Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
What is so hard to understand about Apocalypse?
TL;DR: MMORPG is still on track.
Apocalypse was created as a testing environment and will continue to be a testing environment. Whether the testing is combat in Battle Royale, combat in Siege mode, or combat in Horde mode, we are helping test active systems, passive systems, and back-end systems. Even just running around helps them by providing lots of data to be analyzed.
Yes, it has a store. How else are they going to pay for the active servers we are testing/playing on?
Yes, it has a store. How else are they going to pay for the active servers we are testing/playing on?
The MMORPG is still in development. They are just using Apocalypse to help test systems for the MMORPG. Not that hard to understand.
Yes, people get confused by name changes. Yes, people get mad when they don't understand. But why do they automatically rant about something that is not true? The MMORPG is still on track, still in development, and will come out (barring San Diego / their office getting swallowed by the ocean). This has been said many times (not the part about the ocean though).
People are complaining that we paid for the MMORPG and they are wasting our money on Apocalypse. Firstly, we paid for enhancements to a game that was already fully funded. So what they do with their original funding has no impact on what we paid. Secondly, if you ever read the fine print on all of these games, you are not purchasing anything. You are paying for access to something. Yes, we get extra stuff, but that is because they want to give back to the community that is supporting them. All of the money that we supplied will be used for the enhancements to the MMORPG that we supported (and most of that is probably art assets).
@UnknownSystemError posted this link a while ago and it does help answer a lot of questions.
https://www.paradoxgaming.net/the-steven-answer
https://www.paradoxgaming.net/the-steven-answer
As you can see by the livestream on December 13th, they showed how easy it is to move things between systems. They took the Apocalypse map and ported it over to the MMORPG. That shows that 'all the work that they took away from the MMORPG and wasted on Apocalypse' was not wasted and is in fact helping the development of the MMORPG.
Personally, I love the abrupt screeching turn that they took and made the testing environment a side game and even included it in the lore. It shows that they are looking for an inclusive experience for everyone.
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Funny story, I was coming here to post a new thread entitled "WTF is Apocalypse" when I found this thread and it made me realize I was not the only person saying WTF.
The BR is a test environment. If people want to be upset about open testing for the MMORPG, they can be. People can be upset about whatever. And some will be.
Can't please all of the people all of the time.
Not one single person here backed the game for a Battle Royal.... but they are now going to permanently maintain and charge people to play it. If you do not like this type of game (me) then yeah... not happy. Stop chasing rainbows.... its just a turd in a rainbow skin anyway.
Good thing they test servers thogh.
Except you didn't invest in this.
You invested in the MMORPG, they are still building the MMORPG.
Apocalypse was born from the player bases concern about UE4's ability to do
1) Action Combat hybrid
2) PvP on the scale of 500 vs 500
3) An MMORPG at all
I'm sure one of the game designers who hangs out in the discord (not Intrepid employees, but people who are fans who also program games) can explain this better, but the 50-cent version is normally something like this:
Game Gets Designed -> Game goes into Alpha -> Continuous process improvement -> Game Reaches Beta Quality -> Game goes into Better -> Server Optimization / Tweaking occurs because of the increased number of players -> Continuous process improvement -> Game reaches launch ready state -> Game Launches
[Except Fallout 76 I don't think they followed anything close to this]
What Intrepid is doing is something like this
MMORPG gets designed -> MMORPG goes into Alpha Zero -> Continuous Process Improvement -> Specialized Combat Testing Required -> Development on MMO Continues but Action Combat Testing Mode (APOC) is born -> APOC goes into Alpha -> Continuous Process Improvement -> Server Optimization/ Tweaking occurs because of the increased number of players ->
As you can see, Intrepid is already doing a big part of work that usually occurs very late in the process, which I mean is good because it also means server optimization will have been hammered to hell and back before launch.
It also means Intrepid can't have any server optimization issues at launch because they won't have any excuse for them.
Whether you like Battle Royale or not, Intrepid needs to test combat. This is the easiest way for them to do it. With the added bonus of testing their ability to adapt as stressing the servers with large numbers of people logging in causes issues either now or at launch.
As I mentioned, check out the livestream from Dec 13th to see how quickly they can take systems from Apocalypse and port them over to the MMORPG (and vice versa).
We spend about 40% of our time trying to log in to the game.
We spend about 35% of the time waiting in queue.
We spend about 25% of our time running around or fighting in the game.
Next weekend, we're supposed to be able to test quest mechanics by surviving longest, opening treasure chests and destroying walls - in addition to combat.
How do you know if its on time? Only because Steven says it's on time.
They also said they were going to self-publish ... except well you know that entire Continent of Europe. Plus....yeah the CIS.
They also said they were going to be at 200 employees by the end of 2018 ... except when we find out that they aren't on track to add 48 of those employees until Juneish of 2019.
They also said that the Battle Royale wasn't going to be around....then it would be around if the players liked it...then it would be around for a player acquisition funnel...then we are going to monetize it.
There are people who are willing to give infinite chances
There are people who are willing to give some chances
There are people who are willing to give a single chance
Any one of those 3 is enough for a player to be burned. The three combined, its enough to strike out pretty much any other developer.
Had Steven not laid the ground work with his community early on, Intrepid would be in serious trouble right now. As it is, Steven is genuine. He is authentic.
Its not the big things he does that mean anything, in fact there are cringe worthy "big" things that occur that make me bite my nails.
Its the little things, the individual interactions he does. Its really easy to fake sincerity when it comes to big things. Its hard to fake sincerity when you compliment someone on their desk, and then you get into a conversation about Christmas trees.
As @AutumnLeaf mentioned, i guess people really do have selective reading
Everyone wants a slightly different colour outfit, right?
Okay, here's the truth of it. They are slightly behind schedule but it's nothing to worry about. How do I know this? Because I've been a manager for most of my life and I know how business works. When you are behind there are several things you can do.
1. Cut corners
2, Put more people on it
3 Invent a way to catch up
4. Get lucky lol
Remember last month around Halloween when there were supposed to be two Twitchcasts but there was only one? That's because they were too busy to have two. They cut corners and only had one so they could keep working. Then there were no October store items. They came out in November. Why? Because they needed to put the artists to work on something else.
Should you freak out? Nah. It's a normal business day. That's how it is in business. You make plan A then throw it out and go to plan B. By the time you're done you're on plan E but you got it done.
Will Castle Siege Mode be ready at the end of December? Maybe. That's only 12 days from now. Apocalypse starts today so we have 12 days to break it and have Steven fix it. That's not a lot of time. If there are a lot of problems to fix we won't make it. If all goes well we'll make it. What about the website? The website isn't finished but they need to be done today because the person doing it might be pulled to work on Apocalypse bugs.
Why not hire more people you ask? He's trying. His Christmas wish was for experienced hires. He's not going to hire anyone off the street just to fill seats. He wants quality people. Will he get them? That's where #4 comes in. Get lucky. lol. The greatest programmer in the world could walk in his front door tomorrow. Or maybe not. lol.
#3 is the most fun part of management and the most stressful. Invent something brilliant. It's like being on Star Trek when Kirk is screwed with no way out but then suddenly he does something brilliant and half lucky and escapes. However, that only comes into play when your back is up against it and there's no other way. Steven's not there yet. When it's 3 days to Castle Siege and he has tons of bugs to fix he'll be there.
If only there was a way to clone Jeffy. Maybe he could invent a keyboard that can be typed on with his feet so Jeff could program with his hands and feet at the same time.
Or get Alexia to help him program just by talking to it while he types. That might work.
Cheers!