May Dev Diary

[Admin]

Hello everyone.

We’re nearing the mid-way point of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY, our paid expansion pass campaign for Survival Mode, and this seems like a good time to talk about how things have gone so far.

In my opinion, they haven’t gone that well. 

Certainly not how we want them to go. Certainly not how *I* want them to go.

When we originally discussed the idea of doing an expansion pass for THE LONG DARK, we did so recognizing that in the years we’ve been working on getting the WINTERMUTE Episodes out, we’d naturally had less time to focus on Survival. We wanted to give Survival some love, but also wanted to see if we could do so in a more financially sustainable way, that might set a path for the future.

You see, Hinterland is an independent studio, and THE LONG DARK is a self-funded, self-published project. This means we get to keep our revenue and don’t have to share it with a publisher, and we can work without external interference. But it also means that we carry all the costs and risks for the project ourselves. 

This is how we like it, and our independence is paramount to who we are and what we make. But for a large and complex game like THE LONG DARK, one we’ve been updating for years without asking for any more money from our players, we wanted to experiment with the idea of creating a new revenue stream that would help us continue updating the game well into the future, in a financially sustainable fashion. 

To a large degree, the ongoing financial health of THE LONG DARK, which we’ve built an entire company around, also determines what we can make in the future. So while this is a passionate endeavour for us, it’s also a business, and we’re focused on running it ethically and sustainably, and taking good care of our people. That means finding the right way to generate revenue from it, one that is fair to our players that doesn’t burn out the team. We believed TALES would be one way to do that.

Because we knew that charging for updates would come with greater expectations than when people were getting them “for free”, we wanted to provide some assurances of what you would get, and when, so that we weren’t just saying, “hey, here’s a thing, give us some money even though most of it isn’t made yet”. That’s maybe fine for Early Access, but we graduated from Early Access in 2017, and we felt that we needed to do better for this. 
And in wanting that, I made some decisions that led us to the present challenges around the Expansion:

• We committed to a specific roadmap of features and content, which we knew we’d have to produce to a quality level exceeding what we’d included in the game as free updates over the years.
• We committed to a specific number of Parts that we’d release as part of the Expansion Pass campaign.
• We committed to a specific cadence; we’d aim to release a Part every 8-10 weeks, to try to recapture that “buzzy” feeling from the Early Access days, and see if we could boost player engagement with more frequent updates.
• We committed to a specific timeline; we’d release all six Parts in a year. 

Why did we do this? Well, honestly, I felt that despite being able to hit this release cadence years ago in Early Access, we’d lost some of that muscle memory over the years. We’d also lost a bit of that excitement that comes from frequent game releases, and I wanted to find a way to get some of that back. Also, the COVID years of 2020-2022 had been such a struggle. I hoped that this ambitious project would be healthy for the team, and give them some exciting new features to work on, to see the game refreshed and the community excited. So, after plenty of internal discussions and everyone signing on to deliver this, we rolled up our sleeves and jumped in. We launched Part One in December.

And we ran into issues almost immediately. You’ve experienced some of these yourselves, and some have been behind the scenes. But the reality is that, we’ve failed to hit the 8-10 week release target for any of the Parts so far, and we’re not going to be able to achieve it for Part Three either. 

With each Part release, there have been issues that have forced the team into a hotfixing cycle which has taken away from the progress around the next Part. That’s created pressure that has led to mistakes being made, that then force more hotfixes, and the cycle continues. This has been a cascading issue for the past six months or so, since the December release of Part One. It’s put an enormous amount of pressure on the team, not just the development team working on THE LONG DARK, but the other teams in the studio that support our launches: test, releasing, marketing, community, and so on.

This is my studio and my responsibility. I stepped away from the project to focus on new things, and the issues around timing, delivery, quality...these all roll up to me. 

I’m sorry I’ve let you down.

I can’t change the past but I can try to fix the future. I’m painfully aware that you’ve heard some of this from me before, with the early WINTERMUTE episodes. I’m painfully aware that there are people out there, reading these words right now, feeling gleeful that we failed to deliver. I know there are a lot of “I told you they couldn’t hit this cadence” posts about to hit our forums and other channels. Those comments are entirely deserved. I take them on myself.

