<!--quoteo(post=1862762:date=Jul 23 2011, 11:49 AM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jul 23 2011, 11:49 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1862762"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Haha. I wish these numbers were right. If they were, the game would be done by now, because we would have been able to hire a lot more employees a while ago. Nope, investor funding that we got some time back was far less then 1 mil and the current copies of Ns2 pre-orders is still under 30K.
But, finding good programmers is indeed difficult, especially when you can't afford to pay them a lot. We've been very lucky with the caliber of the amazing and dedicated programmers we currently have working here.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd still be quite interested to know if UWE has taken any VAT/GST advice in any of the countries into which they're selling - at that many re-orders it sounds like they'd have hit the UK's £70k threshhold and probably that in other countries too...
Especially with contacts at Steam who must know the position, not asking is sort of looking for negligence penalties on top of the 20% tax plus interest.
I'm not sure it matter to anyone but UWE. No matter the version number, you still get to play the game if you are in the beta, so why does it matter when they put a 1.0 sticker on the game announce it released?
It took one year post 1.0 release for NS to become reasonably stable, reasonably balanced and reasonably deep; it took four years to polish it to a mirror finish. They can probably get it feature-complete and slap a 1.0 designation on a poorly balanced, buggy product this year if they'd like; or they can go all Blizzard and only release in a few years when it has a mirror finish; they're probably going to do something inbetween those extremes, because neither extreme seems to make business sense.
<!--quoteo(post=1863400:date=Jul 25 2011, 08:43 PM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Jul 25 2011, 08:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863400"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not sure it matter to anyone but UWE. No matter the version number, you still get to play the game if you are in the beta, so why does it matter when they put a 1.0 sticker on the game announce it released?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Because...
A) It's what we paid for. Don't kid yourself that you only expected an interminable Beta (not that NS2 qualifies for that status yet, but it's also been longer than the average person expected).
B) When they slap that 1.0 sticker on the game it means the game is of 'release' quality. What that means varies from project to project, but on average it's of a standard that matches most people's expectations in terms of quality and content. I am not currently playing a release quality game. While it's vaguely interesting to see the game evolve, I have plenty of other unplayed games in my Steam library more worthy of attention than NS2 in its current state.
I don't expect it to be released this year. Even if it were possible to do so, I would definitely wait for everyone to get <i>Battlefield 3</i> out of their system, because that game is going to be slightly huge. Not only is it a must-have game you'd be competing with, but it's also going to suck a lot of money out of gamers pockets for months before and after release as they upgrade their systems just to be able to play it.
currently the game is completely unplayable ... big balancing issues, performance issues and content missing. i dont think this is going to be finished this year... and well i hope it a bit. Dont be EA! :P
B181 "Pathing will be much better!" B182 "Fixing Pathing issues"
Lol.
As I said over 3 months ago, this won't be 1.0 release material come January 2012. I don't think it will take til 2013 - it will be done next year sometime.
Again, think about the minimum number of patches to put in:
Onos (that works) Exosuits (that work) Jetpacks (that work) Real DI (that works) Anything else (and it has to work - not just be in the game)
Then compound that number with:
Balance fixes Performance fixes General Polish
At the 2 patches per month schedule they have *mostly* stuck to, you're looking at 10 more patches til 2012; very slim chance. But in 10 more patches we should be so much further along that they will be mostly working on Polish, Performance and Balance.
I actually think other then the implementation of Onos, heavy armor, the 3D version of DI, server and occlusion culling optimizations, game development will fly by in the next few months.
The 1.0 sticker says almost nothing about the quality of the game or its state of completion. Do I need to list a very long line of games that have been released in horrible condition? Do I need to list games, to be fair mostly Blizzard on the PC, that have been released only after being buffed to a mirror polish?
<!--quoteo(post=1863405:date=Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863405"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't kid yourself that you only expected an interminable Beta (not that NS2 qualifies for that status yet, but it's also been longer than the average person expected).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't kid yourself that 1.0 is anything but an arbitrary milestone; neither a begin nor an end. Signifying little or nothing on the player side of things. BTW, the game is still alpha.
<!--quoteo(post=1863405:date=Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863405"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->B) When they slap that 1.0 sticker on the game it means the game is of 'release' quality.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, you have it backwards. It means only that the game has been officially released. The quality of the game at release says something about the character of the game developers and the company they work for, however.
