Is Brighter Shores Dead Already?

[@ASZzztoluca]

The offline passive skilling makes using active player count hard. Sometimes I login just for 5min to make sure I can earn xp for the next 24hrs and logoff.

[@Teloril]

Exactly, I completely agree. It's a bad metric.

[@queefburglar6996]

Subscriptions would be a solid metric

[@kintsugi3932]

Because you don't find it fun enough to play it actively lol. The game is mid, nobody would care about it if the RS brothers weren't behind it.

[@TchSktch]

@@kintsugi3932 Did you miss the part where they said 'sometimes' implying that they do play the game and just do this during the time they aren't playing?

[@kintsugi3932]

@@TchSktch Steam charts says it all lmao

[@newyou6210]

As soon as this game goes mobile the player base would skyrocket

[@Teloril]

I didn't even think of this as I wrote this one - of course it will!

[@jeffery1harris941]

Damn, very true. So many mobile possibilities; with skilling, whatever.

[@cesiodomeia-ponte444]

Fuck mobile

[@richw9056]

Its still an afk game. It's basically a mobile game as is, not an insult.. I enjoy the game lol

[@Purge5165]

Steam link ;)

[@EravinVT]

As it turns out reusing assets for 450 levels might not be super compelling

[@ricoooooooo]

I get it but to put it into context 500 levels in brighter shores is like level 103 in osrs

[@ginjaedgy49]

@@ricoooooooo it's not, brighter shores xp curve is different to runescape

[@PackTactics]

The game is in Alpha. It doesn't even have an XP log or group content in the MMO. I think it's silly to say it's dead especially coming from runescape players.

[@c4ke_rs]

Steam page literally states to 1.0 release in 6 months. It is not in Alpha.

[@Blacwulff]

@@c4ke_rs if a game is not released, then it would be either in alpha or beta. it very well can be in alpha.

[@PackTactics]

@@c4ke_rs If this is not alpha then I'm changing my position on the matter.

[@ginjaedgy49]

you cant release an MMO in early access and expect it to succeed if the inital experience is bad.

[@DBProds96]

its not in alpha lmao

[@Bixxxs]

The problem with brighter shores is that it feels like your grinding skills for the sake of grinding skills. There arent any worthwhile payoffs, and everything is locked to specific areas. OSRS is just better in every way.

[@modeman4100]

Have you ever played RS classic? This game is basically the same as classic on release (but with a few tacked on systems like chapters and ventures)only thing to do is tedious grind or wildy pk when that was released later on and that eventually became rs2 and osrs so I say give it a few years and come back to it if you like the updates.

[@jahazielheraslomeli4223]

​@@modeman4100so we aré going to compare a game 2024 game to a 2004 at his launch? Lol

[@modeman4100]

@@jahazielheraslomeli4223 classic came out 2001 you are thinking of rs2 and we are going to compare them because they have the same developers. It took years of content updates for example just to get rs2 to the state where people became nostalgic enough to warrant the relaunch of the 2007 version of the game. Brighter shores as it exists right now is closer in features and content to runescape classic at launch.

[@kaarthuisplus]

@@jahazielheraslomeli4223 It's a game made by a small time in a new engine.

[@fatherzerk5841]

@@modeman4100Literally a dumb ass take.

[@cool-lemon]

I went into it pretty hyped. But, man... I feel like Andrew & everybody else working on the game really missed with this one. They tried so hard for it to not be like RuneScape, that it just became something which doesn't really work. Seems like they looked at what they did with RuneScape and decided to do the exact opposite. Which, unsurprisingly, makes for a very boring and uninspired game. The chat system is horrendous too. Good luck trying to communicate with people, because it's heavily, heavily moderated to the point where you're better off just not talking to anybody. At the moment, there's just no purpose to the game. No rhyme or reason to do anything. No sense of your characters power increasing, you can't even eat the fish you've cooked. I just don't get it. You can't even roam the world freely, even if your character is a high level, you will ALWAYS be attacked by mobs. There's a potion to stop that, but you're limited in regards to how many points you can carry with you. If you want to get more, then you either have to go to episode 1 or episode 5 to do so. Just seems like every single thing is extremely flawed. No way this game will ever be successful unless they go back to square one and revamp the entire experience.

[@Desperado070]

When you get muted for asking how the weather is... 😂

[@inoox]

Ah yes, the copium videos begin. The moment comments and videos come out trying to justify dwindling numbers, thats when you know its dying. Brighter shores is gradually losing its playerbase, it wasnt a spike as you are showing in your game comparisons. This tells you people are getting bored. Ill just copy paste what I wrote on reddit to what I think is wrong with this game. The same combat profession every new region is dumb. It isn't so "everyone experiences it fresh." Since monsters scale to your level. It's just so people play his game for longer. Not enough engaging content. No rewarding feeling for the long grinds. Gatherer and forager are the exact skill, just separated to pad out playtime. Kindergarten levels of security/privacy. The chat filter, the strict reasoning for muting people and opt in leaderboards are dumb. He is obviously tailoring this game towards mobile and a young audience, of all ages. This is wishful thinking for a game as grindy as this. Thus it will always be restricted for that and will never be great on pc. Profession leveling restricted to one zone. Resource nodes wether static or active changing skin colour and name for the higher level stuff. This is cheap and lazy. The 'room' system, not even being able to see into the next rooms because of how the layering system works. Again, intended because of mobile. Lack of anything cooperative. There is barely any world building. Game is not immersive at all and feels very shallow. I understand this is very early days. I am hoping alot of these things get addressed in the future, but I'm worried alot of this is exactly how he intended and it isn't going to change much except for added content. If it shows he is changing the game to be more pc friendly and less like we are all children and more rewarding content, then I will return.

[@Gwarge94]

Haha you love to see it. It was only a matter of time before we started seeing the copium from the BS player base. I’ve been saying it for weeks, and even I’m surprised it’s happened this quick! 😂

[@MortarNMetal]

I think the main argument for the design of “everyone gets to start a new episode on equal footing” is itself deeply disconnected from how most players feel. If people spekd hundreds of hours grinding they want to feel much further ahead than someone new, especially in shared areas as they get to flex their numbers or gear

[@sharktos3218]

​@@MortarNMetalThe idea was that they shouldn't get bored by weak enemies, which is admirable, if it wasn't for the scaling enemies.

