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

Just to be clear, they would keep working on the game after "release" regardless.

So the "release date" is very much an arbitrary line in the sand. It only does two things; 1) Uber tells the world that they think their game is ready for the 'released game' label, whatever that means, and 2) everyone can purchase the game, or play it if they have already purchased.

So whether the game is 'released' or not really changes nothing. They will keep improving the game and adding to it either way.

Ah, but there is one problem with this, and that problem is reviews. Once you are releasing your game as an official release, and not as an alpha or a beta, people are allowed to write a review and if it is not properly finished yet, that will result in very bad reviews. And not just from the press, but from players too.
You or I could understand that the game will still be patched and even many others might too, but they won't be accepting the fact that the game is officially released and still has boatloads of issues. This can only ever end badly.

Bad reviews and user comments will put off others that are interested in the game, and that will cost you sales. The less people buy the game, the more in danger your game is of dying off early.

Yeah, just look at MWO for a way to not do a release. Big launch day! Yeah! Look at all these new features! Oh wait, we have nothing new at all to show you, we just renamed the Beta to Release!

Nobody was impressed.

Considering that PA is not a free to play game, I would be very disappointed to see them slap a 'released' tag on the current product, if only for the bad rap it would take in the wider community.


Mind you, I'm not certain they are obligated to release anything at all in the near future. Their release plans originally were for the non-stretch goal game in 1 year - with the huge amount of features that were added on to that, it's only reasonable to suggest that final product release may be up to a year away yet.

As long as we have an awesome game eventually I think they aren't obligated to do anything. Honestly it is rather shocking how quickly PA went from concept video to the playable program it is now. It is really not terribly surprising that, only a year later, it is unfinished.

Uber has been showing us the innards of their game design process for months, stuff we would never see from a different studio. But I think because it has been public they have been pushing their 'official' deadlines. One year after development started on any other game, we wouldn't even see it, much less be able to play it. Hell, we might not even have heard of it.

Uber is kicking ***, despite a highly unfinished product right now. It is proceeding unbelievably quickly.

It's downright insane, and most people don't even realize how insane it is and how much of a testament it is to the guys at Uber.

Sure making A game in a year(or year and a half in this case) isn't impossible, not at all but usually that involves cutting corners, using an existing engine maybe re-using assets. But that's not good enough for Uber, they're writing an engine from scratch, that does things that no RTS engines have done before on a Scale that has only been attempted twice before.

It sounds crazy and impossible, yet Uber is doing it.

Mike

^
this pretty much

I don't understand where people get this whole idea in their heads that these developers making this game are just going to up a leave and not finish it, the game is LITERALLY their baby, they made the videos, the kickstarter, and now they're making the game, and so far it has well exceeded what any kind of RTS game does out there.

Non flat maps.

Multiple maps in a game.

Destroyable planets

unique map creating software

Guys. they're very well close to what they were pitching in the kickstarter.

And for the op complaining about units, it just so happens there is going to be modding support, so you'll be able to create your own units if you see fit.

yeh, I think people sometimes forget that for a lot of the people at Uber, this is very much their passion. I mean, Neutrino et al., set up a Kickstarter BECAUSE they love these types of game, and BECAUSE they wanted to make one that changed our perception of the RTS game. Whether they succeed or not is yet to be ascertained, but from what I've seen already, they are taking a bloody good stab at it, in a ridiculous time frame. Lol at the mental image of this game LITERALLY being their baby

Like I said earlier in this thread, if you unwrap the toruses/looping rectangles then array all of them in a single plane, you will get a true overview.

I admit Uber is extremely efficient in terms of engine development, but that's not the case for game contents so far.

Multiple spheres isn't really that much of a technical marvel by itself, ozonexo3's engine has done it with units moving on them. What truly difficult are terrains/terraforming/pathing on them, even with Uber's skills, it seems we are still unable to get proper pathing for complex terrains on a sphere before the game release.

In my experience, game developers usually show more passion to their projects in public press than in reality.

Quote qqpp:
"A game only gets one launch. That's when all the reviews happen, that's when there's the most interest and playtime, and that's when its reputation is formed. If the game improves a year later, the reviews don't change, people's first impression don't change, and its reputation stays largely the same. Not only that, but the development process is extremely inhibited when working on and patching a released game compared to one in an alpha. Every game has a huge surge of players at release and then a much smaller playerbase from then on out. Because of all these factors, making sure that one launch window is a good one is of the highest importance. The people who want to play it badly enough can already pre-order and participate in the alpha."

And there is a reason why almost all games that received long term post release development are f2p or MMO.

People are more jaded now than before having been burned by shady company with unfulfilled promises.
There are lots of games to play and now a sea of vocal armchair critics on the internet.



For fans, for potential purchasers, for reviewers,
Once a game is "released", the gloves come off.

I'd say MWO is a pretty good example of how not to do a game full stop.

Long live MWLL.

I'll regrettably admit that I am one of the very few people out there who have become jaded/burnt out of the video game industry, but there was something I saw in PA that made more excited than ever, especially when I first saw the pitch trailer.

I had something to look forward to this year video game related, and man was I excited.

It's going to be great, and I think everybody here should wait and see what they do before they go off and complain about everything.

Just sit back and relax and quit trying to do ubers job for them, they were aware of what they were getting themselves into, it's not our jobs to complain about the game until AFTER it get's released, until then, just chill.

*MW2:Mercs

Yup. This is why I am HEAVILY in favour of them delaying the release indefinitely until they can do it absolutely perfectly.

Then take economics into account, and they meet in the middle.

Except they won't have a totally crazy game-changing overhaul post launch.
If launch is similar to what we have now,

I can't seem them totally overhaul scale post launch
or add
"Orders as first class entities"

There is not many reason to complain after release other than raising the awareness of the game's quality, which is something you already can do, because it is already selling. There are potential future improvents, but same thing can be said to the post release version.
Before release, complaints could at least create some pressure on the development, so the initial reviews might become better.

Looping battlefield and multiple battlefields are both old concepts for RTS genre, combining them didn't excite me much by itself. But since multiple battlefields was never really a successful idea, and Uber seems to be a dream team and have much confidence in their game design, I had great hope for PA could done it better than previous games. So far there isn't smallest sign that is gonna happen.

The middle ground between awesome and a unfinished product is mediocre, and the game is not even mediocre yet.

Sorry for it, I'm a son of a bitch....

@qwerty: I'm confused, you sound like you weren't impressed in the first place, and are now stating that you still aren't impressed, despite them continuing to achieve what they stated? What exactly were you expecting? Seems to me like they are on par for delivering pretty much exactly what they said they would...Although I could be wrong

You talking with me?

I liked his post just to annoy you.

In any case, there is also a limit to what you can change post release. If there are a number of people that do enjoy the game at release, they might rightfully be annoyed at constant overhauls that drastically change the gameplay experience.