Steam

[Alzarath]

Since this seems to have the most up-to-date information regarding Steam, I don't think it'd be a bad idea to post here. One alternative I can think of is making Steam launch a launcher that allows you to select a build or asks if you want to update with a disclaimer.

Optimally I'd just prefer you release it into Early Access with a disclaimer saying their saves will probably break, making an announcement explaining how they can prevent that (aka disabling updates) in the Steam Discussions, and ignoring incompetent people that fail to read and understand Early Access.

[Igabod]

Ignoring the incompetent people is easy for someone who only has 20 or 30 they have to deal with on a regular basis. But with such a wide audience as Steam would provide, Tynan would have to deal with thousands of those types of people on a regular basis. It would get to the point where he would need to hire someone just to wade through all the emails to find the ones which have actual helpful critiques or bug reports. It is far better to have a dedicated community that is familiar with how the early stages work so they can provide a more comprehensive feedback system that allows him to focus on fixing issues as they come up and add in the features that the players all universally agree they want. Smaller amounts of higher quality feedback is ideal for a small development company in almost every way. The only benefit I could see for Tynan putting this on Steam so early is he could raise more funds quicker potentially to put into the game. But the risks outweigh the rewards.

[Dougalishere]

I would love to buy this game but i dont have paypal i have ideal please put this game on steam so i can buy it too

You can buy without PayPal; use Stripe instead.

I have seen a lot of posts of people not wanting to use paypal or stripe to pay and would say "Would buy straight away on steam"

  Maybe I'm missing the reason but I just want to point out that you can pay with your normal debit/credit that I assume you use for steam without having a paypal account , there is just an option after the 1st paypal page that allows you to do just that without logging into paypal. After using your details you are normally forwarded to your banks page that confirms payment. Just wanted to clear that up , would be a shame if people arn't buying the game just because they think they HAVE to have a paypal account. 

EDIT: 1st post

[voodoodad]

As the title says, this is only my second post to these forums, but I want to formally BEG you to not go with Early access on Steam. I have MANY EA games and almost 90% of the feedback you get there will be of the "Dis game suk" variety. And that's not even taking into account the huge amount of screaming you'll receive over the $30 price tag if you don't reduce it for early access. I'm frankly surprised that ANY game makes it out of early access on Steam simply due to the vast amount of screaming and crying that pours into their "feedback" forums.

My suggestion would be to use Steam as an auto-updating service (until it's ready to release) as Stonehearth.net does. In fact I learned about Rimworld through their excellent forums.

[Kagemusha]

That is a good point about Stonehearth. They are doing exactly that.
But I don't really know the details of what gets paid to Steam or how Tynan would go about doing it.

On an aside I wonder when we will start referring to Ludeon Studios instead of Tynan; Ludeon Studios would have enter some manner of contract with Steam (Valve) in order to get the game on there.

Whole heartedly and repeatedly agreed that this should not go on 'Early Access'. As an added aside just realised that EA is a rather cursed acronym at the moment.

Although Prison Architect are having a great time of it on Early Access and I think their game is doing well and their pricing scheme is in the same vain as RimWorld.

Ultimately, it is the decision of Ludeon Studios to decide when and how RimWorld makes its way to Steam.

[Haplo]

What I'm interesting in would be, how Prison Architect fares when they decide to go and officially release their game. As it already is on steam early access I think they will have a problem to generate a release hype.
I don't think they will reach a bigger audience once released then now in the early access stage. But maybe they don't want that and are happy with the income from now. I don't know. And we'll see how it goes..

[bullwinkle]

I too agree that it shouldn't go to steam early access. Souly for the amount of trolls it generates. Going on some of the forums used by early access games *cough* rust *cough*, makes me not want to play them. All it is are trolls degrading one another. I was very pleasantly surprised to come on this forums. I have yet to see a troll post of some one degraded. Lots of help on here and very friendly. Let's keep it that way.

[Kagemusha]

I too think that the Steam Early Access games that make it to full release do have a distinctly uneventful final 'release'. Prison Architect, I think, is garnering its player base during Early Access quite well since the game lends itself to being played before completion, much like RimWorld.

