The Studio has never made frequent use of the Steam Forum, favoring their discord, but we also have not seen any patches from them in a couple months now. See this (speculative) thread not far below yours:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/1152340/discussions/0/4693405960868204078/

There hasn´t been any news by the devs on discord since the patch in August either, even though there´s a lot of speculation about a possible shut down there too and there are always some developers online.

"Hi, MaD is reading the channels yes. I can't comment on anything right now but just wanted to let you know we are present!" (MaD_Arvid, 19/08/2024 10:01)

That´s the last comment by an active developer I could find.

I mean, as unique and amazing this game might be, I think it didn't do that well, so I assume BoT is going to get the same treatment as their other online game "Meadow", which is getting one update per year, which is fair enough.

Originally posted by gun goes pew pew:

I mean, as unique and amazing this game might be, I think it didn't do that well, so I assume BoT is going to get the same treatment as their other online game "Meadow", which is getting one update per year, which is fair enough.

Arguably the main reason BOT didn't do that well was that it never became especially amazing, in that they never managed to get the core of the game stable enough to proceed with building out the remaining~80% of the game that had been promised during the Kickstarter and pitched as the plan for EA. It's all disappointing either way, but I have little doubt that the game would have attracted at least a slightly larger audience if potential players had been able to look in and see significant signs of progress.

Originally posted by Genghis Pawn:

Originally posted by gun goes pew pew:

I mean, as unique and amazing this game might be, I think it didn't do that well, so I assume BoT is going to get the same treatment as their other online game "Meadow", which is getting one update per year, which is fair enough.

Arguably the main reason BOT didn't do that well was that it never became especially amazing, in that they never managed to get the core of the game stable enough to proceed with building out the remaining~80% of the game that had been promised during the Kickstarter and pitched as the plan for EA. It's all disappointing either way, but I have little doubt that the game would have attracted at least a slightly larger audience if potential players had been able to look in and see significant signs of progress.

Well I'm not here to argue on why or even if BoT didn't do well, I'm just trying to give an idea on what to expect from the developers, BoT update wise at least. Either way, let's hope for the best.

BoT has definitely been an extremely ambitious project: cooking and meaningful combat is one thing, but player aging, children, and ancestry in a survival RPG? Making impactful effects from player choices, names, eye colours, heck even star signs? Community instrument playing, in-game journaling editable via an official lore website? All quite rare or niche and tricky to perfect, but a glorious ambition I too would love see get fruition.

There should be an announcement on the state of BoT, Meadow, and the studio after the recent layoff Soon(TM)

yes!!! ty!

In my experience when devs start talking about how "ambitious" their project has been, it´s a precursor to admitting it failed. The situation with BoT seems even worse, since we haven´t actually heard from any of them in over 4 months now.
(edit: apart from saying "we´re present" once on discord, as I posted earlier)

There has been some kind of movement in the past couple weeks on private builds of the game, as logged on SteamDB[steamdb.info]. But that doesn't tell us much.

The claims I've seen about how ambitious the project is are puzzling to me because they invoke future goals that I've never seen the Studio sign on for in any public comments. It forms an odd exchange:

• "So you told us you set out to run a mile in 4 minutes, but you only ran a quarter of a mile. Are you going to finish running the mile, even if it takes longer?"
  
• "Well, bear in mind, this was an ambitious undertaking -- I was trying to run five miles!"

Sounds pretty much like that example, lol. I had not heard of these goals before either actually, but I haven´t "been around" this game from the beginning. Also seems strange to me to say there "should be" news "soon" and then nothing happens for another almost a month now, especially after having posted about layoffs and the uncertain future of the game prior to that. It looks like none of it happened in coordination with the developers.

Looking at the SteamDB the amount of players in game has really dropped even more after that update in the summer. Personally I think the most ambitous part of BoT has been how niche it is for an mmo albeit tiny, it still requires them to run the servers and pay for that. Although there were quite a lot of people playing in the beginning, so maybe there is a large enough audience and they just botched it by being extremely slow with updates (and an unreasonable high price for what the game currently has to offer).

What ever comes out of this, the current situation is a PR disaster imo. Even with games that did fail, I have never come across developers, who just vanished with no info what so ever leaving the players (and mods apparently) to speculate for months.