We won’t be able to hit the 8-10 week cadence for the Expansion Part releases. I’m not going to provide a new number, even though we have an internal one, because ultimately we need to focus on quality and team health, and build the timeline around that. There’s no sense in shipping Parts on a schedule if the experience you get when you play is disappointing. There’s no sense in shipping on a schedule if it burns out the team. There’s no point in promising dates that we fail to hit. Yes, we already knew this going in. We’ve faced these constraints before. I should have known better. I applaud the teams out there that are able to put out significant updates to their games every 8 weeks or so. We don’t seem able to do it.

We’re still going to deliver the full roadmap we’ve promised. We probably won’t get it all done before the end of this year, but we’ll still deliver the six Parts, and we’ll get them in your hands as soon as we can.

The team is going to catch their breath, get Part Three done and out the door, and my hope is that with a little bit of extra time now, we’ll be able to get you a better quality update that doesn’t require so many fixes after the fact. After that, we’ll dig in to Part Four and continue the work.

The 60FPS fix that the team has been working on for the past few weeks will also now be delayed so that we can release it along with Part Three. This will save us from doing an additional release in between now and Part Three, allowing the team to focus on getting that content finished and tested. (Remember, every time we release an update -- no matter how small -- it comes with an amount of overhead for testing and releasing.) So the 60FPS fixes for Xbox and PlayStation should be part of the Part Three launch.

Many of you have asked about the status of the Switch version of TALES. As you know, we had originally planned to have this out earlier this year. When both the Xbox and PlayStation versions came in late, this pushed out the work on the Switch as well. I can’t promise you a date for Switch yet. There’s a fair amount of work we need to get done before we can ship it, and I’m not sure how we will fit it in on top of the other work we are doing for the Parts. We’re looking into some options, including bringing on some more dev help to get that done. At this point, I would say we’ll do our best to get TALES up and running for the end of the year, and if we can get it done sooner, we will. I’m really sorry about that delay. It absolutely sucks if you are a Switch TLD player right now.

I completely understand if any of you feel burned by this situation and want to have TALES refunded. We can’t issue refunds ourselves, but you can request them from the platform you purchased the game on. We hope you won’t do that, but again, I understand if you feel that you’ve had enough. My hope is that by the time the Expansion is finished, you’ll choose to come back and give it another chance.

In addition to giving the team more time and breathing room to get the Parts out, I’m also going to be stepping back in to focus the TLD team and get development back on track. I’m going to dive back into the design as well and make sure the systems we’re delivering to you are as good as they can be. I’ll be there “in the trenches” with the team, so to speak, to guide them through this. That’s my promise to you.

My goal now is to make sure that when you look back at the end of this campaign, and see all that we’ve added to both TALES (paid) and THE LONG DARK (free updates), you’ll find that on the whole it’s been a great addition to the game and really refreshed the sandbox. I’m excited about the new features we’re adding in Part Three, and in the rest of the roadmap.

Regarding Episode Five. A lot of you have been asking about it. As mentioned several times, but I’ll say it again here, we won’t be saying anything about Episode Five release dates until we’re close to shipping it, which won’t be this year. I do promise some kind of update with some non-spoilery details around what to expect in Episode Five later this year, so you won’t go the whole year without hearing any news. But for now, we don’t have anything more to say, except that there are a lot of story threads to tie up in Episode Five, and it’s going to be a big one.

The last six months have been tough on the team, and we appreciate your ongoing support and patience. Thanks for reading, and I hope to have better news for you next time you hear from me. 

- Raphael
 

[ManicManiac]

Thank you, Hinterland.
I know I only speak for myself, but I see and appreciate the hard work... and the noble endeavors.

I'm going to be here with patient gratitude for whatever you have planned.  I'd rather you all feel good about what you are releasing, than trying to meet any kind of deadline/schedule/goal-timeline that has no way to foresee unexpected issues and obstacles. 

I respect and appreciate how candid and forthright this Dev Diary is.
To my mind, Hinterland has earned so much good will over the years... I'm going to be here for TLD regardless of when updates come out.

Hopefully others feel the same... and join me in saying so.

Edited May 18, 2023 by ManicManiac
Edited to clarify...

[Leeanda]

I agree with @ManicManiac ...

