Should the release date just be dropped?

Having release date, a deadline, is essential to everything. Without it, it just becomes a "let's chill we have loads of time". A healthy amount of pressure does miracles.

On the other hand, a release date is not god and if the game's not finished, it's not finished (IE, Sword of the Stars II).


The stated release date is vague as it is, it's fine.

Release date could be external or internal, that's the question.

With making external release date delayed you may disappoint a lot of people, which is bad.
With making internal release date delayed, you don't disappoint people, but they start wondering if project is still alive.

Both sides are bad, so generally you should release public date only when you are sure enough of it, but not too late. For that, you need to be sure about your roadmap not too late, which is almost impossible =)

Please tell me there aren't people who actually expect the game to be finished by Summer next year?

I don't mean this as an insult to Uber but with all the content that they want to add I really can't see it been "Done" for Summer.

Now I wouldn't be surprised if Alpha started in Summer, with Release date around Christmas/Early 2014.

Unless they plan on having a long Beta period which I wouldn't be against, as the best way to find bugs is to throw people at something until one of them breaks it.

I promise you, that there is people who actually expect the game to be finished by Christmas. That one Christmas. Just because they are not reading any release dates at all.

I really do think we helped out SMNC quite a bit in the early closed alpha/beta stages last fall. I wouldn't be surprised if another extended closed alpha/beta was used again.

Yea I think Beta release next summer is more likely than release, like I said a long Beta wouldn't be a bad thing, even going into 2014.

Not including Pre-Orders we are going to have over 20,000 Beta testers, depending on how good figures for Pre-orders are and if they do beta testing invites through competitions or something could push that number a lot higher they could have a pretty decent amount of Beta testers. Plus I'd guess that compared to Betas like the ones Blizzard kick out, the playerbase will be a lot more likely to spot bugs and report them rather than just play early.

I really hope that they move it to 2014, I understand the need of a release date but this one is just too early.

Of course I do.


-elexis
-Australian

Agreed. When I first saw it and saw the scale they were going for I started to doubt, Then watched as that scale got bigger and bigger as more stretch goals were released. Then they released the Galactic War Stretch goal...

Summer Release date was looking very optimistic.

Then again like someone has said it could just be used to push the team, light pressure is a good thing in work, even having most of the game features in place by next Summer would be an achievement. Also if it's not be a bug riddled mess on a scale only Bethesda can match (As much as I enjoy Bethesda's games they could do with a touch more Q&A before release) then top marks But then again hopefully Alpha and Beta can spot the major game breaking ones early.

My Heart hopes your right but my mind tells me that this game will need longer...

+1 for missed the point. What season is it in Australia right now? (hint: opposite side of the equator)

Why not release the game as alpha once it's playable and then develop the rest using feedback from that process? Things like Galactic War come online when they are ready. Not every piece of the game has to be "finished" at the same time and it's not like we are stopping development on "release" day. We intend to continue to develop and support the game indefinitely.

I think people are getting too stuck in the old conceptual framework of releasing software.

Well I know you will not do this, otherwise the guys who backed/pre-ordered the game to be in the alpha/beta would be "disappointed".
I agree with you that not every part of the game has to be finished on the release, but there are some important parts like the UI(super important imo), the networking (especially in this game :lol: ), the basic planet types and the basic units that should be finished in the final release.

Additional planet types, GW and the other "fancy" features can be released later, although I already smell the "WHERE IS THE GLACTIC WRA I PAID FOR?!?!?!"- threads on the release day.

EDIT: If I remember correctly, didn't you mention it some time after the kickstarter finished, that the basic game (for the 900k) will be done on the estimated release date and every kickstarter unlock will come later with patches/free dlc?

Y'know, with the kickstarter, they said "Hey, fund this much and we'll be able to get this small, basic portion of the game done by July 2013"

Stretch goals by their very nature would add to that time, especially in software development where more features and more work cannot be done more quickly simply by throwing more people at the problem.

So it would be reasonable to expect a working 'core' of a game by next July, but because there are future plans and the game is not 'complete' with the stretch goals coming still, the game will be in beta. So temper your expectations and realize that at best it's likely we'll see the beta roll out summer next year.

But how can we complain about nothing happening with this method?

They have stated that they will (try to) add no time thanks to the stretch goals (so no change in estimate timelines), they will simply use the money to hire more people to work on it instead of the same crew working longer.

More workers doesn't necessary mean that more progress will be made in the same set of time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

But of course, good surprises are nice.

i like this idea, as long as the forum pirates don't drown out the majority.

It may be difficult to get feedback that is more accurate to the fan general populace (i.e. all kick starter users in and out of the alpha) ??

Thank you for point out my Derp...

I did wonder why you'd mention that your in Australia but then I failed to draw anything from it lol

Im just forwarding their words, they mentioned it somewhere in a interview or simular when someone asked the same question.

I would hope that naval planets at the very least, if not all planet types, are included at launch. Otherwise you've got a big chunk of the game missing and that's not good for a whole host of reasons, not least trying to bolt on and balance navy after people have been playing for months.