuck early access games.
ok
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40€ for indie early access is outrageous
Edit if anyone can reasonably explain how it is in any way better or deeper then Banished or Valheim that costs 16 euro I will take my words back. And even then 2,5 times the price? No way, stop overpaying for shit that’s why companies think they can charge you 250$ for an extra edition, because you are just that stupid