Author Topic: AI War Beta 3.903, "The Performer," Released!  (Read 3553 times)

Offline x4000

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AI War Beta 3.903, "The Performer," Released!
« on: October 22, 2010, 10:24:28 pm »
Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/10/ai-war-beta-3903-performer-released.html

Lots of performance improvements in this one.  Also, the last two stats tabs have been ported, and the new Children of Neinzul music track will actually play (whoops that it wasn't before).  These are tiny release notes compared to our usual, but it's actually been an enormously busy, stressful day.  Lots of preparations with distributors, I've been working on the trailers and the website pages for the games, Keith was working on deep memory performance stuff all day...  Busy day, but a good one.

Tomorrow the new trailers should be out, and then I'll finally be working on updating the last two tutorials in the game.  Then the credits/story needs to go on the main menu, the "tip of the day" thing needs to go on the main menu, and then... that's it!  We'll be feature-complete as far as version 4.0 of the game is concerned.  Anything not on that list (like, notably, the in-game graphs and the rest of the context menu) is not going to be until post-4.0.  The rest of our time leading up until Wednesday will be spent on documentation, the wiki, bugfixes, balance fixes, and last bits of polish -- that non-feature stuff that's in Mantis, basically.

Once 4.0 is out the door on Wednesday, we're going to be launching straight into... another short-term project. ;)  Stay tuned!

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 3.701 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 3.701 or later, you can download the windows installer for 3.711, or the OSX installer for 3.712. Once you do an in-game update, they'll both be on the latest version, despite starting at slightly different versions.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline Arcain_One

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Re: AI War Beta 3.903, "The Performer," Released!
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2010, 10:56:24 pm »
So your going to get it to where it is solid but not polished and leave it be for a short time?
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Offline Spikey00

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Re: AI War Beta 3.903, "The Performer," Released!
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2010, 11:19:36 pm »
I suppose it's fine; sure, it would be best that the game be completely balanced and polished, but this is how they handle betas (of course, being a standalone version from SlimDX should be some exception).  This way, a) they may get more helpers with feedback away from the core players, b) they can depart away to dev Alden Ridge and go along normally with betas and adjusting accordingly.

Or that is according to what I presume.  :P
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Offline Otagan

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Re: AI War Beta 3.903, "The Performer," Released!
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2010, 11:34:04 pm »
b) they can depart away to dev the new AI War expansion and go along normally with betas and adjusting accordingly.
...

Offline Collic

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Re: AI War Beta 3.903, "The Performer," Released!
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2010, 11:52:53 pm »
So your going to get it to where it is solid but not polished and leave it be for a short time?

Er, well I basically read that as a feature freeze. They have to do it or they will never be ready for a release. Considering how fast balance tweaks and content updates roll in for this game, I'm not concerned at all about what we'll get for AI War 4.0.

It needs to be stable and run smoothly first and foremost (and it seems pretty much there for the most part now). As for balance that has always, always been an on-going thing. I've haven't been playing as long as some here (but a lot longer than my post count suggests) and the amount the game has evolved in that space of time is staggering.

« Last Edit: October 22, 2010, 11:54:39 pm by Collic »

Offline x4000

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Re: AI War Beta 3.903, "The Performer," Released!
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2010, 12:03:12 am »
So your going to get it to where it is solid but not polished and leave it be for a short time?

Er, well I basically read that as a feature freeze. They have to do it or they will never be ready for a release. Considering how fast balance tweaks and content updates roll in for this game, I'm not concerned at all about what we'll get for AI War 4.0.

It needs to be stable and run smoothly first and foremost (and it seems pretty much there for the most part now). As for balance that has always, always been an on-going thing. I've haven't been playing as long as some here (but a lot longer than my post count suggests) and the amount the game has evolved in that space of time is staggering.

Right.  Polish has nothing to do with features.  If we wanted to leave it unpolished, we'd keep cramming in features to the very end.  The point of a feature freeze is to focus on... polish. ;)
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Offline x4000

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Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!