Hey there! ACE Lead dev here :) We are extremely honored and humbled by this shout-out! Thank you so very much for the kind words and for shedding some light onto our passion project! There's so much to experience, discover and enjoy in Stonehearth with ACE (and many other great mods) and we're happy to see people finding time and interest to do so. This means a lot to us! We're now on the great march towards 1.0, ACE's initial and greatest promise - the Mountain Folk kingdom (our dwarves)! And our community is always open for questions, suggestions, support and to people willing to join the fun! Again, thank you very much for the kind words and the honor to be featured on this great channel :) - Dani, on behalf of the ACE Team
Hey there! First off I wanted to congratulate you. I played Stonehearth a long time ago and it was great but it completely died. After that, every time I went into the sub EVERYONE suggested to play with ACE. Just to have an idea of how good of a work you guys did! I wanted to ask you something though, were you able to solve the performance/memory/ram issues? Or is that impossible because of the engine?
I hope everyone remembers what actually happened, the developers did not abandon the game. They said numerious times they were bought out and given a new project. When a big company comes in and buys everyone out, they have zero options. Unless you want to risk losing your job and main income you are going to listen to your new development boss and team. That is all that happened, they gave them some more time on stonehearth but they did not give them the desired time they wanted. It was a small company that developed on it a lot, streamed some development that was awesome, and then they cought the eyes of a really big company (think it was riot). No one here would say no to a multi-million dollar deal. It is just good business. I just wanted to say that as somene who played it with my wife a lot and followed it from the start. They really did nothing wrong and they were put in a situation where they either kept their jobs, or quit. Because they cannot work on the game anymore for the rights were bought by riot (if that was the company). Once that happens they legally cannot take back ownership and release offical updates unless the mother company allows it. Hope that educates a lot of people.
That's nice to know some background, but the game was still abandoned by the developers. Whether they were forced to abandon it or what other context exists around that decision is immaterial to any prospective buyer who wants to know if the game is still being patched and supported by the developer team. Also, RIOT didn't buy out Radiant by gunpoint. They chose to be bought out. Choosing to sell out to RIOT, then claiming "we didn't abandon our game, we were forced to by RIOT" is a copout. I'm not saying it was a bad decision, just that abandoning a game because you got a fat stack of cash doesn't mean you didn't abandon the game.
Man, the fact you mention Nook is also why I love your channel. Most youtubers out there just hoard their fanbase and pretend the rest of the internet doesn't exist. And here you are, just giving some more recognition to others.
It's probably only you and the 14 people that liked your comment. Splattercatgaming ain't the only one that talks about other channels, also that's not even a special thing at all. Most RUclipsrs do that. Hoard fan base? That's neither bad nor good. And it's also the fans fault for not expanding their tastes and locking themselves into an echo chamber, a self made prison. If I were a RUclipsr I'm not obligated to mention anything or anyone. I say what I want so long as it's not gonna get RUclipss god ban hammers to strike me.
Having worked at Riot when we bought the studio back then, Riot didn’t just shut the game down. Riot actually invested heavily in it for a while to see if we could finish it out at AAA quality level. At the same time the two founders of the company (brother) were wildly into fighting games like Street Fighter and their ultimate goal was to make an amazing fighter dream game, which they started working on (Project L). The new project fitted a lot more with Riots PvP DNA and core game design philosophy (alla Tom Caldwell). So development on this beloved game was slowly set aside for the new big project.
Oh man, this makes me tear up a little. Stonehearth was one of the first games I wanted to get with my adult money, I enjoyed watching Splatty and Lathland play, and then it died before I could get it and I was devastated. I am so glad it's still going. I will get it when I have a better laptop/desktop setup.
It's the same for me, its always the game I go to when I feel down and it never fails to make me feel better, its always held a special place in my heart!
@@magicalnoodles my computer is a potato though, but don't tell her that, she has all my university stuff and all my work stuff, she needs a good coaxing and a little charming.
I had no idea about the ACE mod until this video. I remember backing Stonehearth on their kickstarter and was crushed when development died. Thanks so much for giving the heads up about this! Viva la Modders.
@@nunyabiznesse6917 It was more than halfway. There were some things they promised during the kickstarter that they didn't get to implement, like the magic users, but the game was finished. It's just didn't contain all the things they promised. It did need some bug fixing though, and that's what the mod was to do.
No, I think Stonehearth needs more coverage. Its not as dead as people think it is. And it is one hell of a unique survival/colony builder. You will be hard pressed to find something else like it. The building is incredible, the systems are incredible, the fact you only have 3 stats lets you focus more on other things instead of trying to micromanage everyone.
This game was popular not only because of the artstyle and the similarity to Dwarf Fortress, it was because this game allows you to fully customise functional buildings, allowing you to interconnect stations, make them serve multiple purposes or one single one very well, while allowing you to also tweak layouts and hence affecting pathing and stuff, ALL THE WHILE being extremely aestheticallly pleasing, enhanced only by how well you design your buildings, or how good that blueprint you downloaded on Steam is. Not only that, for what it already had before 'miscarriage', it was already very fleshed out and detailed and in-depth, giving you a very good simulation feel where you really ARE in control of almost quite literally EVERYTHING in the colony, village, township, castle, whatever you want to call it and make it into. You can make literally anything, and you are pretty much in charge of literally everything. Heck, you can even not build structures and just plop down the necessary stations for a structure in a room dug out from the hills and boom, you have it. This game was a full-on RTS buillder's dream. A surreal fantasy coming to life. Only to be punched in the gut by Riot's big-ass fist.
The profound audacity of modders, rebuilders and preservers like ACE deserve the utmost respect. A prodigious thank you, from me and all the gaming community, goes to you guys and gals for all the things you enable us to enjoy again.
