From what we've seen so far, do you feel you're going to stay with PoE1 or move to PoE2?

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

i dunno, i dont rly care, im not even gonna play poe2 when it goes into EA most likely

I respect that.

The concern would be the state of the EA, not that there is one.

My cynical side would say that PoE2 isn't close to ready, and they simply dreaded announcing another delay. So instead they give us an EA, with an indefinite timeline.

If that's true and EA drags on for a year or longer, that's a disaster. Plus seeing PoE2 in a poor state (if that is what happens with EA) hurts the overall marketability of the game.

The Occam's Razor conclusion being that the reason it isn't shown, is that it isn't ready. The other explanations don't jive with the reality of the situation. That's not great news overall.

I will see for myself in November.

Another thing that hasn't been discussed much is the fact that GGG literally can't win when it comes to advertising to current players.

1) If they show a fast endgame, players will criticize it for being a copy of PoE 1 and all the existing problems

2) If they show a slower endgame, people like those in this thread claim they won't even give it a chance. Despite the fact that PoE was comparably "slow" for a good half of its existence

3) If they show ANYTHING that is then changed, we end up in D3-land. Anyone remember the trailers shown for THAT game? They didn't remotely resemble the game by the time of full release.

There is no win...apart from showing the bare minimum.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

If that's true and EA drags on for a year or longer, that's a disaster. Plus seeing PoE2 in a poor state (if that is what happens with EA) hurts the overall marketability of the game.

Not really, people who are interested in the game or like the different approach will just wait regardless even if it ends up getting delayed on a full release.
Looking at similar games of the same genre it did not hurt D4 much to release and maintain a unfinished early access version of the game for nearly more than a year despite about 6 years of development.
The few people liking a game are going to stick with it regardless of the bumpy slow full release.
PoE2 won't be any different in that terms of retaining the players who enjoy the game and don't care too much about the playable version whether it's unfinished or whatnot.

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Pashid wrote:

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

If that's true and EA drags on for a year or longer, that's a disaster. Plus seeing PoE2 in a poor state (if that is what happens with EA) hurts the overall marketability of the game.

Not really, people who are interested in the game or like the different approach will just wait regardless even if it ends up getting delayed on a full release.
Looking at similar games of the same genre it did not hurt D4 much to release and maintain a unfinished early access version of the game for nearly more than a year despite about 6 years of development.
The few people liking a game are going to stick with it regardless of the bumpy slow full release.
PoE2 won't be any different in that terms of retaining the players who enjoy the game and don't care too much about the playable version whether it's unfinished or whatnot.

Interesting. So the EA is pointless essentially in your view?

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Interesting. So the EA is pointless essentially in your view?

Last Epoch was in Early Access for 5(?) years. It is still one of the most popualr games in the genre right now. The length of time in EA has nothing to do with the success or failure of the game.

In fact, its probably BETTER in the long run for issues to be worked out during EA before a full release.

I might turn it around on you: its the FULL RELEASE that has no meaning. The EA is an incredibly important extended development time for the game, but the actual release (especially of a f2p game) is next to meaningless. The full release might see an immediate spike in players and profit, but it will quickly fade. It is more what happens a month after release that shows the health of a game. Take D4 as an example of that. Great release, but after a few weeks everything began to fizzle.

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mefistozxz wrote:

I might turn it around on you: its the FULL RELEASE that has no meaning.

I guess if thats your opinion OK. I think we will agree to disagree on that one.

"

Take D4 as an example of that. Great release, but after a few weeks everything began to fizzle.

I don't think saying D4 has fizzled holds much weight objectively. I'm not sure what measurement you are using to come to that conclusion, D4 seems more than ok, but I guess we can also agree to disagree on that point as well.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I don't think saying D4 has fizzled holds much weight objectively. I'm not sure what measurement you are using to come to that conclusion, D4 seems more than ok, but I guess we can also agree to disagree on that point as well.

Do you not remember the drama surrounding D4 a week after its release? 2 weeks? The whole first and second league? Perhaps you weren't involved at all.