[@ZedNull.]

They need massive updates before i would touch it again, combats basic as can be and repetitive, mobs are carbon copies of eachother and the grind is obviously just there to pad out playtimes in between sporadic episodic releases. If we are being real this game is probably years away from becoming anything special.

[@Gwarge94]

I find it funny how they marketed the game as having THOUSANDS of hours of content when in reality, its just clicking the same nodes, reskinned, in a select few locations over and over and over and over and over… game is whack.

[@Pieherto]

Its a scam. The grind amounts to nothing. There is no real sense of progression.

[@jaygoodwin6287]

​@@Pieherto it is in Alpha. Andrew said that he can't wait any longer and wants to release it early. It is currently click and copy, as a lot of games are the beginning. You can use the original runescape exactly for a reference. It's the updates after the release that make the changes.

[@Mark-sd4hv]

People just wanted a full world they could run around in, level the skills of their choice and do quests. Everything is there, but the choices they made feel horrible. They can either make it into a normal MMO or that number keeps falling. I mean all he had to do was make a normal MMO and he would have made millions a year for the rest of his life. Instead he spent 10 years to make a game that died in a year(but Really a month)

[@Doomblade3890]

I just heard about this game. What choices did they make that killed it?

[@taserrr]

I feel like the only people left who love the game and will defend it to the end are just a few thousand people that absolutely adore the Gowers Brothers. Let's be realistic, this game is doing really poorly and for good reason, there's basically nothing to do except endless grinds that is copy paste to get to arbitrary number levels. Here's a grey eel to fish for 10 hours, oh look, now it's a blue eel, 10 hours later it's a yellow eel. How exciting, out of the thousands of games that are out there, why the hell would people want to play this one?

[@slippyslapperz150]

I’m playing and I’m very aware the grinding is pointless. I’m doing all the quests personally. I believe in the Gower so you’re right on that point. But I believe in what it’s going to become. Also I’m having fun completing the quests and cooking vegetable stew

[@josephjones1093]

@@slippyslapperz150 But the quests just become a get a high level in this and that which ultimately is doing exactly what the fella said above.

[@slippyslapperz150]

@@josephjones1093 yes and no. Yes because obviously those are the quest requirements but it gives a reason for grinding. The reason being the rewards. Like one gives extra bag space. One gives a spell to transfer items. Etcetera. For me that’s enough in the short term to pacify me and I wouldn’t be doing it if i believed there wouldn’t be more reasons to grind in the future. Like more quests, zones, pvp.

[@ZackLondres]

From what I have seen, this is a small slice of what they have in the works. What we see is a very bare bones framework. Its clear if you have finished the Hopeforest story, that boss mechanics have been fully thought out, and there's going to be more to come. Before that we need the combat update with special attacks and whatnot to make combat have some more meaningful decisions. Also pvp will bring something new to strive for, and maybe more rewards. No other MMO offers this "runescapy" feeling. Afking while doing other things in my life, then after I get the skill I can go on a quest to the spooky castle. The quests are also in the vein of rs, but with a bit more polish, though not too over the top. So, I get that for many people it's bad, but it just needs these updates that I am actually super confident are in the works, just not ready for prime time just yet. So I am just playing, and making sure that when new endgame content is added, I'm not a 300 hour grind away from being able to do it.

[@taserrr]

@@ZackLondres Black Desert online offers exactly what you want, afk skilling. And that game looks incredibly good, even for a game 10 years old. Brighter shores looks and feels like a game that was created 20-25 years ago. And if they spent 8 years developing this game, and are happy to release early access with a full release scheduled 6 months from now, or 1/16th of the dev time it already had, and they're happy to charge you money for a sub, how the hell did we only get a "small slice of what they have in the works"? How much significant changes do you really think they will be able to make in 6 months? Overhaul combat completely, change the engine to allow for multiple zones at once, add in PvP, add at least 5 times the amount of quests, make skilling less copy paste and more overlap in between zones. It's a delusion, sorry but you're clearly not thinking right your expectations don't match the reality of the situation.

[@MostlyAlone]

I don't understand all of the Runescape playerbase people complaining about having to grind levels to get quest requirements. It's literally the exact same thing as it is in Runescape...there's a quest with a very important reward that you want, so you have to grind skills to various levels in the 50s 60s and 70s to complete it... The agility level for Song of the Elves is 10 hours of grinding just from level 60 to 70 using optimal courses... The grind to finish Brannof Inheritance is fairly long, but the reward is that you get to go 3x or 4x longer between quartermaster trips when doing any skill that involves equipment crafting or drops. It's totally worth it.

[@readifdumb]

The thing is, in RuneScape there is so many quest that speed you through the first 1-40 levels of skills, making the early game basically a series of quest you do in a certain order + some small grinds in between. Also RuneScape has so many grinds related to getting certain weapon unlocks, like your offhand daggers from reanimated armor + cyclops for the dragon off hand. So each quest and each activity feels like it's working towards a goal, but in BS it feels like you're working towards fighting the same enemies but recolored over and over until you can finally do one quest. IMO it's very different. Also it doesn't take long in RS to get to mini games which are way more fun than just mindlessly clicking on the same spots.

[@DelphinusPtolemy]

Afk skilling is so fire i gain like 3 levels a day while i go brrrrrr on leagues 😊

[@soraroxesventerra]

Just do crime den raids it's so afk you can do leagues while doing it! That and leatherworking is chill and fast too!

[@Gwarge94]

You know a game is “fun” when you spend most of your time afk, playing another game entirely. Lmao 🤡

[@DelphinusPtolemy]

@@Gwarge94 The game is fun, but I am not married to the game, when I actively play it I DO have fun, but I also appreciate that I can not be online and still progress. Theres so many great games in the world it would be a shame to play only one or act like I need to always be playing it.

[@legendaryhearthstone]

Game has potential, but dont think it has enough capital to produce the content it needs to retain players. Will be interesting to see what happens. Once the subs drop off they'll be forced to do something different, or game could literally 'fall off a cliff'.

