Why Early Access?

“The development of this game is a one-man operation. To avoid scaring anybody off, I've successfully completed and shipped games before, so there is zero-risk of me leaving this game in an incomplete state (barring unforeseen circumstances, of course).

The release of my previous games taught me an important lesson. Namely, that no matter how much I test and tweak the game prior to release, there are always going to be bugs, balance issues, and new features/content that I simply cannot predict. Furthermore, attempting to overhaul a fully-released game constrains my ability to introduce sweeping changes, for fear of breaking savegames and ruining progress. So rather than upsettting or misleading people, I might as well release early and openly declare my intention to continue working on and adding to the game for the foreseeable future.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“I'm aiming for no more than about 3-6 months, but I don't want to commit to a hard deadline because, as mentioned above, it's almost impossible to predict how comprehensive bug-fixing and feature requests will be. With my luck, it will be twice as long. To assuage any fears, I've continued fixing and balancing my previous games for more than a year after full release, up to and including porting the entire game over to a new engine simply because there were a lot of Mac and Linux users who wanted to play the game, but weren't able to. Despite whatever one might think of the graphics or audio in my games, I am very proud of my work and outright refuse to abandon them in broken or incomplete states.”

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

“There are a lot of features planned that aren't in the game yet, because I figure it's sensible to make sure the core gameplay is fun and balanced before adding a bunch of new content that ends up being broken and needing fixing anyways.

As a bare minimum:

• The tutorials will be improved. How and where they are improved is up to you guys and the feedback I receive with regard to user-friendliness, etc.
  
• UI quality of life improvements.
  
• A system for loading user-edited language packs in the game.
  
• Steam Achievements

I will also be adding different maps based on different theatres of the Great War:

• Meuse-Argonne: This map will introduce forest warfare and river crossings.
  
• Middle East: This map will focus on controlling water wells that are dotted around the map rather than breaking through the enemy line.
  
• Italian Front: This one will almost certainly be among the last of the major features I introduce due to the massive amount of work it will require, but since underground warfare is already in the game I'm hoping that I can introduce multi-level underground/mountain warfare, as well as "unit cohesion" to reflect the multi-cultural makeup of both the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies.
  
• Anything else you might suggest!

”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The core gameplay is, to the best of my knowledge, playable and stable. As of Early Access release, the main/default map is playable with AI, and all planned gameplay elements are available to be broken by you guys. My main goal is to ensure that the AI and gameplay for the main map is solid before adding more content, but at the very least the game won't be crashing and taking your computer with it.”

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

“The planned price for Early Access is $10 USD, and I might bump it up to about $15 if I end up adding a lot of new content to the game. I don't generally pay more than about $15 for games myself, so I can't in good conscience ask any more from you guys.”

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

“The game forums are a good place to suggest features and report bugs, and if anything urgent comes up, feel free to add me on Steam and yell at me via Friend Chat. I'm open to suggestions, and my previous track record should suffice to prove that I'm willing to listen to anything. I've literally had people email me their save games so I could fix them manually when the situation called for it. As mentioned above, I am very proud of my work, and it kills me when people are left feeling disappointed or misled. I'm a fan of Great War history myself, so it's my intention to make a game that fills this void for myself and other WW1 nerds out there.”