Divinity: Original Sin Pre-Release Thread

[Gord]

It's party time!

Spoiler

Just for me though - Will see if the Alpha is out when I'm back. And if I'm sober enough to play it, supposing the download finishes before I fall asleep.

 

[Angthoron]

Are we there yet?

Working on it

 

[AstroZombie]

WHERE IS THE ALPHA?!

 

[LeJosh]

"Something's incoming I think"

Swen just tweeted that.

 

[Kaldurenik]

Zomg!

Swen Vincke ‏@LarAtLarian1m
Something's incoming I think

Edit: Damn to slow

 

[AstroZombie]

IT'S HAPPENING!!!

 

[Arkeus]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Kirill Pokrovsky.

 

[:Flash:]

What did Kirill do to get banished into basement between stacks of old boxes?

 

[Turisas]

What did Kirill do to get banished into basement between stacks of old boxes?

He's a musician, they like slumming it.

 

[Cyberarmy]

What did Kirill do to get banished into basement between stacks of old boxes?

For breaking that keyboard at the "KS successful party" ofc.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Also showing his ass crack live.

 

[Infinitron]

Hey, ForkTong, you guys should remove the link for pledging on Kickstarter from the game's site, no?

 

[ForkTong]

Not until someone makes a Mantis ticket about it.

 

[kazgar]

Not until someone makes a Mantis ticket about it.

Paging IDtenT to make a ticket.

 

[IDtenT]

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

New Blog post by Swen. Its about Steam Early Access.

http://www.lar.net/2014/01/14/steam-early-access-is-a-good-thing/

It is very long. Quoted a part of it. Also Robcat gets a mention.

I received a pretty good reply from a friendly weresheep named Robcat who quoted a reddit thread from a developer who listed the pros and cons of going on Early Access. I’ll quote said post here for convenience:

Pros

More revenue now - In theory, launching on SEAG means an injection of cash right now.
More exposure - Word of mouth marketing seems like it would get a shot in the arm, just from the increased number of people playing the game.
Steam Front Page - Some SEAG games get front-page treatment, and that can be a huge marketing boost.
More feedback before launch - Assuming you’re interested, more players means more feedback. And more feedback could lead to a better game.

Cons

Bad First Impression - This is probably the biggest and most tangible risk I can think of. If your game isn’t ready, this is one way to let as many people know as possible. In many cases, first impressions stick, so this can be a rut that’s near impossible to get out of later.
Player Misunderstanding - A different shade of the above, some players don’t “get” that SEAG is unfinished games, and will castigate devs for selling a “faulty” product. This can burn bridges with customers and create bad press.
No Critical Mass - Many games become popular when enough people are talking about them simultaneously. Call it “going viral” or “10,000 fans” or whatever. Does SEAG diminish the “big spectacle” on launch day? Do we get two mediocre bangs instead of one big bang? Does that matter?
Delayed Gold Launch - Integrating Steam during development takes time away from the game development process. If you’re planning on launching via Steam anyway, this risk is moot. However, the timing of this delay could be non-optimal (e.g. latest build has a bad bug, and next patch is delayed by SEAG integration efforts).
Less revenue later(?) - Does the lifetime revenue get impacted by SEAG? Is there a chance that we’re choosing between 10 sales now with 10 sales later, versus 0 sales now and 100 later? This is just another implication of the “no critical mass” above, but is worth pointing out.
The author concluded that the pros were a known quantity, the cons an unknown quantity so it made sense to go ahead with launching his game on Steam Early Access. I concur, not only because of the pros, but also because I don’t think the cons are such a big deal.

The pros on this list are very big pros and speak for themselves. Feedback before release is worth gold, at least if you listen to it. Revenue in the final stages is worth gold because some horrible compromises don’t need to be made. And word of mouth, well that’s really what you’re after. That’s worth more than gold, which to be fair hasn’t been having such a good track record of late

So what about the cons?

Bad first impressions & player misunderstanding

The same risks of players having bad first impressions exist with any alpha/beta program and the benefits of actually having a lot of people participate in such programs far outweigh the negatives I think. Clear & honest communication about what to expect, like Day Z did, an early access game that’s been riding the top of the charts, seems to be the most important thing here.

Speaking for Larian, we’re releasing our game in alpha/beta state to all of our Kickstarter backers, and thus share our development process with them. That creates some confusion but in general it’s a gold mine of feedback. I don’t see why we should not extend that to the much larger community we have on Steam. The more feedback we can integrate, the higher the quality of the final game will be, and that will eventually shine through, just like I’m sure it will for Wasteland 2.

In reading through certain comments I noticed that a lot of people seem to be concerned that negative threads aimed against faults of an alpha/beta or against the fact that a game is on early access itself might influence future buyers. I’m an optimist so I don’t think that’ll necessarily be the case, first because I assume that our audience is smart enough to read through certain comments and second because you may not overestimate the impact of such threads. What matters at the end of the day is going to be the quality of the game – if it’s good, people will tell each other that it’s good.

