Status Update 28. Sep. 2020 - Release Date

    • Status Update 28. Sep. 2020 - Release Date






      Dear CNC friends, players and supporters,

      We are on the home stretch to a huge milestone in the development of Cattle and Crops. On Oct 15 2020, version 1.0, which we all have been waiting for, will be released. This is an exciting moment for all those who have supported the game, some of them for years, because it will turn the crazy idea of creating a professional simulation as close to reality as possible — from the community of fans of agricultural games — into a tangible reality.

      We now also have a clear picture of what will be included in V1 at the start and what unfortunately will not make it into the game by then. Of course, this is the question that is of great interest to you as supporters of the development, some of whom have been with us for several years. And that's why it's also important for us to openly discuss with you the goals that have been achieved, but above all those that have not yet been achieved.

      Many of you have already supported us in the context of our Kickstarter campaign in 2016 and with this leap of faith you have contributed significantly to the financing of the project. In the course of the campaign, we have also described our goals regarding the content of V1. Without a doubt, these goals were also the impulse for you to support the project. Therefore it is even more difficult for us to inform you at this point that we are not yet able to deliver the following content planned for the start:

      Multiplayer: In the Kickstarter campaign we included the multiplayer. We had already informed you in a statement on December 5th, 2019, that it will not be released for V1, because we have to concentrate on the work on the AI drivers first.

      Stretch Goal 1: Multi Language (French, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish) is for the time being available in a basic version and has been extended to the new tutorials and scenarios. Other languages (Czech, Danish, Dutch) are not yet implemented. The missing languages as well as a revised version of the current languages will follow after V1 or will be completely translated.

      Stretch Goal 2: "The Golden Voice" (voiceoOvers for English, German and French) unfortunately won't make it into V1. Due to the extensive new content in tutorials and scenarios we have to do the basic translation first.

      Content: There will be no more maps or machines beyond the machines already delivered with the fieldwork package (v0.9.6) for the release. We are aware of the fact that you would have wished for "nicer" news especially concerning this aspect. But the extremely time-consuming creation and "ingaming" of new assets had to be put on hold in favor of working on enhanced gameplay content. So we are all the more thankful for the already many great machines that have been created from the community and are available at modhoster. Of course we know that these are no replacement for other machines we have created. But at least these mods will hopefully keep you busy for a while.

      Exclusive Backers Tractor: To all of you whose Kickstarter package includes an exclusive one - we didn't forget you, of course! Unfortunately, because of the time-consuming creation the same applies here as already written above (content). We will hand you the tractor!

      Launcher: With the release we will discontinue the launcher version of Cattle and Crops. The effort to manage and support multiple download platforms will be too much work — at the latest with the release of the console versions — and therefore we decided to end the launcher support with this release. For all those who are still using the Launcher, you have the possibility to generate a Steamkey in your Cattle and Crops account and activate it at Steam.

      We understand that many of you may be disappointed about this. As you know, Cattle and Crops is our first project. To the best of our knowledge and conviction, we have set the goals described there as part of the Kickstarter campaign. With today's knowledge, we have to admit that in many places we underestimated the effort and overestimated the speed with which we can handle the numerous extensive tasks. It is a fact that the high and detailed level of reality that we want to present in the game, initially seemingly manageable tasks can quickly become very complex. But it is not an option for us to simply lower our demands on realism in favor of significantly faster results. We are convinced that this is the reason why you support Cattle and Crops. And that's why we emphasize that the goals we have set for ourselves will remain the same. Even if they are not yet implemented for V1, we will pursue them in the continuous development of Cattle and Crops, and of course you won't have to pay extra for any of the kickstarter goals later on. Please understand, however, that we cannot yet give any concrete dates.

      But why are we launching the V1 "now" and not waiting until all the goals are implemented? This decision was not easy for us and is the result of conscientious consideration of all the "pros and cons". Of course, the version we are about to release is not the version we planned to release in 2016 as V1. But in fact it is true that not only one-sided features are missing. On the contrary, in many places we were able to surpass our goals and bring in additional extensive and valuable content that was not even on the schedule. We are now at the point where we believe we can release a game that will give you and many new players a great, motivating and educational gaming experience. In the last few months we have put together a package with a lot of new content that will be available for everyone when the game is released.

