Social Sandbox MMO Pax Dei Launches Into Early Access As Steam Reviews Are Mixed | MMORPG.com

System · June 18

Social Sandbox MMO Pax Dei Launches Into Early Access As Steam Reviews Are Mixed | MMORPG.com

Pax Dei has launched into early access today, and while the developers have attempted to keep player expectations in check, that hasn't stopped players from leaving less than stellar Steam reviews.

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Angrakhan · June 18

Launch day woes are always fun. I hope the developers didn't have some crazy idea like they'd get any sleep over the next 72 hours.

Tiller · June 18

Is it a social sandbox or a game?

Wargfoot · June 18

Angrakhan said:

Launch day woes are always fun. I hope the developers didn't have some crazy idea like they'd get any sleep over the next 72 hours.

I've seen nothing in game development that would cause me to want to work in that field.

Sovrath · June 18

Tiller said:

Is it a social sandbox or a game?

I think they are trying to differentiate themselves from theme park games.

mitech616 · June 18

The reviews aren't exactly mixed. They're mostly bad. The "game" is barely able to be called that. It plays like a tech demo or proof of concept project. It's hard to believe they thought this was acceptable to release, even in "early access".

It's got a lot of technical issues, (rubberbanding, poor optimization, etc.) But worse than that, it's just uninspired and boring.

Asm0deus · June 18

mitech616 said:

The reviews aren't exactly mixed. They're mostly bad. The "game" is barely able to be called that. It plays like a tech demo or proof of concept project. It's hard to believe they thought this was acceptable to release, even in "early access".

It's got a lot of technical issues, (rubberbanding, poor optimization, etc.) But worse than that, it's just uninspired and boring.

HA just wait if they go with the monetization they are planning and this is going to flop hard.

Sovrath · June 19

mitech616 said:

The reviews aren't exactly mixed. They're mostly bad. The "game" is barely able to be called that. It plays like a tech demo or proof of concept project. It's hard to believe they thought this was acceptable to release, even in "early access".

It's got a lot of technical issues, (rubberbanding, poor optimization, etc.) But worse than that, it's just uninspired and boring.

I'm curious, what else would you want in the game?

At the moment you can build so "good." Has crafting though I don't know how much is in the game.

If it has ruins or caves one can explore then GREAT! If not, I hope that's added.

No quests = good.

So far it's pretty much what i thought it would be based of the 15 minutes I screwed around in it a bit ago.

mitech616 · June 19

Sovrath said:

mitech616 said:

The reviews aren't exactly mixed. They're mostly bad. The "game" is barely able to be called that. It plays like a tech demo or proof of concept project. It's hard to believe they thought this was acceptable to release, even in "early access".

It's got a lot of technical issues, (rubberbanding, poor optimization, etc.) But worse than that, it's just uninspired and boring.

I'm curious, what else would you want in the game?

At the moment you can build so "good." Has crafting though I don't know how much is in the game.

If it has ruins or caves one can explore then GREAT! If not, I hope that's added.

No quests = good.

So far it's pretty much what i thought it would be based of the 15 minutes I screwed around in it a bit ago.

Don't think there are ruins and caves.

There are VERY FEW different mobs in the game.

Anything beyond a single small base causes technical issues. Wait until people build full bases. It'll probably be worse than early ARK.

It feels rather like Life Is Feudal. No quests (not the worst thing), nothing to do, no objectives, nothing to strive for.

It's like they bought a bunch of basic UE5 packs and decided to call it a "game".

Sovrath · June 19

mitech616 said:

Sovrath said:

mitech616 said:

The reviews aren't exactly mixed. They're mostly bad. The "game" is barely able to be called that. It plays like a tech demo or proof of concept project. It's hard to believe they thought this was acceptable to release, even in "early access".

It's got a lot of technical issues, (rubberbanding, poor optimization, etc.) But worse than that, it's just uninspired and boring.

I'm curious, what else would you want in the game?

At the moment you can build so "good." Has crafting though I don't know how much is in the game.

If it has ruins or caves one can explore then GREAT! If not, I hope that's added.

No quests = good.

So far it's pretty much what i thought it would be based of the 15 minutes I screwed around in it a bit ago.

Don't think there are ruins and caves.

There are VERY FEW different mobs in the game.

