If you release in early access, perhaps expect players not being ready to jump into a buggy, in-development competitive shooter?
Only early access games I’ll pick up are ones where it’s not PvP and I doubt I’m alone in that.
Bizarre they’re effectively treating the game as “released” and studying telemetry yet when players see “early access”, they see it as “beta” and not actually released.
I think you’re hitting the nail on the head. A lot of publishers are blatantly misusing EA to put out an unfinished piece of software to socialize the testing, and hope for a more understanding playerbase because of the EA status. Not only is it manipulative, it also skews reception like it does here. Personally, I categorically skip all EA because I only buy finished products. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be interested in a good tribes game.
If you want awesome early access games, I can definitely recommend Abiotic Factor, Going Medieval, and of course Project Zomboid.
AF is basically a mix of Half-Life and SCP, and it’s a 1-6 player survival game where you use office supplies and such to make fortifications and weapons. It’s about to get its first big content update in the next couple weeks, and has had a few smaller content updates since it went into EA.
Going Medieval is kinda like Rimworld, where you start a colony after a plague has wiped out a huge chunk of the general population. It went into EA a couple years ago, but it’s still actively getting updates with new mechanics, objects, weapons and such.
And I’m sure you know Zomboid.
Shazbot!
To say that EVERYONE saw this coming may be an understatement. The moment the devs teased taking out the Honorball game mode and spinning it off into a completely separate game, the writing was on the wall. Possibly my favorite shooter series and it seems to be stuck in development purgatory. Even the unofficial Tribes-likes and other FPS-Z games can’t ever seem to find their footing.
God dammit Hi-Rez Prophecy
A good Tribes game is not in the cards right now. Players should try harder to be entertained.
(this is a play on a quote from the admins of an old Hi-Rez game called Global Agenda. During the nightly clan vs clan competitive “global map” window, the game was broken, matches wouldn’t load or crash part-way through. Players submitted a ton of tickets, and some of them were not constructive and just said “Fix the game”. Admins got butt-hurt and spammed the entire player-base with “Fixing the game is not in the cards right now. Players should try harder to win.”… I am still very salty about that…)
Edit: Oddly enough, this was right after they launched Tribes: Ascend, just to bring the leap of context full circle.
The game isn’t out yet. The fuck are they talking about success for?