      In the following, we will give you an overview of the features that are already included and go beyond the Kickstarter goals:

      Drying system: We have added a complex weather-dependent drying system to the grassland area, which reacts to influences such as temperature, wind and sunshine hours!

      Bale physics and handling: When handling hay bales, we have significantly enhanced the physical handling by adding appropriate weights and the possibility of collecting via front loader and bale spike!

      Gamepad control for the PC version: Actually it was planned for the console version - but due to many requests from the community we preponed it, so that you can "plow" your fields with the controller on your PC!

      Fertilizer calculator: There is not only too little, but also too much of a good thing! The right way to fertilize is a question of dosage - with the fertilizer calculator we give you a tool to calculate how much nutrients have to be applied!

      Grain maize incl. cutter: You grow your maize not only for the silo! With the new type of crop and the appropriate machines we expand your possibilities for the cultivation of your farm.

      Radial menu control: No stress! With this clever control system we have created the possibility to reach and operate the many functions of the machines comfortably in connection with the Quickbar.

      Unloading into silos: Moving silos can be loaded individually and the piles can be distributed and compacted with the shovel!

      In addition, you can look forward to the following content with the V1, which was not on the schedule in 2016:

      Extensive tutorial mode: We give you about 50 tutorials that can be started at any time via the menu and explain the numerous functions & features in the game.

      Career learning mode with certificates and scenarios: In addition to the simple sandbox mode, we have also included a complete career mode! Here you first have to earn certificates (as a result of successfully mastered tutorials) in order to unlock individual scenarios. The multi-level scenarios depict various agricultural tasks in a realistic sequence and at the same time convey well-founded specialist knowledge. In this form and scope this should be absolutely unique in the world of agricultural work simulations!

      We will present more details about these two completely new points, which stand for several hours of fun, with the publication.

      As you know, we have entered into two partnerships in the course of the last year to support our work. It was part of our learning curve to understand that we can't do the project without a partner as intended. The Landwirtschaftsverlag from Münster is the largest European agricultural publishing house, providing us with extensive expertise and data that will ensure the level of realism we are striving for throughout the game and especially in the new campaigns. With Toplitz Productions from Irdning/Austria we have an experienced publisher on our side, who helps us to better coordinate the many levels of development to achieve a good gaming experience for you. Furthermore, Toplitz will of course mainly take care of the marketing of Cattle and Crops.

      In this context, Cattle and Crops will also receive the title addition "Professional Farmer - Cattle and Crops" from V1 onwards, which is intended to concisely describe the content of the game. (For you and the game nothing will change because of this addition to the title, of course!)

      We are very grateful to our partners for their support. This will enable us to achieve our goals better and faster.

      We hope that this more detailed statement will answer many of your current questions. Furthermore, we are of course available in the forum for further questions, which we will answer - as far as we can to the best of our knowledge.

      THANK YOU for your longtime loyalty & support! We are now looking forward to taking the next big step with you! THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING!

      Your Cattle and Crops team from Masterbrain Bytes
    • This is disappointing and MIGHT end really bad for you (if you don't do this right) and I wish you would have officially announced half of this months ago instead of being borderline silent (I am sure you DID knew you wouldn't be able to make it way earlier).

      For what's it worth, I seriously hope v1 will be released as Early Access, because if you go out with THIS on Steam, you might as well pack your bags and quit. The community is not very forgiving and you'd get mostly negative reviews and people would refund left and right.
      What you have for v1 is just barely enough for a decent EA. If it's all technically well done without any major bugs or shortcomings, it will be a decent launch - but ONLY if it's an Early Access.
    • So my two cents on this.

      A bit disappointed tbh, but will wait untill release to properly give it an opinion as a released game.

      I do not like that you try to excuse your selves from not being able to deliver, especially multiplayer which was not even a Kickstarter goal but a clear cut feature, with " ...features that are already included and go beyond the Kickstarter goal". Especially when some of them are things you would take for granted in a farming simulator. Bale handling and physics and the possibility to unload into silos? Being able to harvest maize as grain or a drying system?

      You should fokus on delivering what you said you would and people backed you for, not luxury features that's not in the original scope. I can take that you're new and then it's hard to plan, but don't give excuses for it.