[@fatalspots4196]

andrews networth is like 750 million tho

[@Blurite]

Not gonna lie I’m bout to quit too lol. I’m rank 14 in the world for foraging and just don’t have it in me to grind to 500 just to quit and 5 years from now remember “oh yeah that game I played for 300 hours for nothing”

[@oatmealftw]

You should be doing it because its fun to you. Dont play any game if it isnt fun for you.

[@Blurite]

@ its been a pretty back and forth battle with this one tbh. I think curiosity of other games is going to continue making me feel like I’m wasting my time grinding this.

[@oatmealftw]

@blurite an example i always love to give is i have a maxed rs acc. I dont play anymore and dont like the game direction. But it wasnt a waste cause i met a lot of cool people and had fun doing it! If other games are calling you, go and play them! Dont feel bad about putting a game down, it'll only make you like the game even less! But later down maybe when new content comes around, you can come check what's up!

[@kokingsclan2]

System is stupid and u can't even say poo in the game

[@FuzzyPurp]

this game is soo ass. i got far as i could in f2p then discovered that i could afk train i havnt left afk training since the first tim e i did and i log in less LOL

[@Gwarge94]

Leaving a comment here so I can come back when the game inevitably dies. The player base is declining day by day, and the core foundations of the game are simply unenjoyable (this can’t be fixed and won’t be changed). Above all, a game is supposed to be fun, and this doesn’t even come close to meeting that standard. Anyone who thinks otherwise should seek help.

[@akkitakara]

I think you should seek help if you really have the game living rent free in your head until it "dies". Like, its somehow vindicating for something to end just because you don't like it? If you don't have fun playing the game, don't play it, it's that simple. No need to be rude and tell others to seek help when having fun is completely subjective.

[@Gwarge94]

@ lol did I hurt your feelings lil bro. Sorry I bashed your favourite game, I hope you’re doing okay! It’s funny that the majority of comments on this video share the same sentiment as me. Looks like it’s just you and a few other snowflakes kiddo ✌🏼

[@akkitakara]

@@Gwarge94 Whatever helps you sleep at night! Seriously though, consider therapy if this is your response to criticism of a shit take. Never said you can't dislike it, but you should really consider stop trying to shit on other people for enjoying things that you don't.

[@sbef]

Jesus you seem a pretty sad person to want to gloat when a game isn't doing well, and making fun of people that seem to like it. For being in your 30s, you sound terribly insecure of yourself. Peace

[@jahazielheraslomeli4223]

​@@akkitakarabut why u crying tho

[@butchrodgers9559]

This game was dead to me on the first day. I was so hype but honestly it’s just not an enjoyable game for me and when I expressed my opinion anywhere on Reddit or discord the community just attacked me with hate.

[@Teloril]

This sucks, sorry that happened. Healthy criticism and discussion of the game is not only welcome but encouraged. I haven't deleted or flamed any single comment on this video, for example.

[@Gwarge94]

Facts, game is boring. Anyone that says otherwise is in denial. Community is toxic af to criticism, it’s full of lefty snowflakes.

[@jahazielheraslomeli4223]

The community Is horrible and would be one of the main reasons the game would fail

[@GamingTechReview]

I was attacked too by the same community.

[@BloachismStrengthandFitness]

@@GamingTechReview Me as well. I tried to give some good feedback but the circle jerkers immediately attacked me. Lmao, the game will never get anywhere because all of the redditors tell the dev the game is amazing and nothing will progress.

[@Teloril]

alternate title: 'The ULTIMATE guide to a forming cohesive argument'

[@SparkPup]

I'm really enjoying Brighter Shores. Finished all quests. Playing OSRS leagues right now, but not leaving Brighter Shores.

[@Hunter77567]

Agree. Osrs while i love it ive done it all and the devs arent going big with content. We get a new quest ,a little midgame content and a slayer boss for a years dev time. One person could program that in two months. We should be getting sailing, new continents, new bosses, a elf raid , frem raid or find another portal to restart in a new world just like how we reached gilinor by magic. Ive always felt osrs could be so much more then it is currently. And they have the funding to do it if they would stop being greedy and funding rs3 to make more microtransaction bs.

[@harmMMO]

This games wonderful. Might be the best base game launch ive ever played.

[@Teloril]

We have a great core to work with and expanded upon in the future - it looks bright

[@Gitaikou]

t. Andrew

[@popereptillianlord6174]

lmao yall are wild.

[@jahazielheraslomeli4223]

​@@popereptillianlord6174the cope Is real

[@SimonRobeyns]

It's because AFK skilling is MORE FUN than actually playin the game! How do you f up that bad!

[@Silver-hi1ky]

I played over 100 hours immediately after launch, then took a break to just log in for my afk skills (also planning on playing POE2). I'll come back when they update again, and likely again after that. I still read every patch note drop. :)

[@C4rnag3Ownz]

KZbin and streaming are destroying the videogame world.

[@12poulet21]

I have been having pc problems for the past week, hence why i not playing for the moment... But before i watched the video... i can see myself play like 40h every new expansion, i hardly see the point of killing a lvl 456 crow vs. a lvl 37 one. Trying new skills and exploring new maps might be the only thing that would drag me back to the game from time to time. In my opinion. ❤

[@tacolength]

