Alpha Release date speculation thread

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Not sure if I am a kickstarter backer or not. Because I order 03 Mar 2013 . Family Birthday in late Feb (same day) early march same day.

Release date March 2014 is for *all* backers, KS and post-KS (it is so called gamma). And thank you guys for joining us btw! We are closing in to adding another thousand, and topping 11k new backers after Kickstarter!

 

[Styggron]

Not sure if I am a kickstarter backer or not. Because I order 03 Mar 2013 . Family Birthday in late Feb (same day) early march same day.

As Cody says, a backer is a backer. Thank YOU for backing Elite Dangerous. It will be amazing.

 

[Patrick_68000]

A backer is a backer!

Yes, very true. No distinction between a Kickstarter backer, and a post-Kickstarter backer. Except for the emotional experience of Kickstarter, which was extraordinary. Memories

 

[Valkyrie]

Alpha data estimates..

As an Australian, we have silly things here called internet quotas where we're limited to X amount of gigabytes per month (and in some cases megabytes) with our internet packages and exceeding these quotas will either shape your speeds to that of 128kbps~512kbps or just cost you your left kidney to continue using beyond your quota.

I'm curious how large is the initial alpha going to be? and how many gigabytes are we going to be downloading during the alpha period over the one or two months? Are we going to be downloading patches for each iteration of alpha builds, or will we need to redownload the entire game/client each time?

I understand if we can't get a definite answer as it all depends on a lot of variables, but it would be useful to know or have some kind of idea of the kind of data sizes we'll be subject to by participating in the alpha.

 

[Lee Storm]

The PC Version of Elite Plus was only 242 k +/-., So I'd guess about a 1-2Mb Taking into consideration that it will now be in full colour













I am of course kidding and I'd hate to be in a similar situation where my internet was limited.

 

[Maxeren]

As an Australian, we have silly things here called internet quotas where we're limited to X amount of gigabytes per month (and in some cases megabytes) with our internet packages and exceeding these quotas will either shape your speeds to that of 128kbps~512kbps or just cost you your left kidney to continue using beyond your quota.

I'm curious how large is the initial alpha going to be? and how many gigabytes are we going to be downloading during the alpha period over the one or two months? Are we going to be downloading patches for each iteration of alpha builds, or will we need to redownload the entire game/client each time?

I understand if we can't get a definite answer as it all depends on a lot of variables, but it would be useful to know or have some kind of idea of the kind of data sizes we'll be subject to by participating in the alpha.

I would say patches.. re-downloading the whole thing doesn't make sense, no other game does this that i know of.

 

[Razorwire]

I would say patches.. re-downloading the whole thing doesn't make sense, no other game does this that i know of.

I've been in a couple of alphas (and one beta) where we were testing seperate parts of the game, or vastly different builds, and required more than one complete new client.

The rest of the tests I've been in have been on a patch model.

 

[Valkyrie]

I would say patches.. re-downloading the whole thing doesn't make sense, no other game does this that i know of.

My only real experience with alpha/beta tests were World of Warcraft and Planetside 2, which on several occasions required a complete clients worth of re-downloading, even if it technically was not just literally re-downloading. But also the "test servers" they have required quite large downloads.

 

[Kroy]

I've been in a few alphas and betas that have required 1-3 gig download frequently through the test programme. It ruled a lot of people out then, and will do so again in E: D, no doubt

Also, for those of us in the UK with sub 2mb connections, a bit of extra time before the multiplayer sessions open would be appreciated also.

 

[The Nude Wizard]

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie... ergh

As an Australian I'm well aware of these issues but I think if you can afford to participate in the alpha, you can certainly afford to up your bandwidth cap for a month or 2. If you cant on your ISP, shop around, there's plenty of choice. I dont pay that handsomely for 500gb a month on 100mbit cable so the situation isn't that dire all across the country, but i understand there's places its not so flash especially out of suburban areas.

Because a lot of the universe is being procedurally generated i don't think we'll see have the WoW kinds of sizes of clients, but I'm gonna guess it'll still be in the handful of gig area by beta, alpha is anyones guess as they've said it'll be small portions of the game at a time but it could add up with several smaller downloads

 

[Susimetsa]

The last alpha I was part of was for Star Wars: The Old Republic and it did, indeed, require d/l:ing rather hefty updates every now and then.

Procedural generation has the potential to decrease the required download size, of course, as does the fact that we are testing only a small part of the game in the alpha, but I also suspect that the developers will have no inclination to optimise the code very much at this stage and the download packages will be bigger than the similar sections of the finalised game will be.

 

[izzy]

That's hard to have limited DL
I hope we will have to DL the client once and get patches

 

[Lestat]

I think the largest download is will be the first one. Then add a 30 or 40 downloads after that.

 

[Patrick_68000]

As an Australian, we have silly things here called internet quotas where we're limited to X amount of gigabytes per month (and in some cases megabytes) with our internet packages and exceeding these quotas will either shape your speeds to that of 128kbps~512kbps or just cost you your left kidney to continue using beyond your quota.

It is really amazing for a modern country like Australia, really

 

[MikeSnos]

It is really amazing for a modern country like Australia, really

The problem Australia has is that it's just so flipping big. This means that getting a high-end infrastructure costs that much more and where there is infrastructure its thinner on the ground when it comes to core bandwidth which is why the caps are in place.

Weirdly, the US has a lot of capping in place as well apparently and probably for similar reasons. Part of the reason is that there's no incentive for the Broadband suppliers to compete and upgrade their infrastructure as they have agreements whereby each supplier has sole ownership of the market in each area which eliminates competition and means that punters are forced to use the local monopoly.

We're dead lucky in the UK when you consider the issues they have in the US.

EDIT : Who'd have thought I'd be saying that????

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Weirdly, the US has a lot of capping in place as well apparently and probably for similar reasons. Part of the reason is that there's no incentive for the Broadband suppliers to compete and upgrade their infrastructure as they have agreements whereby each supplier has sole ownership of the market in each area which eliminates competition and means that punters are forced to use the local monopoly.

Problems in US related with broadband is purely related with lobbying and pure greed of telecommunication companies. Bear in mind, most of infrastructure supporting it has been done by state, still they have gotten local monopolies right and left. You just can't get away with this in "social" Europe.

 

[Oss133]

We're dead lucky in the UK when you consider the issues they have in the US.

EDIT : Who'd have thought I'd be saying that????

Me. I think the UK is a great place to live. It is by no means perfect but neither is anywhere else.

YAY! for the UK!

 

[Riandor]

Me. I think the UK is a great place to live. It is by no means perfect but neither is anywhere else.

YAY! for the UK!

Unless you live in rural uk in which case you get screwed by isp providers, as it has been monopolised by BT contracts in some counties and they wont do fibre optic to the home.

Now in germany i live in a small town, just about town status and i can have 150mbit! Freaking awesome.

 

[xyphic]

The UK does have its problems with broadband infrastructure (mainly that it's privately owned with public funding -- never going to work). My town's exchange is FTTC enabled, and pretty much all the cabinets have been upgraded other than ours. Ours was deemed not economically viable to upgrade by BT, presumably because they'd actually have to spend some of their own money on upgrading it. There's such a lack of transparency that I can't find out exactly why they didn't upgrade it, nor when they may reconsider. So we're stuck with middling ADSL speeds (which I'm at least reasonably grateful for).

 

[Sir.Tj]

Fibre took 2 years after the 1st estimate to be brought into my village. we eventually got FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) which is approx 500 feet away I'm on a 74mb down tariff and I'm currently on 60mb so at the moment I'm pretty happy after switching from 2mb broadband I was on.