How far behind are we actually?

It seems to me that for such a core system as caravans to only be to the point where a very linear display example is possible (one that might have also been shared at gamescon_...it seems to me that we're in for quite a wait.

Obviously that isn't good news, however we aren't in this for good news, we're in this for a game. Development has ups and downs, and we've clearly heard absolutely very little in terms of how the development is going. I don't know about you, but Crowfall never made me feel like I was being deceived.

They earnestly showed the very ugly early workings of the game and their improvisations with the play tests to get people something somewhat fun to test, while they worked on stuff.

I very much find that appealing. Whether or not you wish backers to sign an NDA or not to keep as much of the ugliness mum to your future buyers I don't mind, but sitting here twiddling my thumbs completely in the blind, isn't something I feel shows that I've been appreciated in the leap I took to help fund the game.

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Wandering Mist

nagash wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

damokles wrote: »

I dont know, where people come from calling IS "behind"...
They work on it okay? Its going to take time. They dont have anything to build their technology on, so they have to create it from the ground up.
The only reason, why you think that they are "behind" is because they gave us updates from the very beginning, other games take 5-8 years to complete development....

I think intrepid has to take some of the blame with this. Steven did say ashes would be released before 2020 so I can see why people would say its behind schedule. Most long-time followers knew it would not reach the deadline but steven did push that date.

He did indeed and it was definitely a mistake.

at least he owned up and told us it's no longer a viable launch date (better than most AAA games)

Oh absolutely and I respect Steven for that. Most CEOs in the game industry would take that kind of situation and try to pin the blame on someone else or make up some corporate PR rubbish to justify it.

“it’s not how you launch, it’s what it becomes,”
- Todd Howard

Nagash

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

damokles wrote: »

I dont know, where people come from calling IS "behind"...
They work on it okay? Its going to take time. They dont have anything to build their technology on, so they have to create it from the ground up.
The only reason, why you think that they are "behind" is because they gave us updates from the very beginning, other games take 5-8 years to complete development....

I think intrepid has to take some of the blame with this. Steven did say ashes would be released before 2020 so I can see why people would say its behind schedule. Most long-time followers knew it would not reach the deadline but steven did push that date.

He did indeed and it was definitely a mistake.

at least he owned up and told us it's no longer a viable launch date (better than most AAA games)

Oh absolutely and I respect Steven for that. Most CEOs in the game industry would take that kind of situation and try to pin the blame on someone else or make up some corporate PR rubbish to justify it.

“it’s not how you launch, it’s what it becomes,”
- Todd Howard

It just works ^^

Azathoth

I am happy they aren't releasing early or 'on time's as 'Early access.'

Wandering Mist

nagash wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

damokles wrote: »

I dont know, where people come from calling IS "behind"...
They work on it okay? Its going to take time. They dont have anything to build their technology on, so they have to create it from the ground up.
The only reason, why you think that they are "behind" is because they gave us updates from the very beginning, other games take 5-8 years to complete development....

I think intrepid has to take some of the blame with this. Steven did say ashes would be released before 2020 so I can see why people would say its behind schedule. Most long-time followers knew it would not reach the deadline but steven did push that date.

He did indeed and it was definitely a mistake.

at least he owned up and told us it's no longer a viable launch date (better than most AAA games)

Oh absolutely and I respect Steven for that. Most CEOs in the game industry would take that kind of situation and try to pin the blame on someone else or make up some corporate PR rubbish to justify it.

“it’s not how you launch, it’s what it becomes,”
- Todd Howard

It just works ^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPN0qhSyWy8 Oh that it does

Nagash

I would give you 10 likes if I could

Damokles

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

nagash wrote: »

damokles wrote: »

I dont know, where people come from calling IS "behind"...
They work on it okay? Its going to take time. They dont have anything to build their technology on, so they have to create it from the ground up.
The only reason, why you think that they are "behind" is because they gave us updates from the very beginning, other games take 5-8 years to complete development....

I think intrepid has to take some of the blame with this. Steven did say ashes would be released before 2020 so I can see why people would say its behind schedule. Most long-time followers knew it would not reach the deadline but steven did push that date.

He did indeed and it was definitely a mistake.

at least he owned up and told us it's no longer a viable launch date (better than most AAA games)

Oh absolutely and I respect Steven for that. Most CEOs in the game industry would take that kind of situation and try to pin the blame on someone else or make up some corporate PR rubbish to justify it.