Comparing peak player count, which is a one time high(outlier), to current player counts will always show a large discrepancy. What should be looked at instead is average player counts and compare those to games of similar size or if the game has been out long enough, years, then it could compare player counts to itself on a year by year basis or quarterly. Players seem to indicate "dead" to mean a dwindling player base and/or lack of content. Brighter Shores has a few problems that will always hold the game back, lack of player engagement and content. There is simply too little player engagement (players taking an action in the game and/or engaging other players in content). The game gave me the impression that it wants to be a single player idle game. The afk skilling, the episodes that give you isolated skills so that players that can only play for a few minutes don't feel left behind, and the way the game handles other players which by default has almost every social setting turned off which for an mmorpg (the mmo part indicating playing with other players) is not usually an appreciable feature by many. The game also feels unfinished, you can't trade with other players right now and if you could it is a paid feature. The devs are even reconsidering the term "episodes" which gives me the impression that they are still reconsidering design aspects of the game that Gower has already poured 5 million into, not a good look. Other mmo games released with so much more content than brighter shores like dungeons, expansive quests, and player trading. Brighter Shores will also have to defend itself against the opinion of players who compare it to Runescape due to the creator, visually similar art style, writing, and skills (professions) so it has a public opinion hurdle to overcome, not good for an mmorpg. I believe in a few years time, brighter shores will have a darker outlook. When they move to mobile, which is apparent through their use of giant UI elements that are beckoning to be pressed by a thumb on a smartphone, they will hope to have whales / dolphins to keep them afloat in hopes that the engine will be licensed out to have a hopeful ROI. Andrew and team probably released Brighter Shores in an attempt to shore up development funding for the engine in hopes of the engine being the breadwinner and possibly a second larger game if successful. Personally, I would not put much stock in Brighter Shores being around for longer than a few years. That would sound good because of how many mmo's have failed in their first few years but many of those mmo's attempted games at a much larger scale so the risk is higher. I could see Brighter shores being the "budget" mmo that mmo's like Runescape used to occupy, until the recent price hikes, and sailing off into the proverbial sunset like that.

[@Teloril]

Great points! The content and skilling in the game should be expanded - absolutely. There's not a lot of player interaction and it does feel like an idle game, something I've been critical of for quite a while now even from pre-launch. I completely agree here. AFK skilling is a boon imo, allowing the game to be returned to and played over a long period of time, it's a nice dopamine hit upon logging in and it keeps you coming back without having to have massive commitments (Dailies etc.). I'm okay with the privacy settings for chat on first account creation, but I'm against the leaderboard opt-in etc. And definitely the chat filter needs improvement, I believe it's a hyper-aggressive LLM AI atm. "Episodes" always needed a rebrand, I often call them "Regions" instead as it makes much more sense. Episodes simply evokes a linearity that you'll not be returning to them. They won't be changing the actual system behind it, if they do rename it though. Regarding other MMOs launching with more content, I will use the 'Early Access' argument here as it won't be leaving that until it has a lot of those grouping, trading, PvP etc features - Andrew provided an ETA of ~6 months but I would say a year based on the QoL efforts. It will never field the RuneScape comparisons but I believe that BS will find its own market over time. The games can co-exist with one another, much like WoW and FFXIV which are both themepark tab-target MMOs and if you squint the systems are the same, but do offer big differences. Again, Runescape has had 25 years of updates. As for the rest, I stand by the fact that I am hopefully optimistic - call it copium, I won't disagree lol. Andrew has explicitly stated the game can run on a shoestring budget if necessary due to the optimized engine and game. For better or for worse, it feels like Andrew is in 2005 again and treating the game as such. He won't be giving up on the game any time soon.

[@Gwarge94]

This is probably the best response I've seen about this game. At its core, it's built on foundations that simply aren’t fun, and above all else, a game should be fun. To fix the issues that most players have with it, they’d need to completely rebuild the game from scratch. It’s not a matter of if it will shut down, but when.

[@EtsaTwo]

​@@Gwarge94It's a passion project of a multi-millionaire. I don't see him shutting it down it's not like he's a corporation that's constantly looking for higher returns on investment

[@Wandering_Wisps]

Like you said Brighter Shores is just not that game that takes over every living moment of your life and that's nice. It wont ever be my "main" game and that's ok. Will I be logging back on whenever it sees some significant content updates? Absolutely!

[@OvAeons]

I played an hour and was not compelled to do anything in it. It immediately felt not great to play.

[@RandomGaming117]

I feel as if once the combat gets fleshed out more that will increase the player count as well.

[@inoox]

Combat needs a complete overhaul to feel like an actual game. Every combat profession needs a different style with different animations, or just give us several from the start and allow us to train them all in every region. Meh.

[@readifdumb]

Yeah, not having prayer book + magic books + cannons + tick eating + movement mechanics/areas to dodge, and all the other quirks of OSRS combat really makes combat in this game feel basic. I mean I have 3 weapon types, per enemy I'll only be using one weapon type. I have 3 special attacks, haven't unlocked yet, but I guess that gives me 3 more buttons. I have the ability to escape combat, and that's it really. Your gear is only defensive, so it's not even like you have the 3 archetypes (ranged, mage, melee), but instead you just wear the same gear despite what you're doing. Definitely feels like not much is going on, more of an idle game than OSRS, especially with the auto heal after combat.

[@godsplan777x]

So brighter shores is dead game gotcha 🎉😂

[@MortarNMetal]

Below 2000 max daily now. It’s weird how people are trying to act like that’s no big deal at all

[@SoundsAreColors]

The game as it stands clearly lacks enough content, but thats why its in early access. It has a great foundation to be updated to become something more cohesive and immersive. We get patches like every 2-3 days and while not big updates, they its in the rjght direction. The QoL changes have been amazing so far, looking forward to the special abilitiew features coming.

[@inoox]

The things that should have been in the game in the first place changes*

[@Xanderlorian]

Its listed as a mobile game without mobile compatibility

[@aarondon6880]

2:20 Yikes, looks like that rs3 line never had much of a significant dropoff and stayed about consistent over the years, despite you pretending that it's "dead". 😅🤣🤣😂 Meanwhile, let's see if brighter shores can actually pull off what OSRS did. If it does, I'll be happy to admit it. If it doesn't, you'll be stuck playing an ACTUAL dead game. 🤣😆I think I know why you'll always have a tiny KZbin channel. It's because you like to pretend like things are dead when they aren't.

[@LittlePankek]

This is just 9 minutes of cope. It's a game made by Andrew Gower and inspired by runescape's super long grindfest. He made a game where you grind for zero purpose and by the time new content comes out, majority of people actually still playing will have their first 500, making every piece of content afterwards irrelevant. It's the equivalent of doing all runescape quests at lvl 99 all skills. Cope cope cope cope cope.

[@MortarNMetal]

So are most of the comments - it’s wild to see what gamers will do when they have emotionally invested in a failing game. It's like this circlejerk of delusion of hopium as the ship sinks that no it really isn't sinking trust me!

