The Possibility of a delayed (2015) release

[Sensuki]

A lot of people seem to take a delay like a failure of a promise and a sign that something is wrong.
 
I don't know how many of you read Josh Sawyer's posts very often, but a couple of the things he pointed out are:
 
Scope is important for PE, thus amount of content/quests. They will only cut content if it isn't fun, if it is fun but could use a bit more work, they will probably keep it despite not being able to do any more design passes on it.
 
Another thing he pointed out is that because they've taken creatures to a blockout stage before moving onto the next one, they've been able to get more creatures into the game than they would by going to a final version first. However this does create a situation where despite having more creatures, some of them will just not get as much love as others, so some will have "final" level of polish whereas others may only get a little bit of animation work done in the post production. They only have three animators AFAIK - Shon Stewart, Seth McCaughey and Antonio Govela.
 
A longer beta would allow them to get to a few more of these quests that need a little more work (loot passes, encounter passes, narrative passes, additional solutions) and creatures that could use another animation pass and stuff like that.
 
In my books that's a good thing.
 

As for Dragon Age: Origins, it was also made with a much bigger team, a team of hundreds perhaps. Pillars has a team of maybe two dozen people.

They're up to about three dozen at the moment I think. I know of 34 current, but there might be more.

Josh Sawyer - Project Director / Lead Designer
Tim Cain - Senior Programmer
Chris Avellone - Narrative Designer
Eric Fenstermaker - Lead Narrative Designer / Creative Lead
Adam Brennecke - Executive Producer / Lead Programmer
Brandon Adler - Producer
Steve Weatherly - Senior Programmer
Brian Macintosh - Programming Intern
Bobby Null - Lead Area Designer
Jorge Salgado - Area Designer
Rob Nesler - Art Director
Kazunori Aruga - Concept Artist
Polina Hristova - Concept Artist
Dimitri Berman - Lead Character Artist
James Chea - Character Artist
J.D. Cerince - Artist (unknown field, maybe FX)
Hector Espinoza - Lead Environment Artist
Sean Dunny - Environment Artist
Holly Prado - Environment Artist
April Giron - Junior Environment Artist
Shon Stewart - Lead Animator
Antonio Govela - Lead Technical Animator
Seth McCaughey - Animator
Jeff Husges - Area Designer
Constant Gaw - Area Designer
Liam Esler - Designer
Dini McMurry - Designer
Matthew Perez - Designer
Ryan Torres - Design Intern (haven't heard an update on him for ages)
Carrie Patel - Narrative Designer
Roby Atadero - Junior Programmer
Matthew Sheets - QA Lead
Rose Gomez - Associate Producer
Justin Bell - Composer / Audio Lead

 

Perhaps a bored dev can fill in the blanks, errors.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Sensuki

[Osvir]

 

Oh the horror (Steam Early Access).

 

UnEpic is an Early Access game?? I own this title and I didn't realize! It was released 13-Jun-2013. That's... scary.

 

Xenonauts was released 31-May-2013. This is almost a year of Early Access now. 

 

The point I want to make is that Early Access can be degenerative in the long run during the period ("Is it ever going to be fully finished??" type of thoughts).

 

Xenonauts is nearing completion, or so it feels. It is still almost a year. It still has bugs and needs tinkering with.

 

Wasteland 2 and Starbound are in on their 6th month of Early Access. I don't know about Wasteland 2, how close it is to completion that is (I'm not up-to-date on that title), but Starbound feels like it is at least getting there.

 

One perk about being in the Early Access program is that no matter how long you're in there, I do think that when the game is finally released, it pops up to the front page of the Steam Client and "New Releases" as an "Out Now!" product and that should be a 2nd spike in sales (Early Access "Out Now!" sale spike and Full Release "Out Now!" spike). I recall one game that was on Early Access that this happened to when it was finished (Don't remember the name of it).

 

Another perk is what Ffordeson said about Wasteland 2, people were a bit "meh" about it at first, but are praising it more and more as time goes along. I feel the same thing about Divinity: Original Sin, when me and my friend first tried it out we were a bit "meh" about it, but it is constantly improving. And that is both a beautiful thing to see and very exciting thing to be a part of as well.

