Grim Dawn - Early Backers Get Steam Keys

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Crate Entertainment announces they have sent out Early Access keys to all Grim Dawn early backers as a Christmas present.

All Early / KS Backers now have Steam Keys!

The winter holiday seasons are upon us here in North America and today most of our studio is celebrating Christmas. I'm not personally religious, so to me it is more of a cultural tradition but, in the spirit of giving, I thought this would be a good occasion to extend access to all early backers a little bit ahead of what we have previous announced. Everyone who contributed to development at any level should now find a Steam key on their Humble Store page. Please note that you need to claim a new steam key, not the longer Grim Dawn installation key that was already sent to everyone (the longer key you already have is for installation without Steam once the game is finished for those who choose to do that).

If you don't remember how to retrieve your key, enter whatever email you used to purchase the game into this key re-sender:

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/keyresender

Additional instructions can be found here in the alpha release announcement if you have trouble activating your key on Steam:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7158

Also, again, sorry to anyone who has felt frustrated waiting to play the game. Our development delays have pushed back all our anticipated release / access dates and we've tried to do our best in balancing the pace of access between people who paid for different priced tiers / early levels of access while getting everyone playing within a reasonable time.

Also, B16 is in the final stages of testing and will probably be released in early January with a couple new quests and some big environment art updates.

Act 2 should follow later in January or February.
happy2.gif


So, happy holidays, to those observing them and to everyone enjoy the game! We look forward to hearing your feedback.

On that note, I better get back to dinner with my family before I get in trouble!

- The Crate Team
More information.
 
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Isn't this game like way way overdo? Grim Dawn was like one of the first KS projects I can remember and they already had a finished engine at the start. What is taking this game so long to get to market? They don't even have the 2nd chapter done......
 
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Thanks, azarhal. I wish I could give cop-outs like this to my company and get away with it. The bottom line in the real world, is that if you want to eat, you work, no matter what. With KS, excuses seem to be acceptable. This is another reason the KS phenomena is dying and less are being funded. You get a group that consistently miss deadlines and people stop trusting their word.
 
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In fairness, KS requiring a release date is completely idiotic as it's impossible to know what will go wrong before getting into it, not to mention stretch goals requiring time frame adjustments.

I used to be self employed doing appliance installations and when I gave a customer a time frame, it was nothing more than a guess. It's impossible to know the condition of job sites before getting there. Just because a dishwasher can usually be installed in 45 minutes doesn't mean that will be the case today. You give your best estimate, usually with a bit of added time for safety, but if a site is SNAFU, things are getting pushed back. The more times that occurs the bigger the push back.

I would much rather have a quality product delivered late than a FUBAR project on time.
 
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Ture, greywolf00. It still doesn't stop human nature from kicking in, however. These are just games, but I'm much more likely to back someone who actually makes their deadlines rather than someone who misses them by a country mile. These devs who are missing their release dates by months and months will likely never have another successful kickstarter unless the game is absolutely awesome. So far, there hasn't been an "awesome" game, at least in the few crpgs to be released. I'm sure that there are successes in the lesser genres. Crpgs are much harder to make than tetris :)
 
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Software is a nightmare to make estimate for (I'm a software programmer). Every week my manager ask me how long something is going to take to fix, design or code and the answer is always "my best guess if nothing goes wrong and I don't get pulled by anything away from the job".

2 weeks estimates can turns into two months easily.
 
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A perfect example for your point, GW, is Realms of Arkania. It got released before it was ready, and I have doubts about how well it will ultimately do because of this. I'm also not sure if the market would have been there at all though, if it was delayed the year or so that it has taken the devs to get the game in decent shape. It is a catch-22 situation.

I would not back the SRR team, nor BoD, or Legends of Dawn in another kickstarter. I "might" purchase their game however.
 
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I missed the memo where kickstarter projects are dying?
 
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I can't argue it's a lot easier to trust a developer who holds to a schedule and delivers a quality product than one who doesn't. But, the ultimate quality of the game can easily erase some or most of the disappointment with delays as in the end, we want the game to be the best it can be.

I completely agree there have been several KS projects that have fell short on both expectations and schedule which is unfortunate but will also continue to happen (even AAA titles do this). I can absolutely understand not backing future projects when the prior one failed to meet expectations, though I would hope a second project would be improved thanks to experience with tools & team, reusable assets, community feedback, and sales revenue.

The quality is the biggest driving factor for me about willingness to back another project. For me this is where SRR falls, I thought it was in the decent/good zone and if they had another KS up today, I'd consider it (Berlin will go a long way to finalizing that opinion one way or another).

I was really looking forward to Legends of Dawn, didn't back it thankfully, but the feedback at initial release was so bad I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, nor would I be inspired to back their next attempt.
 
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Legends of the dawn is decent, now...wasn't great at release...but I had that feeling when I backed it...long shot. Not many croation games I can think of.
 
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Dates are missed everywhere in the world, in every company in the world.

That it happens to people doing Kickstarter is not exactly a shock.

In a couple of years, we'll know the true potential of crowdfunding - and in an ideal world it will help visionaries and artists get their work to the people who want it, and people who're in the industry as just another job can always stick with the publisher model.

It should also make it much easier for me to place my support and feel good about it, as I've never felt comfortable buying something from companies like EA.

Personally, I've only backed a single crowdfunded game - and I'm still sceptical about the potential of the model. Well, not the potential - but the reality of it. I don't like seeing ambitious games being limited by unrealistic deadlines and I don't like the concept of stretch goals. I just don't see how it's possible to prepare for significant infrastructure changes before you have any idea if they're going to happen - and without the means to make them happen.

I don't think the model is ideal - and I think there's room for improvement. But, if we're lucky - enough of the people using it are realistic and talented enough to make it all worthwhile. I do have high hopes it can be a big step away from the corrupt business approach and towards true art - but I don't dare think too much about it yet.
 
I think at this time next year we will know a lot more about the potential of kickstarter. There's just a lot of games estimated to come out next year. And one of the biggest, Broken Age, will be available on January 14th(only half the game but still)
 
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