Stevivor flew to Sydney recently to attend a Master of Orion Producer Tour that was once touted as a Launch Party. No big deal, right? We sat down with Jacob Beucler, Global Publishing Producer at Wargaming to discuss the future of the game, from continued early access into a full retail release.
“We are singularly focused with laying the foundation of Master of Orion. We don’t make fear-based decisions. It’s not what got us here, and it’s not what will carry us through into the future,” Beucler said, referring to the decision to keep Master of Orion in early access for now.
“There’s a sense of urgency that’s very real; you can’t develop forever. We’re not talking about a release date because the game isn’t ready,” he continued, matter-of-factly. “We looked at the feedback for the EA3 [third early access] build and went, ‘whoops. That went the wrong direction; let’s course correct.’”
To Beucler, honouring the classic IP that is Master of Orion is incredibly important. So too is pleasing fans of the 4X – exploit, exterminate, expand and explore — genre.
“What matters most is happy players. You’d have to be pretty arrogant to bring an IP back, put it on Steam and then be like, ‘nailed it,” he said with a laugh. “Considering the pedigree of Wargaming, we know the value of beta. Of alpha. We know that this didn’t fit within the free-to-play model, but we still wanted to encourage early adopters to give feedback.
“Early Access can go really wrong. There are a lot fewer examples of it going right. We made a very conscious decision to try and change the way the industry and the community reacted. We went super transparent. With EA1 [the first early access build], we said, ‘here it is. It runs, it doesn’t crash. It doesn’t have all the races or features, but if you want to jump in, have at it.’”
Beucler was able to provide a very clear example of community feedback that was implemented within the upcoming Master of Orion retail build.
“Race traits and the difference between the traits is an example of what we’ve been told and taken to heart,” he said, referring to changes already made in-game. “In EA1 [the first early access build], I think each race had three or four traits and they all blended together. There wasn’t much difference. That was pointed feedback; now, each race has five or six traits and they mean a lot now.”
Conversely, he was able to identify a suggestion that didn’t make the cut.
“One that we couldn’t do was the polarising element of to be turn-based real time or real-time in tactical battles,” he explained. “We tried that, and they were really brutal. And they took forever. And they didn’t fit within the vision of where we were going with this product. If it was a five cents a turn business model, I would have totally done that, holy cow, but come on.”
I asked whether or not Wargaming and WG Labs ever considered the free-to-play model that Beucler referred to a couple times during our discussion.
“No, we didn’t,” he said, flat out.
“It came up. Of course it came up; it’s Wargaming, why would it not come up? It’s what we do,” he said with another laugh. “Shoot, we threw everything against the wall, and what we landed on was a pretty solid strategy for early access; to engage early adopters and to deliver on the promises that we wanted to stand up for. That’s where we’re at.”
So for now, it’s early access and not a hint of a release date.
“We’re not going to rush it,” he stressed. “We’re not going to compromise the IP. Nobody remembers how late your game was; they only remember if it was good or not.”
You can try out Master of Orion in early access now on both Steam and GOG.
Stevivor flew to Sydney and attended a Master of Orion event courtesy Wargaming.
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