Will CoV be ready for release by Oct 31?
By
40Thieves,
Posted on: 2005-10-18 14:54 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
In all honesty, the game is already printed and the CDs are being made.
When you log in for the first time... expect a patch.
It's the 21st century. Computer games are NEVER finished before they are released. EVER. It's standard operating procedure for game publishers to push their games out the door ON TIME, finished or not, because they have millions of dollars invested in them and they want/need to get a return on that investment on a specified timetable, quality of their product be damned.
In other words, the game has already gone gold, the master CD has already been made, the copies have already been manufactured and boxed with (outdated) game manuals and other printed material, and they will probably start shipping out pre-orders to their major suppliers within the next week or so.
Expect a rather large patch on opening day, to fix all the bugs and balance issues that existed on the CD and have been fixed or addressed in the past couple weeks, and expect even more frequent patches for a few weeks after that, because after all, the game won't be remotely finished until long after it's gone live.
When CoH came out there was a szable patch and then several smaller patches at random for the first month or so. Mostly bugs in things people hadn't looked at, spelling, missing mission instructions, misdirecting contacts etc. As people reported bugs patches came out.
As they caught up with things and as people wanted capes mroe and more they prepared for their first "issue" the rest is history.
I know about the "never finished" aspect of computer games. The time comes when the suits say "Time's up. Publish now with what we got and we'll patch later".
I just hope that it isn't too "incomplete" on release just to meet a deadline.
I'd say so.
MMOs don't take long to go from Gold to street. The physical materials are most likly complete. The disc material may well have been pressed (they're past major graphical changes- see I6 patch being pushed to live :P).
The servers were stable. Sure, they were laggy with 6k+ people on one server. But it was solid. It was more solid than CoH's servers on labor day weekend, so that's definantively a good sign to me 
.
Let's Dance!
From what I can see the 1-20 part of the game is almost without flaws. At least in content and actual bugs. Imbalances exist, and some missions like 'defeat all snakes in casino' have the main doors being camped by large teams of enemies when your team is between six to eight people.
Theres minor glitches here and there, errors with the Zombie henchmen are the most obvious I have filed reports about them but on the whole there is nothing game breaking. The upper levels from 20+ really need alot more testing however its just not going to happen in the next week or two. People who powerlevel and rush ahead are going to run into bugs but those who play at a steady pace will find things patched just as they get to those areas of the game.
Is it ready? As ready as it needs to be, later levels need work but no one is going to be able to take part in that content for a month or two so there will be time to patch it.
As has been said before most of the physical stuff (box, manual, etc.) has probably already been finished or is close to it. I feel pretty confident that the manual is already out of date/inaccurate. There will probably be several patches in the first few weeks, but I suspect less than CoH had at launch. They seem to have learned quite a bit and taken steps to avoid previous mistakes.
It could use more testing, that's for sure. The level bump just happened last week, which means a majority of the 20+ content is going to be tested within two weeks time. I don't think anyone has done any of the TFs or trials yet (maybe the respec one.) But, a lot can happen in two week's time.
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I know about the "never finished" aspect of computer games. The time comes when the suits say "Time's up. Publish now with what we got and we'll patch later".
I just hope that it isn't too "incomplete" on release just to meet a deadline.
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Yeah, I agree with that.
It really depends on your definition of "ready", I guess
Others have spoken to the question of whether a game can go gold before it is ready. MMOs always patch, so the standard of when it can go gold is completely different from a non-networked game.
That said, I don't think it will be ready for release on Oct. 31. It will be released then, however.
Scorus
I was under the impression that there was no firm set date for the games release? Just a tenative Oct 31?
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I was under the impression that there was no firm set date for the games release? Just a tenative Oct 31?
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I just got an email from EB Games regarding my CoV preorder, and it says that the release date has been changed....
to 10/27/05.
Take that for what it's worth. I seriously doubt that they would move the date up instead of back.
I play all my toons like a blaster: I die a lot.
global handle: @Pepsiman
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I just saw something interesting...
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AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 19, 2005--NCsoft® North America announces that City of Villains(TM) has reached gold master status and will appear on retailers' shelves in North America at the end of the month. NCsoft also confirmed that customers who purchased and registered their City of Villains pre-order boxes will receive a two-day head start for game play.
City of Villains, a stand-alone sequel to last year's hit, City of Heroes®, is expected to be released on Oct. 31, with a subscription price of $14.99 per month. The two-day head start will begin after 12 a.m. EST on Oct. 29. Purchasers of the City of Villains pre-order box, which is currently available at retailers across North America, have been invited into the City of Villains beta test and may participate in the head-start.
Existing City of Heroes' customers can purchase City of Villains and subscribe to both games for the single subscription price of $14.99. Both games were developed by Cryptic Studios(TM).
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Stupid Brit question
is the American way
12am = noon
or
12am = midnight ?
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
12am = midnight
The only major flaws i've seen thus far is holes in the city that can't be gotten out of without teleport. even /stuck doesn't work. And whenever you get away from your pets as a mastermind and they "respawn" they stop working and you have to release them to get them to work again.
Other things i see that i dont like is...base desgner is really limited in comparison to a level editer in just about an y other game out there. Most things are too expensive for a solo play to reall live by and having to have certain rooms to have certain types of items is really annoying, especially when you can't like a room without a doorway.
minor nuisances are something like the charges on the powers and various timers are off...but that may just be lag or my controller but i'm pretty sure it's a slight programming error.
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The software has to be in "final release" condition for step 2 above to occur.
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There's the flawed precept that's derailed your train of logic. The software just has to be far enough along that it can talk to the patch server. Ideally, far enough along that it's not a gigantic patch, but in a pinch it can even be a huge patch.
Expect a pinch.
My brother works at the plant where they manufacture a large percentage of the CD's and DVD's available in the U.S.
Last week they did an order of 300,000 copies CoV.
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Stupid Brit question
is the American way
12am = noon
or
12am = midnight ?
[/ QUOTE ]
Easy way to remember; think of 12:01am. Would that be 1 minute after noon, or one minute after midnight?
AM, Ante meridian, is morning. Since the new day officially starts at midnight, it is 12:00 am.
It appears it will be. Read the news: CoV goes Gold.
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but the day ends at midnight too.
Its why we call it noon and midnight, neither are strictly am or pm, but the transition point from one to the other.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
Officially, day ends at 11:59:59 pm and starts at 12:00:00 am.
I'm not in the game design/production/distribution business so I just have a layman's view here:
What needs to be done to release a new computer game?
1. Printed materials made (boxes, manuals, etc). These are probably already done for CoV.
2. Take the software and imprint it on to CDs (lots of them).
3. Put the CDs into the boxes with the manuals and other printed material, each box with a unique key code number inside.
4. Ship these out to distribution centers, then from there to retail outlets (brick and mortar, online, etc).
These are (to me) the major physical steps to take.
The software has to be in "final release" condition for step 2 above to occur.
For a MMORG, there is the extra concern of the game world (servers) to also be in the "final release" condition so the clients can log in and play.
Seeing as how the CoV beta server just went to fulltime operation and they are still "fixing/adjusting" bugs, content, and other gameplay stuff.... and it is now Oct 18th.....
Is there realistically time to do all that stuff (especially the physical distribution stuff) and be live by Oct 31st (29th for the 2-day early players)? That's just 9 days away. Nine days to get all those thousands of boxes in to the stores and in to the hands of the pre-order customers. Nine days to take the state of CoV as it now is on the beta server and finish it up to the final version on the live servers.
Can it be done?????
Inquiring minds want to know.