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

They have a coffee machine, what could go wrong.

Proposal: Beta' (beta-prime) release for December

The release designation doesn't matter so much; the point is to consider a release for December that is not [current] Beta, but is also not an official general-availability Production release. Instead, this Beta' could be made available to all levels of Kickstarter backers, and possibly also to pre-release purchasers so far (this could be discussed).

Uber would be making good on their Kickstarter-related timeframe for the backers, in my opinion - though, certainly others will disagree and cite that only a completed game counts. Backers would have access that perhaps many are eagerly waiting for (ahem -- who, me?!?) on the timeframe they currently anticipate. AND those backers would have a newly found genuine opportunity to experience the game and engage in feedback during the final stages of pre-production development, which could be pitched as a nice compromise in the contingency that production quality isn't fully par by December. Beta users will still have had the value of their far earlier experience/voice, which they paid extra for (thank you all!). And general public sales with the resulting ratings and critiques, would be deferred for a while and shielded from a possible less-than-fully-ready version launch, which is what i interpret as the premise or default assumption of this thread.

If that premise is correct a compromise of some sort, acceptable to a majority of stakeholders will ultimately be needed. Ultimately it's up to Uber to do what they think is best, and I'm no game developer so I still cross my fingers that they will simply pleasantly surprise us, making this discussion moot. Guess we'll see.



Note: I further assume that PA's finances are in order and that scrambling for additional development funds past December is not a concern or requirement for Uber. If there is a burden there (unlikely IMO), and if Uber feels that burden should be borne in advance by future players (also unlikely IMO), this Beta' proposal could be modified to accommodate additional pre-sales (with immediate Beta' access) concurrently. Though I do admit that risks distorting this proposal into barely more than a slyly mislabeled production December release to deflect initial critiques. I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt though, and assume time is the limiting factor, not money.

Anyone who has actually purchased the game should be able to continue playing, regardless of whatever other decisions Uber makes.

Agreed. I should've made that more clear as an assumption. Good call.

I'm not a backer(partly because I didn't discover this game until a few weeks ago), but I still have the full paid-for-with-60$-game. If I didn't get to keep playing when they went into this Beta' just because I didn't back the game(even though some backers only put up like 20-30$, less than my copy is 'worth') I would be pretty upset.

I still think most of the rest of it is a pretty decent idea though.

Maybe they'll surprise us with a large content patch.
We can hope right?

Right?

...

<.<

So. In other news, anybody else remember the "i'll be coding for 9 months non-step" statement? D=

Well, at the very least we should get some really decent and high quality audio for the game this week
Maybe, if its done by then I mean.

I know I would contribute some additional funds if they asked me for it!

First of all it is not eight weeks until a December release. December release means before Christmas shopping, so at the start of the month. Also, packaging the game and that sort of thing takes a few weeks. Realistically there is only a few weeks of development left.

Second of all, the game won't be ready in March next year either. Looking at the state of the game they would really be better off with a full year of additional development. If that's not feasible because of money or whatever that's completely on the developers and their incompetence in judging how much time was needed, it doesn't excuse them one bit. If they are going to release the game in an unfinished state very few people will care that it's going to be improved in the next three years. It's very common for games to still be worked on after release these days, but even for games like, say, Diablo III that are much more polished now than they were one year ago at release were still completely finished and playable games at that point in time.

Like other people said, give people that pre-ordered it the option to get beta access or get their money back and keep it in beta for at least another six months.

I agree that the PA's release should be pushed, to at least June - July.

No offence but I find it hard to believe that everything will be fully working and implemented at release.
I'm very impressed what Uber has managed to accomplish in such a short time.
And I'm aware of that the game will be supported and be given updates after release but I fear that, if Uber makes a full game release this December, it might cause some problems.
I think some people expect the game to be fully complete at release and if the game sill has a lot of features missing and bugs, it will not make a good impression.

I don't think the game is that far off of release.. Say for the galactic war.. as over 3 planets causes uber lag I find.

IMO they could release it and just say the galactic war will be released at a later date..?

December means calendar December.

I think you get way over the board with that. Yes, game is far from being ready for release, but it's certainly not a full year away from the release. Even if you include QA and balancing in that.

Well, that's a risk of kickstarter projects - noone got really competence to estimate how long these will take if he doesn't know what stretch goals will be achieved nor he knows how many people will receive physical items. Remember that Uber was FORCED by Kickstarter do declare their delivery date before starting the campaign. So please, show bit more of understanding. What I'm worried about is them trying to keep the December promise at all cost. That can have a mortal consequences to the game.

That's the smartest thing you've said in this whole post. Totally agreed. With every word of that sentence.

To be honest I don't know what you mean by "calendar December". Do you mean it would be okay to put the game out the last day of the month during the holidays? I doubt it, wiki search gave me 13 dec for the release date which I would say is probably a week too late for it to get the full benefit of a christmas release. In any case, it doesn't matter whether they have three weeks or five weeks, do you know how long it takes to create any sort of feature? Even creating and testing one new unit can take a month, refining a set of units so that they are balanced can easily take six months, something like galactic war will take months as well, going from planetary combat to full-fledged solar systems will take six months and so on. Then there are new maps, engine optimization etc. Unless you think it's acceptable to not have any sort of polish for the game.

