FOUR YEARS in early access?

[Ichthyic]

come on. get real.

[Zombie]

diablo 4 was many more in work , and look how it is ? garbage lol

[Birck]

The game has improved dramatically in that time frame, so they have used 4 years to make this game great. To make a game like this from scratch it would take a small team probably a decade or more in many cases.

[Radix]

In this day and age 4 years isn't really anything out of the ordinary, You have games like 7 days to die, DAZ Z or ark. This is where the "perpetual early access" truly starts to have meaning.

[Numbskull]

Also keep in mind the dev team is relatively small and they all work remote from each other (which helped a bit during the recent pandemic, but overall can hamper progress). To me, it is impressive what they have put together considering all that.

And as others have already said, several years in early access is becoming the norm these days, as opposed to an outright warning sign.

They (EHG) have announced Feb 11, 2024 as the official 1.0 launch, so early access will end then.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Numbskull:

Also keep in mind the dev team is relatively small and they all work remote from each other (which helped a bit during the recent pandemic, but overall can hamper progress). To me, it is impressive what they have put together considering all that.

And as others have already said, several years in early access is becoming the norm these days, as opposed to an outright warning sign.

They (EHG) have announced Feb 11, 2024 as the official 1.0 launch, so early access will end then.

Nearly 100 staff last count a few months back.
1.0 release date was in 2020.

[Locklave]

Kenshi was in EA for 5 years.
Rimworld was in EA for 5 years.

Why is 4 years some kind of outlier. The OP needs to come on and get real.

[Brother Kundari]

4 Years? That is nothing.
I seen games being in Early Access for 10 Years, and still not been officially released.
If this game is still being in active EA, even after February ´24, and unfortunately not been finished for official release 1.0, I will actually NOT complain about it.
I rather have a polished game then a hastened game reelase.

[Delaborga]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

come on. get real.

7 days to die??

[EvilHare]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

come on. get real.

It seems like you need a touch of reality.

4 years EA is nothing compared to many others.

[Koala 4peace]

Originally posted by Locklave:

Kenshi was in EA for 5 years.
Rimworld was in EA for 5 years.

Why is 4 years some kind of outlier. The OP needs to come on and get real.

Because others doing it does not make it right or good. Not that long ago the average beta testing period was around 6 months to a year, based on what i have read about several games development process; and now is not only OK to take up to ten times that long, but to ask money for it?

My opinion, i know, but this is one of the many issues of the videogame industry today, and the consumers are at fault.

[Fenris]

If the others have a beta testing period of only 6 months to one year, it's because they didn't announced the game with only a prototype and almost none features fonctionnal when they announced it, but because they worked on the game silently during years before they are announced and that the game is almost finished and planned to be released the year after.
No game of this scale is developed in a single year, or even two. Devs of almost any games have worked at least 4 years, even a lot more than that, for games like poe, diablos, etc...
The average time taken to develop a game of this scale is between 5 and 6 years, (so not the little games in pixel art, with 10 hours of content max, etc...) and some even go as far as 10 years when the project is abandoned and restarted from 0 for a new iteration.
Clearly, those who expect a game to be finished in 1 or 2 years from practically 0 are dreamers.
After this, to be fair, it's true that the devs made the mistake of setting a much earlier release date originally, when in the meantime they decided to revamp their game graphically. Because obviously, between what the game was visually at the very beginning and what it is now, it required a lot more work, it's not the same game and by far. That said, if some of you already think it's going to fail, the game would have been released with the graphics it had originally, so there would have been no doubt about it, almost no one would have played it in 2020.
We'll see at release whether their gamble to modernize the game was the right one or not.

Mine (of opinion) is that people who are not able to wait shouldn't buy any Early Access games and wait for official releases. Nobody forced them to spend money on something which is not ready to be played or complete when they bought it. It's their own choice. If they'd waited, they would be less frustrated, and less an annoyance for others during months, too. I hope they will understand that for the next EA games they will be interested by, because i've seen the same kind of players having the same behavior during the BG3 and Wartales early access than for the Last Epoch's one.

[Ourobyss]

You know early access is a way to get the product out - get it tested while being funded at the same time right? 4 years dev time is pretty impressive given the product you get right now.

[Ayk-]

There are games that stayed even longer. Ah, takes me back to DayZ hype days back in 2014-2015.
I rather look at what the products 1.0 state rather than development time and I will suggest the same. Sadly, this one is handled it pretty poorly, and 1.0 will be disappointing in some major areas especially for new players.
Imagine releasing an unfinished campaign/story and calling it 1.0.

Originally posted by Koala 4peace:

My opinion, i know, but this is one of the many issues of the videogame industry today, and the consumers are at fault.

Glad to find a kindred spirit. Adding a different take here, it was actually and technically players who invented the concept of microtransactions via RMT. Corpo suits and greedy devs just took it to bizarre levels with predatory practices and releasing feature incomplete games.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Ayk-:

I rather look at what the products 1.0 state rather than development time and I will suggest the same. Sadly, this one is handled it pretty poorly

2018 kick start us, here is a demo look how close we are.
2019 Steam Early Access.
also 2019 we know we were going to do a full 1.0 release in April 2020, but we need the rest of that year to polish it up.
2020- the cutting of platform support.
2020- the 1.0 release is pushed back until 2021.


Some "people" just look at the time frame and say but others jump off the bridge so its ok if I do it, others look at the time line and are less then assured. Just as some "people" attempt to conflate the waiting for a full release to be the source of the frustration and not, you know the things that happened during those delays.

That really is what EA does best, it allows you to get the measure of the developer, their words as well as their actions.

[Ayk-]

Originally posted by Ravenkid9266:

Originally posted by Ayk-:

I rather look at what the products 1.0 state rather than development time and I will suggest the same. Sadly, this one is handled it pretty poorly

2018 kick start us, here is a demo look how close we are.
2019 Steam Early Access.
also 2019 we know we were going to do a full 1.0 release in April 2020, but we need the rest of that year to polish it up.
2020- the cutting of platform support.
2020- the 1.0 release is pushed back until 2021.


Some "people" just look at the time frame and say but others jump off the bridge so its ok if I do it, others look at the time line and are less then assured. Just as some "people" attempt to conflate the waiting for a full release to be the source of the frustration and not, you know the things that happened during those delays.

That really is what EA does best, it allows you to get the measure of the developer, their words as well as their actions.

Funny, your post reminded me of this video, aged quite well :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwnvqPGh-b4&t=174s

This was also the time period where I started to lose hope for the game and the devs.
Delays are fine if you are getting something adequate. "Let them cook" phrase is used a lot for EA titles.
Multiplayer not only came in 2022, but it was in a awful state, I still see people posting about server and performance issues as of today, maybe not just as often because of the low new player influx.