 

When these games do come out of Early Access, and they prove to be awesome, people who might've complained at one point will instead of have forgotten what it was, and instead see it for what it is. In that sense, there's no disadvantage to be in Early Access for a year. It is still a bit of a bummer though.

I beg to differ regarding there is no disadvantage to be in the Early Access.

 

Steam Early Access is a presentation of your product to the public

 

Thus any flaws in your product is scrutinized and if you make one mistake too many you will get stuck with the negative review and require a uphill battle to restore your reputation. Even if you manage to clear your name in the end, you may lose some sales and your next kick starter may lose some backer.

 

That said Steam Early Access is not a place to use the public to help find bugs and iron them out. It should be a place for you to show your DEMO, you want your demo to be as little bugs as possible so not to give the public a chance to give negative review! Yes you may use Early Access to test the balance of the game, the flow of the game play, 1/10 or more of the story, but never a place to iron out bugs. The public will not give you positive review if your demo crash now and then, have character stuck somewhere, dumb path finding and such.

 

Think Steam Early Access as a place to release your full game, episode 1, and it will work in your advantage for you to get more positive review, sales and future backers.

 

 

Absolutely, I did name the link "Oh the horror" for a reason. I don't think having an Early Access for a too long time is necessarily a good thing. But I think having an Early Acces is a good thing still, if it's kept to a minimum of a couple of months (Maybe 3-6 months?), but a lot of developers are pushing it to 6+ to 12+ months thus far. One of the games there is still in Early Access, since November 2012 and it is a Free to Play action-RTS multiplayer title with micro-transactions in place. This thing is never going to be finished, why is it in Early Access on Steam? (AirMech)

 

It's like saying League of Legends or DOTA 2 is in a constant Early Access. Or WoW, or EVE, or any Multiplayer game that is being maintained and patched continously. Early Access justifies this "psuedo-MMO-model-patching" behavior, and I'm almost certain that when these Early Access titles do come out they are officially "out" and post-release patching will start to slowly diminish into the void.

 

Hypothetically: If Fallout: New Vegas would've been in Early Access since release til now, then I think many of its bugs that it has would be gone and perhaps even way more content would be put into it. That's what I mean with "in that sense, there are no disadvantage to Early Access", though it would never be perceived as a "Full Release".

 

UnEpic is in Early Access as well, and from playing it and owning it and spent a good many hours into it I think it is actually finished. Why is it still in Early Access? These things are not good things in my opinion. Titles like these discredit the Early Access program in many ways. Finished products that... aren't really finished?

 

That said, there are good things about having a long Early Access as well.

 

- Wasteland 2: The heresay was that it was "meh", and then it inclined more and more as it was updated.

- Divinity: OS: Same thing. Personal experience.

- Starbound: Yet again, same thing. Personal experience.

- Xenonauts: And yes, yet again, same thing. Personal experience.

 

These games are improving with each update, some more than others. I own 3 of the 4 titles above and I've been apart of this change and watched it grow. It's been an interesting experience for sure. But that doesn't mean I like it 100%. Does this mean they will be in Early Access til 2015? 2016? When will they get out of it?

 

I've lost a lot of interest in Xenonauts, Starbound and Divinity myself due to the sheer amount of time it has taken, and due to character & save swipes after I've gotten far into the games. Now I'm just eager to get full products that are as complete as they possibly can be, and instead I'm waiting for that to happen instead of spend hours into those games. Starbound & Xenonauts feels finished though. Starbound just lacks its entire quest tree they've talked about and Xenonauts have some bugs that feel minor that they need to work out.

A short burst Early Access, like you suggest as well, is what I think might be the wisest strategically. But it still needs to be out a couple of months and not just a week or two, so that as many people as possible can get on board to try the "DEMO" and give as much feedback as possible before a full release.

 

I do think it is important that after a game has gone into Early Access, work should be done to get it out of there fairly quickly and not get it into a sort of "limbo" state where it hangs in-between in some sort of "Loading...." state. After all, don't we as gamers hate long loading screens?

