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They paid for alpha access, end of story. The only reason to stop them from entering is because the servers can't handle them, any other reason is invalid.
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Oct 21, 2013 16:39
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Niedar posted:They paid for alpha access, end of story. The only reason to stop them from entering is because the servers can't handle them, any other reason is invalid. This. Sorry if the game isn't amusing enough for you personally, but they aren't going to delay access for the other alpha backers until you say it's fun enough, nor should they. e: Furthermore it's not like they aren't working on the other stuff. I imagine the server stability team and the card mechanic team would be completely different. Neraren fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 16:43
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We all understand that this is an alpha and the game needs work. That doesn't change the fact that people are getting kind of annoyed that we haven't seen any movement on this front, and I've gotta admit, I'm kinda annoyed myself, $250 is not exactly chump change to me, and I kind of want to see something for that at this point, since we were promised it. Perhaps it would have been better for this if they had a steady trickle of people getting into the alpha instead of the whole wave system, with maybe letting 100-200 people in each week instead of over a thousand at a time with the wave system.
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Oct 21, 2013 16:46
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Niedar posted:They paid for alpha access, end of story. The only reason to stop them from entering is because the servers can't handle them, any other reason is invalid. I don't think it's just the servers. Let's say they hired out Google's server farm tomorrow, solving the stability issue, and immediately let in all 17,000+ backers. All that would do -- in terms of helping the alpha -- is generate thousands more bug reports of the same bugs over and over again, all of which would have to be processed, taking up man-hours. . . The alpha still needs to be a working alpha. This isn't a standard open beta type setup where it's as simple as "I preordered so I want in early to stress test the servers." At this stage I suspect they still need to keep the data pool fairly small so that it's manageable. Once the biggest and most obvious bugs are all taken care of, then yeah, they will need more people to find all the strange bugs that only thousands of people playing against each other to find every possible combo can discover. But I'm not sure they need to do that yet because it seems like they have their time filled up fixing the obvious crash bugs and gamestoppers. Admittedly I'm no game dev so I could be talking out my rear end here, but I suspect there are a lot of reasons beyond pure server stability to keep things small at this point. And people are getting what they were promised. Alpha did start in October (which frankly surprised me, I was expecting them to miss that deadline), they are letting people in and making progress. I don't think it'll be that much longer before the $250 tier gets in -- I suspect last Saturday's attempt at a stress test was an attempt to prepare for the next "wave." Just, like, don't get in and then start freaking out because "I PAID MONEY AND MY FAVORITE CARD ISN'T EVEN IN THIS ALPHA YET" or whatever. Neraren posted:
That's actually a good point. Either way, though, I just don't think the game is ready for thousands of players right now, even setting stability issues aside. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 16:52
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This is starting to sound like the official Hex forums, I thought we were better than this.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:17
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As someone with a $250 pledge and a functioning brain, I'm okay with waiting until the game is more stable before unleashing a couple thousand people on it.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:And people are getting what they were promised. Estimated delivery: Sep 2013 That was for beta Let's not go justifying failures just because. They hosed up on their estimates and told us stuff they shouldn't have. At this point it's just annoying to keep waiting with no real estimate of when things will be ready. What I want is a project manager who knows what the gently caress they're doing to give a solid estimate of when I can expect my poo poo and sticking to that date. No one wants more promises that can't be fulfilled. I personally want something to instill me with confidence that future estimates will be accurate. signalnoise fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 17:27
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^^^ Let me tell you about a little thing called the Kickstarter TOS that you agreed to when you handed over your money. The Estimated Delivery Date listed on each reward is not a promise to fulfill by that date, but is merely an estimate of when the Project Creator hopes to fulfill by. You gave CZE money and they are going to deliver, just not when they said they would. Niedar posted:They paid for alpha access, end of story. The only reason to stop them from entering is because the servers can't handle them, any other reason is invalid.  In the grand scheme of what there is to whine about re: internet cardboards, you choose a timing delay to access of a barely functional tech demo. If there was crying about them suddenly deciding our kickstarter tiers were going to lose half of their product or something that matters, I'd be all up for some furiously posted angry words. If this whole delay just gets under your skin that much, why don't you get a chargeback and put your money where your posts are? Obviously CZE is incompetent or you have some other entitlement driven opinion, right? Don't let anyone hold you back, you are OWED for your wise investment into 2d rectangular mans, good sir. Blazing Zero fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 17:31
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While I'm looking forward to the game, I'm not really antsy about getting to play alpha. The impermanence of the stuff I open, as opposed to beta where everything I get is mine, plus the bugs they're still working through, makes me want to just wait for beta even if alpha would give me something of a leg up on learning how the interface works and how different decks play out.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:33
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Pyrolocutus posted:While I'm looking forward to the game, I'm not really antsy about getting to play alpha. The impermanence of the stuff I open, as opposed to beta where everything I get is mine, plus the bugs they're still working through, makes me want to just wait for beta even if alpha would give me something of a leg up on learning how the interface works and how different decks play out. You're... not opening stuff in Alpha? You just get all the cards that are currently working and are told to go break the game.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:39
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I'm not sure why anyone is in a rush for alpha. I am in the alpha and holding off playing until another patch or two. There's nothing to do really. Look at that pdf with the cards. It's about as productive as having alpha access right now.Niedar posted:They paid for alpha access, end of story. The only reason to stop them from entering is because the servers can't handle them, any other reason is invalid.
