Take the time you need, you’ve a great game in your hands o/.
Take care too 
.
Definitely glad to hear you guys will release 1.0 when it is ready. I wish I had known about this game from the start but I picked it up in December last year . I didn’t have much time to focus on the game as i normally would have but its definitely been a game that has helped pass the time while dealing with the loss of my father to brain cancer in January of this year. So keep up the great work. I will be there when its released for sure. Sincerely.
pls add russian language. I’m ready to wait, but I want Russian to test it with you
But Last Epoch isn´t a F2P-Game…Premium Currency is even worse; it´s as predatory as can be (if that´s really how the devs intend to sell their MTX). And it´s not as if this old Diablo 2-Business-model isn´t working anymore. Grim Dawn for example is pretty succesful with paid expansions…and a ton of free content as well.
I know the reasoning behind the MTX… future support. But what does that mean ? That all future content will be free ? Sorry if I´m a bit hesitant to believe that.
Sorry if I sound like an old record…but once again a very promising game becomes much less interesting to me because of its business-model.
In my opinion such comparison can be easily misleading if you don’t take into account the state of the market of the time the game were released.
Grim dawn was released in 2016, against PoE already established and Diablo 3 that was already 4 years old.
LE will have to compete in the near future with PoE 2 (which one of the main objectives is clearly to appeal new players with better accessibility), Diablo 4 despite whatever people think of Blizzard is still going to be a mastodonth of the genra. And who knows if Wolcen ever make a come back.
ARPG is a niche market let’s be realistic one second. The cake is small and you will have to share it with two giants. If you take that into account it is not that outrageous to rely on cosmetic MTX on the long term to be sustainable.
Foreign language translation is likely to happen after the content is complete.
Awesome, great decision, game has a great foundation and is always getting better.
I am with you here buddy.
I am very happy they raised the price, but I really hope they will rethink their MTX/coins/cosmetic approach. There is this notion that “It’s just cosmetic” is not predatory, but it is. They have paid product, they should focus on paid expansions, dlcs and just remove MTX altogether (or just for some vanity items like…i don’t know…pets, player frame borders etc), or something what Grim Dawn did, some cosmetics armors for few bucks, which are added to your transmog pool. Interesting enough, but not insanely better than any other sets in the game for like 20 bucks, that’s just BS.
Or just be F2P game so at least there is this excuse.
I think this “belief” that games needs MTX to survive is first - already outdated and second, it’s something what companies like EA or Activision want you to believe. But time and time again, even in current year, indie companies and indie games can be hugely successful even without cosmetic shop. I am not saying they should remove all sources of income after box price and for example expansion pack, but cosmetic shop is just not okay in my opinion.
That’s a too vague and too general statement in my opinion. What indie company, what games, what genra ?
Again APRG is a niche market. And for the first time in nearly a decade you are going to have in the span of a year maybe a year and a half, probably 2 majors releases that are supposed to carve the lion’s share of the market and LE.
I don’t know if betting the ecomonic sustainability of your studio only the on 35$ B2P model is a risky bet or not.
Think about it, currently LE money comes from KS and sales. As they said, income from sales allows them to grow as company and fact, they were able to delay the game for a second time should tell you, their finances are stable enough. Which is fantastic.
ARPG is not niche market, I am not sure how you came to this conclusion. ARPG market is actually pretty big across all platforms and wide spectrum of players (more hardcore and super casuals). So if game will be good enough, players will be there.
One super niche game I played was for example Mordheim: City of damned, this game peaked at 2k players. Yet, they were able to release several expansions, grew, and next month they are releasing their second game, which looks absolutely fantastic. No coins, no cash-shop, no streamers generated sales like wolcen did yet there they are.
And they are not betting on 35$, they can easily have some deluxe editions of the game, art books, soundtrack, they are still selling supporter packs and dlcs + expansions are expected with this type of the game. It’s more than enough.