It might also be worth pointing out here that as a developer at this stage we don’t really care about the form or tone in which we receive the feedback – what interests is how we can improve the gameplay experience. So if somebody writes something like “this is the worst game ever because you can’t change the turn-order. Larian designers are morons, XYZ did that so much better. ” we only remember – changing turn-order seem to be in demand.

In the same breath however I have to admit that I’m guilty of the same thing, criticising games that are on Steam Early Access. I have a few games that disappointed me in my Steam library, even if they shouldn’t have, and I’ve been vocal about it. As a developer I should know how fast seemingly big things can change for the better (and vice versa), but as a player that somehow doesn’t register.

So yes, some misunderstanding about what’s in an alpha or a beta is inevitable, but I think that as people play more of these early access games, it’s something that’ll correct itself over time and they’ll learn how to judge things. The same will apply to those reporters who are thinking of reviewing Steam Early Access titles just as if they were finished products, something I think is a pretty bad idea, for the aforementioned reason – they cannot possibly know what’s still going to change. That they review Steam Early Access titles is fine, but as an alpha or as a beta – not as a finished product.

No Critical Mass

Judging from my own limited experience and watching the Steam charts, I don’t think that’s a really big issue. Take Wasteland 2 for instance – it was a hit on Kickstarter, it was a hit on Steam when Early Access went up, it’ll be a hit when it launches. I’m pretty sure the same will apply to Day Z or Starbound. Or comparing it to pre-orders, which is the only thing I have experience with: Dragon Commander did very well during its preorders, but that didn’t stop it from going to number 1 in the charts on the day of its release and spending some quality time in the higher regions of the Steam charts.

Delayed Gold Launch

Everybody in this industry and beyond knows by now that it’s better to release it when it’s done, even if everybody keeps on sinning against the principle. Not really a con if it’s for a good reason.

Less revenue later

If you release it with feedback integrated, even at a later date, you will get more revenue, not less, because the game will be better for it and word of mouth will be better too. Larian is still in business after all these years partially because we’ve tried to integrate feedback post-factum into our games. If it’d been up to my publishers, nothing would’ve changed in our games and they’d be long forgotten. Selling games nowadays is about lifecycle management, not day 1 sales only.

That leaves me with little cons.

In our case you could add backer backlash because we’ve been on Kickstarter. But like I wrote in that forum thread, I can’t see an objective reason why there should be such backlash. Backers got Divinity:Original Sin at 25US$ + extras + plenty of exclusive extras at higher tiers. Our alpha is free to all backers. Given this, why would any backer feel upset if he sees the game on early access at a higher price point?

So I must be overlooking something given the amount of noise the internet is making about Early Access, but I don’t see it. If Kickstarter is ok, why isn’t Early Access ok? I would be grateful if somebody could point that out for me.

Looks like DOS Early Access is approaching, hopefully with the Editor.

 

[MicoSelva]

Yup, Swen seems pretty convinced to go EA (bad acronym) Early Access for DOS, and it is probably for the best, especially if the added revenue stream allows them to give the game some more development time.

 

[poetic codex]

^Well I guess I shouldn't fight it anymore. Early access is here to stay as a new gaming paradigm. Although I would much prefer the episodic releases system over the early access system because early access leads to debacles like Realms of Arcania or butthurt like wasteland 2. At least with episodic releases, you have full content that is generally more stable than what we typically get from early access releases. I think Blackguards did it right with the episodic chapter releases.

 

[Minttunator]

/---/ early access leads to debacles like Realms of Arcania /---/

I think the problem with Realms of Arkania was exactly that it WASN'T released on Early Access (if I recall correctly - sorry if I'm mistaken!). They just released in an unplayable early alpha state and called it the final game, which pissed off a lot of people (including myself). Had they called it what it was and released on Early Access, I think the backlash wouldn't have been nearly as bad.

I do understand Swen and others who are tempted by Early Access in any case - it's hard to resist using it if a significant amount of people are happy to pay you for the privilege of beta testing your game.

 

[poetic codex]

I stand corrected on Realms of Arcania. It wasn't early access.

 

[clemens]

All I keep from this is new build with multiplayer coop + companions this week !

We'll have coop multiplayer, companions & more live this week I think btw. Stats/abilities/traits/perks/balance have received some significant attention, so expect quite a few changes there too.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=478106&page=1

 

[felipepepe]

Larian proved during the kickstarter that they have a very open and bro-like dialogue with the fans, I think they can handle Steam Early Access.

 

[krist2]

All I keep from this is new build with multiplayer coop + companions this week !

We'll have coop multiplayer, companions & more live this week I think btw. Stats/abilities/traits/perks/balance have received some significant attention, so expect quite a few changes there too.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=478106&page=1

Thanks for the heads up, I read that post, but didn't read it carefully enough it seems.
Looking forward to checking out the companions, and perhaps a bit of coop!

 

[Roguey]

I wonder what the retailers think of Vincke selling his game through digital channels first. They kinda frown heavily on that kind of thing.