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Oct 21, 2013 18:01
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Did a single one of you actually read what that was in response to? It was in response for someone calling to delay alpha invites so that they could implement more cards.
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Oct 21, 2013 18:02
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katkillad2 posted:This is starting to sound like the official Hex forums, I thought we were better than this. Edit: Though it does suck seeing someone else play with a toy you were also promised. At least Starbound doesn't have a small group being able to play while a the rest wait outside, but Hex is doing it for a good reason, I think. Veyrall fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 18:08
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I'm in the alpha as I am a GK. I think if they get out another patch that improves the game as much as this last patch did, then we'll see a stress test, and invites to the $250 tier people. I'm sure they are working on all the low hanging fruit. But right now it's still not stable enough to add a bunch more people IMO. They already have plenty of bug reports/data from the people that they have invited. No need to overwhelm them. Doing that wouldn't improve the game faster. Even after this last patch I have games hang because at the pass priority thing. When Alpha started I was completing maybe 1 in 4 games, and now it seems like a bit better than 50% of the games actually complete. I sympathize with the people who want their invites though. It just needs more work before the floodgates open, and I think that's to everyone's benefit.
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Oct 21, 2013 18:08
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Blazing Zero posted:^^^ Let me tell you about a little thing called the Kickstarter TOS that you agreed to when you handed over your money. Oh for fucks sake are you actually doing this The "kickstarter is not a store" argument is still up for grabs if you want it
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Oct 21, 2013 18:17
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signalnoise posted:Oh for fucks sake are you actually doing this Just because you posted that doesn't make it not true. Kickstarter is in fact, not a pre-order of a finished, guaranteed-to-succeed product. So what's your point?
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Oct 21, 2013 19:08
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None of us are even going to remember or care about this in 6 months.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:14
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Blazing Zero posted:Just because you posted that doesn't make it not true. Kickstarter is in fact, not a pre-order of a finished, guaranteed-to-succeed product. So what's your point? My point was that your "it's not a promise" poo poo doesn't make my irritation with their inability to properly set customer expectations any less valid. On kickstarter it said "estimated delivery," not "promised deadline." Who gives a poo poo if it's a promise or not. September was the first date they set for expected release of the beta. Later they said if they received x amount of dollars they'd release with alpha instead. They blew past the expectation they set with beta, and now they've released alpha only if you're in a specific group. I am not saying they OWE me a game. I'm saying they are lovely at setting expectations and I'd really like them to stop teasing me. It's a really poor precedent for future expectations given this is not a product with a single release.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:35
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Not to interrupt this thrilling slapfight, but they posted that they've got the new server, fixed more bugs, and have rescheduled the ai stress test for tonight.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:52
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signalnoise posted:My point was that your "it's not a promise" poo poo doesn't make my irritation with their inability to properly set customer expectations any less valid. On kickstarter it said "estimated delivery," not "promised deadline." Who gives a poo poo if it's a promise or not. September was the first date they set for expected release of the beta. Later they said if they received x amount of dollars they'd release with alpha instead. They blew past the expectation they set with beta, and now they've released alpha only if you're in a specific group. I am not saying they OWE me a game. I'm saying they are lovely at setting expectations and I'd really like them to stop teasing me. It's a really poor precedent for future expectations given this is not a product with a single release. I'm surprised by how rough the game is actually. What were they thinking when they thought they would be able to launch a beta about one month ago? It's fairly broken right now and probably a good 2 months away from being polished enough to call it a 'beta'. Game mechanics and a fun game seem very much part of CZE's core competencies. I think making a digital game client/backend is obviously not, and seems to have been harder than they thought it was going to be.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:53