Originally posted by Kaya:

unreasonable high price for what the game currently has to offer).

The current situation doesn't bode well, but I never had a problem with the price. The game is very nichey and experimental and Steam is plagued with idiots, a lot of whom are idiots by virtue of their age. The lower the price, the more of these idiots will pay it and the next thing you know your rating is in the toilet and the forum is full of angry rants, grossly exaggerated criticisms and the most ridiculous demands. The higher the price, the higher the entry barrier, and the fewer idiots you have hanging around creating a hostile environment and driving potential buyers away.

I often use Wasteland 2 as an example when the price question comes up. That game was $60 in Early Access and in one way or another broken all the way to version 1, yet it always maintained a very positive player rating because the only people who bought it were those who genuinely appreciated what the developers were trying to do, understood what they were getting into, and actually provided the necessary feedback and bug reports to get it over the finish line. Once it did they unbundled it so they could lower the price to a more realistic $40 (IIRC. Could've been $30) and nobody complained about being ripped off because we all understood why they did it the way they did it.

Certainly no argument about the updates, though. There's no question they dropped the ball and it doesn't appear they ever recovered it. It's been a mess from day 1 and the developer's silence on the current situation, and in the face of a hell of a lot of discussion about it, practically shouts from the rooftop that something is not right.

The game has been universally rejected. It was first met with universal disinterest, and then it was rejected again by the tiny outlier that wanted to give it a chance. In its first month it lost 80% of its players. By the half year mark 75% of those who had remained were also gone.

Throughout all of this, the developer was asked repeatedly to make their game streamable, so that this unbridled resource hog with its snail's pace gameplay and wiki centric progression could be enjoyed casually as a side activity, or run at all without burning out our case fans. Imagine their surprise when the audience for an art house point & click adventure MMO hadn't invested thousands of dollars in gaming hardware.

To put a Steam game on GeForce Now requires that the developer load a webpage and then click a checkbox. No other work is necessary, and the game need not be complete.

Without exception these appeals were ignored, and now the studio is a zombie entity awaiting purchase by somebody who finds all this attractive and promising. Guess what?

Originally posted by ein:

That^

You're right about the dwindling playerbase -- and yet, the game continues to garner positive reviews. I'm not saying I fully understand why people positively review games when they don't find them worth playing, but the game's Steam rating clearly complicates any claim of universal rejection.

To be honest I don't really understand the riff about need thousands of dollars into a machine to run this game. You're right that they didn't push the game out across services like GeForce Now, but then, they didn't advertise it or take serious steps to grow the playerbase on PC, either. Missing out on folks to play GeForce Now was just a side-effect.

Originally posted by Genghis Pawn:

Originally posted by ein:

That^

You're right about the dwindling playerbase -- and yet, the game continues to garner positive reviews. I'm not saying I fully understand why people positively review games when they don't find them worth playing, but the game's Steam rating clearly complicates any claim of universal rejection.

To be honest I don't really understand the riff about need thousands of dollars into a machine to run this game. You're right that they didn't push the game out across services like GeForce Now, but then, they didn't advertise it or take serious steps to grow the playerbase on PC, either. Missing out on folks to play GeForce Now was just a side-effect.

I don't doubt you that the GFN issue was of little interest to most players, but "most players" was in the dozens by that point, and so it's arguably a less significant exception than the game's acceptance was. But most people who quit a game never bother to write about it, especially if they like the game and are just hoping for things to improve. I love this game. I didn't quit playing on purpose because I was angry about GFN support. I set it aside because it wanted very badly to overheat my computer. I had to do this with BeamNG.drive and a few other high end games. I should not need to endure 80 degree temps and screaming case fans from a papercraft adventure game.

And sure, I don't deserve any better. I knew what the hell I was paying my $30 for. I'm a day one defender of Early Access, and I know and accept the risks. But it is shameful to take something this beautiful and this reliant on player participation, set it up in the most fragile sort of live service format, and then work in such a leisurely, casual way to engage with their customers and keep their game alive.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/mightanddelight/announcements/detail/528706478197965653

We have some news at least!