Our alpha play-test week-end has ended and I would like to thank everybody who participated. It seems like everybody enjoyed its time and had some great fun. The feedback has been extremely positive as usual and we’re happy with the outcome.
Many first-time players actually spent most of their time flying around and exploring the solar system, while others participated on the some of the big (50-100 ships) battles going around various points of interests. There was a couple of outstanding technical issues related to the installer (forcing a reboot after a Windows update) and the client (crashes related to the sound every 2-3 hours) but otherwise the experience was pretty smooth: the server was rock stable (not a single crash) although overloaded and the client’s framerate reports we got was also very good; a lot of people seemed to be impressed that they could already run the game at 60+ fps despite being a pre-alpha.
Of course there’s still a lot more to do, both in terms of tech/assets (we’re delaying the texturing phase until we can validate combat) or gameplay (we’re going to start adding more weapon types in the upcoming weeks, warping is still in a pretty horrid state, balance is off…).
A new high-quality fan-made video was recorded during this week-end showcasing the planets (in the first half) and combat (second half) thanks to SpaceJay:
I also streamed a bit of the event last Saturday, you can watch the replay here:
Super cool as usual.
What changes can we expect next? Is the next thing thats going to be in the next patch new weapons, the warp rework, etc.? What is currently beeing worked on?
I’d like to know what to look forward to.
The last weeks were truly amazing with all these changes and patches coming out, thanks for that, the game is amazing!
The visuals are decidedly impressive. Nice work, INS and SpaceJay. I’m immediately reminded of the EVE Online promo materials. I look forward to a future video when everything is taken to the next level, with folks talking about how they’re going to tackle an objective with their fleet, and then showing them doing it. Fleet operations should be fairly jaw-dropping to see.
On 2 days i teamed up with another Destroyer/Cruiser while flying a cruiser myself. And i have to agree, human on human fleet operations will be quite something different. The AI that you fight all the time right now does not use teamwork. But i think the player numbers to evaluate full human fleet combat wont come before alpha the earliest.
Yes, we had AI bots to shoot! It was a nice surprise for us Dev backers just before the Alpha weekend, and really helped bring the testing weekend to life!
Yeah I mean, I have dev access as well, so it’s not like I couldn’t just hop-in there anytime I guess, but usually it’s empty and I just do a few FTL warps to planets and a lap at the race course and log off.
Q: When can I play the game?
A: This depends on your pledge tier. People who pledge the Developer Access tier will be able to play the game by sometime in January 2016 (we’ll try to get it out sooner than that if possible). Alpha access should be available around early 2018 and Beta access in in second half of 2018. The game is scheduled to ship to retail by early 2019.
He @Viejoviajero
Your profile says that you’re an Alpha Tier Backer.
You have access to alpha-backer weekends, which should become more frequent as we head towards Alpha release in early 2018.
There’s been a delay due to some blockers, that have now been resolved.
Kickstarter and Indiegogo don’t allow I-Novae to update the dates.
There seems to be a mismatch between your profile and your pledge level as you state it above. The wording you’ve put there is for developer level access. That level would give you access to the private alpha build that is online at the moment and the hidden development forum.
You may want to send a private message to @INovaeKeith if that is what your pledge level should be.
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), what did it look like on your side?
