Alpha - Set your expectations LOW

I’m seeing a few highly optimistic posts, kind of think people are expecting “Yeah I’m going to be able to select my commander I bought in the kickstarter! I’m going to get to blow planets up!”

When really it’s more likely to be, “WOW! After hours reading forums and adjusting config files it ran & I got to see the main menu! – crashed after that though…”

The Uber guys only have a limited selection of hardware config setup that they’ve developed with – the sheer scale of config setups we the backers all have just can’t be tested by Uber alone – which is one of the reason why they do Alpha’s.

I’m personally expect it to simply not to work out of the box & anything more over that – great…

Pretty much every Alpha/Beta in a nutshell.

Well I certainly DO hope we will be able to build armies of a few different units and throw them at each other. They have shown that much in live-streams a few weeks ago, so it can be expected. In the livestreams crashes only occurred in the demo of the planet generator as far as I remember.

So let's not be too pessimistic. The game is definitely far from finished and will have bugs, but if it were totally unplayable they would not bother to release anything at all.


Sure stuff like blowing up planets... later
And yeah, surely this is all assuming that the game has not some problems with my hardware-setup. But I don't own any exotic hardware.

Yeah, good post.
- I just want to be able build a factory and some units. If I can do that, I will be more than happy for a first alpha version of a game that big.

They had a crash in the previous livestream, I think... :lol:

Hmm thinking back... yes they once had to restart the server I think.
But it was stable enough to build armies at least for the most part.

If blowing up planets was implemented in the engine, right now, they'd release a 45 second teaser showing it.

I'm not in the alpha, but, yeah, expect nothing.

It's ok to have some expectations for the Alpha. They were playing the game in the last feed. What I don't feel is ok is people getting angry that it doesn't work or that it has bugs. I can imagine their forum filling up with angry comments "WTF... The game doesn't work," and other comments of that nature. I would stress having patience and not low expectations. The game might be playable for some but they will work it out, it's just going to take some time.

Pretty much. I was kinda hoping to test out the AI a bit, or maybe even just go nuts in a sandbox mode as well, but whatever. The steam page lists player count as 2+, so I think i'm outta luck at the start for both.

Hells, if you want an easy to win game just look for INSULINt :mrgreen:

Okey, those using "but they showed us this in the last feed and it seemed to work" stop it. Its completely different to make something "work on one system they have at hand for a brief period so that they can show it of" and to make it "work on everyones system so that they can test it".

Even if the alpha is very stable on Uber's computers that dosent nessesarly mean that it will be for other computers.

Yes and No. You make it sound like it needs to be fixed up for every single machine, which isnt true either.

No, of course they wont have to tailor the game to every machine, that wasent what i meant.

But theres still a large difference between "getting it to work on one computer" and "getting it to work on most computers" (it never works on all computers, thats why i use "most").

There will be issues Uber will need to fix that hasent shown up on their own system, A big part of a alpha is to find and fix such issues.

It's still ok to think that it will work on your computer. I personally want to participate in the Alpha to play part of the game and give feedback. I saw the video feed and thought that would be awesome to play this. If it doesn't work I am not going to be upset because it is the "Alpha." I believe most everyone has an expectation to play the Alpha the point is to realize that it will evolve over time.

Exactly

I bought a game recently "The Swapper" - a good game, launch to public game, but crashed on startup, solution was to not using my surround sound head phones. So even a prepared to launch to public game can suffer from untested hardware issues & this is an Alpha.

Like I said, expectations should be LOW on stability - expectations on what we get in game - that's anther matter altogether...

Honestly, that should still be very low.

I'm looking forward to the Alpha, bugs and all, it's all part of the process..

I watched the livestream on youtube where they were showing off the unit flow engine technology in the game, and I was somewhat upset that they said they'd no longer want to show these types of tech demo's which showcase the underlying engine at work. I personally signed up for Alpha late in the game (a week or two ago) primarily because I want to experience something that's as close to unfinished as I can.

I'm looking forward to trying a game mechanic, and then trying the same thing a month later, and seeing what they've done to better it... It's like watching Bob Ross painting, the work slowly emerges from the canvas, and you're pleasantly surprised with the outcome, even though the start is always rough.

That said.. we'll get through these hurdles, and all be enjoying this amazing game soon!

Personally I won't be expecting this.

My thinking is that I will not be a player, I will be a software tester & having been a software tester at one point in my career I know know how low to set my expectations.

I can't wait to see those SMOKIN HOT GRAPHICS. Lol, but really the game does seem to have come along, so I'm hoping I'll just get to see at least one planet. But I'm fine if I don't.

I'm just looking forward to ironing out as many bugs and hitches as i can. I want this game to be awesome, i want the community to be huge.

Personally, I have good computers, so the Alpha should work on my computers, even if it doesn't work on yours.

Even if we are able to build units and try attacking each, isn't our job as Alpha testers to see what we can break to, and not just what will work?