Alpha, beta ... launch!

[victor]

After almost 3000 hours of testing I've seen hundreds of features - in RvR, PVP and PVE - come, change, go, return, re-change, re-go, pass. I've seen thousands of interesting proposals discussed for weeks and months on forums. Some came into the game other did not. I tested summer mega patches as well as countless "no clue of what is all about" mini patches. I tried to squeeze information from mysterious half patch notes or simply by in game trial and error. I stockpiled - used and lost - gold, marks, resources and ships, just to have them wiped a couple of times. That's fair mates .... well, I re-stockpiled as twice as much, knowing that most likely I will loose them again.

Now I'm basically thinking  ... c'mon Devs, stop messing with some core feature every couple of month: just fix the infamous "inland ship" bug, change and polish the UI, slap in a good tutorial for new players, just let us know in due advance what you will wipe and not wipe in the last wipe, but - for Matusalem white beard's sake - end this eternal alphabetagamma phase, and launch the darn game!

Or ... at least, may we have an updated ETA of the final launch?

Is this a rant? No. I basically like the game and I'm still around in the sea almost every day.

is this a dream? I'd say it's more some kind of wish for a lot of testers.

Am I close to a naval action test burnout? Dunno ... maybe.

PS: to the "may I have your things" people. The answer is ...

Edited November 23, 2017 by victor

[admin]

10 minutes ago, victor said:

 

Now I'm basically thinking  ... c'mon Devs, stop messing with some core feature every couple of month: just fix the infamous "inland ship" bug, change and polish the UI, slap in a good tutorial for new players, just let us know in due advance what you will wipe and not wipe in the last wipe, but - for Matusalem white beard's sake - end this eternal alphabetagamma phase, and launch the darn game!

tutorial
interface
localization
launch

in parallel BR, speeds, performance rebalance

[victor]

Just now, admin said:

tutorial
interface
localization
launch

in parallel BR, speeds, performance rebalance

soon (TM) ... of course,

Anyway thanks for your answer.

[admin]

Just now, victor said:

soon (TM) ... of course,

Anyway thanks for your answer.

tutorial is almost ready

 

[TrackTerror]

Yes some mechanics are beeing reworked constantly over and over again. Rather then adding new content or features, batllemechanics ROE and  RVR are constantly reworked even tough it is already of acceptable standard, nothing stops the devs from revisiting this after release or when more content have been added, but they keep insisting on redoing it.

Now reading the forums, lately it now looks like they actually working in parallel. Some guys are wokring on next patch concurrently with some devs working on new features (in this case the UI as example). This I feel is a much better approach as it gives the players constant updates (thumbs up to the devs for that) to keep player retention high, and if it is cheaper in labor hours to rework stuff then I feel this is acceptable.

But bottomline is, more content and features, and less fiddling around with existing content

[Archaos]

If the game is struggling to keep people now how will releasing it help? All the people who are now crying out for the game to be launched soon are the same people who will probably moan after launch that the game was released before it was ready. Final release is no magic fix for the game to attract players, you may get an initial influx of players but soon you will be back to where you are now. Until they can start attracting back people who have stopped playing but love the genre, then I think they will struggle.

[victor]

Just now, Intrepido said:

After reading this, Im worried. No new ships and more varied content... both badly needed.

 

Please reconsider it. We all want a good game launch.

Adding a new ship (as, for other games, a new piece of gear) after the launch of a game is quite natural in MMO games, so I would not be so worried (even because, in case of wipe, I would prefer to get that ship and keep it).

As far as the more content issue is concerned, I can be on your side (but I know that also the add of new kind of contents after the launch is rather common in this kind of games)

[MasterBurte]

28 minutes ago, TrackTerror said:

...Rather then adding new content or features, batllemechanics ROE and  RVR are constantly reworked even tough it is already of acceptable standard, nothing stops the devs from revisiting this after release or when more content have been added, but they keep insisting on redoing it....

In todays world games with only acceptable standard won't be attractive for very long. If you don't want a dropping player base you have to do something special that attracts many players. Your goals should always be higher than what you could possible achieve, that's the only way to achieve the impossible. This game is very interesting indead, but the question is, is standard enough. I don't think so. This game has the potential to be a AA historic correct naval battle simulator. Trible A only if they get more money = more players.

Look at Star Citizen for example, what it achieves for the hole gaming community.

[TrackTerror]

14 minutes ago, MasterBurte said:

 

Look at Star Citizen for example, what it achieves for the hole gaming community.

Yup, they spent 600k USD on headbobbing tweaks. great value for money.

[victor]

6 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

First reviews are the most important for a game.

I can assure you that a review telling "lack of content" wont attract potential buyers.

 

Despite adding new contents and fixing the main issues, some games still get quite bad reviews from late owning players.

Indeed. But also "endless beta" reviews are also not that good.

I add that, feature creep is one of the biggest enemy of any game developer. Everyone in this world - well, except Chris Roberts that is a gambler that likes playing with fire - know this.

I am inclined to suppose (at least from the last moves of Game Labs) that Naval action already sold enough copies to pay its development until now. So they first walked some day ago the path of undercut price sales of the beta client (basically to get some money to fix, polish and finish the game for the launch) so they can proceed further with the launch of the product, followed by new contents only once - after the launch - more fresh cash has come.