[@MalaZedik]

How many Easter Eggs did you find in this video? I found 5! :D

[@finnmacdiarmid3250]

RuneScape never dies, you’re just in a long layoff

[@jeffery1harris941]

Dude, your videos are soooo good. Thank you for acknowledging this topic. Great vid! Sooo well made.

[@oots4790]

Whats amazing about this game is it will never really truly die. It may never have a massive player base, but it dosent need to, its not being funded by investors who the Gower brothers have to keep happy. This is their own thing, and theirs alone. If all they ever have is 3k players, they're going to be juat as passionate and driven of developers. This is their passion project, their way to show off this new game engine they built, and maybe license it out to other game devs in the long term future. Its a win win. Of course they want it to blow up, but if it never does they still have no reason to drop support for it.

[@Teloril]

I fully agree. Even if we don't blow up to the-big-three MMO numbers, it won't matter. He's also expressed the game can run on a tight budget if needed, due to how efficient the engine is. This will allow him time and space to improve upon it further.

[@taserrr]

No offense, but this comment is extremely ignorant and foolish. Of course this game is going to die. The Gower brothers are currently funding it, keeping it alive. They have 16 staff working on this game, and likely have offices and rent servers. This means, that at the very least, they have 40k upkeep/month, just to breakeven, and most likely this is closer to 100k. The only way to earn money is by subscription, which is 6 bucks a month, with an active player base where if we're generous, 1/4th have a subscription, that means you're looking at most at 2k subs/month atm, which is about 12k a month before taxes and before the cut that steam will take. So already this is completely unsustainable, the Gower brothers have money, but I doubt they'll want to continue burning about a million a year on a game that is likely going nowhere. A passion project is fun, but people need to get paid, and costs need to be paid too. This game already looks and feels like it was made 15 years ago.

[@oots4790]

@taserrr Hey I appreciate a good and well thought out rebuttal. Always important to realize I could be wrong. Even after reading this though im not really fully convinced. This game has been in development... 8 years I believe? If they were seriously taking a huge loss on all this from the get go i juat cant believe they would think a starting price of 6 bucks would be good enough. Andrew once said : "The reason we're a team of eight, you know, I could have been putting in more, but I wanted to do it at a level that was sustainable based on what I can afford to fund without having to resort to external investors. Obviously, once we've launched the game and we've got some revenue coming in, my hope is to grow the team. And as such, you produce content more quickly. But the reason why we've stuck with it for so long is because I wanted something where I would not have to rely on that external investment." So they designed it in a way where itll be sustainable as it grows and they're not going to overcommit. So I do believe my original statements are correct.

[@Gwarge94]

@@oots4790 bro, they’ve already spent £5m on the game, and a significant portion of that will have gone towards rent, server costs, staff, etc. Let’s be realistic, this game hasn’t taken 8 years to create… a couple years at the most for the game itself, the majority of time has likely been spent on the engine, logistics (recruiting, training, meetings), concepts art and general games design etc. What Taser said is spot on: with the declining player base and likely very low subscription numbers, this just isn't sustainable in the long term.

[@taserrr]

@@oots4790 Look, I get it, you enjoy the game and you want it to succeed. But business is business, and of course I only have estimations, but I have been very generous in those. The game is not going to be sustainable looking at the current numbers. It most certainly hasn't been sustainable before early access, because it made 0 money as it's in development. The Gower brothers I'm sure have around 50-100 million from selling runescape way back in the day. But they've got a lot of that money invested and in assets. Reality is, they likely spent several millions on the game already, a team of 8, offices, programs, server costs etc. does not come cheap, no matter how you twist it I see no possibility with the extremely low player count and only portion of that player count paying 6 bucks/month that they come remotely close to a breakeven. Let alone making more money to start paying back that initial investment. Let's say they're spending around 1 million/year which is about 85k/month, for 8 years, let's say we include the early access period of those 6 months in there. That's 8 million bucks. Subscriptions are 6 bucks a month, that means you need 1.33 million subscriptions total just to breakeven. Which means more than 100k subscriptions a month for an entire year (and that's without the discount for bulk subscriptions). Right now I highly doubt they get more than 2500 subs/month, which means at this pace it would take them 40 years of the current subs to renew their subs for those 40 years just to breakeven for their development costs. Do you see how those numbers completely disagree with your assessment of your original statement being correct?

[@kys7615]

if this game would release without the name of andrew gower it would be in that 97% range

[@johnnobon]

They released a bunch of Santa hats for the holidays that you can get at random just for training xp and swap with other players so I hopped on and trained up, shot the shit with all the other people training, swapped hats, added some friends, and got into making swords. And I had more fun just because of that than I've had with an MMO. The player count is down 90% compared to launch. But I don't care, I'm having fun.

[@Teloril]

Event has been a blast. Seeing people looking for hats to trade in game is awesome.

[@BNuttSack]

This is my new chill game. I played OSRS on and off for 20+ years. I’m really enjoying BS, I don’t ever see myself going back to RS. Nostalgia only goes so far

[@readifdumb]

Lmao, good luck doing the same thing ad nauseam with no meaningful unlocks/goals past a certain point.

[@velshu]

The level of quality you put out as a new (though I believe you must have some experience) content creator is outstanding. I believe you will pop off, like Brighter Shores will!

[@Teloril]

Thank you! I'm genuinely new to this, other than some dabbling with streaming - but content creation allows me to speak my voice clearly as it were.

[@Outwardpd]

The majority of players showed up for Andrew's name, which means a much higher than normal amount of the playerbase is highly tuned into the ongoings of the game and are very connected to RS itself. My copium is that leagues dragged everyone away, but my heart also says that Andrew has already started pushing people away with his 'interesting' choices with high scores and chat rules. It is hard to compare this game to OSRS and the player drop considering how different their situations are, OSRS was an already proven game that only started getting updates because it has surprising staying power. So updates saved the player count but it also only got those updates after proving it still had staying power. The drops vs. hype are also very different, Brighter Shores didn't have nearly the level of hype that pretty much any game you showed had, including OSRS itself. Hype is what drives those peaks and valleys more than anything, so such a niche game with virtually no marketing and minimal hype having a peak and valley is both potentially impressive in its drawing power and/or potentially terrifying because Andrew's goodwill with his old gans and passive hype is likely running on fumes right now. I actually really like the game but I definitely see it as potentially struggling if Andrew is going to continue to make... 'interesting' choices.