 I have no complaints about this game  and I appreciate all the hard work you've all put in..   I loved the game on day one of playing and I still love it now... Whenever the updates and new parts roll in is fine with me and I have no intention of asking for a refund....  I don't think I've paid enough for all the content I've had in the last three years. ...

just keep doing what you're doing .. it's a beautiful game in so many ways and you should be proud of it🙂

[k0s0ff]

...

[Sito]

I agree also 

[UTC-10]

I am still trudging through Great Bear Island to rebuild 🚧 my bases and infrastructure (wow sounds so grandiose ) for most of the regions before heading to the Far Territories.  I am in no rush.  

I will be looking forward to the time when I can actually make my initial forays into the Far Territories.  

[piddy3825]

...saddened to hear that Episode 5 won't be finished this year.  saddened but not surprised.  I'd pay extra just to get that part done sooner than later.  But that's just me...

[hozz1235]

While disappointed, I also understand.  What I truly appreciate, @Raphael van Lierop, is your candidness and willingness to take responsibility - that is a rare thing these days.

Edited May 18, 2023 by hozz1235

[xanna]

1 hour ago, Admin said:

because ultimately we need to focus on quality and team health, and build the timeline around that.

Absolutely. Look after yourselves and do what you need to do to keep being the company that you are.

[Pınar51-06]

Thank you for your hard work and honesty. I truly appreciate it. I am a little disappointed and sad for delaying episode five of Wintermute but ı still  enjoy every minute of the long dark so ı can wait more and ı am sure that will be a brilliant ending for story mode.

[ArchimedesLP]

I was one of the people who (privately) thought there was no way you would make the 8-10 week release cadence.

 

But you know what? I still bought the expansion, and I'm not unhappy. Hinterland is a reliable company that has demonstrated they will do right by their customers. I'm perfectly happy to wait a bit longer for the content, especially if it means a bit less stress for the people working so hard so that I can be entertained.

[dave1122]

Speaking for myself I came into this game very late, never heard of it till I saw it as a free give away on epic, took it didnt play it for probably another 6 months starting in December I think.  Once I started playing I can tell you and your team that this is a fantastic game, the detail, the creative, art and style are amazing, sure there are some bugs or oddities but I feel that such a product from an independent developer like yourself is amazing and it after playing it for a few weeks I purchased TALES.

You guys keep doing what you're doing and I will still be here when more updates drop.  As for generating further revenue Ive heard it said a few times now that your player base would like to see merchandise available for purchase again.  So I am not sure if it profitable last time and am sure there is a high standard of quality you would want for the product but might be worth looking as starting the store up again.

D

[Captcavey]

2 hours ago, Admin said:

Hello everyone.

We’re nearing the mid-way point of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY, our paid expansion pass campaign for Survival Mode, and this seems like a good time to talk about how things have gone so far.

In my opinion, they haven’t gone that well. 

Certainly not how we want them to go. Certainly not how *I* want them to go.

When we originally discussed the idea of doing an expansion pass for THE LONG DARK, we did so recognizing that in the years we’ve been working on getting the WINTERMUTE Episodes out, we’d naturally had less time to focus on Survival. We wanted to give Survival some love, but also wanted to see if we could do so in a more financially sustainable way, that might set a path for the future.

You see, Hinterland is an independent studio, and THE LONG DARK is a self-funded, self-published project. This means we get to keep our revenue and don’t have to share it with a publisher, and we can work without external interference. But it also means that we carry all the costs and risks for the project ourselves. 

This is how we like it, and our independence is paramount to who we are and what we make. But for a large and complex game like THE LONG DARK, one we’ve been updating for years without asking for any more money from our players, we wanted to experiment with the idea of creating a new revenue stream that would help us continue updating the game well into the future, in a financially sustainable fashion. 

To a large degree, the ongoing financial health of THE LONG DARK, which we’ve built an entire company around, also determines what we can make in the future. So while this is a passionate endeavour for us, it’s also a business, and we’re focused on running it ethically and sustainably, and taking good care of our people. That means finding the right way to generate revenue from it, one that is fair to our players that doesn’t burn out the team. We believed TALES would be one way to do that.