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katkillad2 posted:This is starting to sound like the official Hex forums, I thought we were better than this. Found the thread, read one page back, didn't want to go further. This is almost spot on. All this thread is missing is big signatures for lovely guilds that no one cares about and a few bad community mods on power trips.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:57
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I get that people want to play but the stability isn't there yet. I haven't been playing much since I got into the Hearthstone beta. I am still super excited for Hex, but the Alpha isn't quite far enough along to be a good time after the first couple hours.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:35
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tijag posted:I'm surprised by how rough the game is actually. What were they thinking when they thought they would be able to launch a beta about one month ago? It's fairly broken right now and probably a good 2 months away from being polished enough to call it a 'beta'. I think Cory is a very optimistic person. Big creative entrepreneurial types tend to be.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:45
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Afgad posted:I was extra excited to see we have at least one other member living on my side of the world. I live in Taiwan, so I am always missing out on the crowds. Lookin' forward to playing with you Grim  I only know a few other people irl who backed the game, none of them seem to be as keen as everyone here to get into the Alpha - I tried to show the game off to someone and just couldn't log in, then later when I tried to show it to my brother the pass priority bug meant he couldn't finish a single game.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:56
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Really, the delays don't bother me as long as significant progress is being made. Bugs happen in any software, the difference is that good software is designed in such a way that they are easy to find and fix. The next month or two is key, if they can push out updates that make the game stable they are golden, if we are still getting frequent crashes then it's a very bad sign. If the software is well designed, then they should be able to work though these issues quickly. if the software is badly designed, then it will keep crashing and become like the MTGO Beta, where massive amounts of effort are needed to make the software usable, and there will be no way to make it truly great short of starting from scratch.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:09
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Grim posted:I only know a few other people irl who backed the game, none of them seem to be as keen as everyone here to get into the Alpha - I tried to show the game off to someone and just couldn't log in, then later when I tried to show it to my brother the pass priority bug meant he couldn't finish a single game. Based on the reports here in this thread on what the Alpha is like, I don't want to play it yet either. Also I realized the irony of my statement about missing crowds after I posted. Taiwan is the 17th most population dense country/territory in the world. Anyway, Taiwanese don't play English games as a rule. They're more likely to play Japanese games. Back on topic, thanks for the tips on bombs. I guess I'll just have to learn what's what as I play a lot of drafts. I'll definitely be playing Swedish style. Anyone else looking forward to exploring theme decks and other crazy stuff? I enjoy playing The Best Deck, but I also get a real kick out of making decks that are pretty good, but also are just fun or have a theme. Stuff like making a girl-power deck with only cards featuring women, or an all-dragon deck, or picking out a card everyone says is bad and trying to make it the best it can be. Plus I think it'll be cool to run faction decks. The world they have isn't the coolest thing ever, but I think the story is pretty solid, especially for an MMO (which are notorious for bad writing). Speaking of female cards, has anyone else noticed the lack of women in the artwork? Now, I'm not going "OMG SEXIST" because the artwork they do have with women is totally classy (they don't even have boob-plate most of the time!) but they still seem to be outnumbered like 4 to 1. It probably doesn't help that two of the races have no women at all, and it's just really hard to tell with the shin'hare sometimes (concubunnies excepted).
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Oct 22, 2013 03:47
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tijag posted:I'm surprised by how rough the game is actually. What were they thinking when they thought they would be able to launch a beta about one month ago? It's fairly broken right now and probably a good 2 months away from being polished enough to call it a 'beta'. They were thinking they'd get 300K as a last ditch funding bridge and got 2M+, then had to adjust their business requirements to match the stretch goals, hire more people, and plan for a rollout to tens of thousands instead of dozens, all of which pushed back the timeframes. Check my old posts ITT - I'm honestly impressed they made October with anything and would've bet December before it came out.
