What did the developers promise us 12 years ago?

Do people know? Do expectations match the reality? Here are the claims and statements from the original Kickstarter campaign. What parts of our current game do you believe fit the promises and which don't?

An open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games.

7 Days to Die is an open world, voxel-based, sandbox game that is a unique mash up of First Person Shooter, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games combining combat, crafting, looting, mining, exploration, and character growth.

In the near future where the a third world war leaves the Earth in ruins but the worst was yet to come. Nobody knows for sure if it was the radiation, the biochemical weapons or an act of god but an unknown virus soon transforms the surviving humans into an army of the animated dead, acting as a single-minded being.

You play a survivor trapped in the savage zombie infested world of Navezgane County Arizona one of the last true Eden’s on Earth. Ironically Navezgane means “Killer of Monsters” to the Apache who have inhabited the land for centuries, and that’s pretty much what you’ll do as you fight to survive and search for the truth behind what really happened.

The World - Explore a beautiful, hand crafted, voxel world with a multitude of biomes including: wastelands, forests, snowy mountains, pine forests, plains, deserts, burn forests and radiation zones.

Points of Interest - Discover hundreds of great Points of Interests ranging from caves, campsites to cities and skyscrapers. Each and every building can be explored inside and out.

Dynamic Story Generation - The story unfolds through our “Dynamic Story Generation System” which guides the player to other survivors, better loot and undiscovered Points of Interests through story note quests.

Basic Survival - Scavenge the world for food and water maintaining and boosting health, food, stamina and hydration levels. Grow and harvest a variety of crops and hunt, track or domesticate a multitude of wildlife to live off the land.

Day and Night Game Play - Spend the day looting, mining, crafting and building up your forts defenses as light slows down and weakens the zombies. Hold up somewhere safe at night as the lunar cycle speeds up and strengthens the zombies.

Looting, Mining and Crafting - Loot and mine a multitude of items and ingredients to create hundreds of items including melee weapons, guns, traps, generators, motorized tools, motion detectors, landmines, auto-turrets, salves, potions and more using our 5x5 grid Crafting System.

Relentless and Special Enemies - Enemies will claw, jump, climb and break their way through the world in order to get to you. They can see, smell and hear the player and can work in a group. And watch out for the unique special infected enemies like the Acid Puking Hulk whose acidic vomit can melt blocks.

Block Physics and Stability - Our Physics System simulates real-time structural integrity, durability and mass. Blocks don’t float in the air nor can you build an unsound unsupported structure. Build it right or watch it come crumbling down. Weak blocks can even fall from the weight of the player or zombies.

Item Quality and Food & Water Purity - Every item in the game has a quality level and degrades with use and combine items to create better items. All Food and water items have a purity level the higher the purity level. The higher the health and stamina benefits. Improve crafting to make better items. Improve cooking to make purer food and water.

Stealth and Distraction System - Crouch and sneak your way past enemies or throw objects to distract them. Find or craft sight, sound or smell deterrents and attractor recipes and items to exploit the sight, hearing or smell of the zombies to throw them off track.

XP and Skill Trees - Earn XP and upgrade your skills to become the ultimate Bruiser, Gun Nut, Gadget Man, Chemist or Stealth Agent. Upgrade your melee skill learning to craft better melee weapons and swing them harder & faster and even learn special finishing moves.

Solo, Cooperative and Multiplayer - Play solo, coop or multiplayer in our unique Zombie Nomad Mode be a human, a bandit or a zombie for a no rules experience. Watch the leader boards and fight to be the Big Clan of the Wasteland or the Duke of Navezgane.

Creative User Tools - Build your own worlds and play them with friends using the Creative Mode Tools featuring hundreds of block shapes, prefabs and random generation tools. Create dedicated servers with your own unique game rules and settings.

From the Stretch Goals:

1) Hire part-time artists and programmers to join full time to accelerate feature development
2) Expand the existing world with more locations
3) More items and weapons
4) More special infected enemies with more abilities
5) Skill tree and experience system enhanced further
6) Additional player characters
7) Seasonal weather effects implemented
8) Temperature Based Survival Effects
9) Oculus Rift Support
10) Enhanced professional soundtrack
11) More Wild animals! Mountain Lions, Coyotes, Cats and Dogs Living Together, Mass Hysteria!
12) Animals can turn into zombies too. (Zombie Bears)
13) Character Customization Tools
14) Interchangeable Clothing System
15) Expanded Story/Mission Programming
16) NPC Characters and Merchants
17) NPC Controlled Safe Houses Added
18( Professional Voice Actors Hired to Record Lines
19) Multi-Player Mode Expanded with new Features
20) Random World Generator Expanded
21) World Building Tools Expanded
22) Major World Terrain Enhancement
23) Cubic Landscape become Smooth Terrain
24) World remains fully destructable and buildable
25) Drivable and customizable Vehicles Added
26) New Additional NPC Characters to Discover
27) Expanded Story Missions

My opinion: The game has most of the features listed above. Taking into account the roadmap as well, the game will have almost every feature listed above. There are some like play as a zombie and domesticate animals that don't seem to be on the radar and might no longer be planned which is a shame if true. The precise methods of player progression, interchangeable clothing, skill trees and perks, vehicle customization, and temperature based survival effects, as well as others were never explained in detail which may have left more to the imagination of wishful thinkers than the developers actually planned to do. Some say that the current game is nothing at all like the developers promised and nothing like the original direction but as I read down the list and think about what the game has I have to say that it is shaping up to be something that mostly does fulfill the original promise and seems to be going in the direction described by the original kickstarter.

What do you think?

Originally posted by Mardoin69: I feel like once 2.0 drops, the goals are met... according to this ...^... info (Original Post.) Except that they did go onto claim Bandits would be part of the game. IMO, 2.0 + Bandits + Storyline finishing... and the game IS complete... at which point it would just need final bug fixes and optimizations.

2.0 will bring us closer. 3.0 will add bandits and 4.0 will add story and workshop support. Then they will call it finished. They'll put a skeleton crew on it for 2-3 more years to continue bug fixing and add small updates with occasional new content but TFP will shift its focus and most of its employees to its next game.

Their next game, btw, won't be crowd funded via Kickstarter but probably will use the Early Access program. It will be interesting to see how many people buy into that already knowing how long this game spent in that program. I think, despite the hate often posted here about this game's early access experience, that most people are going to jump on. Later this year we will get to see what happens with Illogika's Bloodmoons Early Access-- whether it will rise or sink. I'm completely split on that one seeing that it could so easily go either way. But if it does succeed then that bodes well for TFP's next game as well.