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.
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.
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!
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.
Well you named two pretty big one and none of these are planning cash shop as far as I know. So how many more examples you want? If we are really talking just about ARPGs here (which I think it’s wrong), don’t ignore giants like PoE or Diablo - aslo, why not talk about Grim Dawn? Victor Vran or Van-Helsing games, Warhammer 40K Inquisitor - Martyr, damn even Book of Demons is successful. Also in recent years, Bastion.
I mean, there is quite a lot ARPGs I am following and played in recent years and I can name you just two, which fell flat on their face - Pagan, because it sucked hard and control scheme was not good for many players, and Warhammer: Chaosbane, which completely blew by copying Diablo 3 systems but in much worse shell.
Yes, in a way some of that is my point. The ARPG genre has often turned to that, but that’s not how it started. It’s not even how PoE started for example. My friend and I used to play PoE together all the time when it was young. But over the years characters even mid game have gotten so strong that nothing survived long enough to team up on.
I agree this has become pretty close to a norm of the genre, but I feel like at least what I’ve played of LE doesn’t make me feel that way so far. I’m actually looking forward to trying multiplayer with LE, where as no update is really going to make me feel that way in most other ARPGs. This is not counting some of the newer ones that are not quite fleshed out yet like Wolcen and TL3, but more like what ARPGs like PoE started as but strayed away from.
If they can create/maintain an actual desire for multiplayer grouping, then IMO it can lead to more interesting ideas to implement like synergies between classes/skills and maybe even between things like item sets/uniques. You can have this and still maintain an ARPG model, vs an MMO one. It’s not easy nowadays but I think Eleventh Hour can pull it off with what I’m seeing so far.
A lot of game companies are pushing back releases this year, it’s completely understandable! Even if the-world-issue-that-shall-not-be-named isn’t the reason, it’s still understandable. My brother and I have already enjoyed the $70 I spent on this game to get us both a copy and we know we will enjoy it so much more when we can play together. Hopefully there will be dungeons, and healing will be needed and it will be fun to be a healer but who knows? That’s hard to do with these types of games so if not I’m sure I’ll have fun with my summoner. Still can’t decide between Primalist and Necromancer, lol.
I hope you guys have more ways to sustain your income other than $35 initial purchases. The ability to buy cosmetic items and the like would be totally appreciated and I’d love to support the game even more by buying them in the future.
(Sorry if some of my post sounds out-of-date, I haven’t been following much lately but I really do still love this game!)
Anyway, I can’t wait to try the finished project! Don’t worry how long it takes, I know it’s worth it to make it the best that it can be.
Nice decision , the game is slowly improving, but far from polished or ready to launch. You have in your hands huge potential , and I’m glad you are refusing to give up to the temptation of a forced earlier launch.
Hope you guys the best of luck, and I’ll be peridically coming back to check how the game development advances.
As always super happy to hear how much the launch matter to you guys and quality of game matter. the communication with community why its so easy to love you guys and the game keep supporting you! Thanks for all you do and the hard work you guys put in <3
I think there is a FANTASTIC framework for an exceptional ARPG all the way up to contention for the best ARPG of all time. I love the skill system and core mechanics. I like the crafting system though I think it should be deeper and fleshed out more (especially allowing items to be crafted from scratch), the combat is good and improving and the mult-era core lore is interesting as a hook.
I do not mean to sound harsh but I think it is only a framework because the level and quest design is just not very good. It does not hold up to almost any other ARPG to be quite honest. It is dark (especially the beginning) repetitive and uninteresting. Most seem to be a wheel and spoke pattern which only gives an illusion of an open area. It is very very mazelike and everything feels like a corridor. It can handle some depth but seems to never use it. Titan Quest seems to have a similar technology for their levels but they make it seem somehwhat more open despite being still purely linear.
If you are delaying the game I hope you take time to make the world and level building up to par with the rest of the game.
No one wins when a game is released early. I’m a developer too (altough not in the game industry), and I can appreciate the “when it’s ready” answer… I appreciate the honest answers you’ve provided us - from experience, I believe the best way to run an open-ended development project like this is to allow the team to focus on issues they need to as well as places they want to! And sometimes, I feel like I’m looking at a feature that was originally going to be an afterthought, but some dev fell in love with the feature, and they made it their own.
Still can’t decide between Primalist and Necromancer, lol.