Why Early Access?

“We would like to invite players, to work together, and make Kingdom Wars2: Battles into a strategy game masterpiece.

Now that Kingdom Wars II: Battles has a solid foundation in place, and the game is already a lot of fun and stable; We think that the time is right to get the Steam community involved. Over the following months, we will work together, and your combined player feedback will determine what the team works on, and what features we add.

Our team will do everything in our power to open up the development and commit to weekly updates. We plan to talk with our players directly in-game, and read and reply to almost every forum suggestion and reports. Players will be asked to vote on features proposed by other players, and our team will do our best to add most desired ideas, and features in-game.
Please keep in mind, that KW2B is a work in progress. And while we did our best to eradicate most bugs prior to Early Access launch, it is far from perfect. In addition - as we are adding new player requested features we expect new bugs, and issue to arise.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Our goal is to release KW2B once our players feel that the game is ready. After the first phase of early access is complete, and we have added all the content and features that are already planned, we`ll have a better idea of where we stand. Depending on how many features players would want to see added during second EA phase, and the scope of new player requests content - we are expecting to release between mid to late 2015 release.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Depending on the player feedback, and the number of features community would like us to add, we are expecting the game to undergo a lot of changes, and see a lot of new features over the coming months. The full version will contain all the updates, features, and content, polished to ensure greatest possible experience. Early access allows us to release a masterpiece, instead of a rushed beta-start release.

We plan to continue regular updates even after release, with fresh content and additional features requested by the community.

In addition, as the game features an Episodic singleplayer game, our team will continue working on new chapters in the singleplayer campaign, adding an hour or two to the storyline every couple of weeks, during Early Access, and after release. With new Episode featuring hours of gameplay, released every few months.

Another major project is striving to achieve perfect balancing and gameplay for competitive multiplayer part of the game. We want to get this right, as good as top competitive strategy games, with veteran and new players alike being happy with competitive multiplayer experience.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“KW2B Early Access is fully playable, with the entire foundation and a large number of features in place. In addition, we already had our community alpha test the game, with a lot of bugs fixed, and game running well and stable. However, while multiplayer is mostly feature complete, we only have a third of the singleplayer campaign finished, and some cool features like Player Crafting Trading, Ranking, Guilds, and accessing singleplayer without internet connection are still being worked on. As of now, the following features are available:

• Full multiplayer skirmish, with three games modes, both rated and unrated
  
• Three fully playable races with all buildings, units, and techs complete
  
• Nearly 150 items to craft, including craftable playing card
  
• Long term Playing Cards and Tech unlock progression
  
• First chapters of the singleplayer campaign
  
• Singleplayer build and attack practice mode, with passive AI

Many new features are still to come, and with community support the game world and features will greatly expand. Also many current features are subject to change based on player feedback.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Our plan is to scale the price as we get closer to the release, and more content is available. We want players to feel that they are paying the appropriate price for the amount of gameplay content KW2B provides. And having a lower price tag at the first phase of Early Access, also rewards our first players and contributors.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Player feedback will play a major role in the development of KW2B. With our past games, we have always taken our time to read all player feedback and consider each proposal and suggestion. With our community team and developers, available in-game, via email, and extremely active in the forums.

Our plan is to work directly with our community, with almost a third of our development time going towards interaction with our players. To elaborate:

You will get a chance to fight with and against our developers and community managers in PvP while discussing your ideas, and suggestions with us.

Every forum post will be read, and the majority replied to, with all your feedback carefully considered.

Every couple of weeks, we`ll have a voting pool on features proposed by other players, where community deciding if they like other players ideas, and what our team will be working on

Development will be open and transparent - with weekly reports to show who in the team is working on what projects, what cost and timeframe is allocated to a certain project, as well as countless other details to unveil the work that goes into game development.

We will encourage and assist players who want to take a more active role, and take part in content design. If you have basic art or level design skill - you could make a new unit or a building, or perhaps a skirmish level that we`ll polish up and add in-game. We are hoping to allow content creators to use Steam Workshop down the road. Meanwhile Early Access features our level editor.”