Please Dont Do Early Access

Pun not intended?

20char

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So far I’ve been pretty underwhelmed with early access. I’m moving away from steam in general in every way I can but in particular I’ll never participate in an early access game again unless someone gifts me.

Rust was my first game of this type and the core game that it came with was fun enough to get my moneys worth out of it I believe I have something like 300 hours into it. There have been some drastic changes since, but it looks like the game will be perpetually in development for years to come so ultimately I feel it was probably far too soon to be on early access especially with an entire engine rewrite. This was my first game from this dev team and based on their lack of transparency (although they are getting better) and their inability to take criticism to the point where they censor their forums heavily has ensured me that I will never buy a game from them again. (Not that I care about tennis)

My second early access game was DayZ, which I personally find to be a disaster. Game breaking glitches which make even the limited content available unplayable. That was one of my purchases of the year that I truly regret because I honestly don’t enjoy the game so I do have a bias. I feel the devs have a serious lack of communication and there are many other major issues concerning how they are handling the game.

There seems to be something inherently foul in early access games of the survival genre:

Stomping land just had a big article about how the devs completely disappeared in May, no community communication after they announced they are moving the game to a new engine… but most people are pretty disheartened and even steam disabled peoples ability to purchase it.

I mean even minecraft which was essentially the first early access game which was so successful it seemed to set a new precedent in gaming sales… was basically in and still is in perpetual development. People forget that its “full” release was at the same time of Skyrim. It had a few saving graces though: Dev involvement in the community, Frequent updates, and the game was in a playable state as it was…

I like the format that a lot of smaller dev teams are taking away from steam. Successful kickstarter which leads to a great community and then offering to purchase your way into the alpha via the games official site. I do think this is the more risky option ultimately but if you do a little research usually your safe. I first this this with Grim Dawn, Stonehearth and now Rimworld. I have had great luck so far. It seems to me that Steam’s EA format makes people think that their money is safer because somehow steam will be the good guy and save them during a worst case… but the issue is steam is horrible for things like that. “All sales are final” sort of business.

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For me I think they know how to manage their game and if you follow well the development of the game you know that they finish the basis of the game and they pass the most hard part of the development.
And they said they will make Early Acces soon after they deliver the game to the backers so certainly we will have a game which will with less bugs.

I did and I’m doing a lot of early acces and I think it’s a good thing for a game because it permits to have a good feedback on the game and more bug reports =P

After if they deliver the early access sooner or later they always will have some people who will rage.

And to notice Nuclear Throne, Invisible Inc., Broforce, Dungeon of The Endless are great Early Access =P For the same kind of game we have Prison Architect which is a great Early Access too =P

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The biggest problem with early access really is that half the people on steam doesn’t read what the game is before they buy it. Then (As a lot of people already said) they start raging when they finds out that they didn’t get what they thought they paid for. Quite irritating really that means that half of all the ratings of is people who are angry about the game doesn’t do stuff that the description said it wouldn’t do. :frowning:

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Stupid is as stupid does.

But yeah, the PR side has me worried somewhat. A fair few more serious bugs in the previous Alpha 4 release (I haven’t tried the most recent one yet though - been busy :frowning: ), and precious little of the (visible) end product has been implemented, which you just know is going to lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

A quite good example of this is Mountain (Though it is more a screensaver than a game) half the guys who doesn’t like the game are angry that it doesn’t really have any futures though the description clearly states that this is more a zen-out type of game/(Screensaver :stuck_out_tongue: ).

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I moved 5 posts to a new topic: Mountain (game)

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All in all I have to say this:

@sdee @not_owen_wilson @Tom (And the rest of the Devs) Do not do early access unless you need the money and if/when you do Early Access, Put “THIS GAME IS NOT FINISHED” Signs EVERYWHERE to the point that if you have not read one of the signs then there is a high chance this person may have to see the optician…

Remember, The community will support you on your decisions. So if you decide not to release it for a while we are all happy to wait patiently.