That is a logical thought. Unsure why you felt motivated to say it though. My comment was a more nuanced way of joking that the op's word choices made him sound a bit eccentric. @@swordzanderson5352
Thanks for showing this some love, it's a great little game. It just got bent over with no lube and it didn't deserve that. The modders are fantastic keeping it alive.
This video has so many examples of why I love your channel Splattercat. From shoutouting out Nookrium to picking up an old game and showering kudos on the awesome modding community who are working to keep it alive (and improve it). There are very few big youtubers out there who support the indie community like you do. Thank you! And thank you for reminding me to check in on Stoneheart again. Loved that game and can't wait to test it out with ACE. :D
Not really. The devs abandoned the game even though it still very much feels early access. The game never blew up anymore than it did for a very good reason.
its extremely hard to program a AI in a game with voxels so small with decent performance, i think going medieval is a much better approach to a game like this and is better in pretty much everyway , i even like the building more because buildings are supposed to be about functionality but some people like this art style more , to me its meh
@@bestieswithtesties If you watched the very first few seconds of the video, they were literally bought by Riot and CAN'T continue. Abandoned? More like forced apart.
I bought this after your first review. Have been checking in on it now and then. Thank you for acknowledging the folks that have been keeping it alive.
Twee weeks ago I actually bought the game due to the ACE mod, it has been amazing. The performance and stability have been massively improved, which was a major issue during the official development of the Stonehearth.
I for one am glad you did this video splat, thanks. I totally didn't realise that Stonehearth was being worked on and I was gutted when initial development died on it. Thanks for letting me know that some awesome people have breathed life back into a game that had so much potential!
Hi Splattercatgaming, It's really great to see you revisit this game. I would like to share the true story about the release state of this game. As I see that there is a lot of misconceptions about how it ended up like it is. Let me start by stating that: RIOT Games is NOT the reason this game was left in the state it was. I'm super happy for the ACE team to keep on adding things that should have been added to the game during it's development period. Let me explain what happend to this game as someone who was into, backed and followed the game from the start of it's Kickstarter event. The false Kickstarter claims: The two brothers who developed this game stated during it's Kickstarter that they already worked so hard and long to create an engine that would fulfil the vision they have for this game and to allow for their very flexible building mechanics. This was absolutely not the case, as when the first alpha build that backers could get it was very clear that this system only worked for the very simple layouts and would break as soon as you try to be a bit flexible of creative. Also this never fully got addressed during the entire development cycle of the game. The First couple of releases were also in a very bad state technically speaking as you could barely build a house before the game starting stuttering, crashing or fully consuming your memory. I really can't give them a pass for calling the foundation being completed when they recorded the KickStarter promo video. The development was super slow: This is fine, and i'm not saying they should have rushed anything. However every update was super small in scope, and mostly trying to fix things that are a part of the core gameplay features, and mostly just adding very minor things here and there. There would be updates that introduced new classes and additional items to the game, however these were very few if you look at the entire release history of the game. Besides this they would show a lot of things that might or might not ever make it into the game. And mostly they did not at the end. Why RIOT purchased the studio: RIOT did NOT By the studio because of StoneHearth. The brothers who founded the studio are veteran fighting game developers who created and published a loved online fighting game (Rising Thunder). RIOT games wanted the brothers and the rights to this fighting game. After RIOT owned the studio: The brothers stopped working on the game, this is clearly their own decision that started with the whole acceptance of the RIOT deal. We surely can't blame them for taking an opportunity like this one. Most people would have taken this opportunity for sure. I have no problem with this what so ever. The problem that resulted is that the team they build for StoneHearth, just kinda stagnated and had no vision or clear direction to continue with the game on their onw. It was clear from every dev vlog and showcase they did that there was no direction or real commitment to get anywhere. Progress was still super slow as always and got even worse. I even commented on some of these updates. However they would never show any comment that was criticising the near to standstill pace they were moving at. You only see positive posts and nothing else (on the game website). They were clearly lost: For about 2 years they kept on saying they are reworking core aspects of the game to finally be in a position where they can start introducing new features and content at a steady pace. This never happend. They spoke for 2 years about updating their roadmap that has now clearly changed and shifted from the one available on the website. This also never happend. Every update was mostly about the same things and just testing things in dev and seeing if it is fun to possibly add one day. That never happend. The RIOT conclusion: One day, they created a dev vlog stating that RIOT asked them to present a plan for the future development and a planned finish date that was not "Some day when it's done" but an actual milestone in the future where they see this game reaching a 1.0 state. Also it's important to add here, they (the devs) also stated that at no point was RIOT involved in their development process, nor did they every push them in a direction or restrict them in terms of timeline etc. Mind you, the game was still in Alpha at this point! Their response to this question from RIOT was: bring the game to Beta after 2 weeks. Make it so that when you finish the super shallow main quest, you can move somewhere else and start over again as an ending of the game. Not adding any of the features that were planned from the Kickstarter! about 5 years ago. Neither any of the things they have been working on seemingly for ever. And two weeks later the game was in 1.0 fully released. From Alpha to 1.0 in about a month time. The hard truth: The game was simply not going anywhere, the devs had reached the point where they did not think they could continue working on the game or bring it forward anymore, and just decided to call it Done and move on. I'm really disappointed by this as the game has an art style that I just love so much, the whole style and ambiance of the game is just super pleasing. It's just a shame that they did not just admit the game engine was not going to do it for them and possibly migrate to something more stable (the game was very unstable as a result even at 1.0) so that they could actually build and release this game in a way it can reach it's potential. It's a real shame, as I was eagerly awaiting this game to be feature complete and get released one day, however after closely following the development for years I could see that the game was not going to get there, and the whole ending just confirmed this suspicion I had. Even though I was really hoping that I would be wrong. If you are still here, ThnQ for reading and I hope that I was able to show the truth about how the game ended in this unfortunate state. Take care and I wish you a great day
Wow, thank you for drawing attention to this mod. Stonehearth was on my radar for a long time but I was kinda bummed out when they stopped development and didn't know about this mod.