Its not an "agree to disagree" situation.....by every metric of the game, D4 went through hell just after its release for months before they finally started to fix basic issues at league 3. It was very widely publicized. Objectively it damn near fell apart before it got off the ground. Not as bad as D3, but pretty damn close.

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mefistozxz wrote:

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

I don't think saying D4 has fizzled holds much weight objectively. I'm not sure what measurement you are using to come to that conclusion, D4 seems more than ok, but I guess we can also agree to disagree on that point as well.

Do you not remember the drama surrounding D4 a week after its release? 2 weeks? The whole first and second league? Perhaps you weren't involved at all.

Its not an "agree to disagree" situation.....by every metric of the game, D4 went through hell just after its release for months before they finally started to fix basic issues at league 3. It was very widely publicized. Objectively it damn near fell apart before it got off the ground. Not as bad as D3, but pretty damn close.

No that's not what happened. What "drama"? D4 never "fell apart". In fact it did more revenue in its first 90 days than PoE has in it's entire existence, over $650 Million. What "metrics" are you talking about? It absolutely wasn't in copies sold or players playing. Sure it had it's challenges that needed improvement, but what game hasn't in GaaS format? And to further this point, D4 is now better than it's ever been. It didn't "fizzle out". Not ever. That's a fact. An edgy streamer saying "D4 Bad" isn't even remotely an objective metric.

Now if D4 isn't your cup of tea, or you don't like the game, that's fine. It's not perfect, and definitely geared towards a more casual gamer. But all of that is subjective.

But lets not D4 this thread please. This is about PoE2, EA, and the reasons why GGG has marketed & demo'd the game they way they have so far.

Edit: Million not Billion LOL

Until they reveal the last 4 classes in Path of Exile 2 I might stay with PoE, only class so far that appeals to me is Witch and that isn't enough appeal to make me jump on the bandwagon yet.

I'm hoping for a unique class, something we haven't seen in an aRPG yet.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

No that's not what happened. What "drama"? D4 never "fell apart". In fact it did more revenue in its first 90 days than PoE has in it's entire existence, over $650 Million. What "metrics" are you talking about? It absolutely wasn't in copies sold or players playing. Sure it had it's challenges that needed improvement, but what game hasn't in GaaS format? And to further this point, D4 is now better than it's ever been. It didn't "fizzle out". Not ever. That's a fact. An edgy streamer saying "D4 Bad" isn't even remotely an objective metric.

Now if D4 isn't your cup of tea, or you don't like the game, that's fine. It's not perfect, and definitely geared towards a more casual gamer. But all of that is subjective.

But lets not D4 this thread please. This is about PoE2, EA, and the reasons why GGG has marketed & demo'd the game they way they have so far.

Edit: Million not Billion LOL

You are very much wrong.....about the facts and the numbers. Most of D4's money came from pre-orders. But the first month saw an almost total collapse. The whole craziness with ratings bombs across all known rating platforms. Every major D4 streamer had videos about it. Articles such as these were everywhere:

https://www.gameleap.com/articles/diablo-4-player-count-collapses-within-first-month-of-season-1

It was no secret. It was the single most talked about topic across arpgs and magazines and videos and interviews with the D4 developers themselves. They made public apologies and everything. It was literally on fire from all sides.

It wasn't until beginning of season 2, and then truly at season 3 where the trends began to flip upward again.

D4Bad meme came from a legitimate factual place....


And D4 launch, beta, and progress is a very important data point to compare what PoE 2 might look like, much like how LE is another data point. These are all "new" games, released in the modern atmosphere, with varying degrees of success. For example: if D4 had only done in the beta what they eventually did after s1 and s2, they would have had a much healthier release. GGG most likely sees this, and will prefer a longer EA to an earlier full release so that they don't have to wrestle with months of bad publicity and player bleed. And then they can look to LE to see that no length of EA time is too long.

And then you can look at the gameplay itself: LE post-release is practically unrecognizable from its pre-release open beta. D4 is very much the same, a completely different game now than what it was for over a year. So the "videos" that people keep coming back to about PoE 2 that make them immediately write off PoE 2 is....pretty dumb. The game can and WILL change drastically through the EA prior to full release.