      With that said, don't forget this one

      masterbrain wrote:

      "..but of course we’ll mark that next stretch goal, “Move that Mountain”, down as reached and will implement it in CnC in 2017."
    • People who look at future farming games this way, knowing from the very beginning that from the very beginning it was a small group just starting their work in the field of creating a game under realism (from scratch). So now people are starting to complain about something that has arms and legs? Where we will be able to fully test how this game has developed since the announcement itself.

      I see and I don't understand human stupidity! Because that's how I see it from my perspective.

      Farming Simulator X (in other words, Giants Software), who also had difficulties from the very beginning and still does not contribute anything to the gameplay to this day. We only have new industries with new machines. Were it not for the modeling people who also devote their time, a Farming game would not exist to this day (small group) because only this game is playable in its simple form and is easy to play. Did they have a lot of fully playable and interesting gameplay for their game from the start? No, because there are still bugs and still no important parts. Quite simply, this game is released every 2 years (not counting this year already), Farming is still largely from the Cattle and Crops game development.

      I still think that people have no idea how much time it takes and how much is done. I am all my thinking behind the MBB group because they are doing what they can and I hope we will see something more in the future.


      Greetings and wishes for the group to continue to run Cattle and Crops distribution in its measure, because I think that the game has a big impact on the development of realism that the entire MBB group puts from the very beginning.



      PS: My form of expression is not offensive or negative. Anyone can judge, but in the form after time, not now, as the game is still in development after v1 release.
    • I met Cattle and Crops through a viewer who watched me playing Mudrunner and FS19 on my page. I sought to know more about the game and since then I am part of that community. I loved the possibility of having a tractor stuck in one of the cultivation fields, of course, until today I didn't see what I saw in one of the game's ad videos, but I'm hopeful and I believe in MBB's work.
      Of course, it’s not exciting to know that in the launch V1 we’ll not have a lot of new machines and new realistic activities, but the fact that we’ve taken another firm step on the road to a realistic game renews my hopes of one day seeing my tractor stuck in one of the cultivation fields. Strength and focus MBB team!
    • Lothaletrus wrote:

      I see and I don't understand human stupidity! Because that's how I see it from my perspective.
      Here's my perspective. I backed C&C on Kickstarter because I liked their vision. You can read about what I, and others such as yourself, backed if you've forgotten: kickstarter.com/projects/12318…tle-and-crops/description There are risks with any Kickstarter campaign and I knew that. The MBB team was also aware of risks and outlined those at the bottom of that link.

      So here we are 3 *years* after the roadmap called for v1 release and we're nowhere near having what was outlined. That's why I'm disappointed. If that makes me stupid then so be it.


      This didn't age well, but I think they've learned a lesson

      MBB wrote:

      But, since we’ve already dealt with the biggest challenges we are confident that we can deliver a stable and enjoyable product. We’ve hit many walls - especially technical difficulties - during development, but we’ve successfully reached all the goals that we’ve set for ourselves so far.There aren’t any difficult issues left that require a ton of additional research. It’s all a matter of time, labor and money to finish the last milestones.
    • Octopuss wrote:

      This is disappointing and MIGHT end really bad for you (if you don't do this right) and I wish you would have officially announced half of this months ago instead of being borderline silent (I am sure you DID knew you wouldn't be able to make it way earlier).

      For what's it worth, I seriously hope v1 will be released as Early Access, because if you go out with THIS on Steam, you might as well pack your bags and quit. The community is not very forgiving and you'd get mostly negative reviews and people would refund left and right.
      What you have for v1 is just barely enough for a decent EA. If it's all technically well done without any major bugs or shortcomings, it will be a decent launch - but ONLY if it's an Early Access.

