Release, a sacred graal ?

Hey !
Maybe I'm pushing an open door but with the announce of the release is fast approaching I was wondering the meaning of a release. Yeah, you say you will update this game after the 1.0 with all missing features and maybe with other thing (which it's great) but why don't you stay in the magnificent garden of beta/gamma to test all of this, at least those which are confirmed ? This is the purpose of a beta ? No ?
So this my question why absolutely reach the release as if it was a race, what do you earn ? Furthermore you have no editor to tell you "Buddy, I need my money back" and what the meaning of release, a bug-free version yes but without all features ?
Yeah sorry for my bad english I'm not a native.

For PA release mean Uber publicly release server-side for the community, e.g DRM-free version and offline single-player and this is really important milestone.

This will also show the real numbers on server performance and hopefully allow proper large games. Also Uber will no longer need to host every AI game so possible they want to host some experimental 20+ players games.

Uhm I'm not so certain that server is getting released at 1.0 though....

That aside, I honestly think PA is getting very much to the point that it's ample for an official release.

Most of the work at the moment is refinements rather than new stuff.

There are actually a lot of reasons for us to have a 1.0.

We are going to continue working on the game in the future. This is simply a label. However, it lets more players know they should be able to play the game with stability and a decent set of features. The game is ready for this. There is no really good reason to hold back. I get constant feedback asking why the game is still early access.

From a team perspective the game has absorbed many lives over the past couple of years. We want a milestone to say look we reached 1.0. It's a huge psychological relief and there really isn't any more good reasons to delay it. People can quibble about pet features all day but there is a substantial game here now. Remember that every time we've delayed it has thrown peoples lives into chaos. For example we wanted to be out before the summer so people could actually take some vacations. You can call this the human element of the equation. Bottom line, the game is substantially the vision I laid out 2 years ago at this point. Features can always be added over time.

In addition we want to go to our full retail release. We have partners here we have to consider. At some point we have to pick dates and stick to them, which means we can't just arbitrarily delay the game. People were really unhappy with the early access box release. Early access is now holding us back instead of helping us.

There is also the question of the polish period. When do you stop adding features and put a layer of polish on? It's very difficult for us to even get builds out right now (due to the growing complexity of the game and team) let alone spend time polishing it. At some point you have to make a decision, polish and ship something! Polish is a very important thing!

Believe me making and shipping games is hard. Drawing a line in the sand in hard. This is one of the reasons shipping a game is difficult in general. You can always add more feature creep. I haven't worked on a single game in the last 20 years where we didn't have to make hard choices about what to cut. If we simply kept working on the game until we were happy with it, then it would never be done. There would always be tough choices facing us.

The really crazy thing is that in this case we aren't even talking about cutting stuff. It's simply a matter of when certain features come online and what we call them. We are arguing about labels ultimately. So I guess labels do matter at the end of the day

Neutrino told us earlier that offline play might not be available on release.

http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryan...anetary_annihilation_qa_with_neutrino/cj5m7rv

There are a large number of people who will not buy it until it is no longer in early access mode. More players means more people to spread the word and more people to play against and more data to make decisions for uber. Obviously it also means more revenue. All of this is helpful to us to get us the full game we all want.

Oh, I didn't yet seen this one yet. Hopefully this will be earlier than later because before it's was announced multiple times that offline going to be available once early access is finished.

If the game releases without it, the previous outrages over early access pricing and the early access box are going to be nothing compared to what will be unleashed.

I seen too many of these "1.0" so now I care about most it's version number.
I hope you won't replace our beloved commit IDs with some lame "1.0".

Why?

This make me want to not talk about what we are doing and just release it.

I currently have no intention of changing the versioning scheme. Each of our major builds has an edition name, we'll probably stick with the commit ID and the name of the release.

I think less because of things you have said and more because of what community members including myself and SXX have been telling people that ask about it. We usually explain the reasons for the server being locked down and then say that offline play will be available when the game is released. I can't remember anymore where it was that I saw this and it is possible that Uber never made that claim. If that is the case I apologize in advance for the angry customers you're going to have to deal with.

I was also under this impression. I'm sure I heard it from a livestream Q&A, but....as with most livestreams, I cannot remember which one

Found it! https://forums.uberent.com/threads/no-single-player.51314/#post-785393

This wasn't in reply to Mered, I don't know what livestream that was in.

Also this: (From the steam store page) Private Servers! - Play connected to the UberNet servers, your own private server, or offline. It’s your choice. Early Access online connectivity is required to play.


Not to mention that the game has always been toted as being DRM free. If it's not DRM free upon release, then I really don't think that it should be advertized as being DRM free.

About server release. It's stated on store page places that "Early Access online connectivity is required to play" and it's clearly was stated that server will be available after this period finished. Still I perfectly understand reasoning of not trying to release server at 0 day.

So I personally hope that "Dedicated servers are coming eventually" it's just like it's happen with Linux/Mac clients (weeks or month) and not some date in far future.

This is great.

Thanks for digging that up. Of course plans do change in a year and I can't really blame them for having to shift their priorities as long as offline play is still coming, but at least I don't feel so bad about telling people the wrong thing. I'll go grab some popcorn and watch the shitshow that the internet is going to put on for my entertainment when they decide the whole game is a scam and Uber is actually run by George Bush and lizard aliens or whatever.

We should really let Uber do their jobs, it's weird to think that the community might influence the entire outcome of the game in a bad way (or good, for that matter).

I like making suggestions but the team looks pretty confident in what they are about to do.

I sure know an experienced team like Uber knows what to do and not to do.

It makes so much sense now. But i think that should be Obama and Raptors

This is like, a double pun. There's no way anyone could fault me for that, right?

Yeah, I was under this impression too until recently. It doesn't personally affect me much and I don't have a strong opinion about it, so Imma keep away from opining too much on that one. I've got no idea if it's just a minor detail or if a reviewer will pick up on that bit and go on a rant about it (I didn't even pay attention to the sim city ordeal but it was almost impossible to not hear about that one).

Thanks for all your replies, so a release it's just a step for you ?

Yes until you say "when it's done !". But what the meaning of "done" for Planetary Annihilation ? But maybe you're right in creative work the hardest moment it's when you say " Ok ! I stop, I begin to be quite satisfying of my work". And perhaps other people will see the incoming of new features in post-release like an unexpected but pleasant additions to the game ?

They haven't been able to give a solid answer because they don't know. They've set up the game so that it can stay profitable for as long as possible, but no business can justify putting time and money into a project that won't earn them any money. Once people stop paying for PA, Uber will have to stop working on it. That's when the modders will take over and keep it going for another decade.