Because we knew that charging for updates would come with greater expectations than when people were getting them “for free”, we wanted to provide some assurances of what you would get, and when, so that we weren’t just saying, “hey, here’s a thing, give us some money even though most of it isn’t made yet”. That’s maybe fine for Early Access, but we graduated from Early Access in 2017, and we felt that we needed to do better for this. 
And in wanting that, I made some decisions that led us to the present challenges around the Expansion:

• We committed to a specific roadmap of features and content, which we knew we’d have to produce to a quality level exceeding what we’d included in the game as free updates over the years.
• We committed to a specific number of Parts that we’d release as part of the Expansion Pass campaign.
• We committed to a specific cadence; we’d aim to release a Part every 8-10 weeks, to try to recapture that “buzzy” feeling from the Early Access days, and see if we could boost player engagement with more frequent updates.
• We committed to a specific timeline; we’d release all six Parts in a year. 

Why did we do this? Well, honestly, I felt that despite being able to hit this release cadence years ago in Early Access, we’d lost some of that muscle memory over the years. We’d also lost a bit of that excitement that comes from frequent game releases, and I wanted to find a way to get some of that back. Also, the COVID years of 2020-2022 had been such a struggle. I hoped that this ambitious project would be healthy for the team, and give them some exciting new features to work on, to see the game refreshed and the community excited. So, after plenty of internal discussions and everyone signing on to deliver this, we rolled up our sleeves and jumped in. We launched Part One in December.

And we ran into issues almost immediately. You’ve experienced some of these yourselves, and some have been behind the scenes. But the reality is that, we’ve failed to hit the 8-10 week release target for any of the Parts so far, and we’re not going to be able to achieve it for Part Three either. 

With each Part release, there have been issues that have forced the team into a hotfixing cycle which has taken away from the progress around the next Part. That’s created pressure that has led to mistakes being made, that then force more hotfixes, and the cycle continues. This has been a cascading issue for the past six months or so, since the December release of Part One. It’s put an enormous amount of pressure on the team, not just the development team working on THE LONG DARK, but the other teams in the studio that support our launches: test, releasing, marketing, community, and so on.

This is my studio and my responsibility. I stepped away from the project to focus on new things, and the issues around timing, delivery, quality...these all roll up to me. 

I’m sorry I’ve let you down.

I can’t change the past but I can try to fix the future. I’m painfully aware that you’ve heard some of this from me before, with the early WINTERMUTE episodes. I’m painfully aware that there are people out there, reading these words right now, feeling gleeful that we failed to deliver. I know there are a lot of “I told you they couldn’t hit this cadence” posts about to hit our forums and other channels. Those comments are entirely deserved. I take them on myself.

We won’t be able to hit the 8-10 week cadence for the Expansion Part releases. I’m not going to provide a new number, even though we have an internal one, because ultimately we need to focus on quality and team health, and build the timeline around that. There’s no sense in shipping Parts on a schedule if the experience you get when you play is disappointing. There’s no sense in shipping on a schedule if it burns out the team. There’s no point in promising dates that we fail to hit. Yes, we already knew this going in. We’ve faced these constraints before. I should have known better. I applaud the teams out there that are able to put out significant updates to their games every 8 weeks or so. We don’t seem able to do it.

We’re still going to deliver the full roadmap we’ve promised. We probably won’t get it all done before the end of this year, but we’ll still deliver the six Parts, and we’ll get them in your hands as soon as we can.

The team is going to catch their breath, get Part Three done and out the door, and my hope is that with a little bit of extra time now, we’ll be able to get you a better quality update that doesn’t require so many fixes after the fact. After that, we’ll dig in to Part Four and continue the work.

The 60FPS fix that the team has been working on for the past few weeks will also now be delayed so that we can release it along with Part Three. This will save us from doing an additional release in between now and Part Three, allowing the team to focus on getting that content finished and tested. (Remember, every time we release an update -- no matter how small -- it comes with an amount of overhead for testing and releasing.) So the 60FPS fixes for Xbox and PlayStation should be part of the Part Three launch.

Many of you have asked about the status of the Switch version of TALES. As you know, we had originally planned to have this out earlier this year. When both the Xbox and PlayStation versions came in late, this pushed out the work on the Switch as well. I can’t promise you a date for Switch yet. There’s a fair amount of work we need to get done before we can ship it, and I’m not sure how we will fit it in on top of the other work we are doing for the Parts. We’re looking into some options, including bringing on some more dev help to get that done. At this point, I would say we’ll do our best to get TALES up and running for the end of the year, and if we can get it done sooner, we will. I’m really sorry about that delay. It absolutely sucks if you are a Switch TLD player right now.

