October 2016 Alpha

I backed at the $100 level on Kickstarter. From my understanding, that means I get alpha access come October 2016. Is the project still on target for that date? I really want to play the game and see it in action, I just don’t have the extra funds to blow for dev access. Anyway, thanks in advance for helpful replies.

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Well, so far, the alpha access should still be on this schedule.

Best way is to get an answer from @INovaeKeith or @INovaeFlavien though :wink:

In the words of Colonel O’Neill: “Since when has Plan A ever worked?!” :slight_smile:
I have no doubt INS will achieve it, but there are always hiccups and obstacles so I am in more of a pragmatic mindset about target dates that are set so early in the project.

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Well, I think there is a strong chance that the deadline will be pretty much dead-on (pun not intended). The reason being, there’s already a playable prototype with only a small handful of noticeable bugs. So unless something goes seriously goes wrong with the proto prior to alpha release, I think that the proto in whatever state it’s in could easily be just be distributed with an alpha label slapped on it. MO, though. :wink:

I also think the Alpha will be released on time, for the simple reason that requirements for the Alpha have not been set, so they can and probably will just release whatever they have come October.

They actually have, but since it’s in the “dev access only” forum part, I’m not sure how INovae wants to communicate on this point.
For those who have the access: it’s here.

Long story short, I’d hate to have the game in this state labeled as “Alpha”. Simply because there’s no gameplay for the moment, and any game in alpha stage has at least the core gameplay implemented.

Alright for those that don’t have access, this is from that thread that is the meeting notes from the 02/03/2016 weekly meeting. INS seems a bit liberal without asking for NDAs for the pre-Alpha, I’m sure they wont mind us sharing 3 lines of text with the rest of the community.

Alpha Requirements
All major gameplay elements implemented
Smaller, non-capital ships are done or close to being finished

No problem critic.

The main thing with the alpha is that all small ships must be implemented ( minus balance ), including various weapons, shields and auto turrets.

Team-based gameplay, destroying bases, getting resources/credits ( attacking/defending objectives such as haulers/factories ) must be functional too.

What will NOT be there in alpha:

  • capital ships will still be heavily experimental ( we’ll probably already have all the placeholders or WIP models, but they won’t be finished, whereas the small ships should already be in a good state ), same for their control.

  • the game won’t be balanced

  • not all points of interests ( ex.: space stations ) or planets/environments will be finished

As for the estimated date, well we were already a month late in delivering the prototype to dev-tier backers. I’m not sure yet how it’ll affect our ability to release in oct 2016, but since we can flexible in what we include or not in the alpha, it’s possible it won’t be significantly delayed. I’d say the biggest unknowns are the tech changes ( vulkan, multithreading, networking etc… ).

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Thanks for this reply, straight from the horse’s mouth. So barring any huge technical hurdles, things should be pretty well on track, plus or minus a couple of weeks. That’s good to hear. I’ll be looking forward to Q4 2016!

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Also, a lot of work that is done at the start is “boring back-end infrastructure” work that won’t translate into any marketable material like fully-implemented ships with all the weapons. By the time Beta rolls out most of the game will be done and only polishing and assets finalization are left to do (which are considerable in many cases).

I’d say the most likely outcome is we ship Alpha on-time but it may be a bit rougher around the edges than we had originally hoped for. Unlike shipping the game to retail, Beta and Alpha release don’t have a requirement for perfection. The problem with Developer Access being delayed was due to authentication, access rights, and distribution and it’s pretty difficult to release anything without those in place.

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