FAQ: When is this game coming out?

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey

Wow. So you don't know what it's going to look like until you see the final product.

I've been writing manuals for twenty years, but I've never worked that way. Always I could produce my own drafts at any stage that looked like the final product.

You have to remember that many of the developers in the matrix stable really are very small shops. Since the quality of the manual will reflect upon Matrix as a whole, I can see them wanting to have one professional who can offload this rather specialized task from the small dev shops and ensure there is a degree of consistency in the quality of the manuals published.

[Grotius]

If Matrix adheres to its normal practice, there probably won't be an index. Not a deal-killer, and understandable on one level; indexing is time-consuming, and if you hire a professional indexer, expensive.

I should offer to index the manual, heh. I've indexed my two published books, I've read the leading books on how to index, and I own indexing software. Indexing is not, as people commonly think, a mechanical task of letting a computer find entries. (That produces something far less useless, a concordance.) You have to make many judgment calls about whether and how to index concepts, synonyms, minor names, etc.

I actually provided Matrix with an Index for WITP shortly after it was released, and they toyed with making it part of a revised manual, but nothing came of it.

[Gil R.]

No index, but the table of contents is very detailed, so it shouldn't take long to find whatever one needs, especially if one is searching the .pdf file.

[moose1999]

Just a quick question - the manual is PDF only, right?

[JudgeDredd]

Yes

[Gil R.]

Hmm. Seems I should resurrect this thread and stick it back at the top of the forum.

Here's a response I just put in another thread. (Perhaps this will limit the number of new threads all asking the same question about when the game will be coming out. But that's probably wishful thinking...)

***

I'm getting a sense of probable availability in the later half of the week, unless something unexpected comes up. So we're talking days rather than hours. But soon.

I'm sorry, but I can't be more specific than that. Little things, little essential things, are still being done. For example, just this afternoon we're writing up the descriptive text for the box, which shows you how the game can be gold, but that the complete package of game + manual + box + The Unknown can be not yet 100% ready. So, we're really close, but there might still be one or two minor steps like that.

[Johnus]

What exactly does "gone gold" mean ?? I'm not being sarcastic; I really have no idea.

[andysomers]

Gil,
 
Thanks for your patience.  I realize it is completely out of your hands.
 
AS

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: Johnnie

What exactly does "gone gold" mean ?? I'm not being sarcastic; I really have no idea.

The "Gold Master" is the term for the final product image that is sent to manufacturing. It is the original from which all the copies are made. When a title has "gone gold" it means that they have finished working on the product and a Gold Master with the release version has been sent to manufacturing. At that point, we're just waiting for it to be packaged and made available. That lead time was more significant in the days when media was actually burned to a disk, stuffed into a custom printed box, and then shipped off and delivered to physical stores. With digital downloads, the "manufacturing" time is greatly reduced and "gone gold" literally means the game will be available very very soon.

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: andysomers

Gil,

Thanks for your patience. I realize it is completely out of your hands.

AS

Well, not completely. As I mentioned, today we were asked to write up the box text, which we just finished doing a few minutes ago. And there have been other things we had to take care of since the "gone gold" announcement (as I've since learned) So, evidently WCS still has a role to play. That said, at this point there is precious little for anyone -- WCS, Matrix, Digital River -- to do other than release the game. So keep hope alive.

[Johnus]

jchastain:
 
Thanks for the explanation.

[Tophat1815]

 Comeon Digital River!!! [&o]

[freeboy]

sorry if this was covered but what amount of space on my hd will this take this sys stecs only talk about ram.. I am game managing as I have too much for my fast laptop.. so I may need to place this on my slower desktop thanks

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

sorry if this was covered but what amount of space on my hd will this take this sys stecs only talk about ram.. I am game managing as I have too much for my fast laptop.. so I may need to place this on my slower desktop thanks

You broke up there midway through that message, but I think the answer you're looking for is that it takes about 1GB of hard-drive space (the old figure I gave of 800MB is no longer accurate), and for RAM you really want 1GB, although you can play it with less memory of you disable sound and/or lower animation. But I'd recommend 1GB & 1GB for optimal performance.

[Gil R.]

Here's the latest update.

Now that Matrix has combined the game and the manual and all of the other stuff that goes into an installation file into what should be the official release installation file, we're going to test it tonight to make sure that everything installs properly. There's no reason to think that this wouldn't work, but it has been wisely decided that we should do this one final round of testing. If the zip file and installer function as they're supposed to, that means that the game is ready to be downloaded or burned onto CD's.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

.

[Tophat1815]

 Well get to it so you can take our money!

[TheHellPatrol]

[:D]I am delighted the way you guys are handling the business aspects of FOF, this time, and i may have to give this one a second look. I pray it won't be a major frustration for the player such as in COG[&o][:)].

[ETF]

I too think that this is no COG!! IMHO it seems to be a much higher quality product. Looking very much to changing my signature to 1) FOF [:D] 

[ETF]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

Here's the latest update.

Now that Matrix has combined the game and the manual and all of the other stuff that goes into an installation file into what should be the official release installation file, we're going to test it tonight to make sure that everything installs properly. There's no reason to think that this wouldn't work, but it has been wisely decided that we should do this one final round of testing. If the zip file and installer function as they're supposed to, that means that the game is ready to be downloaded or burned onto CD's.

If all is going well tonight......when do you think we can deposit some MUUULA into your account
Wednesday Morning?