4 Months have passed since the "Early Access"

[Zakfhc]

So 4 months have passed since the game is in "Early Access" and it looks like Klei doesnt intend to give access to the people that bought Dont Starve 1 year ago.. I bought Dont Starve when it was in beta and it was more expensive then now and Klei said that everyone who bought the game before that will get Dont Starve Together for free. That is awesome! But 4 months have passed and still they are keeping the game in "Early Access" mode.. it really isint fair cause alot of people are waiting for a chance to play the game with friends. But I guess its all about the money..

[RationalLemming]

They could have chosen not to release an 'Early Access' version and you still wouldn't have the game. Games take time to develop. The beta version at least allows player feedback and a larger community to find bugs. This should actually get the game to you more quickly than if it was kept secret and tucked away until it was ready. Also, Klei had no reason to offer this DLC for free. They could have put a price on it and some / a lot of people would have still purchased it. They didn't choose to put a price on the DLC though for people willing to wait. If you are impatient then you can buy it. Otherwise you can wait. They are a company so money definitely should play a part in their decision but even if this is the case I still think that they are doing a good job regarding their gaming community.

[Tulingu]

So 4 months have passed since the game is in "Early Access" and it looks like Klei doesnt intend to give access to the people that bought Dont Starve 1 year ago.. I bought Dont Starve when it was in beta and it was more expensive then now and Klei said that everyone who bought the game before that will get Dont Starve Together for free. That is awesome! But 4 months have passed and still they are keeping the game in "Early Access" mode.. it really isint fair cause alot of people are waiting for a chance to play the game with friends. But I guess its all about the money..

You don't release an unbalanced game with bugs to everyone. That's why Alphas, Betas and Early Acess exist so players can try it out. We're not living in the early 90's so game developers might as well use the fanbase to fix things. If you had signed up for DST testing last summer you might've gotten a key but I suspect you didn't do that.

I can't read Klei's mind but if I was about to release a large game update I wouldn't want thousands of F2P kids trying it out. The great majority would likely loose interest because it's free, unbalanced and in some cases buggy, not to mention all the general whining that would occur in social media or forums. You'll get DST in the future but not now.

[Zakfhc]

True and I aggree. I am thankful to Klei for not just lowering the price of Dont Starve and @#$&ing all the other people that payed x2 or x3 the price. However as RationalLemming  said: "The beta version at least allows player feedback and a larger community to find bugs."

If the people that already had Dont Starve ware given access they would have an even bigger community. I really dont know what is the state of Dont Starve Together and how buggy it is but I constantly see new and new content being added so I thought it was pretty stable thats why im somewhat impatient. Please excuse me if i sounded rude or offending.

[LeChuck]

I find it amazing that Klei releases Don't Starve Together for free to everyone who owns Don't Starve. They have a whole team working on it for month and they won't charge anything! AMAZING! 

[Oni604]

Wasn't DST originally planned to come out "at the end of last summer"? So tbh it does look like klei is taking longer atm just to catch some more from the early access sales..

[CaptainFun]

The game wasn't even originally supposed to go into early access when it did. They only did the whole frontier pack thing because people were scamming each other at like, $40 per beta code. It went into early access in December as a more controlled way to get people into Beta. 

 

Game has some bugs and crashes right now, as well as re-balancing that has to be redone. They could have released the game a while ago. They could have released a buggy, unbalanced multiplayer expansion. They could have not bothered to have the RoG content on release- but they didn't, because they didn't want to release something underwhelming to the masses. 

 

[XirmiX]

So 4 months have passed since the game is in "Early Access" and it looks like Klei doesnt intend to give access to the people that bought Dont Starve 1 year ago.. I bought Dont Starve when it was in beta and it was more expensive then now and Klei said that everyone who bought the game before that will get Dont Starve Together for free. That is awesome! But 4 months have passed and still they are keeping the game in "Early Access" mode.. it really isint fair cause alot of people are waiting for a chance to play the game with friends. But I guess its all about the money..

 

I think that if devs gave DST to DS owners right away now, then they would have not many ways of profiting from DST. Of course, because of the fact that "People have to pay until it's added for free", I do believe that devs should've released it for free long ago already, since they did make the promise that they will...

 

My predictions are that they'll either decide not to do that at all, or they will add this for free as soon as DST is out of Early access and fully completed and/or when Through the Ages comes into early beta, which will then be the way by which Klei will benefit the most from this particular game.

 

Am disappointed, however, it's their game and since the game is not much based on monopoly while you play it, but instead that you pay for it and then can play as you want and develop it as you want, I'm totally fine with this. It's one of the two legit ways of getting profit from your work (the other being donations. Monopolizing games such that you pay as you go along and/or pay to play the game the way you did before after a while is something that's totally illegitimate; I rebuke such games and companies of such games as all they are, are money-grabbing ****** bags, where as Klei actually cares a lot about their work on their games).