<!--quoteo(post=1863440:date=Jul 26 2011, 12:24 AM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Jul 26 2011, 12:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863440"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The 1.0 sticker says almost nothing about the quality of the game or its state of completion. Do I need to list a very long line of games that have been released in horrible condition? Do I need to list games, to be fair mostly Blizzard on the PC, that have been released only after being buffed to a mirror polish?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Wellllllllllll, it says a little bit. It'll mean it's (mostly) feature-complete and the general gameplay-style has been laid down (ea. it won't go from doom to deus ex and back again). That last one is important. If players know the kind of gameplay they're buying into they'll be more secure with their purchase.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->BTW, the game is still alpha.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Welcome to the dark side my friend. /emperor's voice
<!--QuoteBegin-'Kalabalana'+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ('Kalabalana')</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I actually think other then the implementation of Onos, heavy armor, the 3D version of DI, server and occlusion culling optimizations, game development will fly by in the next few months.
I say 3 more months TOPS before release.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Jetpacks I say! Anyway, I'm not really worried about the HA\3D-DI and other gameplay-stuff, it's that blasted engine that's doing me in. 3 important things will have to be done in that department: Lua-performance, Occlusion-culling and stability. Stability isn't much of an issue I'd reckon, once all the features are in it'll be a matter of time to do away with all the nasty access-violations\memory-leaks and whatnot. It's the Lua-performance and occlusion-culling that are the significants here, and they're quite large issues that will take a lot of time to seriously tackle (if they can be properly fixed at all!).
The real benefit of a 1.0 is that it will be eligible for sale on Steam, which will rake in the big bucks that are needed so very. It'll be money more than anything else that will decide when that moment comes I suppose.
Wouldn't 1.0 set NS2 as free cannon fodder for reviewers? I don't think even PC Gamer is going to slap a 90/100 sticker on an absurbdly incomplete product unless the game has AAA hype and some sweet magazine cover art to hand out.
<!--quoteo(post=1863440:date=Jul 25 2011, 10:24 PM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Jul 25 2011, 10:24 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863440"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The 1.0 sticker says almost nothing about the quality of the game or its state of completion. Do I need to list a very long line of games that have been released in horrible condition? Do I need to list games, to be fair mostly Blizzard on the PC, that have been released only after being buffed to a mirror polish?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->To Bacillus' point: did those terrible games review well and did they sell more copies than the mirror-polish ones?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't kid yourself that 1.0 is anything but an arbitrary milestone; neither a begin nor an end. Signifying little or nothing on the player side of things.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I'm sure neither the players nor the devs will be celebrating their arbitrary milestone when NS2 releases. Please. There are just so many reasons why this sentiment is wrong. We're talking about a game that will decide the future of a company. When it's 1.0, as Bacillus points out, it will be open to both player and critical review. It will be judged.
I understand if you're trying to make the point that games on the PC can continue to improve post-release with few restrictions, and there is less pressure to make it absolutely perfect or bulging with features on release. But it's naive to think that this is an arbitrary milestone. We're not talking about a freely-distributed bedroom programming project here, UWE's necks are on the line.
You're looking at it's inherent value. It's true that going from 1455.3356 or 0.5.3.1 to 1.0 is arbitrary as far as the label goes. But you're ignoring the perceived value of that name change. We care what things are called because we have positive or negative associations with names and labels.
E.g. <i>Kentucky Fried Chicken</i> changed its brand to <i>KFC</i> "to help combat the negative association the general public had with 'fried' foods".
<i>Natural Selection 2</i> could have been called <i>Return to Sanjii</i>. The change in letters is arbitrary, except that simply adding the 2 tells people this is a sequel to a game of the same name. So they go and research the first game and not only is it critically acclaimed, it's free to try out if they already own one of the world's most popular games. On the other hand, <i>Return to Sanjii</i> is nothing more than a wink at some NS lore, that otherwise eschews the rich heritage of the previous game; the impact is significantly reduced, and there's no reason for people to remember the name unless they've played <i>Return to Sanjii</i> and really, really liked it.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->BTW, the game is still alpha.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Even if I'd agree that the versions we're playing are technically still Alpha since the game is not feature complete, it's a self-proclaimed beta: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/search?word=beta" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/search?word=beta</a>. - When did you start playing NS2? - During the Beta [would be correct]
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No, you have it backwards. It means only that the game has been officially released. The quality of the game at release says something about the character of the game developers and the company they work for, however.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->In general, people don't release Alpha-state games. In general, people don't release Beta-state games. Releases always contain bugs, but the ideal is that they are the least visible. While you can't absolutely say 1.0 means an exact state that is equivalent for all games, you can definitely say that it means a <i>generally acceptable</i> level of quality for the <i>majority</i> of games.
