Beta Release Notes, Observations, Questions

[BustaMike]

Depends on your definition of advanced , but it's definately comin' along.

[pg]

vel - couldn't you guys use music already in the public domain? i'm pretty sure all the music in eu2 is like this and it's better than 95% of other game's music. there must be a pretty large selection available for free usage but it might be hard to find it.

[SithUK]

Is the Beta due for release in 2003?

So far it looks very nice.

What about the AI? Will it be good?

Sith

[beno]

So, when can we expect the mac 'port?

[Velociryx]

Music - we coulda gone with public domain, but I was unable to find any good sources for high quality public domain music files that had the right "feel"

I did, however, find tons of commercial sites, so I went the path of least resistance....

As to the release....since we're running out of 1st Quarter 2003 pretty rapidly, I guess it's no secret that we'll probably not be making that self-established deadline.

How much will we miss it by? I have no idea.

In some respects, we're much further along than I had envisioned us as being, but the various pieces and parts are not yet fully assembled, and until they become so, the game is not cohesive enough to present.

But we're working on it....

-=Vel=-

[SithUK]

Thanks for the update Vel. You mentioned an original goal of Q1 2003. I take it that you plan to have a first public release sometime in 2003?

Will there be a rudimentary AI in the first beta test release?

Sith

[FrustratedPoet]

SithUK: Yeah, before Christmas last year we were hoping to release the Beta by the end of March 2003, but we're going to miss that date. It wouldn't make much sense for us to set another deadline, but I think we all expect it to be out before the end of the year.

It's great to see so much interest in the project still.

[FrustratedPoet]

About the AI: Yes, there is already a rudimentary AI in the Alpha versions of the game that the team have been playing. I don't know how well it would hold up to a whole forum of people scheming ways to defeat it, but it certainly gives the player something to worry about at the moment.

Like every other area of the game the AI is something we'll be looking to change and improve following comments from players during Beta testing.

[Velociryx]

Yep....what he said....



-=Vel=-

[BigRich]

It's great to see so much interest in the project still.

Amen to that!

Not knowing much about the programming side of things, my gut feeling is that AI development goes hand in hand with feature development. At the moment there's a couple of things still to add in, so the AI is necessarily limited.

On the bright side the AI factions are ready and willing to fight amongst themselves which I find very encouraging. No 'player against the entire world' game this one!

Rich.

[Zealot]

Just to say that I do expect a great ending, because one of the things that frustrates me more about TBS games is that when I reach the end of the game victorious the "one more turn" addiction is still there and there is nothing for me to feed it with.
A timeline a la Civ 1-3 is not bad, but I'd like to see something more... entertaining.

[Velociryx]

I know exactly what you mean, Zealot! The ending (and specifically, having an ending that's worthy of the struggle to get there) ranks really high up there on the list of important things to attend to!

Right now, we have no particular ending built on, and that is by design. What we're hoping for is that, when we release the game for the open beta, we'll get a good body of interested players built up, and their thoughts, opinions and observations will be instrumental in shaping the ending....

-=Vel=-

[SpencerH]

I havent seen any mention of PC specs/OS etc.

[BigRich]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I havent seen any mention of PC specs/OS etc.

Please bear in mind that this applies to old Alpha builds only

Version 18 worked quite happily on my K6 300, 92MB RAM, clunky graphics and sound, running Windows 95. I suspect Version 19 would be just as happy on that setup but it also runs on my new (distinctly higher powered ) machine running XP Home.

Things have moved on a bit since then but I'm guessing that it will run on most PCs. As for Mac OS, Linux etc...... if anyone wants to do a port then take it up with Vel

Rich.

[SpencerH]

Sounds great, but thats without the eye candy eh?