double post, sorry. Forums are wonky today.

I'm definitely in favor of "release when it's ready" philosophy. If you have no financial (or other) obligation to release in February, and you don't feel that it would be as feature complete as you'd like in February, by all means delay it.

Elemental is a game the like of which has not been released for a long, long time. A lot of people, myself included, have been waiting for a game like this also for a long, long time.

It is well worth taking the time to make it an amazing game, rather than just a good one.

I like the idea of an extended beta process. More polish and features is always good.

Although, I am curious about the schedule. For both the normal and extended, it says beta 1 will begin in August. Is beta 1 the same as the alpha? If it is, then the people who don't get in would be waiting a long time (October or January ) I thought you were planning to do about a month of Alpha, then the beta would go public at PAX in September. Is that no longer the case?

The longer the development team has to work with the beta-testers the better the game will be on release and with any luck you'll have laid the ground-work for one of the better games of the last decade or so, perhaps even longer. Quick question though, is Beta 1 going to be the open one for all pre-orders or is it what was going to be the alpha release for a selected few?

Edit: Double post, wonky forumses

Longer beta sounds good to me.

I don't really think an August release is that bad in terms of sales.  In fact I don't think it really matters when it's released (in my opinion with no knowledge of such things).   There just aren't many (any?) single player Civ/Gal Civ style games anymore so frankly, unless Civ 5 is coming out around the same time there really won't be a lot of competition for this *type* of game and I think it will sell well no matter when released.

Having said that, I might try for a May or June release if possible so that you get those with time over the summer (students, vacations) to buy the game.  More time to play may increase sales a bit vs. a fall release with students having less time.  I guess it depends on the demographics for this type of game, does it skew older and thus students back in school don't have much effect on sales.

Then maybe target at least a mini-expansion for the holidays to respark interest in the game at that time.

I think it is a great idea. Since all preoders are going to be in beta anyway, and by February we are going to have what we are going to have whether you call it "beta" or release v 1.0  - as far as fun and playability even for someone who doesn't want to test but just wants to play...it's all going to be the same. So why not extend the development cycle, it would give you opportunites to possible go in competely new directions with some things, where if you DID do a cull release it seems you are a BIT more constrained.

Only downside I could see would be short term financial because some people will NOT preorder, and you will not get the retail sales from February. But if it made it that much better of a game for release in August, it could be a good time investment.

Overall, I am for it!

p.s. I would love to see 16 players, and 32 on a huge map would be truly epic! That would be for my sandbox game that I wanted to play for months...

Quality first? It can't be done!!!

I'm fine either way...

...But the extra polish time sounds like it'll have a lot more player input in decisions.  The players will be more 'involved' in the end result.  And I'd love that.

Lol, don't cheer the community, cheer Frogboy on his "Leet salesmanship skillz"!

I'm all for a long open beta because those who don't want to wait can simply join the beta (paying for it, of course, but you can't have everything).

After the initial burst of feedback I've just been hanging back until we actually have a beta to work with, I'll pipe up more when we do.

Thanks,

Keith

its not maturity, ppl is tired of early release with games not ready (even demigod if we have to be fair)

better more testing and more developed games at release

I think it should be launched fairly quickly, actually.  A beta event can be an experience, but after launch things change completely.  The length of the beta should be related to the amount of testing you want to get done.. if you want to do more things in a beta environment, take longer, otherwise, take shorter.  It isn't our choice to make.

That said, I want it shorter so I can get some more people playing.

Also, as for number of players, I would put 8 at the minimum I'd want.. I've got a Dominions 3 game going right now with 8+ human players, and I can guarantee I'd have similar numbers for a dominions game.  16 would probably be more than enough, but better safe than sorry.

Hmm, a longer beta, that's a hard one to say. If a game drags to release for a long time it loses a lot of momentum. Rather than splashing onto the market, it just sort of finally plops out. Stardock might not need that momentum for sales like other companies, but every developer wants their stuff to be well received and anticipated. That's part of the enjoyment of what we do as developers.

There's already been a pretty lengthy pre-release time. My concern would be there are a lot of people that aren't interested in buying a beta, no matter how complete. They might be excited by demos and posts of people in the beta, but then by the time time it actually releases their desire has faded and some other shiny object has their attention.

Can you put off the decision until after the first beta gets well underway? If the TO-DO list gets really large in the first beta period and you and your team are really excited about some of the options, then you could decide to go for a longer beta cycle. Or maybe you see a clear break point where you could ship the game late Q1 2010 and then have a significant expansion pack 6 months later.

I'm in on ground zero myself and I suspect most of the people interested in the beta are all going to say "yes yes yes yes", but the beta testers aren't the bulk of the final audience and I'm not entirely sure what the impact of a long beta cycle would have on that final audience.