Why should the quality be 'generally acceptable' to the average purchaser? Because UWE have sold 30,000 copies which has funded development. They need future sales to drive any future plans for the company (such as expansion, retail sales in addition to Steam, 360 development), and to fund future development, especially if their next game is a new IP (which people will be more hesitant about pre-ordering). 1.0 is important to the player because it's important to UWE. 1.0 is critical to to the future success of the game because that's when people will start hearing about it and trying it on a larger scale. If they hear that NS2 was crap <u>on release</u> they will be far less inclined to buy it.
The game development going very nice from my point of view. I can play (half finished game, of course it is beta and keep it in mind, but it is playable .. somehow; and you can enjoy it!)
i.e. DI evolution: Prototype ... "how it can look", but it works like infestation spray :) B163 "D. Infestation introduced" B180 "Cysts" B181 "Cyst patch"
[i] as you can see the evolution of features is not dead .. it evolves and make game all times more playable.
some months ago I said 2-3 years and I still feel the same. engine needs lots of work, plus i won't even name all the things they need to change in gameplay, which usually change every patch anyway.
<!--quoteo(post=1863450:date=Jul 25 2011, 06:10 PM:name=player)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Jul 25 2011, 06:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863450"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wellllllllllll, it says a little bit. It'll mean it's (mostly) feature-complete and the general gameplay-style has been laid down[...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Feature-completion and feature-lock down is generally recognized as "going beta".
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The 1.0 sticker says almost nothing about the quality of the game or its state of completion. Do I need to list a very long line of games that have been released in horrible condition? Do I need to list games, to be fair mostly Blizzard on the PC, that have been released only after being buffed to a mirror polish?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's not really the point IMO, the state in which games are released today is pathetic compared to a few years back(2000's). All companies need to up there bar for release status to what the definition is, which would be balanced, feature complete, and minimal bugs. I know me and a lot of others are starting to realize this, and have stopped pre-ordering games(namely MMO's). I was screwed over by this kind of thinking from companies 3 different times(AoC, Warhammer, and GA when it launched). The only reason I pre-ordered this is because NS1 is honestly my favorite FPS of all time, I love the mix of strategy games and FPS.
<!--quoteo(post=1863419:date=Jul 25 2011, 04:46 PM:name=Pr0n)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pr0n @ Jul 25 2011, 04:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863419"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->B181 "Pathing will be much better!" B182 "Fixing Pathing issues"
Lol.
As I said over 3 months ago, this won't be 1.0 release material come January 2012. I don't think it will take til 2013 - it will be done next year sometime.
Again, think about the minimum number of patches to put in:
Onos (that works) Exosuits (that work) Jetpacks (that work) Real DI (that works) Anything else (and it has to work - not just be in the game)
Then compound that number with:
Balance fixes Performance fixes General Polish
At the 2 patches per month schedule they have *mostly* stuck to, you're looking at 10 more patches til 2012; very slim chance. But in 10 more patches we should be so much further along that they will be mostly working on Polish, Performance and Balance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i agree ns2 will not be good enough to be released this year. if the devs release the game this year it will be a mistake.
This is a mp only game which means there needs to be a lot of levels. about 15-20 would be a good start. Right now we have 4 and 2 of them suck.
There needs to be alot of admin support and better mod support and good esport support. The game needs to run smooth which it doesn't at all.
They need to get all the content into the game and balanced.
They have way more work to do on this game it isnt even really good enough to be called a alpha yet they call it a beta.
A beta is a when ur game is feature lock and u balance and remove bugs in the game.
There is no way they can release the game this year and tbh i dont see it in 2012. wait till 2013 to release by then your game should be really really good. Good enough to get noticed and not die a month after ship date.
they have a tone of work to do on the rts and fps front.
