I really hope people aren't thinking that when the early bird edition comes out next month that the whole game will be included. When it first comes out there will probably be very little in the game and I just don't want to see a bunch of posts of people saying they paid so much money and there are only a few rides in the game when it is first released. Over time more will be added but if you are wanting a more complete game then you may just want to wait for the complete game or buy the early bird edition later on if it is still available. I see posts about what people will be doing in the game and how they are taking days off of work and I am sitting here thinking about how you are going to be let down when you don't have much to do in the game. Basically you are getting a alpha or beta version think of it that way. I am just hoping that this long post will prevent a ton of posts next month.
I really hope people don't..........
- Thread starter terminator4d
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Yea, I can see that happening. I'm actually extremely busy the end of March and into April. But my line of thinking is if we learn the game a little at a time based on Frontier expanding our gaming experience as time goes on then when everyone's buying the game and learning it, I'll have it down and working on some more complicated Parks/coasters on game release. Just my thought on how it might work [pirate]
I think it's inevitable and it is going to happen.
However, I believe most of us understand that the majority of the work that frontier has already put in to PC will be what you don't see, behind the scenes, game mechanics etc. If anyone has had any experience with early access they 'should' understand that (or any long term project for that matter). The foundations of a game must be there before all the eye candy can be implemented.
But, like the original poster has said, there may be a back-lash because of the relatively (subjective) high price of the early access... Are you part of the "I believe and support Frontier, take my money... Or are you part of the "take my money, I just want to play the game".
It certainly is a trend to offer early access at the moment in a lot of games... I would have guessed it can be quite risky for a developer, especially when the users can post about it from the outset of access.
The saying "Never show a fool half finished work" springs to mind again.
I am interested in the 'feel' of the game, I hope it's personality will be present. That is what is important to me... I know that Frontier will deliver on eye candy and content at a later stage and continue to do so well into 2017 (and beyond hopefully!).
I am part of the Parkitect pre-alpha, and while there is not a great deal of content and there is no park management implemented yet. The game shows huge potential, it oozes personality, and the developers (all three of them) provide weekly updates and update the game version each month. It really is fascinating to see how the the game is shapping up... right before your eyes.
However, I believe most of us understand that the majority of the work that frontier has already put in to PC will be what you don't see, behind the scenes, game mechanics etc. If anyone has had any experience with early access they 'should' understand that (or any long term project for that matter). The foundations of a game must be there before all the eye candy can be implemented.
But, like the original poster has said, there may be a back-lash because of the relatively (subjective) high price of the early access... Are you part of the "I believe and support Frontier, take my money... Or are you part of the "take my money, I just want to play the game".
It certainly is a trend to offer early access at the moment in a lot of games... I would have guessed it can be quite risky for a developer, especially when the users can post about it from the outset of access.
The saying "Never show a fool half finished work" springs to mind again.
I am interested in the 'feel' of the game, I hope it's personality will be present. That is what is important to me... I know that Frontier will deliver on eye candy and content at a later stage and continue to do so well into 2017 (and beyond hopefully!).
I am part of the Parkitect pre-alpha, and while there is not a great deal of content and there is no park management implemented yet. The game shows huge potential, it oozes personality, and the developers (all three of them) provide weekly updates and update the game version each month. It really is fascinating to see how the the game is shapping up... right before your eyes.
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I started writing a post a while ago entitled "Expectation management" where I wanted to make this same point, but never got around to finishing it. I think that Frontier will have a similar strategy planned with Planet Coaster as they did with Elite: Dangerous. The early access for that game started around a year before it hit release, and went through various phases where they added features (and opened up tiers of test access).
The first (alpha) release was a lot more polished than everyone was expecting, but was quite limited in scope. It was effectively the combat tutorials that are in the game now. It allowed the testers to get in and play around with the flight model, which is obviously at the heart of the game. Because we didn't have a huge sandbox to play in, it focused our attention. Over time the developers added in more game mechanics, and opened up the wider game world. Over the course of the year each of the major phases brought a large number of new features split into regular updates with bugfixes between them.
I would expect Frontier to employ a similar strategy here. I don't think they're going to drop a fully realised game on us, but what they do release will be polished enough to show off to the world. It won't necessarily be well-optimised at this stage, and will likely crash a lot. I think that Frontier would be well advised to document their ongoing development process in advance, so that those of us going into it (especially those who haven't had experience with this sort of early access before) know exactly what to expect and what not to.
The first (alpha) release was a lot more polished than everyone was expecting, but was quite limited in scope. It was effectively the combat tutorials that are in the game now. It allowed the testers to get in and play around with the flight model, which is obviously at the heart of the game. Because we didn't have a huge sandbox to play in, it focused our attention. Over time the developers added in more game mechanics, and opened up the wider game world. Over the course of the year each of the major phases brought a large number of new features split into regular updates with bugfixes between them.
I would expect Frontier to employ a similar strategy here. I don't think they're going to drop a fully realised game on us, but what they do release will be polished enough to show off to the world. It won't necessarily be well-optimised at this stage, and will likely crash a lot. I think that Frontier would be well advised to document their ongoing development process in advance, so that those of us going into it (especially those who haven't had experience with this sort of early access before) know exactly what to expect and what not to.
I agree with everyone here.
An Early Access is a way to try the game, debug game, provide feedback and suggestions based on the something concrete, and help to improve and upgrade the development of a game.
But this is not the game release but the release of the early access. We must keep in mind that the game release is in about a year [yesnod]
An Early Access is a way to try the game, debug game, provide feedback and suggestions based on the something concrete, and help to improve and upgrade the development of a game.
