It’s almost here I promise!
I think this in a previous update, but it’s hard for me to let go. I’m always waiting for one more thing, one more bug, one more piece of art… it’s hard to say “ok this is beta now go!”
Here’s an example. the UI has had a few more adjustments. Planets and stars have also been added the background
Or polishing off a few of the pirate encounters to include diplomacy aspects as well
Either way, I promise it’s right around the corner. Now what to expect? Well as far as I plan it’ll be just like the alpha in a lot of ways.
1) Many things could still change based on player feedback. The majority of things that have evolved up to this point are mostly due to dev plan. After the beta point only play testing will really change aspects of the game.
2) Constant content related updates. Gone will be the glory days of every afternoon revealing a newly coded feature. Instead we’ll be hitting planet design, ship design, and the almighty ETC really hard.
3) A much more “open” view. If you weren’t around to back the kickstarter for alpha/beta you will at least be able to SEE more of the things that are going on with the game. During alpha I was pretty strict with information in and out.
4) There will probably still be bugs, however the kind of bugs will be a lot more tame in comparison to challenges we saw during the alpha. It won’t be long before we start optimizing a lot of the game, and it’ll mostly be scenarios which cause a crash but can be easily found and fixed.
Once more I’ve had a number of questions re: early access. The beta will be the decider on this. Again, I’m not eager to sell an incomplete product – but I also see no problems with letting people in either. However if early access were to take away from launch day sales then its not worth it.
I don’t want to ramble, so I’ll stop here. I’m working hard – promise!