Who's got alpha?

I'm not part of the current gamer generation. I've been here all the way back to MS-DOS. I remember when you had to WORK to install a game... and you could order new games by fax.

eehhh... I feel old.

Yeah, I am going to have absolutely zero self-control for PA.

I played TA from the age of five so I just regress back into my childhood every time I read about it. Actually getting to play it is going to be heaven. <sigh>

Oh the fallout of disappointment that this Alpha is going to generate when people finally cotton-on that it's not "Early Access"...

I'm going to have my hands full posting "I told you so".

I agree Nano. I think alot of backers are going to be proper miffed when they discover that they only manage to log on occassionaly and crash randomly, not to mention alot of the final features won't even be baked into the game yet!

Oh I know fully well what it's going to be. It's going to be buggy and annoying and temperamental and I'm going to love it anyway like a faithful retarded dog that craps all over your carpet.

It is an Alpha test after all,if they cant understand the purpose of alpha testing maybe they deserve the "I told you so's"

Some games are better than what you're playing now, even in alpha. I'm in the Prison Architect alpha too.

I expect the game to be pretty buggy and have lots of weird balance issues. I also expect most of the full game features not to be implemented yet. I think playing the alpha and reporting is a good thing. I just want to thank everyone up front for participating in bug reporting and game discussions. I hope the game is fun to participate in despite the underlying issues that are being addressed so that our feedback on bugs and issues are consistent and in depth.

I wish I could convey the raw satisfaction that the old Total Annihilation Unit Viewer gave me before release.

It was incredible. I could SEE THE UNITS MOVE, and WATCH THEIR ANIMATIONS.

If the alpha actually works on my PC (bonus points), even being able to see the engine launch will bring me supreme satisfaction.

Of course I realize not everyone has their expectations tempered like I do, so carry on with the 'I-told-you-so-ing'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRTkCHE1sS4

I believe that this is relevant?

A note to everyone - there's a good chance that ANYONE brought in the alpha early for early bandwidth and connection tests will be under explicit requests to not discuss it. Chances are you'll see a post here from me or Neutrino once we start inviting the first sizable groups of people, and we'll make it pretty explicit who we've invited, so if you think you should have gotten it, and haven't, you can get in touch with us so we can follow up.

To be clear - we have not sent out group invites yet. The testing we are doing is still restricted and testing out our various data centers, bit distribution pipelines, and of course making sure the server and clients are as stable as possible and ready for more than 20 some developers hammering away on em.

By this do you mean backers/pre-orders prior to 7th June Steam release? Will this be lifted come 7th June?

It'll be lifted come June 7th come-what-may. After that point anyone can buy into the Alpha... so keeping it a secret seems rather a futile effort after that point.

Do NOT be surprised if you get told not to reveal anything until that point though.

Putting on my speculation-spectacles for a moment :geek: ; I wouldn't be surprised if there's a pseudo NDA-esk thing that early backers will be put under until this all goes public.

I remember having to edit my config.sys and autoexec.bat to load things in specific order just so I could play some games because they required so much lower memory.

When IRQ and DMA were important things to know on a per-device basis.

When having a SoundBlaster with on-board memory was considered top-of-the-line.

Sheesh, now you make ME feel old.

Which games required extended memory, versus which ones wanted expanded memory. The obscure art of writing a multi-purpose boot that would ask you which set of settings you wanted, so you only needed to press a key to select between 1MB expanded, 2MB extended, whether you needed IPX packet drivers loaded for DOS, or the joystick TSR so you could play Wing Commander properly.

I do not miss those days, by the way. The damn things should be doing all the hard work for you, so you can get on with the important business of crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women.

I'm hoping to be among the first testers, been waiting since October to participate in it.
I started work 2 days ago so a hot chick there is keeping my mind off of the game half of the day but when I come home I have to resort to drastic measures and play addictive mmo's and rpg's.

Pls giv tnx

Guys, clearly the system works that every 2 weeks we get to see what they've been up 2 and doing. As I do not see a livestream update in the General Quarters, I put my money up for Friday of this week. 2 days guys.

You had it so easy.
I started playing computer games in 1975, where we could only play text games, and the "screen" had to be printed, as they didn't even have monitors yet. Doh!
Plus, it was expensive thermal paper, so even when you did get a turn, you had to spend all you had just to keep playing.

I finally got my first personal computer in 1981, and have been playing computer games with graphics ever since.

Take your time, we will find out when it is the right moment for us to join the alpha.
Rome was not build in a day ....

I didnt get it yet but if you are itching to play PA, this might be what you guys need

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=43193
CHECK IT OUT MY FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!