Remember that we all are almost veteran players (so it is understandable that we would like to have more contents), but - for new players - the game will actually have a lot of "new" content.

So - under a business perspective - launching the game after fixing just some last things, polishing the interface and creating a tutorial makes perfectly sense.

In other words: let's try to be realistic: which brand shiny new content is likely to come into the game NOW and HERE for a MMO game with a shrinked playerbase of bored veteran testers that is not paying recurring fees?

If - as I hope - with the official launch new players will come, then there will be the resources to develop new contents (I mean, contents that are new for us veterans).

I am therefore grateful to the Devs that thay made clear that - basically - THIS  (I mean the one we are playing now) is the game that will be launched and that the launch is not so far away in the future.

[Lz3]

@admin The really important part is: What is the tutorial for? Are there separate tutorials for separate parts of the game? Is there only one big tutorial? Is there a discord like tutorial with explanation marks? The thing with tutorials is they shouldn't take long, should have a skip button, but should cover EVERYTHING (preferably not at once). and you should always be able to redo the tutorial.

So, what's planned?

Edited November 23, 2017 by Lz3

[Fargo]

1 minute ago, Intrepido said:

I can assure you that a review telling "lack of content" wont attract potential buyers.

I can assure you that nobody is going to blame a sandbox game for the lack of specific content, unless they directly promote "exiting PvE content" on the box. Currently you wont find a single word about PvE content, therefore people wont expect it. Sure it would be positive to have it, but its not negative to not have it. 

[Salty Sails]

1 hour ago, victor said:

After almost 3000 hours of testing I've seen hundreds of features - in RvR, PVP and PVE - come, change, go, return, re-change, re-go, pass. I've seen thousands of interesting proposals discussed for weeks and months on forums. Some came into the game other did not. I tested summer mega patches as well as countless "no clue of what is all about" mini patches. I tried to squeeze information from mysterious half patch notes or simply by in game trial and error. I stockpiled - used and lost - gold, marks, resources and ships, just to have them wiped a couple of times. That's fair mates .... well, I re-stockpiled as twice as much, knowing that most likely I will loose them again.

Now I'm basically thinking  ... c'mon Devs, stop messing with some core feature every couple of month: just fix the infamous "inland ship" bug, change and polish the UI, slap in a good tutorial for new players, just let us know in due advance what you will wipe and not wipe in the last wipe, but - for Matusalem white beard's sake - end this eternal alphabetagamma phase, and launch the darn game!

Or ... at least, may we have an updated ETA of the final launch?

Is this a rant? No. I basically like the game and I'm still around in the sea almost every day.

is this a dream? I'd say it's more some kind of wish for a lot of testers.

Am I close to a naval action test burnout? Dunno ... maybe.

PS: to the "may I have your things" people. The answer is ...

The DEVs allways told us, game labs is a small studio with just a few people.

But why this team never focused on finishing the OW Game??? 

Almost 3 years of never ending testing bullshit mechniacs and still not playable for all players( crafting/Trading, PVP, PVE)!

Instead of finish the progress, they start with other games, like Legends, UGCW and  the new This Land is mine??? 

WTF!!! 

shame!!!

 

[Slim McSauce]

Once we get a functioning tutorial we can finally allow PVP back on the PVP server!

[Salty Sails]

1 minute ago, Slim Jimmerson said:

Once we get a functioning tutorial we can finally allow PVP back on the PVP server!

PVP only works with people who play this game?! So 500-550 maintime???😂

[Fargo]

53 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Fortunately it will easy to check who is right.

Reading through recent reviews i cant see any tendency of people complaining about PvE in the first place?!

If people do so its not a fair review and someone should simply comment it. The problem with the internet is stupidity everywhere.

[Fargo]

10 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

I think it is fair to say the game lacks pve attention.

No, because "lacking" presupposes that its supposed to be there.

 

[jodgi]

5 hours ago, Sepp Stuart said:

Instead of finish the progress, they start with other games, like Legends, UGCW and  the new This Land is mine??? 

WTF!!! 

shame!!!

UG was before Naval Action. I love them for making Legends.

[Salty Sails]

13 minutes ago, jodgi said:

UG was before Naval Action. I love them for making Legends.

you mean gettysburg... sure... but what about civil war?

[jodgi]

2 minutes ago, Sepp Stuart said:

you mean gettysburg... sure... but what about civil war?

Haven't the slightest clue, I'm a sailor not a soldier.

[Rigge1988]

On 2017-11-23 at 3:29 PM, Intrepido said:

Most but not all.

Recent reviews:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198058547790/recommended/311310/

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198087204933/recommended/311310/

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197987152970/recommended/311310/

Value for money = 100% No

.

.

Overall: 6/10

 

Guy must be picky

 

Btw. Can someone explain "localization". As just throwing the word out there could mean a hundred things.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Rigge1988

[CatSwift]

3 minutes ago, Rigge1988 said:

Btw. Can someone explain "localization". As just throwing the word out there could mean a hundred things.

it means the written text in the game can be toggled to display in different languages.

[Rigge1988]

Just now, CatSwift said:

it means the written text in the game can be toggled to display in different languages.

Guess I was quite far off then