Camelot Unchained - When do testers think it will release?

MightyUnclean · March 2019

For those currently testing CU (I'm assuming it's in a playable state after this amount of time), what's your best bet as to when the final release will occur? Maybe 2020? Or is that totally unreasonable?

MightyUnclean · March 2019

Can we even talk about what the current build status of the game is, as far as what's available for backers to play?

meddyck · March 2019

I feel it is basically impossible it launches this year despite CSE continuing to claim that is the target.

I think it is much more likely to launch in the 2nd half of 2020 than to launch in the first half of 2020.

I don't think there's enough information at this point to judge the chances of it launching in 2021, but I wouldn't be shocked or anything if it did launch that late.

fanglo · March 2019

CSE is taking steps to release the game this year. They are hiring more and more people. This will accelerate the release. I am hopeful that CU will be live in time for Christmas.

natpick · March 2019

if the game releases by the end of the this year that would be awesome,really looking forward to this game.

Kyleran · March 2019

fanglo said:

CSE is taking steps to release the game this year. They are hiring more and more people. This will accelerate the release. I am hopeful that CU will be live in time for Christmas.

I would call yours the best case estimate, of nothing goes wrong. The middle estimate would be somewhere in 2020.

A common mistaken assumption is believing hiring more people improves output or time to delivery.

In the short term new hires negatively impact the productivity of the existing staff as they train and integrate the new folks.

Generally I've found it to take 3 to 6 months for new members to make a solid positive impact and about a year until they are 100%

Of course, most of my experience is in financial services software (mostly back end workflows) which has little in the way of animation or graphics, perhaps developers and artists in those spaces can begin contributing much sooner. (New members in our team often are assigned UI changes to start)

Kyleran · March 2019

Arterius said:

MightyUnclean said:

Can we even talk about what the current build status of the game is, as far as what's available for backers to play?

Nope we are under a NDA.

Yeah, I am under the NDA so I can only slag on them for late delivery in general terms without sharing specifics.

Slapshot1188 · March 2019

While under NDA I feel comfortable spouting the unofficial/official timeline of all Crowdfunded MMORPGs no matter where they sit in the development timeline: 18 months

tweedledumb99 · March 2019

I mean, most of what is available for backers to play they cover in the weekly updates, so without posting actual content of the game I'm pretty comfortable saying what's currently in (in no particular order):

- Crafting with a material-based system (not sure if they're using recipes or if it's just 'use x amount of metal to make a hilt, x amount to make a blade, x amount of wood to make a pommel, bam, sword), I think it's still using dev UI but they've shown first passes of an actual, prettier crafting UI.

- Creating buildings either offline in their building client or in the live test environment. Stability is turned on for most tests (I think) so you can't build super wacky stuff.

- Physically-based rendering system with pretty comprehensive lighting effects, but still lots of tweaks needed to take out some of the rough edges and some of the glitchy visuals. Lighting looks really good, especially at dawn/twilight. Glints and reflections are looking good, e.g. sunlight bouncing off metal armour.

- Animation system that's getting better and better, actually looks pretty decent for lots of animations, but inconsistent across animations - i.e. some animations look buttery smooth, others still jittery. This is pretty clearly just based on 'which animations got a recent polish pass and which didn't', so this'll get cleaned up, just a matter of time.

- Particle system with old, less visually impressive particle effects mixed in with new, sharper, more high-def particle effects. Again, the older stuff just needs an update pass (some of it's placeholder so will just get replaced rather than updated).

- Ability builder turned back on, can make your own abilities (still using comically ugly dev ui, but it's still fairly straightforward how to do it).

- First pass of mages added in, including ability builder parts as far as I know. Now up to Fighters, Mages, Archers, Healers. Classes are individualized per realm, so TDD Fianna have very different abilities than Viking Mjolnirs, Arthurian Black Knights, as an example (all Fighters).

- Character models and textures wildly improved, and LODs improving as well. This is a big thing for me, I was so-so on character visuals 6 months ago, was mildly liking them 3 months ago, now they're looking a hell of a lot better, I think they look pretty damn good, and they're still going to be improving them.

- Building destruction. You can destroy buildings, block by block. When a chunk gets destroyed, anything it was solely supporting crashes to the ground. Still some slapstick comedy involved with pieces of rock bouncing around on the ground, but that'll get more polish as well.

- Siege gameplay. You can operate trebuchets to destroy buildings, or use scorpions to attack players. It's fairly straightforward to operate once you get the hang of it, and bringing down a building (destruction speed is turned WAAAY up for testing) is a lot of fun.

- Battles with 2,400 players/bots with minimal latency issues, only minor framedrops, and around 40 FPS on a 1080 GTX, with a 5 year old i5-4690k. That's 2,400 rendered characters within 200m of you, and within line of sight, mind you, not 2,400 over a 4km x 4km map or whatever.

tweedledumb99 · March 2019

MightyUnclean said:

Can we even talk about what the current build status of the game is, as far as what's available for backers to play?

