Mmmmm..... I think a whole year of testing won't be unreasonable, but I know many that just want to get into this game. For me, I think maybe:
- Pre-Alpha for 3 months with the limited testing periods and long breaks so that the devs have time to address bugs
- Alpha for 6 months with the first 2 months treated like pre-alpha to accommodate testing a slightly larger pool. Maybe the last 4 months with more frequent testing periods and shorter time between periods. The devs do need time to find bugs and process feedback recommendations/suggestions.
- Beta for 6 months. The first 5 maybe be closed beta and full NDA. No window period testing to give devs an idea of how demand will fluctuate during the days and nights. I kind of see the last month as an open beta to allow for streamers to showcase the game and bring in more interests, and hopefully, subscribers.
Raeyna said:Mmmmm..... I think a whole year of testing won't be unreasonable, but I know many that just want to get into this game. For me, I think maybe:
- Pre-Alpha for 3 months with the limited testing periods and long breaks so that the devs have time to address bugs
- Alpha for 6 months with the first 2 months treated like pre-alpha to accommodate testing a slightly larger pool. Maybe the last 4 months with more frequent testing periods and shorter time between periods. The devs do need time to find bugs and process feedback recommendations/suggestions.
- Beta for 6 months. The first 5 maybe be closed beta and full NDA. No window period testing to give devs an idea of how demand will fluctuate during the days and nights. I kind of see the last month as an open beta to allow for streamers to showcase the game and bring in more interests, and hopefully, subscribers.
If I recall correctly, Vanguard had multiple beta phases that spanned around a year and a half. So a rather lengthy beta is not beyond the realm of possibility and 6 months could very well be undershooting it.
I too, think that testing will take most/all of 2018. I look forward to a vigorous testing phase, where the subs can help VR polish the world of Terminus. I remember EQ even with all the beta testing it underwent had flaws, though they were fixed somewhat quickly. Pantheon as described is everything I could hope for in a world.
Questaar said:I too, think that testing will take most/all of 2018. I look forward to a vigorous testing phase, where the subs can help VR polish the world of Terminus. I remember EQ even with all the beta testing it underwent had flaws, though they were fixed somewhat quickly. Pantheon as described is everything I could hope for in a world.
Well, to be fair, depending on when we actually get started it may take up most of 2019 if we're not careful. :p
zewtastic said:bryanleo9 said: Fact: Making a new class is not hard today. Back in 1995 when they were copying from Gary Gygax's "Dungeons & Dragons", coding RPG classes for the first time ever in the history of MMOs, that was hard. it's almost a cookie cutter operation today. Making combat work well, that is hard, every time.I thought this remark was interesting, so I took a quick look at development times of a few MMO's, just EQ, EQ2, and WOW, for reference.
EQ - concept to launch, including testing periods - 3 years (1996-1999)
EQ2 - concept to launch - seems to be around 3-4 years (2000 or 2001 to 2004)
WOW - concept to launch, including testing periods, 4-5 years
SWTOR - concept to launch, 6-7 years
I think it's interesting because with today's MMOs the development time has not increased, and in most cases, it takes longer to develop and test an MMO today than 20 years go.
So far Pantheon has been in concept and development for about 4-5 years (guessing concept in 2013, because first KS in Feb 2014). 2019 release would end with about a 6 year concept/dev/testing period, 2020, 7 years.
I'm betting on a 2018 alpha/beta with a sometime in 1st half 2019 release.
brizlyn said:zewtastic said:bryanleo9 said: Fact: Making a new class is not hard today. Back in 1995 when they were copying from Gary Gygax's "Dungeons & Dragons", coding RPG classes for the first time ever in the history of MMOs, that was hard. it's almost a cookie cutter operation today. Making combat work well, that is hard, every time.I thought this remark was interesting, so I took a quick look at development times of a few MMO's, just EQ, EQ2, and WOW, for reference.
