When will the game be finished?

[HaiderGill]

Dear anyone in charge,

This is not a rant so please do not take it as such.

I would simply like to know when the game will be delivered to backers?

I was initially told February 2014. Now it is being stated simply as 2014.

If I was being cynical I would say that you are milking things a little bit by asking people to pay 200+ euros/ pounds to participate in the alpha phase. Is there a project plan? How many alphas and betas will there be? What are your target dates for these? When is it expected to be delivered to Kick starter backers?

I am also in the software development business and I wish that I could get my clients to pay upfront and then pay an extra amount when I want them to test my applications when I appear to be running behind schedule!

I could probably bash my way through the forum posts and find an answer but can you not have an information page on the main website?

Thanks.

Robert

I used to work for an investment bank who used to pay for functionality to be added to a vendors software. Pay upfront then it (said functionality) would be available only to the bank for about 6 months before they could offer it to their other clients.



EDIT

I'd rather they (FD) put out something that is 'quality' rather than have to wait for it to be patched to make it playable. I'm not expecting perfection on release but a 'good balanced' game. Personally I'd rather wait for the full monty. I don't want my 'WOW' experience to be diluted by alpha, beta and gamma. Different strokes for different folks. I'd even wait till 2015. Kickstarter is just that; kickstart the development of the game and help gauge interest. FD have had to sink in a lot more cash than what they raised via Kickstarter and subsequent sales. In terms of game there hasn't been anything like it so project plans can only be so accurate. If you're reinventing the wheel you will know how long it approximately takes from past experience. It's like having a house built to a design that a builder/developer has done umpteen times. It's not an exclusive design but the pitfalls have all been sorted out. ED is unlike anything before...

David Braben on the whole strikes me as an ethical person not a fly-by-night rogue. This is his magnum opus and he will take time to get it right.

 

[nats]

I am also in the software development business and I wish that I could get my clients to pay upfront and then pay an extra amount when I want them to test my applications when I appear to be running behind schedule!

If you had released the best piece of software in your class you would probably be able to do this as well. Frontier are relying on their past history to generate initial funding interest in this new game, which incidentally is looking less and less like the old games the more I find out about it. But I look forward to being (or should that be 'hope I am' ?) pleasantly surprised when the game finally is released

 

[rsksmiles]

I recently upgraded to alpha because I have more free time now and I want to help find and report the bugs. And believe me, there are bugs. Ships flying through the Dreadnaught without actually hitting it, lag and stuttering when various things happen, etc. It's not at a "playable" stage, where "playable" is defined as "hey, this is fun and I'm not upset because the ship I was just attacking and almost destroyed has suddenly disappeared and shown up right behind me." Because that's where it is right now.

But it looks great and it's coming along. It's a hell of a job to program something this big, and an even bigger job to make sure it works near 100% so things like disappearing ships don't happen anymore.

I ran a Neverwinter Nights server for several years, and I caught more hell when I decided to add an entire Drow & Duergar races and Underground that covered the entire stretch of what I already had above ground. It kept getting pushed back (mainly because of time as it was a part-time thing for me), but also because of production, building, more enemies added, scripting for new areas with unusual things, and lots of testing, retesting, and more retesting. I finally started telling my players, "It'll be done when it's done. Stop asking. Because I want it done and available as much as y'all do."

So I understand what our programming team is up against. Let's let them make sure that they get it right, and with plenty of testing, so the masses will be happy.

So if I understand correctly then, one can stump up 200 quid and help them test the game. Shame I do not have 200 lying around . My computer set me back 500 as it was.

I think that it is a great idea to have crowd funding for a project and an even greater idea for people to have early access to alpha and beta tests. The downside is that letting people in means that you need to let some information out. Make no mistake I will continue to wait (no money = no choice - ah poor me) but I think going from March 2014 to sometime in 2014 is not good PR. I have always said to people if you give me a date, give me a date you can stick to. DB and co are the game dev experts not us, they could at least come up with a plan other than 1 month alpha - 1 month beta.

If it is going to be September say so. If they end up not hitting September then I would hazard a guess that they have some serious dev/ design issues.

Has no-one heard of Scrumm?

Again this is not intended to start a polemic.

 

[JeffRyan]

Its Goonswarm btw. And they only do all that heinous stuff because they love you. They are also, despite what you may have heard, exceedingly poor at internet spaceships. You have absolutely nothing to fear.

