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So, roughly how far are we now from release?


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Considering they aren't finished balancing and Chris is proposing another big balance/gameplay change AND the large number of bugs that have yet to be resolved I'm predicting this summer (I was thinking spring, but I don't see that happening now.) I don't see this moving to completion until the balance is "frozen". Big balance changes will require more coding, that will lead to new bugs, etc...

Edited by StellarRat
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just remember we are dealing with a game developer who is choosing to finish a product before releasing it and calling it "good enough". I for one am grateful they have this mentality as I am sick of paying $60 for unfinished garbage that doesn't even work correctly and never gets fixed. As far as I'm concerned the beta is fun if not taken too seriously when you are playing it, if they took a whole year from now I would still be very happy with my early purchase.

Game is a lot of fun right now, no reason to not be playing it.

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just remember we are dealing with a game developer who is choosing to finish a product before releasing it and calling it "good enough". I for one am grateful they have this mentality as I am sick of paying $60 for unfinished garbage that doesn't even work correctly and never gets fixed. As far as I'm concerned the beta is fun if not taken too seriously when you are playing it, if they took a whole year from now I would still be very happy with my early purchase.

Game is a lot of fun right now, no reason to not be playing it.

Why would you EVER pay $60 for a PC game? Pretty much every new release is 20% off either before or right after release if you look on deal sites. I bought BF4 for $48 with a preorder, which was my last "full price" game...

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You say it... BF4. Do I have to say more?

The only reason they sell their games for less money in preorder is that they know by the time it is released everyone would know how bad it may be. They only rely on fools to throw their money away before they even know if the game is worth it. Because of this I watch lets plays on youtube after release to see if the game is good.

Thats what I did before I bought Xenonauts although its not a release at all but followed the same steps you know...

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You say it... BF4. Do I have to say more?

The only reason they sell their games for less money in preorder is that they know by the time it is released everyone would know how bad it may be. They only rely on fools to throw their money away before they even know if the game is worth it. Because of this I watch lets plays on youtube after release to see if the game is good.

Thats what I did before I bought Xenonauts although its not a release at all but followed the same steps you know...

BF4 is fantastic and a huge improvement over 3. I've spent 200 hours in game so far. Not sure what you are talking about.

If your theory was correct, they'd charge full price for a game before release so they can get as much money as they can before people "realize how bad it is."

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If your theory was correct, they'd charge full price for a game before release so they can get as much money as they can before people "realize how bad it is."

Wait... why do you think marketing use sales and discounts? o.0

If your theory was correct then there would technically never be useful to discount anything. :S

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Discount to make them buy it thinking they pay less money for a product that is worth more. Lower price for the same product normally leads to higher sale numbers. And yes if you do this right you can get more money out of this than with a higher price. But in fact often you pay money for a game you would not have bought if you had seen it in action before - only to get the discount. I do not say every company runs this style of business, but many do. Do you remember Stronghold 3, Sword of the Stars 2, or Aliens: Colonial Marines? This is exactly what I mean.

BF4 is a long story, not the worst but it is not worth even the discount price if you already own BF3. I´m happy I didn´t buy it... but my brother did.

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Why would you EVER pay $60 for a PC game? Pretty much every new release is 20% off either before or right after release if you look on deal sites. I bought BF4 for $48 with a preorder, which was my last "full price" game...
SimCity 5 should have been discounted to about $5 on release. I feel sorry for the poor saps that pre-ordered at $60. That's why I never pre-order anymore. I did do Kickstarter for Xenonauts because it was reasonable and I wanted a great replacement for XCom. However, my expectations for a large publishing house are much different and since they usually charge around $50+ for new games I expect them to be decent, but I'm not willing to pre-order at that price because of the fiascos like SimCity 5. Too much $$ to lose.
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simcity 5 should have been discounted to about $5 on release. I feel sorry for the poor saps that pre-ordered at $60. That's why i never pre-order anymore. I did do kickstarter for xenonauts because it was reasonable and i wanted a great replacement for xcom. However, my expectations for a large publishing house are much different and since they usually charge around $50+ for new games i expect them to be decent, but i'm not willing to pre-order at that price because of the fiascos like simcity 5. Too much $$ to lose.

signed

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SimCity 5 should have been discounted to about $5 on release. I feel sorry for the poor saps that pre-ordered at $60. That's why I never pre-order anymore. I did do Kickstarter for Xenonauts because it was reasonable and I wanted a great replacement for XCom. However, my expectations for a large publishing house are much different and since they usually charge around $50+ for new games I expect them to be decent, but I'm not willing to pre-order at that price because of the fiascos like SimCity 5. Too much $$ to lose.

I disagree entirely.

$5 is still too much to pay for SimCity 5. I think I would want paying to play it, to be honest.

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I disagree entirely.

$5 is still too much to pay for SimCity 5. I think I would want paying to play it, to be honest.

LOL. It's really ashame how EA managed to take a great game and company (Maxis) with a great reputation and long illustrious history in computer gaming and run them totally into the dirt in a couple years. Maxis did some of the groundbreaking work early in the computer gaming, now they're toast.

