PS2 Launching in January?

[Pyreal]

In the latest lore piece (http://www.planetside2.com/news/backstory-spalding-personal-log) we find this passage, which could be more than a clue to the expectations of the Devs:

"The journey will be long, and we still have challenges to overcome, but the fleet has real hope again! We’re slated to arrive on “New Earth” by January of next year."

SOE and the Dev team have been on this 'journey' in creating the engine and game for a 'long' time. And with CB upcoming there are still 'challenges to overcome', 'but the fleet [team] has real hope' that '"New Earth"' will arrive 'by January of next year'.


What do you think? :D

[bjorntju1]

They said multiple times on E3 they want to release the game by 2012. They also said the release date of the game depends on how beta goes, if there are lots of things that need fixing and stuff.

[HeatLegend]

Hmm... I'm pretty sure that Matt told us in an interview that it would definitely be released before the end of this year. Of course that might be in subject to change but he seemed pretty sure of what he said.

[FINALCUT]

LOL. I put this right up there with the serial number on the rifle. Nice idea though. Thinking like that should have you doing pretty good in The Secret World. I have been playing that game for a few weeks now and that game has a conspiracy theory around every corner.:lol:

[Pyreal]

Hmm... I'm pretty sure that Matt told us in an interview that it would definitely be released before the end of this year. Of course that might be in subject to change but he seemed pretty sure of what he said.

Like 'beta in a few weeks'? :p

[HeatLegend]

Like 'beta in a few weeks'? :p

Well the Beta is under-go at the moment I think, just not External as they called it... perhaps soon they'll let us in :)

[Fab]

Yeah or maybe the closed beta is ongoing but it so closed and secret that nobody told us!

Concerning January, I had the same thought when I red the backstory, but I think the beta will end sooner, I believe in higby's word.

[Pyreal]

LOL. I put this right up there with the serial number on the rifle. Nice idea though. Thinking like that should have you doing pretty good in The Secret World. I have been playing that game for a few weeks now and that game has a conspiracy theory around every corner.:lol:

It wasn't just the content, the whole piece was written in a different format than previous pieces and seemed to lack personality in that he never mentions family, friends, or duty, which would be foremost on someone's mind in times of difficulty.

It also lacked consistency. In the piece he refers to President Connery as 'Tom Connery', 'Mr. Connery', and simply 'Connery'.

We read this 'personal' log of Donald's, and at the end we have no more idea of who this person is then when we started.

It feels more like a news piece, or an editorial... or a flavored wrapping for the sneaky declaration of a January release date for PS2! O_

[infected]

tin foil hats for everyone

[Pyreal]

I believe in higby's word.

The hair is a lie. O_

[fvdham]

With the free period of PS1 ongoing
I am caring a lot less
about when PS2 will be released.

[Doxy]

I think people are reading too much into any piece of info about PS2.
It's gonna be out when when it's out.

[SleepyZombie]

Honestly 6 months of beta? Common use your noodle

[Mirror]

I think the game will launch at the beginning of December

[Rago]

6 Months for Beta is not Much, look at the Size of the Game Iho.
I was and be on Different "Beta Test´s."
Beta Test is not Beta Access right ?I would also think Next Year is more Realistic, but who know´s i did not Played it.

[Malorn]

And FPS isn't in beta nearly as long as other MMOs, which have to test a lot of content and the "end game" vs the early experience, and pvp vs pve and all that crap.

The main things for them to test are if the systems work as they expect them to and the game feels right. Some things only manifest at scale, and others only with time - sometimes both.

Big systems to test:
- Influence system & capture mechanics at-scale
- Resource system at-scale, costs of things, size of resource pool, rates of acquisition
- Mission system and how well it creates missions that get the right player distributions, or discouraging double teams against a weak opponent, etc.
- Cert gain rate over time & general experience balance for activities at-scale.
- General weapon balance
- Map/terrain balance.

For all of these things they could work just right for a small number of players but not scale well with more.

