BitCraft - Deep HnH Vibes revisited

[Robben_DuMarsch]

I don't doubt that they have great ideas for how to make the world a cool place, and big plans for how to conquer many of the recurring issues in the MMO genre, and the idea of PVP without combat sounds like it could be interesting if they can get it to work.

My criticism is only with the current state of the game, which when combined with the reality that they've had several years of development and are a studio of over two dozen employees, doesn't inspire belief in their ability to follow through. The time to sell people on the promise of what the game may have offered was several years ago - *This* is the product they have now.

I think it's fairly judged on that basis. Their website, which claims that Bitcraft is the *first* large scale survival crafting MMO (HnH? Dune: Awakening, which began closed beta testing in December?), claims that they've been in closed pre-alpha testing since 2020, meaning they left pre-production. So, they've had nearly half a decade, if not more, to put their product together.

[TerraSleet]

I don't doubt that they have great ideas for how to make the world a cool place, and big plans for how to conquer many of the recurring issues in the MMO genre, and the idea of PVP without combat sounds like it could be interesting if they can get it to work.

My criticism is only with the current state of the game, which when combined with the reality that they've had several years of development and are a studio of over two dozen employees, doesn't inspire belief in their ability to follow through. The time to sell people on the promise of what the game may have offered was several years ago - *This* is the product they have now.

I think it's fairly judged on that basis. Their website, which claims that Bitcraft is the *first* large scale survival crafting MMO (HnH? Dune: Awakening, which began closed beta testing in December?), claims that they've been in closed pre-alpha testing since 2020, meaning they left pre-production. So, they've had nearly half a decade, if not more, to put their product together.

I guess my question is what specifically is missing from the alpha that is present in HnH? What would compel you to try it? You mention your time in Whatever Bay, that you were part of building a large market and a city despite yourself not knowing many of its population, but I don't see why Bitcraft in its current alpha state can't provide a similar experience (minus the sieging)? They also mentioned they are adding an empire system (which I'm guessing is analogous to realms) in the near future. It's hard to judge these systems right now because alpha literally started a couple days ago and there is no in-game infrastructure built up, no large scale towns, or player markets to be a part of because they haven't yet been built.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

I was offered a key by a Whatever Bay resident, but when they confirmed that the game was basically a neutered HnH and may nuke my 4090, I declined. I was told, and watched some twitch gameplay which demonstrated, that the game mimics some of the early game progression of HnH, but replaces systems like mining with basic nodes akin to Runescape or Albion that are more about clicking and waiting than any actual gameplay.

There's no cooking or credos for progression as FEPs and LP have been replaced with a runescape/albion-esque system that you skill up through repetition of basic tasks. Many of the crafting processes have been distilled or simplified down to more common base inputs that you harvest in bulk and render through crafting station progress bars. Even PvE combat against wild animals has been reduced to clicking on them with a bow equipped then pressing the 1, 2, and 3 keys on the keyboard before you start your harvest bar.

They've more or less kept the land claim and base building component of HnH, albeit heavily simplified (especially on the supply side), and removed everything else.

I guess what it would take would be something that actually improves or iterates upon HnH and Albion, rather than being a simplified copy of only incomplete parts of them.

[Zentetsuken]

Well, it only took a novella spread across multiple forum pages, but we've arrived at the truth.

Robert doesn't know anything about Bitcraft outside of what 5 minutes of a twitch stream and "a guy from his village" told him.


Again, I think what you meant to say was, "hey guys, I've decided I don't like the thing you are talking about! please notice my opinion!"

You sure have wasted a lot of time typing here.

[PPSFV]

This companies product is the database, the game is just a demo. VC's don't fund games but they do fund companies that sell shovels to the games industry.

spacetimedb dot com/
github dot com/clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB

[TerraSleet]

I was offered a key by a Whatever Bay resident, but when they confirmed that the game was basically a neutered HnH and may nuke my 4090, I declined. I was told, and watched some twitch gameplay which demonstrated, that the game mimics some of the early game progression of HnH, but replaces systems like mining with basic nodes akin to Runescape or Albion that are more about clicking and waiting than any actual gameplay.

There's no cooking or credos for progression as FEPs and LP have been replaced with a runescape/albion-esque system that you skill up through repetition of basic tasks. Many of the crafting processes have been distilled or simplified down to more common base inputs that you harvest in bulk and render through crafting station progress bars. Even PvE combat against wild animals has been reduced to clicking on them with a bow equipped then pressing the 1, 2, and 3 keys on the keyboard before you start your harvest bar.

They've more or less kept the land claim and base building component of HnH, albeit heavily simplified (especially on the supply side), and removed everything else.

I guess what it would take would be something that actually improves or iterates upon HnH and Albion, rather than being a simplified copy of only incomplete parts of them.

That's fair. I think they are trying to cast a wide net with their gameplay loops to minimise the perceived barrier to entry. Hence the basic point and click gameplay for most of the skills. I hope the complexity picks up a bit in the later game, with skills being more interdependent and having niche utility beyond "this makes you run faster or gives more stamina".

Frankly, half of HnHs systems are so esoteric that very few players even care enough to study it; those who do are drawn like moths to optimization puzzles, so they end up playing 24/7 and becoming absurdly OP (Snail and folks being the most recent example). That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it attracts a very niche playerbase and asking someone to pick up HnH feels like asking them to pick up a course in astrophysics sometimes, so it's no surprise HnH rarely surpasses 1k active players. Whereas Bitcraft is trying to shoot for high population, getting as many people into the game as possible - presumably so they can use it to stress test SpacetimeDB.

With that said I still don't think it's fair to call this game a ripoff or anything more than loosely inspired by HnH, as you say many of the core systems in HnH aren't in Bitcraft.

[Dawidio123]

Again, I think what you meant to say was, "hey guys, I've decided I don't like the thing you are talking about! please notice my opinion!"

You sure have wasted a lot of time typing here.

Well you forget Robert TheFartSniffer is the main character of this universe so his opinion is very important to everyone, especially when it's as objective as being based on 5 minutes of gameplay and being like "meh i don't like how it looks" but 4 paragraphs long

[Harthel]

I managed to snag a key and played for a couple days. I'd say what Robben has said about the game is pretty accurate, although it *is* just an alpha atm. Assuming this is more of a baseline and that a lot more features are coming, I think it could be really good. The incentive to do the grinding, other than for grinding's sake, seems to be cosmetics and titles. I'm not really sure what they have planned for the future other than the few things I caught during the latest alpha launch stream. I know there isn't going to be PvP, but they did say there would be a way to resolve conflicts. Also there is some pve, you can hunt animals and have an HP/stamina bar along with combat stats, so I am assuming there will be more in-depth PvE combat.

The game looks really good, plays really smoothly, and I like a lot of the QoL feature that it has. I think it's too early to judge the game, seems more like a proof-of-concept with this alpha acting as an early stress test. The only thing that makes it similar to HnH is that it's a crafting 'MMO' with a huge map that has biomes, where you can have personal/village claims. That's where the similarities end, for the most part. I honestly hope they borrow more ideas from HnH, the devs have said they have more things planned for the next test phase, so we will have to wait and see. The lack of pvp means nothing to me, although I am curious how they plan to let players handle conflict resolution. I saw a lot of claims right next to each other (but also the way you claim tiles is non-linear/amorphous) so what happens when a bigger group is surrounded by a bunch of small claims? The claims need a steady flow of crafted supplies to be deposited to keep from decaying. Not sure how decay works.

Right now there isn't enough to keep me interested in playing, but I'm definitely keeping my eye on the game as I think it has a lot of promise.