[Pyromailmann]

Well, coding (especially with Lua/C++ takes a long time. Especially for DST as the base game was never meant for Multiplayer when it first came out.

[XirmiX]

Well, coding (especially with Lua/C++ takes a long time. Especially for DST as the base game was never meant for Multiplayer when it first came out.

Yet we can even play DST offline and RoG was possible to implement as a DLC and be removed no problem. And even though multiplayer was never intended to be made in the first place, it worked and was made, even though it took crap ton of coding.

 

 

They could have chosen not to release an 'Early Access' version and you still wouldn't have the game. Games take time to develop. The beta version at least allows player feedback and a larger community to find bugs. This should actually get the game to you more quickly than if it was kept secret and tucked away until it was ready. Also, Klei had no reason to offer this DLC for free. They could have put a price on it and some / a lot of people would have still purchased it. They didn't choose to put a price on the DLC though for people willing to wait. If you are impatient then you can buy it. Otherwise you can wait. They are a company so money definitely should play a part in their decision but even if this is the case I still think that they are doing a good job regarding their gaming community.

1) DST is not a DLC

2) DST was given to more than 80k people when registration for the beta was available. Not only could each person get more than 2 keys, but during streams, people can still get keys for free. Reason much?

[Rily]

you know what I like of this game? I like the fun and balanced gameplay, the awesome optimization of the engine, the variety and free content and how much it has grown since the first version... I understand you but remember the size of the team working on this game, remember how the developers pay attention to their community to make a better game, the lots of betas to ensure a better game and as my grandpa says: 9 women can't make a baby in one month, so be patient you WILL get together free, just wait until the game is ready, I prefer a great game delayed than another Assassin's creed "Bugity" with the beta after the release

[Pyromailmann]

Yet we can even play DST offline and RoG was possible to implement as a DLC and be removed no problem. And even though multiplayer was never intended to be made in the first place, it worked and was made, even though it took crap ton of coding.  

 

True, we can play DST offline.

Klei plan to give people with RoG extra stuff (possibly to make their purchases useful, or as a "thank you").

Also, have you forgotten how many people complained how much they wanted DST? Or a beta key pre Frontier Pack? Or the ones complaining about Caves, Ruins, or Adventure Mode not being in the game?

 

[RalphKastro]

[theSplntr]

it has been on sale on steam numerous times during this time period as well.  IN FACT IT IS ON SALE RIGHT NOW UNTIL SOMETIME FRIDAY.  5$ and you get to gift a copy to a friend as well! Doesn't get much better than that.   Totally worth it, and also I don't mind help funding a team who has developed and continue to develop such a simple but wonderful game.  Seriously, the simple gameplay is great and they could have easily half assed this game and still made money from it, but they didn't.  The amount of content that DS and DST has amazes me, and it continues to be expanded.  That shows they have a true commitment to please their fan base, and will not settle for a product short of extraordinary.  These are the type of developers you should dish your money out to, because honestly I feel like it was a steal for 5$ even if I were to eventually have received the full version for free.

[leonseye]

Wasn't DST originally planned to come out "at the end of last summer"? So tbh it does look like klei is taking longer atm just to catch some more from the early access sales..

 

The game isn't finished...  They seem to be working VERY hard, the OP even states that they are constantly updating things to try to get the game where they want it to be.

 

It seems unfair to say that they are trying to turn this into some kind of cash grab when Klei has NEVER operated in this fashion for ANY of their Early Access games.

 

Case in point:  Invisible, Inc. is set to launch soon and they pulled Early Access entirely until it goes live.  If they wanted to, they could have easily just let people keep purchasing it right up until launch (like most every other Early Access game does).

 

...but they didn't.

[ryouryou]

They don't want to suddenly do a full release of a broken, buggy game that might cause worlds to be deleted or need to be abandoned to the full playerbase. Many people who have NO IDEA that DST is even in development will suddenly see they have a free thing on steam, go play it immediately despite beta warnings, and be like "omg, this new Don't Starve expansion SUCKS, why didn't they beta test this ****? I am pissed that I got tricked into involuntarily testing this broken thing for hours of my life and now I got killed/my world got wrecked/whatever dumb thing because of a GLITCH." Maybe they will stop playing and never pick the game up again, which wouldn't have happened if they had started playing at a time when more features had been added and there is more stability. But now their initial impression of the game is from an unfinished beta. Enough people may even feel that they've played enough to be "done," leading to the community dying before the game has even released. It's not good news. 