“it’s not how you launch, it’s what it becomes,”
- Todd Howard

It just works ^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPN0qhSyWy8 Oh that it does

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I didnt know this even existed, you have my eternal thanks!

flatline

I believe some time in 2020 for sure

Nagash

It's still in my head

finndo

I never expected a 2019 launch, Late Fall 2020 earliest, and late 2021 or early 2022 in my nightmares. I also am aware of a "normal" development lifecycle for MMOs and actually was hoping it wouldn't launch in 2019. I really think they should follow the same path as Albion Online did with a lengthy beta period, but not open to everyone. Similar to the 24x7 perpetual alpha server we are expecting which is a better idea IMHO than Albion's extended beta with wipes.

I like the overall plan Steven has laid out, but have never been down with the timing. There is no room for error, or fixing issues like what we have just gone through over the last 7 months. As previously said though, it doesn't mean the rest of the team has been sitting around waiting, hopefully this will mean that when things get going again we will see more "jumps" in development.

I also hope Steve can keep up his promise of "leaving some surprises for launch" Although I am not sure how he will be able to with a persistent Alpha server (was the official wording persistent or perpetual? I know I've used both just now...) unless it has a major patch day on "release" to add back the missing content...

I think that moving forward they should add a small UI element that could be triggered from the quests screen to "give more details about the quest" and use that to put testing targets in, not just things to do for rewards.
Such a:
1. use the potion launcher to destroy a house multiple times
2. block a power attack with a shield several times
3. go to x,y and try to walk through the tree there

testing quests, something to try and improve things players have complained about, but the team was not able to validate. I don't see how these could auto clear and would simply be data grabs they would have to be looking out for on the backend. Unless they enable an in game recorder with a "submit the last 1/3/5/10 minutes of gameplay as a bug report" option. (possibly with the option to pick one of the testing quests or "other" as a subject for the report.

All of which would take extra time to develop outside of making progress on the game, but would be reusable for the rest of the development cycle.

At this point I am still holding off on buying a new GPU as I was doing so specifically for this game. Maybe next year.

OrcLuck

I didn't expect 2019 or 2020 even, I just wondered where the actual timeline really lies. I don't want to find out that we have a new partner and a new agreement because the timeline went past the funding we've done...before we actually get a word in on whats happening.

ironarm

I am expecting a Summer 2020 or Fall 2020 launch. I believe we will get Alpha 1 in late November, Alpha 2 in January, followed by beta in March-May and depending on how the previous test have gone a launch in either the Summer or the Fall.

I do believe the team is behind schedule, but I am prefer that to a pushing out a product that isn't ready. As people have mentioned the delays in some aspects of the game doesn't exactly translate to delays in all aspects of the game. Different teams have been able to continue their work in different departments.

I think most people on this forum have been apart of launches where the game was rushed to be completed by a previous deadline and I don't think of us want Ashes to do that.

mrwaffles

neomir wrote: »

What I dont quite understand is why we cant test the MMO at the same time as testing Apocalypse. I guess there is a technical reason for this, but not one I understand or have seen explained.

Open world vs instance based is my guess. Instance base is a lot easier to test. each instance can collect data and keep it organized for a rapid QA/Development look over. Whereas open world is weeding through bunch of bug reports. Also instance based bugs are probably a lot easier to reproduce as they have a sandbox environment and open world are millions of constantly changing variables.

All just my guess though

sunfrog

7 points down in the first quarter. If we go 14 points down you can worry. If we go 21 points down Steven will need to look for more investors and we better hope he has a good game to show them by that point. If we go 28 points down we probably lose the game. Don't cry in the first quarter, at least wait until half-time.

Wandering Mist

sunfrog wrote: »

7 points down in the first quarter. If we go 14 points down you can worry. If we go 21 points down Steven will need to look for more investors and we better hope he has a good game to show them by that point. If we go 28 points down we probably lose the game. Don't cry in the first quarter, at least wait until half-time.

Man you are just full of cheer today aren't ya :P

Wandering Mist

mrwaffles wrote: »

neomir wrote: »

What I dont quite understand is why we cant test the MMO at the same time as testing Apocalypse. I guess there is a technical reason for this, but not one I understand or have seen explained.

Open world vs instance based is my guess. Instance base is a lot easier to test. each instance can collect data and keep it organized for a rapid QA/Development look over. Whereas open world is weeding through bunch of bug reports. Also instance based bugs are probably a lot easier to reproduce as they have a sandbox environment and open world are millions of constantly changing variables.

All just my guess though

That does play a part in it, mainly because I doubt they have actually finished crafting the mmorpg world yet. Plus one of the things they have been working on recently has been the servers and the netcode which requires stress tests to check performance. The best way to stress test a platform is to put as many people in as small a space as possible and have them do a ton of actions. A battle Royal setting is the perfect way to do a stress test.

sunfrog

wanderingmist wrote: »

Man you are just full of cheer today aren't ya :P

As I see it there are still 3 things that could cause delays. Corruption, Animal Husbandry, and the breaking system. The breaking system is already under development and seems to be going well so we might catch up at half-time. If we hit the other two delays Steven might need more money. All the dev make good money and they're on the clock the entire time we're delayed.That's why we see people doing jobs they don't normally do. He has to find them something to do other than sit there getting paid for nothing.This is just normal business as usual. I've been a manager most of my life so I've seen it before. The depts that were ahead run out of things to do, the departments that were behind have to stress and scramble because everything is waiting on them, and the departments that were on time stay that way or run out of things to do. It depends on how long the delay lasts. We've been delayed 5 months. That's a long time, but we don't know what else is going on.