 

Also, economically speaking I don't think "Early Access" is a way to iron out bugs, it almost works like a subscription-based game where you get updates and the game world evolves with time. With a big update, Early Access games tend to hit the front page of the Steam Store with the message "New Update Available!" which results in more consumers of the title/product, which results in more money for the developng company, which results in more money & long-term customers for Valve. I think that from an economical standpoint there is nothing to lose in yearly long Early Access programs. Because when that year has passed, and the game has evolved from a buggy mess with almost no features and little to explore into a full fledged full experience with a proper character creation, skill system, companion fixes, tweaks, area overhauls etc. and all the placeholders are gone, people will forget what they played a year ago.

 

Divinity: Original Sin was like that for me and my friend, one week we were playing and we were still enjoying it lots, the next week they released a major patch and it was like playing a "different" game. A transcended game. Suddenly it was way better. In a couple of months from now, Divinity will be even more fleshed out. You can also see those spikes in "Avg. Players" when new updates are released below in the charts.

 

Numbers are looking better for Divinity for their "average amount of players", but note that Wasteland 2 has a higher potential peak (which means that eventually, as it currently looks like, when Wasteland 2 gets a full release it has a bigger potential player base):

 

These charts do not show unique players, unfortunately:

Wasteland 2 Steam Charts

Divinity: Original Sin Steam Charts

Something to consider here is also that the Polaris Network (YouTube Network) did cover the Early Access Release, TotalBiscuit & Jesse Cox both covered Divinity with Larian Studios developers. Which is also yet another aspect to consider when the game gets "Fully Released", namely YouTube and content creators which will spike sales and player base yet again. And as I previously said, it'd end up on the front page of the Steam Store as well. But relying on YouTube Marketing is a fine line to walk as well, I follow TotalBiscuit and watch all of his videos and he has a "loud voice" in the gaming world, and when he says stuff about stuff it affects MANY people's opinion about stuff, and you can hear he's uncertain where "Early Access" is going and he seems to lose some faith in it, which affects lots of people's faith in it (and here I am carrying that message forward myself xD not that I have a loud voice in any way, shape, or form, but here it is regardless). 

 

I'm sorry if I'm trailing a little bit off-topic here, but it is all part of "We might see a Full Release in 2015" discussion.

 

Thinking about this, I'm split. I want Pillars of Eternity to be the best it can be, and I actually think that a longer Early Access period can be beneficial to the game, the community and Obsidian Entertainment in the long run, but a sooner Full Release would give me and everyone waiting for it a full experience sooner rather than later.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Osvir

[Stun]

 

Well I didn't really touch on schedule in my earlier post (which seems be be a big focus for some) but I will be very very disappointed if it misses it's release goal.  It has been over a year, it will be near two years by December.  These are the same people who put out Icewind Dale 2 in 10 months.

Icewind Dale 2 was developed using a pre-existing engine. It also had a limited scope compared to the Baldur's Gate games, being more focused on combat. RPG's take a lot more time to develop than other genres (Dragon Age Origins was apparently revealed at E3 2004 and didn't come out until 2009).

 

Oh, more than that. IWD2 not only already had a pre-existing engine, but it also had many many pre-existing assets. Almost the entire bestiary, and all the creature animations were simply lifted from the other IE games. Just about all the spells were copied from the previous game. The UI wasn't new either...just tweaked. Even some of the areas were copied from IWD1 (Severed Hand, Kuldahar, Dragon's eye), although again, they were tweaked.

 

 

Still, Icewind Dale 2 was an industry miracle. A LARGE, virtually bug free game that used D&D 3.0's rule set and managed to be close to perfectly balanced and it had the best Chargen of any RPG in history.... and they did it in 10 months. It is probably the exception to the rule, not an example of it.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Stun

[Fatback]

Games are never finished just abandoned

[Bryy]

Long Version

Of course they can delay the game to 2015 or even 2016. I am not EA or some big bad publisher that rush the release date that the final product is lackluster and disappointing.

 

I want to maximize the awesomeness of the game rather than maximize profit. Remember why we crowd fund games in the first place?

What is the point of being able to play the game if it is buggy or missing much core feature / polish?

There are other factors in delays such a money.

 

If it is financially unfeasible to delay to 2016, they won't.

 

A product needs to come out sometime or else you start losing potential profit.

[Lephys]

It's not the chronological "size" of the access that counts. It's how you use it.

