Author Topic: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.  (Read 94359 times)

Offline tigersfan

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #75 on: December 04, 2012, 05:41:35 am »
Wiki - Yeah, I'm sure there will be a new page, but, right now, we're all way too focused on the game itself. :)

Music - Yes Pablo is doing the music. I've so far only heard a very small bit of the music for the new game, and it's a bit of a different style (not sure how much I can say about it yet). But, it will be done by the same guy. :)

Offline Gemzo

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #76 on: December 04, 2012, 05:53:31 am »
Arg, you guys are killing me. I've been excitedly checking to see if the alpha has started several times per day. Is it okay to ask for another guess at when things will get rolling?

Also, it was said that there will most likely be multiplayer in the beta. What about the alpha? Forgive me if it's been said already.

Offline tigersfan

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #77 on: December 04, 2012, 06:20:06 am »
Arg, you guys are killing me. I've been excitedly checking to see if the alpha has started several times per day. Is it okay to ask for another guess at when things will get rolling?

Also, it was said that there will most likely be multiplayer in the beta. What about the alpha? Forgive me if it's been said already.

God, I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope we can get the alpha started this week. But, Chris can better answer that one.

As for multiplayer, Keith tested it a bit, and it's working. Not sure how WELL it's working, but it's working. So, unless something major breaks between now and then, multiplayer will be part of the alpha.

Offline x4000

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #78 on: December 04, 2012, 09:15:31 am »
Cheers folks, thanks for all the kind words!

I've made up a handy little spreadsheet on google docs that gives the roadmap between now and 1.0: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtdOj7epD2gRdGlKU2VwbUpOWGNmMmVNYXFGeTFFekE#gid=0

- To hit 1.0, all those items have to turn green.
- To hit beta, all of the orange items have to turn to any other color.
- To hit private alpha, we're pretty much down to monster code, the last of the interior generation, and the last of the strategic macro-game passes.

General predictions:
- I am hopeful that alpha will start on Thursday.  This will likely mean a shorter alpha than we'd planned (but a more polished one from the start), so we'll probably do slightly larger batches of testers than we otherwise would have.
- I am hopeful that we'll be hitting beta "sometime next week," and at this point I'm feeling increasingly confident about that unless major stuff crops up during alpha.

Caveats:
- The line items in that roadmap spreadsheet are pretty broad, so some of them represent dozens or more of hours of work of course.
- There's a good chance that I've also forgotten to put some things on there.  We have a variety of to-do lists that we're working from, so nothing is going to get completely forgotten, but in terms of summing it up in a small list like that, that can be challenging to do without the list just exploding in size in an unhelpful fashion (so we arrive right back at the size of our original to-do lists that the "summary" was made from!).

Final notes:
- I am super, super excited about this game.  Usually at the end of any project there is a general weariness from just how long the whole thing has taken.  But this one has come together fairly quick as far as games of this scope go (thanks to all the foundations from the first game), and so that hasn't set in. Instead I'm just really excited to actually be able to play the game, not just playtest bits and pieces of it.  Once we hit that point is when we start the private alpha.

- Going along with my excitement, there's a ton of stuff that we've added or tweaked or improved since the last time I described the game in depth to you.  So expect some differences, but they are all really pleasant surprises.  Mainly we found little things we could add in quickly and easily that would augment what we were already doing, to make the game (including the exploration elements) feel richer and more satisfying.  However, I think it's more fun if you discover all this sort of thing as you actually play through, rather than having those spoiled in advance, so I've managed to keep my mouth shut for once.  It has been hard. ;)  None of this is earth-shattering stuff, it's just little accent pieces that add a lot to the game when looked at in toto.

- I am still terrified of people's expectations for this game, I have to admit.  I feel we've made a far superior game to the first one, but I'm really worried that people have built up expectations such that we could never live up to them.  That's another big reason I've been so quiet (aside from being crazy busy).  I've been really wary of doing or saying anything that would increase expectations more than they already seem to be around here.  I'm not mentioning this because I'm looking for comfort or bracing comments about how you're sure things will be fine, but more as a glimpse into how it feels to be at this point of a project like this if you've not been here before.  I know from talking to other game creators even of extremely successful games that there's always a moment of terror right before releasing where everyone wonders "what if they don't like it?"  I think I was a little bit arrogant with AVWW1's beta, coming off of the critical smash hits of AI War and Tidalis, and so I just overstepped things.  This time around I've kind of swung to the opposite extreme, and hopefully that's for the better.  Time will tell!