Oh I remember this little gem. I remember playing the heck out of it in the desert biome. Loved my little clay town buried deep within the mountains. We mostly dug up metal, turn them into items and then trade them for extra food. Building the town over a plateau meant that goblins couldn't get to us. But eventually we had to expand to the lower areas to get more room and more resources.
Appreciated the reminder Splat, and happy to hear you watch Nookrium, you two are my "go to" for indy gaming. I own the game, but haven't played it in a long time. Knowing that ACE exists I'll give it another go.
This game was so endearing to me when I saw it come out. The art, the ability to build what you want, the music, it really got me stuck in a whole lot, even with all the performance issues. I still play it every so often, the ACE community have been doing such an awesome job with it, but my games do still suffer from dropped tasks or building if I play the same save for a while unfortunately, but I can't not keep playing!
I back this game on kickstarter back in the day. I was so disappointed when the devs abandoned it 😢 Didn’t even know there were mods for it! Will have to check it out.
We should start creating class action lawsuits against companies taking money then dropping the game. In this case it was clearly malicious intent from riot games, i actually think yall would be able to build a case. This needs to stop happening
You should read my comment, because they never abandoned it. If you followed the game you should know what they developers had to do in the situation they were in. They were given a deadline and that was it. They were told by the new big company that bought them out, after this date your done. They were forced to move on by their boss, a new company I believe it was riot games.
You should read my comment, they never abandoned the game. They were bought out and not allowed to work on the game anymore. The developers loved the game and wanted to keep working on it. Riot made them stop and gave them a deadline. The developers did all they could but did not want to lose their jobs. @@anubisfox5765
WOW! Thanks for doing a video Splat! I didn't know this game was continued by the modders, I had heard the devs abandoned it after I bought it, and I just never looked into it again.
I remember watching one of the devs do coding on twitch for this game. It was truly a travesty that it was ruined by Riot basically forcing them to stop work. Such a great game, glad to see it's still being worked on by the Mod community, and being covered by people like you and Nook. I absolutely love the class based combat/jobs
This is and has been my fav. game ... thanks ever so much Splatt for giving us some more ... And thanks much to ACE ... The work you have done on this is ... amazing ...
whoa, i remember picking this game up when it was being developed. Was super sad that it just died after riot, it had so much potential but just ended up being so shallow. Seeing you play this mod has brought me back
I remember tuning into the Dev Diaries every tuesday (or were they on thursdays?), I loved the idea of this game so much. Shame things turned out the way they did, but I'm so very happy to see the ACE team continuing the dream. Thank you Splat for covering this!
Huh, I'm super grateful for this video...I loved stonehearth and didn't realize there was such an active modding community. (I don't tend to spend a lot of time on forums for games) So now I'll go and give this ACE a shot, so thanks!
As someone who followed this game religiously through its original development... RIOT didn't kill the development. The development was slow, and terrible and the only thing being bought by RIOT did was give them an out. Years and years of slow, buggy progress all quickly advanced to a 1.0 release was because they were tired of working on the game. I was probably one of the teams biggest fanboys and advocates and I was gutted watching/ reading the dev updates where they mentioned it was getting tiresome or whatever. Absolutely adore the ACE community, which in itself took a LONG time after announcement to get anything done. I had actually thought the ACE team was a PR stunt and I gave up putting Stonehearth anywhere near my radar. Glad to see it's a game again.
Well I have had this game on my Wishlist for a long time and after I heard they stopped developing it, I considered removing it, but never did. The game was right up my alley and so I hoped one day the studio may pick it back up. Thanks to this video, I now have an incentive to pick it up on the next Steam sale. Thanks a lot and thanks to the modders for their passion and dedication.
Splatt man your stuff on yourube is just getting better all the time, keep it up and stay professional as much as you can I remember first video from you i saw was aboit the gaem long dark and since then im here everyday, cheers man
This game is making a comeback, saw another vid about it not long ago and gave me some mad itch to play it again. Really glad you have covered this gem again.
Haven't watched the video yet... but man I remember following this game from the very beginning of the Kickstarter, pledged a few bucks to it, followed it off and on and played it as soon as I was able. Fucking loved the game so much. Then when the 2 brothers who ran the company decided to call it quits, I was incredibly disappointed. I'm so glad the community kept it alive, Stonehearth deserves it
My favourite thing about this game, was when your colonists were so dumb they'd build themselves into the wall they were building, then die because you had no idea it was happening.
In spite of the bugs, lag and then abandonment, I cannot let this game go. In spite this game being 8 years old, I cannot let it go. In spite all of the other great games that have came out since, I cannot let this game go. In spite of all the other games I have bought and played since, I cannot let this game go. In spite all of the games on my wish list, I cannot let this game go. I believe it is that I just love how this game looks. So many games are dark and I strain the see. This game is bright and colorful. Thus, I enjoy looking at it. And therefore, I enjoy playing it.
Love to see you dropping updates on "dead" games good way for us to know if some our games are dead or not. And Maybe I will pick this up in a future sale.
I don't think a day goes by without a github update on the discord for the ACE mod. It's astounding that they're consistently updating the mod even now, a decade later.
Holy crap, I actually found your channel back when you first covered this game when it was not even on early access because RUclips algorithm actually kinda worked back then
Man.. I miss this game.. I've had issue running this game ever since I installed W10 even with the solutions that exists out there.. Brings out so many memories. This game had lots of potential..