As far as actual work on the game goes, there doesn't appear to be all that much remaining. The big ticket items that I see are finishing the continents and the Heavy Assault weapons (which are carried differently and so require new animations). They may have more weapon variants and mods to make, but I expect that is mostly art assets and very little in terms of systems and programming. And of course polish, like fixing up a few animations or textures that may look wonky or rough.

The only "content" to provide in the traditional MMO sense are the continents, of which one looks close to completion (Indar) and the other two are in construction. This to me looks like the biggest challenge for them and the work items that will take the most time and effort. I think they are going to use Indar to determine how the gameplay plays out with various cover amounts and territory layouts and then use that knowledge to more rapidly develop the other continents. Would suck to make all 3 continents and then find out a particular layout or map design doesn't work as they expect it to. Another reason why I think Zurvan has changed so much over the months.

Bottom line is that given all they've done in the last 3-4 months, I find it hard to believe that they can't finish all of the systems work and balancing in that time. Creating the continents is the only thing that would seem time-consuming that might take longer than 3-4 months. That looks like the long-pole.

And if it does take more time because the continents aren't ready, that's not a huge deal as it gives the artists more time to create weapon mods, gun variants, different camo patterns, hats, etc. while the system guys fine tune the game with our testing.

I would expect they have a mid-November release date that might slip to mid-December. It isn't a pay-to-play game so they don't need to release at any particular sales time, but I expect they do want to release before the holidays so the devs have some much-deserved time off. I just hope they don't pull a Mythic and release the game with issues and then go dark for three months with no balance patches or communication.

[Gonefshn]

Interesting but I doubt its a secret message lol.

Let's just get it going so we can make our own lore!

[Rivenshield]

Honestly 6 months of beta? Common use your noodle

That's a pretty short beta for any new business system. Christ, I worked as a technical writer on an app that was being beta tested for the State of California for a year and a half and the bugger *still* wasn't live when I left.

The main cause of time/cost overruns in software development is feature bloat. If you let your user base get away with it, they will lard your app down with all manner of clutter and bullshit until you spend more time trying to unravel your own spaghetti code and squash bugs than you actually spend in freaking development.

I want to play too. But my software-development brain keeps telling me to leave the devs the hell alone. Once beta arrives, we can yell for things to be tweaked or removed.... I despise the magic bouncy trampolines they stole from Tribes, and will hate them at the top of my lungs all through beta; give us teleportation pads or something hard-sci-fi-ish... but for the love of God and the Republic, don't yell for anything *new.* And stop demanding that they rush things.

[SleepyZombie]

That's a pretty short beta for any new business system. Christ, I worked as a technical writer on an app that was being beta tested for the State of California for a year and a half and the bugger *still* wasn't live when I left.

The main cause of time/cost overruns in software development is feature bloat. If you let your user base get away with it, they will lard your app down with all manner of clutter and bullshit until you spend more time trying to unravel your own spaghetti code and squash bugs than you actually spend in freaking development.

I want to play too. But my software-development brain keeps telling me to leave the devs the hell alone. Once beta arrives, we can yell for things to be tweaked or removed.... I despise the magic bouncy trampolines they stole from Tribes, and will hate them at the top of my lungs all through beta; give us teleportation pads or something hard-sci-fi-ish... but for the love of God and the Republic, don't yell for anything *new.* And stop demanding that they rush things.
Mmmmm They have been doing internal testing for a while now... There internal testing was focused on bugs, patching and game content. Really they are only allowing us to stress there servers and net code. I am sure there will be a few bugs here and there but they are almost out of alpha and into beta... Open beta even

I am more of a realist my self so my perspective on when an application or a game is going to be released is usually a glass half empty approach... However I see it is very unlikely the game will go into 2013

[Flaropri]

