Why isn't this game more popular?

[Solver]

Now I'm not in any way involved in pricing or marketing so these are my personal thoughts, but I'll note that 40 USD/EUR is a fair bit below triple-A prices. New triple-A releases sell for 60 now, with the more expensive ones going for 70.

A look at current prices of major AAA sellers - Jedi: Survivor costs 70, so does Modern Warfare 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 is selling for 60, three years after release. Hogwarts Legacy and Elden Ring are 60.

30 is the typical price point for newer studios or for older games, while the games selling for 20 are typically much lower budget games from small studios that have a handful of people. Old World's price at 40 is comparable to other games that fall short of triple-A but have recognizable developers, or are a fair bit older. From Paradox, Stellaris and HoI4 are both at 40 now, being 2016 games with expensive DLC. So all in all, Old World's price seems very typical to me. The game is definitely not close to a triple-A budget but it's also considerably bigger than a two-developer team and was made by a veteran team, of course headed by the best 4X designer active in the last 20 years, so if I was a regular player, I'm pretty sure I would consider that to be a very fair price.

 

[Cacaso]

I really liked this game. OW is fantastic, the order system was a gamechanger, it was a very smart move. Overall I thought it was pretty good.

However I would like to ask the developers to improve the graphics performance required to play if possible. Because I use an older notebook that is very limited in terms of video card, and I believe that many other players who like the "turn strategy" genre may also have this same difficulty that I experience with my humble notebook. So if the game had the option of how to improve performance even more, simplifying the graph, I would find it interesting that there was this possibility, as it would make the game more accessible.

It would be something like, if there is already an option "set graphics in Low", there was "set graphics in Very low".

If this can be done by code optimization even better. I usually start games on a map with 4 opposing CIVs, 4 tribes and about 50 city sites in all for everyone (me, CIVs, tribes, barbarians, empty), and then when I get to turn 20 the game usually starts to crash , and it is because of video memory performance. I would love to be able to continue playing normally even if in lower video graphics quality because the game is very interesting

but in general, great work from you at the company was fantastic, the game is very cool, the order mechanics gave an incredible balance, the interests between the characters is also an innovative and very cool aspect, the event mechanics. I think that several of these points are innovations that seem to be evolutions/improvements of things that you see in Civilization games and, being a Civ3/4/6-player, I loved being able to have the experience that this OW game provides. My congratulations to the developers.

 

[Solver]

What are you system specs @Cacaso? Just how limited video are we talking here?

We've done lots of work on optimization, the game initially shipped with some major performance issues and sometimes even struggled on powerful gaming machines. But the programming team has been hard at work on optimization and these days, as far as I know, the game runs well and is even playable on weaker laptops, so I'm curious about just what kind of old hardware you have in mind.

 

[Cacaso]

i5-3317U (1.70Ghz)
Intel HD graphics 4000
HD - 1 Tb + Ssd - 248 mb
RAM memory - 8 GB

Spoiler :

 

[Dale]

It's definitely the graphics card and CPU causing your issues. The Intel HD 4000 is an integrated graphics chip that was never built to support modern 3D games. I believe it came out 2012 or 2013? It should be fine for 2D or mobile games, but 3D will struggle. Your CPU, the i5-3317, is also well under the minimum requirements.

 

[Solver]

i5-3317U (1.70Ghz)
Intel HD graphics 4000
HD - 1 Tb + Ssd - 248 mb
RAM memory - 8 GB

Yes, that one is unfortunately not going to work for the game ever, sorry. It's not an actual GPU, it's an integrated graphics chip that was never intended for 3D gaming, and it struggles even with contemporary games. I believe the HD 4000 barely manages acceptable performance in Civ5, which came out two years before this hardware did. Our official minimum specs require a dedicated GPU from 2013. You could probably manage to play on something a bit below minimum, but a laptop with Intel HD 4000 is beyond what's possible.

The reason it crashes, if anyone's curious, is that the system runs out of video memory. As usual with integrated chips, the HD 4000 has only a tiny amount of dedicated memory (enough for 2D stuff) and mostly uses system RAM as video memory, with a limit as well. An application running on this hardware will crash as soon as it exceeds 2 GB video memory use (possibly less, depending on system settings), which is unlike a dedicated GPU with 2 GB VRAM, which would still be able to fall back to system RAM in that case.

 

[PiR]

Isn't there a "strategic view" that would be a 2D version playable on Kindle?

 

[Solver]

Not something we have sadly, as awesome as it is in Civ.

 

[Tarquelne]

I'd guess the lack of connection to an existing big-IP is the biggest factor: Not only are a lot of people going to go for the more accessible looking games, they may not even look beyond the most popular titles when shopping.

I suspect the game being confined to ancient times is a factor. I think it makes OW a much better strategy game than it might have been otherwise, but that also makes it less of a sweeping-historical-don't-forget-to-reenact-WWII-"Civilization"-toy of a game.

Not flashy! With that gorgeous artwork? And the spates of assassinations! Not flashy? Of course, I've mostly been playing Factorio lately, and before that the logistics homework that is Shadow Empire, so maybe my sense of "flashy" has become warped.

 

[aimlessgun]

Between the general social media posts and Solver's comment, I think there's an element of "building the game we want to play", even if that isn't the most mass-market game, and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as it's sustainable anyhow.