Anything beyond a single small base causes technical issues. Wait until people build full bases. It'll probably be worse than early ARK.

It feels rather like Life Is Feudal. No quests (not the worst thing), nothing to do, no objectives, nothing to strive for.

It's like they bought a bunch of basic UE5 packs and decided to call it a "game".

Well, obviously they need more mobs. I can't abide a game where I'm fighting boar and deer. Then again, I accidentally blundered into several boar, started fighting and had to run for my life.

I'm going to keep building and see where I can get to if anywhere. If it had ruins, temples, some actual monsters and then a pvp area where people could raid each other's keeps then that could work.

Obviously there needs to be an economy.

Slapshot1188 · June 19

Yes there are caves and ruins and dungeons.

We aren’t talking 5 hour dungeon crawls… but they exist.

There are even named mobs in them

Sovrath · June 19

Slapshot1188 said:

Yes there are caves and ruins and dungeons.

We aren’t talking 5 hour dungeon crawls… but they exist.

There are even named mobs in them

Awesome! Thanks!

Raagnarz · June 19

They're getting what they deserve I'm afraid. They had a lot of good will after their tests, then decided to go the cash grab route. I'm glad they're getting trashed for it.

DigDuggy · June 19

I'm looking forward to trying. Just can't afford it atm.

rtbbvr · June 19

So my early verdict, even as a fan and hopeful of this genre... wait. A lot of the criticism around Early Access and when to put a game out there for that is very valid in this games case. The devs say they want player feedback and help shaping the road forward and that's why the EA launch is so early, but they themselves have developed so so so little in the game, and what is there is just kind of, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but it doesnt show off any creativity or vision of the developers themselves. Someone else here said uninspired, and I think that is a good way of looking at it.

They are putting this out there way too early. They say they are looking for help with shaping the future of the game, but them putting it out there this soon can only mean one of two things after what I have experienced in the game so far

- They don't know how to make the game and want the players to decide (you can decide if that is good or bad)

- They need the money now, and given the very low quality and creativity and reliance on purchased assets, one can't help but to feel distrust that they will continue the project one funding from the EA sale launch dries up

Kyleran · June 19

Go with the second one, they need the money now, they could have sold EA for much less than they did if all they were looking for was player feedback on the game's development.

Heck, there's no shortage of players willing to give feedback for free, so charging prices more akin to finished games shows that are struggling now so there's a good chance this one closes down one day in the not too distant future.

Angrakhan · June 19

If their goal was raising funds they may have miscalculated because now they have additional overhead from the servers they need to keep running 24x7. I'm going to guess they're cloud hosting as opposed to self hosting just due to their team size. They don't strike me as a studio with a dedicated dev ops department. While cloud hosting gets somewhat around the need for staff it is by no means cheap. "Less expensive" is better terminology. I say this because I see folks on these forums that have the idea that cloud hosting is pennies on the dollar. I promise AWS and Azure are in business to make money. I want to say the company I work for spends about a quarter million a month on Azure, for example. Granted we're a decent sized shop and have lots of revenue coming in to offset that, but it's by no stretch cheap. Anyway if their goal was basically a round of fundraising then I agree this is a make or break moment for them, and if you go read the Steam reviews you see the 'product refunded' label pretty often. I'd say it doesn't look good for them.

ShinyFlygon · June 19

Every newbie dev studio needs to watch this drama unfold and take notes.

It is a colossally stupid idea to use Early Access to raise money when your game is still in an early alpha stage. You will never recover from the massive blow to your reputation. Even if you eventually get the game into a decent state (many years later), it will be far, far too late. No one will ever take your game seriously, and you'll never get enough players to pay your bills.

Worse than that, your credibility as a studio is now shot to hell. Your next project (if there is one) will be met with extreme skepticism and dismissed out of hand by anyone who remembers your first project.

Krallerich · June 19

If you look closely to many of the bad reviews they barely even played 30 minutes. So those "reviews" are worth exactly nothing. Some even complain that you have problems to play solo even though they stated clearly everywhere that the game is ment to be played in a clan or group. Still you can do a lot of things solo. There are hard dungeons which require a group. Yes the beginning was rough though they did work all day and night to get it going again and they were succesfull.

