Beta 0.850 now out. (Holy @%$#$ it's even bigger; districts, left sidebar, etc)

[x4000]

All good.

And I am changing the right-click thing as we speak.

[nas1m]

All good.

And I am changing the right-click thing as we speak.

Yay !

[x4000]

All good.

And I am changing the right-click thing as we speak.

Yay !

It was bugging the heck out of me as well, but I couldn't figure out a way to reconcile this bugging me versus the other thing bugging me, so I left it alone for the time being.  But now I have that sorted out.

[nas1m]

All good.

And I am changing the right-click thing as we speak.

Yay !

It was bugging the heck out of me as well, but I couldn't figure out a way to reconcile this bugging me versus the other thing bugging me, so I left it alone for the time being.  But now I have that sorted out.

Glad you figured it out !
And don't sweat too much - all will be fine in the end.
For as long as you make sure that the planet and other races are properly trying to kill us sometime in the future -- AI style .

[x4000]

I hope so.  This is the most expensive game we've made at this point, except for the Valley 1 + 2 combo which was a total fiasco of course.  Honestly it's not THAT much more expensive than TLF was, and TLF made a healthy profit, but still.  The market is tougher now.  And aside from all that, I really feel like this should be our best one yet, better than AI War if I can just get things in shape properly.  This is supposed to be the culmination of what I've learned in strategy games over six years, but it's such a big game that I'm still mucking around in the weeds a bit a month out from launch, which I hate the feeling of.  That's why this week is Cutting Week.  I want this thing to launch in really good form.

[Mick]

All good.

And I am changing the right-click thing as we speak.

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou

[x4000]

[crazyroosterman]

I hope so.  This is the most expensive game we've made at this point, except for the Valley 1 + 2 combo which was a total fiasco of course.  Honestly it's not THAT much more expensive than TLF was, and TLF made a healthy profit, but still.  The market is tougher now.  And aside from all that, I really feel like this should be our best one yet, better than AI War if I can just get things in shape properly.  This is supposed to be the culmination of what I've learned in strategy games over six years, but it's such a big game that I'm still mucking around in the weeds a bit a month out from launch, which I hate the feeling of.  That's why this week is Cutting Week.  I want this thing to launch in really good form.

don't worry we've got 2 months from  to carve this game into a thing of beauty even if that isn't enough through some crazy voodoo magic you can always push the release date I'm sure the non testers will be mature enough to understand.

[x4000]

Not really two months.  More like six and a half weeks.  Target release date is probably July 10th.

Pushing the release date would be extremely tricky financially (every time we go back a month it's like another $30k out of my pocket on this), and I have two separate weeklong vacations set up for late July and early August, so that would really be a problem too.  Not things I could shift timing around on, and so pushing back another month would only gain around 2 weeks anyway.

I am feeling reasonable about this at the moment, though.  This is a fun game at core, even though a number of mechanics go out of their way to make it not fun. Dealing with everything on my list this week is going to be tough, but we'll see how it goes.

[Teal_Blue]

Not really two months.  More like six and a half weeks.  Target release date is probably July 10th.

Pushing the release date would be extremely tricky financially (every time we go back a month it's like another $30k out of my pocket on this), and I have two separate weeklong vacations set up for late July and early August, so that would really be a problem too.  Not things I could shift timing around on, and so pushing back another month would only gain around 2 weeks anyway.

I am feeling reasonable about this at the moment, though.  This is a fun game at core, even though a number of mechanics go out of their way to make it not fun. Dealing with everything on my list this week is going to be tough, but we'll see how it goes.

Just work on the biggest things and try to whip them into some semblance of workable, meaning don't spend too much time on them, just the bare minimum you can get away with. Hopefully what that will mean is getting things in a workable order and not running out of time.    Then release and do updates like crazy when it hits if there is anything you feel is just a tad off.

Just a thought, though, hang in there and try to relax, a calm mind is a plus up on getting stuff right, panicking is like spinning wheels and not knowing what to do, i do that too, and am trying to learn not to. 

-Teal

[Cinth]

Just work on the biggest things and try to whip them into some semblance of workable, meaning don't spend too much time on them, just the bare minimum you can get away with. Hopefully what that will mean is getting things in a workable order and not running out of time.    Then release and do updates like crazy when it hits if there is anything you feel is just a tad off.

Chris doesn't seem panic stricken just yet, so all is good.  And let's not suggest anything less than a great launch.  Half-assing the game to get it out won't do any good and would likely be disastrous.

Just a thought, though, hang in there and try to relax, a calm mind is a plus up on getting stuff right, panicking is like spinning wheels and not knowing what to do, i do that too, and am trying to learn not to. 

-Teal

This is sound advise though.  Anxiety Disorders are no joke, lets keep positive about the games future (that thinking will rub off).

[x4000]

Definitely not considering half-assing the launch.  Right now my stress is about getting things pre-stabilized so that the final testing period can be sufficiently long that there is no half-assing.  So it's a pre-pre check, which is good.  I just have to get past this week or so.  Knock on wood.

[jerith]

See, this is what happens when I take a break from beta testing SBR to have a relaxing fourteen hour workday fighting fires after multiple large customers simultaneously decide to throw their maximum load on our system. I miss a great thread like this and don't have enough laptop battery (my charger is way over there on the other side of the room) or wakefulness to properly construct a suitable wall of text in reply. I've also completely missed 0.850 and haven't even read the patch notes for 0.851. I guess I have some catching up to do tomorrow if I want to make my weekly quota of bad jokes in Mantis.

I'm definitely coming back to this thread tomorrow. If I remember. If the fires at work are out. If I have electricity to charge my laptop.

[SugeBearX]

I just wanted to chime in on tester disengagement. I am an experienced beta tester, albeit one whose experience lay mostly in an era before excellent tools like Mantis. This is an incredibly complex project to test...there are a ton of moving parts and a wealth of interlocking mechanics. This makes for a magnificently rich (And incredibly fun, I might add) player experience, however one can have trouble seeing the forest for the trees. It can be difficult to suss out exactly how the individual mechanics work on a technical level, let alone how they interact with other important systems. From the standpoint of a player this isn't really a problem...the systems simply need to work, appear to work, or simply make sense. From the perspective of a tester, and this may just be me, I want to be sure that I have at least a relatively solid grasp of a mechanic before I jump into a discussion or critique of said mechanic. This can take a good deal of time, which is why I have chosen to concentrate my early efforts on ease of use and UI issues whilst I wrap my mind around the underlying mechanics.

An example of this is my first game. I was totally wrecked by disease and a perfect storm of misfortune. (Mostly my own fault...you can read about it in the dramatic retelling I am going to post in a while.) As a new tester, I would never have guessed that there was anything wrong with the disease mechanic...everything that happened to me made reasonable sense. In retrospect it is easy for me to see that calculating disease cures before disease death would have somewhat lessened the devastation of my pandemic, but only with experience could one guess that was an issue...or knowing what, where and how to find such things within game files. This type of scenario leaves me with quite a quandary...assume that the mechanic is working as intended, or risk wasting the dev's time sorting through a mountain of issues that aren't actually issues. I will gladly err on whichever side I am told, just let me know.

P.S. It bears mentioning...I had more fun getting my arse handed to me in my first game than I have playing any 4x game, win or lose, in recent memory. As soon as I lost I immediately called my friend and recounted the tale.

[Cinth]

P.S. It bears mentioning...I had more fun getting my arse handed to me in my first game than I have playing any 4x game, win or lose, in recent memory. As soon as I lost I immediately called my friend and recounted the tale.

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