vjek said:Mathematically, it doesn't work out that way. More likely it'll be the end of 2020.
They have three continents to create, with at least 50 zones, total, worldwide. They've done something like 10-15 zones so far, so they've got 25-40 left. A zone needs at least a month. So, 25-40 months. From now.
Add to that, the current public design goal is to have the eastern continent done by the end of Pre-Alpha. Presumably, the intent then would be to have one subsequent continent complete during each phase (one continent done in pre-alpha, one done in alpha, one done in beta) or something similar so that all three continents are done by launch.And that's just world content, never mind NPC races, PC races, culture/lore, classes, abilities, spells, quests, tasks, armor, weapons, crafting, progeny, colored mana, dynamic NPC encounter groups, the living codex, climate system, and more.
But they've also said that Beta target duration would be "at least a year". Pre-alpha will likely be a year, Beta target is at least a year, seems reasonable that Alpha would be a year as well. Which places us at the end of 2020 or Q1 2021 for launch. Putting hard dates on these phases, speculatively, December 2017 to December 2018 for pre-alpha. December 2018 to December 2019 for alpha. December 2019 to December 2020 for beta. Launch in January 2021. Remarkably, that's 32 months. Maybe they have 32 zones left to finish? :)
I think your way off course, for one I'm sure it doesn't takea month to create a zone, another is npc/pc races done by another team, cluture/lore done by another team, etc is done by another team not people who are creating the world they will understand the idea of these inputs and create a world around them that fits that picture sure they they arent the ones actually creating their lore. Another is who cares even if it does take into 2020, I would rather it be 2020 and be a great game than it be 2019 and a good game. Just my opinion
ShaggNasty said: September 11th 2016 was the day the first tier alpha pledge "knights pledge" was removed. Pre-alpha 3 i believe is currently running. I would like to know an update on or estimate on alpha, since many (including myself) pledged over 2 years ago with an estimate to be in alpha in 2015. Or at least how many more pre-alpha phases will run before alpha as it seems to still be a hot topic 3 years later.
In a stream they mentioned "several" pre-alpha phases and as you said they're on pre-alpha 3... at least it's closer than it was 3 years ago!
ShaggNasty said: I would just like an estimate or update so I can have something to look forward to and be excited about. More streams would also be welcome. Really looking forward to the caster class reveal next month.
I feel the opposite. Having an estimated date and then something happens and it doesn't come to fruition, is more dis-heartening than not having any expectations at all.
Fulton said:ShaggNasty said: I would just like an estimate or update so I can have something to look forward to and be excited about. More streams would also be welcome. Really looking forward to the caster class reveal next month.
I feel the opposite. Having an estimated date and then something happens and it doesn't come to fruition, is more dis-heartening than not having any expectations at all.
Well, and estimate - is just that - an educated guess as to how long it should take. The last estimate we received was 2015 for alpha. I think an updated estimate would be suitable. I was excited for 2015 to play alpha. Its over 50% through 2018 now, and they're in 3rd phase pre alpha. I think they can give a pretty accurate guess now for when they want alpha, or can say how many more pre alphas they want prior to opening up alpha. If you're not dishartened about their first estimate being 3 years off, I doubt it will hurt your feelings much if there're a few months off if they estimated alpha and missed again.
Riahuf22 said:vjek said:Mathematically, it doesn't work out that way. More likely it'll be the end of 2020.
They have three continents to create, with at least 50 zones, total, worldwide. They've done something like 10-15 zones so far, so they've got 25-40 left. A zone needs at least a month. So, 25-40 months. From now.
Add to that, the current public design goal is to have the eastern continent done by the end of Pre-Alpha. Presumably, the intent then would be to have one subsequent continent complete during each phase (one continent done in pre-alpha, one done in alpha, one done in beta) or something similar so that all three continents are done by launch.And that's just world content, never mind NPC races, PC races, culture/lore, classes, abilities, spells, quests, tasks, armor, weapons, crafting, progeny, colored mana, dynamic NPC encounter groups, the living codex, climate system, and more.
