Early Access for five years? Should I be worried?

[Stellar]

I want to buy this game but I hate Early Access. However this thing has been stuck in EA since 2019. Is it basically finished / or has enough playability for a full game? Or should I wait another five years?

[Monstervillia]

just wait if you worried.

[Juwdah]

Hey there,

I totally understand your concerns about EA, especially since our game has been in it for almost five years.

Here's some information:
- There's no divide between alpha/beta under the form 'Early Access' so its never really sure what you're jumping into. We've launched in Early Access in a very early alpha stage, building the game gradually together. After all these years it has progressed quite a bit! We're currently in an 'advanced beta' stage.
- There is only a handbook tutorial at the moment - but a full one will arrive this June.
- We're currently building towards 1.0, which is expected within the year. (could be Q4 2024, could also be Q2 2025, there's a few factors that can shift this)
- As we're building towards 1.0, we'll be rolling out a few exciting updates, like drifter quests, dangerous zones, etc

So then the question for you is; Are you okay with a few rough edges and want to support our ongoing development? We'd love to have you join and give feedback so we can improve the game together :)

[Rhazer]

Originally posted by Juwdah:

Hey there,

I totally understand your concerns about EA, especially since our game has been in it for almost five years.

Here's some information:
- There's no divide between alpha/beta under the form 'Early Access' so its never really sure what you're jumping into. We've launched in Early Access in a very early alpha stage, building the game gradually together. After all these years it has progressed quite a bit! We're currently in an 'advanced beta' stage.
- There is only a handbook tutorial at the moment - but a full one will arrive this June.
- We're currently building towards 1.0, which is expected within the year. (could be Q4 2024, could also be Q2 2025, there's a few factors that can shift this)
- As we're building towards 1.0, we'll be rolling out a few exciting updates, like drifter quests, dangerous zones, etc

So then the question for you is; Are you okay with a few rough edges and want to support our ongoing development? We'd love to have you join and give feedback so we can improve the game together :)

Maybe it's time to update your EA disclaimer.

"Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“We have a lot in store for Flotsam, and we’re planning on realizing the full potential of the gameplay. We’ll be working on regular patches in Early Access until we feel the game is ready to ship. Looking at the planned content, this will be roughly a year.” <<----------

[Juwdah]

Originally posted by Rhazer:

Originally posted by Juwdah:

Hey there,

I totally understand your concerns about EA, especially since our game has been in it for almost five years.

Here's some information:
- There's no divide between alpha/beta under the form 'Early Access' so its never really sure what you're jumping into. We've launched in Early Access in a very early alpha stage, building the game gradually together. After all these years it has progressed quite a bit! We're currently in an 'advanced beta' stage.
- There is only a handbook tutorial at the moment - but a full one will arrive this June.
- We're currently building towards 1.0, which is expected within the year. (could be Q4 2024, could also be Q2 2025, there's a few factors that can shift this)
- As we're building towards 1.0, we'll be rolling out a few exciting updates, like drifter quests, dangerous zones, etc

So then the question for you is; Are you okay with a few rough edges and want to support our ongoing development? We'd love to have you join and give feedback so we can improve the game together :)

Maybe it's time to update your EA disclaimer.

"Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“We have a lot in store for Flotsam, and we’re planning on realizing the full potential of the gameplay. We’ll be working on regular patches in Early Access until we feel the game is ready to ship. Looking at the planned content, this will be roughly a year.” <<----------

Oh wow, we definitely underestimated what we could accomplish in a year 😅
I'll make sure to update that! Thanks for pointing it out!

[ChaosAxis]

I'd wait. It's a fun little game but I got to just about the end in less than 5 hours. Most research was completed, the research that wasn't was stuff I'd either already surpassed or didn't want like fuel generators. I'm currently bottle necked by needing to constantly build more storage and power and being heavy and going to search for yet more metal. It's become tedious versus fun. It requires a lot of micromanagement because there aren't any auto productions from a centralized screen. So if you need 3 ingredients for a recipe you have to go continually make those three ingredients or build 3 of the same building to constantly make those ingredients and set a limit. I don't want to have to build the same buildings over and over just to be able to auto make multiple things that require the same buildings. Also, once you get a lot of buildings, it can be hard to remember which is which when you're hunting for one to make what you need.

Hopefully things like these will be polished out at full release but that's my 2 cents of why buying now might not be worth it if you're on the fence. Short playtime, cute and fun, eventually becomes monotonous.

[Sigh-Phi-Guy]

Originally posted by ChaosAxis:

I'd wait. It's a fun little game but I got to just about the end in less than 5 hours.

yes,...but if you enjoy building a perfect little(or big) town,... that can add 10-100 or more hours to the gameplay.
it all depends on how,...umm........."fastidious"<cough>OCD<cough>...you are.

[El Presidente]

Satisfactory has been EA for about 6 years and this year it surpassed Factoria in sells! If I remember correctly Space Engineers was in EA for about 5 years before it came out of EA. Software Inc. was over 12 years in EA and its considered a very good game. Just because a game is in EA for years doesn't mean there is a problem. Look at update frequency and whether they are always small or large updates. Communication from the company especially the lead developer. Whether they seem to listening to the gamers. Then you can decide to be worried or not.

[Ghostlight]

I am currently on my 20th town (or thereabouts). I start a new one whenever there is a major content addition. Lots of replay-ability here. Yes there's about 5 to 8 hours of actual content but you can very easily start again, and if you like the game, you will start again a lot.

[Resolute]

5 years of EA, isn't a great look. But good to see you are still active at least.

[Cthonyxa]

Originally posted by Resolute:

5 years of EA, isn't a great look.