No experience with actual piloting anyway rather than just good at spreadsheets.

 

[rsksmiles]

If you had released the best piece of software in your class you would probably be able to do this as well. Frontier are relying on their past history to generate initial funding interest in this new game, which incidentally is looking less and less like the old games the more I find out about it. But I look forward to being (or should that be 'hope I am' ?) pleasantly surprised when the game finally is released

I develop :snore: building management apps :snore:. 3D open GL, Java desktop app. Possibly the coolest software I ever have written. :blow trumpet: Beats the hell out of banking or web apps - BUT not as cools as games dev.

Actually I am just really jealous of all game devs

 

[nats]

I have always said to people if you give me a date, give me a date you can stick to. DB and co are the game dev experts not us, they could at least come up with a plan other than 1 month alpha - 1 month beta.

If it is going to be September say so. If they end up not hitting September then I would hazard a guess that they have some serious dev/ design issues

They are hinting that it could be 20th September and I totally think that is the date they are aiming for since it will be 30 years since the original Elite was released. But they really should have to balls to tell us if that is the actual date they are aiming for rather than have us guess. But then that has been Frontier all along - they dont tell anyone anything that they dont have to. Its been more than a little bit annoying.

 

[Daedalus]

I can understand peoples frustrations...truly...but where some see set backs I just see more content chin up people this too shall pass.

 

[Daeron]

I can understand peoples frustrations...truly...but where some see set backs I just see more content chin up people this too shall pass.

Good looking content at that! Not some paper cut space stations! Well actually... we got them as well, just not in the game.

 

[Amorelia]

Good looking content at that! Not some paper cut space stations! Well actually... we got them as well, just not in the game.

Maybe we'll have fluffy stations instead of fluffy dice

 

[Dr Wookie]

Dear anyone in charge,

This is not a rant so please do not take it as such.

I would simply like to know when the game will be delivered to backers?

I was initially told February 2014. Now it is being stated simply as 2014.

If I was being cynical I would say that you are milking things a little bit by asking people to pay 200+ euros/ pounds to participate in the alpha phase. Is there a project plan? How many alphas and betas will there be? What are your target dates for these? When is it expected to be delivered to Kick starter backers?

I am also in the software development business and I wish that I could get my clients to pay upfront and then pay an extra amount when I want them to test my applications when I appear to be running behind schedule!

I could probably bash my way through the forum posts and find an answer but can you not have an information page on the main website?

Thanks.

Robert

Hi Robert,
I think that FD would much prefer to sell tens (hundreds?) of thousands of copies of the complete game to the public for say 30 quid a go than entice a few people to pony up 200 for alpha access, so your cynical version doesn't really make sense to me .

You may not know it, but the way for getting around star systems has been completely changed, thanks to feedback from these forums, so the implementation of that would induce a substantial delay. I would guess a late summer/early autumn release date, but officially they only say 2014.

 

[Jezzah]

but officially they only say 2014.

Indeed

And this is as specific as they need to be in my opinion. If this were a traditional publisher funded game then they would probably have to name a date for release and unless its completely 'd then it releases on that date. These days that can mean broken games that require day one patches and ongoing patching to try to get it right which can harm sales going forward...Good recent example - BF4 - a right mess, it still is, and its not sold anything as well as it should have.

FD have the time to get the game right - getting it right means testing, getting it released right means better reviews, and sales and a future for the game.

Keep it up FD, get it right and release when its right

 

[ToadMan]

Indeed

And this is as specific as they need to be in my opinion. If this were a traditional publisher funded game then they would probably have to name a date for release and unless its completely 'd then it releases on that date.

This is a good point but I think backwards....

If this were a "traditionally published" game from EA/UJbi/Acti then we'd have had a minimal trailer 2 years ago saying "coming soon" and then nothing much apart from press previews until about 6 months before release - by that time the game is 90% done and undergoing testing so there is confidence it can be released.

The kickstart system means FD had to provide some kind of timescales (as we now know, those timescales were inaccurate) but the reality is that any creative endeavour or development project must necessarily be continually reassessed, replanned and in some cases redone if the results aren't good enough.

FD can kick around long term timescales now but I don't think they really know for sure what dates are possible for full release other than very soft ones.

While they can get away with it, they may as well keep quiet on the matter.

Toad.