A mere day before launching Nevergrind Online on Steam, I was planning to do a regular release. I figured that the game was in pretty good shape. The core systems were in place. And I knew that the multiplayer netcode was working great. Deep inside the command center at Neverworks Games, we were in a heated discussion about whether it should be an Early Access release or not. Initially, I was not convinced, but Trench laid out the case for Early Access, and I began to see the strategic value therein.
Just hours before its planned release, I was dealing with some last-minute bugs, which started to stress me out a little bit. And then I started thinking about the long-term plans that I already have for the game. I want to add talent trees, make the level cap 99, add nightmare and hell difficulties, exceptional and elite item tiers, and crafting systems. So why not make that the ultimate 1.0 release—the completed game!? And as much as I would like to pretend that this game is bug-free, that is only a meme. This game is far too complicated to be bug-free! It's online multiplayer with real-time combat! Dozens of complex systems all integrated together! Surely there are bugs waiting to be found, but I would like its full release to be as bug free as possible.
That's the beauty of Early Access! It helps small developers like Neverworks Games roll out a complex game along with the inherent understanding that we are still building toward Valhalla. One of my commanding general suggested that this game probably could have been in Early Access six months ago, and maybe he was right.
So far it seems to have been the right decision. We attempted to release on 6/9 @ 4:20, as the meme Gods demanded, but when I tried to start the release, I discovered that Steamworks was down! 😒 I couldn't believe it! Surely this was a sign that Activision and/or Amazon were attempting to thwart my claims to RPG market share. This unseemly outage delayed the release by 25 minutes. We resigned ourselves to release at approximately 4:45 p.m. EST.
Despite the chaotic conditions adding stress to an already stressful situation, we managed to have a successful first day! Back in the Neverworks command center, I boldly prognosticated that we would sell 150 copies. I tried to stay conservative with my estimate. I know that Steam is full of amazing games and our marketing budget is tight. As of right now, we have sold many more than that in the first nine hours! I saw as many as 66 concurrent players on at once, an all-time record for any game that we've ever produced! And we achieved one of our key goals to have at least 10 steam reviews as quickly as possible. At this time, we have 15 reviews and they're all positive! We are incredibly grateful for that!
That said, we are aware of some freezing issues and we are looking to resolve it as quickly as possible! See in you Vandamor!