1. Here you will find official announcements and updates. These announcements are also linked in the Official SotA Discord server.
    We encourage comments from the community! To keep the announcements official, we ask that comment threads be created in the General forums for player input.

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Q4 Schedule

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Oct 2, 2014.

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  1. Beli

    Beli Avatar

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    I assume we will be beta come Dec 1. or will we still be considered Pre-Alpha, which I have never heard of in my past 18 years of testing games, I have tested many games in my years and alpha was just stress testing the server.
     
  2. Satan Himself

    Satan Himself Avatar

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    Just from my vast experience in game development I feel like we may be post-delta right now, or possibly pre-gamma, not sure because my Greek sucks. Will use my leetxor Dev+ access to find out from RG and will get back to everybody soon.
     
  3. mike11

    mike11 Avatar

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    I want to play a Ettin! Having two heads would be awesome.
     
  4. Sindariya

    Sindariya Avatar

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    Does there already exists any plans or some more specific details?
     
  5. Violation Clauth

    Violation Clauth Avatar

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    The Portalarium "promise" is that you can play the game without paying any subscription type fee... you can buy it once and never pay another penny and enjoy the story and online play. Hope that helps.
     
  6. Aartemis

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    I am not 100% sure but I believe we will remain in Pre-Alpha until all the core functionality has been coded into the game. Once all of the major game systems have been coded and is feature complete it will probably move to Alpha.

    Alpha is where the coding will be fine tuned and adjusted and all of the assets, environments, etc. are completed. Alpha usually ends when the game is Feature and Asset complete.

    Beta is generally bug fix time and getting ready for launch. The game is Feature and Asset complete and no new things are usually brought online.

    As game systems are still being added to game in December and probably into next year I would expect the game to stay in Pre-Alpha for a bit longer. Perhaps February. I am not sure if story content is considered feature, or asset - I think asset viewing a quest like an art asset. So then we may remain in Alpha a bit while the mainland, story and art is completed and tuned. IIRC as long as there is a Cube that represents an asset, that is good enough.

    I think the bottom line is that most games we get access to (mmo or rpg test) are usually Feature complete. So the SotA development is slightly different in the sense that much of the testing we are doing every month does not usually get done until MUCH later in the process. Theoretically it should make Alpha and Beta testing much more solid since many of the major systems have been functioning and been tested for months and months already (Combat, Housing, Crafting, Vendors).

    So even though the game is solidifying from a core (major) feature standpoint, there is still a ton of work to do on assets, content and misc features. I would expect it to be closer to March-April before we change to the "Beta" stage if they conform to industry standards.

    Then again, it's just my opinion on how things will go. :)
     
  7. Ristra

    Ristra Avatar

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    Oh, I am fully aware of their words.

    The problem is not "can" we play with in game currency only. The problem is how realistic is it to accomplish.

    This isn't my first game with a store. Seen it many times where you can buy things in game but too many other factors push the players to need to use real money. Take a look at housing. How many people are buying plots because they do not want to risk the chance of not getting a plot in game. We don't know how many plots will be available and we don't know how much in game currency they will cost. Even still, we don't know the man hours required to obtain that amount of currency. The balance could easily push players to pay real money to get that plot.

    It's very very simple, they said they will not require a subscription. If they feel the need to micro payment then give a subscription option. That is all I ask.

    Yes, I stated this exact request to RG during one of the very first Kickstarter Hangouts. Paraphrased he said that's a good idea, we will keep it in mind. The portion I quoted is one of the few statements that leans to micro payments so I am taking this time to bring my concern back up.
     
  8. Lum the Mad

    Lum the Mad Developer Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Have you tried talking to NPCs in Braemar after completing that quest? (Kingsport and Owl's Head were less aware of the problem so they don't have much of a reaction.)

    As for having a global effect on the world, that's traditionally been an issue with multiplayer games since, well, not everyone did what you did. We have the ability coming online to launch variations of scenes, so we may be able to do something along those lines, but then your friends who haven't finished the quest won't be able to join you in Reconstructed Ravensmoor or whatever...
     
