I am really fatigued with early access. So many games end up in ea limbo because there is hardly any pull toward releasing a full game.
I even got noticably less excited for No Rest For The Wicked from Moon Studios when I found out it was going to be early access. I adored the Ori games and the ethos behind Wicked seemed refreshing and exciting, but my first impression of it has already been wasted on a half baked early access product which is enormously rough around the edges and lacking the refinement their titles are known for. I haven’t bought it, to try to save what fraction of my excitement for the game I have left, for the full release. But man.
I kinda wish ea in general was handled more like a semi-closed beta, where folks could “apply” (with little barrier to entry) to play the game early with some sort of caveat that feedback on the product is expected or at least heavily encouraged. And also with some sort of tangible roadmap and release window, so we don’t get a bunch of games like this and Star Citizen which live in ea for eternity
I guess you’re are just riffing on the general concept but 7dtd was under continuous development with frequent releases.
Yeah, jerkface, that’s the problem I have with early access
/j but like yeah, that’s the exact problem I have. Many games follow that exact pattern of having a “soft release” into early access, and then spending years in that limbo before becoming a fully fledged product. My issue isn’t that people are releasing into early access and then never updating the game (although, if that’s happening that’s awful too). I’m tired of the soft release > years of updates keeping you coming back for a slightly more and more compelling product > finally released a full product.
As outlined in my original post, I’d prefer if the game never had that “soft release” period and instead had a more hard line on the fact that it’s a beta. It’s all very well having the early access label on it but like… It just isn’t that, these days.
Star Citizen has had continuous development of genuinely impressive technology, and frequent releases. I still think it’s an exemplar of the worst state of the gaming industry.
There’s early access games releasing paid DLC which just fucking boggles my mind. Star Citizen has tens of thousands of pounds of ships you can buy despite not being a finished game.
7dtd is at least better than those, but an 11 year period of taking customers’ money without actually having a finished product just feels off to me.
Like, No Man’s Sky got a lot of shit at launch, and it has had consistent development to turn it into a fantastic game nowadays. But had they slapped an early access label on it at launch, does that just make it all better? Not to me, but hey. We’re allowed to disagree.
The people who paid for early access (like me) got exactly what they paid for. The finished product would not have been possible otherwise, not only for financial reasons, but because EA has the potential to make better products.
What do you think EA is even for??
I imagine there’s a large majority of people who bought into the early access for 7dtd and got precisely what they thought they were paying for. I also imagine there’s a not-insignificant minority of people who bought into the early access not expecting it to take 11 years before they had a completed product, and ended up with a worse experience with the game as a result than if they’d just waited for the full release. I imagine there’s also a not-insignificant group of people who simply overlooked the “early access” bit entirely and just saw a trailer for a game that looked neat and a price tag and clicked buy. The experiences of the latter two groups of people are no less valid than the experiences of that majority. And, just for clarity, replace 7dtd in this conversation with pretty much any other early access title that has finally been fully realised.
Early access has largely replaced the concept of an open beta, though with something like an open beta you’re not typically paying to participate. When it was called a beta, and treated like a beta, there was a much clearer delineation between “the product” and “the work in progress”. With early access (or, perhaps it’s not early access itsself but rather how devs have treated early access), it feels like that line is heavily blurred. Early access has the additional benefit of allowing developers to start generating a revenue stream before the product is finished, which is great, and falls into place with other methods like crowd funding.
I don’t necessarily agree that the game couldn’t have been made without early access. Crowdfunding has existed for ages, betas have existed for ages. Collecting player feedback from betas is pretty indisputably just as effective as, if not more than, early access. Raising money to fund development has also been achieved reliably through crowdfunding. I get that early access is sort of a way of blending both of these aspects, and I don’t necessarily dislike early access in theory, more so the way so many games seem to have no desire to leave early access while being all too happy to continue taking people’s money. 7dtd did leave early access, and that’s amicable, but as mentioned there are numerous examples of games that like to live in an unreleased state while even spending developer time on creating paid DLC before the core product is ready. Again, 7dtd didn’t do this. But an 11 year development cycle is very prolonged for what 7dtd is, and I have no doubt that there are players who have had a worse overall experience with the game because they bought in when it was unfinished and they can never get their “first time” back.
Lots of games take years to develop. Fuck off with that bullshit headline.
11.5 years is certainly am outlier
Develop is one thing. Taking money for 11.5 is another.
What if that’s the difference between eventually having a game, and never having a game? You know what you are getting into when you buy an EA: it’s a risk you have to accept. Or, don’t, and just wait.
Yet when Blizzard does it for WoW it’s okay?
That’s what Early Access is about, right? And it’s not like other fuckers who release in EA and then just abandon ship after getting paid/releasing some minor patches for an unfinished game and call it “full release” (looking at The Forest for example)
They did a good job. Try enjoying things for once in your life.
I bought two copies of this game at the end of 2019 for a friend and I to try out. At $5, why not? We have played the shit out of this game since then, especially when we both got stuck home during covid for a few weeks. Glad it’s finally reached 1.0, enjoying seeing all of the updated POI’s and some new critters. So what if it took this long to come out of alpha? Have had way more than five bucks worth of fun over the past few years.
Slightly confounded by the hate towards the devs and game. What’s your beef? It took them a while? It was in early access a while? Fuck man, I got 800 hours of fun with friends during that time on an excellent game that only kept getting better. I mean, we’re not talking Star Citizen here.
It’s a great game. Why not just be glad there is one more great game in the world? I mean, I have no skin in the game, but I hope folks reconsider a negative stance here.
I bought it back when it was in early access. The main hate is how long it took to develop, and how many bugs it has/had.
The most recent time I played it, about a year and a half ago. You were able to wheely a motorcycle up a skyscraper. Zombies would randomly clip through things, the physics would bug out and loot on the ground would kill you from nudging it, sometimes you were able to just ride through buildings, and the multiplayer lag was abysmal. Just to name a few things.
I could go on, but for a game that’s been in development for 10 years, it barely shows it.
I got 800 hours of fun
I have no skin in the game
Well during that time you will have lost quite a lot of skin cells, so in a manner of speaking you literally have some skin in this game. Around 328 grams going by an average loss of 3.6kg/year I took from some random website.
I know I was surprised. I figured it was going to be always in EA.
So about 550ish horde nights worth.
