About The Early Access Version April 24th

[LordYabo]

I just read Avalon's post and seelebrn and kaylo7's thoughts about the upcoming release.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/506480/discussions/0/3827537216853324825/

I'm glad they are sharing their concerns about the upcoming launch. They love the game, we love the game. We're all healthily concerned about success.

The two big concerns are:
1. Making a bad first impression
2. Resulting in negative reviews

The negative reviews tank the game. Discoverability is our largest longterm problem. It's very hard to work your way out of a disappointing launch: Cyberpunk 2077, No Man's Sky, Diablo 3 are some examples. We don't want to do that.

We lost a week last week to bug fixes, so the already tight 4 weeks we had for the features we are working on is now 3 weeks.

The challenge is this:

1. If the game isn't significantly different enough from the demo, there isn't much of a reason to buy in NOW, so we won't get many sales. Conversion ratio is 5% instead of 20% for the wishlists, which are at 19,000. This significantly impacts us as a company.
   
2. If the game is a buggy mess, it doesn't matter what your features are because people hate playing it (Cyberpunk). Maybe initially you sell more (20% conversion) but refunds are high (>15%) and negative reviews.

I have to make a decision and there are no easy answers: no book, or blog post, or tiktok video that suddenly tells me the right answer. Stakes are high.

One of the ways I handle making high stakes decisions with imperfect information is to think about it narratively: 6 months from now, if things totally crash & burn, looking back what will I be happy I did? Even though it didn't work out. This helps me get perspective and make choices I'm comfortable living with for the rest of my life.

My decision is to focus on stability and polish instead of features.

(see below for what this means to the EA version)

The worst case scenario:
We launch with a better functioning game than the demo. Player comments are "it isn't any different than the demo." and sales are low because conversion is 5%.

Best case:
We show we care about the player experience first. Player comments are "It's the same, but plays better than the demo" and sales are lowish because conversion is 8%.

My hope is this is a firmer foundation for long term success.

I've pulled programmers off features and onto fixes and polish.

I'd like to take the opportunity to answers some likely questions:

1. Why was the Demo So Buggy and Bad?

We rewrote a lot of the systems last year, going from a (maybe) stable codebase to unstable.
Dec 1 the game could not be played at all.
Jan 15 the game could almost be played.
Feb 6, the start of Next Fest, was the first time you could sorta play the game.
Feb -> Now - Fixing and hardening the game

The demo was bad because we ran out of time and skipped QA.
We did daily builds for 2 months because the game was so bad it was hard to make it worse. Unfortunately our bugs weren't as funny as Goat Simulator bugs

The reason QA was non-existent is because the first time the game was playable for us to test is when you got it. We didn't do any internal QA on it, relying on the fanbase to tell us the issues.

Did you know it was a buggy mess or did you think it was good?

While I didn't know the extent of how bad it was, I knew it was bad and untested. We struggled daily to get through the demo quest. Additionally, we were playing it as programmers not as players. A big mistake in mindset.

I feel this question is important because it gets to the issue of trust in our process, decision making, and leadership. If we thought the demo was good , and it wasn't, then I/we are blind and would continue to take this blindness forward.

Knowing it was bad, why did you release it?

I'll be straight forward and honest with you.
Because I want to keep this team together and keep making this game to completion.
After 9 years, I can't afford to keep going with zero income. The $40,000 monthly burn is catching up with me. My wife is fed up.

We have to start making revenue in April.
Revenue is based on exposure.
To get exposure we have to be in Next Fest Feb 6-13 2023.
(No one knows this, but we actually signed up for Next Fest Oct 2022, but the game was too broken and I moved it to Feb knowing we would be burning another 160k for the delay)

It worked. Splattercat saw us, we never approached him, made a positive video with 170,000+ views.

Our wishlists are almost 20,000 so even with a low conversion of 5% (~1,000 units), it's enough to keep going. Live another day to fight again tomorrow.

I shipped what I had at the time because it was all I had. A buggy mess with the chance to fix it and keep going as a team is better than just fizzling out.

I want to thank those who believe in us enough to have pre-ordered on the website. We really appreciate and are humbled you did that. That was unexpected revenue that helped pay for half a programmer and gave me something positive to show my wife.