I'll have to give this a look, I loved the game when it was being actively developed. I always played as the desert folks, building cities atop stone pillars or hill sides.
The ACE mod does add more complexity in combat due to different weapon types. Like the cleric can use the book to heal at a range while also using a heal aura around itself. However, the mace cleric is quite tanky and MURDERS undead while using the heal aura (loses its ranged heal tho) for the melee line. Then your melee weapon variants for fighters and knights have little niches for things like debuffs, DoTs, AoEs, DMG, and DEF. But, since splat mentioned Towns, yeah that game had a cool theme of building a city that would draw in adventurers to explore underground dungeons. But that game got dropped very early in its development.
It's awesome that modders are picking this up, because I kickstarted Stonehearth and really loved the game's aesthetic and idea. It's a shame it never delivered on the original design and promises, but I hope they keep working on it until it does! Also, OOF RIOT... anything Tencent is toxic. It's a real shame the studio ended up there.
I remember looking at this one when it first came out, but so many great games were coming out at the time I didn't pick it up. I might have to go back and pick it up now.
man i played this when it was launched along with timber and stone. good to see modders are reviving it. though timber and stone has alot of potential also and hopes that the community revives it
This game was one of my first ever purchase game, back when I just start working in some retail store. The my heart died when the news about the dev move on to join Riot and stop development. It was heartbreaking but after 10 years, ACE mod maybe is the real update we deserve
There was a time where I just kept playing this even though I heard that its no longer being continued but at the same time ACE was also there and I have no idea about it and just kept on playing and had to play it even more after accidentally seeing a post about ACE.
Have loved this game for years. Was into a 3 month stretch of playing nothing else when Fallout 76 came out in Oct 18 and I switched for just a few weeks, much to my regret! Still play it on and off.
When they last left the game, it was completely unstable. So not only was it not done but you couldn't play it for longer than a few hours or it would break and crash. Really cool they managed to fix it up.
I am not going to lie. I was furious what Riot intentionally or unintentionally did. This game was supposed to be the next modular 'framework', easily accessible and flexible to no end. Much more than Rimworld is nowadays, for modders. They really tried to build a game that can be indefinitely worked on by community, and so and forth. Basically idea was to bring popular franchises much like some of them are brought to Rimworld but to much bigger extent ... and all of that just ... died. I am glad folks who are working on ACE didn't gave up will revisit this game with the mod definitely and all supported submods.
man I remember being super excited for this game to be fully developed because its optimization was shit back in the day but they never finished it then I gradually forgot that this game ever existed
I dunked so many hours in to this game back in the day. So I got really pewwed when it was abandoned and equally excited when it's was picked by the community, cause it's a nice little title. Sure it's janky as hell, but also has a lot heart. So kudos to the splat for dusting off this loved relic 😊❤
Hey there!
ACE Lead dev here :)
We are extremely honored and humbled by this shout-out! Thank you so very much for the kind words and for shedding some light onto our passion project!
There's so much to experience, discover and enjoy in Stonehearth with ACE (and many other great mods) and we're happy to see people finding time and interest to do so. This means a lot to us!
We're now on the great march towards 1.0, ACE's initial and greatest promise - the Mountain Folk kingdom (our dwarves)! And our community is always open for questions, suggestions, support and to people willing to join the fun!
Again, thank you very much for the kind words and the honor to be featured on this great channel :)
- Dani, on behalf of the ACE Team
Hey there! First off I wanted to congratulate you. I played Stonehearth a long time ago and it was great but it completely died. After that, every time I went into the sub EVERYONE suggested to play with ACE. Just to have an idea of how good of a work you guys did!
I wanted to ask you something though, were you able to solve the performance/memory/ram issues? Or is that impossible because of the engine?
thankyou for all of your hardwork through the years, i loved this game and was very sad when it stopped getting worked on
My only comment is that the market tables don’t have a canopy even though it’s snowing! 😂👍
Good job on the mod.
I love this game, thank you guys for everything you do.
Incredible what they’ve been able to do with ACE, completely revitalized the game.
Also, thanks for the shoutout again 😁
based and Nook pilled.
Nook & Splatty are my daily post-work wind down of indie wholesomeness.
been watching your videos for years nook, you and splatty are my favourite😁
Nook and Splatt ... two of the best RUclipsrs out there ... thanks much to both of you for all the awesome entertainment over the years !!!
I hope everyone remembers what actually happened, the developers did not abandon the game. They said numerious times they were bought out and given a new project. When a big company comes in and buys everyone out, they have zero options. Unless you want to risk losing your job and main income you are going to listen to your new development boss and team. That is all that happened, they gave them some more time on stonehearth but they did not give them the desired time they wanted. It was a small company that developed on it a lot, streamed some development that was awesome, and then they cought the eyes of a really big company (think it was riot). No one here would say no to a multi-million dollar deal. It is just good business. I just wanted to say that as somene who played it with my wife a lot and followed it from the start. They really did nothing wrong and they were put in a situation where they either kept their jobs, or quit. Because they cannot work on the game anymore for the rights were bought by riot (if that was the company). Once that happens they legally cannot take back ownership and release offical updates unless the mother company allows it. Hope that educates a lot of people.
What's the new project that were given?
@@glipmine7109 if i remember correctly it was valorant
That's nice to know some background, but the game was still abandoned by the developers. Whether they were forced to abandon it or what other context exists around that decision is immaterial to any prospective buyer who wants to know if the game is still being patched and supported by the developer team.
Also, RIOT didn't buy out Radiant by gunpoint. They chose to be bought out. Choosing to sell out to RIOT, then claiming "we didn't abandon our game, we were forced to by RIOT" is a copout. I'm not saying it was a bad decision, just that abandoning a game because you got a fat stack of cash doesn't mean you didn't abandon the game.
Release as open source - community can fix bugs.
