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Combat Alpha Coming in the Latter Half of February - Ship of Heroes - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Combat Alpha Coming in the Latter Half of February - Ship of Heroes - MMORPG.com
Ship of Heroes News - The Ship of Heroes site has been updated with a new developer blog to let fans and backers in on some exciting news: "The first combat alpha for Ship of Heroes will begin in the second half of February". Developers will be personally escorting groups of 3-4 donors, supporters and press through the available portions of the game and let them perform "street sweeping" to try out the current combat mechanics.
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too early for an alpha? I'm sure they are just trying to drum up some excitement and interest in the game. It's not like they are pushing it out the door yet.
I mean in the last stream I saw, which was only a week or two ago, the majority of it was static costumes. It's hard to determine from that last stream if there's even a game or if this is truly just an engine demo with some included purchased assets.
Usually in most alphas, they have more than a framework completed.
I'm not trying to be negative, call it being pragmatic.
I understand what you were getting at now. You may be right.
Hopefully it works out for them. I really would like to see them succeed.
"This is not a balanced combat scenario. Instead, we’re testing how people think combat should “feel” in Ship of Heroes, and we have deliberately eliminated some important elements for now. For example, accuracy is set to 100% for both players and enemies, so every attack will land."
It's a very short shot of an extremely low population, for a predetermined set of enemies to showcase what one would assume is a very small portion of the expected game.
This is essentially what we would consider a tech demo, which, in all honesty could be showcased directly from an engine tutorial.
A recent alpha I was in, was Wild West Online, and that was a fairly bad alpha, it was their first alpha test, tons of stuff was bugged, there wasn't even any PvE, but they didn't hold your hand, they didn't specifically engineer the experience they wanted you to see, it was an actual alpha.
It sounds like for the upcoming "alpha" everything is being fabricated. It sounds like it's too soon, and I'd hate to see this as some posturing for another upcoming kickstarter.
I'd prefer they work enough on it to release a zone for alpha testing with actual intended mechanics as they work towards the live game.
That's just my opinion though.
What the team is looking for is input. They want people outside of the dev team to try their hands at the game. They invited me to help with network stress testing, but I was unable to because their testing times are when I am starting work. They want to make sure they are heading in the right direction, and they need testers for that. They plan on inviting small groups so they can get fresh eyes on 'their baby'. They will test a couple of days, adjust for a week, test for a couple of days, adjust, etc... So this is really pre-alpha testing. Once they are satisfied with the basic game, they will have what people now consider a 'real' alpha test.
I want to to say a couple of things. I've met the CEO. I've met his family. I've seen dozens of hours of testing video. I have talked to several members of their dev team. I get regular updates from the CEO and the lead developer, and I am working on my third article on this game to submit to MMORPG.com for consideration. I've seen ideas submitted by their forum users being implemented in the game. This project is the real deal, and aimed at former CoH players looking for a new home.
This project started in April 2016. I think the progress they have made is pretty impressive. Even if this escorted alpha testing is limited, how many games would even be this far in 22 months with a part time, mostly unpaid or very underpaid dev team?
Later this year, they will have 'real' alpha testing and at the end of the year they are going to start a paid beta phase, so that they will have the funding needed to finish the project. If you want to help support the game to fruition, join in! If you want to wait, their open beta will be starting sometime in Q2 2019 and their release is planned for early July 2019, which will be 39 months after they started.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Except it's not. It isn't the tech, they're testing combat which is important to get right. How many games have you heard people complain about the lack of fluidity in the combat/animations? How dare a company try to invite people to test an integral part of the game when the game isn't completed.
It's all too soon.
If this project is a labor of love, I say keep going with it. They've constantly given updates despite very little to actually update us on, which is fine, but in comparison, both City of Titans and Heroes and Villains are in similar if not further development states, and CoT actually did have a funded kickstarter and had a presentation at PAX West. Heroes and Villains gives weekly updates but hasn't asked for any kind of funding.
I get it, you're tight with the developers, but it seems like you also realize that it's too soon, it's not an alpha, and Q2 2019 for a game currently in this state is not an ideal timeline. I've seen games in an actual alpha state take longer. Hell we've had playable games in beta or early access that were actually good and still didn't release for over a year.
I understand they want funding, and honestly I believe that's why we're getting this information in the ways we are in comparison to the other games I mentioned, and they have every right to push for it, but they pulled their kickstarter for a reason. This upcoming test could be helpful to them, or could hurt them. I'd be more comfortable with them working on getting the game in what they intended for the game to be like before inviting people in for a doctored play test.
The dev team did not want to make a product that is in 'early access' for 2-3 years. They wanted to go with the old school system of alphas actually being alpha tests as part of the development cycle, and not ways to corral new players. There will be wide range alphas later in the year, but they are still part of the testing cycle.
One of the things that the SoH dev team feels is a minus for a lot of indy projects is the lack of visible progress. They are aware that they are probably over-releasing info, but they feel that fans and possible future players would rather be overly informed than the opposite. I personally prefer the transparency they are providing than the withheld info of other indy projects.
SoH pulled their Kickstarter for several reasons. They realized within a couple of days that they were too unknown and under-presented and dealing with KS burnout. They needed to get their name out more vigorously before they asked strangers for $400k, especially in the environment that Kickstarter was in at the time... would they have a successful kickstarter campaign if they tried now? I think so, but they are going to go with another funding system that is not all or nothing.
SoH was at the PAX west panel, as was VO. Casey McGeever (Consultant) is the one closest to the podium. I forget his name, but the fellow between Casey and Nate is one of the lead programmers from VO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQXtoj3PKu0&t=2s
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
The more I see of SoH right now, the less I want to play it. The last stream was very rough. Also, I'm not itching for a CoX replica, in all honesty, CoX if it released today would barely even register when you have other super hero games with better combat, better graphics and better IPs out there.
We have 4 "upcoming" indie superhero games all pushing about the same premise. I get that this is your favorite, but if you look at it objectively, this game is no better off than the others, and in the case of City of Titans, that game has garnered much more support during their development.
I mean obviously they'll do what they want, they have a small group that appears to be interested, but they could really increase that amount if they released information that would shine SoH in a good light after further development instead of what they've been putting out.