Why Early Access?

“Since our Kickstarter, Artizens has only had a small community of about 1500 people. It’s time that we opened the game up to everyone who missed out on that brief 30 day window, especially now that we’re on Steam and can take advantage of the amazing community and platform here.

Artizens is all about the unique characters each player makes, so the bigger the community, the more variety there will be in your teammates and party compositions. We want to hear everyone’s ideas for new crafts, mods, monsters, plants, and locations and that’s how we plan on prioritizing what we develop next.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan to finish our progression features by the end of 2015 and then move into a new stage where we’re fully released, but continuing to release new crafts, mods, monsters, and locations through free and paid expansions.”

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

“The biggest difference will be character progression in the form of missions and crafting. Our Early Access version simply gives the player all the current crafts, mods, monsters, and locations right off the bat since there’s only a handful so far. In the full version, not only will there be an expanding list of all that content, but you’ll unlock it over time by learning crafts and mods from NPCs, going on missions to hunt specific monsters, harvesting materials from plants and monsters, and then crafting your gear with those materials, crafts, and mods.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“It’s buggy and will most likely need to be restarted from time to time. There are only a few weapons and monsters, but the core Artizens fun is there. Here’s a list of what’s included in Early Access:

• Online multiplayer
  
• 10 Crafts: 6 armors, 2 weapon sets, 2 tools.
  
• 80 Mods: Ranging from health, damage, defense, and speed changes to more specific things like lifesteal, regen, and weapon-specific abilities. Each can be stacked.
  
• 7 Monsters: 4 big ones and 3 little ones
  
• 5 Plants: These grant status effects when you get near them, but will yield crafting materials in the full release.
  
• 2 Wilderness Locations: Each with 5 areas

”

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

“Yes, Early Access will be a special period where you can purchase Artizens for less than it will cost as a full release. Prices haven’t been decided since it depends a lot on what the value of our full release is.”

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

“We plan on using online polls to ask our community what new features they’re most excited about, what bugs bother them the most, and other things to prioritize what we work on next. We also plan on getting new ideas for crafts, mods, monsters, plants, and locations from the community through our forum and an open invitation to email the devs. We really will respond.

Our mission is to make the community a crucial participant in what gets put into this game. Your Artizen is about how you want to look and play, so we want to provide the features you need to make that happen.”