@@sergeykish Which is what they did, at least as close as they could. The ACE release allowed complete modification.
Man, the fact you mention Nook is also why I love your channel. Most youtubers out there just hoard their fanbase and pretend the rest of the internet doesn't exist. And here you are, just giving some more recognition to others.
It's probably only you and the 14 people that liked your comment. Splattercatgaming ain't the only one that talks about other channels, also that's not even a special thing at all. Most RUclipsrs do that. Hoard fan base? That's neither bad nor good. And it's also the fans fault for not expanding their tastes and locking themselves into an echo chamber, a self made prison. If I were a RUclipsr I'm not obligated to mention anything or anyone. I say what I want so long as it's not gonna get RUclipss god ban hammers to strike me.
@@WallNutBreaker524it ain’t that deep man
@ClhCgu45 it is THAT deep.
We gotta roast this man alive on all Social Medias
@@WallNutBreaker524man, way to ruin the moment...
@@WallNutBreaker524your comment sounds like Iam14andthisisdeep
Having worked at Riot when we bought the studio back then, Riot didn’t just shut the game down. Riot actually invested heavily in it for a while to see if we could finish it out at AAA quality level.
At the same time the two founders of the company (brother) were wildly into fighting games like Street Fighter and their ultimate goal was to make an amazing fighter dream game, which they started working on (Project L).
The new project fitted a lot more with Riots PvP DNA and core game design philosophy (alla Tom Caldwell).
So development on this beloved game was slowly set aside for the new big project.
Oh man, this makes me tear up a little. Stonehearth was one of the first games I wanted to get with my adult money, I enjoyed watching Splatty and Lathland play, and then it died before I could get it and I was devastated. I am so glad it's still going. I will get it when I have a better laptop/desktop setup.
It's the same for me, its always the game I go to when I feel down and it never fails to make me feel better, its always held a special place in my heart!
It doesn't seem like a demanding game. So long as your PC isn't an absolute potato, you should be able to play it smoothly.
@@magicalnoodles my computer is a potato though, but don't tell her that, she has all my university stuff and all my work stuff, she needs a good coaxing and a little charming.
I had no idea about the ACE mod until this video. I remember backing Stonehearth on their kickstarter and was crushed when development died. Thanks so much for giving the heads up about this! Viva la Modders.
I love Stonehearth. The ACE mod really helped this game keeping up. My buddies and i played the shit out of it. Sad the devs abandoned it.
Riot to be blame for this game's death.
@@KedaiCiplakthe LoL devs killed this game?
The company got bought by riot games and they instakilled this project halfway into completion
@@nunyabiznesse6917 It was more than halfway. There were some things they promised during the kickstarter that they didn't get to implement, like the magic users, but the game was finished. It's just didn't contain all the things they promised.
It did need some bug fixing though, and that's what the mod was to do.
@@basildaoust2821 Yes, you are confused.
The last warrior came back from murder at the last seconde of the video. x)
Good job to the passionate modders.
Thanks for showcasing. ^^
No, I think Stonehearth needs more coverage. Its not as dead as people think it is. And it is one hell of a unique survival/colony builder. You will be hard pressed to find something else like it. The building is incredible, the systems are incredible, the fact you only have 3 stats lets you focus more on other things instead of trying to micromanage everyone.
This game was popular not only because of the artstyle and the similarity to Dwarf Fortress, it was because this game allows you to fully customise functional buildings, allowing you to interconnect stations, make them serve multiple purposes or one single one very well, while allowing you to also tweak layouts and hence affecting pathing and stuff, ALL THE WHILE being extremely aestheticallly pleasing, enhanced only by how well you design your buildings, or how good that blueprint you downloaded on Steam is. Not only that, for what it already had before 'miscarriage', it was already very fleshed out and detailed and in-depth, giving you a very good simulation feel where you really ARE in control of almost quite literally EVERYTHING in the colony, village, township, castle, whatever you want to call it and make it into. You can make literally anything, and you are pretty much in charge of literally everything. Heck, you can even not build structures and just plop down the necessary stations for a structure in a room dug out from the hills and boom, you have it.
This game was a full-on RTS buillder's dream. A surreal fantasy coming to life. Only to be punched in the gut by Riot's big-ass fist.
You and Nook are the two indie-game guys I follow on RUclips. Good to see a shout-out.
Nookrium I recently found his videos. He’s a sweet soul. I’ve sometimes just put his streams on in the background and it’s relaxing.
The profound audacity of modders, rebuilders and preservers like ACE deserve the utmost respect. A prodigious thank you, from me and all the gaming community, goes to you guys and gals for all the things you enable us to enjoy again.
somebody found a thesaurus and isn't afraid to use it.
@@JasonEllingsworth I'd only be afraid to use it if it made me sound stupid.
That is a logical thought. Unsure why you felt motivated to say it though. My comment was a more nuanced way of joking that the op's word choices made him sound a bit eccentric. @@swordzanderson5352
Thanks for showing this some love, it's a great little game. It just got bent over with no lube and it didn't deserve that. The modders are fantastic keeping it alive.
Same here, was shocked to see (recently) that ACE was still being worked on, nice!
This video has so many examples of why I love your channel Splattercat.
From shoutouting out Nookrium to picking up an old game and showering kudos on the awesome modding community who are working to keep it alive (and improve it).
There are very few big youtubers out there who support the indie community like you do. Thank you!
And thank you for reminding me to check in on Stoneheart again. Loved that game and can't wait to test it out with ACE. :D
Stonehearth. I write too fast. >.
this game deserves so much more attention than it gets. Fantastic game
Not really. The devs abandoned the game even though it still very much feels early access. The game never blew up anymore than it did for a very good reason.
