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If I was Michael I would release at 23:59 GMT+1 and spend Friday in his "Soon" T-Shirt posting similar "Soon" messages on the forum.
Joking aside. I think early morning in case of problems. There are a large number of people going to be downloading, many like me will be at work at that time. Whereas if its evening and there are problems....
Joking aside. I think early morning in case of problems. There are a large number of people going to be downloading, many like me will be at work at that time. Whereas if its evening and there are problems....
Haha, that'd be like the Starbound beta launch all over again. The forums actually exploded to a DDOS by a 100k users hitting F5 like madmen. 20k or so people flooding on the twitch channel, while Chucklefish frantically tried to push the build on steam. It was madness...
I'd love to be able to preload personally as I have a crappy internet connection at home :|
AFAIK it's possible to preload on a different system and just copy the stuff over? I think even a developer wrote that, but I don't remember where. Just in case you know someone close by who's got a better connection.
As a software developer and resident in the UK, I think I can say with a small amount of authority that on release day, the devs will be working until the end of the day at least (17:30 BST). Add in one or two hours of panic-overtime, and you're looking at being able to start downloading the game at about 19:00 BST.
Wild speculation on PB release schedule
I'm very interested in how PB will proceed with adding features to the game following the initial release. I'm hoping the next newsletter will give a rough outline. I wonder if it will be a drip-drip of additions to the game, or whether there will be a formalised 'Premium Beta 1', 'Premium Beta 2', etc. as we saw with the alpha releases.
With that in mind, I was thinking about the game features which are currently missing, and how I would package them up into different releases. This is what I've come up with. Warning: rampant guesswork ahead!
PB0 - released at the end of this week. Evidence suggests this will have the same content as A4.
PB1 - Missions: UI improvements in stations, with trade, outfitting placeholders replaced with proper versions. Bulletin board in stations with missions (simple at first: package delivery, passenger transport). Ship-to-ship communication. System maps. Some additional space opened up.
PB2 - Factions: Federation, Imperial and Alliance core space is opened up. The proper reputational system with these and other entities is implemented. Elite ranking is implemented. Missions can now be performed on behalf of the factions for reputations, ranks. Newsfeeds are added at the stations. Background simulation is ramped up in complexity.
PB3 - Exploration: Some significant fraction of unexplored space is opened up. The tools for exploration are added (scanners, probes, etc.) The mechanisms for selling data are added. Ships now require fuel. Mining is implemented.
PB4 - Career: Implementation of multiple character slots. Players can start a new character. Ironman mode available. Kickstarter start options available. Player death / escape pods implemented. Hangars and multiple ship ownership implemented. Insurance system placeholder replaced.
Besides these big feature changes, there will of course be the gradual addition of new ships, stations and other assets. Having the 'career' aspects added at the last stage of PB provides a natural segue into standard beta. At this point the game would be feature complete, and standard beta would be focused on further bug fixing and most importantly, issues of game balance.
Just idle musing on my part, but what do you think? Anything big I've missed?
I'm very interested in how PB will proceed with adding features to the game following the initial release. I'm hoping the next newsletter will give a rough outline. I wonder if it will be a drip-drip of additions to the game, or whether there will be a formalised 'Premium Beta 1', 'Premium Beta 2', etc. as we saw with the alpha releases.
With that in mind, I was thinking about the game features which are currently missing, and how I would package them up into different releases. This is what I've come up with. Warning: rampant guesswork ahead!
PB0 - released at the end of this week. Evidence suggests this will have the same content as A4.
PB1 - Missions: UI improvements in stations, with trade, outfitting placeholders replaced with proper versions. Bulletin board in stations with missions (simple at first: package delivery, passenger transport). Ship-to-ship communication. System maps. Some additional space opened up.
PB2 - Factions: Federation, Imperial and Alliance core space is opened up. The proper reputational system with these and other entities is implemented. Elite ranking is implemented. Missions can now be performed on behalf of the factions for reputations, ranks. Newsfeeds are added at the stations. Background simulation is ramped up in complexity.
PB3 - Exploration: Some significant fraction of unexplored space is opened up. The tools for exploration are added (scanners, probes, etc.) The mechanisms for selling data are added. Ships now require fuel. Mining is implemented.
PB4 - Career: Implementation of multiple character slots. Players can start a new character. Ironman mode available. Kickstarter start options available. Player death / escape pods implemented. Hangars and multiple ship ownership implemented. Insurance system placeholder replaced.
Besides these big feature changes, there will of course be the gradual addition of new ships, stations and other assets. Having the 'career' aspects added at the last stage of PB provides a natural segue into standard beta. At this point the game would be feature complete, and standard beta would be focused on further bug fixing and most importantly, issues of game balance.
Just idle musing on my part, but what do you think? Anything big I've missed?
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Alpha 4 was originally slated for early evening UK time, it eventually arrived around 8:30pm. There is a period where the latest version is uploaded to the Amazon servers once the final play test by Michael has been completed.
Shortly before the upload commences the current play servers are taken offline so they can be updated as well.
It will be advisable to watch out for a new launcher update as well over tomorrow and Friday as every major point release so far has been accompanied by a launcher update as well.
Shortly before the upload commences the current play servers are taken offline so they can be updated as well.
It will be advisable to watch out for a new launcher update as well over tomorrow and Friday as every major point release so far has been accompanied by a launcher update as well.
Frontier usually releases its achievements in end of the afternoon or early evening. Newsletters, videos dev, peeks of the week, alphas etc ... were often released in this time slot
Death awaits you!...
We're all waiting for Prem Beta release date/time
Death awaits you all! you're all going to die!
Remember wait till you see the whites of their eyes...let em have lads!
Why us..because we're ere lad!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ9KkgGB4Kk
We're all waiting for Prem Beta release date/time
Death awaits you all! you're all going to die!
Remember wait till you see the whites of their eyes...let em have lads!
Why us..because we're ere lad!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ9KkgGB4Kk
Going to work all day.
Actually had a day off, but did not want to hover over the PC all day,
so booked in for some overtime to help time pass faster until evening and probabel availability.
Trying to DL watchdogs to pass time, but somehow they did not expect that the customers wanted to DL the game at launch day, and the servers was overloaded.
so no DL watchdogs, like it takes a genious to figure out that there would be a massive
DL request.
Actually had a day off, but did not want to hover over the PC all day,
so booked in for some overtime to help time pass faster until evening and probabel availability.
Trying to DL watchdogs to pass time, but somehow they did not expect that the customers wanted to DL the game at launch day, and the servers was overloaded.
so no DL watchdogs, like it takes a genious to figure out that there would be a massive
DL request.
Here's the thing though. While it'll likely pop on Friday evening, how feasible will it be that it'll be accessible? I would imagine there'll be quite a few people trying to simultaneously download the client and access the servers - so could forsee issues there.
Any of the Alpha 4 people have any experience of "opening night issues"?
Any of the Alpha 4 people have any experience of "opening night issues"?
I'm also wondering if there will be a new stream on their twitch channel (maybe tomorrow) or perhaps early on Friday before the premium beta goes live because there hasn't been any official streams for a while and I think it would be good to have one to co-inside with the release of the premium beta.
If there isn't an official one I will just have to settle for watching Kerrash Landing at 8pm.
If there isn't an official one I will just have to settle for watching Kerrash Landing at 8pm.
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