4Game

This community has gone back and forth between being patient with Iron Gate and being frustrated at a lack of content. There is solid reasoning for both sides to feel the way they do.

Releasing a roadmap (which definitely had an impact on some players purchasing) that Iron Gate could only partially deliver on is going to set expectations that are going to be let down when you can't make that deadline.

On the other hand, this is an even smaller Indie team than Hello Games, and they stumbled upon a truly wonderful gaming experience that caught the RPG / Survival and MMO crowds by storm. Their rapid success and Swedish development pace (less crunch / no crunch compared to other companies) was naturally going to keep content coming out at a slower pace as they adapted to their success.

Most would say they got their $20 out of Valheim, and thus as a broader community it is good to keep positively reinforcing the devs and their awesome work.

However, even the people who love this game are unlikely to admit it has depth in it's current state. Wide as an ocean, deep as puddle (or our mostly content-less ocean, in this case). While we patiently wait for said content, the modders have been on an absolute tear, even making content that was on the roadmap but so far beyond Hearth and Home we likely won't see work on it until next year at this pace.

Thus we are brought to the crux of my argument and a simple reminder to Iron Gate: Strike while the Iron (heh) is hot. The RPG / MMO landscape is desperate for a game like Valheim in it's fully realized state. Especially with World of Warcraft looking long in the tooth, and players are expanding their horizons to new games.

Final Fantasy, New World, and likely Ashes of Creation will hoover up these users and many more MMO /RPG users who have been waiting on the sidelines for a great multiplayer RPG. Although Valheim doesn't explicitly fall into an MMO, the way I've heard MMO players lovingly describe this game, it might as well be.

I believe in the product. I believe Iron Gate can deliver a deep, rewarding Sandbox RPG experience that I so desperately want from this game. However, even if the game is as good as I dream it can be, if it takes too long to reach said goal, it will never truly be able to recapture the hype it once had, and it's innovative systems may seem less impressive as more AAA MMOs and Indie Survival games get pumped out each year.

I encourage this community to be positive and continue to support Iron Gate as they progress, I just hope as a customer and a believer in this product that they recognize the incredible opportunity they have before them and push while their competitors are still finding their RPG legs.