2 months to release and the game feels like pre-alpha and is a letdown. Please delay the release.

It is not reasonable to trust a developer just because they trust themselves, I have seen developers who seemed confident and active in their forums failed miserably.

All Uber need is to announce the final schedule details, so people can stop being panic or......being more panic.

They don't have that information due to the development style.

We're getting to the point where that isn't really applicable anymore. At this stage it feels to me like Uber should be able to look at the Game's current development state(Which is different from what we see in the Beta/updates) and be able to say whether or not a December Release Date is still possible.

Catch is that only Uber can do that, so we have to trust in them being able to make that call.

Mike

Just like they can't set a date on when a finished "build" will get released. They can't set a date on what a finished game date make sense.

Can't say it will be last minute, can't say it will be well in advance. Hopefully they take our advice and meet somewhere in the middle .

Absolutely, it's difficult to make that judgment without knowing the criteria to move on with the December launch or push it back.

That's only part of it, even if we knew the exact criteria, we don't have 'full' access to the full 'Development state' of the game, for all we know Uber could have, for example, a completely re-worked UI and 10 unit units they're messing with but if they're not quite ready to push those in a Build we don't see any of it.

That's why I keep saying that us as Testers have arguably the WORST perspective on the project as a whole, it's like trying to figure out everything going on in a factory just visiting the receptionist's desk and sampling the factory's product, it's far from getting a complete picture.

Mike

Agreed, I figure the state would be something like a traditional release candidate or release to web at a minimum.

Totally agree.
Everybody is so focused on the here and now from the current build.
But what it should do is build your perspective of what it should look like when done.
It's pretty much what I've done with the UI stuff.

The list at 100% complete = community that will be amazed at how it works.
But that doesn't tell me the actual state of the UI in dev, only how good the latest released build is compared to 100%.


However, mind you, they said there is virtually no "hidden" builds, what we see, is pretty much what they got.

Not entirely true; what we see is what they have got committed. I'd expect there would be plenty of work in progress code/content on the developers computers that aren't checked into the main branch yet.

(I agree with the rest of your post)

Moddablity and multiple platforms support are good things to me, the others are actually questionable for investments.

RTS games tend to be messy with too many players, like those 16v16 in Spring.
Supporting unlimited unit cap won't have significant benefit for gameplay if the game mechanisms are not scalable.
Procedurally generated maps are not as good as the hand-crafted ones, and if you want a unfamilar map, you can always choose a unfamilar hand-crafted map. And if removing the procedurally generation part of the game can make the pathing easier, I would rather choose better pathing.

Looking back at games like TA, it was the lack of scaleability built into the engine that hinders it the most, so it's hardly questionable for a future-looking engine. They aren't things you can add in later.

40 players != 40 teams.

The point is about engine capability; even if PA doesn't work that well with very large unit counts (not yet determined), the ability to have these opens up the engine for other uses down the track. As above, support for this can't be retrofitted later.

Fixed maps are still supported, and the pathing is irrelevant to how the maps are generated (although the nav mesh generation over arbitrary topology is awesome - not to be confused with the actual pathfinding algorithm).

I've learned so much just playing this game as it develops and reading your updates. It's been an amazing journey and I can't wait to see where it will go next. Also, thank you for answering our questions! It's so nice to have devs that care.

Going to hit the nail on the head here and say that Uber Ent gave all of the pre-orders and backers access that way they can delay the formal release without failing on their kickstarter required obligations. So as far a formal release.. we are going to see a delay for those who didn't pre-order or kickstart the game.

I support the action as it allows those who helped with funding the game to get in and blocks the public, those who didn't get in initially wont rip the game a new one if there is a missing feature.
smart move Uber, not that it matters but I approve

Challenges being the necessity of generating the navigation meshes on the fly, especially on round planets (whether procedural or not). But you'd have to scrap not only procedural generation but terrain deformation too to gain any advantage, since in many ways they are the same thing (planets are generated by adding + subtracting terrain features). There's otherwise no difference between a procedurally generated planet and an identical, loaded planet, as far as topology for navigation is concerned. I'll let garat correct me here if I'm wrong.

The only problem, is people complain about a schedule for release here, and then if they make a new one a month down the line, and then delay that one too, then people complain here no matter what.

That is their dilemma. They want as accurate a number as possible when they make a new one, so they aren't hounded later.

Their was a time back in MNC Classic, where they made a release date for the first DLC, on xbox, and promised that it was coming any day now for like a month before it came. They sent it in to Xbox literally, but xbox literally held onto it for a month as they tended to more important business (patches for black ops -.-)

Spring, apart from the planets part.

PA is supporting 40 players !? Since when?

Since Kickstarter. It isn't implemented yet but it is a design goal.
Kickstarter page
Pick Your Battles
Play a quick skirmish with a friend on a single planet map with a low unit cap or a 12+ hour game with 40 of your closest frenemies and thousands of units. You can also hone your skills against Planetary Annihilation’s AI or team up with a friend against multiple AI’s.

Yeah, it's one more reason I was hoping to see the "scale" get rebalanced.
Let's say 500 units each, it's going to get mighty congested when you have small planets and large units.