Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge your mistakes and share your plans moving forward.

Is there any plan to lower the price based on significant feedback/complaints across Steam, Reddit, and other platforms? If not, I think customers would appreciate hearing a price justification as to why Ancient Forge feels it’s appropriate. What does it offer that makes it worthwhile? What benchmarking did you do against your (much more affordable) competitors, how long will the finished game be, etc.?

Originally posted by kimmiosullivan:

Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge your mistakes and share your plans moving forward.

Is there any plan to lower the price based on significant feedback/complaints across Steam, Reddit, and other platforms? If not, I think customers would appreciate hearing a price justification as to why Ancient Forge feels it’s appropriate. What does it offer that makes it worthwhile? What benchmarking did you do against your (much more affordable) competitors, how long will the finished game be, etc.?

I also want to know this too as in their Early Access FAQ thing on the Steam page they actually state they are going to increase the price further the closer to full release the game gets. I was looking forward to this game but $35 straight out of the gate (not even a launch discount) is a little bit of a slap to the face. Other indie games, like Abiotic Factor for example (Who just dropped their 1.0 update and is now fully released) only JUST changed their price to $35 after actively developing the game for a good while.

Originally posted by kimmiosullivan:

Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge your mistakes and share your plans moving forward.

Is there any plan to lower the price based on significant feedback/complaints across Steam, Reddit, and other platforms? If not, I think customers would appreciate hearing a price justification as to why Ancient Forge feels it’s appropriate. What does it offer that makes it worthwhile? What benchmarking did you do against your (much more affordable) competitors, how long will the finished game be, etc.?

The price is the result of many factors: the size of the team, the time spent on development, the components of the game such as its length and content, and even its uniqueness. Given how high we've set the bar in terms of the game's originality, art detailing, and our commitment to using no AI-generated content, the price felt appropriate to those who approved it. If you take a look at the planned content roadmap, you will see how extensive this game will be in final scope.

We don’t plan to lower it, as this is the valuation of the final product. But I can also confirm that it won’t be raised either. This is the final price, and I can officially confirm there are no plans to increase it after the 1.0 release. And I take full responsibility for these words.

Originally posted by Apricot:

Originally posted by kimmiosullivan:

Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge your mistakes and share your plans moving forward.

Is there any plan to lower the price based on significant feedback/complaints across Steam, Reddit, and other platforms? If not, I think customers would appreciate hearing a price justification as to why Ancient Forge feels it’s appropriate. What does it offer that makes it worthwhile? What benchmarking did you do against your (much more affordable) competitors, how long will the finished game be, etc.?

The price is the result of many factors: the size of the team, the time spent on development, the components of the game such as its length and content, and even its uniqueness. Given how high we've set the bar in terms of the game's originality, art detailing, and our commitment to using no AI-generated content, the price felt appropriate to those who approved it. If you take a look at the planned content roadmap, you will see how extensive this game will be in final scope.

We don’t plan to lower it, as this is the valuation of the final product. But I can also confirm that it won’t be raised either. This is the final price, and I can officially confirm there are no plans to increase it after the 1.0 release. And I take full responsibility for these words.

You may want to change the wording on your Early Access FAQ/Q&A on the Steam Store page as it currently states this:

“Although we have nothing set in stone yet, it is likely that the price will increase once we draw closer to the end of the Early Access period.”

This is giving the impression to those who read it that despite the high price out of the gate, the game will be increasing its price further down the road which can leave a bad taste in people's mouths.

Originally posted by Apricot:

Originally posted by kimmiosullivan:

Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge your mistakes and share your plans moving forward.

Is there any plan to lower the price based on significant feedback/complaints across Steam, Reddit, and other platforms? If not, I think customers would appreciate hearing a price justification as to why Ancient Forge feels it’s appropriate. What does it offer that makes it worthwhile? What benchmarking did you do against your (much more affordable) competitors, how long will the finished game be, etc.?

The price is the result of many factors: the size of the team, the time spent on development, the components of the game such as its length and content, and even its uniqueness. Given how high we've set the bar in terms of the game's originality, art detailing, and our commitment to using no AI-generated content, the price felt appropriate to those who approved it. If you take a look at the planned content roadmap, you will see how extensive this game will be in final scope.

We don’t plan to lower it, as this is the valuation of the final product. But I can also confirm that it won’t be raised either. This is the final price, and I can officially confirm there are no plans to increase it after the 1.0 release. And I take full responsibility for these words.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I take two issues with your response:
1. You didn’t answer one of my questions. How long do you expect this game to be upon full release?

2. If Early Access buyers are going to pay the same price that others will upon full release, why would anyone bother to buy the game now when it’s riddled with bugs and essentially unplayable?

EA games are typically offered at a discounted rate to incentivise people to back the game now even though it will have known issues. If the price won’t go up with 1.0, much of your audience will wait to see if this even makes it to a full release. Your studio is hurting itself, and any chances at success, at every turn.

I would like to advise (taking into account the bug fixing roadmap) to release a bug fix every few hours, even if it's a small thing, but people see what is being fixed, for example, fix the saves. It's just that with the current rate of decline in positive player reviews (40%) and the rate of release of fixes, the game may even have to be closed. And I didn't want to do that, it's not even about the money I lost, but about the fact that I liked the atmosphere and gameplay of the game, but I can't play it at all.

