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Got that right...

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: treespider

We can always say we are one day closer to release...tomorrow we will be one day closer to release.

and shorter of breath...



I'm pretty sure that no one officially quoted an Origins release, but the speculation among all the old timers here ran in that direction. That's probably what you recall, tophat.

I'm fairly certain thats probably what it was now after scouring the boards. Only thing I did find was a Terminus reference to summer 08' for release,but that also wasn't definitive. So seems I misremembered after all,sorry about that terminus.

With all the honey do's coming up this spring and summer I'm hoping for a fall release!

ORIGINAL: Tophat1812

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: treespider

We can always say we are one day closer to release...tomorrow we will be one day closer to release.

and shorter of breath...



I'm pretty sure that no one officially quoted an Origins release, but the speculation among all the old timers here ran in that direction. That's probably what you recall, tophat.

I'm fairly certain thats probably what it was now after scouring the boards. Only thing I did find was a Terminus reference to summer 08' for release,but that also wasn't definitive. So seems I misremembered after all,sorry about that terminus.

Don't apologize... Just setting the record straight, so we don't get any rumours going...

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Don't apologize... Just setting the record straight, so we don't get any rumours going...

Do you mean like a July 4th release followed a by a beer and roast Termi BBQ?

Well, I wasn't quite fast enough to keep you from starting that rumour, was I, flip?[:'(]

Oops...

I would also speculate on an Origins release. After all, WITP was an Origins release, so AE would also celebrate the anniversary of WITP, and Origins is historically the event where board wargames are released in the US.  

Only 144 days ..... since Erik announced AE. Tomorrow will be 145 days. My guess is it will be somewhere less than 3,650 days.

ORIGINAL: treespider

Only 144 days ..... since Erik announced AE. Tomorrow will be 145 days. My guess is it will be somewhere less than 3,650 days.

That sounds reasonable.

But do we have to wait that long to BBQ Terminus?

For some reason I had the impression that the target release date was summer or Origins too, but I never really expected to see it that soon. I'd rather wait for it to be polished, anyway.

That sort of works against the whole concept of beta testing. Bad idea.

Well, it works quite nicely for Stardock. GalCiv 2 was a smashing success, paid-beta and all. I pay to beta-test most of the games they make. But Stardock's model does work against the concept of *confidential*, NDA-covered beta-testing. It's a tradeoff -- if you let customers pay to beta-test, you get the benefit of many more (paying) testers, and you get revenue earlier. You get thousands of man-hours of testing you wouldn't get otherwise. But the downside is that you also get a public airing of bugs and problems well before release, which might not be good from a marketing standpoint.

With a game as complex as AE, and with a playerbase with such passionate and sometimes conflicting views on the design of the game, I can certainly understand leaning toward the traditional closed-beta model.

I'd certainly pay to beta-test the game....[;)]

After completing an excellent game of CHS,(to approx 10/44?), I joined a group to "playtest" RHS, (also an excellent mod, with even more detailed OOB's).
This "playtesting" evolved over maybe 15 months into at least 30-50 restarts.

With the announcement of AE, I should imagine most of the "beta-testing" has already been done, lest we (the paying consumer) be burdoned with that same possible 15 months of 30-50 restarts.

I can (and will) wait for the finished product, and am prepared to take patches as they come..

Gosh, this is gonna be good.[:)]

ORIGINAL: m10bob
With the announcement of AE, I should imagine most of the "beta-testing" has already been done, lest we (the paying consumer) be burdoned with that same possible 15 months of 30-50 restarts.

Like virtually every game ever released, AE could use another 60-120 days of testing. And like virtually every game company, Matrix would like to see some cash flow from the project yesterday. It's always a struggle, and AE will probably be the same...[:D]

The good news is the AE Team seems pretty determined to be ready to "patch" where leaks appear..., so maybe you are only looking at 3-5 restarts. It will probably take you that long to get a good "handle" on the changes anyway, so keep your hopes up. [;)]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Speculating about release dates is not something we on the AE team can do. Release dates are determined by Matrix.

I am the culprit who mentioned Origins. But I am hopeful and have no interaction with the design team so my hopes / guesses have nothing to do with Matrix's time table. My basis was that WitP was released at Origins and Origins happens in July which is definately Summer. And the fact that its 30 minutes from my house would make it a perfect place to release again. Although I do not promise to buy 5 copies this time... perhaps more [:D]

Xargun

ORIGINAL: Xargun

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Speculating about release dates is not something we on the AE team can do. Release dates are determined by Matrix.

I am the culprit who mentioned Origins. But I am hopeful and have no interaction with the design team so my hopes / guesses have nothing to do with Matrix's time table. My basis was that WitP was released at Origins and Origins happens in July which is definately Summer. And the fact that its 30 minutes from my house would make it a perfect place to release again. Although I do not promise to buy 5 copies this time... perhaps more [:D]

Xargun

AHA! So I'm not drifting into senility yet! Naturally I thought you were part of the design team,so I'm only half nuts.

ORIGINAL: Tophat1812

AHA! So I'm not drifting into senility yet! Naturally I thought you were part of the design team,so I'm only half nuts.

I actually was for a brief period but real life dragged me away and beat me with my (now) almost 2-yr old son. As he is getting older I am finding a bit more time and would love to get back on the team, but understand how difficult that would be.

I will be happy enough to get AE in my hands and some worthy opponents to bomb.... errr I mean play.

Xargun

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
Like virtually every game ever released, AE could use another 60-120 days of testing. And like virtually every game company, Matrix would like to see some cash flow from the project yesterday. It's always a struggle, and AE will probably be the same...[:D]

Well said, Mike. AE/WITP are so huge that even if Matrix followed my suggestion and allowed people to pay to test the game, the testers *still* wouldn't be able to catch everything, because few AI games would make it to August 1945, and no testing-PBEMs would.

Me, I have lots of sympathy for game designers and programmers, and I generally cut them slack on patches and the like. I fully expect a series of patches for AE, and I'm cool with that. That sentiment is especially strong in this case, where the dev team comes from these forums, and where the game in question is so huge and is on a topic so close to my heart.

Considering that the developers of AE are our friends and opponents from this forum, I expect that we should give them a lot of slack when it comes to patches for the new version. Remember, they suffered through the early days of WITP and UV just like the rest of us - and volunteered to create this new version. Anybody that crazy needs a lot of slack! [;)]