Dygz

It's typical of Agile management for devs to help out other depts.
What's been delayed is outside testing; not development.
But, release is going to be delayed to accommodate outside testing.
The devs will continue to work on new content even after launch.

I don't see funding as an issue - especially since some of us continue to pay more than double for monthly cosmetics than we will for the sub.

Wandering Mist

sunfrog wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

Man you are just full of cheer today aren't ya :P

As I see it there are still 3 things that could cause delays. Corruption, Animal Husbandry, and the breaking system. The breaking system is already under development and seems to be going well so we might catch up at half-time. If we hit the other two delays Steven might need more money. All the dev make good money and they're on the clock the entire time we're delayed.That's why we see people doing jobs they don't normally do. He has to find them something to do other than sit there getting paid for nothing.This is just normal business as usual. I've been a manager most of my life so I've seen it before. The depts that were ahead run out of things to do, the departments that were behind have to stress and scramble because everything is waiting on them, and the departments that were on time stay that way or run out of things to do. It depends on how long the delay lasts. We've been delayed 5 months. That's a long time, but we don't know what else is going on.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "breaking system". The corruption system shouldn't take too long for them to make unless things go absolutely terribly during testing forcing them to re-think the entire system. I agree though that Animal Husbandry is a huge undertaking and honestly I have no idea how they will do it justice.

The thing about games development is that usually you have a bunch of specialists all working on individual things that come together to form a cohesive game. If the engineering team falls behind you can't just get someone from the animation team to step in to help them (unless you are really lucky and have someone who is experienced in both roles - very very unlikely). Typically when it comes to games development, the team that finishes first is often the art design team, as they need to finish what they are doing in order for the other teams to do their work.

This isn't too big of a problem because once the art design team has finished their core work they are usually given cosmetic items like weapon skins, etc. These things will generally use the same animation skeleton and so they can churn these cosmetics out while the other teams finish off their work. The bonus is that if needed, the cosmetics can be sold to players and help shore up any financial short-fall caused by other delays.

Of course, this is the theory behind it, and it doesn't always work.

swooxie

This is my thought about the release of the mmorpg.
I personally think a launch before 2021 is not happening.
The thing is we are now with APOC is november last year.
APOC will get a few test before it will be a weekend test.
This will probably take 2~3 weeks.
Then you get the 24/7 of the BR.
And then start of test castle siege I hope.
Another 2 months later we start testing horde.
Hopefully 2 months after this A1 starts with testing.
Time frame so far 4~5 months.
So if lucky all goes well and we have A1 testing in Q1 or Q2 next year.
Now this will be my assumption, A1 testing will last about 9~12 months.

The reason behind this will be:
To many changes;
Completed redo of systems;
Community opinions;
New systems need bug fixes;
Development.

So now we are in Q1 or Q2 2021, A2 will start which will probably take another 6 months same reasons as A1.
Now Beta will hit with beta 1 and 2 where everything will be about polishing the systems another 3 months.
This will conclude in a release somewhere Q4 2021 or Q1 2022.

This is all my opinion and based on my expierience developing systems and on not another big delay like remaking the backend.

Shoklen

What I like to keep in mind (from my persona experience) is that the major man-hour time sink for development is asset creation.. 3d models, animations, textures, environments, ect, ect, ect.. This hasn't slowed down, and there haven't been any (that we know of) major setbacks in this area... If anything, it's ramped up to full production over the past six months or more... with designs, storyboards, storylines, quests, all still marching on..

Now that the backend has received major "re-tweaks".. and I'm sure there has been rudimentary work on the game systems themselves.. I don't feel we are "years" out at all. We are getting Apoc back within a few weeks.. and if things go well, the next step, then the next.. It could all move quite fast actually..

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on between June and Sept of 2020... for a launch of the MMO.. Roughly a year from now... Being conservative.. It could very well happen as early as April.... Who knows...

I'm thinking, up to a month for Alpha 1, three Months(ish) for Alpha 2, and Beta 1 and 2 being a few weeks to a month combined... I remember, far, far back, it was mentioned the betas would be fairly short... This is no gmail were it's in beta for years (is it still? heh).

Just my 2 cents, of course.. (Ex 3d modeler animator)

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