      It's not possibile to launch CnC in Early Access, if it has been in Early Access for that long.
      Unfortunately they have gone too long and it's time to go out. After the release they will have to work very hard.
      But I repeat, they had to go out, because more time passes and more they forget about you
    • Octopuss wrote:

      Well then the game is already doomed on Steam.
      First thing people will do is compare it with Farming Simulator, notice the absolute lack of ANY meaningful machinery, and will refund the game right away and leave negative review, which frankly I would completely understand.
      I'm definitely leaving a negative review if performance isn't fixed. The game runs at 9fps NINE FPS which is ridiculous. How will this run and look on consoles if it can't run on PC? I trusted in this project, it looked so promising but developers decided to break the promise, no bug fixing, no new features, no new vehicles, no performance improvements, no promised engine change, absolutely nothing. Enough is enough, they had enough time to fix everything but in all these years they did absolutely nothing. The game is still unplayable unless you're willing to play on 9fps.
      Before anyone says i have a potato PC i'll leave my specs here. Ryzen 3700x, 2070 super, 32gb ram, game is installed on ssd. I know i can't get my money back but i can leave a negative review and spread the message in all communities.
      And to add on top of all this they can't even release a v1 as promised. It's delayed again and again. Oh and congrats on having a publisher which has a bad name. Bye.
    • bybukas wrote:

      Octopuss wrote:

      Well then the game is already doomed on Steam.
      First thing people will do is compare it with Farming Simulator, notice the absolute lack of ANY meaningful machinery, and will refund the game right away and leave negative review, which frankly I would completely understand.
      I'm definitely leaving a negative review if performance isn't fixed. The game runs at 9fps NINE FPS which is ridiculous. How will this run and look on consoles if it can't run on PC? I trusted in this project, it looked so promising but developers decided to break the promise, no bug fixing, no new features, no new vehicles, no performance improvements, no promised engine change, absolutely nothing. Enough is enough, they had enough time to fix everything but in all these years they did absolutely nothing. The game is still unplayable unless you're willing to play on 9fps.Before anyone says i have a potato PC i'll leave my specs here. Ryzen 3700x, 2070 super, 32gb ram, game is installed on ssd. I know i can't get my money back but i can leave a negative review and spread the message in all communities.
      And to add on top of all this they can't even release a v1 as promised. It's delayed again and again. Oh and congrats on having a publisher which has a bad name. Bye.
      So many false claims in this I don't even know where to start...

      If you get 9 FPS with that system while I have a worse one which can manage between 30-60 FPS I don't even know what you are doing.

      "no bug fixing, no new features, no new vehicles, no performance improvements, no promised engine change, absolutely nothing."

      They've fixed several bugs and already told us they will fix more. There have been performance increase and they have upgraded the engine and for next release it should be even better? What are you even on about?

      I can accept critique that's true and constructive and agree that this release looks problematic, but most of what you write are just pure bullcrap...
    • This is disappointing news but after this length of time it has taken since the Kickstarter project, I personally thought you guys might not be able to deliver everything that you set out too.

      I do have a a few questions.

      Is there a future road map of anything that will be added after the launch of V1.0 ?
      I personally pledged to include future DLC's for 4 years after V1.0 is there any news or plans for this?


      Kind Regards
    • Nybyggarn wrote:

      bybukas wrote:

      Octopuss wrote:

      Well then the game is already doomed on Steam.
      First thing people will do is compare it with Farming Simulator, notice the absolute lack of ANY meaningful machinery, and will refund the game right away and leave negative review, which frankly I would completely understand.
      I'm definitely leaving a negative review if performance isn't fixed. The game runs at 9fps NINE FPS which is ridiculous. How will this run and look on consoles if it can't run on PC? I trusted in this project, it looked so promising but developers decided to break the promise, no bug fixing, no new features, no new vehicles, no performance improvements, no promised engine change, absolutely nothing. Enough is enough, they had enough time to fix everything but in all these years they did absolutely nothing. The game is still unplayable unless you're willing to play on 9fps.Before anyone says i have a potato PC i'll leave my specs here. Ryzen 3700x, 2070 super, 32gb ram, game is installed on ssd. I know i can't get my money back but i can leave a negative review and spread the message in all communities.And to add on top of all this they can't even release a v1 as promised. It's delayed again and again. Oh and congrats on having a publisher which has a bad name. Bye.
      So many false claims in this I don't even know where to start...
      If you get 9 FPS with that system while I have a worse one which can manage between 30-60 FPS I don't even know what you are doing.

      "no bug fixing, no new features, no new vehicles, no performance improvements, no promised engine change, absolutely nothing."

      They've fixed several bugs and already told us they will fix more. There have been performance increase and they have upgraded the engine and for next release it should be even better? What are you even on about?