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I would definitely add my voice to the suggestion of not going onto early access yet for the reasons given of people simply not getting what early access means. The other reason I might add is that with early access can come a huge influx of I guess you could call them sideshow devs, basically people who feel they know exactly how the game should be made within the first 5 minutes of playing it and then bombard the forums with often bad or unrealistic suggestions. This can then put a lot of pressure on the developers to follow these suggestions or rush updates for fear of disappointing people or Stonehearth getting a bad reputation.

Right now Stonehearth seems to have a good clear goal and the community here seems good at providing useful feedback. Therefore maybe waiting till a later alpha almost beta build of the game would be better where its more about finding and removing bugs than adding more content.

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Bugfree or not does not really matter. There are people that will just downplay every game on early access because they think the concept of early access does not belong on steam. And will go everywhere to proof themself right. Just like the dev from Planetary annihilation said “the internet is upset sometimes”. It happens and will always happen.
I dont mind early access. I also dont mind if they dont do it. I have fun playing it and can not care less about what other people think of it. I am happy I play it and dont regret buying it.
peace :peach:

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Usually I hate early access games, mostly because devs don’t bother fixing things in a reasonable manner or communicating with their gamers. You guys however have my utmost confidence. If anyone can crush early access haters, it’s you guys.

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I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Push it out as long as need be, just don’t release a buggy alpha on steam!! The future of Stonehearth may regret it.

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I think you guys should wait until beta before early access. There are way to many people out there that will buy the game play it for 5 min and then give it a negative review. Then again if you can pump out new content on a steady basis (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly…ect) it might not be that big of a problem. Also if you do go the route of early access. there will be a lot more stress on your part as well. Yea your brining in more money. However, that not so dedicated crowd will shun you if the games goes for a while with a lot of bugs.

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Thought things through more and I do think radiant is doing an amazing job atm but they are at a different pace to what is expected by the steam community. For example the goblin horde, here taking two weeks to patch it is fine, for the steam public a bug like this that essentially means no more then 20min of play before game over better be patched in at most a few days. Im sure the team could speed to this pace, but they are doing so well now I dont want them to change their dev style and ruin what they have.

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I agree that early access is something they might want to double think. I play loads of early access games and I hate when other talk down about a game that is clearly still in development. I think it is our job as a community to educate instead of fight with the new members of the game. I know it gets frustrating and rude when they make unknowledgeable comments about game, I have seen many “this is a rip off, they want $30 for a game that has no content”, which in reality is not the case. I think if we go in trying to “kill them with kindness” rather then saying “you don’t know what you are talking about” then maybe we can lessen the gripes and put more positive thoughts about the game into their heads. Lets be honest, early access might happen, or maybe later in the game development they will release it before end product, either way people will complain. We should be the bigger party and tell the complaining people with a soft tone why they are wrong and what makes this game so great! ahh but that’s my silly thoughts on this :smiley:

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I would rather Stonehearth not go into early access but if the developers need the money then sure!

As long as the Steam forum and the steam frontpage of the game CLEARLY states every single aspect of the game as well as plans for the game, I think it should be fine.

The first two lines on the Steam page should state that “you can play about 5 days in the game, build houses, farm a bit and harvest wood before you get murdered by goblins, that is all for now”

The devs have to be very active there and post very clear messages. People on Steam are really dumb and feel privileged so you have to make sure they understand the game before they buy it. Posting the roadmap directly there would help as well.

I’ve been a part of the early access program ever since it was introduced and I have a pretty good idea how NOT to piss of the steam kids. Ideally a video of a dev playing the game and showing every single thing you can build in the current build would be best.

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Right. Unless that’s the case (For example, a tiny note under a mountain of other boring legal stuff) then I’d understand if people were upset. Mindlessly raging about Early Access, even though they were warned beforehand, is simply ridiculous and annoying.

Since when has a fear of being ridiculous and annoying stopped the internet :stuck_out_tongue: ?

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However true that may be, people still do it. It’d be nice if everyone acted rationally and understandingly, but that’s not how people tend to operate. So even though, in a perfect world, a dev would be able to post glaringly obvious disclaimers about alpha, lack of features, buginess, etc., without people raging, we don’t live in that world. I agree with some of the opinions expressed above–no matter how (rightly) clear and obvious Radiant might be about the state of the game in early access, people will still evaluate the game unfairly.

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