[2020] When is 9.0 coming? I'd love to get started playing Eco.

No reason for a full quote, partly quote without support issue at the end.

As has been repeated countless times, we simply have not set a release date yet and are not going to do any more estimates as long as we're being nailed down on them being a announced release date despite stating that they are not. This just causes even more unhappiness, the type that actually affects us as well. We're not happy with the situation either, but we see good progress in our playtests.

We've chosen to rework big parts of backend to fix mistakes that have been made in earlier development. This was required to actually improve performance and it is also required to move over to a monthly release cycle for future updates. We didn't have much choice. If we were to release 9.0 in smaller parts there wouldn't have been chances to fix performance at all as the underlying changes break stuff massively. You'd not be any happier than waiting.

Additionally, we are a small team. And that small team works on multiple features in parallel. It's not one feature after the other which we could simply release each time, it's mostly several features at the same time, one being ready a bit earlier, the other a bit later. For future updates we're planning to use a monthly system with one month with a single new major feature and the other month polishing and maybe some minor features. Big major features probably will still be rather twice a year, simply because most of these features require more time and are worked on in parallel.

In the end you have every right to criticize us, but we're already addressing that by exactly what we are doing right now. Unfortunately there is no magical option to release everything in no time. If i could press that button, i'd press it as hard as i can.

Quote posted from stankiem in removed post:

Originally posted by SLG-Dennis: We didn't promise anything. There never has been any release date announced. Stating otherwise is plain wrong. We announce our release dates about a week before they happen. All information that was given was rough estimates based on planning at that time and plans have changed several times as has been communicated in nearly every single livestream.

Even John himself has communicated on his behalf on the comments that we had the choice of either releasing with no performance improvements or getting the backend ready for notable performance improvements and monthly release cycles in the future, in exchange requiring much more time for the Update. We've chosen the latter. Either way we'd have people complain, which is very fine, as mistakes HAVE BEEN MADE (No reason to not say that) in the past we'll need to live with, but we do not need to live with people stating simply wrong information for the sake of provocation. We didn't move the release date a single time as none was ever announced nor was Eco 9.0 ever "due". Not to mention that both the other statements Ali made were wrong as well, i'm not happy with keeping fake news. A three digit number of people are already playing 9.0 and everyone had the chance to do so as well, we've invited on Discord.

We're no longer announcing any estimates at all due to exactly that. As long as people do not want to understand what the term estimate in the industry means, it makes no sense to tell any but rather to go forth with the Blizzard way of doing things - It's done when it's done. In the meanwhile you can read what's coming up on our blogs. Anything else will just cause more issues. Release date will be announced when we have set one.

Also, we are quite sure that our decision is the one you'll like more in the end and as a regular release schedule was one of the things people wished for most.

Originally posted by Munchkin Peyote Dorito: Will 9.0 also implement some network changes?

Not that i'm aware of, there hasn't been any network related issues for a long time. All the connection timed out errors popping up here are actually broken local saves (hence the error message will say something different in 9.0) or issues with the local network we have no influence on.

And in regards to the OP:
We generally never recommend to play on after a major update. It's still early access and we may have breaking changes at any time, but we keep them limited to major updates. No matter that, you can always go on playing with your old world by changing the branch to the older version (we keep them for one major version) or by playing it in the new version, but you will definately miss out on new mechanics and features and some stuff might not work as expected.

That's nothing untypical, though.