But they've also said that Beta target duration would be "at least a year". Pre-alpha will likely be a year, Beta target is at least a year, seems reasonable that Alpha would be a year as well. Which places us at the end of 2020 or Q1 2021 for launch. Putting hard dates on these phases, speculatively, December 2017 to December 2018 for pre-alpha. December 2018 to December 2019 for alpha. December 2019 to December 2020 for beta. Launch in January 2021. Remarkably, that's 32 months. Maybe they have 32 zones left to finish? :)
I think your way off course, for one I'm sure it doesn't takea month to create a zone, another is npc/pc races done by another team, cluture/lore done by another team, etc is done by another team not people who are creating the world they will understand the idea of these inputs and create a world around them that fits that picture sure they they arent the ones actually creating their lore. Another is who cares even if it does take into 2020, I would rather it be 2020 and be a great game than it be 2019 and a good game. Just my opinion
Riahuf22, I couldn't agree with you more. It's been almost a year since I pledged, and I am frothing at the bit like all alpha, beta, etc. participants too. Over the past 20 years (post EQ), I've watched a myriad of poorly developed games by companies get released - trying to recreate the magic that EQ had, and fail. I think this game is in great hands with VR, I supoort them taking their time to do it right as I expect to enjoy Pantheon for a long time. With a project like this, quality trumps speed!
You all are looking at all wrong. You keep asking the question "how many more pre-alphas do they need?
That's NOT the question,,,,, the question is, "it ready yet?"
I'm pretty shure VR would have loved for there only to have been ONE Pre-alpha. But it apperantly dident meet "the bar" after PA1 so THEY went to PA2 (still no bar met) and then PA3 (still haven't met the bar obviously) and they have now announced PA4 (thats the update your asking btw, PA4. Will be starting starting soon)
I think REALLY what you should be asking Is "what is the bar?"
They will take as many PA's as thev needed too to get there, I HOPE!
From a purely logistics standpoint it may just be a bad business decision to start Alpha too soon. Right now they have nearly 1000 users in pre-alpha including internal users. I would not be surprised if they don’t have at least ten times that many waiting for alpha to start just due to the pledge cost levels. They may currently be able to run on a very minimal amount of hardware and network infrastructure but if you add another 10,000 users then you are going to need a real setup that is similar to one server cluster at launch. Buying hardware and or leasing the server space can be brutally expensive to pay for out of pocket if we are not paying our monthly fees yet to run the servers.
There is also the side effect that in theory everyone in pre-alpha and alpha should be writing weekly reports of feedback and bug reports. With 10,000 users you will need an entire team just to sift through all the reports. With only 1000 users at least 50% are likely to submit reports and of those 100 are likely to be good at it and that is much easier for a couple people to handle.
What I hope they might consider is bringing the Alpha people into the NDA group sooner than they let us into the game world just so that we can see more of what is going on. Or on a lark give out a lottery of character lives, you can play until your character dies three times then you are perma dead and the next person in line can make a character and you go to the end of the line.
Trasak you aren't wrong - but the longer things stretch out the more people (both here and in the larger gaming community) will start to give up hope and write Pantheon off as vaporware. They may be *wrong* but this can lead to s spiraling chain of lower support and more difficulty raising funds.
It has been quite a few years with at least one major restart of development. I think we need to move as switfly as possible to alpha, beta and release.
BIG caveat - this means as switfly as possible consistantly with a good game and a relatively smooth launch.
Unfortunate news about the push back on alpha, but I'd rather have a complete successful game over a failed launch.
Kilsin said:Please read the FAQ before posting questions that have already been answered folks, our big update was for the new dev site, corp site, investor news, lore, class, race information etc. which also included a pretty thorough FAQ with questions that we sourced from you all.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/
Quote from FAQ:"What are the approximate timeframes for Alpha, Beta, and commercial release?
There are many variables involved and developing a massively multiplayer game is not an easy thing to do. Our goal is to be in alpha by the end of 2015, in beta during 2016, and to release the game in 2017. But this is not set in stone, and the above dates are subject to change."
Updates will be released as they are ready, no ETA at this time, though.
Not to be a debbie downer but it looks as if the game will not be a full release until 2020+ ? What made the timeframe change by 3-4 years? I understand the hiccups that occured during vanguards release and the counter to that is this but to build hype and to get the ball rolling isnt it important to set targets and hit them?
As they work to finish the "reference" zone, Avendyr's Pass (I assume), they will continue progress thru pre-alphas, which are essentially "stable" major builds (studios have varying terms). And we have seen a few back-tracks, meaning hey this is not working, lets rip this code out and drop back to build xx, which is pefectly normal in the early development process (and can even happen later, but you hope not).
Once they finish the "reference zone", they can start fleshing out other zones based on the same code logic.