@@bestieswithtestiesa lot of wasted potential
its extremely hard to program a AI in a game with voxels so small with decent performance, i think going medieval is a much better approach to a game like this and is better in pretty much everyway , i even like the building more because buildings are supposed to be about functionality but some people like this art style more , to me its meh
@@bestieswithtesties With ACE is absolutely deserves more attention, this game is 200% better than it was when the dev's left the project.
@@bestieswithtesties If you watched the very first few seconds of the video, they were literally bought by Riot and CAN'T continue. Abandoned? More like forced apart.
Thank you for taking the costco time machine and playing this game once again. Love this game, great video cheers
I bought this after your first review. Have been checking in on it now and then. Thank you for acknowledging the folks that have been keeping it alive.
Twee weeks ago I actually bought the game due to the ACE mod, it has been amazing. The performance and stability have been massively improved, which was a major issue during the official development of the Stonehearth.
I for one am glad you did this video splat, thanks. I totally didn't realise that Stonehearth was being worked on and I was gutted when initial development died on it. Thanks for letting me know that some awesome people have breathed life back into a game that had so much potential!
Hi Splattercatgaming,
It's really great to see you revisit this game. I would like to share the true story about the release state of this game. As I see that there is a lot of misconceptions about how it ended up like it is.
Let me start by stating that: RIOT Games is NOT the reason this game was left in the state it was. I'm super happy for the ACE team to keep on adding things that should have been added to the game during it's development period.
Let me explain what happend to this game as someone who was into, backed and followed the game from the start of it's Kickstarter event.
The false Kickstarter claims: The two brothers who developed this game stated during it's Kickstarter that they already worked so hard and long to create an engine that would fulfil the vision they have for this game and to allow for their very flexible building mechanics.
This was absolutely not the case, as when the first alpha build that backers could get it was very clear that this system only worked for the very simple layouts and would break as soon as you try to be a bit flexible of creative. Also this never fully got addressed during the entire development cycle of the game.
The First couple of releases were also in a very bad state technically speaking as you could barely build a house before the game starting stuttering, crashing or fully consuming your memory. I really can't give them a pass for calling the foundation being completed when they recorded the KickStarter promo video.
The development was super slow: This is fine, and i'm not saying they should have rushed anything. However every update was super small in scope, and mostly trying to fix things that are a part of the core gameplay features, and mostly just adding very minor things here and there.
There would be updates that introduced new classes and additional items to the game, however these were very few if you look at the entire release history of the game.
Besides this they would show a lot of things that might or might not ever make it into the game. And mostly they did not at the end.
Why RIOT purchased the studio: RIOT did NOT By the studio because of StoneHearth. The brothers who founded the studio are veteran fighting game developers who created and published a loved online fighting game (Rising Thunder). RIOT games wanted the brothers and the rights to this fighting game.
After RIOT owned the studio:
The brothers stopped working on the game, this is clearly their own decision that started with the whole acceptance of the RIOT deal. We surely can't blame them for taking an opportunity like this one. Most people would have taken this opportunity for sure. I have no problem with this what so ever.
The problem that resulted is that the team they build for StoneHearth, just kinda stagnated and had no vision or clear direction to continue with the game on their onw. It was clear from every dev vlog and showcase they did that there was no direction or real commitment to get anywhere. Progress was still super slow as always and got even worse. I even commented on some of these updates. However they would never show any comment that was criticising the near to standstill pace they were moving at. You only see positive posts and nothing else (on the game website).
They were clearly lost:
For about 2 years they kept on saying they are reworking core aspects of the game to finally be in a position where they can start introducing new features and content at a steady pace. This never happend.
They spoke for 2 years about updating their roadmap that has now clearly changed and shifted from the one available on the website. This also never happend.
Every update was mostly about the same things and just testing things in dev and seeing if it is fun to possibly add one day. That never happend.
The RIOT conclusion:
One day, they created a dev vlog stating that RIOT asked them to present a plan for the future development and a planned finish date that was not "Some day when it's done" but an actual milestone in the future where they see this game reaching a 1.0 state.
Also it's important to add here, they (the devs) also stated that at no point was RIOT involved in their development process, nor did they every push them in a direction or restrict them in terms of timeline etc.
Mind you, the game was still in Alpha at this point!
Their response to this question from RIOT was: bring the game to Beta after 2 weeks.
Make it so that when you finish the super shallow main quest, you can move somewhere else and start over again as an ending of the game.
Not adding any of the features that were planned from the Kickstarter! about 5 years ago. Neither any of the things they have been working on seemingly for ever.
And two weeks later the game was in 1.0 fully released. From Alpha to 1.0 in about a month time.
The hard truth:
The game was simply not going anywhere, the devs had reached the point where they did not think they could continue working on the game or bring it forward anymore, and just decided to call it Done and move on.
I'm really disappointed by this as the game has an art style that I just love so much, the whole style and ambiance of the game is just super pleasing. It's just a shame that they did not just admit the game engine was not going to do it for them and possibly migrate to something more stable (the game was very unstable as a result even at 1.0) so that they could actually build and release this game in a way it can reach it's potential.
It's a real shame, as I was eagerly awaiting this game to be feature complete and get released one day, however after closely following the development for years I could see that the game was not going to get there, and the whole ending just confirmed this suspicion I had. Even though I was really hoping that I would be wrong.
If you are still here, ThnQ for reading and I hope that I was able to show the truth about how the game ended in this unfortunate state.
Take care and I wish you a great day
Modders definitely don't get the credit they deserve. Love that you are giving them the shout-out!
I love this game, and am so glad that the Ace mod exists. Thank you for shouting it out.
Wow, thank you for drawing attention to this mod. Stonehearth was on my radar for a long time but I was kinda bummed out when they stopped development and didn't know about this mod.
