Pokémon fans have long asserted that a massively multiplayer take on the franchise would basically print money. With monster-collecting game Temtem’s release on Tuesday, it seems that the concept as a whole is a winner. Unfortunately, however, the cheery MMO can’t seem to handle all the attention.
Day one was plagued with issues for Temtem. I tried logging on multiple times yesterday to no avail; I couldn’t even connect to the servers. Once I actually got in, queue lines were long. And once that wait was over, I loaded into an extremely laggy world — only to be kicked back out after about 10 minutes. This morning, the queue was significantly better and I got in after a few minutes, but I still lost connection to the server fairly quickly. I haven’t been able to get my starter Tem yet, though I did make a very cute protagonist.
The developer, Crema, has been hard at work trying to resolve all the issues players are facing, with multiple builds going live since launch. Crema has been communicative about all of this via Twitter, to the degree that if you read the developer’s timeline, you get an eye-popping number of updates regarding what is being fixed. Sometimes, these communications read comically, as fixes to the fixes are set live, rolled back, and then smoothed over anew.
We're restarting the server but we've detected a issue in the hotfix. Hotfix for the hotfix coming soon!
— Temtem (@PlayTemtem) January 21, 2020
Don’t worry, despite the inevitable pressure that comes with frantically trying to fix a game that’s already live, the developers do seem to be taking care of themselves.
We also ordered some food so the dev team has their mind focused on the hotfix and not on being hungry.
— Temtem (@PlayTemtem) January 21, 2020
We wanted burritos but the place was closed :(
— Temtem (@PlayTemtem) January 21, 2020
Okay, we should go to sleep now.
— Temtem (@PlayTemtem) January 22, 2020
Game is mostly stable. We will be pushing fixes later in the day to improve everything.
Thank you all so much for bearing with us. Love you to the moon and back.
If you want to help us and you have time, don't forget to post a review on Steam!
It’s worth noting that Crema is a fairly small team. On the studio’s official page, we see 18 folks listed, along with a dog. Launching any online game, never mind a fully-fledged MMO, is tough even on AAA studios with vastly larger resources. Crema did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the game’s stability.
According to Steam’s official stats, Temtem had a high of 29,545 players, which isn’t bad for a totally new property that’s still in early access.
Today, Crema is back on the grind, now addressing a wider array of issues than just ones relating to the servers. We’ll have impressions as soon as things stabilize enough to play.
Heya!
— Temtem (@PlayTemtem) January 22, 2020
We're back at it again. We're looking closely at all your bug reports.
We will be push a hotfix for the server soon fixing medicine items not working properly and some other stuff we've found.