[2021] 7+ Years in Alpha, and NO END-GAME...

Originally posted by Ichbin: I'm seeing a lot of "7 Years and STILL in Alpha!?" comments. Everyone's right, but they're complaining that there's no content. There is... as the white knighters like to shout to the mountains. However, can we talk about the lack of an End-Game?
By now, every single other studio would have at least given an end-game goal. Content that requires all your skills, and cunning.
Still, after all these years, we just have... Hoard Night. The main story keeps getting pushed back, along with any sort of hardcore POIs (large buildings with some zombs doesnt count). What we get, instead, is pipe weapons nobody asked for.

You could argue that they needn't get ahead of themselves, and discover what the core game should be, before implementing something like that.... Well... IT'S BEEN NEARLY 8 YEARS!!!! Figure it TF out!

Well, you don't put the story in before the components of the story exist.

Also should be noted that open-world games don't really have an "end-game". "Winning the game" is only suppressed by your own imagination. I've reached end-game hundreds of times. Then I go and start a new one.

I think maybe you need to figure out how game development, and these types of games, actually work.

Originally posted by Sprocket66: It would be nice if the critic's would admit that a lot of progress has been made on the game, especially in the last 2 years. It would also be nice if the white knights/mods would admit that 8 years is a heck of a long time (enough time for a bachelor's degree and 2 masters degree's).

It would be nice is people also realised that 8 years isn't a terribly long development time when you're building something from scratch. Early Access has allowed you to be able to play it since almost day 1. Rather than not even hearing about the game until after it's already in it's 6th or 7th year of development when the company feels the beta is close enough to give a release date.

The only reason it's been 8 years is because of the following.
1. Small indie team. This started with 2 people. Now it's about 50, but that only significantly increased in the past couple of years.
2. From scratch. They aren't just copying code from the last game they made. It's not built off an already developed platform with assets pulled from previous work. A lot of the changes you're seeing in the past few builds are them replacing things purchased from the Unity store with their own design.
3. Complexity. No other game is trying to do as much as this one is from the standpoint of the core engine. Not a single AAA studio would. They would rather toss something together with code borrowed from an earlier release and just make bank.

Just because you want it to be finished, doesn't mean it is finished.