This is great news to hear, i’m glad you’re taking the launch of the game very seriously. In my opinion people anymore are sometimes (not all the time obviously) overly critical of games these days, and you only get one chance to make that first impression at official launch of what people are willing to tolerate rightfully so. My only concern and this could just be more over thinking it, do you guys have enough funding to keep going and not have to worry about it, i would imagine that would be the case if you’re delaying the game but i know the game doesn’t have a publisher and all that just wondering.
I don´t think Last Epoch will have to compete with Diablo 4 in the near future…And I think the ARPG-market is at a pretty good spot at the moment…The genre is as diverse as never before. Sure there are the giants that are Diablo and maybe PoE (regardind classic ARPGs)…but that doesn´t mean that there is no space next to them. As you said…Grim Dawn had the already established PoE to counter…but was still succesful. Not to forget Reaper of Souls was only released 2 years prior to Grim Dawn, and then came the Seasons as well; both gave Diablo 3 somewhat of a second Wind. I simply disregard the notion that you HAVE to have MTX in your game nowadays to be succesful. And the thing is…I look to more Indie-games because I want to get away from all the crap the Tripple-A-industry is pulling off. But more and more I get the feeling many Indies aren´t so far behind anymore in terms of monetization.
And my point wasn´t only about MTX in general, but about the Premium Currency as well (again, if that is what the devs REALLY want to go with). Isn´t it enough to sell those MTX directly ?
stuff like that usually isn’t there while the game is in development. That is at the final stage of development when it goes into localization.
I am unsure as to why this sounds like déjà vu, but whatever the case, if it already happened before… It doesn’t really matter, to me anyway, and I’m sure to many a soul who have been following you, how much time you wish to take for this game.
You have been greatly receptive and communicative with your community, and it shows through the trust we have given you.
This game, when it releases officially, will be a reflection of your studio; that is certain now. And I’m sure it will be a great one.
Best of luck for the year to come, we’ll be here enjoying this rare healthy relationship.
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I’m sorry but compared to FPS, MOBA, MMO, BR players/sales numbers APRG is a niche market. The only game in the APRG genra that is not F2P that compete in sales number is Diablo. Period.
Show me an APRG B2P besides diablo that have the same order of magnitude of sales number than a COD, a WOW, a Forntite or even a Fall guys.
Edit : Forntie is F2P bad example.
Are you ignoring rest of my post? Because I never ever compared ARPG market to FPS, MOBA or BR. I am just pointing out that much smaller games were able to survive, companies grow and they didn’t need premium currency shop. Also you are hugely underestimating ARPG market here.
As much as your ambitions have changed with the game, the time demands of key aspects that must be given it’s respect from a challenge perspective (such as implementing the Rogue and multiplayer), this is definitely the right decision to look beyond 2020 for release. That would even be in a perfect world where $#!+ ain’t hitting the fan all over the world.
I’m probably not alone in saying the last thing I’d want to see is multiplayer in this game become a novelty like it has in other APRGs (as good as some of those games are) due to all forms of time to kill being a blink of an eye. Some of the MP in those games just turned into online solo games where the only multiplayer use is leaderboards and selling items to people.
Last Epoch seems to strike a pretty good balance in that aspect, but it is a very delicate balance to maintain. I hope you continue to take extra care of this and all your other important challenges as you seem to have been all along. Looking forward to it all…PATIENTLY!
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But I guess this comes from ARPG genre, not design of games. In moment, you are making some deep interaction with other players, parties, dungeons, raids or interacting with world like mining or crafting, you don’t have ARPG anymore, but isometric MMO(A)RPG.
You were making a paralell between the business model used for an ARPG game with other indies companies/games (which one you did not name or gave an example).
I assumed (maybe wrongly) that you compared that to different genra of games because how many indie companies are there actually releasing a game in the ARPG genra ? Wolcen is one and Torchlight 3. Were you comparing with those 2 games ?
Just because a game doesn´t sell 20 million copies means it is niché. Again Grim Dawn…up to this point 5 Million copies sold. On PC alone. That´s not very niché. If we broaden the net in terms of ARPGs: Borderlands 2; not an ARPG in the classical sense, but still hugely succesful. You know what a niché-genre is ? Flight-Sims.
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