If the forums are any indication I say it won't go so bad, the other end of the cost factor is fandom. The willingness to invest into a title due too the past relationship with a developer and the genre you love says allot. It is just another reason why I think the early access price was the right move. Just as in Elite, you got the people that REALLY wanted that title and knew what the early access really was. Sure we had (as even in Star Citizen atm) complainers, you can never get away from that (expecting way to much), but overall it was 10% I would say, it's the same with most titles that have a pretty hefty access fee to get in on a game early.
I have no doubts if it was cheaper as in around half the cost this would be a larger number for sure. Many of us are from the RCT community let's just be honest about that, so we have expectations but we are also very realistic. I didn't see complaints about content in the beta of RCT , but I did see allot of complaints about the basic engine and interacting with it.
To that end yea, it was a pretty big deal being the game was scheduled to release in dec and MattL was all in that release date till the beta showed him how wrong he actually was. I have no ill wills too that crew, hell that game has had multiple dev teams thrown at it. I am surprised it was were it was during beta. Alas however, I don't think we will see any of that here. PC is not even scheduled for release till Q4 and that is not even set in stone. But from what I have seen in dev videos the proof is in the videos. Sure some of those were scripted events but others were not, I am conviced by that alone what we do get will be a simple alpha with basic features (the building modes, terrain modifications) in place, even might have some rides ready thou I am not expecting a huge amount if any.
Point being, I see a very positive vibe and understanding from our community, we WANT certain things and post about them constantly and even argue, but in the end I believe most of us "get it" and are looking forward to making the game (giving our input) the best it can be.
-Guard