Saw a message on Facebook announcing that the beta will be available on the 26th of September. That is really quick. So in the coming 11 days: - Interplanetary must be finished - All units are added - Naval works - T1 T2 and T3 is complete - Orbital works That is a lot of stuff that need to go trough alpha and build in the coming days. Unless this stuff is already being developed and tested (without us knowing) then maybe it is possible. Otherwise i have my doubts...
Incorrect. - Interplanetary must be finished working - All units are added - Naval works - T1 T2 and T3 is complete - Orbital works Unit diversity is added during beta. Units currently function... as intended Naval already works. It has bugs, but it works. Orbital has had a first pass. It's not final, but it functions. Also, there is no T3. Also there is no T1 and T2; it's Basic and Advanced. The only thing they need to add for Alpha to end is Interplanetary and Asteroid Impacts.
Fro. What it sounded the beta patch is just going to be some super patch with everything is included . I hope that's not the case because it will be like 3 weeks without anything. I hope this week we get to see something on the lines of interplanetary stuff to test.
it would indeed make sense to release the "beta" patch a few days before the beta is launched, so the current alpha testers can test it a bit before the big influx of more players in beta?
Well it's hopes an dreams, getting some for us to test early instead of hearing 15k people or whatever amount of people, will save a huge headache for uber
Id much prefer this. That way the people that have already put many hours into PA can test it and easily find unbalances between units.
I dont think it would be about unbalances. More about "does it work?". It would look bad if the "beta" patch had some error in it that makes the game unplayable.
I agree with this, major balences should only start working in the middle to end of beta. All the units should be in when they start to do any major balencing. I am just worried with the amount of new stuff their will be some major game breaking bug, right at the start of beta.
Beta with untested orbital? I hope for at least one alpha patch before the beta release for testing the new features for basic functionality. And besides orbital, IMHO theres a lot of stuff to fix before this goes to a "beta" state. This is not about comfort-features, units executing orders for example is the very basic core functionality of the game and it does not always work, yet. Assisting is bugged. Pathfinding sometimes results in whole groups of engineers getting stuck which leads to structures not beeing built. Buldings that are "white" (=buildable) and added to a build order are sometimes skipped/not built at all. Units disappearing in mountains, armies splitting up at random and overall the absymal pathfinding. Dune2, a game from times where 256 color displays where the cool stuff, didnt glitch as much here. Thats over 20 years old. Such things are perfectly fine to happen in an alpha - nothing wrong there. But releasing it as Beta to a few thousand people whilst introducing a whole lot of new features seems, at least to me, a bit ambitious. Id prefer to see a later introduction of additional features and fixing the very core of the game instead of rushing out new stuff that can and will introduce new problems. It doesnt have to be completely bug free by any means but the core functionality has to be solid. My guesses: Some parts of interplanetary will be there and working to some extent. By no means will all units be in there, dont have to - its still a beta I heavily suspect naval to glitch on like it does now Not even T1 will be complete - as already said its early beta then and doesnt have to feature all units Orbital will hopefully work properly at the final release, expect a lot of bugs and unexpected behaviour at its introduction with the first (!) beta version. Whilst your expectations arent off - other games alphas where grand compared to what PA will have in early beta - keep in mind that there are no clear definitions of what alpha and beta states must look like. The only point that really matters is release - no bugs, no glitches and all features working as intended.
Yes, why do the dirty betas get all the good stuff?!? WE supported PA before it became popular! (joking here)
Very strange to see that adding units (part of the game) is normal to add in Beta. Beta testing is the same as user acceptance testing (UAT). At that point the product is finished. All sprints (if you are working agile) are done. You only fix test defects or performance issues.
Yep, even since we only have about 30% of the units that they want. Plus they also have to do galactic war. I will be suprized if they can get the game out in December.
I'd imagine galactic war will be a risk type meta game where you play out your meta strategy in a different, perhaps browser based interface. When there's a battle it launches the main game where you duke it out. The hard part in making that sort of gamemode is the main game part, which they are working on now. The added interface for the meta part I'd imagine is fairly simple, since it doesn't involve a lot new moving parts, it's just an added interface to make multiple solar system warfare viable with a system that doesn't support multiple solar systems in a single game session. In short, I don't think that galactic war will take more than few weeks to make.
Beta testing is whatever they want it to be. Almost every company has begun using these terms in whatever way suits them so they really have no inherit meaning anymore. They might as well have called it phase 1 and phase 2 instead.