So in the August news letter it says:
Then, it’s time for Alpha, which will be a (mostly) content-complete continent.
Which also makes sense, as you cannot really have players running around in a world with effectively no content, meaning nothing for them to do.
But the implication is Kingsreach continent has to be built-out with it's zones first. And since world building can be the biggest time-sink in making an MMO, I suspect given the size of the team, to not see an alpha until possibly mid-2019 or later. (unless they are incredibly fast and have amazing tools)
We know they have a number of zones already sort of partially dry-built, meaning lands but probably no(or few) dungeon areas(overland and otherwise), npcs, content, etc.
These are the zones listed for Kingsreach in the wiki (which may not be complete, it seem thin):
We have seen a couple of these zones in past streams, a little. Wild's End, South Saol, Tower of the Reckless Magician and of course Avendyr's Pass.
And also, throw on top of all that the harvesting/crafting element that will be sure to throw some wrenches into the progess.
(does anyone know a way to get bullet points working in these forums?)
Leet said:Kilsin said:Please read the FAQ before posting questions that have already been answered folks, our big update was for the new dev site, corp site, investor news, lore, class, race information etc. which also included a pretty thorough FAQ with questions that we sourced from you all.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/
Quote from FAQ:"What are the approximate timeframes for Alpha, Beta, and commercial release?
There are many variables involved and developing a massively multiplayer game is not an easy thing to do. Our goal is to be in alpha by the end of 2015, in beta during 2016, and to release the game in 2017. But this is not set in stone, and the above dates are subject to change."
Updates will be released as they are ready, no ETA at this time, though.
Not to be a debbie downer but it looks as if the game will not be a full release until 2020+ ? What made the timeframe change by 3-4 years? I understand the hiccups that occured during vanguards release and the counter to that is this but to build hype and to get the ball rolling isnt it important to set targets and hit them?
It's kind of the classic bait and switch, or maybe better thought of as cost-overruns. Except in this case it is time overrun. Essentially you pitch an idea, make it look amazing, mock up some graphics, detail out your plan and sell it. The only thing you lie about is - the time.
You say we can make this widget in X months, but you know it will really take X+Z. And truthfully you really have no idea how long it will take as it's not science. There are just too many variables.
But you under-estimate to make the buyer enticed. Because who wants to buy into something that is 5+ years away? That would just be a project killer and never get off the ground. But if you say 2 years, or so...
Of course the other factor is bodies, more bodies help build more, faster.
But it's not a 1:1 ratio, economies of scale kick in and costs for those bodies increases faster than progress on the build. So you are actually more efficient cost-wise with a smaller team, you just take a bloody longer amount of time to make your widget.
So VR will stay a small team, as it is the best way to stretch the dollar efficiently. And those who bought in have no recourse and no exit. They must simply wait, and hope.
they probably have way too many people signed up for alpha to release it yet, they seem to have all the classes and races done which would lead me to believe they have all the starting areas done at least, and some mid level as well, i dont know, i think its closer than you think probably early next year
aronnov said:zewtastic said:I suspect given the size of the team, to not see an alpha until possibly mid-2019 or later. (unless they are incredibly fast and have amazing tools)
You sir... are breaking my heart.
Yes, I am similarly impacted. But it is what it is, to use a horrible phrase.
But, I am still happy with what they are doing and what I see and hear in the streams.
And still excited for the game. Just trying to be pragmatic.
zewtastic said:It's kind of the classic bait and switch, or maybe better thought of as cost-overruns. Except in this case it is time overrun. Essentially you pitch an idea, make it look amazing, mock up some graphics, detail out your plan and sell it. The only thing you lie about is - the time.
You say we can make this widget in X months, but you know it will really take X+Z. And truthfully you really have no idea how long it will take as it's not science. There are just too many variables.
But you under-estimate to make the buyer enticed. Because who wants to buy into something that is 5+ years away? That would just be a project killer and never get off the ground. But if you say 2 years, or so...
Of course the other factor is bodies, more bodies help build more, faster.
But it's not a 1:1 ratio, economies of scale kick in and costs for those bodies increases faster than progress on the build. So you are actually more efficient cost-wise with a smaller team, you just take a bloody longer amount of time to make your widget.
So VR will stay a small team, as it is the best way to stretch the dollar efficiently. And those who bought in have no recourse and no exit. They must simply wait, and hope.