Bad news: release date pushed to May 20

[vovan]

That's right... The testers have found some bugs, and the release date has been pushed forward to May 20 according to GameSpy. (And I would tend to believe them since they host RoN MP...)

http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/screenshots.asp?id=4839

[Peter Triggs]

we all know it's better to delay a game for the sake of fine tuning than to release a half-baked product to the masses

Can't argue with that. It's really quite impressive how this outfit seems to be dedicated to producing a quality game.

[theponyguy1]

I know, it sucks. The only thing I guess that can bring me up is knowing actually what they are fine tuning and working on.

[vovan]

Originally posted by theponyguy1
The only thing I guess that can bring me up is knowing actually what they are fine tuning and working on.

Fortunately, that one is quite easy to arrange. They have recently put out a new build of the beta, and the list of changes has been posted over on HeavenGames:

RECENT FEATURES AND ADDITIONS

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Player's units should be eliminated when they are defeated if the game is continuing

Romans +10 wealth per city, 2 Legions Gunpowder

Turk citizens 33% cheaper

Maya bonus for building Timber improved

Removed goody box wealth restrictions; tried changing cost of scouts instead.

Terra Cotta base time lowered to 30 seconds, plus 1 second per barracks unit

Increased machine gun range

Added an extra difficulty level. "Tougher" is now equivalent to what "Toughest" used to be. "Toughest" is hard as tacks.


WEEK BEGINNING 2/2/03(above)


Goody boxes won't make Wealth until you have the first column of techs

More greetings for diplomacy guys to say hello to you; also they sometimes have more to say when they reject your proposed deal.

When make peace with a nation, you get 30 seconds to get your army out of his territory before attrition starts.

Diplomacy AI improvements

Some effects of the Supercollider lessened.

Lowered Russian "Cossack" damage to +50%

"Forage" upgrades also increase supply wagon hit points

Fixed Angkor Wat and Versailles not to sometimes cost 3 different kinds of resources.

Fixed Scout ramping cost to actually be significant.

Greeks emasculated: story at 11.

Romans lose most fort bonuses; "3 heavy" bonus moved to Enlightenment.

Heavy Infantry bonus against buildings lowered, especially for gunpowder units.

Arquebus now does no better against Crossbowmen than Elite Javelineers did.

Chinese science discount lowered.

Aztec plunder bonus capped.

Koreans start w/ 3 citizens and get another 5 per city. (This was the average of the recommendation and was easier to implement & explain)

Koreans get cheaper towers.

Lowered (but did not eliminate) the effect of relative # of cities and relative amount of territory on capital timers.

Japanese Barracks cost 7% per age instead of 5%

Turks-- lowered assimilation bonus to 200% from 400%.

French regain their "free General w/ Fort" bonus (to make the "Power of Leadership" hold together)

Upgrade costs to nukes/ICBM's lowered somewhat.

Better "Attack To" AI for large groups of units vs. small groups of units.

Swapped first two General/Spy upgrade effects.

All Generals' spells use the same amount of craft.

Duration of "forced march" and "ambush" effects upgrade as Generals upgrade

Generals don't recover craft WHILE they're using an effect (!!!)

Cloaked units are harder to "see"

Lowered Tobacco building speed increase

Lowered default Music volume w/ respect to default Sound volume.

Worked on notification for attacks/raiding

Machine guns have longer range, a lot more punch

Check air vs mainline ships for balance (dread and up)

Greek Unique H.C. no longer bonus vs other H.C.; faster instead

Russian Unique L.C. no longer bonus vs citizens; cheaper and faster to build instead

Terra Cotta Army gradually slows down if you just accumulate the troops (+2 seconds for each infantry unit you already have)

Terra Cotta Army produces only light infantry line (never heavy infantry or archers)

If you build zillions of Barracks, Stables, etc, cost starts to ramp up faster and faster.

Pushed back Roman "2 free units" from Classical to Medieval.

Bantu cities 75% cheaper.

Nubians: +20/-20 market bonus... check and make sure this isn't completely broken, or broken if you have Amber, etc.


WEEK BEGINNING 1/27/03(above)


Generals and Supply carts don't run as far away

Lowered costs of University upgrades. -Slightly- lowered the initial ramp cost of Scholars.

