An entitled player brings a torch and pitchfork to the forums in this all-too-accurate satire, originally published in the March issue of Game Developer magazine.

Hey guys, I hate that I have to make this post, but apparently everyone else is too complacent to STEP FORWARD and say something about this. You all read that Stolen Sun Studios said AGAIN that the next update for Wanderer: Horizons won't include the "massively co-op" mode we've been suggesting in the forums for MONTHS now. Who do they think they're fooling? I don't buy their excuse for a second that doing it would be "too hard."

It's not like doing massive co-op is that complicated. It's a new mode, but building the levels or modeling some new vehicles is probably the biggest thing. And it's not like you're building a brand-new game. You just make the existing polygons, textures, and pixels appear in everyone's game at the same time and you're basically done.

Anyone who has programmed before knows this isn't a big deal. All the actions in Wanderer are extremely simple. If the code for moving and shooting is more than a few lines long they did it wrong. Plus the netcode doesn't have to be put in over the whole game. There's "code reuse," which is a technique that lets you use the same code in a lot of different places. I'm sick of the excuses here.

How do I know it?

Someone asked how I know this. Well, I know this because I made my own games for at least two if not more of my computer programming classes in which I was the top student (i.e., college level). If it would take the devs more than a couple hours, well, then they have SPAGHETTI CODE and should reprogram everything. The only reason they wouldn't add it is if they don't actually care about the game. That's right, I said it: The lure of EASY PROFITS is leading Stolen Sun to take the loyal fans for a ride.

Anyway, it's not that I want massive co-op multiplayer personally - I find most "gamers" these days are too stupid or casual to play with. I just hate seeing game developers being so LAZY, succumbing to greed, living like fat cats eating caviar, and driving Bentleys. That's the real truth here, everyone. They've given in to GREED as all game developers do eventually. Remember when Birth of the Titans decided to charge for the "expansion" even though they had been doing FREE patches for over six months? Get real, noobs. Anyone who isn't blinded by BLATANT FANBOY BIAS can see through that.

@BlueBaloo22 Well, clearly your college was in it for the money just like the Wanderer devs if they gave you a degree in computer science despite you clearly not even understanding basic programming. Basically everyone that plays Wanderer these days is going to be connecting to the internet using cable, DSL, or fiber to the home (FTTH). Not TCP-IP.

@LittlerFingers It's clear that you're not a coder at all, since you can't tell the difference between the game code (which doesn't need to support networking) and the engine code (which does). In games like this, most of the engine code is about rendering and audio, so adding networking to that is nowhere near as complicated. And once it's in the engine, the game functions just need a few new parameters (I bet you don't even know what those are) to hook into it.

Game design issues - or NOT

I know some people on these fine forums have said that massively co-op multiplayer would change the tone of the game from something about a lonely experience to something more like an MMO with people running around, etc. Well, that's easy too: Just have the characters occasionally say a line about how weird it is seeing another person around. It's not like they couldn't record more voices.

@SirMustache I'm not even going to bother responding to this.

Again, I don't care at all if this is implemented or not, I just don't want to see the programmers get away with being lazy and the loyal fan community just accepting whatever they say because they're not educated enough.

Last Post before I ***DELETE MY ACCOUNT***

Look, anyone who really cares about Wanderer needs to speak up about these SLOTHFUL developers and not accept their pathetic excuses. Everyone here should hold them ACCOUNTABLE and REFUSE to support them anymore until they come clean and admit they've been lying to us. I won't accept anything less and do not plan on returning to these forums until they do. Good day, all.

Matthew Wasteland writes about games and game development on his blog, Magical Wasteland (www.magicalwasteland.com). Email him at mwasteland at gdmag dot com. Magnus Underland writes about games and other topics at www.above49.ca. Email him at magnus dot underland at gmail dot com.