Hard disagree on that.

EA (at least when done right) is a promise to continue improving a game and adding content. For endless style games like Flotsam, being able to have a longer development cycle only makes the final product better. You can see this with Project Zomboid (which has been in EA a lot longer than Flotsam) and 7D2D (which was in EA for around 12 years and is about to go 1.0), which have only become as great as they are because of how long they were in EA.

I've been playing Flotsam since fairly early in its development, and I've seen firsthand how dedicated the devs are. EA has given them a chance to experiment (like with the initial pollution system) and redo things that aren't working (like taking out pollution entirely to redo it because it wasn't fun). Over the past few years, the game has grown and changed and, frankly, I'm excited to see where it goes next.

Not everyone wants to take a chance on EA games, and that's fine. It's also valid to be skeptical of/dislike that a lot of games these days have long EA cycles. But there are plenty of us out there who do think it's a "good look" when a game has been in EA for a long time, at least when it has a lot to show for it.

[Stellar]

Originally posted by Cthonyxa:

Originally posted by Resolute:

5 years of EA, isn't a great look.

Hard disagree on that.

EA (at least when done right) is a promise to continue improving a game and adding content. For endless style games like Flotsam, being able to have a longer development cycle only makes the final product better. You can see this with Project Zomboid (which has been in EA a lot longer than Flotsam) and 7D2D (which was in EA for around 12 years and is about to go 1.0), which have only become as great as they are because of how long they were in EA.

I've been playing Flotsam since fairly early in its development, and I've seen firsthand how dedicated the devs are. EA has given them a chance to experiment (like with the initial pollution system) and redo things that aren't working (like taking out pollution entirely to redo it because it wasn't fun). Over the past few years, the game has grown and changed and, frankly, I'm excited to see where it goes next.

Not everyone wants to take a chance on EA games, and that's fine. It's also valid to be skeptical of/dislike that a lot of games these days have long EA cycles. But there are plenty of us out there who do think it's a "good look" when a game has been in EA for a long time, at least when it has a lot to show for it.

Ok great but in that case, declare a full game and release 1.0, and then support it for years.

In the Steam ecosystem, Early Access much more frequently means, "We are not paying for beta testers, now you are paying us to be a beta tester", and "Our studio is going along on a minimal budget, we're going to try to get some cash with EA and we might fail at any time and leave the game in a broken state". So people like me have to be super cautious approaching an Early Access game because it's such a dumping ground.

[Cthonyxa]

Originally posted by Stellar:

Ok great but in that case, declare a full game and release 1.0, and then support it for years.

That only works if the game is mostly feature complete. If a game is still under heavy development (like Flotsam), major updates will break past saves. In overhauling how food works (and temporarily removing pollution), the Chef Update fundamentally changed the game. While devs often do their best to make sure old save games can be played still, it's sometimes just not possible.

There are also some people who get upset if post-1.0 games change significantly from what they were at release (see reviews for Stellaris and Crusader Kings), but that's a ymmv thing.

Originally posted by Stellar:

In the Steam ecosystem, Early Access much more frequently means, "We are not paying for beta testers, now you are paying us to be a beta tester", and "Our studio is going along on a minimal budget, we're going to try to get some cash with EA and we might fail at any time and leave the game in a broken state". So people like me have to be super cautious approaching an Early Access game because it's such a dumping ground.

So, two things:
1) You're not the first person I've encountered who has this stance, but I honestly don't know what part of Steam you live on because the vast, overwhelming majority of EA games I've seen/purchased--even with long EA cycles--have used EA well and their game has been much better for it. (I'm not doubting you; it's just a completely different experience from mine.)

Starbound is the only one that comes to mind for me, but that was less of an EA issue than it was a Chucklefish problem. Conversely, Banished was released before EA was a thing and it was extremely bare bones; it definitely could have benefited from player feedback and at least a year of EA.

2) The issue you're talking about isn't something caused by EA. What you're describing is something that has been an issue on Steam at least since Greenlight was a thing. Towns literally fits what you're saying to a T (though I think it was a single dev, not a studio), and it was put on steam before EA was introduced. I feel like people are more cautious about buying a game in EA than they are a full release, which means overall less people getting scammed by the kinds of games you're describing.

Wrt the beta tester stuff, I have Many Thoughts about that which are not relevant to this thread, but I'll just put out there that (as someone who worked in the games industry) a lot of smaller companies weren't paying for them anyway, even before Steam popularized early access. I don't think that's a good thing, but it's not something I'm going to pin on Steam/EA.

And, just to be clear, I'm 100% for being cautious around EA games. That, honestly, is one of the strengths of the system imo. I'm just saying that the length of the EA cycle, in of itself, is not something devs should be penalized for; some games just need a lot of time to cook. IIRC the Flotsam devs are only 3 people, so it makes sense that they would need more time to develop a game like this. I'd rather them take a very long EA cycle and make a great game, then rush into 1.0 and get flack for it feeling unfinished.

[xOceanSpirit]

It's not a complete game, thats evident when playing. But it's really fun nevertheless and I'm supporting the devs by buying it. I get some game devs use EA as means to sell a game they never plan on finishing (Call of Duty). But this isn't happening here, this game has a lot of potential and I look forward to future updates

[kordeth131]

since the game was picked up by me it has remained on my game list where many other games i have tried out have long since been uninstalled so yes i believe that this game has replay-ability as i periodically jump on it and just relax for a few hours doing stuffs

[measlymonkey]

Originally posted by Resolute:

5 years of EA, isn't a great look. But good to see you are still active at least.

Quality games take time. Be patient. You obviously have a couple other games to play to pass the time, kid.