      I can accept critique that's true and constructive and agree that this release looks problematic, but most of what you write are just pure bullcrap...
      Yes i have only 9-10fps with this system. If you're saying i'm lying then you're welcome to prove that. Show me a video where the game runs on 30-60fps on much slower PC. Don't forget to set the graphics settings to the max. I'm waiting.

      Oh i just noticed they changed the name to "professional farmer". It's as if developers intentionally want to sabotage this game. Professional farmer series are well known shovelware and a scam so it will only put people away because they will automatically associate CnC with Professional farmer.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by bybukas ().

    • It seems pretty silly to associate yourself with the pile of garbage that was the Professional Farmer series. Professional Farmer 2017 has an overall rating on steam of Very Negative. Even though I know this game has nothing to do with that game, I fear that many other people won't know that. I suspect that your publisher forced this name change because somebody in marketing was worried that Cattle and Crops wasn't enough to drive the message that this was a farming game, but whoever came up with this new title should be ashamed of themselves. The worst bit is actually completely stealing the font for "Professional Farmer" from Farming Simulator. How very professional of you, but nothing surprises me when working with a publisher of the calibre of Toplitz.

      Then again I wonder if it really matters. 5 days to go and the excitement and buzz on the steam discussions and on your own forum is just "palpable". The amount of people super excited for the release is simply overwhelming. You cannot even give 2 shirts to add SSL security to your own forum.

      Judging by what happens to games published by Toplitz, we are unlikely to see much bug fixing in the future. Maybe a DLC or two. It's sad to consider what this game could have been. I am not sure where it went wrong. Maybe you guys realised that creating this all conquering and all realistic game was actually bloody hard at some point. Unfortunately the trajectory you are on now means that this game is headed for the bargain bin quickly after release to sit alongside its peers, like Professional Farmer and Farm Expert.
    • sebastian.me wrote:



      Judging by what happens to games published by Toplitz, we are unlikely to see much bug fixing in the future. Maybe a DLC or two. It's sad to consider what this game could have been. I am not sure where it went wrong. Maybe you guys realised that creating this all conquering and all realistic game was actually bloody hard at some point. Unfortunately the trajectory you are on now means that this game is headed for the bargain bin quickly after release to sit alongside its peers, like Professional Farmer and Farm Expert.

      If you can´t stand unfinished games you shouldn´t buy EA titles. And if you know what´s going to happen in the future, than you are truly special.

      All I know after having followed some EA games is: You can´t say wether it´s going to be good or not, b4 you´ve got the released version on your HD.

      Oh, and btw. it´s the Devs that fix bugs after release, not the publisher. Toplitz hasn´t showed up anywhere near the game development afaik. The devs are pretty active here and I´ve got the impression that further development and bug fixing from their side is highly probable.

      We all will be wiser in some weeks - and if you enjoy the role of a doomsday prophet: hf and keep prophesying ^^
    • We should probably not continue the same conversation on both steam and here, but it has to be done.

      I have the pre-release version. It is nothing more than a buggy tech-demo with less features that were promised and missing the amazing terrain deformation that was shown off in the first C&C videos. So you are suggesting that in the few months since the last pre-release version v1 will now be an amazing game? I do not need any special skills to have a pretty clear picture of what the game will be like at release.

      MasterBrain went to a company like Toplitz/UIG because they could not pay the bills anymore. The game is not ready. The only reason why it's being released is because Topliitz/UIG is pushing for a release, since they don't feel like paying the bills for development forever.

      Toplitz/UIG has an amazing history of supporting promising games and small studios then pushing them to release an unfinished and buggy product. Toplitz/UIG does not have a good history of continuing to pay the bills after release, unless it's to pay for DLC. Some development studios decide to try and fix the bugs anyway on "their own time". Some games, like professional farmer 2017 for example, are simply never fixed and they get a few DLCs.

      Of course it's the devs that fix the bugs. But it's the publisher that pays the bills and it's the publisher that steers the ship often. How do you think this whole world of game developers and publishers works?

      You claim that the ground deformation system, like was shown in the original marketing videos, is there in v1. No, it is not. What we have right now in the pre-release version is parallax occlusion mapping and not at all what was marketed and promised. Keep believing and telling yourself though that it's going to be great. I am just sad because this could have been so good.

