Early Access or demo?

[^7ja^1co]

When any of these are coming?

[MedeaFleecestealer]

When Crate decides to put the game into early access. Some time this year is as definite as we have atm. All we can do is wait.

[B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t]

Crate does an amazing job to not bring out something that they don't think is ready. Grim Dawn was great every step of the way and you can see the love they put into that game, I'm fine with no date and for them to not rush and give us a date when they are ready to do so.

I just found out about this and I too am impatient and would love to get it now and play as soon as possible.

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t:

Crate does an amazing job to not bring out something that they don't think is ready. Grim Dawn was great every step of the way and you can see the love they put into that game, I'm fine with no date and for them to not rush and give us a date when they are ready to do so.

I just found out about this and I too am impatient and would love to get it now and play as soon as possible.

Are you kidding me?
They released Grim Dawn into early access with barely anything to do, unfinished classes and by far unready.
That was fine. It still was somewhat fun even though super short and clunky.
But you are romanticizing the reality here, because it wasnt how you retell it was.


I personally would be fine if they go with early access again as long as theres an interesting core gameplay loop that is entertaining enough to keep me playing and replaying.
If its as raw as Grim Dawn was when it went early access though, then it would possibly just hurt them.
An unfinished strategy game has a much harder time to convince than an ARPG.
Its flaws and shortcomings are more obvious and easier to notice.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

It's difficult to compare the two honestly. For one thing, GD was originally supposed to be just a one, possibly two, act game you could play relatively quickly. Then D3 was announced, PoE was announced, Torchlight was announced and Crate realised they needed to up their game if they didn't want GD to release and disappear. So instead we got a 4 act base game with much more to do than was originally planned and also why it was in early access for 2+ years.

For Farthest Frontier they've probably had a definite plan from the beginning and they've been working on it for 4-5 years now.

[just.dont.do.it]

Originally posted by Argentum:

Are you kidding me?
They released Grim Dawn into early access with barely anything to do, unfinished classes and by far unready.

You what?
First GD EA started with one act worth of content, and while game mechanics received several batches of polishing later, classes presented at the start of EA still work mostly as they were back then, so your "unfinished" argument is just plain ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
It was short, indeed, but by no means "not ready" for public access.

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by just.dont.do.it:

Originally posted by Argentum:

Are you kidding me?
They released Grim Dawn into early access with barely anything to do, unfinished classes and by far unready.

You what?
First GD EA started with one act worth of content, and while game mechanics received several batches of polishing later, classes presented at the start of EA still work mostly as they were back then, so your "unfinished" argument is just plain ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
It was short, indeed, but by no means "not ready" for public access.

No one said "not ready", that was you.
It had only 3 classes and the first Act was by far not complete as wasnt that part of the map as it had still unfinished areas that were later added.
It also lacked bounties, faction relations and unlocks, elite enemies, most sidequests, difficulties, Ironman Mode and the entire Devotion aspect.
To name just a few major aspects of the game that were added much later.

Thats totally fine, but that guy i quoted was just driving into false memory.
It ran shoddy performance wise (still kinda does), had a lot of issues and launched with barely anything to do lacking roughly 80% of the core features it has today.
The only positive was that it had 4 classes from the get go.

It is a great game now, but come on, its early access launch was by far not without its problems or shortcomings, let alone giving you a lot to do.
Trying to convince otherwise is just nostalgic self-deception.


And you conviniently ignored the actually important part of my comment.
If they went with the first version the same way with Farthest Frontier, then it would possibly hurt them more than helping.
The relative raw state Grim Dawn entered Early Access with worked ok for Grim Dawn, but it wouldnt work well with Farthest Frontier.
Leaving core features out of a strategy game could mean that it just wouldnt give you anything to do and lacking complexity would just cause people to drop off instantly.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Which is unlikely to be the case with FF. With GD Medierra and one other person were the only ones working full time on the game from 2009 until the Kickstarter allowed them to hire more full time staff. With FF they already have a team in place and have been working on it for 4 years now. It should be a lot more "complete" than GD was when it went into early access.

You also have to remember with GD the original plan for for a small one or two Act game. Then D3 got announced, Torchlight got announced, PoE got announced and Crate realised they needed to up their game or GD would just vanish. So instead we ended up with 4 pretty big Acts and a lot more content than was originally planned.

[Buntkreuz]

Yeah i remember that as well. Hm, tells me that competition can lead to good things at last. In this case at least.
I also think that Early Access for FF would be different.
Yet strategy is often a far more complicated genre to create a game for. More connected systems, less isolated ones that work without the other.
See a faction system as in Grim Dawn is something you can attach to the other mechanics without causing much of a disturbance.
Still tough work to get it running properly, but it relies less on all other areas.
You dont really need it for all other things to work fine.
Most strategy games dont give you that leeway.
Most of their mechanics are connected to each other and one missing could cause a much worse experience, even a broken one.
I have seen plenty of studios attempting to create a good strategy game and they failed because they went on it with too less preparation.
Some games launched into early access and lost their entire momentum because of crucial failures in the games core systems.
Frozenheim would be such a game or Meridian.

[Celestial Kraken]

My question is, if it's early access, how the heck do we try it, or get it? I see nothing like that option. Thought it would be available.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

It's not available yet, that's why. When it is then you'll be able to buy it as an early access game. As it says on the store page 2022 - that's early access, not full release.