EQ - concept to launch, including testing periods - 3 years (1996-1999)
EQ2 - concept to launch - seems to be around 3-4 years (2000 or 2001 to 2004)
WOW - concept to launch, including testing periods, 4-5 years
SWTOR - concept to launch, 6-7 years
I think it's interesting because with today's MMOs the development time has not increased, and in most cases, it takes longer to develop and test an MMO today than 20 years go.
So far Pantheon has been in concept and development for about 4-5 years (guessing concept in 2013, because first KS in Feb 2014). 2019 release would end with about a 6 year concept/dev/testing period, 2020, 7 years.
I'm betting on a 2018 alpha/beta with a sometime in 1st half 2019 release.
The general time for most MMORPGs has been at about the 5-6 year development mark. There are some exceptions. Cryptic managed to turn Star Trek Online around in about 2 years after they took it over from the now defunct Perpetual Entertainment, otherwise they would have lost the license, which does explain why it was in the state it was in at launch. Pantheon on the other hand has been developed over a lot of this time with what would essentially equate to a skeleton crew dev team. They certainly have not had the resources of some of the games listed in that example. The upside is the tools they're using seem to be something they can adjust fairly quickly, so while it's still time consuming and will in no ways be the size and scope of say a SWTOR, that launch window of 2019 is not that far off of what I expect.
The team behind Pantheon loves a good long beta and given that we have yet to hit pre-alpha and it’s October, chances are if we do hit it before year's end we won't be in alpha before some point next year. If we go off of the Vanguard beta as a model, its several phases(I believe it was 5 closed beta phases if I remember correctly) lasted somewhere around a year and a half. So if it's even only half that long we're talking about at least 8 months for beta tapped on to whatever time we have for alpha and open beta prior to launch. And that may be short selling it. So given the speed of development, mid-2019 is a very real possibility.
Of course, this is all speculatory, so take it with a grain of salt as it's all subject to be 100% wrong. Or maybe not. Time will tell.
Alright, so it's been almost a year since the last reply. I kinda stopped paying attention to the game (which is sad because they seem to be making a lot of progress), and it is due to that that I would like to raise the topic of the next stage...Alpha. It's clear that Alpha is approaching, so it has come to my interest as to a new idea or ETA of when Alpha will be out. Any ideas or confirmations? Have they said anything on the topic or is it still too far out to give a reasonable response?
Jacasta if you check out the August newletter they address a rough timelime. Pre-alpha throughout the year and into Q1 next year at least. An ideal situation would be waking up on Christmas Eve to an email with a big ole glowing picture of Brad McQuaid dressed up as Santa Claus saying "Thanks for the cookies, Welcome to Alpha".
Bradley said:Jacasta if you check out the August newletter they address a rough timelime. Pre-alpha throughout the year and into Q1 next year at least. An ideal situation would be waking up on Christmas Eve to an email with a big ole glowing picture of Brad McQuaid dressed up as Santa Claus saying "Thanks for the cookies, Welcome to Alpha".
LOL Awesome.
Alas I don't think it will come to pass, but it would be an epic way to announce it. Well done.
Jacasta said:Alright, so it's been almost a year since the last reply. I kinda stopped paying attention to the game (which is sad because they seem to be making a lot of progress), and it is due to that that I would like to raise the topic of the next stage...Alpha. It's clear that Alpha is approaching, so it has come to my interest as to a new idea or ETA of when Alpha will be out. Any ideas or confirmations? Have they said anything on the topic or is it still too far out to give a reasonable response?
At Pax East 2018, (Which ran from April 5-8) the answer was "before the end of 2018"
As of the August newsletter, which released on August 8th, 2018, the new answer is "before March 31, 2019".
As to what transpired between April 8th and August 8th to add another 3 months of dev time into Pre-Alpha? /shrug. Feel free to prognosticate. :)
Kittik said:Oh man, you shouldn't have stayed away for a year. They released Alpha and then pulled it back.
lmao I'd be hella mad if that happened xD
Anyways, what're the chances that I come back and reopen this post just to find out that the most recent newsletter comes out with the info >.>
