+1

Dont look back.

This may be a way to reward early buyers but it is likely to upset some people waiting. Especially maps as it will be seen to split the community, and even if that claim would be a little exaggerated based on just a few maps, depending on the map share options you decide upon it could potentially cause some frustrations. If you do put them in DLC I'd put a lot into one $4.99 DLC to make it very good value for money.

I personally don't mind if later buyers get all the stuff we get for free on top, it may encourage them to buy the game that much sooner under a lower sale than they might have otherwise waited for (i.e. they might get it at a 25% sale as opposed to waiting for 50%). I don't envy your position though as it is a tough balancing act and you won't please everybody regardless of what you decide.

On a side node, that nuke going off inside the plasma storm looks really cool. I think the nuke could look a little better though and both it and the Substrate equivalent bomb could do with more impactful sound to go with it. Didn't want to start a new thread about it so thought I'd just put it here.

Just to clarify, what I mentioned above was whether or not to put the free stuff we are going to get into paid DLC. If later there are full sized unit DLC for everyone and it is not free then I don't have a problem with that. I want plenty of new unit types, like Navy, more T3/dreadnoughts, the addition of T4 etc. I would fully expect to pay for those. In those cases I think most games allow people who don't have the new units to use them in MP games if someone does have them, but they can't use them in their own skirmish games. That has always struck me as a very fair way of doing it. 

You really shouldn't need to reward early adopters.

Unless a gamer has been living under a rock for the past few years, they are aware that buying a game after release will be more expensive than waiting for the next Steam sale. It's a conscience decision made by the consumer, and by making the purchase, they are acknowledging the pricing reality. No one is twisting their arm to buy the game sooner rather than later.

It is not SD's responsibility to effectively subsidize a gamer's lack of patience. They are simply not entitled to it.

The point isn't really to reward, but to provide incentive to buy at full price. Brad is worried that the de-facto average sales price for a game has dropped from $40-50 to $20-30.

TBH, I doubt there's a good solution. DLC also eventually get discounts or come in bundles after all, no? And in the age of infinite backlogs, gamers are patient.

I guess F2P/microtransactions/whale-hunting is the logical endgame of this sales craze.

DLC wouldn't be a good idea, since that causes MP fragmentation for those that have the new maps/units/whatever vs the ones that don't.

In fact, DLC as a whole is such a crap idea, that I disdain games that have this money grabbing ploy. More than half of the DLC for other games should have shipped with the game in the first place.

Pretty much all early adopters know what they are getting, there is no need to offer them something other than "thanks", however, if you really want to offer them something, then the only logical answer is offer some kind of bonus savings for other games, or perhaps steam trading cards, or something like that.

Maybe even offer early access to the stuff mentioned in the OP.

The real problem here is, for those that bought AotS for the campaign, and it really seems to be in a unfinished state, with numerous issues as outlined in other posts. Those are the ones starving for attention, and could care less about the MP side of things, so it is better to pour resources into that then come up with a DLC gimmick.

I find I'm a bit more rare in today's gaming landscape for a number of reasons and one of those is my age. Mind you, I've seen quite a number of gamers my age and older playing games, it's not just about age. But my perspective's a bit different. I have a number of games on my Steam Wishlist that are there because I'm waiting for significant discount. That's true. There are games on my Steam Wishlist that I want to play some day but other games have my current attention. There are also those that I'm hoping some friends might become interested in, purchase, and we can play together.

But, in this case and a very few others, I've plunked money down early to help the development of a game. An investment. My payoff is, hopefully, a good game. I really don't have much control or say as a single "investor". But it is my hope, my gamble. Some tag in a forum or a skin I may or may not use is cool. My investment may include access to the alpha. I may or may not try it. My investment may include access to the beta. I may or may not try that, either. That's the minimum return on the investment that I expect.

Now, rewards for a game like AotS? That's hard to do as you're hearing above. If Stardock decides to have DLC, then it will split the gaming community based on who buys it or doesn't, particularly in the form of maps. I could see a perk of early adopters including DLC, even maps in that case.

Frankly, what I think makes more sense in my mind is for the publisher and/or dev house to identify that gamer and give them special access or discounts to other products and/or services in their portfolio. Perhaps free weeks or months of other games (Sins, GalCiv, DEMIGOD - heh) or discounts on merchandise (HINT, HINT). After all, that's who I invested in. That's who "owes" me, if that's how you want to put it, not the game.

Again, a good game is what I paid for, regardless of how much impact or involvement I may have had in it's development, testing, etc. There was nothing more promised.

What I, personally, would LOVE to see is founder-level access to the Demigod remake. THAT is what I would consider an outrageous reward! And I'm going to keep dropping THAT hint at every opportunity!

Keep up the great work!

I wouldn't make just maps, but custom scenarios are a great idea.  As has been pointed out, people who are really jonesing for multiplayer typically buy these things early already, so they can get in on the action, and fragmentation is bad for the community.  The unique setups are worth a lot more to the single player crowd than a regular map anyway, which means people are more likely to buy them as well.

Since Ashes is a great multiplayer game, why not offer bundles, get 4 keys, pay for 3. Stuff like this?

I bought in early because I am interested in the game, I made the decision to pay despite knowing there might be a Steam sale in the future.

Personally, I am also not really interested in new maps or scenarios, just add to the game in general, make it more complete.

https://www.ashesofthesingularity.com/store

Can get a nice discount there on a 4 pack. Steam doesn't seem to allow these often anymore, to do with the relatively new refund policy I think.

Releasing map packs for 5$ is only harmful for the community. Keep some of the maps as free updates and go for forged alliance type of standalone release that adds a lot of maps and a new race to the game along with new campaing content.

People are hesitant to buy games at full price when there is already talk about DLC. That is the fault of game industry itself and can only be fixed by providing customers enough value for the money.  In my honest opinion ashes is not worth the AAA kind of price tag it is carrying as it is. It is up to stardock and oxide games to provide enough free updates and content to make it worth that kind of investement.

This game is about the multiplayer experience and it is pretty well put together but it is missing some key aspects.

Your really should push that Replay feature out to let casters and streamers do game casts of high level mathces. This will provide massive boost to discoverability of this game and also keep players interested. Think of it as marketing investement. This is one big reason why I think your timing for the release was very bad.

!!!!!!!!  Whatever you decide to do, do not split the playerbase !!!!!!! Focus on one(or few) big standalone expansion while also providing continuous stream of small  free content updates.

New map, new skins and added features here and there will provide value to the people who already own the game and to those who are thinking of buying the game. Good developer/publisher reputation tends to stick and word spreads very fast. I never discover games because of marketing. I almost always find them by watching streamers, casters or lets play content providers. Ashes was the one exception because I follow news about technology and PC hardware very closely.

There is also one thing that is forgotten. Linux users are waiting for the Linux build and when that one becomes available the game price will be already down to 75% so they can't be early adopters at all. On the other side if you make dlc then make it as an campaign/scenario expansion dlc and not some cosmetic stuff or a few units per dlc since nobody will be prepared to pay 5$ for a small dlc. Especially not for maps. Those should be handled as free dlc or part of the campaign/scenario expansion dlc. Its just gives an impression to buyers that you released an unfinished game or are selling the game in parts.

If you do skin packs/map packs/scenario packs they shouldn't cost more then 2$ a piece. Especially when I look at Fallen Enchantress dlc those always seemed way overpriced for the little they offered.

One good option would be like gog.com/Cd Red did with Witcher 3 where they offered a pack with Witcher 3 and all the future dlc.