[@Teloril]

Oh yeah, I'm fully aware of the frustrations with the leaderboards. Hopefully he sees and updates us in time with seeing anonymous positions. Regarding OSRS, it was definitely a proven game but it wasn't until they added polls and started adding content and updates it grew. I was going to compare it with original RuneScape numbers but we don't have that data readily available - but it had similar growth. RSC was not a game that would have done well today.

[@Gwarge94]

This game is basically a modern day RSC, hence why it is not doing well. Heck, I’d even go as far to say RSC was probably more fun than this game in its current state, at least it felt like an MMO and not every little thing you said in game is censored.

[@Teloril]

@@Gwarge94 The Chat filter is genuinely frustrating and needs work. A lot of the fans disagree, saying that the team is small and should focus on other things, but one of our only multiplayer features is best disregarded for external options like Discord where you can actually have conversations not interrupted.

[@Gwarge94]

@@Teloril the fact players are having to resort to talking outside the game in discord servers is wild. That’s huge alarm bells for the game. Also, I think a lot of people are forgetting that the Gowers are very religious, chat filters are likely there for good reason, the dude is obviously very conservative… and the reasons he’s given for the leaderboard being ‘opt out’ is complete and utter shite. U.K. privacy laws do not give a fuck what some nobody’s username is on a game lmao…

[@mikekenny1698]

I think people just realised it was boring, quests were kinda fun but every step you get bottlenecked and have to spend 20 hours grinding for the next step, why play Brighter Shores when you can play osrs

[@inoox]

That was my main issue, when im questing im having fun! but I have to grind several hours to have that drop of fun. meh.

[@fatherzerk5841]

I enjoyed the game during its hype but then questioned why RS3 over this? I think RS3 is ass and this convinced me to try it out since Brighter Shores is just a complete miss

[@Emptynogin1]

I enjoyed my 2 week binge of Brighter Shores and will likely come back to try updates as they come out. It feels good to invest time into a game where the devs are doing such good work, down the line maybe I could see myself being a more dedicated player

[@sznmovementeu]

Great content, great comparison and great explanation, couldn't ask for anything better, thanks Tel!

[@allahjohnson9654]

I saw a bunch of guys at lvl2.5k running around xp farming. So there alrady is a big leaderboard farming community

[@sharktos3218]

Idk, the game is dead to me because there is no game. It's a giant chatroom at best.

[@YewJackOSRS]

For what it's worth, I'm playing leagues on OSRS right now so I'm crazy busy with that. My dude is still in brighter shores afk'ing scouting to make the side quests easier for when I return.

[@TheBrennan0123]

Brighter shores was meh at best, hopefully it gets better. So far not a fan of it but still love my OSRS.

[@TheBrennan0123]

The episode setup is the biggest turn off.

[@Hunter77567]

Osrs while is a amazing game does get stale once you max cape. Then its just one chunk , coll log or leagues. They should have expanded the game created a portal - plain in a quest to a new continent = world. Beganning at 0 stats and restart in the new world. Old world stats would stay the same and content could be made for new and old. We still need a elf and frem raid. Add in sailing ,raids ect to the old world. When a player goes back through the portal they continue just as they were in gilinor with their same stats as that area. Lore even talks about different plains of existence. Osrs biggest problem is they arent getting enough devs- funding to really build the game. Tye content they do release is mid lvl which we passed ages ago.

[@jeremycrawford-v2j]

honestly im just taking a break because i already put in a lot of hours. i will keep going back and back and back to this game

[@simonnordon8421]

I spend 99% of my time passive AFK farming. That being said, it's an early access game, new content will bring people back.

[@typerightseesight]

omg is it really that dead of a videogame already?

[@readifdumb]

I think at its core it's a good competitor in the niche space its occupying. RS3 and OSRS are obviously better in a lot of ways, but they've also both been cooking for 18-20+ years, so that's hard to compare. My main issues so far: -fishing/foraging spots don't respawn fast enough -enemies changing color as a justified new type is just lazy, and it makes you cycle between zones over and over back and forward (I'd rather just stay in one area longer if that was going to be the case) -QoL is not there in some places -default bind of left click to function as a right click for more options is SO BAD for new players (found out after 6 hours you could change it) -leveling curve seems pretty ridiculous at early levels -quests require too much of you early game -game doesn't satisfy my sense of wonder (I think in RuneScape the moment that did this for me was the Wilderness) What I like about it so far: -visuals are nice -sell all menu/options -UI and UX and the various ways to customize the games menus -matches the addictive nature of OSRS/RS3 despite being under baked -runs on Linux -in-game leaderboard -sense ability -teleport is free -quartermaster spell to store loot -discovering/tracking things -haven't needed a wiki as of yet -drop all button -great mini-map I am very early in though, so a lot of this is subject to change, as well as potentially running into new things I like or dislike.

[@nathanielnizard2163]

you compare with games that are multiplatforms. Trends stay the same, a game like bs that is only on one platform and relies on subs and players presence in its economy to last cannot work when it's peaking at less than 2K players a day. We are likely not enough to make it monetarily feasible updating or maintaining it next month. Peaking at below 4K players right now is really bad.

[@Teloril]

It has been explicitly said that the game can be run on a far smaller budget than most. A few months of low months will be fine until we reach 1.0 and mobile launches.

[@nathanielnizard2163]

@@Teloril mobile is not announced/confirmed and maintenance mode is viable only for finished games ^^'.

[@Gwarge94]

@@Teloril you keep quoting that the game can be run on a very low budget but how do you expect the Gowers to cover expenses like rent, server cost, staff wages.. and let’s be realistic, the staff employed won’t be on low salaries. If the game has 4K active players and half of those are subscribed, we’re talking £12k a month… that’s nothing.

