What changed
0 fixes1 addition0 changes0 removals
addedWe could probably stop the patchnotes right there. It feels surreal to be finally getting ready to push that button to leave Early Access on Steam. I believe we will go down in the record books as the game in Early Access the longest, and absolutely the one that had the biggest evolution and active development in that phase. Update number 266, build 73025 was pushed this morning. During these almost 6 years, the definition of Early Access has changed. When we started, it was the only way to do an open beta as F2P was just becoming a thing way back then. And while the game has changed, we have not wiped player data, and only very rarely had any downtime. We have put a lot of effort into operating the game as if it were fully released--because it was fully released. So why stay in Early Access? As Carbon's first game as a studio, and our first shot at F2P, we had no idea what we were doing. We know a lot more now, not sure how much of it is useful, but we immediately saw how tricky it is to find a good spot where a F2P game can survive. When we started out, the goal was simply to make a good game, and we figure the money stuff will just work out. But designing from a traditional point of view was not a great fit for F2P. The goal evolved into "make the best game you can AND try to earn enough to pay the dev team to keep working on AirMech". We found this incredibly difficult, and in fact found the most success in partnerships to help continue to move AirMech forward. Working with Ubisoft to create AirMech Arena for consoles, then working with Oculus and Valve to bring AirMech Command to VR. Working on these projects was our way to bring resources back to the core AirMech game. The addition of the Warzone map series to AirMech was a significant investment and a new approach to what the game would offer. More PvE content, to see how that would be liked. Feedback was very positive actually, but it further reduced the PvP player pool. We gained new players, but lost old players, and while the player population was stable we found the revenue was significantly reduced. We spent a ton of money making a lot of new content for the game which ended up killing revenue for the game. Oops. This was the inflection point. AirMech either gets "released" at that moment, and probably never touched by us again (because we can't afford to based on what it was making), or we double down and go back to AirMech's PvP roots--in a way, AirMech 2.0. This is AirMech Strike. We gutted lobbies, groups, stripped out progression based power, every aspect was inspected and considered if it was interfering with fair and balanced PvP in any way--and removed if so. All the things that were "removed" of course became quite a large collection of things--enough to make a game out of. The 7 Warzone maps would become the foundation of AirMech Wastelands, which is over 40 and counting, as it is still in the middle of development. Just like Strike was no longer held back by PvE, Wastelands was no longer held back by PvP, which meant we were free to go full RPG with everything becoming about leveling up and getting sweet loot. Parts are "balanced" in the same way they would be in any loot based RPG,
AirMech changes
addedWe could probably stop the patchnotes right there. It feels surreal to be finally getting ready to push that button to leave Early Access on Steam. I believe we will go down in the record books as the game in Early Access the longest, and absolutely the one that had the biggest evolution and active development in that phase. Update number 266, build 73025 was pushed this morning. During these almost 6 years, the definition of Early Access has changed. When we started, it was the only way to do an open beta as F2P was just becoming a thing way back then. And while the game has changed, we have not wiped player data, and only very rarely had any downtime. We have put a lot of effort into operating the game as if it were fully released--because it was fully released. So why stay in Early Access? As Carbon's first game as a studio, and our first shot at F2P, we had no idea what we were doing. We know a lot more now, not sure how much of it is useful, but we immediately saw how tricky it is to find a good spot where a F2P game can survive. When we started out, the goal was simply to make a good game, and we figure the money stuff will just work out. But designing from a traditional point of view was not a great fit for F2P. The goal evolved into "make the best game you can AND try to earn enough to pay the dev team to keep working on AirMech". We found this incredibly difficult, and in fact found the most success in partnerships to help continue to move AirMech forward. Working with Ubisoft to create AirMech Arena for consoles, then working with Oculus and Valve to bring AirMech Command to VR. Working on these projects was our way to bring resources back to the core AirMech game. The addition of the Warzone map series to AirMech was a significant investment and a new approach to what the game would offer. More PvE content, to see how that would be liked. Feedback was very positive actually, but it further reduced the PvP player pool. We gained new players, but lost old players, and while the player population was stable we found the revenue was significantly reduced. We spent a ton of money making a lot of new content for the game which ended up killing revenue for the game. Oops. This was the inflection point. AirMech either gets "released" at that moment, and probably never touched by us again (because we can't afford to based on what it was making), or we double down and go back to AirMech's PvP roots--in a way, AirMech 2.0. This is AirMech Strike. We gutted lobbies, groups, stripped out progression based power, every aspect was inspected and considered if it was interfering with fair and balanced PvP in any way--and removed if so. All the things that were "removed" of course became quite a large collection of things--enough to make a game out of. The 7 Warzone maps would become the foundation of AirMech Wastelands, which is over 40 and counting, as it is still in the middle of development. Just like Strike was no longer held back by PvE, Wastelands was no longer held back by PvP, which meant we were free to go full RPG with everything becoming about leveling up and getting sweet loot. Parts are "balanced" in the same way they would be in any loot based RPG,
We could probably stop the patchnotes right there. It feels surreal to be finally getting ready to push that button to leave Early Access on Steam. I believe we will go down in the record books as the game in Early Access the longest, and absolutely the one that had the biggest evolution and active development in that phase. Update number 266, build 73025 was pushed this morning. During these almost 6 years, the definition of Early Access has changed. When we started, it was the only way to do an open beta as F2P was just becoming a thing way back then. And while the game has changed, we have not wiped player data, and only very rarely had any downtime. We have put a lot of effort into operating the game as if it were fully released--because it was fully released. So why stay in Early Access? As Carbon's first game as a studio, and our first shot at F2P, we had no idea what we were doing. We know a lot more now, not sure how much of it is useful, but we immediately saw how tricky it is to find a good spot where a F2P game can survive. When we started out, the goal was simply to make a good game, and we figure the money stuff will just work out. But designing from a traditional point of view was not a great fit for F2P. The goal evolved into "make the best game you can AND try to earn enough to pay the dev team to keep working on AirMech". We found this incredibly difficult, and in fact found the most success in partnerships to help continue to move AirMech forward. Working with Ubisoft to create AirMech Arena for consoles, then working with Oculus and Valve to bring AirMech Command to VR. Working on these projects was our way to bring resources back to the core AirMech game. The addition of the Warzone map series to AirMech was a significant investment and a new approach to what the game would offer. More PvE content, to see how that would be liked. Feedback was very positive actually, but it further reduced the PvP player pool. We gained new players, but lost old players, and while the player population was stable we found the revenue was significantly reduced. We spent a ton of money making a lot of new content for the game which ended up killing revenue for the game. Oops. This was the inflection point. AirMech either gets "released" at that moment, and probably never touched by us again (because we can't afford to based on what it was making), or we double down and go back to AirMech's PvP roots--in a way, AirMech 2.0. This is AirMech Strike. We gutted lobbies, groups, stripped out progression based power, every aspect was inspected and considered if it was interfering with fair and balanced PvP in any way--and removed if so. All the things that were "removed" of course became quite a large collection of things--enough to make a game out of. The 7 Warzone maps would become the foundation of AirMech Wastelands, which is over 40 and counting, as it is still in the middle of development. Just like Strike was no longer held back by PvE, Wastelands was no longer held back by PvP, which meant we were free to go full RPG with everything becoming about leveling up and getting sweet loot. Parts are "balanced" in the same way they would be in any loot based RPG,
