As the Stars Reach Kickstarter nears half a million dollars, the Playable Worlds team is using Kickstarter memos to further explain how the game’s test phases will work – and why headstart isn’t pay-to-win in this particular MMORPG.
According to the game’s Kickstarter update, the pre-alpha – which unlocks at the $30 tier – is the ongoing phase, and it will continue until the early access, which is expected by the end of 2025. Early access will be open to “people with Steam keys,” which is to say all $30+ Kickstarter backers, founder pack owners, and folks who buy the early access version of the game directly through Steam (so yes, you can do that if you want to just wait and not do KS). Early access will clearly still be testing, however, as the team warns there will still be occasional server wipes.
Once that final wipe is done, the team will launch the headstart, which will be up to a week of play before the launch – again, expected next year. Playable Worlds says not to worry if you don’t purchase head start access, however.
“Anyone that buys a Head Start pass is doing two important things during that time: Helping us to ensure that the game is running well and ready for launch, and [e]stablishing footholds on a few planets so that there are places mature enough to be useful to other players when they arrive. In no way is this a ‘pay-to-win’ option. There are many planets available at launch and no group of head starters will be able to dominate play in any way during the short Head Start window. They cannot ‘corner the market’ on resources, they cannot ‘get all the good stuff first’ and they don’t have access to any unique features or systems that won’t be available to every other player on launch day.”
As I type this, the game has just broken $450K on Kickstarter, meaning the unlocking of another stretch goal: crafting appearance customization. As Playable Worlds has previously said, all of these stretch goal features will make it into the game regardless of whether the goals are met, but they’ll go in before launch rather than after if unlocked through Kickstarter.
The team is planning another livestream at noon EST today, during which we can only assume it’ll talk about the unlocking of that goal.