Oh I remember this little gem. I remember playing the heck out of it in the desert biome.
Loved my little clay town buried deep within the mountains. We mostly dug up metal, turn them into items and then trade them for extra food.
Building the town over a plateau meant that goblins couldn't get to us. But eventually we had to expand to the lower areas to get more room and more resources.
Appreciated the reminder Splat, and happy to hear you watch Nookrium, you two are my "go to" for indy gaming.
I own the game, but haven't played it in a long time. Knowing that ACE exists I'll give it another go.
This game was so endearing to me when I saw it come out. The art, the ability to build what you want, the music, it really got me stuck in a whole lot, even with all the performance issues. I still play it every so often, the ACE community have been doing such an awesome job with it, but my games do still suffer from dropped tasks or building if I play the same save for a while unfortunately, but I can't not keep playing!
I back this game on kickstarter back in the day. I was so disappointed when the devs abandoned it 😢
Didn’t even know there were mods for it! Will have to check it out.
We should start creating class action lawsuits against companies taking money then dropping the game. In this case it was clearly malicious intent from riot games, i actually think yall would be able to build a case. This needs to stop happening
You should read my comment, because they never abandoned it. If you followed the game you should know what they developers had to do in the situation they were in. They were given a deadline and that was it. They were told by the new big company that bought them out, after this date your done. They were forced to move on by their boss, a new company I believe it was riot games.
You should read my comment, they never abandoned the game. They were bought out and not allowed to work on the game anymore. The developers loved the game and wanted to keep working on it. Riot made them stop and gave them a deadline. The developers did all they could but did not want to lose their jobs. @@anubisfox5765
They could release as open source. Doom is still supported.
@@sergeykishWhich they did. Try paying attention
WOW! Thanks for doing a video Splat! I didn't know this game was continued by the modders, I had heard the devs abandoned it after I bought it, and I just never looked into it again.
I remember watching one of the devs do coding on twitch for this game. It was truly a travesty that it was ruined by Riot basically forcing them to stop work. Such a great game, glad to see it's still being worked on by the Mod community, and being covered by people like you and Nook.
I absolutely love the class based combat/jobs
This is and has been my fav. game ... thanks ever so much Splatt for giving us some more ...
And thanks much to ACE ... The work you have done on this is ... amazing ...
whoa, i remember picking this game up when it was being developed. Was super sad that it just died after riot, it had so much potential but just ended up being so shallow. Seeing you play this mod has brought me back
This game is such a gem in the rough. Its performance really suffers later in the game, but it's totally worth a play. Thanks for covering it, Splat!
Good job for highlighting the work that these guys do. Ive always loved this game!
Thank you for this Video Splat, I absolutely loved Stonehearth and now I know I can get back into it!
I remember tuning into the Dev Diaries every tuesday (or were they on thursdays?), I loved the idea of this game so much. Shame things turned out the way they did, but I'm so very happy to see the ACE team continuing the dream. Thank you Splat for covering this!
Huh, I'm super grateful for this video...I loved stonehearth and didn't realize there was such an active modding community. (I don't tend to spend a lot of time on forums for games) So now I'll go and give this ACE a shot, so thanks!
Community, always where it's at. Good of Splat to mention Nook, he's good People.
Ah jeez, stoneheath is a throwback. I missed this
Played this game a long time ago, glad to see it come back to life, the modding community can make a game live forever.
As someone who followed this game religiously through its original development... RIOT didn't kill the development. The development was slow, and terrible and the only thing being bought by RIOT did was give them an out. Years and years of slow, buggy progress all quickly advanced to a 1.0 release was because they were tired of working on the game. I was probably one of the teams biggest fanboys and advocates and I was gutted watching/ reading the dev updates where they mentioned it was getting tiresome or whatever. Absolutely adore the ACE community, which in itself took a LONG time after announcement to get anything done. I had actually thought the ACE team was a PR stunt and I gave up putting Stonehearth anywhere near my radar. Glad to see it's a game again.
Well I have had this game on my Wishlist for a long time and after I heard they stopped developing it, I considered removing it, but never did. The game was right up my alley and so I hoped one day the studio may pick it back up. Thanks to this video, I now have an incentive to pick it up on the next Steam sale. Thanks a lot and thanks to the modders for their passion and dedication.
Splatt man your stuff on yourube is just getting better all the time, keep it up and stay professional as much as you can I remember first video from you i saw was aboit the gaem long dark and since then im here everyday, cheers man
Thank you for giving attention to this hidden gem of a game
Yoooo... So many years. I remember huge hype for it. It feels like yesterday.
This game is making a comeback, saw another vid about it not long ago and gave me some mad itch to play it again. Really glad you have covered this gem again.
Haven't watched the video yet... but man I remember following this game from the very beginning of the Kickstarter, pledged a few bucks to it, followed it off and on and played it as soon as I was able. Fucking loved the game so much. Then when the 2 brothers who ran the company decided to call it quits, I was incredibly disappointed.
I'm so glad the community kept it alive, Stonehearth deserves it
My favourite thing about this game, was when your colonists were so dumb they'd build themselves into the wall they were building, then die because you had no idea it was happening.
That's not a dead game, that's a game rescue story.
That's the best way I've heard this kind of thing put in years. Well done sir.
Giott, Luca, Watts... those are FF dwarf names. Explains why Stonehearth's dwarves look so much like the best dwarf NPCs ever.
Right, the Darkmine Dwarves mod was inspired by Dwarves from FF4. Good catch!
In spite of the bugs, lag and then abandonment, I cannot let this game go.
In spite this game being 8 years old, I cannot let it go.
In spite all of the other great games that have came out since, I cannot let this game go.
In spite of all the other games I have bought and played since, I cannot let this game go.
In spite all of the games on my wish list, I cannot let this game go.
