Expectations

[Sterlino]

I would love to see Frontier do some live streaming. Star citizen is becoming something of a marketing behemoth with live streams all the time telling you nothing you didn't already know.

But Frontier are busy trying to make a decent game first. How terribly British. No bragging until you have something to brag about perhaps ?

I understand and totally respect the ''british approach'' to the job.
And i agree with you: would be awesome to see a video like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Ig94L40lc

David Braben walking in the Frontier offices to whip the staff, hehe ..amazing..

Chris Roberts is a clever marketing man, he knows that, to keep the people calm and available to spend more money on the project, is necessary to show everything about the development process.
Well, if not totally everything ..almost a lot of things and infos.
But Chris got 40b dollars.. is a very different point of view

 

[Lorenzo]

Having read a lot of posts on the forums it would seem that people expected Alpha to come out in December and Beta in Feb or so. A huge amount of resource would need to be channeled for that to happen and it also shows a lack of experience or appreciation of the software development cycle.

Alpha testing is not generally experienced by such a wide bunch of people as with ED. It is certainly not normally as visible to the public, I have had to accept various NDA's when taking part (and even with Beta's). There are a few (Game) Beta's going on where the NDA requests you tell noone that you are a Beta Tester!

The earliest that most people get to see is Beta, consequently the length of time taken for the alpha testing is not always evident.

Expectations for ED are high, this has been further fueled by what seems to be a very polished DogFighting Alpha. Are the other aspects as polished and major bug free? Who knows .... that is the point of Alpha Testing.

Only when the Alpha code is at a level that David and his team, the DDF and the alpha testers are all happy with would I personally want to see it go to Beta. Then I get my hands on it along with all the others who pledged to that level.

I would argue that releasing half baked/buggy code is not in the interest of anyone. Rushing generally leads to things being missed which leads to problems further down the line.

I am personally expecting Beta around April/May. I reckon there is still a lot of Alpha testing to do and I am happy with that. Ultimately I want ED to be a good polished game.

Some will disagree with some or all of the above, but that is the beauty of personal opinion/expectations.

I agree with you 100% i rather wait and have a better polished game then a rushed one just to keep people expectations.
But Frontier is doing it wrong when it come to information, leaving people dry for information will just make them frustrated even more.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I expect the commercial release by the end of the year.
Gamma by the end of March.

I suspect u may be right on the retail though I am hoping on the anniversary myself, but gamma in march I feel is unlikely now. With 2 beta releases before then and still being in alpha in Feb I just dont see a gamma before end of April myself (but that is a total guess aswell). I hope you are right on the gamma tho

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

*Edited by me

I'm not a doubter of ED ... but why are you so sure this game will not linger in Alpha? ...

Possibly because they originally estimated an alpha and 2 betas in a 3 month period. Yes unforseen delays happen but for instance a 6 month alpha up from a possible 1 month alpha does seem a lot. FD are experienced devs. Presumably they have some idea of how long these thinks take even back in 2012

 

[SAB380]

Having read a lot of posts on the forums it would seem that people expected Alpha to come out in December and Beta in Feb or so. A huge amount of resource would need to be channeled for that to happen and it also shows a lack of experience or appreciation of the software development cycle.

Alpha testing is not generally experienced by such a wide bunch of people as with ED. It is certainly not normally as visible to the public, I have had to accept various NDA's when taking part (and even with Beta's). There are a few (Game) Beta's going on where the NDA requests you tell noone that you are a Beta Tester!

The earliest that most people get to see is Beta, consequently the length of time taken for the alpha testing is not always evident.

Expectations for ED are high, this has been further fueled by what seems to be a very polished DogFighting Alpha. Are the other aspects as polished and major bug free? Who knows .... that is the point of Alpha Testing.

Only when the Alpha code is at a level that David and his team, the DDF and the alpha testers are all happy with would I personally want to see it go to Beta. Then I get my hands on it along with all the others who pledged to that level.

I would argue that releasing half baked/buggy code is not in the interest of anyone. Rushing generally leads to things being missed which leads to problems further down the line.

I am personally expecting Beta around April/May. I reckon there is still a lot of Alpha testing to do and I am happy with that. Ultimately I want ED to be a good polished game.

Some will disagree with some or all of the above, but that is the beauty of personal opinion/expectations.

Some would disagree with the above ?
I guess their might be some people on here that really want a half baked/buggy code and for Beta to be released before its ready ..... I'm not sure who though...

 

[Patrick_68000]

I expect the commercial release by the end of the year.
Gamma by the end of March.

I see rather the gamma for the summer season

 

[Maxeren]

Well, we don't know when alpha will end. But now we are given insight that we are roughly about 1/4 trough it. However I don't expect such huge pause between further phases as we got between phase one and phase two. I expect traveling and trading coming in one build, or having at least week short builds - there's not a lot to test relatively, just travel in system and see how it works and what's missing. Outfitting could be last short one too.

I got my alpha yesterday...I was blown away. I mean, I watched streams, I watched Youtube videos - they don't do justice to game. If you are in beta, prepare to collect your jaws from the floor, because ED is so beautiful when you play it - also remember you will receive *complete* package at once, while us alpha testers will have to wait for next phase, and next, and next. Can be quite annoying sometimes

When did you upgrade to alpha?

 

[natte hond]

I understand and totally respect the ''british approach'' to the job.
And i agree with you: would be awesome to see a video like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Ig94L40lc

David Braben walking in the Frontier offices to whip the staff, hehe ..amazing..

Chris Roberts is a clever marketing man, he knows that, to keep the people calm and available to spend more money on the project, is necessary to show everything about the development process.
Well, if not totally everything ..almost a lot of things and infos.
But Chris got 40b dollars.. is a very different point of view

oh yes , here you get to see how the SC backers money was spent on a new building and lots a luxury goods.
not a pretty sight.
but oh so american.

 

[Styggron]

Ok well I think people have said what they needed to say and as there are so many other threads covering the same thing, I'm going to close this one.