Q1 2016 Schedule Update

Then again, plenty a system has been delayed many times and we're still lacking a huge amount of content and scenes. I won't claim that it would be impossible to manage, but I wouldn't exactly call it 'plenty of time' either. In my humble opinion it's an ambitious schedule and the 'will favour getting to final wipe over hitting Feature complete' part has me severely scared.

 

The idea of favoring final wipe over feature-complete is only a little worrisome for me, coming from PFO recently. Goblinworks (producers/devs of Pathfinder Online) rushed to close Alpha and begin "Early Enrollment" (basically a paid/monthly Beta), while the game was still being developed and FAR, FAR from being feature-complete. They called it MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and this was their "final wipe," as well. Because they started charging the subscriptions at that point, most people viewed the game as being "released", and well, the game was pretty far from that. Very far from that. It's still far from even what Portalarium is calling Pre-Alpha. Partially unrelated, even during Early Enrollment, they still misprioritized several core game features, turning away plenty of loyal customers/fans; ultimately they collapsed internally, with the game and its development now barely on life support.

So that gives me mixed feelings. Goblinworks misprioritized a lot of things, including favoring a final-wipe over feature-complete, and that ultimately resulted in failure. Yet at the same time, coming into this game "late" (just bought-in less than a month ago, now with RFDuke and overworld-Village), I'm seeing how this game is already miles ahead of PFO in terms of feature-complete, and it's still in Pre-Alpha. I already know that this game will include the features that I'm wanting - before we hit Alpha.

That being said, I sincerely hope that - even though they strive for feature-complete before the final-wipe - they will continue to work on features in the background while they are busy in Alpha/Beta with the content and polishing. This idea that they are giving themselves a "soft deadline" of mid-summer for feature-complete suggests that they have a working timeline (internally) they are trying to hold to, likely with a late-2016 release or maybe early-2017. My ultimate hope is that Portalarium neither pressures themselves to release Episode 1 before it's ready for public consumption, nor "rushes" anything to get it to that state.

But, being new here, that means I haven't been waiting as long for this game as many of you. I still have plenty of patience. Especially after the PFO incident.

 

This sounds really interesting. Can't wait!

 

this does sound like fun! I wonder if you can gain faction with the cabalists and fight with them to siege some one elses town! muhahahaha

 

Does this mean we'll get some information on what blessings occur for each type of statue sometime prior to this release?

 

I am hoping "Towns" means all towns...

Even though this may piss off residents. It adds to the immersion of living in a town in feudal times. At any time a raid can happen especially close to enemy lines.

 

Robes?

 

100% back this, especially if we are talking about a PVP Pot, or PVP game town.

 

Well I can't wait until this is delayed a few times before I'm actually allowed in so I can give my feedback on SP-Offline!

On the full wipe over feature complete: I guess this depends on whether there will be a wipe before launch (which I hope) once they are feature and content complete. Having said that, if it's the final wipe before the launch wipe, I'm fine with that. Honestly, I think most of the features are in now and the rest shouldn't require a wipe to put in. I think what's left is stretch goal stuff like public theaters if they meet every or most Q1 marks. I think this is a sign that by mid-summer, they expect to be feature complete or at least to the point where if they need to add features, it wouldn't necessitate a wipe. In other words, we're getting closer to the finished product. If they are missing features, it might be SP-Offline only where wipes don't exist (although save games might not be compatible between releases). In other words, instead of panicking, think about what features are left after Q1 and whether they would require a wipe or not.

Having said that, there should be a wipe right before launch since...giving people a huge head start would I think really hurt the MMO part of SOTA.

 

Regarding wipes and testing, if they are limiting the wipes, the developers could always just request those with extra characters in storage use those for some time period so the new features could be tested out with clean characters. Fairly sure most here would love to help if requested as such. Or maybe we'll just re-roll on our own? Never knows.

Maybe we could even test out the new academy system where we park our old characters so they won't get decay?(hint hint - this would be a nice feature you could add that we could test for you if you make it - never hurts to be hopeful)

 

Thanks
Really appreciated post!!

 

Looking forward to the crafting enhancements.

 

Lol, you get that all land is now of no value, right? POT's are limitless and nobody wants to live in most of them. There is not going to be any land grab because this game was just a money grab from the very beginning... Hello... McFly...?

 

he isn't wanting to make a point. He's wanting to get banned so then he can claim the reason he got banned was because he was complaining about the game and not that he is just being rude and offensive and breaking the TOS.

 

it is converting addon store items back to store credit

 

note his less than subtle choice of forum avatar.

 

starr, is it safe to presume the features that will be implemented after you push the final wipe will not have much of an overall impact on the avatars and their progression at an early stage?

my concern here is losing out on some of the fundamental experiences and not having the ability to simply "wipe yourself" without losing any of the rewards you built up from the kickstarter/testing phases. with as many rewards as we can pick up these days, it seems that the bank will not be able to hold all of them if we delete our characters and restart..

 

My apologies. I did vent. It is my concern that I have spent many hundreds of dollars on a game that looks to be in a death spiral. Please look at the dollars this game has been taking in lately. The income is not enough to buy robots or go to space on lately, nor is it enough to even pay a staff. Now that the whales are jumping ship, what would make you believe in a positive outcome for this endeavor? If you are truly a fangirl, you will want to encourage the makers not to cut down a forest to try to find the last few trees to burn. I currently have $1327 into this game, and I am starting to realize that I am likely an idiot. Don't get me wrong, I would love this game to last as long as UO, I played GL, Pacific, Catskills and SP veriy happily with both of my children for years. But when my 28 year old game designer son comes to my house and tallies up the situation over Christmas and says "Dad, please don't spend any more... this is going down in flames." I believe him. He has a masters degree in applied mathematics and game theory, which he attributes to us playing UO on dialup. Should I ignore that?

 

I have $1327 into this game and I would like to play a good finished game that has long lasting resilience for many years to come. I do have concerns that we are not going to end up with that. The dollars are getting really thin and the whales are jumping ship. With good reason from what I understand.. Tell me it's not true, please. Tell me we are going to have an awesome finished game that will last for years. But then tell me why you think that, and be honest. Is your PoT worth anything now? Right...

 

That's fair. I did have a point, but I was drunk and angry, so my delivery did suck. Good call.