  9. Lum the Mad

    Lum the Mad Developer Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    We will be using GetLocalization, the same site that Wasteland 2 used, to help to crowd-source the localization needed from interested parties. There was some initial testing of this done waaaay back in R2 I believe. The basic functionality for translated text is already in, but I'm sure things will break in many amusing ways once we actually start plugging in multi-lingual text.
     
  10. Satan Himself

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    I would HOPE that it would take a boatload of man hours in-game to be able to afford something like a village lot with a knight home on it. Like, thousands.
     
  11. Dorham Isycle

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    @Darkstarr Could we get the crafting recipes to stick with our accounts like the recent quest hat so we don't have to relearn recipes every wipe? You could make us forget before official launch.
     
  12. smack

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    Yeah, but only to Handel and maybe one other. I'll check out the others next time, but those are dialog responses, which is great and shows that aspect working. I'm more referring to world state as you mention below...


    That depends on how you implement this. ESO solves this with phasing, so that you and your friends can be in the same castle, yet see different NPCs (or even some are dead to you but not your friend), and the castle could be in ruins to you but not to your friend. Yes, that can make for a disjointed experience but it was their mitigation to keep friends together. So yeah, you could see a group of people standing around an empty circle, but to them they're talking to an NPC.

    I'll do a separate post in the Quest forum regarding my ideas around quest design and world state but the general idea is that quests can and should have global effects on the populace, economy, scene state, etc, without having to go the phasing route. I believe we can do that for certain types of quests and I'll post a link to that post later today.
     
  13. Ristra

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    So your idea of fun is playing this game for a boat load of man hours to be able to maintain your plot and house? How much time should we have for other things? Boat load of man ours required to level all your skills you need to earn that gold too?

    Eh, looks like it would be easier to use those micro payments to get passed wasting boat loads of time doing the daily grind.


    </sarc>

    See my point? Pushing players to micro payments can be subtle or it can be blatant. Give me a monthly subscription option with a store currency stipend. Then I don't need to deal with micro payments.
     
  14. Satan Himself

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    My perspective is limited. I paid $800 for a Knight pledge and the plot and house were the biggest attraction. It ought to be pretty damn hard for someone to acquire $800 worth of assets in-game. Not impossible, but time-consuming.

    At the same time, I'd hope that rents aren't too high, because people shouldn't have to grind too much just to maintain a house that they either bought pre-launch or earned post-launch.
     
  15. Dorham Isycle

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    What I suggested some time ago was subscription option that banked your payments to credit on your account for the store.
     
  16. Ristra

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    No one can use in game currency to acquire everything you have with your $800. That's not a one for one comparison. For starters, the only rent free plots come from pledging. Your $800 goes to those things.
     
  17. Satan Himself

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    Agree, not apples-to-apples. But can we agree that the plot and house are, for most people, the main attraction associated with a pledge?

    We don't know yet how much rent will be, so it's very hard to assign a value to a rent-free plot. Just another thing the devs will need to balance between pre-launch backers and post-launch players.
     
  18. Ristra

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    I don't know about that, dev+ access was a huge reason to purchase for some people. If it was just a plot and a house I don't think nearly as many people would have pledge as high. Take a look at the store and look at the plots not sold still.

    The overall package of each tier pledge is the selling point.
     
  19. Satan Himself

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    Agree that the house + plot + dozens of items are a strong selling point. Just saying the plot + house is the single greatest selling point. True also that I wouldn't have paid $800 just for the plot and house, which I guess makes your point.

    My point remains, just hope there's a substantial in-game cost for plots and houses. And that rent is high enough to reward pre-launch backers with rent-free lots, but low enough so that non-backers don't have to grind too much.

    Big, healthy, happy population is the best thing for the game. Housing is a HUGE part of the game for many people. Hope they get it right.
     
  20. Ristra

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    At what point does it change from rewarding pre-lunch pledges to punishing those that did not. Costs in game should not be tied to pledges at all. This balance should be achieved independently from pledges.

    The details in the tier for the pledge covers the reward, no on going reward is implied otherwise. Honoring those pledges is important. So I get what you are saying, though.
     
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