Games that don't do very well in Early Access are the RPG genre or anything with a story. If I see a new game come out on Steam and it says Early Access I give it a glance and if I think it has potential I throw it on my wishlist but I almost always refrain from buying Early Access; By the time the game releases I've lost interest and end up not playing the full experience.

And the forum community here is great. Also helps that the game is not the type of game that attracts said trolls and griefers.

[Igabod]

And the forum community here is great. Also helps that the game is not the type of game that attracts said trolls and griefers.

Every game attracts trolls. It's the community that allows or disallows the trolls to flourish. If the community at large just puts up with the trolls or ignores them then they will proliferate anywhere. But when you have a good community that calls out the trolls and moderators that are willing to do something about it then you get the pleasant environment that exists on this forum.

[Kagemusha]

And the forum community here is great. Also helps that the game is not the type of game that attracts said trolls and griefers.

Every game attracts trolls.

This is true. Trolls will be trolls after all.
I would agree with you that the community in general is, and the moderators are, topnotch.

[Tynan]

This is true. Trolls will be trolls after all.
I would agree with you that the community in general is, and the moderators are, topnotch.

All said and done, the community here is one of the things I'm most proud of. Even my support email requests are really nice. With near-50,000 sales I've only had a handful of people be really mean to me. Kind of amazing considering what you hear out there. I chalk it up to this being the kind of game that attracts rational interested thinkers instead of more impulsive types. The DF forums are really nice too, likely for the same reason.

[StorymasterQ]

This is true. Trolls will be trolls after all.
I would agree with you that the community in general is, and the moderators are, topnotch.

All said and done, the community here is one of the things I'm most proud of. Even my support email requests are really nice. With near-50,000 sales I've only had a handful of people be really mean to me. Kind of amazing considering what you hear out there. I chalk it up to this being the kind of game that attracts rational interested thinkers instead of more impulsive types. The DF forums are really nice too, likely for the same reason.

Yes. The secret to a great forum community is to make a game easy enough for people to play but complicated enough so that idiots won't try it.

[longbyte1]

This is true. Trolls will be trolls after all.
I would agree with you that the community in general is, and the moderators are, topnotch.

All said and done, the community here is one of the things I'm most proud of. Even my support email requests are really nice. With near-50,000 sales I've only had a handful of people be really mean to me. Kind of amazing considering what you hear out there. I chalk it up to this being the kind of game that attracts rational interested thinkers instead of more impulsive types. The DF forums are really nice too, likely for the same reason.

Yes. The secret to a great forum community is to make a game easy enough for people to play but complicated enough so that idiots won't try it.

I like to call this "increasing the signal-to-noise ratio" of the community. In my opinion, it's important to do this, because then it's easier to find more useful/relevant information rather than just "how to i paly gam??". The *nix community is a great example of a community with a high signal-to-noise ratio, since many people don't know what bash, mailing lists, or crontabs are.

[Splinterbee]

I have a question. is there a planned release date or are you waiting on steam? (or other) cause this game is great and I wouldn't know what to think if steam doesn't want it now. seriously I checked green light and they released a game on steam called GRASS SIMULATOR. your a cow who walks in a field and shoots targets.

[Psyclops]

I have a question. is there a planned release date or are you waiting on steam? (or other) cause this game is great and I wouldn't know what to think if steam doesn't want it now. seriously I checked green light and they released a game on steam called GRASS SIMULATOR. your a cow who walks in a field and shoots targets.

If you take a look at the block of text below you will find your answer.

Steam provides no good automatic way to allow playing on older versions. Since our updates consistently break save compatibility (because they're usually large changes to the structure of the game and/or adding and removing game objects), this would mean your saves would just break and you'd have no way to prevent it or go back and finish them.

It's not necessarily the best system for a game in this stage of development.

So there's that, plus I want the game to be good and ready quality-wise for the larger Steam audience. There's no date on Steam release. Though we are looking at making an auto-updater that would take the pain out of updating manually, and handle the ability to play older versions with your older saves if you wish.

All you have to do is read a little down the first page at the developers comments to find the answers to basic stuff. Not complaining per-se, just do a little research before asking redundant questions.