PC 7DTD - Will it ever leave Early Access?

3) They have additional projects planned and desire the good will that accompanies a strong reputation.
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Indeed. In my eyes TFP has earned a strong reputation already. If their next project is a genre that interests me in the least, I'm there! (Alien planet / derelict spaceship survival??) :)

Despite the fact that I'd love to see faster development, I'm in no rush to see 7d2d "finished".

-Morloc

 
There are actually somewhat legitimate reasons why someone might want a speedy release:

1) If that someone has low tolerance for bugs he might wish for beta polishing to happen. Seriously, he should never buy EA games.

2) If he has problems with the performance he might hope for beta optimizations. Sometimes it is because he is playing on a machine with not enough RAM or a machine so old it creates a bottleneck somewhere. Sometimes it is because he is playing the game outside of limits (for example number of players), sometimes it is really because of missing optimizations (electricity, lots of recipes)

3) If he is a PvP player again he might hope for beta or after-release patches or DLCs to remove some exploits.

I'm not in any of these groups. I'm quite astonished that I have to adlib possible reasons to the "enemy camp" because they don't seem to find any reason themselves except for "I don't have the patience to wait"

 
In my eyes TFP has earned a strong reputation already.
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They certainly did, 7 Days seems to be the most recognized survival game there is at the moment and it's not even completed. Many players know who The MadMole is now haha. Just wait until the game is done and they announce a sequel.

 
There are actually somewhat legitimate reasons why someone might want a speedy release:
1) If that someone has low tolerance for bugs he might wish for beta polishing to happen. Seriously, he should never buy EA games.

2) If he has problems with the performance he might hope for beta optimizations. Sometimes it is because he is playing on a machine with not enough RAM or a machine so old it creates a bottleneck somewhere. Sometimes it is because he is playing the game outside of limits (for example number of players), sometimes it is really because of missing optimizations (electricity, lots of recipes)

3) If he is a PvP player again he might hope for beta or after-release patches or DLCs to remove some exploits.

I'm not in any of these groups. I'm quite astonished that I have to adlib possible reasons to the "enemy camp" because they don't seem to find any reason themselves except for "I don't have the patience to wait"
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So... I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would complain if the game was somehow released complete today with everything they have planned in and working well. But that can't happen because TFP's "magic wands" don't function that way. Besides, not all of them have wands and some may not even function at all.

If that can't happen that way then why in hell release early? It won't be bug free if they did - #1 is moot. The performance won't be good - #2 is moot. PvP won't be complete nor any more functional than it is right now - #3 is moot. There are plenty of reasons to wish for things to be done faster but there is no practical reason for wanting it released before those things are done.

 
Ohh as a strong supporter of the "Its done when its done, let you all time you need" faction.

I accept meganoths listed reasons. Even if PVP fails at the aim of the game the reasons would count for me.

But to say that clear (even if i offend some people saying this)

Less Bug tolerance, weak hardware, and PVP are nothing i care about, and in MY opinion this reasons are far to weak to reason a change from "Its done when its done " to

"Release it Buggy" or "Release it with less Features"

 
Many of you missed the point of this topic. I didn't say the game isn't fun, I said it's being run by underachievers who push content slower than any company I've ever heard of. I started referring to this game last year as 7 Years of Alpha, and it's starting to look like that meme is going to become truth.

 
So... I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would complain if the game was somehow released complete today with everything they have planned in and working well. But that can't happen because TFP's "magic wands" don't function that way. Besides, not all of them have wands and some may not even function at all.
If that can't happen that way then why in hell release early? It won't be bug free if they did - #1 is moot. The performance won't be good - #2 is moot. PvP won't be complete nor any more functional than it is right now - #3 is moot. There are plenty of reasons to wish for things to be done faster but there is no practical reason for wanting it released before those things are done.
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I don't think the complainers want that. I think they complain that TFP worked on the wrong things on A17 (like the internal buff system rework).

That that is shortsighted and would eventually lead to underwhelming and constrained DLC's and mods is not something a programming-illiterate can forsee.The whole "we reworked the skill system" which has anyone else hum "Ode to joy" is just a "fiddling with the controls" to them, similar to what a modder would do.

They can't see the implications, the game is mostly a black box for them.

 
And the best response to one of those posts that I can manage is to say nothing.