      UIE (who published Professional Farmer 2017) is actually UIG. Go to Professional Farmer 2017, click on the publisher (United Independent... ). Then you will see it's just UIG. UIG and Toplitz are the same company. They claim to have "partnerships" to try and distance themselves from each other when there is bad publicity, but it's all run by the same people. None of these companies have a good record of acting in good faith when it comes to us, the consumers, nor do they have a good record of caring about the quality of the games they publish.

      Games published by UIG
      store.steampowered.com/curator/33026911

      Games published by Toplitz
      store.steampowered.com/search/…her=Toplitz%20Productions

      The post was edited 3 times, last by sebastian.me: Added links ().

    • I usually stay away from these kinds of discussion recently but there is a bit of missinformation in this post.

      sebastian.me wrote:

      MasterBrain went to a company like Toplitz/UIG because they could not pay the bills anymore
      Thats kind of a bold statement without any backup. The main reason for having a publisher on this project is to get the game into retail other platforms and obviously marketing. And thats exactly what Toplitz is doing for Cattle and Crops. I won't comment on Toplitz, I'm not here to tell anyone what to think about them, I can only tell you what they are doing for Cattle and Crops.

      sebastian.me wrote:

      You claim that the ground deformation system, like was shown in the original marketing videos, is there in v1. No, it is not. What we have right now in the pre-release version is parallax occlusion mapping and not at all what was marketed and promised.
      You don't seem to really know what you are talking about. Obviously ground deformation is some kind of shader "trickery". The technique used is called Tesselation and has nothing to do with Parallax Occlusion Mapping. Parallax Occlusion Mapping is creating fake depth effects using only texture information without any geometry involed (Like the brick walls in the game or the ground in the latest FS iterations use it e.g. A bit like bump/normal mapping.).

      Tesselation on the other hand is actually creating geometry within the field and physically displacing it to create real depth. The shader used in game is basically the same as it was in the Kickstarter videos. The only thing that really noticeably changed are the textures used in combination with the tesselation effect. The extreme tesselation effect was dialed back a bit (because it didn't look that great). If you loose grip the game will send that information to the ground and you'll sink into it.

      I have no idea what you are expecting from a "realistic ground". Other games like spintires are no different. Tesselation with a vertex shader applied to deform the ground. So again, no Idea what you expect, it's pretty much the best solution you can go for.
    • What extra marketing is Toplitz giving you? Is it helping to release on DVD? I thought they were digital only? Also, the marketing right now looks pretty much non-existent in the English speaking world. Which other platforms is Toplitz helping to release on? Consoles? So you didn't run out of money but decided to go with the worst publisher in the PC gaming and stuck on the least regarded name to the front of your game's title because of good marketing? Ok!

      Oh, you are still using tessellation? No wonder then that you are having so many performance issues.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by sebastian.me ().

    • I am starting to get really scared.I predict disastrous launch and a death within a few months. I'd love to be proven wrong though. I refuse to make an idiot out of myself by buying that piece of shit Farming Simulator for the third time, which is exactly why I backed up C&C back then, hoping it would become what FS never could because of zero fucks given about quality, modern technology+looks by Giants. I don't think this is ever going to happen after all.
    • TheCoCe wrote:

      sebastian.me wrote:

      Oh, you are still using tessellation? No wonder then that you are having so many performance issues.
      And another thing you got wrong I'm afraid. Tessellation has nothing to do with the performance issues. The issues are mostly due to vegetation rendering and node updates due to physics when having many vehiclesT
      Thank you for admitting and acknowledging the performance issues. We got there in the end.
    • Octopuss wrote:

      The professional farmer part makes no sense, that's just ridiculous. Where did that come from and WHY?
      It would have been a request from from the publisher, Toplitz. "Professional Farmer" is owned by UIG. UIG and Toplitz are basically the same company (they claim to be partners). Like I said above, I suspect that the publisher thought that Cattle and Crops was not a good name by itself and it needed "farm" in the title somewhere. This would help in people searching for "farming games" I guess is how the boardroom meeting went. They obviously also thought that stealing Farming Simulator's signature font would also do wonders for brand recognition and marketing. Then everybody patted themselves on the back and went out for cocktails.