Yeah, I reckon at the current rate of progress that the game will be finished by the Winter Equinox. The real thing they need not to do is release it in October. Because BF3 will blow any other new release away under the radar because of the amount of advert mulah they're chucking at it. I reckon a late November or early December would make sense for the 'primary gifting period'
<!--quoteo(post=1863865:date=Jul 27 2011, 01:32 PM:name=Iacto)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Iacto @ Jul 27 2011, 01:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863865"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, I reckon at the current rate of progress that the game will be finished by the Winter Equinox. The real thing they need not to do is release it in October. Because BF3 will blow any other new release away under the radar because of the amount of advert mulah they're chucking at it. I reckon a late November or early December would make sense for the 'primary gifting period'<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just crossed my mind, but I wonder if the 'primary gifting period' is that good for NS2. I think a small, only steam distributed game might be pretty heavily outshadowed by the flood of bigger mainstream games that you can actually physically buy and wrap in some decorated paper.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=1863450:date=Jul 25 2011, 04:10 PM:name=player)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Jul 25 2011, 04:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863450"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wellllllllllll, it says a little bit. It'll mean it's (mostly) feature-complete<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
is that what BC2's launch day without a server browser was? it was over 1.0 and took them many weeks to implement correctly, despite a whole month of public beta testing.
I hate to say it but isn't it looking quite doubtful now?
I don't know if it's just me but it feels like development has slowed quite a bit lately, at least i haven't seen any sign of something interesting being worked on or whether we will get new content any time soon.
Performance has gotten to a reasonable level so i wonder if it isn't time to focus more on content and more visible improvements, i know a lot of work has to go on under the hood but all we've seen lately is mostly bug fixes and stuff, nothing really interesting that makes me want to play for long each patch, perhaps releasing some playable but unfinished content you have would be a good idea at this point (especially any maps), that way we can test them now rather than later, as i thought that was what a beta was all about?
^ shade came out in the last update, and the alien cloaking upgrade....so your comment isn't really fair.
Do agree that it looks unlikely the game will be released this year. We haven't had a patch for 3 weeks, and there are only about 16 weeks left in the year to get Onos, Exo-suit, minigun, shift, all those extra upgrades and things that are greyed out, proper infestation, maps, etc.
And most of all - when all that is in they will need months to get performance up to scratch :/
My personal estimate for a fully fleshed and somewhat balanced 1.0 release is somewhere between fall 2012 - summer 2013.
Development is chugging along nicely considering it's only a handful of people making this all come together. Guessing that when the tier3 tech for marines and aliens arrive there will be about 2-3 months of balancing to make the teams approximately even, accompanied by the whole redesigned animation system which will push on further than those two months to incorporate all the models into the new system. After this there will be polish, mini-features and smaller balance adjustments.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1871291:date=Aug 26 2011, 06:05 AM:name=peregrinus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (peregrinus @ Aug 26 2011, 06:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871291"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->^ shade came out in the last update, and the alien cloaking upgrade....so your comment isn't really fair.
Do agree that it looks unlikely the game will be released this year. We haven't had a patch for 3 weeks, and there are only about 16 weeks left in the year to get Onos, Exo-suit, minigun, shift, all those extra upgrades and things that are greyed out, proper infestation, maps, etc.
And most of all - when all that is in they will need months to get performance up to scratch :/<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well, I think this depends on how many new features are released in B185. If they release almost everything (onos, jp, exo, hmg, etc.) in this or the next patch, then I could see it finished by year's end. Otherwise, I think we're looking at a spring/summer 2012 release.
Being that I'm familiar with game/graphic engines I think they'll be tight pressed to get the features in, polished, and improve performance by this year. But this all really depends a lot on what we don't know. If they have features laid out, and on a system/framework that makes them easily implementable and performance problems are understood and just a matter of writing the occlusion culling algorithms, etc.. then yes they could make it this year. Because they are spending time developing. Now if they need to spend a good portion of their time on debugging and designing new systems/frameworks/features... nope, not going to happen.
I mean let's remember their system requirement that they're still trying to get it to run on... 1.5 Ghz single core 512 MB of RAM DirectX 9 card.. (Geforce 7000's series was the strongest DirectX card made)
Most of you who have posted your specs on these forums and are getting 20-30 fps have machines and GPU's that are literally 10x as powerful... We're talking Quad Cores 2-4GB of ram and Geforce 200 Series cards... and that's about the average...
They have <u><i><b>a lot</b></i></u> of work to even get close to those specs with reasonable performance (I consider reasonable 1024x768 @ 30 fps lowest everything else)
(I'm not too familiar with the ATI models for comparison, but ATI sucks anyways... :P )
Patriotbob: where did you get those sys-req? on the buy-now page (http://www.naturalselection2.com/buy) it still says 256MB ram and a 1.2 Ghz processor (single core)?
