Frontier, what sorry?

[OriginalBadBoy]

A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features . I have 20 plus years of game testing, scripting, coding and modelling . I know what alpha and beta are .

Really, because tbh you don't come across as such. Alpha's are just that .... They are snippets of pieces of a game, they are never 'feature complete'. I have seen alpha's that have been rough as ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎, and other alpha's that are actually pretty good, but 'feature complete'.. never.

Alpha's are designed to test certain aspects of a game engine / code. Alpha 1 for example was to test the general testing, Alpha 2 will be terrain, particle. Alpha 3 will be ?? and so on.

You don't start putting it altogether until Beta at the earliest. In the end themed rides and extra content like that is way down the priority list at the moment. Those are the easy bits tbh, lets get the foundation in place first before trying to build the house shall we.

 

[treverwarly]

Really, because tbh you don't come across as such. Alpha's are just that .... They are snippets of pieces of a game, they are never 'feature complete'. I have seen alpha's that have been rough as ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎, and other alpha's that are actually pretty good, but 'feature complete'.. never.

Alpha's are designed to test certain aspects of a game engine / code. Alpha 1 for example was to test the general testing, Alpha 2 will be terrain, particle. Alpha 3 will be ?? and so on.

You don't start putting it altogether until Beta at the earliest. In the end themed rides and extra content like that is way down the priority list at the moment. Those are the easy bits tbh, lets get the foundation in place first before trying to build the house shall we.

Absolutely agreed. Frontier is on track with their current alphas. From Wikipedia:

Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version.

Regarding no new themes: i'm a bit disappointed as well, but i understand that it has not that much of priority for them, because we already tested the modular building system a lot. They can adapt that testing to more themes easily. Remember: Alphas/Betas are for "testing" not for "playing".
As for variety of YT-content and so on: I really hope that they will add recoloring to the building pieces. it will add so much variety that we won't need any new themes anytime soon. Here is hope. May be the show the coloring system together with the coasters next week [hehe]

 

[Stream]

Last night I literally dreamed that I had access to alpha 2 and the pieces were recolorable, but no one had noticed and I was going crazy in the forums about it, lol.

 

[Zac Antonaci]

New shops. My wild guess would be Gulpee Softdrinks.

Though they did not mention shops or facilities.

I don't think new shops were confirmed specifically for alpha 2.

 

[Periocus]

I don't think new shops were confirmed specifically for alpha 2.

Ok. Thank you for pointing that out.

 

[mark0ne]

I think Frontier are doing a grand job on the alpha updates. I don't think we were ever promised scenery or theme additions for alpha's were we? The terrain tools will be brilliant to mess around with and should keep us going for a while. I haven't had a look at the latest stream yet as I work Tues - Thurs and am away from home most of the time during those days. I am planning to have a coffee and toast when I get up in the morning and make it my 'breakfast' viewing [happy]

 

[Helena]

Remember the #UdderlyCosmic.. Ok sorry for going semi offtopic. XD #CosmicCowWow

 

[CMD_Woodchip]

I think Frontier are doing a grand job on the alpha updates. I don't think we were ever promised scenery or theme additions for alpha's were we? The terrain tools will be brilliant to mess around with and should keep us going for a while. I haven't had a look at the latest stream yet as I work Tues - Thurs and am away from home most of the time during those days. I am planning to have a coffee and toast when I get up in the morning and make it my 'breakfast' viewing [happy]

Having watched it at 6am yesterday morning I can confirm it does make good breakfast viewing with tea and toast.

 

[MrCow]

its a teaser preview for a reason, to get you hyped up for the next phase.

 

[Abletudu]

Maybe no new theme, but it would have been nice to have more roof pieces. As it is now we have no roof pieces that will work with these wall contours:

 

[inspectorgadget1]

No need for a new theme (a few extra pieces they are providing is fine), the 1st alpha revealed to Frontier all they need to know regarding how well the modular building can be used. Alpha 2 is all about testing the terrain editor/updated coaster builder and that is what they want us to spend our time testing to identify what improvements need to be made. We should be spending our hours in this phase getting the most out of these tools not so much the modular aspect which we've come accustomed to these past couple of months. New theme probably best suited for alpha 3.

