r/underlords 8d ago

Other Petition to resume development

https://www.change.org/dotaunderlords

I've made a petition that I will try to get to Valve once we have a lot of people voicing their opinion.

For now, it seems this is ALL we can do.

We've waited over 5 years, the game still has thousands if not tens of thousands of players, 1200-1500 daily according to steamdb.

It's a huge shame that they put this project down. Just give us a skeleton crew, please!

271 Upvotes

28 comments sorted by

115

u/hisshame 8d ago

Hey dawg, I love this game and I love you, but if you use an AI-generated image to represent a game that already exists, I’m gonna have an existential crisis

41

u/Forsaken_Couple1451 8d ago

Change.org makes all this on the fly for some reason lol. I'll see if I can change the image.

0

u/hexmaps 5d ago

grrr I can't handle things out of my control grrrr

13

u/cake4real 8d ago

That petition site is ass.

33

u/itsGucciGucci 8d ago

Or just open source the code I don’t see why not let us dev it

13

u/Hardass_McBadCop 8d ago

There's likely some sort of legal ramifications when it comes to enforcing their IP.

1

u/Dudu_sousas 7d ago

And they probably have some proprietary code, used in multiple games, they don't want to be open to the public.

6

u/NetSage 8d ago

Considering Valve's well documented flat structure if they wanted to make it happen they would have already. If you want to make it happen become a dev at valve and you can basically work on what you want.

I think a large reason it got dropped is they made dota custom maps so powerful there wasn't really reason to keep underlords going. Auto Chess and others like it were probably making more money than underlords with more active development.

2

u/navatanelah 7d ago

Any dota custom map you recommend that plays similar to ynderlord or dota chess?

6

u/rastla SPROINK 7d ago

I mean the Dota Auto Chess Custom Game in Dota 2 is still updated all the time

1

u/Important-Spend-8477 1d ago

Is the guy behind Dota 2 Autochess now still the same Drodo guy or not?

2

u/rastla SPROINK 20h ago

Yeah, basically.
Drodo Studios got formed already after a couple of months after it blew up in Dota 2. That's when they expanded to at least 4 devs, who are all still listed here (on the right):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1613886175

Afaik they have a dedicated group of devs inside of Drodo Studios who handle the custom game. It's not the same game as the Standalone version. The standalone one has other/new heroes/classes and sort of branched off at some point. They test new mechanics/concepts though in the Dota version of the custom game and it gets still updated a lot, last time I checked

3

u/fakoykas 8d ago

This game will never be successful. Underlords (characters) was such a bad idea, it was way better when it played like AutoChess.

Even when they were introduced people begged Valve to remove them. Instead everyone slowly left the game. Honestly, the game should be reintroduced at an earlier build when Underlords didn't exist, probably under a new name.

3

u/bezacho 8d ago

it wasn't slowly. check steam charts. it was all at once.

8

u/helpamonkpls 8d ago

I don't see how the underlords ruin the game. There is a random element to them in that you don't decide which ability you get, if anything they lock you into a build and close other builds off.

I don't massively mind them tbh

4

u/valkon_gr 7d ago

The game died after Underlords. The hate was massive.

-7

u/fakoykas 8d ago

That's the issue. There used to be a lot of variance and suddenly there was none.

1

u/luorax 8d ago

I kinda stopped playing around the time Underlords were added, so I'm a bit out of the loop. Could you explain why? From what I remember, underlords looked like a neat concept to me.

5

u/Tiegh 8d ago

The Underlords made the game more consistent, which you don't really want in an autobattler. Strategies should be found on the fly while playing. Also, they were pretty unbalanced, which is an issue when you get one every game.

I enjoy the Underlords, but having them more balanced would go a long way. I could also play a version of the game without them.

0

u/BombrManO5 7d ago

Exact kind of response that will flood this sub if development resumed which is the exact reason development stopped in the first place. People can only keep their positive opinions to themselves, never the negative ones.

2

u/Acrobatic_Yellow_781 7d ago

I want artifact back

3

u/Gachi_Is_Manly 7d ago

me too brother

1

u/Disastrous-Mine-8747 4d ago edited 4d ago

there was already a dude that laid out a dev/roadmap on what could be changed and how the game could continue and valve said no. i think this game is dead. there was a very active dev from valves underlords "team" in discord back then. i think he quit. that have put the nail in the coffin. sadly

i heard u/GabeNewellBellevue was a fan of the game. so i dont know why they just quit developing it or hire a external dev to continue given its a perfect steam deck/mobile game.

1

u/Forsaken_Couple1451 4d ago

We could literally do with 1 dude doing a few hours a week on this game, just to keep some air in it. I know 1500 players are rookie numbers for a Valve game, but these are numbers for a game that has been abandoned (no marketing, no updates) for FIVE YEARS.

It HAS to pull enough revenue with active development to justify one dude clocking a few hours per week, while he works on whatever other projects they have during the other hours.

1

u/Tiegh 8d ago

Where is the petition link?

1

u/somethingstrang 8d ago

Can’t we just mod it

1

u/Conscious-Boss6195 8d ago edited 8d ago

Signed! 🤞🏼😊

I really enjoy this game, I’m no gaming pro by any means but there’s few games that I invest loads of my passionate energy into and really appreciate in and out - for me Underlords has been one of those, as an extension of appreciating the world of Dota and the lore.

Why? I really enjoy that tho it’s an Autochess format of game it’s got the lore from Dota that I live for! There’s something a lot more beautiful to me even while playing autochess as a nice quick-game option but still it’s exciting cause I have my heroes I like for eg. (my current fav is Puck and Death Prophet) and the items and their alliances and so on… I do get what some others have said about the Underlords being unnecessary, I can see myself enjoying the game just as much or even more without them (haven’t tried the earlier versions), I do see the point there