I completely understand if any of you feel burned by this situation and want to have TALES refunded. We can’t issue refunds ourselves, but you can request them from the platform you purchased the game on. We hope you won’t do that, but again, I understand if you feel that you’ve had enough. My hope is that by the time the Expansion is finished, you’ll choose to come back and give it another chance.

In addition to giving the team more time and breathing room to get the Parts out, I’m also going to be stepping back in to focus the TLD team and get development back on track. I’m going to dive back into the design as well and make sure the systems we’re delivering to you are as good as they can be. I’ll be there “in the trenches” with the team, so to speak, to guide them through this. That’s my promise to you.

My goal now is to make sure that when you look back at the end of this campaign, and see all that we’ve added to both TALES (paid) and THE LONG DARK (free updates), you’ll find that on the whole it’s been a great addition to the game and really refreshed the sandbox. I’m excited about the new features we’re adding in Part Three, and in the rest of the roadmap.

Regarding Episode Five. A lot of you have been asking about it. As mentioned several times, but I’ll say it again here, we won’t be saying anything about Episode Five release dates until we’re close to shipping it, which won’t be this year. I do promise some kind of update with some non-spoilery details around what to expect in Episode Five later this year, so you won’t go the whole year without hearing any news. But for now, we don’t have anything more to say, except that there are a lot of story threads to tie up in Episode Five, and it’s going to be a big one.

The last six months have been tough on the team, and we appreciate your ongoing support and patience. Thanks for reading, and I hope to have better news for you next time you hear from me. 

- Raphael
 

Superb update as usual but I can't help feeling like your self deprecation is excessive. You're delivering a superb gaming experience and we're all fans who are behind you. Yes, there will be those who moan but you'll never stop that.

Please don't stop being hinterland. Every time you get to work you build another intricate part of the joy that eminate's from either my Mac or PS4. I want to hear Astrid or Mackenzie moaning about the cold and how they're "going to die out here". We hear you! We're trying our best to save those forlorn avatars. Help us help them Hinterland.

Thank you.

[conanjaguar]

I agree with @_Rudolf_… quality beats quantity every time, and I’m willing to wait longer for future updates if that’s what it takes.

Edited May 18, 2023 by conanjaguar

[dahemac]

I have worked in studios where the lesson was painfully learned that, “there is never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over.” The Long Dark is a great game. Take your time with it. The people who are annoyed that you would focus on taking that time to produce quality are the same people who will rage-quit if they see something they do not like. So, since you cannot please them anyway, just do your best. 🤗

Heck, since I had to start a new game and rebuild my supplies and stats I am no where near a time when I am going to cross the bridge in Broken Railroad. I started in Milton, headed to Mystery Lake. Then I need to go back to Ash Canyon so I have worked my way into Pleasant Valley and then Blackrock. Next Timberwolf Mountain and then Ash Canyon. Then I need to make a lot of arrow points… I genuinely do not know why anyone else has rushed to the end of the new content. Don’t they like playing TLD?

Right now I am more concerned about the memory leak that has cropped up in some recent update. If you don’t take the time to fix those kinds of things, no amount of new content matters. So take your time. The new content has to be built on a solid foundation.

[Admin]

Thank you for all of the kind messages in this thread, and for your continued support of THE LONG DARK. We will make sure to share new information as it becomes available, and we will keep working to provide the best possible game experience. 

[MarrowStone]

Thank you for the update! While I'm a little disappointed the updates won't fit the  cadence that generated the old early access buzz, I totally understand the need to make your paid product feel more polished and higher quality! I havent had the opportunity to update my game since its release but Im absolutely stoked to try out all the new things!

I appreciate the accountability taken for mistakes but its a little heartbreaking to hear so many apologies from you guys! Yes, your fans are a passionate bunch but I'd like to think most of us are pretty patient and forgiving too. All that matters in the end is that ya'll "make it right", and you often do! 

As always, it's good to hear from the team and I hope that incredible pressure you all have been feeling is relieved. 

[Glacia]

Thanks for the honesty, it's very appreciated. 

Take your time, we are gonna still play and support the game no matter what it takes to deliver new contents 

Also remember: Several indie studios have done amazing games with massive development times, and they have never lost the playerbase (Hello, project zomboid). TLD it's still a masterpiece and a problematic patch doesn't change anything!