Dunno if is on your plan to fix as well a problem I am having and if now one reported it so far is that I have Spen with the icon to deposit something from the backpack but he never does it and now its not doing anything, just stading there on the storage room without putting anything away

Originally posted by Asparagus:

I would like to advise (taking into account the bug fixing roadmap) to release a bug fix every few hours, even if it's a small thing, but people see what is being fixed, for example, fix the saves. It's just that with the current rate of decline in positive player reviews (40%) and the rate of release of fixes, the game may even have to be closed. And I didn't want to do that, it's not even about the money I lost, but about the fact that I liked the atmosphere and gameplay of the game, but I can't play it at all.

We will be releasing fixes as frequently as possible (ideally one every day), but we also want to make sure that the new patch will not break even more things. But we won't keep you waiting long.

As soon as programmers are ready with a new fix that is fully working, we will launch it.

Originally posted by kimmiosullivan:

Originally posted by Apricot:

The price is the result of many factors: the size of the team, the time spent on development, the components of the game such as its length and content, and even its uniqueness. Given how high we've set the bar in terms of the game's originality, art detailing, and our commitment to using no AI-generated content, the price felt appropriate to those who approved it. If you take a look at the planned content roadmap, you will see how extensive this game will be in final scope.

We don’t plan to lower it, as this is the valuation of the final product. But I can also confirm that it won’t be raised either. This is the final price, and I can officially confirm there are no plans to increase it after the 1.0 release. And I take full responsibility for these words.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I take two issues with your response:
1. You didn’t answer one of my questions. How long do you expect this game to be upon full release?

2. If Early Access buyers are going to pay the same price that others will upon full release, why would anyone bother to buy the game now when it’s riddled with bugs and essentially unplayable?

EA games are typically offered at a discounted rate to incentivise people to back the game now even though it will have known issues. If the price won’t go up with 1.0, much of your audience will wait to see if this even makes it to a full release. Your studio is hurting itself, and any chances at success, at every turn.

OK, let's answer them all.
1. You didn’t answer one of my questions. How long do you expect this game to be upon full release? - Because I don't know, and I don't want to mislead anyone. We have the roadmap and the goal, but at this moment, without all of these features, I cannot estimate how long the game will be in its final shape

2. If Early Access buyers are going to pay the same price that others will upon full release, why would anyone bother to buy the game now when it’s riddled with bugs and essentially unplayable? - Some people like to be involved in the process and share their feedback. This is the point of early access and crowdfunding, and other "preview" activities. To continue doing something with the influence of the community.

As for the sale, it was a decision made by decisive units. This is one of the challenges we have to face now, on top of the bad reviews and players' disappointment - our trust was broken too - and we have to fix this game on many levels (also our internal issues).

On your week 1 update it mentions endless loading screens and crashes. Does this mean the game will be able to load save files? I was able to play the game fine minus the issue on dining where that pington checked out before getting his meal which really messed up my game but when I went back on and had to load a save, I've not been able to get access to the game. Thankfully the freezing has stopped on my end but its still a loading issue. Also not sure if this was just me but I missed the entire opening scene. The one in space. I had one line of dialogue in english with subtitle then I immediately lost subtitles and the english dialogue changed to I want to say japanese and I couldn't understand a word of it the whole time. Yet everything went back to english after that.

Originally posted by Dusk:

On your week 1 update it mentions endless loading screens and crashes. Does this mean the game will be able to load save files? I was able to play the game fine minus the issue on dining where that pington checked out before getting his meal which really messed up my game but when I went back on and had to load a save, I've not been able to get access to the game. Thankfully the freezing has stopped on my end but its still a loading issue. Also not sure if this was just me but I missed the entire opening scene. The one in space. I had one line of dialogue in english with subtitle then I immediately lost subtitles and the english dialogue changed to I want to say japanese and I couldn't understand a word of it the whole time. Yet everything went back to english after that.

Yes, save files SHOULD work, if you have issues with your loading still and you stuck on loading screen, we are currently working on that and looking for some save files. Feel free to send them to support@ancientforgestudio.com if you want to help us with that! :)

Originally posted by Apricot:

Originally posted by Dusk:

On your week 1 update it mentions endless loading screens and crashes. Does this mean the game will be able to load save files? I was able to play the game fine minus the issue on dining where that pington checked out before getting his meal which really messed up my game but when I went back on and had to load a save, I've not been able to get access to the game. Thankfully the freezing has stopped on my end but its still a loading issue. Also not sure if this was just me but I missed the entire opening scene. The one in space. I had one line of dialogue in english with subtitle then I immediately lost subtitles and the english dialogue changed to I want to say japanese and I couldn't understand a word of it the whole time. Yet everything went back to english after that.

Yes, save files SHOULD work, if you have issues with your loading still and you stuck on loading screen, we are currently working on that and looking for some save files. Feel free to send them to support@ancientforgestudio.com if you want to help us with that! :)

Already sent mine over earlier. Hope it helps!

Originally posted by Dusk:

Originally posted by Apricot:

Yes, save files SHOULD work, if you have issues with your loading still and you stuck on loading screen, we are currently working on that and looking for some save files. Feel free to send them to support@ancientforgestudio.com if you want to help us with that! :)

Already sent mine over earlier. Hope it helps!

For sure! Thanks a lot <3