It seems like their are scheduling for a November/December release (if Beta goes well). If I were their marketing, I'd probably be going for late November or January (December is a good release time, but mostly for purchased titles, the jumble of titles that usually release around then might drive down initial interest in Planetside and there's no "must buy" frenzy for F2P). Anyway, it being released "late" (according to their internal expectations and their investors hopes) is still a possibility, but it isn't the plan.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

It seems like their are scheduling for a November/December release (if Beta goes well). If I were their marketing, I'd probably be going for late November or January (December is a good release time, but mostly for purchased titles, the jumble of titles that usually release around then might drive down initial interest in Planetside and there's no "must buy" frenzy for F2P). Anyway, it being released "late" (according to their internal expectations and their investors hopes) is still a possibility, but it isn't the plan.

I'd have to disagree about december being good for purchases. Huge retail mistake to not release before black friday/cyber monday, especially since most people christmas shop in the fall.

As for PlanetSide 2, there's a lot of groundless speculation. Right now all we have to go on is 2012. Either they keep it, or push it back. Either way, until they do, 2012 is correct.

[Papscal]

It just takes one post from a Developer here on PSU to straight this whole thing out. How bout it Devs? Your balls drop yet?

[Arcticus]

I expect this game to be released in September/October.

Not before September as it needs to be tested and also no one wants to release a game while students are out of school as those students would have endless hours to bitch about any problems found at initial release.

They don't want to release after October as this is to be an F2P game. Their schedule is different from the pay-for-box and subscription games. Those paid-for games have to be hot releases during the holiday shopping season. But this F2P game has to release before then to have the customer hooked and not wanting to play the games that will be given to them as gifts. Once given enough time to be hooked, the players will want station cash as holiday gifts.

[Astrok]

Mmmmm They have been doing internal testing for a while now... There internal testing was focused on bugs, patching and game content. Really they are only allowing us to stress there servers and net code. I am sure there will be a few bugs here and there but they are almost out of alpha and into beta... Open beta even

I am more of a realist my self so my perspective on when an application or a game is going to be released is usually a glass half empty approach... However I see it is very unlikely the game will go into 2013

i think you are right here because i think they tested more then we think.Normally a closed alpha test is where they find those early bugs etc etc. but they tested it all internally so theirs no need to open the game for alpha testing again so they can actually close that part of the game and begin the stresstesting.thats why they say they will increase playercount pretty fast when they go into beta.

[Phantomdestiny]

i agree with articus's point of view they want the customers hooked up before the release of the pay games (cod , bf and other mainstream licences)

[DarkChiron]

It just takes one post from a Developer here on PSU to straight this whole thing out. How bout it Devs? Your balls drop yet?

The devs PROVING the existence of beta would interfere with your free will. You have to have faith. Because faith is a virtue.

[GLaDOS]

I have a question, because I'm actually not sure about this: Will there be that much of a difference between the open beta and the released game? I guess there will be a lot of bug fixing, optimizing, etc in the beta but that will probably continue somewhat after the release.

[Higbys Hair]

Can't have a release before Beta... Muahahah

They'll never take me alive!

:evil:

[Astrok]

6 Months for Beta is not Much, look at the Size of the Game Iho.
I was and be on Different "Beta Test´s."
Beta Test is not Beta Access right ?I would also think Next Year is more Realistic, but who know´s i did not Played it.

you should know that what we test normally they already did internal.So it could be that the only test we will do is the server test (Stress test)y already did interna.And stress testing for 6 months is long lol

[Antivide]

Then who was phone?

[DarkChiron]

you should know that what we test normally they already did internal.So it could be that the only test we will do is the server test (Stress test)y already did interna.And stress testing for 6 months is long lol

They still need enough people to test things on a large scale. They still need a large quantity of people to tell them what they need to do to make the game balanced and fun to play. Sometimes when you're working in an office with a tight-knit group, you create your own little bubble where things make sense and work wonderfully. Then, when you get out into the real world, that stops being the case. That is especially true for a game like this that you release to the public, who is notorious for finding new and exciting ways to exploit and break the system in unexpected ways.