Seriously, I've been playing a free beta of this game longer than I play most retail games... one of these days you should really let us hand you some cash for even a semi-finished product.  Hellgate, age of conan, ufo: enemy territory, neverwinter nights 2, rome total war... I shelled out good money for them, and NONE of them really worked as advertised till I downloaded patches. I think Defcon which was another "Indy" type game, had some hiccups too, pre-patch.  Heck one of my all time favorite games S.T.A.L.K.E.R  still doesn't really work as intended I don't think, and I'd pay em all over again for it if they asked me... and I guess I sort of plan to do just that since a sequel will soon be out, (That probably also won't run as intended).   Sure some people will complain; but the industries so inundated with this stuff its more like the way we complain about pencils that don't have enough eraser (well those of us that care about our blood pressures).

Renie told me he would post about this shortly.

Had they released the game as soon as they'd been linked by Penny Arcade, they probably would have made a small fortune...this would have been a few months back. 

 If the game is good enough that the PA "buzz" would've ensured a fortune in sales, its our jobs as individuals interested in this product to regenerate that buzz ourselves.  And don't give me some crap about how THEY should be advertising THEIR product.  That path leads to the dark side, where companies spend more money on insisting I buy their product than they do on the product itself.  If we did our jobs as enthusiasts better, companies wouldn't be so dependant  on some agency doing the same thing.

 What?  It's not my job to promote anything.  I am paying them for a product.  As game designers it's part of their responsibility to advertise their product and capitalize on a BIG opportunity when linked by such a respected and prominent site as Penny Arcade.  Besides, how are we supposed to generate buzz for a game that has had no word on its front news page in over 3 months?  I've been playing the same two classes for what seems an eternity, and it's not something I feel the urge to promote when it seems so neglected.

It's not my intent to complain about anything, I respect the game and its designers, but I think that there is a lesson to be learned here about not keeping your fans in the dark for months on end.  The number of people in the rooms (well, room) are dwindling, and if their fans lose the faith then it won't matter if or when they release their game.  Like, if a tree falls in a forest, but nobody is in the forest because they've all died of starvation, will anyone hear it? 

 (post edited to censor my cuss words)

Their job isn't to sell you a product, its to make a product for you to buy. 

 How easy would it have been (and maybe in the long run more economically viable judging from the current situation)  to release the game they had at that moment, in an easy  to impulse-purchase format, and then, since months of polish could still be applied that would yield no additional profits, stopped immediately, cashed their check  and left multiplayer server chugging along in the hopes of opportunizing on more accidental customers that didn't realize they were buying a far from perfect product.  Cha ching, business as usual. I understand games ship with bugs and I salute them for hanging on as long as they did, but at this point, I just want the opportunity to pay them for what I consider to be an already quality product.

 Apparently though, the product you want to buy has more to do with a gigantic fan base than quality.   At this juncture you're telling me that even when they release their wonderful and entertaining game you're not interested in  telling  people it is a wonderful and entertaining game; because they failed to throw a sufficiently snazzy (and all expenses covered) virtual tailgate party that rolled on through their entire development phase from the point at which they recieved popular notice,  (or conversely since they didn't work 72hour days to compress their development cycle down to a frenzied blur of production from that same point of popular notice)  that you don't want it! 

If a game is best played within a community,  YOU build a community, not the game! This idea that a computer program should ship with a small army of people that can't wait to play this game with you is silly.   Make your own relationships, and find your own friends to enjoy games with, don't expect it as part of a consumer release program. 

But no it all makes sense now... I see why the board games market is failing, I bought a copy of risk the other day and 4  other attractive and intelligent players didn't show up at my house to play it with me! I'd never recommend it or any other board game that doesn't give me at least a 3 page mailing list of players in my zipcode.

EDIT: Hot players in my zipcode, and single too.  Else they're not doing their jobs as game designers right. 

You're taking my point completely out of context here, and you're being noticably aggressive.  The point I'm making is that they may have missed the train on an incredible opportunity, to reach a much larger number of people when the chance was there.  Penny Arcade links crash sites on a regular basis due to the extreme number of people that read the site and are interested in what they have to say.  Clearly this game has some serious potential if Tycho linked it, as far as I am concerned, and there are many who agree with me.  But do you seriously expect a loyal following in this fast-paced day and age, for a game that has a bad habit of missing deadlines (by months)?  Also, making video games IS still a business, and if you want your favorite game development companies to continue making games, there had better be lots of people buying their product!  The point is that there needs to be both: a loyal fanbase, and also others who are at least willing to pay for the game and try it out for a while, become bored and eventually quit.

Maybe they did not show up to play with you because you are so eager to turn a conversation into an argument.  Quit being so elitest about everything and maybe this will make a lot more sense to you.

Guys,

Please remain civil guys.

 Its difficult for me to fault a company for not magically completing their game to coincide with a random spike of attention partway through their development cycle.  Its not like all those penny arcade hits translated into ANY money for them either to allow them to change the realities of their project in any way.

An opportunity is only missed if it was a possibility to begin with.. the games still not out, so apparently its not done and wasn't going to be done any time soon when penny arcade linked it,  I can't see what they should've done differently that would've changed the outcome, all of those people still heard about it.    Yes its a fast paced life we lead, but if a games good when its released, and you know about it,  theres not a particular reason not to buy it in my mind.  I see movies that slip their dates, I've gone to restaurants with friends that didn't open up on schedule or advertise.. in fact, sometimes being the first to eat at a small restaurant that slipped under the radar can be very exciting, and telling your friends is part of the fun.  IF, when the game is released it were relinked by penny arcade, it would garner similar attention all over, but somehow its a missed opportunity otherwise in a lot of peoples minds, which really really confuses me.

EDIT: I started sounding hostile again so I cut out needlessly argumentative stuff. 

Okee dokee.  Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the game, I was just making the point that they should have taken their opportunity when they had a good one.  There have been very few changes (only two major ones that I can count: unlocking Illusion and the patch) since the the PA link (which brought me here, in fact), and as you pointed out, sometimes it's okay to release an unfinished product if it's for the better.  I was pretty much agreeing with you with my first few posts, and then somewhere our opinions diverged.  Oh well.

Anyway, good luck and I will see you guys in the arena. 

Their lack of updates for the community is the big problem.  In this day/age, it's essential to have ongoing updates for everyone.  By ongoing - I mean at least once every few weeks.  When the timeframe goes beyond that it starts to appear as if the game isn't really being worked on, is abandoned, etc,.. and people start to lose interest and leave.  This is a great game, but I'm not exactly going to tell all of my friends about something that may never be fully released.  They need to give an indication that progress is being made.  The version from several months back appears to be nearly complete.  I don't understand why a full version isn't out yet, unless they stopped working on it as diligently as they were in the past.  

Updates would definitely be nice, the lack is why I posted in the first place.  I'd rather they release a half finished game than no game at all, but if they're still trucking along and its not in any danger of dying, I'm cool with waiting for a finished product, and think that'd be the best, even with the wait.