playing Beta first is the first thing in my wish list of FE wishlists

 

 

 

Derek made a post a few days ago explaining why the delay on the beta is happening.  The thread is "Iteration."  Go have a read, and you will understand they want a more polished version before letting the community get there hands on it.  As we all know, the best advertising is word of mouth, and if we receive something of polish (minus a few bugs, cause we need something to do), it will provide a much better experience for all, and be on the right track for sales.  

 

I never played Gal Civ, or Gal Civ 2, but I did watch and purchase WoM on release day, only to be disappointed.  My faith however has never waivered, and am looking forward to FE.  Hell, I wish Stardock was publicly traded, would buy that as quickly as Packers stock.  Were all salivating to get our hands on this, I say stay on Valve time, give us something amazing.

 

As for ideas, please share them in the wishlists section.  If its not in the release, you can always make a mod.  I just hope multiplayer is in, AI is wonderful, but a computer can become predictable.

That mindset seems a bit ignorant of what a beta is. It's not a marketing ploy. A beta is supposed to be an actual situation for the market to get the game improved such that the game's final version will be better. Derek provided a sort of an explanation, but it wasn't a very good one. "We still have stuff to do, so we won't show you what we got". That sort of false confidence, believing that the insight of the community is irrelevant, is part of what lead to the failure of War of Magic.

Yes but FE has alot to prove. The beta needs to show that the game has potential and will be able to live up to it. This is kind of a special circumstance as far as betas go. The devs realize this. That is why this first beta has work put into AI, map generation and general polish that would not otherwise be necessary for a first beta release.

 

Cruxador is right about the the beta part

 

when they are creating Elemental WoM, I was stalking the Forum for over a year to the day it came out. I recall there are ton of confusion and chaos in the elemental forum. I preorder Gal Civi 2 when it first came out, so I understand Brad intent to continue updating and polishing the WoM after it came out and continue polishing it for years unit new game is made. but WoM compare to Gal Civi when it first came out is far below what we were expecting. it's not even very stable to play because of the crush and memory leak. Many of the request and feature that we forum user requested never implanted, those that re implanted was incomplete or didn't put much time and effort in it. like the spells and such, every spell is the same among different element. powerful spell is just buff up version of lower spell and such. it's like the development time was spread among everything and nothing has any love to it. 

it's understand able that WoM will be bad at first because WoM is the first fantasy 4X game that Brad and his team ever made. 

reason why WoM failed soo badly are because

major reasons

The game concept and game mechanic wasn't thoroughly thought out before going into developmental. this why no balance and changes around the game setting will make the game any better. going back to fix the core feature of the game after development will just waste tons of more time. this why even after a year of patching and changing the game feature, the game still isn't what it was meant to be or want to be as. because it borrow way too much gaming concept from Gal Civi 2. This why I believe Brad made the move to create another game instead of fixing WoM

 

lack of people and people with great knowledge, like Derek Paxton, for this kind of game, I remember Brad was doing different position when developing WoM, it was Sad but cool in a way. this kind of game require a very very big team. or very very long time to make. beacuse it have many differnet aspect you have to carefully write and create, rushing one area will topple the experience of the whole game.  This is the reason why Beta tester is important, if your team are low you need a good dirctor to skillful use the beta tester, if you have a great team, having beta experience beta tester will renovate and bring a new mile stone to your game 

 

minior reasons

team lack of experience in 4x Fantasy genre game.

WoM was the first game using an experimental game engine that never been out before. as expected of any new game engine will come with tons of bugs until it's fully become well written.

 

Yeah, I am still amazed that Elemental has come so far from the ashes of its release. 

One of the biggest reasons for the lack of development time was that the engine had so many birthing problems. Elemental was a backbirth.  They had to spend alot of dev time working with the new engine and trying to figure out what it could and couldn't do. Then on release day they found out that the majority of newer gaming rigs were not even slightly compatible with the game.

The beta is a chance to start the buzz about FE on a positive note. 

 

I believe AI isn't important, if the ground work isn't done right. than writing the AI will be a waste of time because the perimeter the AI has to interact with will end up changing. this will make AI do weird things. than you have to re-adjust the AI ever time. which become more burden later on. it just like saying bring the dog and drop it into the ocean without teaching it how to swim.

 

setting up the ground work first it will act like an environment for the AI to interact with than you make them smart than lethal to human that comes close. because no matter how smart an AI is, if it doesn't know how to swim it's good as dead.

this why I believe AI should be last to improve upon. because this kind of game you going to need way complex thinking like a chess game engin but more complexes. 

Yes of course I agree. I was only pointing out the fact that our first beta will have a pretty good AI, which is odd for a first beta. Beyond what the devs have said about the beta also being about proving that the game will be good, there is alot of evidence that this particular beta is directed towards that goal.