[@Teloril]

@@Gwarge94 Sure! Staff obviously is tricky. He has his brothers who are also independently wealthy, we're unsure if they're being compensated. Other than that the team is about 8 people. No argument there regarding salaries. Regarding rent, they are using a shared office space in Cambridge in the St John's Business Centre. This is far more affordable than renting an entire office, and runs only ~1k Euro a month, listed on their site. Their servers are AWS based, confirmed via checking the IP pools. We can see that it scales up and down automatically based on demand. On launch we saw many IPs, but nowadays we see fewer. This is a pro-rated system, so they will only be paying for the resources used. The only 'expense' here will be free-to-play players using resources. In all honesty, the game likely will run at a minor loss. I do not deny that! I expect he wants to try at least break even on maintenance and improvements, and then use licensing to start making a profit and scale.

[@IIIReptarIII-TCPH]

Here is multiple accounts you didn't think of. One, this game IS in it's 8th year of development, not it's first. It's created in a fashion in which the game developer, AG, already did. Also, AG left Runescape and only after him leaving did the game see any real headway. A lot of the things in BS he tried to implement in OSRS and it failed then. The player base hated it. This game has a LOT of glaring issues that will prevent it from ever getting better than where it is right now. You did do "journalism investigation" the "dip" you talked about was highly misleading. As BS has lost 85% of it's player base, RS2 did not. That's deceptive journalism, common these days it appears. Yes, brighter shores is a "dead" game. The game came out in "EA" with a pay wall. Not a smart play. It allowed it's beta testers to keep their stats, big mistake. The game is far from a MMORPG. It's barely an RPG with no multiplayer interactions worth noting. If I were to classify this game it's a cookie clicker with a cute skin. The "afk" skilling is used in so many mobile gotcha games / cookie clickers. I'm not telling people not to enjoy the game they want, heck, I know people who still enjoy minesweeper. If you like it, cool. However, I will put money on it, it will never see game of the year and I bet AG abandons the project in the next 2-4 years completely. He launched a game with "skilling" per episode, that will always be a major thorn in this games side that will never be undone. No, it's not edgy or a good idea. He launched a game with horrible combat mechanics. No he doesn't get a pass on this. It's similar to runescape style. He was a part of that. He already knows better. He launched a game with no real sense of accomplishment while playing. Trades? Market place? Value for your time? He is prioritizing his game to be for children UNDER 13..... This is a huge red flag. Like, a BIG red flag. Being that I am a father, the last thing I want is my 10,11, or 12 year old playing a "MMORPG" that has a pay to play model, meant for adults.... This is the most troublesome thing IMO that he has done. Considering steams age limit alone is 13.... Also, no, you're not part of the client base if all you are doing is grinding AFK xp. That's like every AFK game on your phone, eventually you'll forget to log in, then again, and again till you decide "Why? Why am I logging in?"

[@scottharrop6720]

It is a casual game. People can play 18 hours a day, if they want to. They can play 5 minutes a day, if they want to. It is a niche style game. It is a small game. Small games, in general, don't have huge player bases, especially games under 1GB. 3,000-5,000 people a day, at any given time, is quite large for the kind of game it is. It is not an epic AAA open world. It centers around skills aka time killing, something that very few people enjoy. It is getting regular updates. It is not abandoned. If you really want to compare it to other games, it is more of a Tiny Glade than a Helldivers 2 or a Black Myth Wukong.

[@driekjanssen581]

For me the game as it is right now is not finished enough to play next to the fact that I'm not a major fan of it to begin with, I instantly subscribed to it and gave it a fair chance and I do not regret this even a little. I will 100% try this game out again when it's further in development and maybe then I still wouldn't stick around playing it, maybe another game with this engine will do it or maybe not. But I would never say this game is dead on arrival, it's not meant for everyone to like, as long as it has a good community that sticks with it while the devs keep updating then the game is totally healthy and with 2000 people you can do that certainly.

[@quintint3973]

Another factor not considered is, “What is the minimum amount of players to fill a server?” What’s I mean is, do you even notice during actual gameplay a difference between 2,000 players and 20,000? If not, it’s not dead, no matter how many people drop. Take Phasmophobia, a 4-player, lobby-based game. So long as I have a seemingly endless queue of three other strangers to play with, I’m satisfied with the experience. This can be accomplished just as easily whether it’s 100 concurrent players or 100,000.

[@Teloril]

This is a great point - due to the 'smaller' world map, crafting hubs, and room system, you'll come across familiar faces everywhere you go.

[@mrsatan2229]

The game is packed right now.. idc about the count as long as people are still playing and the world is populated. Just now got to act 4. Loving it!

[@AlounieRips]

I’m not going to lie. I like the game so far, keeps making me log on to see what’s next. Things I hate though, combat feels not real. People say osrs combat is back but this just feels worse lol. Skilling is decent just sucks all nodes are the same once you level them up and have to right click to go to past action. I REALLY dislike the episodes dictate what armor and stuff you can wear/do. It would be cool if all episodes became unanimous, I wish me and my buddy can do combat together. I wish there was more player to player option.

[@photoradio14]

This has to be the biggest copium video I’ve seen about BS.

[@mr.melone520]

This game is soo relaxing it just feels good to play it. I don’t think it will die its still very early for this game and nobody knows this game even exist because there was barely any marketing for it. I think it will just continue to grow over the years if they keep improving the game because it has a good base

[@0ctoburr]

People online for a game that incentivizes offline play is a fallacy. The number of subscribed accounts is probably a better metric, which is understandbly not the first thought most people have, as many RS players multibox. Not only is multiboxing against BS gamerules, it's also not as easy a rule to break as it was way back when on RS.

[@gzuz883]

Make it accessible for download from Android.

[@TchSktch]

The game is definitely being improved with passion and it'll carry this game a long way! It obviously had inflated launch numbers because of the Gower brothers. But there's also definitely a core community there already!

[@StrissYT]

i just make goals for myself all the time and my account gets crazier and crazier!

[@7ehNP]

I’m addicted to brighter shores. Although I do think it’s silly to think leagues didn’t pull even less than 1000 players away! Probably much more

[@SurprisedBaseballEquipme-ov2wb]

Less people means less people leveling hehehe time to climb the leaderboards

[@TheSavageRobot]

tried to tell them

[@LunarcomplexMain]

I mean from a ranked player, why play when leaderboards are just terrible lmao

[@El-Burrito]

Thank you for taking the time to define it. Always makes me laugh when people call single player games "dead" cause I guess I just have a completely different definition of dead. I think much more along the lines of it being dead if it's no longer able to be played.