Beats the alternative. ;)

 
Many of you missed the point of this topic. I didn't say the game isn't fun, I said it's being run by underachievers who push content slower than any company I've ever heard of. I started referring to this game last year as 7 Years of Alpha, and it's starting to look like that meme is going to become truth.
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Possibly. But it is their artistic vision that counts and makes 7D2D what it is. If the team were much different the game might be out already but it would be a different game, maybe one with dinos and PvP :cocksure: .

That's the rub, you can accept all or nothing. There is no deal with 7D2D in it but a faster team. "Cliff Bezinski's 7D2D" would be very different, "Peter Molyneux's 7D2D" would be different, and EA's "Battlefield to die" would have lootboxes. Take your pick.

PS: To prove your point you should be able to list at least 2 games with the "size" of 7D2D done with a team of similar size from scratch with a seldom used tech like voxels that was faster.

You might be right, but what if you are not the games development insider who really knows it but just someone who compares apple with oranges because he doesn't know better?

I talk a lot about things I only know half about (I studied computer science but I'm not a games developer), but I don't see how I can really rate TFPs performance. There are so many variables in the equation that I just can't honestly compare. I only know for sure that you don't ever see the time AAA developers work on their games, you only see the tip of the iceberg.

 
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How is it done from scratch if they didn't even build their own engine? :D
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"from scratch" is supposed to mean it isn't a follow up, a "something 2". After Battlefield 7 is out it isn't too difficult to produce Battlefield 8 in just 1 or 2 years, especially if half the team can already work on 8 before 7 comes out. Tricks of the trade.

 
I said it's being run by underachievers....
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Your problem is that it's hard to be credible about underachievement when you criticize people for successfully making millions of dollars creating a highly popular project that you only use for leisure and escapism....

 
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"from scratch" is supposed to mean it isn't a follow up, a "something 2". After Battlefield 7 is out it isn't too difficult to produce Battlefield 8 in just 1 or 2 years, especially if half the team can already work on 8 before 7 comes out. Tricks of the trade.
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So what you're saying is if I bake a cake from a box that someone else already put together, it's okay to say it's from scratch as long as it's my first cake?

 
Your problem is that it's hard to be credible about underachievement when you criticize people for successfully making millions of dollars creating a highly popular project that you only use for leisure and escapism....
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Ouch

Funny, though. :p

 
Many of you missed the point of this topic. I didn't say the game isn't fun, I said it's being run by underachievers who push content slower than any company I've ever heard of. I started referring to this game last year as 7 Years of Alpha, and it's starting to look like that meme is going to become truth.
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So this has nothing to do with releasing the game only with having faster updates? Okay.

 
Your problem is that it's hard to be credible about underachievement when you criticize people for successfully making millions of dollars creating a highly popular project that you only use for leisure and escapism....
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Is that a zinger? Not a slam as its to subtle, not enough exclamation marks for a slam.

I'm sticking with zinger that's almost a slam... a Slinger.

 
So what you're saying is if I bake a cake from a box that someone else already put together, it's okay to say it's from scratch as long as it's my first cake?
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No, I meant I was using the word in that sense. Fact is that in computer/games development there is a high percentage of reuse between similar projects, unlike with the cake bussiness. A company with at least one game out already has a lot of tools and code and routines ready for their next game. A company that starts out begins at point zero (zero being not really Zero Kelvin but Zero Celcius or Fahrenheit if you catch my drift).

Today it is common practice to use an existing 3D engine and also there are a lot of ready-to-use open-source or bought libraries you can use for sound, I/O ... and nobody really starts with nothing. But on the other hand customer expectations have risen also. So the overall work to get a game of this size out might still not be that different from 10 years ago. EDIT: From 20 years ago. It already is 20 years ago that it was common to create an original graphics engine for a game.

Just as an example: inXile bought the dialog system from obsidian (used for Pillars of Eternity) to be faster in development of their games Torment and Wasteland 3.

(EDIT: Mixed up quest with dialog system)

Because TFP didn't have a quest system ready for use they programmed a simple prototype quest system a long time ago that was used until now . And they now upgraded this quest system in A17 to be much more usefull. If they ever produce "7 Days to die 2" or even "7 Days in Space 1", they can reuse this code, maybe tweak it some more, but this is saved time. They don't need to programm a quest system from scratch.

 
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