Having a small cost of entry or a specialized sign up for betas is a way for a company to funnel in only people who know what they're getting into and are interested in testing. Otherwise, we get communities like Steam full of terrible reviews for a game that is NOT FINISHED, and people who have no ability to delay instant gratification burning themselves out on the game before it even releases. Putting a tiny price on it ($5 for 2 keys is extremely fair, and very little to ask) ensures that people think about what they are getting into and understand that they don't HAVE to beta test, and in the end, the game and the devs are spared a lot of unnecessary bad publicity and forum whining from people who actually do not want to play an unfinished game but have duped themselves into becoming invested because "it's out, why wait?"

If you don't want it $5 worth, you probably don't want it "2 hours of time wasted because of a bug, go to the forums and write a lengthy bug report, have to restart game" worth, either. Let's be honest.

[RalphKastro]

Wasn't DST originally planned to come out "at the end of last summer"? So tbh it does look like klei is taking longer atm just to catch some more from the early access sales..

yeah. That was the plan. Plans change. 

[applebottom]

If the people that already had Dont Starve ware given access they would have an even bigger community. I really dont know what is the state of Dont Starve Together and how buggy it is but I constantly see new and new content being added so I thought it was pretty stable thats why im somewhat impatient. Please excuse me if i sounded rude or offending.

Props to you for explaining yourself.

 

Yes, it's still very buggy and there are balancing issues with PVP, so they update regularly. Sometimes their updates break more things or make the balancing worse for some, so they update again to change it.

 

I don't think it's ready for public release yet, but I understand how you feel seeing all the update news and hype. I wish there's a way to gradually roll out the beta to loyal DS owners.

[Pyromailmann]

it has been on sale on steam numerous times during this time period as well.  IN FACT IT IS ON SALE RIGHT NOW UNTIL SOMETIME FRIDAY.  5$ and you get to gift a copy to a friend as well!

That only is if you have DS, if you don't have DS the Frontier Pack goes with DS (which gives is a $15 boost). 

[SageKun]

Wasn't DST originally planned to come out "at the end of last summer"? So tbh it does look like klei is taking longer atm just to catch some more from the early access sales..

No DST was suppose to be playable at the end of summer I.E. An actual working version like the one at PAX

there is still tons of bugs/crashed/ and exploits.

[Kanasuke]

I remember on stream they were talking about how their art guys have had a lot of free time while the coders were working on this whole RoG-port thing, so they remarked on how they've create a whole lot of new assets. So I could only assume these new assets are going to end up becoming a 2nd expansion pack for the game. 

 

And that makes a lot of sense, because I can hardly see an entire Klei studio grinding to a stand-still because they couldn't work out how to port caves to DST. They're definitely working on stuff.

 

Or perhaps I am wrong, Klei is doing nothing except porting caves to DST (sarcasm).

 

[theSplntr]

That only is if you have DS, if you don't have DS the Frontier Pack goes with DS (which gives is a $15 boost). 

 

Sorry, if I didn't clarify.  The initial poster in this thread said that he bought Don't Starve a while back, so I didn't think it was necessary.

[leonseye]

I remember on stream they were talking about how their art guys have had a lot of free time while the coders were working on this whole RoG-port thing, so they remarked on how they've create a whole lot of new assets. So I could only assume these new assets are going to end up becoming a 2nd expansion pack for the game. 

 

And that makes a lot of sense, because I can hardly see an entire Klei studio grinding to a stand-still because they couldn't work out how to port caves to DST. They're definitely working on stuff.

 

Or perhaps I am wrong, Klei is doing nothing except porting caves to DST (sarcasm).

 

My assumption is that they are working on assets for Through the Ages, the first scheduled update to DST that will bring in new multiplayer features and other goodies, like presumably the skins that they have been showing off for the different characters.

 

I want that Samurai Wigfrid!

 

Beefalo riding is also hinted at.  Cool stuff.  : D

[Dipps]

True and I aggree. I am thankful to Klei for not just lowering the price of Dont Starve and @#$&ing all the other people that payed x2 or x3 the price. However as RationalLemming  said: "The beta version at least allows player feedback and a larger community to find bugs."

If the people that already had Dont Starve ware given access they would have an even bigger community. I really dont know what is the state of Dont Starve Together and how buggy it is but I constantly see new and new content being added so I thought it was pretty stable thats why im somewhat impatient. Please excuse me if i sounded rude or offending.

It's pretty stable coded, you can play it. But it still needs lots of balancing, it's no where near exiting Early Access right now.

[Michi01]

So I could only assume these new assets are going to end up becoming a 2nd expansion pack for the game.

Like leonseye said, these things aren't for a new DLC, they're for a free expansion called "Through the Ages" that will be released in like summer.