Fixed bug in Bantu power

Citizens take attrition in enemy territory (except ones that happen to wander through while auto-gathering)

Romans get extra base-gathering by city in Food, Timber, Metal.

Russian cavalry does bonus damage to enemy supply wagons and artillery

Inca get a partial refund when their troops die

Nubians get +10/-10 market buy/sell bonus

Bantu get half price cities instead of that weird de-ramp thing.

German power improved (economic enhancer buildings are available at start, and enhancer techs are available one science earlier)

Jet fighter recharge slowed.

Lowered, somewhat, the LOS of Lookout towers, etc.

Balance for Volksgrenadier line, MG42 line, Solduri line, Lancaster bomber. Check em out!

Destroyers weaker, dreadnoughts weaker vs destroyers.

Lookouts/Observation Posts show their LOS as you place them. Lookouts, etc, LOS upgraded only by science, not also Fort upgrades.

Pared down wonder powers to 4 bullet points each, deleting some powers, combining others. Kept all the attrition bonuses as requested, and made a better Temple bonus for Tikal.

Map Size defaults re-jiggered to combine 2/3 player map size into same map size

Greeks have discount only on non-Knowledge component of research

Fireships don't damage friendly units

Written Word (Science Level 1) cost increased

Jets and Advanced Fighters weakened.

Rebalancing for Atl-atls, Jaguar inf., Umpakati, Highlanders, Longbows. Check 'em out!

Lowered Wonder costs, since they don't seem to be getting built as much even in games that go to the end.

Food-to-Knowledge conversion ratio now a little worse if you are paying food instead of knowledge because you aren't in Classical Age yet.

Decreased Citizen LOS (but Militia upgrades improve it +2 each)

Increased Oil well production to +40, and Refinery bonus to +25%

http://ron.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=9,414,0,10

I wasn't sure this didn't violate any rules at first, but since the post hasn't been deleted yet, I guess it's okay.

[vovan]

The delay has now been verified by Graham "Thunder" Somers over at RoNCenter:

Tis True!

With 1100 new testers hammering at Rise of Nations betas, we were all in favor of taking a few extra weeks to polish the game and make as much use of their feeback as possible. A small delay means shipping a polished and better game. We're all for that.

http://ron.rtsgamer.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=31&t=5711

[ChaotikVisions]

I think the delay is more for balance then bugs, theres only so much you can do with in house testing. Multiplayer games among a large group of people is the best method for fine tuning the balance. The game is pretty stable as well, noticed some bugs but its better now then some new releases are in terms of quality/polish. And it'll only improve as the weeks go on.

[Sarxis]

Good; the state of the game is such that they could probably make the April date, but it'd have 'issues'. Now we'll be able to hash it all out.

[tenordruid]

Baah gives me even more reason todownload a pirated copy of the beta. I mean now that the testers get a newer build why not jsut give us the beta 2 jsut to give us a chance to try it out and not have to wait till the game is released for a demo.

[flash9286]

i hope it doesnt become another moo3, when it just keeps going back and back and back

[Sava]

I agree with tenordruid... they should release a public beta so too many people don't get pissed off.

This is disappointing though, I was looking forward to getting this game during the first week of my next semester in April.

[Alex]

It is for the good, I guess. Better late than early, in this case.

[One_Dead_Villy]

i agree with u alexnm

[tniem]

Originally posted by flash9286
i hope it doesnt become another moo3, when it just keeps going back and back and back

The difference is in what they are using the delay for. It could be to continue to try and get the game to work (i.e. MOO3). In that case I would be worried that even when the game came out it would be filled with bugs. But that is not what people are saying about the beta. They say it is ready and it plays really well. Instead they are using the beta to make sure the different civ attributes are balanced and unit strengths are able to be beat with various strategies. Those type of delays and changes (i.e. Blizzard games) can only make things better when the game is realeased. This in my opinion is not bad news - only good news. I am looking forward to having a complete game whenever it finally comes out.

[Sava]

I could be playing this game right now... I'll be mad if this is like Civ3 and they push it back only to be released with monumental bugs.

On the flipside, I'll be happy if May 20th, this game is bug free.

[One_Dead_Villy]

the beta2 has bugs but so far nothing is an absolute show stopper, so i think the final release will only be better