<!--quoteo(post=1871482:date=Aug 27 2011, 11:23 PM:name=Dank McShwagger)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dank McShwagger @ Aug 27 2011, 11:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871482"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You're all too pessimistic! I'm still hopeful for fall 2009... who's with me?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'll back you in this endeavor
Comments
But, finding good programmers is indeed difficult, especially when you can't afford to pay them a lot. We've been very lucky with the caliber of the amazing and dedicated programmers we currently have working here.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd still be quite interested to know if UWE has taken any VAT/GST advice in any of the countries into which they're selling - at that many re-orders it sounds like they'd have hit the UK's £70k threshhold and probably that in other countries too...
Especially with contacts at Steam who must know the position, not asking is sort of looking for negligence penalties on top of the 20% tax plus interest.
It took one year post 1.0 release for NS to become reasonably stable, reasonably balanced and reasonably deep; it took four years to polish it to a mirror finish. They can probably get it feature-complete and slap a 1.0 designation on a poorly balanced, buggy product this year if they'd like; or they can go all Blizzard and only release in a few years when it has a mirror finish; they're probably going to do something inbetween those extremes, because neither extreme seems to make business sense.
A) It's what we paid for. Don't kid yourself that you only expected an interminable Beta (not that NS2 qualifies for that status yet, but it's also been longer than the average person expected).
B) When they slap that 1.0 sticker on the game it means the game is of 'release' quality. What that means varies from project to project, but on average it's of a standard that matches most people's expectations in terms of quality and content. I am not currently playing a release quality game. While it's vaguely interesting to see the game evolve, I have plenty of other unplayed games in my Steam library more worthy of attention than NS2 in its current state.
I don't expect it to be released this year. Even if it were possible to do so, I would definitely wait for everyone to get <i>Battlefield 3</i> out of their system, because that game is going to be slightly huge. Not only is it a must-have game you'd be competing with, but it's also going to suck a lot of money out of gamers pockets for months before and after release as they upgrade their systems just to be able to play it.
i dont think this is going to be finished this year... and well i hope it a bit. Dont be EA! :P
B182 "Fixing Pathing issues"
Lol.
As I said over 3 months ago, this won't be 1.0 release material come January 2012. I don't think it will take til 2013 - it will be done next year sometime.
Again, think about the minimum number of patches to put in:
Onos (that works)
Exosuits (that work)
Jetpacks (that work)
Real DI (that works)
Anything else (and it has to work - not just be in the game)
Then compound that number with:
Balance fixes
Performance fixes
General Polish
At the 2 patches per month schedule they have *mostly* stuck to, you're looking at 10 more patches til 2012; very slim chance. But in 10 more patches we should be so much further along that they will be mostly working on Polish, Performance and Balance.
I say 3 more months TOPS before release.
The 1.0 sticker says almost nothing about the quality of the game or its state of completion. Do I need to list a very long line of games that have been released in horrible condition? Do I need to list games, to be fair mostly Blizzard on the PC, that have been released only after being buffed to a mirror polish?
<!--quoteo(post=1863405:date=Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863405"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't kid yourself that you only expected an interminable Beta (not that NS2 qualifies for that status yet, but it's also been longer than the average person expected).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't kid yourself that 1.0 is anything but an arbitrary milestone; neither a begin nor an end. Signifying little or nothing on the player side of things. BTW, the game is still alpha.
<!--quoteo(post=1863405:date=Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Jul 25 2011, 03:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863405"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->B) When they slap that 1.0 sticker on the game it means the game is of 'release' quality.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, you have it backwards. It means only that the game has been officially released. The quality of the game at release says something about the character of the game developers and the company they work for, however.
Wellllllllllll, it says a little bit. It'll mean it's (mostly) feature-complete and the general gameplay-style has been laid down (ea. it won't go from doom to deus ex and back again). That last one is important. If players know the kind of gameplay they're buying into they'll be more secure with their purchase.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->BTW, the game is still alpha.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Welcome to the dark side my friend. /emperor's voice
<!--QuoteBegin-'Kalabalana'+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ('Kalabalana')</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I actually think other then the implementation of Onos, heavy armor, the 3D version of DI, server and occlusion culling optimizations, game development will fly by in the next few months.