I believe it is that I just love how this game looks. So many games are dark and I strain the see. This game is bright and colorful. Thus, I enjoy looking at it. And therefore, I enjoy playing it.
its always nice having a game with a comunity that can survive for so long...might have to try this out
I bought this game 7 years ago, maybe its worth trying again.
Love to see you dropping updates on "dead" games good way for us to know if some our games are dead or not. And Maybe I will pick this up in a future sale.
I don't think a day goes by without a github update on the discord for the ACE mod. It's astounding that they're consistently updating the mod even now, a decade later.
It's always nice when the indie game youtubers recognize each other.
Holy crap, I actually found your channel back when you first covered this game when it was not even on early access because RUclips algorithm actually kinda worked back then
Man.. I miss this game.. I've had issue running this game ever since I installed W10 even with the solutions that exists out there.. Brings out so many memories. This game had lots of potential..
my absolute favorite colony management game and just one of my favs in general. really sad it got abandoned but the mods were a fun addition
Wow.. I loved this game when it came out.. maybe it's time to check it out again.. great job ACE.
I'll have to give this a look, I loved the game when it was being actively developed. I always played as the desert folks, building cities atop stone pillars or hill sides.
This makes me SO happy! I absolutely loved Stonehearth!
after watching I actually went and bought the game and I'm loving it. thank you
The ACE mod does add more complexity in combat due to different weapon types. Like the cleric can use the book to heal at a range while also using a heal aura around itself. However, the mace cleric is quite tanky and MURDERS undead while using the heal aura (loses its ranged heal tho) for the melee line. Then your melee weapon variants for fighters and knights have little niches for things like debuffs, DoTs, AoEs, DMG, and DEF.
But, since splat mentioned Towns, yeah that game had a cool theme of building a city that would draw in adventurers to explore underground dungeons. But that game got dropped very early in its development.
This game was around the same time that Timber and Stone was around, both were fun, both unceremoniously axed before they reached full finish
The ACE mod is awesome. The developers are very active and have been working on it for a long while.
You know, I wasn't really into this, but then Splat sold some healing herbs on accident.
That really humanized the content for me.
We crack open Sttoneheart every now and again. It's like Minecraft, you never fully give up on it.
"ridiculous trajectory towards victory" is quite the tongue-twister
It's awesome that modders are picking this up, because I kickstarted Stonehearth and really loved the game's aesthetic and idea. It's a shame it never delivered on the original design and promises, but I hope they keep working on it until it does! Also, OOF RIOT... anything Tencent is toxic. It's a real shame the studio ended up there.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Due to the ACE Mod I would buy this game.
You should do a "retro review" of "A Game of Dwarves". It was a Paradox game that played very well, but was abandoned.
I remember looking at this one when it first came out, but so many great games were coming out at the time I didn't pick it up. I might have to go back and pick it up now.
man i played this when it was launched along with timber and stone. good to see modders are reviving it.
though timber and stone has alot of potential also and hopes that the community revives it
This game was one of my first ever purchase game, back when I just start working in some retail store. The my heart died when the news about the dev move on to join Riot and stop development. It was heartbreaking but after 10 years, ACE mod maybe is the real update we deserve
This game has always had a special place my stone heart 🙂
There was a time where I just kept playing this even though I heard that its no longer being continued but at the same time ACE was also there and I have no idea about it and just kept on playing and had to play it even more after accidentally seeing a post about ACE.
"Bought by Riot" No wonder nothing became of it. Glad I never bought another copy after I refunded it the first time around.
well, just to prove you wrong, you made me want to buy this game after watching your video.. so.. good job
as a massive Dwarf Fortress/Rimworld fan, somehow i havnt heard of Stonehearth before.... will definetly check it out
Get it my brother. May the algorithm bless you!
I want this game as a an iPad app SO BAD
Have loved this game for years. Was into a 3 month stretch of playing nothing else when Fallout 76 came out in Oct 18 and I switched for just a few weeks, much to my regret! Still play it on and off.
Definitely do a play through of "Lords and Villains". Basically a 2D Stone Hearth.
It's thanks to you i bought the game back in the day ^^
I love the ACE stuff. Has fixed so much in the game.
When they last left the game, it was completely unstable. So not only was it not done but you couldn't play it for longer than a few hours or it would break and crash. Really cool they managed to fix it up.
15:49 - inside book of grudges with subsequent promotion to catapult ammo.
I am not going to lie. I was furious what Riot intentionally or unintentionally did. This game was supposed to be the next modular 'framework', easily accessible and flexible to no end. Much more than Rimworld is nowadays, for modders. They really tried to build a game that can be indefinitely worked on by community, and so and forth.
Basically idea was to bring popular franchises much like some of them are brought to Rimworld but to much bigger extent ... and all of that just ... died.
I am glad folks who are working on ACE didn't gave up will revisit this game with the mod definitely and all supported submods.
You can dig down. And dig stairs into the ground. You’re hearthlings will climb up a one block high step.
You mentioned Towns, I'd like to see that game come back, lol
OMG! Stonehearth!
Stonehearth was my absolute favorite for a while and it always makes me so sad that it it got dropped the way it did.
man I remember being super excited for this game to be fully developed because its optimization was shit back in the day but they never finished it then I gradually forgot that this game ever existed
Great to see you do another video on stone hearth I was wondering what happened to it
I dunked so many hours in to this game back in the day. So I got really pewwed when it was abandoned and equally excited when it's was picked by the community, cause it's a nice little title. Sure it's janky as hell, but also has a lot heart.
So kudos to the splat for dusting off this loved relic 😊❤
Oh, Stonehearth. One of the few games I ever pledged on Kickstarter.
I saw that the modders were playing it, but I REALLY wanted to see someone play it!