And in terms of "incompetence", it was the developers of the game that decided to move from an alpha to a beta version which to me seems like a move towards keeping December as a release date. If they want to break their commitment to December most people would probably understand, most people can wait a few more months, but if the developers can't fund any additional work without a release this year then that's quite a grave miscalculation that will effectively ruin the game.

Games get delayed all the time, I'm already 2 years behind on my own
Since Uber is a small team without the pressure of a Publisher a delay (as far as any official release date was given) is more then likely ...

We can only speculate about the funds part, but a 2 mission kickstarter .... I kinda doubt all that is gone unless they bought luxury cars with it

Ok... why all the doom and gloom and demand that Uber develop the game according to your plan(delay/not delay, more fund raise, make Dec. beta release, etc.? I assume that uber does have an idea of what they are capable of, and has a better idea what the state of the game is (cuz when was the last patch you looked at?) than we do. If they need to change the plan that was announced (how long ago?) based on an updated reality, they will. They don't have a publisher trying to force a release date and I doubt they are about to run out of money as a company, cuz if that's the case I'm not sure release would save them given how much of their sales are presales of some form(kickstarter/alpha/eta/pre orders).

I think the best thing you can do to help if you think there is a problem is just say "Hey, I think XXX is currently an issue because of YYY" and move on. As obsessive as you all are about the game doing well, I'm sure Uber is even more so. So no need for you to freak out if uber will be doing it anyways (and if they're not, why are you freaking out)

Well said

Yes, by calendar December I mean it still counts if they release game on 31st of December. Few people got a lengthy discussion on whatever holidays matter or not - I have nothing to add on top of what was said and I agree that it doesn't matter much, especially with so many AA titles going on a market.
As for features - well, I was the first person in this topic trying to create a list of missing features (click), so I know them quite well I doubt creating a new unit takes a month - it's not like one person works on it, and it's not like PA got any fancy graphics - heck: most of the 3D models for units were ready very early on in the game development - some of them aren't implemented even now. And they did quite a nice job with balancing units so far - besides: they most likely created game balance sheets in first few weeks after the campaign, so rolling them out with "not-horrible" balance will certainly take far less than 6 months. Galactic warfare might take time, but I doubt it will be more than 2-3 months (most of it depends on QA). Especially when many features for that are already half-done. Optimization is already going on since last few patches, as for new maps - there's pretty much only one missing: Gas giants (and functionality of metal planets)
QA after rolling out all of the features is a big question mark - I totally agree with you. And I have no clue how much time they want to spend on that. In either case though - I think that even with no QA of feature-complete game at all - they still won't make it till December. But aiming for November next year might also be way beyond what's needed to make this game worthy a release.

There is plenty that stays internal as well. We get the most stable build, not the most current state.
If you compare the amount that the game changed from alpha over night into beta. There was plenty of feature that had clearly not just been done since the last patch. The more features that get added, the harder it is to have a stable build. Uber seems to be very good at releasing builds that are functional despite the expected issues of an unfinished game. To think the game will only improve after every implementation is childish. Every feature will cause a problem elsewhere and will need fine tuning. While I can certainly agree that the game will not be perfect on release, what game has lately? After almost every game release there are people who are so incredibly vocal about the smallest issues. They call everything "crippling" and really the only thing that is crippled is the poor attitude and not taking the time to get used to something different. Sequals have the especially worst critics, everybody wants the game to be new, fresh and different; but as soon as one little change (fresh) comes to their attention the game is ruined, they get vocal and loud about how they want their money back (like anybody cares) and really to me is a little child who wants attention.
I could be concerned about my investment in this game, but I am not, because I have seen so many worse off developements (including some kickstarter disasters). There are some games that have spent the first 6 months of its post-kickstarter campaign filling in all the physical rewards instead of getting the game started; Castle Story basicly became a stuffed plush franchise for its first quarter year..(they had gotten their "friend that can sew" to make plushies for every person that ordered the $80... The game got about $650 000 instead of the proposed $75 000. There was no limit on the plushies initially. In the end they had to outsource)

At least Uber has the strength to go with their own gut most of the time. I appreciate that they listen to us, but there is nothing worse than a game that is wrapped around its communities finger. Catering to every complaint that spills on them because the pressure of the community breaks their confidence and ultimately leads them into bad decisions (made by a narrowminded base of complaints in some cases).

My bottom line on this un-edited rushed rant. Is that unless we are providing useful feedback, this kind of negativity will lead to the game being delivered just to get it out of the way. It is in our best interest to keep it fun for them.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/15/46...rassment-erodes-industry-spurs-support-groups

While some of us may fancy ourselves to be RTS veterans or experts, we're still for the most part armchair critics.
oh.
That and we are just a very vocal minority.
We may care a lot, but the rest of the backers may or may not share in our expectations.
Ditto with all the potential customers.

From my experience on kickstarting games, all of my backed games have delays (some of them really big delays).
http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/kickstarter-projects-shipping/
On PA Kickstarter the estimated delivery date was July,2013. In fact I won't kickstart anything more, ever!

About the money. They pledged for 900k to make the game, and get 247% of that amount. There is no way they need to ask for more to finish the game properly.