I say 3 more months TOPS before release.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Jetpacks I say! Anyway, I'm not really worried about the HA\3D-DI and other gameplay-stuff, it's that blasted engine that's doing me in. 3 important things will have to be done in that department: Lua-performance, Occlusion-culling and stability. Stability isn't much of an issue I'd reckon, once all the features are in it'll be a matter of time to do away with all the nasty access-violations\memory-leaks and whatnot. It's the Lua-performance and occlusion-culling that are the significants here, and they're quite large issues that will take a lot of time to seriously tackle (if they can be properly fixed at all!).
The real benefit of a 1.0 is that it will be eligible for sale on Steam, which will rake in the big bucks that are needed so very. It'll be money more than anything else that will decide when that moment comes I suppose.
This game decides their future.
1.0 with press, reviews, steam store etc is important.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't kid yourself that 1.0 is anything but an arbitrary milestone; neither a begin nor an end. Signifying little or nothing on the player side of things.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I'm sure neither the players nor the devs will be celebrating their arbitrary milestone when NS2 releases. Please. There are just so many reasons why this sentiment is wrong. We're talking about a game that will decide the future of a company. When it's 1.0, as Bacillus points out, it will be open to both player and critical review. It will be judged.
I understand if you're trying to make the point that games on the PC can continue to improve post-release with few restrictions, and there is less pressure to make it absolutely perfect or bulging with features on release. But it's naive to think that this is an arbitrary milestone. We're not talking about a freely-distributed bedroom programming project here, UWE's necks are on the line.
You're looking at it's inherent value. It's true that going from 1455.3356 or 0.5.3.1 to 1.0 is arbitrary as far as the label goes. But you're ignoring the perceived value of that name change. We care what things are called because we have positive or negative associations with names and labels.
E.g. <i>Kentucky Fried Chicken</i> changed its brand to <i>KFC</i> "to help combat the negative association the general public had with 'fried' foods".
<i>Natural Selection 2</i> could have been called <i>Return to Sanjii</i>. The change in letters is arbitrary, except that simply adding the 2 tells people this is a sequel to a game of the same name. So they go and research the first game and not only is it critically acclaimed, it's free to try out if they already own one of the world's most popular games. On the other hand, <i>Return to Sanjii</i> is nothing more than a wink at some NS lore, that otherwise eschews the rich heritage of the previous game; the impact is significantly reduced, and there's no reason for people to remember the name unless they've played <i>Return to Sanjii</i> and really, really liked it.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->BTW, the game is still alpha.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Even if I'd agree that the versions we're playing are technically still Alpha since the game is not feature complete, it's a self-proclaimed beta: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/search?word=beta" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/search?word=beta</a>.
- When did you start playing NS2?
- During the Beta [would be correct]
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No, you have it backwards. It means only that the game has been officially released. The quality of the game at release says something about the character of the game developers and the company they work for, however.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->In general, people don't release Alpha-state games. In general, people don't release Beta-state games. Releases always contain bugs, but the ideal is that they are the least visible. While you can't absolutely say 1.0 means an exact state that is equivalent for all games, you can definitely say that it means a <i>generally acceptable</i> level of quality for the <i>majority</i> of games.
Why should the quality be 'generally acceptable' to the average purchaser? Because UWE have sold 30,000 copies which has funded development. They need future sales to drive any future plans for the company (such as expansion, retail sales in addition to Steam, 360 development), and to fund future development, especially if their next game is a new IP (which people will be more hesitant about pre-ordering). 1.0 is important to the player because it's important to UWE. 1.0 is critical to to the future success of the game because that's when people will start hearing about it and trying it on a larger scale. If they hear that NS2 was crap <u>on release</u> they will be far less inclined to buy it.
I can play (half finished game, of course it is beta and keep it in mind, but it is playable .. somehow; and you can enjoy it!)
i.e. DI evolution:
Prototype ... "how it can look", but it works like infestation spray :)
B163 "D. Infestation introduced"
B180 "Cysts"
B181 "Cyst patch"
[i] as you can see the evolution of features is not dead .. it evolves and make game all times more playable.
Feature-completion and feature-lock down is generally recognized as "going beta".
That's not really the point IMO, the state in which games are released today is pathetic compared to a few years back(2000's). All companies need to up there bar for release status to what the definition is, which would be balanced, feature complete, and minimal bugs. I know me and a lot of others are starting to realize this, and have stopped pre-ordering games(namely MMO's). I was screwed over by this kind of thinking from companies 3 different times(AoC, Warhammer, and GA when it launched). The only reason I pre-ordered this is because NS1 is honestly my favorite FPS of all time, I love the mix of strategy games and FPS.
