Greetings:
I'll address these individually so that I don't miss any points:
If, say, the donations were to come in slowly, does that essentially mean that we might be investing in a game that never actually comes into fruition?
Or will the game essentially be guaranteed to be launched, but will simply have less features than their stretch goals would entail?
Valiance, as a game, is in such a position that it can be considered to have come to fruition. You can recognize Valiance as a game that is released in an extremely early access state, that will continue to grow over the duration of its existence. We will not officially launch the game until we feel it is in a proper state to be regarded as a proper Steam Early Access release candidate. In the meantime, the game will continue to remain accessible to our investors for the duration of its availability. During which time we'll continue to achieve our goals as financial milestones are accomplished. For example, we've achieved our first financial milestone, and have invested said finances into completing the goals listed therein.
One thing to acknowledge is that while we waited to accomplish our first financial milestone, we continued developing the game. Therefore, mamy of the goals from that milestone were already in-development, and a few were nearly complete. This further strengthens the fact that regardless of whether the financial milestones are met, development will always continue.
Are all of the planned features in the tiered donation lists already planned for implementation past the Alpha, or will our donations essentially only affect what we'll be seeing in the Alpha for the most part (such as Power Previews/Colors and so on)?
I believe most of this was covered in the last response, but the short answer is yes. What you see in the "Goals" section of each tiers are already planned for completion of the Alpha release of the project. Items such a rewards, however, are created based on the priority of their demand. So if someone donates towards a large reward whereas something is to be made specifically for them or exclusively by them, we determine the priority dependent upon whether we should focus resources on it now. An example of this would be the fact that we have had the bronze, silver, and gold travel powers' accessories made as they will be essential elements to the new account system experience that was recently added to the game. Capes were also made for all tiers currently available to test the new account system's item access coding.
These were all items that we felt were essential to furthering development and were within our current scope of production, so we prioritized them. There will be new details unlocked for all reward tiers, to show what all will be earned by committing to those tiers. There will be some higher tiers where players are able to donate towards having their own alliance headquarters as physical buildings in the game world. At this point in development, we'd look at adding these as our resources and time permits us to. As purchased elements, that will have an effect on the world and the environment, they do hold priority. However, they don't currently hold the greatest priority.
I've been reading up a bit in my time stalking this game and;
I've heard that this game's going to be free to play.
Yes, we did announce the game as being free-to-play.
What exactly will the "Premium Game", as offered by the Bronze Tier, essentially be coming with?
Also also also; I noticed in the things granted to donators that no such signs of optional subscription services were offered, I take it that this game on launch (if buy to play isn't a thing) will be powered solely through a cash shop~?
These are questions that will be answered soon. Regarding the donation tiers, however, there will be more details that become visible soon. Understand that we will never take away from what was already committed to, and that what is being added is a simple interface drop-down list that will provide greater details as to what each icon of the tier panels mean and will be in-game. It will also express the further details not present in the short-hand representation of the reward icons.
I hope this helps provide clarity in regards to your questions. Remember, please feel free to let us know if you have any further questions regarding the project.