For melee, optimizations and maps -> They won't fix this till all the content is implemented Balancing is not a thing in Alpha, alpha is building stuff into the game. What you refer to is Beta.
For the rest (PVE, Warlords, loot system etc...) most is allready announced and will get included bit by bit together with orks.

I was in some alphas, and i can tell you this one is well maintained. Open Developers, weekly twitch shows to show the state of development, a lot of patches (and yes, patching this often is not common! On UAT we sometimes even get daily patches if not twice a day!) They do their very best to make this the awesome game they promised.

The Problem is, there will be no beta with that release date...
They should really push it back till christmas eg. in my opinion, if not until next year. Nathan once said something like "Release will just be another day of work" this tells me they will release it, even if it is unfinished or lacking features. And THIS may create really bad reputation... im afraid of that

Yeah, balancing in an alpha only happens when LSM dislikes something, like MoN or the PC. Normally it happens in beta.

This alpha is pretty solid there's a way to go and probably won't hit the summer deadline but recon it will make release this year.

If you want alpha pain there's always Star Citizen though to be fair I've not tried that for over a year now...

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

That counts for me, it counts for you and it does count for PC games. If you take my money, I expect the value of it in fun, no matter what state you think your game is in.

I do understand that development means change and that stuff needs to be done. My boss does not show any compassion if my work isnt done in time, so, sorry...why should I?

Thats by the way the fact I do hate the most - I got no problem in waiting until day X, but the fact that game designers dont tell any dates or deadtimes...is so far away from what I understand as work that I have a bad time accepting it.

We are allowed to give our $, but we are not allowed to ask "when". We may write feedback, yes, but no one will ever tell us if it was read at all.

So...much blabla to tell you that: this modern way of selling products before they are done is sick in many ways. And I wont do it again. I did it for StarCitizen, for Shroud of teh Avatar and for Eternal Crusade. But I will not, never, do it again.

Games are made to be bought in gold status at release. Thats what I learned, for my part, in the last 2-3 years. And the little digital items dont make up for the patience a gamer puts into it.

All that is -> my humble oppinion

So, when you go on a date, I assume you rush to the girls apartment, break in and judge her by how she looks with some mask on face, wet hair and sitting on the pooper instead of actually waiting for her at the time she told you she'll be ready at, right?

Its extremely easy to get a bad first impression when you judge something before its finished.
This is exactly the reason why NDA exists in the first place.
You KNOW something is unfinished and not polished, you are AWARE that product is NOT done, you REALIZE its not ready to put the final note, yet you still do?

Are we past release date?
No?
Then you're just blowing hot air here.

We've been told the date.
Not the exact day, but we know when to expect the game to be ready.
If it won't be by that time, we'll unleash righteous hell and proceed with Orbital bombardment from Retribution class battleship.

Giving exact day is never a good idea, there always might appear a blocker bug that wasn't there in testing environment. For this particular reason no studio wants to give set in stone date for anything as things often don't go as planned and get postponed with green light.

As for the feedback-this is exactly why community manager job exists, his/her job is to go through forums, gather community mood and feedback, process it into easy to get form and send it further to the team, if the team decides to follow the feedback or ignore it(for many valid reasons), but it never goes unheard.

It is.
As a game designer I agree with you 100% on this.
However its the customers-the players who have final saying in here.

If they are willing to pay full price for the unfinished product and be told for weeks/months/years to be patient, then why publisher would refuse that money? Its basically free revenue for "not doing anything".

This practice is bad for games and game industry, but it will exist as long as people keep preordering and buying early access entries.

Producers and studios are equally guilty of existance of item-shops and early access unfinished products everywhere as the players themselves are for throwing money their way and paying full prices for unfinished products.

Actually, that's how I usually find my dates.

I would have agreed with you if we were speaking in month 3-4 of Alpha, but 3 months before release? cmon man.

59k sold copies, 300-400 players peak. That says a lot about the current general opinion about the alpha.

BE is not publishing its own game, Mr.Yoshiro Shekelstein from Namco is tired of them and ordered them to release the damn game by Summer. So BE has no choice other than releasing the game by the date set by the publisher.

The issue here is, 10 months of alpha and the game feels like it just got from pre-alpha to alpha stage. No matter how much you try to look away from reality, it is clear that the game will be released in a buggy state, unless they outsource everything and just say "you know what,fuck it, just shove in as much shit as possible, we will implement/fix the rest via free dlc". Everyone who has history with video games knows that never ends well. (looking at you Egosoft)


Eldars were supposed to be released in March, it is June now and they still haven't fully released them. If they do the same thing with ork, well, might as well get out of the closet and say sorry to the community and tell them the truth of what is happening. they paid money for stuff that they don't even know whether they will get or not after all.

Look at that chart that shows the launch content, and ask yourself again: "How in the actual fuck, are they going to implement all that in 3 months"

Publishers ruining games again?

This.