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Oct 22, 2013 08:26
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But Adar, CZE made ~promises~ and didn't keep their ~word~ so how dare you have a reasonable outlook because I'm not in alpha yet! Better check your privilege!Afgad posted:snip I'm interested in wacky deck shenanigans myself and making things like the 5000 damage spear work is something dear to my heart. The lore they have is better than what I would have expected and has enough loose ends which I'm hopeful they will run with. As I remember it, they have a dedicated guy writing all this stuff so that's neat. The necrotic are a fascinating spin on traditional zombie junk. Are they dedicated zealots of some voice in their head? Intelligent creatures who realize that they represent horror made flesh and have no choice but to fight for their right to survive? Does any human memory remain? All of that is cool. The rest of the races seem lack luster in comparison, but I'd buy a well written book about the necrotic. Lack of female cards, I wouldn't worry about it much. The ones that already exist are amazing, like that orc gladiator who transforms into an elder. Just keep dropping hints that you'd like to see more and I'm sure we'll see it. The fact that the ridiculously fanservice'd coyotle female mage got axed is another positive sign in that regard. But yeah, let's see some battle crazed female shin'hare warriors, not just concubunnies. All shin'hare get thrown into the grinder, right?
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Oct 22, 2013 09:10
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Blazing Zero posted:But Adar, CZE made ~promises~ and didn't keep their ~word~ so how dare you have a reasonable outlook because I'm not in alpha yet! Better check your privilege! Oh yeah I saw that spear and I immediately had fun thoughts. As for the lore, I think I can agree that the necrotic have a lot of potential. I also honestly like the shin'hare, they're like self-inflicting eugenics Nazis. I think the coyotle have a lot of potential too. Honestly, games that have any serious culture based on Native cultures (not necessarily American) are seriously rare. People in general (probably including me) don't know enough about that sort of mindset to really relate to it, so nobody bothers. I think seeing a wider variety of RL cultures in a game is progressive and original. I also like making interesting lore-based decks. What do you think about a deck that is in civil war with itself? The shin'hare enslaved the shroomkin, right? But there are lots of cards that could work with the theme that the shroomkin are in rebellion. These cards are all suitable for this: Mushwocky Boltpaw wizard Blood Cauldron Ritualist Bloodbearer Shin'hare highborn (shroomkin in the picture) Necessary sacrifice (Shin'hare on the card) Hideous conversion (has a shroomkin on it) Get out the boltpaw wizards and ritualists, and the mushwocky, and start having at one another. More shin'hare would die, of course, but it could get pretty gruesome. The only problem would be that shroomkin troops are expensive and rare enough that you wouldn't want to sacrifice them. I can't help but think that decks like this will just get more and more possible as the card base expands, and I get really excited about it. They won't ever be the best decks, but at least they'll be different. I don't know about you guys, but the thing I dislike most about MMOs (including games like LoL) is the attitude people have of "It must be done this way, this is the optimal path. No innovation allowed." that inevitably takes root. Screw that.
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Oct 22, 2013 10:54
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Posted last night:quote:Thank you to everyone who participated in the alpha stress test. The engineers have the information they need. We are continuing to work on the next patch, and we have some special announcements coming this week. Please keep an eye on the Kickstarter updates page and on HEXTCG.com. Cory teased some information as well in the weekly update last week. quote:Hi Everyone! So I wanted to jump in and let you know that we have some exciting news coming next week, and before the inevitable “what it all means” questions come up,let me say: Is important for Cryptozoic to “know what you don’t know.” So, been an amount of speculation, the most common ideas are either that they're bringing in some outside help, or someone bought them. Personally, the only person I can think that would be worth teasing is Richard Garfield, which I sincerely doubt. I'm leaning towards a partnership with a distributor. Pie in the sky hope is that maybe they cut a deal with Valve. Or, god forbid, they're going Origin exclusive.
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Oct 22, 2013 14:54
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Go RV! posted:
Coupled with the "Origin" mention I read that as Richard Garriott and was very confused for a bit. Though it would explain why every Hex player has their own castle. Otherwise this is a little worrying, but I guess we'll see.
