TLDR Its good if you want to support this concept like a Kickstarter, but if you want to play an actual game and not a crafting and building demo, let this one cook.
Early Alpha is a good way to describe this. I was thinking this is more a crowd funding attempt than it feels like a solid early access, which makes me a little worried about the financial state of the game if they are needing to drop this expensive of an early access now.
Still, I have enjoyed it, but I am rather well known amongst my friends for spelunking into random survival games and this lands right in my wheelhouse.
I think it has a lot of potential, but that is still quite some way away. What they do have seems to be pretty solid and match the vision/description of what they want, but large chunks of the game are still missing. Combat is apparently little more than the default Unreal Engine stuff. There is a clan system that is nominally in place that allows cooperative building and resourcing, but there are no guild security or access levels which is super important in this style of game. Anyone can take or destroy anything apparently. There is also no real game loop outside of grinding crafting skills. No mechanics to support an economy or diplomacy or any other sorts of player made interaction.
IIRC the developers have a background from EvE Online and you can kinda see the intention to make something that is almost a medieval fantasy version of that. The devs lean towards all player built structures and economy. A safe outer area with an inner always on pvp zones with better end resources for harvesting. There are ruins and dungeons around to farm higher end stuff that would prolly be analogous to deadspace complexes.
It is also not a solo friendly game. The crafting grind is heavy and the requirements to unlock higher tier recipes and such seem rather onerous and apparently are only going to get worse as I delve deeper into the trees, as well as requiring stuff from other professions. Again, I feel this is sorta a push similar to EvE to either have a large enough clan to do it all in house, or to force a player economy of trading resources.
Problem is they are talking about player owned stalls for the market solution, which will most likely fail miserably. Eve has NPC stations with market listings you can see from some distance away. If Pax Dei has a bunch of individual stalls littered about that are limited in location by the land plot system and you have to go up to them physically to view their contents and pricing, its mostly going to be a waste. The major clan in each area will prolly just set up a market and that is where most everyone will go unless they get some tip to buy elsewhere or just come across a stall by happenstance. So selling to the major clan and them relisting is prolly the best you can expect. Hey, maybe it will be realistic feudalism. Get to work serf.
The plot system is the other big conundrum I see. You can only build on a small plot you claim, and they have suggested that once they go live you will pay a subscription based on the number of plots your account holds. Not necessarily pay to win since you can fit everything you need (least, so far) on one plot it will offer advantages for market stalls and other things. The big one will be though, the way clans build their big castles is by placing all their plots next to each other and then anyone from the clan can build on them. So what happens when Bob dies and stops paying his sub? Do you suddenly lose your plot of land in the middle of your castle and all the building on it? Currently when you unclaim a plot all buildings are gone. This seems like it could be a bit of a problem later as the game goes on.
So lot of potential and they seem to have a clear vision and goal of what they want their game to be, however it is a long way to get there and its going to be some time before I would consider this a game with a sustainable gameplay loop.