I'm not telling anyone to go do that, for complicated reasons it is preferable you wait and buy it direct from Steam Early Access on April 17 2023.

Why should anyone believe Early Access version will be better than the Demo?

Quality is the #1 thing on my mind, every day. All I can say is what I'm doing about quality:

1. Reallocated people to stability and polish instead of new features.
   
2. Hired another programmer specifically tasked with working on bugs. Bringing our programmer count to 5.
   
3. Internal training session on how to do QA, the mental mindset of a tester/player versus a developer
   
4. We have instituted a formal weekly QA testing process with test cases. It takes about 12-person-hours to go through the battery of tests. We never did this before. Two weeks ago we published a build that wouldn't start for new players. That was the old testing process failing us. Last week we tried to get a build out on Thursday, but found serious issues during QA, delayed a day and got out a build on Friday. That build has no newly reported issues. It's only been 2 weeks, but the new QA process is helping.
   
5. We added an error detector and popup to notify users at the time of an error so they can log it quickly and effectively at the source of the problem, instead of later when things get weird like walking through walls in the dungeon.
   
6. Added error codes. This will better help us identify duplicates which is necessary when bug reports come in en masse. It also helps zero in on sections of code.
   
7. Added more detail to player log files. Earlier today we found and fixed an issue because of all the player activity tracking we put into the log file.
   
8. I'm considering bringing on a part or full time QA person. Someone solely focused on playtesting internally and managing the sequence of the bugs we address sounds like a good move. Currently I don't have the money to pull the trigger on this, but maybe in a month I will.
   
9. With a team of 10, I have a lot of responsibilities: meetings, direction, payroll, hr, status reviews, office admin, IT, steam forums, the list goes on and on. I don't playtest the game as often as I should, leaving it more to the team. This changes now. For the next 3 weeks my primary focus is playtesting the game and directing the team on what to fix. Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, had a favorite meal: cheese burger, fries, and a frosty. He ate the food frequently. I need to play Archmage Rises daily and guide the team to fix the right issues.

What is Happening For the Early Access Promised Features?

2 weeks ago I committed to a series of features:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/506480/discussions/0/3825284144453028691/#c3825284144453160960

Now, after 2 weeks and reallocating programmers, I think we can:

1. Better more balanced combat
   
2. Better more balanced spell upgrades
   
3. New starter quests (Demo Quest about the artifact is gone)
   
4. New intersessional art, UI improvements

The better NPCs, economy, and tower are still coming but delayed. I believe releasing a stable game now will get us to those features faster.

[philmacnevin]

Thanks @Leylin and @TurboHog! I've got butterflies in my stomach for Monday already, but I really can't wait until it goes live! I had so much fun doing more play testing yesterday, and even though I'm the newest member of the team, seeing some new monsters show up and thrash me was very exciting, haha!

[Osterix]

I'm looking forward to the EA release!

I have question about the early access version. Will it have UI/font scaling options? The font is pretty small on my monitor :(

[dasara III]

Can really see the heart and sole in this game, I am always attracted to game mechanics over sparkling graphics. But yes, the game needs to be fairly stable and have enough information for the player to not get confused about the mechanics.

I'm a long time player and modder for Wizards and Warlords, a 4x procedural open world and this game looks/sounds like the ultimate RGP open procedural game.

Even from the demo and all the devlogs I can tell its worth the money and a game you could play for the next 10 years.

All the best on your EA launch

[Mythrix]

Good luck for tomorrow guys. I have my fingers crossed for you.

If not already too late, can I suggest releasing early in your day? As soon as it's live the feedback / bug reports are going to come thick and fast, and some of them will feel too important to leave. Make sure you've given yourselves all day to get on top of the things that matter most - the things reviewers and discussion thread commentators reference most frequently. People love a fast fix / response and the first week will be super important.

[LordYabo]

Mythrix, we already have 100 bug reports after 2 hours! Yippeee!
We're going to come in tomorrow and figure out what the priorities are and get to work.
This is the point of releasing on Monday, so we can work through the issues daily leading up to the weekend when most people play.