[@Teloril]

Yeah exactly this. That's why I took that first step to do so.

[@MarkChance-wd9ku]

Across ragnarok online's all servers, Ragnarok online has more active and devoted player base and that game came out in 2001 and is considered a dead game lol.

[@jimothyslim7332]

"I did the same thing for two hundred hours straight and now I'm tired of it." you don't say.

[@GoldRocketGamers]

Interesting analysis, makes sense. Just playing the game and interacting with people I can tell you that the game is very much alive XD

[@ryans.8814]

It's still missing a ton of stuff being in beta. But I think it has potential. One thing I don't personally like is the sectioned off chunks. I'm not sure if this is a game engine limitation, but if they could make it feel more open world I would like to see that. Either way I'll stick around to try PvP, trade, and hopefully combat updates

[@Gwarge94]

It’s not in beta pal, and the game will not deviate away from sectioned off chunks, the game is built around this and that’s the way it’s going to be.

[@ryans.8814]

@Gwarge94 it's in early release. I think anything could happen, but it does seem to be designed around the rooms. Maybe an open world spinoff could happen depending how well this game goes

[@Gwarge94]

@@ryans.8814 That’s very optimistic thinking. With the way the player base is declining every day, I’d be surprised if the game makes it past a year, let alone Fen Research working on a spin off lol

[@ryans.8814]

It's normal for a decline in a new game, but the game seems like 20% complete at this point. I wouldn't expect a huge player base

[@Gwarge94]

@@ryans.8814 I don’t think it’s normal for the majority of the player base to be talking about declining player numbers only a month into the game being released, even if it is in early access. I haven’t seen people react in this way to any other early access game. I would say it’s 70/30 split of players right now that are concerned about the games future, and like I said, it’s only been out practically a month. This does not bode well for a brand new MMO.

[@GamingTechReview]

Many professions are a reskin of themselves in multiple episodes. Combat is a reskin each episode making it terrible. Combat needs a complete overhaul. I’m not renewing my membership.

[@paulobetterson3064]

Ladies and gentlemen: it has been a pleasure.

[@MonkiStronki]

8:20 drive by dance made it in haha

[@turnipkupo7263]

osrs has plenty of chill minigames and grinds, but better polished than brighter shores and just better made, in a way more fleshed out world.

[@quintint3973]

5:09 “probably another one by the time you watch this.” You weren’t wrong! 😂

[@evanwater3633]

Still playing. Seeing plenty of others all over the episodes

[@Desperado070]

But ey what did they expect to begin with?!? OSRS is doing great because of the nostalgia and because your bread toaster is being able to play it. (of even go on your phone!) Brighter shores is OSRS but then a new twist to it, If you have no investment you don't stick around. While OSRS has all these time sinks in it or just go all out gambling, what does shores have? *nothing.*

[@corymesser1569]

All these years and Bros characters are still walking block to block? Upgrade your code skills dude. Honestly

[@mindcraftedtoday]

What i do is spend 5-10 minutes everyday and let afk level do the rest

[@gatorbait9385]

I think the 10k people playing actively is much more than Gower expected. It isn't supposed to be big during early access. It hasn't been advertised even once.

[@jahazielheraslomeli4223]

Its not 10 k its 3-3.5 k a day

[@gatorbait9385]

@jahazielheraslomeli4223 That's not the player count lol that's the avg on at any given time. You're looking at just the people racing. Actively playing for this game means logging in every 2-3 days

[@lefkash]

I just burnt on osrs leagues, back to the brighter shores grind 💪💪💪

[@banzai0905]

Give this game time. its still a newborn.

[@randykeith1203]

Every time I'm on I always see atleast 10 people per area when I'm running so it doesn't seem dead to me. Also are you going to make a Guard/Scout/Minefighter guide? I know kill what I can kill but it seems I'm always getting close to death even with potions.

[@Teloril]

I'll be doing combat for sure, I think I want to do it after specs which come pretty soon.

[@Savage.Shores]

10/10 CONTENT! keep it up Tel's love it in 2-3 years from now you will be at 100k subs making brighter shore content can you screen shot this and put in in video than ty! keep it up

[@justinbean971]

I played this hard. Finished the quests that were out. And now i have zero interest.

[@WizardOfCheese]

runescapes christmas event has had people shift their attention, thats all.

[@1ogen]

do you really offer to wait for about 2 years?)))

[@adamschneider5755]

Too early for these kind of titles 😂 I wasn’t around for early RS but apparently this launch has had different pros and cons. For my own POV, game runs well. There’s enough to do if you don’t savagely rush to the end of everything and it’s fun. The pieces are here and it’ll be great going forward.

[@RobertWeb3DevCrypto]

This game caters to old millenials that would have enjoyed the classic RS grind back in the good ole days, but we're getting too old for this shit now, time is of the essence more than ever, BS doesn't respect our time in this regard at all. But "Oh you can afk grind" Yeah, like gain one level a month when you're over 100 purely afking? There'll still be a small minority, retired folks that may enjoy living with the nostalgia, but the majority of us oldies really do have better ways to spend our time these days, esp on games that do respect your time such as Guild Wars 2 and the game is actually FUN, not to mention their pay once and have access forever best monetary mmo practice in the market currently. The player count speaks for itself. BS tested the theory "If a game like this released in this time, it would fail" Andrew has just way too much competition now but he's likely already wealthy enough anyway to continue living his passion. GG either way

[@Teloril]

I agree with the sentiment but I'd just like to clarify passive skills are quite strong, at 1 level each ~10-12 hours no matter what level you are, even past the level 200 wall. I passive very frequently. They just feel a little bad right around 20-30.

[@andyzillla4133]

It's essentially a shit clicker mobile game. To elaborate there is no meaningful challenging content in the game bar the endless grind.

[@CleavenDHaiti]

The core fan base will never leave.

[@Gwarge94]

Cute

[@jake9107]

8:21 exactly why your opinion is irrelevant