But this is not the game release but the release of the early access. We must keep in mind that the game release is in about a year [yesnod]
Well said Angelis. But what's your betting that we will still get lots of comments about what you can't do in the game and people asking, when are we getting so and so, and why can't I build waterfalls. People need to remember that the Early Access will still be in its early stages of development and many things will not have yet been implemented.
Joël
Volunteer Moderator
I agree. I don't expect a lot. I would be satisfied with 1 flatride, 1 coaster type, and some guests wandering around. I'm sure we will get more than that.
If you don't expect a lot, you can always be pleasantly surprised with everything you get on top of what you expect. I think Frontier is going to give us a really nice surprise. [happy]
If you don't expect a lot, you can always be pleasantly surprised with everything you get on top of what you expect. I think Frontier is going to give us a really nice surprise. [happy]
I think we will get what we have already seen in the Dev Diaries, a few coaster types, quite a decent number of flat rides, like the balloon ride, big ferris wheel and maybe the train as a transport ride, which we haven't seen yet. This could be the surprise.
Joël
Volunteer Moderator
I'm secretly hoping for that... I know everything from the Dev Diaries could be in the game...
That would be an awesome amazing surprise!
Let's not build our hopes up, it was just a suggestion, their might not be a transport ride in the Early release, but if there is, it will most likely be the train.
[haha][haha][haha]
If the forums are any indication I say it won't go so bad, the other end of the cost factor is fandom. The willingness to invest into a title due too the past relationship with a developer and the genre you love says allot. It is just another reason why I think the early access price was the right move. Just as in Elite, you got the people that REALLY wanted that title and knew what the early access really was. Sure we had (as even in Star Citizen atm) complainers, you can never get away from that (expecting way to much), but overall it was 10% I would say, it's the same with most titles that have a pretty hefty access fee to get in on a game early.
I have no doubts if it was cheaper as in around half the cost this would be a larger number for sure. Many of us are from the RCT community let's just be honest about that, so we have expectations but we are also very realistic. I didn't see complaints about content in the beta of RCT , but I did see allot of complaints about the basic engine and interacting with it.
To that end yea, it was a pretty big deal being the game was scheduled to release in dec and MattL was all in that release date till the beta showed him how wrong he actually was. I have no ill wills too that crew, hell that game has had multiple dev teams thrown at it. I am surprised it was were it was during beta. Alas however, I don't think we will see any of that here. PC is not even scheduled for release till Q4 and that is not even set in stone. But from what I have seen in dev videos the proof is in the videos. Sure some of those were scripted events but others were not, I am conviced by that alone what we do get will be a simple alpha with basic features (the building modes, terrain modifications) in place, even might have some rides ready thou I am not expecting a huge amount if any.
Point being, I see a very positive vibe and understanding from our community, we WANT certain things and post about them constantly and even argue, but in the end I believe most of us "get it" and are looking forward to making the game (giving our input) the best it can be.
-Guard
I have no doubts if it was cheaper as in around half the cost this would be a larger number for sure. Many of us are from the RCT community let's just be honest about that, so we have expectations but we are also very realistic. I didn't see complaints about content in the beta of RCT , but I did see allot of complaints about the basic engine and interacting with it.
To that end yea, it was a pretty big deal being the game was scheduled to release in dec and MattL was all in that release date till the beta showed him how wrong he actually was. I have no ill wills too that crew, hell that game has had multiple dev teams thrown at it. I am surprised it was were it was during beta. Alas however, I don't think we will see any of that here. PC is not even scheduled for release till Q4 and that is not even set in stone. But from what I have seen in dev videos the proof is in the videos. Sure some of those were scripted events but others were not, I am conviced by that alone what we do get will be a simple alpha with basic features (the building modes, terrain modifications) in place, even might have some rides ready thou I am not expecting a huge amount if any.
Point being, I see a very positive vibe and understanding from our community, we WANT certain things and post about them constantly and even argue, but in the end I believe most of us "get it" and are looking forward to making the game (giving our input) the best it can be.
-Guard
Sawyer1
Planet Coaster Ambassador
I hope we get what we have seen in the developer blogs but this could be wishful thinking on that front. I signed up for the Alpha for a few reasons, getting my hand on any form of the game is of course one of them and I don't think anyone else can deny that but a big part in it was helping the development team shape it and forward bugs to them and so on.
I think when the game is released in full and we are all putting silly amounts of hours into it we can sit back and think, we helped with this. It's an awesome feeling and this game is something I feel so passionately about and I do want to help in anyway that I can. Some people will judge it early if there are strong bugs and things but as said in posts above, you're going to get this everywhere with every game that has an early bird feature. People judged RCT harshly for the beta but at the time it was set to be in full release so soon after and that was just impossible if the beta was a reflection on the final product.
I think when the game is released in full and we are all putting silly amounts of hours into it we can sit back and think, we helped with this. It's an awesome feeling and this game is something I feel so passionately about and I do want to help in anyway that I can. Some people will judge it early if there are strong bugs and things but as said in posts above, you're going to get this everywhere with every game that has an early bird feature. People judged RCT harshly for the beta but at the time it was set to be in full release so soon after and that was just impossible if the beta was a reflection on the final product.
We discussed this in this threat:
https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/77-Steam-Support?highlight=steam
Lol, it was a joke on the comment Angelis made [big grin]
I didn't get the joke. Sorry. [squeeeeee][squeeeeee]
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