There are a lot of reasons why this has such seemingly-extended deadlines. 1) There are way more than just a handful of projects going on at the same time, and more are getting started all the time, so in order to keep the pressure down and allow some of the busier-but-also-mega-talented-people to contribute. 2) Including the reason mentioned previously, I'd like to not sacrifice quality for and earlier release time. 3) Projects normally go through many phases of existence. Many start with ambitious deadlines and, many project coordinators will tell you, that deadlines almost always change at some point. This kind of semi-lax schedule will also go through that almost-definite change later on, but this allows sufficient time for things to be done properly. 4) The timeline allows the release date itself to be significant. FF4 project was released in-between when the remake came out on the DS and Wii-ware continuation came out. Whether or not that was completely intentional, it was definitely beneficial as interest in it was higher, etc. The NiGHTs projected timeline shoots for a release on or around the 15th aniversary of the original game's release.
So...there ya go. Don't let that stop you from getting progress done on yours now. Quite the opposite, the sooner your progress and WIP submission the better so that we can evaluate and give recommendations if it passes the preliminary quality bar.
Yeah, what he said.
Sure thing. Yeah, everyone's got a ton on their plate but definitely get a WIP in so we can see what you have in mind!