Just curious : I know you at Uber are working in an iterative way when it's about implementing new features. But i can't imagine there's no global plan about what and when you intend to implement features during alpha stage. Knowing that, unless i missed something, you have initially planned to have alpha running for 3 months and 2 months remain until originally planned beta start date, what's the global plan in terms of features implementation ? 2 months is quite short, so do you really think you can have all features implemented within a such short time ? Not to mention the amount of bugs reported so far in bug tracker. Thanks.
Really they only need to get other planets in, so we're fighting in solar systems instead of single planets. Alpha with all the core mechanics is enough. Balancing, optimizations and additions can all be done during beta and even after release in some cases.
I have no idea about what can be done. I'm not a dev, so i won't try to argue about what they shoud / shouldn't do. I'm just concerned about original deadlines, the fact that only 2 months remain, what they intend to achieve within 2 months. I've logged bugs on Pa tracker, but we have no visibility about how / when they will be fixed. I'm not in a hurry with new features. I'm just worrying about how all this can be fixed / implemented within only 2 months. I simply hope, it's not all about iterative, but also about a real global schedule. Iterative is good to implement small pieces of stuff. But if small pieces of stuff are not supported by a global roadmap, i hardly understand how this can result in something which keep consistent.
Did Uber ever state that they want to be feature complete by the end of alpha? I don't think they did.
I thought alpha was about having all main features in place so that we can try to "break them". I might have misunderstood what alpha is meant for. So my question still remain : what is supposed to be achieved during alpha ? And not to mention that when beta starts, lots of people will have access to PA hopping to have core features in place. While i understand the nature of alpha is hitting bugs, no optimization (and i'm ok with all this) i feel a little bit frustrated about not having a more detailed picture about the global roadmap. but i can live without it.
to my understanding, correct me if I am wrong. alpha period is for finalizing all features then it is locked for beta where bugs fixes and code optimization is done. I tend to agree that alpha phase might be too short as per the original plan. may be because I tend to see few convincing new/tweaked features that the alpha community is promoting with wide agreement. will the devs be able to fit them in!? to me, no rush. take ur time. but it would be great if we have visibility on what the timelines are (as the OP suggested) but I very highly doubt this to happen. it will just open a can of warms on them. they wont do it I guess. alternatively, what I would like to have is what they are planning for in the next patch. with or without a date. this would personally keep me super excited.
Based on the numerous alphas i've been in... Virtually none of them were "feature complete". The absolute base core mechanics were in place and didn't erase peoples' boot files, nothing more.
I've been in very late Supcom Beta. Maybe someone who had early access to beta could elaborate more on this. As far as i'm concerned, Supcom late beta was close to release candidate, only optimization was missing.
Haven't gotten the chance to join any alpha's before, but been in several games in early to late beta... Early beta... some looked worse than this alpha... late beta its close the release candidate.
I think it depends on Uber going the traditional rate. Or just getting the major game bugs out of the way then letting the beta backers in with extra features such as getting to moons to find new bugs. So they expand the tester numbers to get a better result closer to the crunch time of release.
There are two types of Betas. First the "real" Beta. When they start this beta the Game isn't finished yet, not all features are implanted and it needs alot of fixing. And then there are these Showcase/advertising Betas. They are mostly done by big Publishers to show off the Game for a short time to get people to buy it. They are mostly the same as the Realese Version of the Game. Thats atleast my experience.
I was under the impression that Alpha was "It runs and we can test ****" and beta was "Feature complete, lets just squash bugs and show off to the magazines."
Basically this. For the most part alpha for a game is where you get the core features and mechanics in, it seems less and less games are using this as a feature complete phase like I am familiar with from school, though when it comes to game development you are never really feature complete because there is always something more you want to add, but you have to stop at one point. Beta is where you work on being content complete, like units and ais, biomes, etc. along with balancing and optimizations. This is what I expect to see from PA. Though it is just a guess as I don't work at Uber.
You had alpha clients that didn't erase the MBR? You lucky sod @doud: there is a large difference between early/mid-alpha (which is where we are at currently) and late beta (which is close to release). While I appreciate your desire for a roadmap (I think it'd be cool to see what's coming myself), you have to understand that at this point in development the roadmap itself can change (sometimes significantly) depending on the situation with the build and how the integration of various systems is going. As we have a roadmap for platform development at the company I work at, I can say this with some certainty
I'm just concerned about the fact that it could be that having some major features not allready designed from a conceptual perspective could lead to simply realizing in late beta stage that it's not going to work.
The whole point of a roadmap is to plan features and their implementation into a product. Just because they're not sharing a roadmap, doesn't mean that they don't have one
I guess the point of an Alpha is to test what you've got, not wait until next week when we get feature X. It makes sense Uber aren't expending energy promoting future alpha builds, they're surely busy enough.
problem is that alpha videos are spread all around the internet and people considering going for beta or final game just see most of major features are missing. And lots of people on many forum are just stating it will not be possible to achieve all features in time. They are also very concerned about performance issues, the lack of visibility about how the project is moving forward. Uber ask us the spread the word. but which word ? That the game is awesome ? I used all possible superlatives to explain how the game is going to be exciting. But people are not stupide, you can spend your time stating that the game is going to rock, there's nothing you can do when they legitimately answer that they hardly understand how all these wonderfull features will be in place within 5months. Uber team is made of talented people, but this is not enough to make people believe that what they see will be trully different within 5months, meaning : - Will all features be in place ? - How the visibility issue of hidden planet side will be adressed ? This is a major concern for most of potential players as they consider this as a major feature to improve gameplay. - Will all bugs reported and that can be seen in in-game videos be fixed in time (pathfinding, UI ....) -In which degree of magnitude performance is going to increase ? I do trust uber, but my trust is not enough to convince sceptical people who have good arguments.
I'd considered responding to this post with a late 90's under construction gif. It's about as accurate as we can get. Our roadmap is get as many major features for the meat of the game in and mostly working before Beta. That means there's a bigger focus on adding features than there is on adding gameplay or fixing bugs. By Beta we don't expect to be 100% feature complete, but the expectation is that most of the major engine level features will at least be implemented in some fashion even if they're slow or not yet visible to the rest of you (ie: implemented in gameplay). Beta will start to shift more towards gameplay implementation, bug fixes, and continued optimization work. One more chunk of information about the game plan: We aren't treating it like a traditional retail release. When the game goes out to live release we plan on continuing to work on adding new content and features. It won't be just bug fix patches. Mod community will also become more of a focus after release and we'll start putting more focus on adding features specifically for them.
