I do not know how true this is, but i heard that the developers had no choice but to release a half baked game due to a contract with Steam to have it on sale by a certain date.

With that in mind the developer said the game should be in good shape in 2 to 3 weeks.

Keep in mind, this may only be a rumor.

Well, half true. They did release the game earlier than they would have preferred in order not to lose players to the upcoming stand-alone homm6 expansion, which will be out in less than 2 weeks. They couldn't have released it after homm6 expansion either because this time their game would be stuck between homm6 and fallen enchantress or between fallen enchantress and age of wonders. Long story short game needed couple more weeks of work but they ran out of time. They could either release it as it is and finish up with patches or wait for a 2014 release which probably would have been a financial disaster for them. They will lose money over releasing an unfinished product too but as they say lesser of two evils.

Game isn't in a bad shape though, haven't encountered any bugs so far myself. Only thing missing is the multiplayer it seems and devs said it should be up and running in 2-3 weeks.

I guess this is the right forum to leap to conclusions like that but I really don't think Steam is that inflexible when it comes to release dates, they move around quite a lot with the games on their upcoming list.

I have trouble seeing how it's even their business considering they're just a store to them. I doubt there's anything in their contracts that state the game has to be released by a certain time, it's actually quite a ridiculous thought. Publishers are the ones that push for releases.

I honestly fail to see how the game could be "in shape" in 3 weeks.
There's a lot of work to be done, the camera is messed up (the zoom is god awful, when it's really simple to make a simple camera move system), there's stuff disappearing (trees), combat is awfully slow (compare it to heroes V or VI and you'll see what i mean), and the map is running slow on my comp which makes guild wars 2 run at 70+ fps in full with AA, max shaders, etc.
I have made some 3D game prototypes (no commercial one yet) and believe me, no game should come out that messed up in 2013.There's obviously been a lack of testing and the team must be pretty small and inexperienced.

As someone who works as professional tester, I can assure you that almost always there are way more errors reported than fixed, and fixes always take more time to fix than a casual outsider would estimate. "Trivial" fixes take 20 mins to implement and commit. "Easy" fixes can easily take half a day. "Complicated" issues can take days, sometimes weeks.

Developing software is hard. Developing 3D software is bloody brutal.

And yes, Russian teams are typically understaffed and underpaid due to limited budgets. Most games you are thinking of were made by teams who had three or four times more manpower than typical Russian devhouse does.

And yes, Space Rangers and King's Bounty were made on Western money with way larger budgets.

;_;

Don't mention that, still very very very much waiting for Space Rangers HD remake and praying it's worth it :(

I'm just gutted that the Star Wolves 3 stand-alone expansion got cancelled, again due to lack of funding.

Thus far with Broken World, I'm happy enough with my purchase.

I hear that somewhat playable after 7-11 patches. Still in "paid beta-test" form though.

Then why is Genesis finished and this new Masters of the Broken World not. And why do even some indie developers which exist of a few men or even one person (think of minecraft) deliver better work.
It's not a money thing. That's rubbish. And if money is the problem, then start a kickstarter project.

By "incomplete" ppl are referring to multiplayer not being ready yet. Not missing content.

There's nothing missing from bw that was in genesis.

Because it took like 6 years and had pretty rudimentary 2D graphics?

Also Kickstarter is not available in Russia (dunno what kind of workaround Ice-Pick used), and IndieGoGo typically makes fraction of KS money.

I do and I shudder.

No. Developing 3D software isn't brutal. It's pretty easy when you know what you're doing actually. Having such bad camera behavior in a released game is just completely insane and i really don't understand how it could happen.
Implementing a camera system in a 3D environment must take at most 1 week if you're unfamiliar with it. I know, i have done some while learning.
How are such core mechanics broken in a game that's been tested ? You're going to tell me they didn't want to fix it ? Or that they didn't know how to ? (which would indeed mean they are totally inexperienced)
I'm an indie game dev (my first game is in development) and i know what i'm talking about. This game feels like total newbies tried their hand at making a 3D game. I'm not saying it can't improve, i'm just doubting it will. Trust me, i really liked eador:genesis, i really hoped for this game to be as good. It's not, it's crippled with bugs and bad behaviors.

Link?