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Oct 22, 2013 14:59
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Cory hasn't really been one to call bad news "exciting" so far, so if it's a buyout it's likely to be a buyout by someone who's going to treat them well. (Some people on the official forums are speculating Riot Games, since Hex has been pushing the esports angle quite heavily. Others are speculating Valve. Others are speculating Blizzard for some insane reason, despite Hex being a competitor to Hearthstone and despite WoWTCG ending.) If they're bringing in outside help, then it's unlikely to be on the order of one or two new programmers or they wouldn't bother hyping it beforehand. Switching programming teams entirely would be insane at this point, so I doubt that's it either. Most likely it means they've decided who they're contracting the iOS version out to. (If this is the case, I really hope it's Playdek - they've worked with CZE before, and they're very good at adaptations of board and card games.) Another possibility is that more waves of alpha invites are going to start going out regularly. This would very much fit with Cory being cagey about the details, since by this point he's learned that the forums explode into whining whenever he gives an estimate that turns out to be wrong. It would also fit with the tease coming shortly after the AI stress test. The only other option I can think of is that they've sorted out the legal issues behind real money tournaments or official platinum brokers. This seems a lot less likely than the other options, but it would be pretty exciting if it were true.
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Oct 22, 2013 15:50
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Maybe Cory is going to hire someone to proof read his loving posts. But, on a serious note, I am completely fine with someone buying them out or being brought in to help/take over as long as my end of the deal (Pro Player backer here) doesn't get messed with. edit: I can think of a worse company.  IGP
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Oct 22, 2013 15:54
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So long as it isn't SOE
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Oct 22, 2013 16:03
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signalnoise posted:So long as it isn't SOE "Great news, guys! We've been bought out by Electronic Arts!"
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Oct 22, 2013 16:09
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Blazing Zero posted:Give a date: Everyone yells at you if the slightest setback occurs. The server issue makes me think they're trying to go cheap. Running these types of games requires a lot of bandwidth. Problem is why spend a bunch of money on a good server farm for just a few hundred people? For them they now have a large enough testing crew for minimal costs. They're probably going to be happy with the number that are in for months.
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Oct 22, 2013 17:37
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Korak posted:The server issue makes me think they're trying to go cheap. Running these types of games requires a lot of bandwidth. Problem is why spend a bunch of money on a good server farm for just a few hundred people? For them they now have a large enough testing crew for minimal costs. They're probably going to be happy with the number that are in for months. Alternative possibility: right now they're renting a server that can handle maybe 1,000 people, and they want to upgrade to a server that can handle 20,000 people. They don't know how big this server should be, since it's really hard to test this sort of thing in anything other than a live environment. If they get a server that's too small, then the whole thing crashes. If they get a server that's too large, they're wasting a significant amount of money. So right now they're collecting data (including the AI stress test yesterday) to get a sense of how things are going to scale. When they have enough data to predict with some precision how big a server they need for e.g. 5,000 people, they upgrade, let the next wave in and check how good their estimates were. Repeat until everyone's in alpha. I don't have any experience with server farms, but that's the approach I'd be inclined to take in their position. (They might also relying on the scaling data to work out how big a server farm they'll need for open beta and for launch.)
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Oct 22, 2013 18:12
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The kickstarter email clearly implies they are bringing more people on board or someone with more experience may have bought the company or whatever. "What it all means" sounds like the first question employees ask when their company gets bought out. I highly doubt it has anything to do with alpha invites because if for whatever chance that got pushed back then Cory would have to explain the delay of his news.
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Oct 22, 2013 20:25
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Bought out and shutdown by WotC, everyone gets a refund and a free booster in MtGO.
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Oct 22, 2013 23:20
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It wouldn't surprise me if they took the alpha down. In fact, I'm not sure why they haven't. It might cause more hype to have set stress test days and only allow people to play on those days for a few weeks. pumpinglemma posted:Alternative possibility: right now they're renting a server that can handle maybe 1,000 people, and they want to upgrade to a server that can handle 20,000 people. They don't know how big this server should be, since it's really hard to test this sort of thing in anything other than a live environment. If they get a server that's too small, then the whole thing crashes. If they get a server that's too large, they're wasting a significant amount of money. So right now they're collecting data (including the AI stress test yesterday) to get a sense of how things are going to scale. When they have enough data to predict with some precision how big a server they need for e.g. 5,000 people, they upgrade, let the next wave in and check how good their estimates were. Repeat until everyone's in alpha. I don't have any experience with server farms, but that's the approach I'd be inclined to take in their position. Khorne fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 23:29
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