Well I played that game now for one or the other hour. The main reason why I bought Extreme was for pictures and teaser video and the video in game that was taken on the last Gamescom.
Now every post from a moderator where Questions where like this, why no AI ships, why no this and why not that was for performance. If this game is so heavy that it does not work on an average computer you should consider that you might have the wrong game-engine. Look for example at the flightsim industry. The FS itself is nice but not more. BUT all developers that add Aircraft every day bring crispy clear aircrafts with perfect textures, perfect animation, perfect working technical environments and a lot of other technical stuff. Look at the series from Ubisoft bringing to us games as the Silent Hunter Series. Those ships look like the ships they suppose to be, crispy textures, environments AND a perfect ocean!!
Don't take me wrong cause I think you can do it. Just get rid of your feelings that many people cant play the game if you add more details. Put in some sliders, its so easy, and let everyone choose their own settings, let add on developers bring in their ships and just concentrate on the Sim itself with these nice waves and ocean environments that you have build, and let us have the ships that you promoted. The ones delivered (not all of them!) look like if they come from Legoland, with Names almost as big as the ship itself, with anchors that are never that big and ugly, with ropes instead of anchor chains (its only another texture) with very very poor textures with no AI, no machine nothing. The Bugsier is very nice also some of the new ships but those textures oh Brother.
Now please tell me for what I have paid. Except for the ocean nothing changed dramatically after two years of programming and a lot has gone.
Just my two cent guys.
Diego