[lolaldanee]

whether early acces is a good thing or not greatly depends on the type of game you are creating, and obsidian is developing the one kind of game that has to be the LEAST suited of them all => largely focused on story, and quite linear in progression

 

it's great for sandbox games though, look at minecraft, the early releases had been terrible compared to where the game is now, but look what happend despite of that

sometimes all it takes is a good idea and to show it to the world

[Bryy]

I've played good Early Access games before (Sir, You Are Being Hunted) and horrible Early Access games (Delver is literally just an early prototype). 

[delushin]

I have spent hundreds of dollars on early access and beta access and free this and free that. I support companies making great games and really hold close the few that nail it, but I can say that out of all the times I have paid early or bought a pack for beta more often than not I have wasted my money.

 

You might get to play early, you might get an item that will be obsolete after a few hours, you might get a mention somewhere that no one will bother reading. I thank you those for supporting this game through the dev phase but I will be awaiting release and still then another month or so and you will get a discount. 

 

Please no flame just sharing experience from having sunk thousands of dollars into early or special edition support pack games. I even bought the original $1000 Path of Exile pack only to have another bought out months later with better items, LOL

[PrimeJunta]

^^^ This is why I play most games a few years after they came out. The ones that are still around are worth playing, and they cost peanuts.

[Sensuki]

Thankfully for developers, the average steam user isn't so enlightened

[Lephys]

@delushin,

 

I think a lot of people definitely end up wasting their money. But then... really, only you can decide whether or not it's a waste of your money. If you just like supporting that game's development, and maybe think it'd be cool to check out the alpha/beta build, and toss around some feedback about it, then it's not really a waste of money. If you expect to simply "play the game early" (as many people do), then yeah, it pretty much ends up being a waste of money. Although, I still say it isn't totally a waste, because they still use that money towards the game, whether you feel like you got anything out of it or not.

 

But, yeah, I realize that it's all very ambiguous, and there's risk involved. Some Early Access games have been in alpha build for a year +. Some of them just shut down completely.

[Faerunner]

I'd be disappointed if the game came out after the end of 2014, but I've got other games and life events to keep me busy beforehand, so whatever works to make the game great. =)

[BAdler]

The PE team themselves are probably not ready to answer questions about this, but if PE is able to bring in enough money during the early access for another development month, would that money be used on the vanilla game, or put in the piggy bank for the expansion ?

 

Our team is still discussing whether or not we are going to do Early Access. Early Access has pros (influx of money, additional feedback from the community) and cons (releasing the game in an unfinished state to the general public, lesser impact of our final release), so it isn't really a slam dunk either way. As a gamer, I am not a huge fan of Early Access and I am usually wary of games that go that route. It is a good thing for some games (I think WL2 did a great job of using the money to help polish and finish out their game), but other games use it as an excuse to have a never-ending development.

 

PE's asset list and feature set is essentially locked at this point. There are still a large amount of bugs to fix and things to polish, but we aren't really generating additional content (besides audio, VFX, and a few B priority weapon and armor sets). Any money raised would likely into future projects (PE XP1).

[Sensuki]

Cool thanks for the reply.

[BruceVC]

 

The PE team themselves are probably not ready to answer questions about this, but if PE is able to bring in enough money during the early access for another development month, would that money be used on the vanilla game, or put in the piggy bank for the expansion ?

 

 

 

PE's asset list and feature set is essentially locked at this point. There are still a large amount of bugs to fix and things to polish, but we aren't really generating additional content (besides audio, VFX, and a few B priority weapon and armor sets). Any money raised would likely into future projects (PE XP1).

 

 

I've said this before but if PoE is released anytime before 2017 I'll be disappointed. I want to give Obsidian ample time to resolve any bugs and to add as much content as is reasonably possibly

[Infinitron]

Early Access has pros (influx of money, additional feedback from the community) and cons (releasing the game in an unfinished state to the general public, lesser impact of our final release), so it isn't really a slam dunk either way.

 

There is an additional pro. The beta costs more than the final game, since you need to match its price to the beta Kickstarter tier. As Wasteland 2 has demonstrated, there are plenty of people out there willing to pay $60 for an unfinished RPG. It'd be a shame to leave that money in their pockets.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

Yeah what Infinitron said, you'll get a lot more $60 sales by doing early access.

