Description of the matter
Well time to address the elephant in the room. Sorry it took me so long. Do not take it as excuse - but I really had no means to come with this sooner.
Also TL;DR gang - sorry but this will be a long read. Not because I can't stop myself from writing essays, but because I think we owe you something this big. A proper, detailed, official and true - explanation.
The characters count of this text is tightly connected to the magnitude of respect I want to show you. I believe - anything shorter could be consider disrespectful.
No, no one been lazy, no one was waiting for the bad things to go away, no hiding head in the sand. Quite the opposite.
More description of the matter
For past 4 days my entire day consisted of reading reviews, commenting reviews, asking reviews, gathering data, talking to people via social media, talking via Steam Messenger, patrolling steam forums, collecting feedback.
Both the polite and civil and the other... more nasty one. Everything I could find had be noted, archived,organised - and shared with the rest of our team. The results finally came in and... Well.
The statement
We're sorry.
Please, take mine and our apology, for the disappointment you might experienced, upon purchasing our game and playing.
I leave it up to you to judge the good intentions of my words but:
We wanted only the best :(
No one ever wanted to mislead anybody. There was no grand scheme, no conspiracy. For past 8 months - we gave the game everything we had. All our skills, all our knowledge and all our experience.
We've hit that 'Publish' button - positively sure that the state is the best we could do, with our limited resources, small crew, short production duration and quintillion unexpected and critical odds that occurred (and which I cannot disclose without getting myself into trouble).
Behind the scenes
We had a closed group of 26(28) beta-testers who had been playing our game before the release. And by the end of January of 2019 - the entire group had put stamps of acceptance on the game - and so...
...Ultra Off-Road, went live.
Then all hell broke loss.
And then, the usual.
At first there's anger - due to lack of understanding.
Then negotiations - as the results are confusing and unbelievable.
Then acceptance - and moving on, and getting back to work.
I've went over each and every review, every forum topic, ever post, every message, every email - every everything. Noted it all down, broke down into bullet points and its all being worked on and soon - will be implemented. Not all at once obviously. But be prepared for a rapid chain of patches and updates.
For today - all I have are words. But words will be quickly followed by actions.
We are getting rid of things you dislike, adding things you request, polishing what you deemed insufficient.
The Promise
If you haven't bought the game already - by all means, please wait with your purchase and let us prove you - that we aren't just words.
If you bought the game, dislike it and consider refunds - please give us some additional time. Of course in realm of reason, because no - I am not trying to manipulate you into going over your refund period limit.
We demand nothing, we accept our failures and we are on our way to make it up to you. Regardless will you give us a chance for redemption or not.
Our goal was always to make a game the people would enjoy and have fun and that - had never changed. What changed is our definition of what brings you joy and entertainment.
So let me say that again.
We're sorry.
(oh and we fired that testers)