Mistycica wrote:Releasing the game into EA is not my cup of tea.

One, we have more than enough beta backers to go ahead and test the whole thing extensively. People who paid good money for this privilege (including me ). That tier of backing didn't sell because it was 'one month early' or 'exclusive snapshots', it sold despite the very inflated price because people wanted active part of development and brainstorming as they tested the game. Early Access would cheapen this considerably, drowning out the voice of the lucky 'few'.

And two, tossing out a half-baked copy to the masses isn't going to do the game any justice. Folks pick it up, play around, meh out at the compatibility breaks and missing features, have their share way before release. It's something we want to avoid, and make the best possible initial impression to the wide market with the first game and biggest dream of solo dev Josh Parnell. Can't do first impressions twice.

Very good points.

Another thought: with LTSL being the way it is, going EA could reduce Josh's workload - like with KSP, if people make a very good mod, he can just make a deal to incorporate it into the full game.

Personally I think it's a poor idea, not least because of the way it'll be received by the potential customer base. Early Access has (rightly, IMO) got a rather poor reputation over the last few years. There are some games for which it works really, really well (e.g. KSP as Dino noted), but I don't think this could be one of them. It's not a sandbox in the same sense. I also think that if it makes it to Early Access, then Josh's own perfectionism would make it hard for him to ever declare it finished. Then again, things are different now, so who knows?

How about a $250 early access with 80% of the funds going to a charity of Josh's choice? It's a win-win for everyone! Ok? Good!

Now that we are doing this, lets talk charity options.

I suggest the "Zanteogo wants to go to Mexico 2016 charity". Zan's taking the whole family so we need to raise at least 5K.

Who's in? I know I am.



edit:
Also, for every 1.5K over the 5K goal and random forum member gets to come with Zanteogo! Think about it, tequila shots with me!

I'm curious about something; there is a lot of talk circulating that EA is bad, yet I don't see the masses picketing EA (I'm one of the ones that doesn't think EA is that bad). Could this be a sense of a few people disenfranchised about such things if not everyone is of the same mind? Not trying to poke holes, I'm honestly trying to just figure it out.

I don't think it's bad (rather the contrary), but it can be a risk for the buyer, mainly because it's possible that the game never gets finished (Spacebase DF9, as an example). My personal view is to not buy EA unless I a) want to support the dev regardless of whether the game will actually be finished someday (a bit like KS) or b) I'm content with playing the game in it's current state.

Well, there's always the vocal minority issue but mostly, EA has become a means to sell games... not betas.
The lines are awfully blurry in EA land and players expect a pretty much finished product.

And I wouldn't want to moderate a Steam forum. Wretched hives of scum and villainy they are. =P

Mentioning Steam Early Access was just to put out the idea of a distribution method. It could be done regardless of EA or some other method.

Dinosawer wrote:My personal view is to not buy EA unless I a) want to support the dev regardless of whether the game will actually be finished someday (a bit like KS) or b) I'm content with playing the game in it's current state.

And to your point A, that was quite close to one of the main reasons I suggested EA.

I can soon see this topic split and being merged back with the Early Access debate.

The reason why SEA has a bad rep is usually because, all too often, the game isn't no where near as decribed, and the programmers are lazy with little to no updates at all, so then everyone vents about broken promises and rightly so.

Fortunately, we should be ok here as I trust Josh!

Atm we don't really know how playable LT is and when it would be ready for an alpha EA release let alone a full release.

Josh could you please shed some light on exactly where LT is atm?

Cheers ears!

Starbuck wrote:and the programmers are lazy with little to no updates at all, so then everyone vents about broken promises and rightly so.

*cough*

Not something exclusive to Early Access.

Early access got a bad rep because of a few factors...

When it first happened, many people didn't understand it. Some assumed they were getting the full game early. Some assumed it would be a mostly finished game. To be fair, it wasn't explained very well at first. Steam is certainly very clear about it now.

The whole buyer beware thing, there have been titles that never actually finish, or release an unfished 1.0 and say, "ok! were done!". It has been suggested that if a developer collects 80% of their funds before actually finishing their game that it makes it difficult for them to actually finish it. Now that people understand what early access is however I don't think this is as great of an issue because people are waiting for the actual release more often now.

People are also judging the game on it's early access state. This is REALLY noticeable on Steam because you can review an early access game. It marks the review as "early access", however the over all rating of the game is forever tied to the early access reviews as well as the finished game reviews. True, some people will re-review the game once it's done. Not everyone will however.

My biggest beef with Early Access is that there doesn't seem to be (correct me if I'm wrong) a strong incentive for a developer to finish the game, and that's why it seems that so many games stay in EA for so long. There are some very clear exceptions, and enough of them to make EA a clearly viable route for some who take its spirit seriously, but for so many it comes across as an easy money grab for an unfinished product.

Not, as someone pointed out, as if that's unusual even with 'finished games', but there isn't even pretence here. Is pretence spelled with a 'c'?

Scytale wrote:My biggest beef with Early Access is that there doesn't seem to be (correct me if I'm wrong) a strong incentive for a developer to finish the game, and that's why it seems that so many games stay in EA for so long. There are some very clear exceptions, and enough of them to make EA a clearly viable route for some who take its spirit seriously, but for so many it comes across as an easy money grab for an unfinished product.

Not, as someone pointed out, as if that's unusual even with 'finished games', but there isn't even pretence here. Is pretence spelled with a 'c'?

Pretense is spelled with an 's'.

I agree wholeheartedly with you Scytale. I wouldn't suggest this if it was anything other than Josh, and I've been a vehement anti-early release supporter. I think Josh is one of the few people who could make it work since as many put it, his perfectionism wouldn't allow him to not stop working on it.

Thanks Magus - my tablet was autocorrecting pretense to have a 'c' and I was getting conserned concerned.

I think Josh is one of the few people who could make it work since as many put it, his perfectionism wouldn't allow him to not stop working on it.

I think this could be a double-edged sword, since while it's true he'd never stop working on it, it might also never get released. That being said, it's worked well for games like KSP, so no reason in principle it can't here - as long as progress keeps being made. But I suppose it also depends on whether he continues to do feature overhauls so that net progress is very slow, or whether he continues to take a "route to release" philosophy.

DWMagus wrote:Pretense is spelled with an 's'.

Not in the UK it isn't.