Pre order date & cost
Rooky47
kansas Join Date: 2013-11-10 Member: 189256Members, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
kansas Join Date: 2013-11-10 Member: 189256Members, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
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That said, I wouldn't consider NS2's pre-order a train wreck. They were perfectly clear that the people that decided to "pre-order" way back before alpha were investing in an idea without any guarantees attached.UWE has been very transparent about that, and it has become pretty much the standard in a lot of the crowdfunding projects. If UWEkeeps communicating their ideas, their vision and their reasoning behind their decisions, I'd again be happy to front them some bucks on this project. I don't even need blackplating for my sub
My post was for the OP not you, but you can't have your cookie back
"Coming Fall 2009" comes to mind, not that anyone that knew UWE and how they "nailed" deadlines at the time actually expected it to come out by then, but I don't think anyone thought it would take over three years (I voted Fall 2010).
Theres a lot more to it than that though. I'm pretty sure they went through mental hell trying to get the game out. Delay after delay, after delay while watching the money well run dry and knowing that sooner or later people are going to demand refunds. If they have another option, Id say they'll take it and spare themselves this hellish little roller coaster ride this time around.
Building up a reputation in the industry is important and its also quite clear they do a lot to build community good will as well. Their ability to keep deadlines has also vastly improved. I doubt they'd want to risk losing that by launching another one of these unless they can't actually fund further development and need the surge of extra cash to finish.
1 - We probably wouldn't be here today, if not for our community coming together to help fund the NS2 development. It kept the lights on at UWE and saved NS2. And it left people who helped us out with a sense of pride for being involved in something special like that at a very early stage.
2 - It gave us an immeasurable amount of valuable feedback. Who knows what NS2 would have turned out to be on release, but it sure would have had far more problems with its gameplay and balance and performance. For those years that it was in development it was being actively played by thousands of people, compared to just a small handful of UWE employees that it would otherwise have been. With each patch we were able to quickly discover what was working, what wasn't, and try and address the biggest concerns that our community had. They helped shape and mold NS2 into a game that we could feel truly confident about on release, because it had been so thoroughly playtested.
3 - The playable alpha/beta, attracted many talented individuals who became UWE employees. Because we'd released the toolset so early, because people could actually play the game and be inspired to create content and features for it, we gained new maps and mappers, and programmers, among other things.
4 - It gave us some cred. We were taken far more seriously by the press, by investors, by the public, because we had shown how much our community was behind us, and how much they believed in the project.
So, yes, we certainly plan on having a fairly early playable preorder phase for SN, because we know that getting that early feedback can help us steer the ship (or sub) in the right direction. It can help us to avoid costly miscalculations, to clearly understand what people want out of the game, and to make the end product better and more polished then it likely would be otherwise.
But, we'll probably be a bit more careful when announcing release dates this time around :P
--cory
That's the key difference I'm talking about.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that NS2 preorder was a bad move. In fact, I assume it was unavoidable to get NS2 development rolling. Train wreck may have been a bit strong, but releasing a preorder for a game that didn't exist yet was a big (albeit necessary at the time) gamble that didn't exactly go "smoothly".
It wasn't just a formality. It was a do or die kind of thing. A lot went wrong, but you pulled through and so did the people who trusted you with their money. Once you started rolling out playable builds things probably picked up, but the first phase when time was ticking away and release was still just a dot on the horizon must have been development hell.
I know for a fact you guys worked your ass off to get that game out the door and deliver something that wasn't just "there" but actually make it as great as it can be, and you still are. I appreciate that.
Early access is a great way to do things, you already gave a ton of reasons for it so I won't reiterate . I simply didn't expect any preorders launching until you have a playable functioning build ready. From what you're saying, that's going to be the case.
Hm why not? It's a good way to fund development without going to a publisher.
And let's be clear here, that is exactly what you're doing when buying early access: funding development of an unfinished game.
To answer your question, we don't really know exactly, but definitely not longer than 6 years
But NS2 is awesome! Well worth it!