 

[Angelis1]

No need for a new theme (a few extra pieces they are providing is fine), the 1st alpha revealed to Frontier all they need to know regarding how well the modular building can be used. Alpha 2 is all about testing the terrain editor/updated coaster builder and that is what they want us to spend our time testing to identify what improvements need to be made. We should be spending our hours in this phase getting the most out of these tools not so much the modular aspect which we've come accustomed to these past couple of months. New theme probably best suited for alpha 3.

[up][up][up]

 

[Dalenotchip]

Sure what they are giving us is fine. It's not about What they should give us or what we are owed. It's just the timing of the theme tease got most of us really thinking with pretty good confidence that at least a partial new theme was coming in alpha 2. It's just a bit disappointing is all.

 

[Biotron2000]

Just my 2 cents . This is a alpha ! Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished.[ A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features . I have 20 plus years of game testing, scripting, coding and modeling . I know what alpha and beta are .

That said this game is pre-alpha at best ! I m sorry if I sound mean or angry . I'm not I love the game and the developers work .

I have stopped using the game due to not being interested anymore . In my opinion this is not good for sales or morale of the players . PC needs more content soon .

Me, too. I'm just not into excessive building. I'll take a look at the update, of course, and play with the new tools. But for now, it has become stale. I haven't even launched the game in nearly a month.

 

[Dalenotchip]

Me, too. I'm just not into excessive building. I'll take a look at the update, of course, and play with the new tools. But for now, it has become stale. I haven't even launched the game in nearly a month.

It's been 3 weeks for me. With the new stuff coming in the next update I just haven't wanted to put in the work. For example, I won't spend the time building a rock mountain again knowing the teraian tool is coming.

 

[Abletudu]

It's been 3 weeks for me. With the new stuff coming in the next update I just haven't wanted to put in the work. For example, I won't spend the time building a rock mountain again knowing the teraian tool is coming.

It might be nice to play with the new tools, but as I tried to point out before when it comes to building things if you are not very creative at using the pieces we have now, it can get old fast. I haven't even opened PC in over a week.

 

[dany191s]

i haven't launched it for a month now, but not for the same reason, its purely technical issues for me, my rig with a big extreme edition intel cpu and a r9 290x is about to explode, i don't know why as i see more mid range pc running this game without problems ! i hope alpha 2 will allow me to play it !

 

[EvilScrooge]

Hmm, let me get that right.... For more than a month now all I hear in the most youtube videos is how needed recolorable pieces are to make something stand out and how tired of brown colors everybody is, and now, here I read how nobody cares. Odd...
Of course terrain tool looks really interesting, but will many people care how many phallic sculptures they'll erect around their clusters of same-y brown buildings?
Just wondering.

 

[Periocus]

Hmm, let me get that right.... For more than a month now all I hear in the most youtube videos is how needed recolorable pieces are to make something stand out and how tired of brown colors everybody is, and now, here I read how nobody cares. Odd...
Of course terrain tool looks really interesting, but will many people care how many phallic sculptures they'll erect around their clusters of same-y brown buildings?
Just wondering.

Maybe the majority, which is happy about the current status, just went quiet.

Recolouring walls would be good. It got suggested. Why talk about it all the time?

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The same thing with custom music.

 

[jamesviago]

well i really wanted xyz rotation and they nailed that beautifully. YES! YAY!
i really wanted to be able to group pieces, then group the groups, and/or change building grid rotation without changing to a new building. NO! BOO!
got natural paths. YAY!
i don't like long lists of identical objects where the only diff seems to be the color. we didn't get "white objects then you color them". BOO!
maybe got path-shop connections fixed? YAY!
and about 50% of various other things we've been asking for.

so overall, a pretty good day!

only hmmmmm for me: didn't get much about how our feedback made any difference.
i am sneaky suspicious that had we said NOTHING, we would have got exactly what we got.
a lot of that coolness must have been in the works before started asking, and i don't think anyone ever said "we were totally not going to do that, but we changed our minds because of community feedback." or did i miss that bit?
we did get a few "thanks for the feedback" and "we do listen to it" but i didn't catch anything specific.
so.... is all this banter on the forum really making a difference?

if i'm wrong, please do tell!!