I like the game so far. Of course there has to come more and there is coming a lot. Many system are still yet to be placed and worked on. That why it is an alpha. Many people, also here, think an EA is a fully fleshed out game. But that isn't necessarey the case. EA doesn't mean anything else than you can play it currently. It is an alpha and they communicated that everywhere. Though still there are reviews complaining about bugs.. no shit? An alpha with bugs? Wow.

Scot · June 19

It may well shape up nicely but after all that rough and unready, is it just me or would anyone with any sense go and play something that is nicely polished now? Maybe it's some sort of masochism or do they see themselves as martyrs?

Sovrath · June 19

Raagnarz said:

They're getting what they deserve I'm afraid. They had a lot of good will after their tests, then decided to go the cash grab route. I'm glad they're getting trashed for it.

I'll disagree. They've been very clear on what the game was. They allowed people to get into the game before all of this.

This is just a version of crowd funding.

If they did a kickstarter and allowed access to the kickstarter would that be a cash grab?

Theocritus · June 19

"If you look closely to many of the bad reviews they barely even played 30 minutes. So those "reviews" are worth exactly nothing."

Not necessarily...First impressions are pretty important...Also on Steam you have a 2 hour window to make your decision whether to refund or not....If the game is that bad, then people are going to refund....Why play 2 more hours and not refund when you have already decided the game is bad?

Sovrath · June 19

Theocritus said:

"If you look closely to many of the bad reviews they barely even played 30 minutes. So those "reviews" are worth exactly nothing."

Not necessarily...First impressions are pretty important...Also on Steam you have a 2 hour window to make your decision whether to refund or not....If the game is that bad, then people are going to refund....Why play 2 more hours and not refund when you have already decided the game is bad?

Oh come on, people do that all the time. You're correct, it's bonkers. But how many times have you seen someone come to rant on a forum and they say they have 90 hours in any particular game.

Some people be daft.

Wargfoot · June 19

Sovrath said:

Some people be daft.

I mentioned this before, and I'll say it again, that I'm starting to think early access is a really bad idea long term.

So many players wave away early access warnings, such that if the game isn't largely complete it isn't long before the term "money grab" is thrown around or "bugfest" and then you end up with steam review in the toilet because 95% of the players judge it as a completed project.

I'm shocked at how many people in FO left in disgust because of the PvP - even though the game advertised itself that way. It attracted the wrong people somehow.

I'm starting to think that before access to a game is given there needs to be some mandatory reading and a quiz that a user has to pass to continue, or fail and get an automatic refund.

"This game is a PvP game, do you know what that means?"

"Again, in this game someone might murder your character and take your stuff, are you sure you're okay with that?"

"If it would offend you to die to another player, please click the REFUND button now."

"Here is what early access means: bug filled, feature incomplete, mess - DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

And then when a person goes and leaves a steam review like "THIS GAME IS INCOMPLETE AND ANOTHER PLAYER KILLLED ME" the person can then be banned from the internet.

Slapshot1188 · June 19

Sovrath said:

Raagnarz said:

They're getting what they deserve I'm afraid. They had a lot of good will after their tests, then decided to go the cash grab route. I'm glad they're getting trashed for it.

I'll disagree. They've been very clear on what the game was. They allowed people to get into the game before all of this.

This is just a version of crowd funding.

If they did a kickstarter and allowed access to the kickstarter would that be a cash grab?

I agree. If they hadn’t had a few free tests and tons of streamers then I’d feel differently. But just like Star Citizen’s Free Fly event… if people have a free opportunity to see the game prior to buying it, then it’s on them.

The game is nearly identical to what we played in the tests.

Do I think they still need more GAME in their game? Absolutely. But what released is exactly what we were shown. Warts and all.

Sovrath · June 19

Wargfoot said:

"This game is a PvP game, do you know what that means?"

"Again, in this game someone might murder your character and take your stuff, are you sure you're okay with that?"

"If it would offend you to die to another player, please click the REFUND button now."
"Here is what early access means: bug filled, feature incomplete, mess - DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

And then when a person goes and leaves a steam review like "THIS GAME IS INCOMPLETE AND ANOTHER PLAYER KILLLED ME" the person can then be banned from the internet.

People are either not paying attention or think they can deal with it or change the developers' minds.

As far as this game goes, the big draw, at the moment, is the size of the world. In my opinion "this" is how a game world should be.

I'll be curious to see if they can put enough in it that will entice players to stay in that world.

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV