PVKII Release Poll

Crazytalk · October 2014

Greetings everyone!

We've been hard at work behind the scenes churning out content and squeezing out bugs, but we've still not hit that point where we feel the patch is ready to go public.

However! We made a promise to release the Man-at-Arms in October, so we've run into a problem. We aren't sure if we should polish up what we have and release the patch unfinished, or do we hold off until everything is ready (By end of year)?

We feel this decision should be up to our loyal fans, so we're opening a poll for you to decide the fate of our next patch. The poll will close on Friday, October 24th.

Here are just a few areas that still need to be finished:

Combat system changes need more testing
Hints/Guidance system to teach the game to new players still needs work
Unfinished achievements
Some animation/attachment issues
Maps still being finalized/polished -- most are about 95% ready

Do you prefer to play what we have by the end of October, or do you prefer to wait for a final product?

The choice is yours, so vote now!

OPlatypus · October 2014

I say release the unfinished version, it would be like having a bunch of beta testers testing the new maps and class. You wouldn't be the first game to release buggy unfinished content. Maybe make another thread where people can report bugs or complain about maps and "THE MAA IS 2 OVERPOWRDD" because frankly, these types of posts will be made anyway.

Paladin · October 2014

What if it ends in a draw?

Felis · October 2014

It's pretty hard to choose, if the unfinished build will be released as opt-in Steam beta I would be okay with it. Sadly, that would split the community in half though. Replacing current stable build with unfinished one would be a terrible idea. I'll pick the "wait for complete build" option since I would rather play a working game instead of buggy broken unstable piece of shirley.

EDIT: And I didn't mean by that the current dev build is that broken, just in general, do you really want to play an unstable game? Give the devs a little more time to polish it and fix the rest of the bugs.

Spirrwell · October 2014

It would be helpful to come to a decision if we could be made aware of what problems there are. What stability issues are there? Also, it would make quite a bit of sense to release it in October now and continue with a patch once stability has been improved. However, again, without knowing exactly what these stability issues are I will certainly stay on the side of releasing it this month. I'm fairly certain that much of the stability gained by switching to the Source 2013 engine will counteract any instability that exists.

I say simply make it clear that instabilities still exist upon release and then come with a patch later. October was our promised release time, so I wouldn't think that any kinks couldn't be worked out by next month.

Edit: And to be clear, I'm talking stability, not functionality as the first post points out. As I was responding mainly to Felis calling it out as a buggy broken unstable piece of shirley.

SexualSharpShooter · October 2014

Yes! but it's coming out ON THE DAY I HAVE VACATION.
Damn it.

but good riddance! I can't wait.

KOKORONOKAWARI · October 2014

Spirrwell wrote:

However, again, without knowing exactly what these stability issues are I will certainly stay on the side of releasing it this month

If the concern is if the game breaks apart/won't open/isn't playable upon release that should not be a concern in regards to the vote. There are risks that could occur as past releases have shown but "not likely" to the degree that the "spawn deaths" that happened some patches ago. What Crazytalk has stated is pretty much what you should be going with in this decision.

To those concerned about the "wait" being years, that would not be the case here as Crazytalk has stated the main points. It would likely be before 2015.

Spirrwell · October 2014

In that case, I'm perfectly content with October.

Colonel · October 2014

Obviously, it is disappointing to fans that we're not in an ideal position to release 3.0 in gold form right now, but we want to give you the option of getting what you want in some form. Our release has to occur this year, and there is no doubt it will.
The dev & tester team has pushed hard to get to where we are. Many are back in fine form. Akz, Gaz, Jimonions, Ubermann, Miggog, Crazytalk, jRocket, our awesome bunch of artists, and don't forget our amazing group of testers. We would've probably released sometime mid next year if it wasn't for rowing harder.

TrojanClinique · October 2014

Release when its finished.

Saias9 · October 2014

Wait til its finished.

Orochi · October 2014

I suggest you guys to wait, playing it early would just spoil you all the fun, trust me.

OPlatypus wrote:

I say release the unfinished version, it would be like having a bunch of beta testers testing the new maps and class. You wouldn't be the first game to release buggy unfinished content. Maybe make another thread where people can report bugs or complain about maps and "THE MAA IS 2 OVERPOWRDD" because frankly, these types of posts will be made anyway.

If that was the case there would be no need for a tester's team

. And yes these types of post will be made anyway but to a lesser extent, we could probably avoid 9/10 of complaints with the final product.

Also I know how are you guys feeling right now, the hype is just too much because you guys waited long enough but that's why I'm telling you that waiting another bit is necessary to truly enjoy our efforts in making 3.0 the best PVKII update in history! you waited years guys! why ruin it for a couple of months?

Black Bellamy · October 2014

End of the year?! holy moly that's a lot longer but i got plenty of other games to play so i can wait personally

AGSMA · October 2014

I'd say work on it until it's finished. Right now the maps look near perfect but there are some rough edges. A two-part update would also be something plausible, since this new update brings quite a fair amount of content.

Major Chulain · October 2014

typical

bERt0r · October 2014

Hand ovarr some gameplay footage first if yerr want me to release my vote! I be talking about some stream where you show what yerr wanna finish not the promo trailer

Jizzler · October 2014

who would have guessed?

1dominator1 · October 2014

I registered just to vote!

KOKORONOKAWARI · October 2014

Major Chulain wrote:

typical

typical (reply)

you'll still be playing

Dr.Cleric · October 2014

At the time of my voting, my vote made it tie 19 = 19. I'm cool with waiting.

Black Bellamy · October 2014

If it gets released early and its shirley blame it all on the "release it" voters

Noah es Frio · October 2014

I think Man at Arms should be released now. We've simply waited too long and it will bring back more players to the game I think. The other stuff and the fixes can wait until December. Besides, having two updates in a year would be even more exciting anyway, and give the game more of a "continuously updated" feeling.

shabba · October 2014

Ukyo Kuonji · October 2014

Wait until it's finished. I've waited this long already, and I can continue to wait. Heck, we might get lucky and they release it a bit early because of amazing progress

OPlatypus · October 2014

Paladin wrote:

What if it ends in a draw?

But seriously, it seems pretty even what if it DOES end up as a draw? A round on the map crazy bridge, with all release it voters vs wait for complete update voters?

Links121995 · October 2014

If it ends in a draw, they take some time to fix some stuff, and then release it in a slightly less-finished state than they'd like.

Chedda Cheez · October 2014

The wording of the announcement makes me think people are misinterpreting what "unfinished" will mean in the case of releasing early.

I think they believe it to be something like "We'll release all features of the update at various states of polish, from completely buggy and ridiculous to kinda rough."
At least, that's what the early-release disagreements seem to be saying.

I think it is more "We'll release a good portion of the update in a well-polished state but you have to wait for the other part as well as subtle finishing touches."

If it really is the prior, then I'll vote wait. If it is the latter, then I'm all for early.

Spirrwell · October 2014

Black Bellamy wrote:

If it gets released early and its shirley blame it all on the "release it" voters

Oh?

Skweez Cheez wrote:

The wording of the announcement makes me think people are misinterpreting what "unfinished" will mean in the case of releasing early.

I think they believe it to be something like "We'll release all features of the update at various states of polish, from completely buggy and ridiculous to kinda rough."
At least, that's what the early-release disagreements seem to be saying.

I think it is more "We'll release a good portion of the update in a well-polished state but you have to wait for the other part as well as subtle finishing touches."

If it really is the prior, then I'll vote wait. If it is the latter, then I'm all for early.

Precisely. I had asked about its stability and it seems quite clear that it's not simply a pile of bugs and instability. Just a matter of polish. If you build a racecar and forget to paint it or a portion of it, it's still a racecar. Here's the list of things needing to be done:

Combat system changes need more testing
Hints/Guidance system to teach the game to new players still needs work
Unfinished achievements
Some animation/attachment issues
Maps still being finalized/polished -- most are about 95% ready

Now here's a list of things that we're gaining:

Man-at-Arms
Multicore support
Multi-platform support (Linux, Mac, and Windows)
Announcers
New maps
Rift support (Mind the date)
Bug fixes
Enhanced water shader
Combat updates

These mean a lot of different things to different people I suppose. I think that the most pressing issue would be the animation attachment issues, but from my own experience with those, they shouldn't take incredibly long to sort out. Unfinished achievements however, I have no idea. I don't really think that they play as a detriment to functionality. If you think of the massive amount of TF2 achievements, they get updated all the time. So I don't see it as a big deal really to let them be finished next month or something in a patch.

To each their own I suppose.

Also, I think it's quite important to keep in mind waiting a couple months would not necessarily mean its release. It could still take longer, unforeseen issues, that sort of thing.

Combine · October 2014

I'd like him to be released this month since like the trailer says "This October" and pretty much built up everyones hype but it's kinda like breaking a promise you know "Man at Arms, coming this October" but then doesn't come out on October is kinda a disappointment but i know theres issues and stuff going on but this is just what i think about it.

Spirrwell · October 2014

KOKORONOKAWARI wrote:

Giving dates tend to not be a good idea because then there is a "commitment to fulfill this time" (in a game that is free and is done on spare time cause life/jobs/family/school/etc) and if it is not honored then there will be lots of outrage by people. Even larger games like League know this and said this as well and they work on that game for a living. Things can randomly happen as well that may have the date be another time etc. The only real thing that needs to be known is it will come~

inb4 "4 years from now" jokes

He called it, and ironically, not long after he said it, the October release was confirmed. *CONSPIRACY I SAY*

Just kidding about the conspiracy thing.

KOKORONOKAWARI · October 2014

Combine™ wrote:

I'd like him to be released this month since like the trailer says "This October" and pretty much built up everyones hype but it's kinda like breaking a promise you know "Man at Arms, coming this October" but then doesn't come out on October is kinda a disappointment but i know theres issues and stuff going on but this is just what i think about it.

That is why I never liked the idea of giving any release date for anything unless it is very close. Gamer entitlement etc mentality especially in a free game. Same applies to other free or even paid games.

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