Originally posted by Sythalin:

Originally posted by Gladi8er65:

Jeez people... it did NOT take 18 months for them to develop Mistlands...

It took 18 months for >>> Game-Stability fixes... H&H... food system/ stam overhaul... added POIs, such as caves and tar pits along with new creatures/ recipes/ resources/ armors/ building parts, etc.... and THEN Mistlands.

This was also during covid (working remotely), and "growing pains" (adding new staff), and all of this is custom-made (no purchased assets).

According to the devs (via the update news), they worked 9 months on Mistlands, so it's (probably) safe to assume it would be similar (9 months) for each of the remaining "land biomes".

Who knows, when it comes to "Ocean".... no clue what changes they could possibly do there that would keep early-game sailing / Exploring possible, etc. (NOT ramp up the danger of ocean too much).

My best guess would be a good solid 2 years , and probably a bit more until 1.0.

It took 18 months for modders to >>> add more monsters >>> revamp inventory systems (sorting, mass deposits, etc.) >>> add literally thousands of items (all with recipes) >>> create magic/spells from scratch >>> create enchantment systems from scratch >>> revamp planting >>> expand/fix performance issues >>> revamp portal system >>> improve the trader >>> increase graphics to HD >>> unlock/add additional gameplay options >>> revamp archery....

And that's just page 1 on Nexus, where the majority of mods have been created by 2 authors (randyknapp & aedenthorn). If it wasn't for them, as well as the dozens of other modders, this game would've died a couple months after launch after people blasted through the content.

It's little wonder why people have expectations of another long drought of meaningful content from the devs. Honestly I'll be surprised if it even half of the current playerbase, which is 1/5th the lifetime peak, bother to come back again.

If it's that easy to make a game from the ground up go make ur own then

Making mods isn't the same as building a game from the ground up. Modders also don't have to worry about balance so much. Or things being broken and I don't mean broken as in unplayable or bugged stuff. Alot of mods also use coding or assets that are commented out and for a reason by the devs.

D2 has a bunch of mods that do just this. Where content that was never in game but in the code or assets not being used but in a hiden file in the data. Can now be used in d2 with these mods such as median xl. Path of diablo

My point here is modding is easier than building a game from the ground up.