Yeah, not every game has to be for every person. It does feel like even taking that into account the game is less popular than it 'should' be though, given my high opinion of it's quality. Maybe it is the social media aspect others mention, and the very low amount of online discussion may not be proportional to how much it's actually being played. And that sort of thing has feedback loops: below a certain threshold of activity even people who would like to participate give up on it.

Personally I was not aware of the game until a week ago and came across it via a post about it on the civfanatics front page (and I don't come here regularly, I just check in every so often to see if mods ever fix Civ6 lol). As someone who loves Civ and Paradox games I'm definitely the target audience, but I guess I'm not out there googling "best 4x games of 2022". But I suppose that's how having a long tail works: with good reviews and continued support, when I did finally hear about the game it was a definite buy.

 

[Solver]

Welcome to Old World @aimlessgun! On your online discussion point, Old World's community on Discord is pretty active, it's just a different format from what we Civ veterans are used to with forums etc. In some ways Discord is great, in others less so, one notable drawback being that it's invisible unless you're a member of the community. You could accidentally stumble upon Old World here on CFC but you won't accidentally join the Discord.

You're right about the long tail - while we absolutely don't have player numbers comparable to Civ or other 4X games that have more visibility, we're seeing a strong long tail effect with Old World and that means the game is doing well. We have more players now than a year ago. There are definitely many people in the target audience who still haven't heard of the game but when they do hear about it, the reception is usually a very good one. That's one of the upsides of making 4X games, they can remain relevant for many years without losing much.

 

[PiR]

If you make it compatible with Windows 13, I'm pretty sure OW will stand the test of time.

 

[Solver]

I'm the team's Linux guy - so I hardly see why the game needs any Windows compatibility at all

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Just stumbled upon this thread.

I own OW and like it a lot. Bought the game on release day.

OW definitely has that 'one more turn' hook to it. Unfortunately, for me at least, there are so many other distractions on the market today that it is impossible for me to stay with one game.

That being said I find myself being constantly sucked back into endless hours of fun with C3C, mostly with all the community created scenarios and mods.

What OW needs imho is user created scenarios set in either the industrial or modern era. I have yet to find a replacement for C3C but Old World could be that game.

 

[PiR]

What OW needs imho is user created scenarios set in either the industrial or modern era.

This is like rewriting the whole game?
It's not just replacing the units, buildings, techs, laws, resources, nation names by more recent ones (what a work!), leveraging the order system.
Do the leaders make any sense in a modern era? the tribes?

 

[Dale]

It would be a full conversion, but not out of the realms of possibility. At the end of the day, OW is an engine with a skin themed around Bronze/Iron Age Mediterranean. You could totally change that skin to some time/place else.

 

[PiR]

It's a bit more than a "user created scenario" I think

 

[keldath]

Hi there,
OW has a great premise. Personally, i like the game's Art style, its presentation,
the amount of customization and flexibility.. the orders is awesome.

Why i couldn't get my self to be hooked on it, is because i like less games that are based on Random events and contain a text fest.
i don't like Paradox games like CK and such cause of the amount of events.
playing Civ gives me the freedom of play, means i don't have to read text of events every turn and keep pace over Plot events.
I would have preferred to have much less events with minimal text (for example , civ4 events were with minimal text , but i never played with it on...).

In addition,
Later games, OW, Civ6 and even humankind , all started to suffer from the idea of, numbers and too much features.
the prior games had much less stuff to , meddle with, much less core resources to manage , or in a simpler way.
sometimes "less is more" in my opinion.
stuff can be added as options or in later dlc's i guess.. for me, there are too many numbers and a steep learning curve to get into a game.

Despite all that OW is a great addition to the 4x and the level of support it gets, patch updates and care is amazing. i hope the attention to it will grow and OW2 will be created at some stage.

keep it up Mohawk dear friends !

 

[Dale]

Hi there,
OW has a great premise. Personally, i like the game's Art style, its presentation,
the amount of customization and flexibility.. the orders is awesome.

Why i couldn't get my self to be hooked on it, is because i like less games that are based on Random events and contain a text fest.
i don't like Paradox games like CK and such cause of the test events.
playing Civ gives me the freedom of play, means i don't have to read text of events every turn and keep pace over Plot events.
I would have preferred to have much less events with minimal text (for example , civ4 events were with minimal text , but i never played with it on...).

In addition,
Later games, OW, Civ6 and event humankind , all started to suffer from the idea of, numbers and too much features.
the prior games had much less stuff to ,addle with, much less core resources to manage , or in a simpler way.
sometimes "less is more" in my opinion.
stuff can be added as options or in later dlc's i guess.. for me, there are too many numbers and a steep learning curve to get into a game.

Despite all that OW is a great addition to the 4x and the level of support it gets, patch updates and care is amazing. i hope the attention to it will grow and OW2 will be created at some stage.

keep it up Mohawk dear friends !

Just to point out, when setting up a game in advanced setup if you choose "Minimal" event level, you will only get the mandatory events to conduct diplomacy. None of the narrative story events will occur.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

@keldath

My first impression of OW was like this: OMG every single turn there are multiple events popping up. Too much to read. Unplayable.

But as Dale mentioned, you can set the event level to Minimal. And that is what i did, the game is wonderful with that setting. Most of the turns, events do not occur at all. The game is fun!