 

[sarudak]

I have over 1000 hours logged in TLD. Honestly I hate cosmetics but I would have gladly handed Hinterland $20 for a new hat just to show my support. Don't be too hard on the team, engineering is hard. Maybe you need some more codebase improvements or tests or something to be able to hit a 8-10 week cadence. I certainly don't know what the issue is but this is one of my favorite games of all time and you have my support 100%.

[JaySovereign]

You can say whatever you want to justify the decisions that have been made, but in no way will I ever agree to buying something like this again, or go along with such nonsensical things you all put into motion like separating the main game from story in order to get more money.

 

When Tales came out, I raised a point that it was like you all were on crunch, something you bragged about not doing to your employees. This sounds like you all are tired and losing passion for your game in order to get updates out as fast as possible. Pretty similar to crunch, if you ask me. Unless you're certain this won't happen again, I doubt I or anyone else will ever buy anything else from you again unless you can show us it will be released reliably.

 

That kind of nonsense on top of all this is really rubbing me the wrong way. It wouldn't hurt to conduct a poll on here before you all apply things like buying the story+main game separation and the utter nonsense like the Interloper fiasco. You know better than to do stuff like this. Do better. You've had a VERY long time to correct your mistakes and learn.

 

These drastic changes that affect everyone would've been easily solved if you'd just ASKED us about it. You have no excuse for that. If you don't trust us, then we've no reason to trust you.

Edited May 19, 2023 by JaySovereign

[Bloodywren]

I bought TLD almost a decade ago when it was still in early access and (excuse my french) looked like snow-covered crap. Over the years I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into it, really accomplishing nothing but achieving the joy of exploration. It’s become my go-to survival game, my comfort game, my summer game when it’s too hot out, and my winter game when I want to feel cozy. When you came out with Tales I couldn’t give you my money fast enough. And though I can hardly speak for other gamers, please don’t feel like you have to rush on my account. 
 

Hinterland has more than earned the initial cost of that early-access game; through constant improvements and new areas and Halloween mods you’ve earned an almost limitless cache of goodwill and patience from me.

In summary: Don’t worry. You could take the decade to make this and I’d still be perfectly happy.

[James Hickok]

I was a bit dissapointed and raging when I couldnt play bcoz of the console delay but ATM im happy playing this wonderfull game and have n o problems what so ever with the future delay. Im having much fun and have loads of stuff to do and loads of new runs to make. Cheer up ! Its OK. 

[javijungle]

Many thanks to Ralph @Admin for the honest and extensive information, and to all the Hinterland team for their effort, as it is commented in the game itself "Made by People without Crunch...", people come first, plans are sometimes unpredictable, it is the continuous deception of the stressful world we live in.
The amount I paid for the game at the time more than compensates the amount of hours of gameplay.
As Seneca supposedly said: "To err is human, but to persist in error is diabolical".
Good luck!

[ChillPlayer]

When I was reading the first few lines I thought this is going to be an announcement to discontinue the game pass or worse, the development of TLD altogether. Thank the gods it was only about a delay. Don't stress yourself too much out about that, as most I prefer quality over quantitiy too and for us players there are other things in life than TLD (hopefully). If anything it puts less stress on my personal schedule with summer time coming up and the release of Diablo 4, because although I am playing TLD sind 2014, whenever something new is being released in TLD, it jumps right to the top of things I want (need) to do

Edited May 19, 2023 by ChillPlayer

[DaGnome91]

Leading IT projects here, I know for sure that when you try to stay true to your commited release date at all costs, you deliver a lower quality product or service. Plus, it usually backfires on you because of the missing options or very simply the amount of bugs that keeps your dev and testing teams highly occupied and under pressure, of course making them unavailable for the next project...

Quality takes time, I'm still repeating this to whoever can hear : if the funds stay the same (meaning you still have the same dev team size), then you can't ask for reduced time at the same quality level. It's a project management basic...

On the user side, I prefer quality over quantity, and this is precisely what your game gave me over the years. I bought it a long time ago, and it has never run over me, just like many of others here. Take your time, release when you feel like it, pressure is bound to have you making mistakes - avoid it at all costs ! No worry, your fanbase is waiting patiently, because you already proved us what you can do, and that is a very high quality game !!!

Cheer up ! You're gonna make the best out of it !