B182 "Fixing Pathing issues"
Lol.
As I said over 3 months ago, this won't be 1.0 release material come January 2012. I don't think it will take til 2013 - it will be done next year sometime.
Again, think about the minimum number of patches to put in:
Onos (that works)
Exosuits (that work)
Jetpacks (that work)
Real DI (that works)
Anything else (and it has to work - not just be in the game)
Then compound that number with:
Balance fixes
Performance fixes
General Polish
At the 2 patches per month schedule they have *mostly* stuck to, you're looking at 10 more patches til 2012; very slim chance. But in 10 more patches we should be so much further along that they will be mostly working on Polish, Performance and Balance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i agree ns2 will not be good enough to be released this year. if the devs release the game this year it will be a mistake.
This is a mp only game which means there needs to be a lot of levels. about 15-20 would be a good start. Right now we have 4 and 2 of them suck.
There needs to be alot of admin support and better mod support and good esport support. The game needs to run smooth which it doesn't at all.
They need to get all the content into the game and balanced.
They have way more work to do on this game it isnt even really good enough to be called a alpha yet they call it a beta.
A beta is a when ur game is feature lock and u balance and remove bugs in the game.
There is no way they can release the game this year and tbh i dont see it in 2012. wait till 2013 to release by then your game should be really really good. Good enough to get noticed and not die a month after ship date.
they have a tone of work to do on the rts and fps front.
Just crossed my mind, but I wonder if the 'primary gifting period' is that good for NS2. I think a small, only steam distributed game might be pretty heavily outshadowed by the flood of bigger mainstream games that you can actually physically buy and wrap in some decorated paper.
is that what BC2's launch day without a server browser was? it was over 1.0 and took them many weeks to implement correctly, despite a whole month of public beta testing.
I don't know if it's just me but it feels like development has slowed quite a bit lately, at least i haven't seen any sign of something interesting being worked on or whether we will get new content any time soon.
Performance has gotten to a reasonable level so i wonder if it isn't time to focus more on content and more visible improvements, i know a lot of work has to go on under the hood but all we've seen lately is mostly bug fixes and stuff, nothing really interesting that makes me want to play for long each patch, perhaps releasing some playable but unfinished content you have would be a good idea at this point (especially any maps), that way we can test them now rather than later, as i thought that was what a beta was all about?
Do agree that it looks unlikely the game will be released this year. We haven't had a patch for 3 weeks, and there are only about 16 weeks left in the year to get Onos, Exo-suit, minigun, shift, all those extra upgrades and things that are greyed out, proper infestation, maps, etc.
And most of all - when all that is in they will need months to get performance up to scratch :/
Development is chugging along nicely considering it's only a handful of people making this all come together.
Guessing that when the tier3 tech for marines and aliens arrive there will be about 2-3 months of balancing to make the teams approximately even, accompanied by the whole redesigned animation system which will push on further than those two months to incorporate all the models into the new system. After this there will be polish, mini-features and smaller balance adjustments.
Do agree that it looks unlikely the game will be released this year. We haven't had a patch for 3 weeks, and there are only about 16 weeks left in the year to get Onos, Exo-suit, minigun, shift, all those extra upgrades and things that are greyed out, proper infestation, maps, etc.
And most of all - when all that is in they will need months to get performance up to scratch :/<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, I think this depends on how many new features are released in B185. If they release almost everything (onos, jp, exo, hmg, etc.) in this or the next patch, then I could see it finished by year's end. Otherwise, I think we're looking at a spring/summer 2012 release.
I mean let's remember their system requirement that they're still trying to get it to run on...
1.5 Ghz single core
512 MB of RAM
DirectX 9 card.. (Geforce 7000's series was the strongest DirectX card made)
Most of you who have posted your specs on these forums and are getting 20-30 fps have machines and GPU's that are literally 10x as powerful...
We're talking Quad Cores 2-4GB of ram and Geforce 200 Series cards... and that's about the average...
They have <u><i><b>a lot</b></i></u> of work to even get close to those specs with reasonable performance (I consider reasonable 1024x768 @ 30 fps lowest everything else)
(I'm not too familiar with the ATI models for comparison, but ATI sucks anyways... :P )
I'll back you in this endeavor