Comrades! Recently we discussed the further cooperation with Steam and we had pretty good results! That’s why we want to discuss the next subject: Are you ready to pre-order the ROG? If you are ready to pre-order, what gifts would you like to get? The game will begin with Steam. The digital copy in the pre-order is the Steam key, that will be active at the moment of the early access for all players. Steam is ready to allow a pre-order bypassing their shop under the following conditions: 1) Pre-order cost can’t be lower that on Steam (ye,ye all copies bought by ROG club members for RCP, we will preliminary buy on Steam…); 2) All players will gain access to the game at the moment of starting the servers, after the game publication on Steam; We hasten to add that pre-order won’t contain: 1) Alpha, beta access (it will be free and opened); 2) There won’t be items that are relevant higher than 8.8 level (besides, there will be limited durability) - if we meet those who favours a starter pack; 3) There won’t be game currency (high level items, or items growing with the player level, resources are out of the questions); Now our concept is - b2p before the release, p2p after the release. Consumable items are out of the question (experience potions, a potion that helps to gain experience, a juniper of luck, a fern of freedom etc.) Why do we need pre-order? I think that it’s clear but I will describe it shortly once again. Partial self-financing will give more freedom to our team and facilitate independence. Also it can help to increase the speed or convenience of the development. Why we can’t increase the speed of development through the increasing of team members? We are right on schedule, knock on wood (over the summer we took only 4 people, there’s no delay, but we have too much work Offer your variants! P.S. I won’t tell you our variants deliberately, to let your imagination run wild The voting is confidential - even our team can’t see the voters and the voting time Tentative dates: Early Access - March'19 The Release - March'20
I really like the idea of pre-ordering to support the project and to obtain rewards for the trust the player puts in it. By my point of view, the problem comes if that "pre-order" is the early access in Steam. Nowdays so many players see the "early-access" neither a pre-order neither a beta, but they see it as a release, even knowing it's not. To prove this, Steam reviews are already possible and usually bad because of the bugs and glitches. Bugs are supposed to be there, but gamers just don't accept it, despite the e.a. status. Going in early access is risky for the "face" of the game, a big risk from which few games exit with success. The "survivors of e.a." are usually those which never show big bugs and are 100% playable and fluid since the beginning. The lack of content is legitimate during e.a. and it's the only tolerated thing. By the way, the few contents available must work fluidly, or people will badly review and forget the game and hardly come back. Eventually the game risks to end as a "mixed" game and get lost... sadly.
My suggestion would be to go in Early Access only if the contents you offer at the Alpha, become 100% fixed and free from bugs which can alter the fluidity of the game. Steam players want fluidity and playable games, already in early access. That is my feedback from my experiences. Hope this can help! Keep up the good work!
I was rather fortunate to play the prototype version of RoG. Therefore i can say that: well there were some bugs, but nothing that made the game unplayable. Like, no game crashes, no huge ping, no fps problems. If guys will keep the quality level, i think, everything will be ok. I think we will see it when alpha comes.
Most likely, we will spend about a month on testing and optimization of e.a. build and server equipment. We are glad that UE4 allows to fix bugs properly in rather short time, as well as the fact that we already have loyal community including RoG Club members to help us with stress-testing