Any game that depends on a continuous internet connection for even single user play is destined for trouble. The internet was never designed to support synchronous connectivity like a real LAN. Anything that needs to run in real time is bound for trouble. That's why I didn't pre-order the game. Once I heard "must stay connected to EA servers" I was OUT.

Edited by StellarRat
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Discount to make them buy it thinking they pay less money for a product that is worth more. Lower price for the same product normally leads to higher sale numbers. And yes if you do this right you can get more money out of this than with a higher price. But in fact often you pay money for a game you would not have bought if you had seen it in action before - only to get the discount. I do not say every company runs this style of business, but many do. Do you remember Stronghold 3, Sword of the Stars 2, or Aliens: Colonial Marines? This is exactly what I mean.

BF4 is a long story, not the worst but it is not worth even the discount price if you already own BF3. I´m happy I didn´t buy it... but my brother did.

BF3 is unplayable to me, and my group quickly left it.

No VOIP in game alone killed BF3(key if you have any real interest in teamwork/coordination with people who just dorp in and out-Also, a great way of meeting other players). Forcing players to join a VOIP separate from in game created a group of haves and have nots. The ones using voice will dominate, and those playing casually are left out in the cold. This way, even if they don't talk back, they hear you and almost always respond. "Guy on the hill to your right" while in the gunner position of a tank is crucial.

Added in:

-Ability to enter/destroy more buildings, swim underwater, much more intelligent revive system(need to hold down longer for more health, if killed right on revive, they are dead).

-Respawn cam to see the situation of the person you are spawning on.

-Ability to swim underwater to avoid fire

-Balanced out helis/jets to a point where they can actually be dealt with instead of being ultimate death machines

-Balanced tanks a bit more by giving more classes access to ways to take them down

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SimCity 5 should have been discounted to about $5 on release. I feel sorry for the poor saps that pre-ordered at $60. That's why I never pre-order anymore. I did do Kickstarter for Xenonauts because it was reasonable and I wanted a great replacement for XCom. However, my expectations for a large publishing house are much different and since they usually charge around $50+ for new games I expect them to be decent, but I'm not willing to pre-order at that price because of the fiascos like SimCity 5. Too much $$ to lose.

True, but online necessity for a multiplayer game(Simcity 5) was announced a year before release. Anyone foolish enough to preorder that got exactly what they deserved.

With BF4, all they needed to do to make me happy was implement VOIP(which was confirmed) in game, which BF3 didn't have.

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We're relatively close to release. We don't have a hard date yet because we're still tinkering with the balance, but most of the systems are done and we're just doing final polishing, adding some new maps and adding the final mission. I'd say we're 90-95% done I guess.

Financially I think we could keep this up for at least another six months if we needed to, possibly longer. I'd like to release the game relatively soon but after having spent four or five years on it I'd rather spend the extra month or two on it to finish it properly rather than cut corners at the end.

BF4 was unplayable for me on release but I started playing it again earlier this week and it's good fun now. No more random CTDs or the sound going missing etc.

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They really should have released it this week then ;)

All that lovely extra cash in the bank when you release Xenonauts is going to help the next project tremendously.

Launching with a polished product is always better than the alternative.

Who wants to buy from a game dev who can't even manage to finish a game properly before they send it out into the world?

I respect the decision to release only when it is as close to ready as it can be.

I wont say 100% ready because I don't think anything is ever 100% ready, there is always something that could be tweaked or refined.

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SimCity 5 should have been discounted to about $5 on release. I feel sorry for the poor saps that pre-ordered at $60. That's why I never pre-order anymore. I did do Kickstarter for Xenonauts because it was reasonable and I wanted a great replacement for XCom. However, my expectations for a large publishing house are much different and since they usually charge around $50+ for new games I expect them to be decent, but I'm not willing to pre-order at that price because of the fiascos like SimCity 5. Too much $$ to lose.

These days, I'm loathe to pre-order anything simply because I haven't had time to play games at launch since I was in my early 20's. I likely won't get around to playing any new game until a year or two after release, by which point many Steam sales will have come and gone. Add to that the risk of buying a game that doesn't live up to expectations, and the presumption that playing it at launch is an incomplete experience for various reasons (DLC/expansions for one; modding communities mature over time is another).

All things considered, pre-orders just don't make sense for me anymore. I make exceptions only in cases where I feel that I'm helping to support the development of niche titles that might not exist without that pre-release interest - games like Xenonauts, or Project Eternity, or other Kickstarter projects.

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SimCity 5 should have been discounted to about $5 on release. I feel sorry for the poor saps that pre-ordered at $60. That's why I never pre-order anymore. I did do Kickstarter for Xenonauts because it was reasonable and I wanted a great replacement for XCom. However, my expectations for a large publishing house are much different and since they usually charge around $50+ for new games I expect them to be decent, but I'm not willing to pre-order at that price because of the fiascos like SimCity 5. Too much $$ to lose.

I do the same thing now, no more pre-orders ever again. Kickstarter or small developer prepurchases are ok with me only because without them we would never see these games.

You ever get the feeling the bug publishers don't care if the game even works? It's almost like they are perfectly happy to release a broken game if it was profitable in the first weekend, then forget about all about it and never fix it. Hype it and sell it, forget about actually making it work.

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