Anyway, bottom line is, excitement and optimism is running really high here, but we're trying not to get run away with ourselves and we're also in heavy crunch mode.  Cheers!
« Last Edit: December 04, 2012, 09:19:52 am by x4000 »
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Offline Aklyon

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #79 on: December 04, 2012, 09:38:12 am »
I've managed to keep my mouth shut for once.  It has been hard. ;)
Hehe.

Offline madcow

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #80 on: December 04, 2012, 10:02:47 am »
I'm definitely looking forward to this, but don't worry about anticipation it's not like you pulled a Peter Molyneux and promised the moon! That to do list does look pretty long, I'm guessing 1.0 won't be coming out until 2013, although baby steps of making it to alpha/beta first.

Also Thursday is a good day for an alpha, coming in from out of town that day  8) (not that I have any expectations of getting in heh).

Offline x4000

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #81 on: December 04, 2012, 10:03:57 am »
We're expecting 1.0 to be in January, mainly because of the amount of time to finish the art to full quality.  Gameplay-wise I expect to mostly be there by the end of December aside from tweaks and tuning.
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Offline madcow

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #82 on: December 04, 2012, 10:07:47 am »
I also noticed remastered music is on the list. For some reason I recall hearing that the old music was going to be reused. Is it going to be a remix of the old music, or entirely new?

I loved the theme music from AVWW1.

Offline x4000

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #83 on: December 04, 2012, 10:09:19 am »
It's remastered, mainly -- meaning that it's higher quality and mixed better.  However, most of the chiptune throughlines are being removed and are being replaced with other instrumentation instead.  The effect is that it feels like a modernization of the existing tunes, or an HD-ifying of them.
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Offline LaughingThesaurus

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #84 on: December 04, 2012, 10:15:42 am »
I'll say that at least as an actor in some ten-minute plays... I have been afraid that during those completely silent auditions where the directors and such are listening so intently and judging you so intently, that as they do this, they're secretly thinking all kinds of things that mean I'm not as good as I hoped I would be. It's worse on performance nights as well, though. In acting, you do engage the audience in such a way that you should be fairly well liked if your performance is believable enough and polished enough. But, I don't shake the fear of "I really really hope that they like this as much as I do."
So I mean, I slightly know how that feels. It's at its worst during a ten-minute play... since I'm half the cast often times in those. ;)

Edit: Also, chiptunes did make the game feel a whole lot more old school, but we'll see how the music fits this time around.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2012, 10:53:22 am by LaughingThesaurus »

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #85 on: December 04, 2012, 10:26:06 am »
I kinda liked the chiptunes, they were both neat and gave me a good way to check how loud I'd left my volume at :P

Still interested in how it turns out, though. It could sound better without them perhaps.

Offline tigersfan

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #86 on: December 04, 2012, 10:53:22 am »
I kinda liked the chiptunes, they were both neat and gave me a good way to check how loud I'd left my volume at :P

Still interested in how it turns out, though. It could sound better without them perhaps.

I really like the one updated song I've heard so far. Is it better? I can't say, but, it has a very different feel to it, and it's a good listen.

Offline madcow

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #87 on: December 04, 2012, 11:06:14 am »
We can always mute music and play the old soundtrack, though it obviously won't sync up with the areas. I've always been a fan of the "16-bit" sound style in video games, but I'll still give the new music a listen.

Offline nas1m

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #88 on: December 04, 2012, 11:07:04 am »
Did I read "equipment" *g*?

EDIT:
I can't say how much I can't wait to get my hands on this game, Chris.
The design described in the blogpost from a few weeks back really got me excited (and hoping for another one ; ))!

The best of luck with this game. I will do my very best to promote it among my friends - no matter what.

Cheers!
« Last Edit: December 04, 2012, 11:10:42 am by nas1m »
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Offline x4000

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Re: Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.
« Reply #89 on: December 04, 2012, 11:08:41 am »
Did I read "equipment" *g*?

Yes, but I guarantee it's not what you think.
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