Dev Blog #8: Why You Haven't Seen the Game Yet
Hey everyone,
If you've poked around this site, you've probably noticed something missing. There are no screenshots. No trailer. No gameplay clips. For a game that's been in development for almost nine months and is playable end to end right now, that probably seems strange. So let me explain why, because like everything else around this project, it's a deliberate choice.
The Indie Trap I Refuse to Walk Into
I've watched a lot of indie MMOs over the years, and there's a pattern that repeats over and over. A small team gets something running, gets excited, and starts showing it off way too early. Sometimes it's a genuine desire for feedback. Sometimes it's a desire for attention. And sometimes, worst of all, it's to raise money.
The problem is that at that stage, everything still looks like a tech demo. Placeholder animations, rough lighting, empty zones, floaty combat. And first impressions in this genre are brutal. You get one. People see the tech demo, file the game away as "another janky indie MMO," and that impression sticks no matter how good the game gets later. The early reveal that was supposed to build hype ends up being the thing the game spends years trying to live down.
There's a deeper version of this too. A lot of early reveals aren't really showing you a game. They're selling you a dream of what the game could someday be. That's how you end up with $500 supporter packages featuring a mount that isn't even in the game yet. The pitch stops being "here's what we built" and becomes "imagine what we'll build if you fund us." I think that approach has burned this genre more than anything else, and I simply refuse to go that route.
It's why I haven't marketed this game at all yet. Not a single post, not a single ad. I don't want to sell you on what Eternal Realms Online could be. I want the game to be so good on its own, once it's done, that the dream is already achieved and it sells itself. Show, don't promise. And don't show until it's actually worth showing.
But What About Feedback?
The usual defense of the early reveal is that you need feedback, and that part is real. You can't build an MMO in a vacuum.
So here's how we're covering it: for about two weeks now, a small group of players has been in the game testing for us. They play real builds, they break things, they tell me what feels good and what doesn't, and that feedback goes straight back into development. They're also not allowed to share anything. No videos, no screenshots, no details. That's the deal, and it's what lets us get honest player feedback without putting an unfinished game in front of the world.
That's the feedback loop, and the first closed alpha early next year scales it up. We get everything the early reveal is supposed to provide, without spending the game's first impression to get it.
The Bar Is AAA Feel, Not Indie Excuses
The other half of this is about what the game has to look and feel like before I'll put it in front of you.
It matters a lot to me that, despite a small team building this, ERO feels as AAA as possible for what we have to work with. That bar influenced one of the biggest technical decisions of the whole project: building in Unreal Engine 5 instead of Unity. Unity would have been the simpler choice, honestly a much faster development pace for a team our size. But the ceiling is different. UE5 is more work, and in exchange you can achieve things visually and mechanically that genuinely stand next to big-budget games. If the goal is a game that doesn't need a "for an indie" asterisk attached to every compliment, that's the engine you pick, and you accept the extra work as the price.
So when you finally do see Eternal Realms Online, I want it to look like the game I've been describing in these posts. Not a promise of it. The actual thing.
When You'll Actually See It
I'm not going to put a date on the first trailer or screenshots, because the honest answer is "when it's ready and not a day before." What I can tell you is that the same rule from the money post applies here: nothing gets shown, sold, or hyped before it's earned. Deliver first, then show. Then ask.
Until then, these posts are the window into the project. What's built, what's decided, what's still open. Judging by the waitlist numbers so far, there are people out there who'd rather read straight answers than watch a cinematic trailer for a game that doesn't exist yet, and those are exactly the people I'm building this for.
More soon.
- Anxiety