(17 May 20, 05:17PM)xemi Wrote: [...] I feel like if the devs who started the game don't have any ambition to really further update ac, they should have at least made a effort to pass it on to players who do/did. [...]
Actually, the first dev-team, which can be called as such (namely: eihrul, driAn, FlowTron aka MeatRome, stef and makkE) did pass the responsibilities onto the next generation a lot of years ago, and those second gen devs have passed it on to the next and so on for another few times. However, ever since this first team had retired you couldn't even talk about 'the devs' anymore, as the people taking up on the work were rather a lose collection of more or less (latter includes myself) skilled enthusiasts from the community trying to keep things afloat.
By the way, if this wasn't the case the masterserver and homepage wouldn't still be up and running to this day, right?
The last person who had the required skills and engine-knowledge to further develop AC's code base was indeed stef, who as far as I know, eventually has given up with basically nobody left to pass the stuff onto next. As far as commits on Github go, it seems there's currently only grenadier left maintaining compatibility with modern OS versions (see here). That's it.
At this point, a big 'thank you' to all those who haven't already given up and still devote their spare time for us to play a 15(?) years old open source game!
Thing is, even if we were to source the money to pay someone to work on the game, you still need to find that someone. The notion of 'the devs' pretty much sums up the entire misconception here, as it always has been 'the community' where devs sparked out of and there's not much community left today. Let alone capable people who are willing to dump hours worth a half-time job into an - let's be honest - outdated game.
I don't want to paint it all black and hopeless, but pointing fingers at 'the devs' 5 years ago showed how little people understood the game's development process, doing it today is just a completely pointless act.
As for the Steam discussion. I did vote against putting it up back in the day, as the game and the infrastructure around wasn't fit for a broader audience and huge player counts, in my opinion. Today I would even vote against it twice, for this might very well be the final nail in the coffin considering the game's current state. Just have a look at how even professional indie studios, with actual dev teams, can't keep their heads above the surface when not meeting players' expectations.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see things changing direction and development kicking in again, but the kind of miracle required seems too big of a magnitude to ever become reality...