Return to Alpha .... serious suggestion

[Underhook]

This is an argument for NQ to stop advertising the game as in BETA and start advertising it as in ALPHA

If I had done thousands of scans, I would be pretty upset right now.  Even though I understand why NQ feel they need to do it.

Many players were very upset with .23 even though many understood why it was necessary for the vision of the game.

I feel much of the disappointment is justified because the game is in BETA.

As far as I am aware, most peoples expectation of BETA is that the game is complete but needs stress testing and final balancing which might take several months.  Then the game will launch.

So, if the game was in ALPHA, I feel that most players would have little issue with these changes because everything would be done with the expectation that it will probably change at some stage.

It seems pretty clear to me that the game is really in ALPHA.  ie. extreme performance issues, many features far from implementation, current major rebalancing with more to come, etc.

I feel that NQ should just say "everybody we stuffed up by launching BETA too soon.  We are returning to ALPHA.  Everything in the game is subject to change.  If your happy with that we are happy to have you"

[Novean-32184]

Certainly, it would be good for NQ if they could. In Alpha staghe they have way more leeway to make changes and experiment. Obviously, they are doing that anyway but with the game labelled as "Beta" while it really is knee deep in Alpha still, they are pretty much painting themselves in a corner and setting entirely incorrect expectations. 

It would take guts and a thick skin to do it and I do not think that NQ feels they can, even when they might want to. Personally, I'd go further and close the game down again, allowing those who have access to continue playing but putting a stop to selling subscriptions. That would be massively better, would not require a new NDA as that ship certainly sailed by now and would allow them to be far more drastic and aggressive in their development. 

 

But I do not think NQ has the resources to go that route and it may jeopardize the relationship with the investors, no matter how much better it would be for them as far as developing the game and actually do it faster.

[CptLoRes]

We all know the game is alpha, or "balpha" as the joke goes.

But admitting this, would mean that NQ has been developing for  5 years + (unknown years before Kickstarter) and still is no where even close to release of a proper game.

And that is a PR disaster. So they put up a brave face and churn out youtube videos and progress blogs that makes everyone who actually play the game snicker and roll their eyes.

 

[Novean-32184]

NQ started work on the sever tech end of 2014, so overall the game is in development for 7 years now.

 

For a game this scale 7 years is really not long at all, it is entirely normal for a game this scale to still be Alpha. Alpha really is the biggest chunk of development, beta would be relatively short, maybe a year at most. And 10 years development time for a game like this to get to release is really not out of the ordinary and never has been. So if we're going to year 8 now, another year of Alpha and then beta for release end of 2023 would be perfectly normal.. 

 

Provided you as a devloper have the funding to follow that path. 

[Underhook]

42 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

We all know the game is alpha, or "balpha" as the joke goes.

But admitting this, would mean that NQ has been developing for  5 years + (unknown years before Kickstarter) and still is no where even close to release of a proper game.

And that is a PR disaster. So they put up a brave face and churn out youtube videos and progress blogs that makes everyone who actually play the game snicker and roll their eyes.

 

I'm not sure it would be a PR disaster.  One of my fav games "7days to die"  has been in alpha for an incredible number of years.  Its very popular and is probably the best value for money game I have ever had.

[XKentX]

Alpha stage, beta stage, blabla stage. Just be honest and advertise it as "shitty stage".

[Warlander]

On 11/17/2021 at 4:23 AM, CptLoRes said:

We all know the game is alpha, or "balpha" as the joke goes.

But admitting this, would mean that NQ has been developing for  5 years + (unknown years before Kickstarter) and still is no where even close to release of a proper game.

And that is a PR disaster. So they put up a brave face and churn out youtube videos and progress blogs that makes everyone who actually play the game snicker and roll their eyes.

 

 

If NQ came out and actually admitted they messed up due to JCs running this project into the ground it would be just one of the steps towerds restoring faith in their project. If they then actually know what was going wrong and how to fix all the strangling red tape and really turn this game into a PvP game worth playing its just the second step in restoring faith in the project to justify returning to alpha. 

 

Everything this game has is pretty lack luster and mediocre as far as PvP goes beyond being a safe zone building game mixed with space engineers.

 

Either way they need like 8+ months of solid work to even begin to turn this thing around with solid funding. It could take at least two years of solid funding to even begin to develop all the things they refused to add like AI/NPCs or essentially turn this into an MMO version of Emperion to mix up all the monotony with NPC fleets, transport, etc to fight along with actual lefit factions or turning Single Solar System into DUal Solar System with opposing factions to fight against each other to Make FFA PvP actually possible and not just putting it all on us to play pretend lo do it for them without actual tools/mechanics in the game to even bring in PvPers.

 

Only with more complex world geometry, more complex vetex editing tools, taking out mining and adding voxel asteroids, adding voxel complexity limits, then adding a new seeing of flora props on some if not all planets/moons pretty much seals the fate as they could have used the gains to do other things.

 

 

[Underhook]

5 hours ago, XKentX said:

Alpha stage, beta stage, blabla stage. Just be honest and advertise it as "shitty stage".

Haha, yes thats the point.  Most people expect alpha to be shitty.

[Warlander]

21 minutes ago, Underhook said:

Haha, yes thats the point.  Most people expect alpha to be shitty.

 

I dont think anyone expects an alpha to be shitty.

 

We all get sold the blueprint by the hypeman before alpha and wait to see the materials to build a house arrive on the job site. Its when you see the materials arrive and they arent what you ordered and you know the house will slant because the foundation was a rush job and its not going according to the plan because either the GC or Foreman has no clue how to build a house and you keep telling them they are doing it wrong and they shrug it off and keep going thats when people expect an alpha to be shitty, the beta shitty, and the game to be shitty.

[Bobbie]

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