Releasing the game early might be a fatal mistake

I hate being the doomsday guy, but I've seen this way too many times already and don't want it happening with a game I enjoy. There's plenty of examples on what not to do.

We are already almost at the middle of the year, and the launch date is supposed to be either late this year or at most start of next year based on what was said before. As much as I trust GGG's team, there's absolutely no way I will believe the game will be ready to be deployed in 2 patches from now before official launch (assuming we keep getting a major patch every 3 months).

If the game was launched without an EA, people might have played what we have now and accepted the game was in development.

But expectations are different now.

You might not get many players after a major patch, but the official launch will surely bring back many players that left, and will also bring many new players. However, what they expect is a perfectly polished game and nothing less.

The market is not the same as it was in the past, especially for f2p games.

There's no need to be a marketing genius to understand what will happen if the expectations are not met, we've had too many examples in the game industry to count, and with bigger titles. Those titles are now all dead and buried or barely surviving, and they will never rise to true success no matter how good they eventually get.


Core issues would have to be solved in 2 major patches.

Performance. How smooth does the game have to be to be a top contender in 2025/2026? Smooth enough that you would never hear anyone with a good computer complaining they had fps issues, save some fringe cases. This is so far from reality right now for poe2 that even if you tell me there's a dedicated team working 24/7 on the issue, I would still not believe can be fixed until launch.

Network. No need to say anything else, right? People in many places can barely play, and it will surely get way worse with launch when you can expect being your biggest player peak.

Core design philosophy. The memes that came from this are annoying, but they have their truth. Right now poe2 is a mix of both poe2's design philosophy and poe1 dopamine rush. Stuff like Breach and Delirium are the best example, they're mechanics that came from poe1 and feel completely out of place in a game that is (supposedly) trying to be harder. Fixing this whole issue might need a complete rebalance from the ground up, but based on 0.2's backlash, God knows if GGG will ever try anything remotely close again or we will keep this half baked "not entirely this and not entirely that" gameplay forever.

Bots. Nothing has been done about them, and with a f2p model coming... Well.

Trade. It doesn't matter what excuses or arguments are given to this one, the system is archaic. It doesn't belong in 2025.


There's so much more that can be written about core issues, so many complaints that need to be addressed besides those core issues.

I sincerely wish GGG doesn't rush anything, and if needed, push the launch by another year. Don't treat the launch like a major patch, it has to be significant enough for those who come back to not want to leave, because there's only one chance.

Five months in and no swords, yet, Exile? =0[.]o=

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iHiems#0168 wrote:

The market is not the same as it was in the past, especially for f2p games.

Pretty much this.
GGG got away with a lot simply because you can't really complain about a F2P game, it is what it is.

This however, we paid for.

Ignoring all the buggy mess, and horrendous decision making / direction; The game has been pretty much unplayable for a month now, performance wise.
It's unacceptable.

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iHiems#0168 wrote:

We are already almost at the middle of the year, and the launch date is supposed to be either late this year or at most start of next year based on what was said before.

Said by whom, when, in what context?

Their answer to "How long will EA last" is "as long as needed."

I've never seen any official announcement of a planned release date.

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

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iHiems#0168 wrote:

We are already almost at the middle of the year, and the launch date is supposed to be either late this year or at most start of next year based on what was said before.

Said by whom, when, in what context?

Their answer to "How long will EA last" is "as long as needed."

I've never seen any official announcement of a planned release date.

Target 1.0 was June 2025, but yes, GGG did say "as long as needed". Given the current state of the game I wouldn't expect 1.0 until 2028.

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

"

iHiems#0168 wrote:

We are already almost at the middle of the year, and the launch date is supposed to be either late this year or at most start of next year based on what was said before.

Said by whom, when, in what context?

Their answer to "How long will EA last" is "as long as needed."

I've never seen any official announcement of a planned release date.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3587981

scroll a bit down and you see that it is even saying 6 months :) but in a interview they said it would be around a year but no need to search for that because this is the official post of them even saying 6 months

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Evilrockzer1#4032 wrote:

scroll a bit down and you see that it is even saying 6 months :)

You mean this?

"

As long as needed, we expect at least 6 months.

Do you genuinely not know the difference between "6 months" and "at least 6 months?"

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

"

iHiems#0168 wrote:

We are already almost at the middle of the year, and the launch date is supposed to be either late this year or at most start of next year based on what was said before.

Said by whom, when, in what context?

Their answer to "How long will EA last" is "as long as needed."

I've never seen any official announcement of a planned release date.

I'm 99% sure I heard in an interview or read somewhere Jonathan saying the target would be by the end of 2025. Sure it could be pushed back, which why I made this post.

The problem here is what they think is "good enough" for release.

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

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Evilrockzer1#4032 wrote:

scroll a bit down and you see that it is even saying 6 months :)

You mean this?

"

As long as needed, we expect at least 6 months.

Do you genuinely not know the difference between "6 months" and "at least 6 months?"

mr. white knight, you wrote you never saw a planned release date and saying that atleast 6 months... means they are planning to release in six months

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Evilrockzer1#4032 wrote:

you wrote you never saw a planned release date and saying that atleast 6 months... means they are planning to release in six months

No, that's absolutely not what that means dude.

"At least six months" means "not less than six months" which is inclusive of all durations greater than six months including one year, 18 months, 2 years, etc.

If you read "at least six months" and understood it to mean "six months" then you just made a mistake it's as simple as that really.