Forgot to quote you, but my above post is in reply to you.

Tamanous · March 2019

TimEisen said:

meddyck said:

I feel it is basically impossible it launches this year despite CSE continuing to claim that is the target.

I think it is much more likely to launch in the 2nd half of 2020 than to launch in the first half of 2020.

I don't think there's enough information at this point to judge the chances of it launching in 2021, but I wouldn't be shocked or anything if it did launch that late.

I didn't know they were saying that...theres only like 9 months left, they still need to get from Beta 1-Open right?

Mark mentioned recently in an end of week wrap up that Beta 2 isn't likely until late this year. They plan on 3+ Beta stages. I have no idea which would be considered Open, but the later Beta stages are likely to be much shorter than Beta 1 (which in all honestly was a stage entered at the earliest possible time and lots was needed to be done within it).

My guess is second half of next year as well, but entering Beta 2 will likely align with some streaming allowances and some media push as it will have core classes and their mechanics in place along with some open world and functional siege systems. Full UI and crafting systems will be in too. Beta 2 would be a good entry point for early testing for many and likely a step before what would be considered the earliest Open Beta build.

Mendel · March 2019

Kyleran said:

fanglo said:

CSE is taking steps to release the game this year. They are hiring more and more people. This will accelerate the release. I am hopeful that CU will be live in time for Christmas.

I would call yours the best case estimate, of nothing goes wrong. The middle estimate would be somewhere in 2020.

A common mistaken assumption is believing hiring more people improves output or time to delivery.

In the short term new hires negatively impact the productivity of the existing staff as they train and integrate the new folks.

Generally I've found it to take 3 to 6 months for new members to make a solid positive impact and about a year until they are 100%

Of course, most of my experience is in financial services software (mostly back end workflows) which has little in the way of animation or graphics, perhaps developers and artists in those spaces can begin contributing much sooner. (New members in our team often are assigned UI changes to start)

I was going to say that!

Integrating new people, no matter how skillful, into an existing project will take time. A hiring surge now might help meet a 2020 deadline, but probably not a 2019 delivery.

Amathe · March 2019

I have never met a tester for any game that would say "She's ready! Get her out there on the market now!"

They always say the game isn't ready.

Often (these days anyway) they are right.

But still, even if a tester could and would answer the OP's question, they would tell you it's not ready.

Just like if you asked a Dev they will say "when it's finished."

Btw, I am not a tester for this game.

Kyleran · March 2019

Amathe said:

I have never met a tester for any game that would say "She's ready! Get her out there on the market now!"

They always say the game isn't ready.

Often (these days anyway) they are right.

But still, even if a tester could and would answer the OP's question, they would tell you it's not ready.

Just like if you asked a Dev they will say "when it's finished."

Btw, I am not a tester for this game.

I think the reality is games generally "launch" when the money and patience of those who fund them finally runs out.

Unless we are talking about SC, their faucet of free money seems inexhaustible, it may never need to formally release.

Beta 15.3.1 anyone?

Tamanous · March 2019

Vinterkrig said:

2021, when even less people will care :P

And if it does release in 2021?

There would still only be 1 game like it on the market.

It only needs to advertise when it's ready to.

CU's current state of development is about 7-8 months out from a concept complete version of RvR in an open world with siege warfare. This is the time Mark mentioned beta 2 in "winter" 2019 a couple video updates ago. CSE is in Virginia so I'm guessing a pretty convention start of winter date in his mind. Beta 2 is the start of world building and full open world RvR systems testing. Important yes, but also much faster development than the core tech which is now done.

So if this timeline is a reflection of their current project pace, then the only real guessing is on how long Beta 2 would be. A game world with 3 factions and their cities and at least 1 contested continent is great but it's still a fraction of the size the release version will be (btw it's to be truly massive). Lots of classes are to be added and RvR balanced heavily tested and adjusted. All new animations for the 1st wave of classes are already going in (as in now in Beta 1) along with UI components so Beta 2 is looking like an actual game from the player's perspective.

The good news: Classes are easy to make so CSE keeps saying (once art assets catch up). The majority of the land masses are procedurally generated. They are only hand sculpting specific areas as required (and testers actually help make buildings using CUBE that will be used for the game in some areas). The core RvR systems are completed or near completion. The schedule is tight but they have hired several new staff, assisted by the recent heavy layoffs within the industry. These are hardened industry vets too.

Lastly, and I know this won't matter to some but I'll say it anyway, Mark is actually a pretty straight up guy. I personally do not believe he is trying to hide an extra year of development from us and the project is indeed within a margin of error from what's recently been updated.

So, my most basic analogy: By winter 2019, CSE will have all of their tools made and heavy equipment ordered and on site, so they can put their building together. The good news is that it's mostly prefab construction at that point. Hopefully late 2020.

Cuppett5 · March 2019

Alpha, please be a founder and support the game. Then another alpha selling founder packs. More alpha, and then special sales rates on founder packs. Repeat, repeat, maybe a beta. Need to sell more founder packs. Beta, more beta, more betas, and then maybe a soft launch in 2025.

Kyleran · March 2019

Cuppett5 said:

Alpha, please be a founder and support the game. Then another alpha selling founder packs. More alpha, and then special sales rates on founder packs. Repeat, repeat, maybe a beta. Need to sell more founder packs. Beta, more beta, more betas, and then maybe a soft launch in 2025.

I am a harsh critic over the late delivery, but your accusation isn't valid.

CSE is one of the least aggressive indies in terms of trying to extract more money from current or future backers.

Unlike some (cough cough SC, COE) CU isn't constantly adding new items or packages nor saying "buy now before they are all gone, forever!)

Finally, they are probably unique in still offering backers refunds even as we come up on the six year mark in April.

Scot · March 2019

If it is really launching at the end of 2020, there will be early access by the end of this year surely?

Kyleran · March 2019

Scot said:

If it is really launching at the end of 2020, there will be early access by the end of this year surely?

What do you mean by early access? We alpha backers have had test access for many years now.

Scot · March 2019

Kyleran said:

Scot said:

If it is really launching at the end of 2020, there will be early access by the end of this year surely?

What do you mean by early access? We alpha backers have had test access for many years now.

I have done it again, this is a different indie, not CoE.

Ok only done this once before so not too bad (ahem), if you are Jack of all Fools I want to take April Fool as mine.

Quizzical · April 2019

The game will release on February 30.

MMOExposed · April 2019

meddyck said:

I feel it is basically impossible it launches this year despite CSE continuing to claim that is the target.

I think it is much more likely to launch in the 2nd half of 2020 than to launch in the first half of 2020.

I don't think there's enough information at this point to judge the chances of it launching in 2021, but I wouldn't be shocked or anything if it did launch that late.

I rather not rush it if it's not good quality, I dont care what the hype level is. Warhammer learned this the hard way.

meddyck · April 2019

MMOExposed said:

meddyck said:

I feel it is basically impossible it launches this year despite CSE continuing to claim that is the target.

I think it is much more likely to launch in the 2nd half of 2020 than to launch in the first half of 2020.

I don't think there's enough information at this point to judge the chances of it launching in 2021, but I wouldn't be shocked or anything if it did launch that late.

I rather not rush it if it's not good quality, I dont care what the hype level is. Warhammer learned this the hard way.

The issue as CSE has already found is that the longer you take to release, the better your visuals need to be. The originally planned graphics that would have been fine if the game had released in 2015 wouldn't cut it for a 2020 release. So as a result of being delayed beyond 2015 the game has had to be further delayed to improve the graphics so that many players won't just reject it out of hand when it finally comes out. This is obviously a neverending treadmill so at some point they need to hurry up and finish the game while it has attained a good enough appearance before yet another graphics overhaul becomes needed.

Also the game was largely backed by older than typical MMO players who had nostalgia for Mark Jacob's previous MMOs. Those players aren't any younger 7 or more years after funding. That makes it an open question whether its old school gameplay approach with a large map, limited fast travel, harsh death penalties, etc. which often requires a substantial time investment per day will still be something those backers will want to play by the time it launches.

Yes of course you don't want to launch with major bugs or poor server or client performance or missing important features (*cough* extender pack classes *cough*), but spending an unlimited number of years developing the game doesn't really seem viable either. At some point in the next few years even the additional $7.5 million investment CSE got last January will run out too.

danwest58 · April 2019

I doubt this game will release anytime in 2019 or 2020. You will see something closer to the 2021/22 time frame.

Kyleran · April 2019

danwest58 said:

I doubt this game will release anytime in 2019 or 2020. You will see something closer to the 2021/22 time frame.

Realize its been 9 months since Beta "1" began, and it easily could be 3 more months until...Beta 1.1, Beta 2, who knows?

Yeah, yeah, they've said previously subsequent beta phases will not be so long but this team has a solid record in one thing for sure, being totally unable to reasonably forecast dates seeing as year 6 is about to go by.

Slapshot1188 · April 2019

Kyleran said:

danwest58 said:

I doubt this game will release anytime in 2019 or 2020. You will see something closer to the 2021/22 time frame.

Realize its been 9 months since Beta "1" began, and it easily could be 3 more months until...Beta 1.1, Beta 2, who knows?

Yeah, yeah, they've said previously subsequent beta phases will not be so long but this team has a solid record in one thing for sure, being totally unable to reasonably forecast dates seeing as year 6 is about to go by.

18 months

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Camelot Unchained - When do testers think it will release?

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

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