 

I already have beta access, so it's no skin off my back if there's a steam early access or not, but if the beta is "good" you'll get A LOT more $60 sales and potentially increase the total sales numbers/sales amount at the cost of a less impressive release day (which is more important to AAA Titles I guess).

 

You guys might need the first day sales to impress publishers for future titles, I'm not sure.

[Zed]

please don't release it on early access. it cheapens the game and spoils the story. stick to releasíng a combat beta/demo if you need to squish technical bugs, and sell merchandise and run fancy pre-orders if you need a money boost.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Zed: Good news! Obsidian has explicitly stated that their beta won't spoil the story!

[Fiery Rain]

 

Early Access has pros (influx of money, additional feedback from the community) and cons (releasing the game in an unfinished state to the general public, lesser impact of our final release), so it isn't really a slam dunk either way.

 

There is an additional pro. The beta costs more than the final game, since you need to match its price to the beta Kickstarter tier. As Wasteland 2 has demonstrated, there are plenty of people out there willing to pay $60 for an unfinished RPG. It'd be a shame to leave that money in their pockets.

 

 

I'm not sure if that's really a pro. Rather, it's a double-edged sword. Remember, overall amount of backers still represent only a small percentage of Steam users. For backers, 60$ may be a fair price (because it's Kickstarter's usual practice and they've used to it), but average Steam user is a totally different story. For him or her PoE simply may be "just another game, and I think it costs too much for early access", and as a result, he/she probably would not buy it, but instead would go to Steam discussion and open the thread "Why I must pay 60$ for unfinished game and be a beta tester?". Wasteland 2 already suffered that - remember the thread "About the pricing". It has several thousands of posts and still continues to this day with no end in sight. And the price is just the same - 60 dollars. On top of that, PoE won't be a full-fledged game like Wasteland 2 when it opens on a EA - it will be just a demo. This means even less content. Now imagine Steam users' reaction when they discover they have to pay this price for "just a demo". I may be wrong, but I think Dead State can be example for that...

 

There are people who'll want to pay 60$ for PoE, of course. I'm sure there will be a lot of them. But... I think this strategy will probably also lead to a lot of uneccessary badmouthing.

[BAdler]

 

Early Access has pros (influx of money, additional feedback from the community) and cons (releasing the game in an unfinished state to the general public, lesser impact of our final release), so it isn't really a slam dunk either way.

 

There is an additional pro. The beta costs more than the final game, since you need to match its price to the beta Kickstarter tier. As Wasteland 2 has demonstrated, there are plenty of people out there willing to pay $60 for an unfinished RPG. It'd be a shame to leave that money in their pockets.

 

 

That is a pro, but it isn't as good as it seems at first blush.

 

Let's say that EA is a $10 premium over what we would normally sell the game for on Steam. This isn't necessarily the number, but it is an okay placeholder. Say we sell an additional 10k - 25k copies of the game as EA. Again, I am not sure if this number would be legitimate, but it seems reasonable. Assuming that EA cannibalizes our future sales, this would generate an extra 100k - 250k in cash. After Steam takes its cut (30%) that leaves anywhere from 70k - 175k.

 

That isn't a paltry sum of money, but it also isn't enough to really affect the game's development in any substantial way. That is enough to pay for an extra couple of weeks of development on the game. We have to weigh that against all of the potential problems and ill will if things aren't handled perfectly. EA is like playing with fire, in my mind, and if it isn't handled correctly it could burn the project (and the company).

[Valorian]

Don't do EA.

[Elerond]

I think EA would probably be more hindrance than help for PoE, as it is decent way to get exposure, money and people to give their opinions about game for games that don't already have those, but as PoE already has enough? funding, it has already got decent amount of exposure and interest from press and players and it already has thousands people that will participate on its beta. So in my opinion EA would not bring enough additional money and/or player feedback to make it worthwhile thing Obsidian to do with PoE. Especially during time when EA gets so much mud poured on it, as people and developers haven't yet used to it and know what it actually should be.

[Sensuki]

Assuming that EA cannibalizes our future sales, this would generate an extra 100k - 250k in cash. After Steam takes its cut (30%) that leaves anywhere from 70k - 175k.

That's a low estimation, Double Fine got looooooads more than that in 2 months.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki