I myself do not expect to see Eq2 before january, or Feb of 2005. And yes I am an optimist about these things. If it releases this year I greatly greatly greatly fear for it. Unless the game gods smile on it the game will likely be almost unplayable at first if it is released this year.
I agree with them in theory that betas are not the greatest way to bug check your game but they ARE the best way to kick your netcode and game code in the nuts repeatedly to see at which point it beings to cry. Hell COH used this info right up till the last day of beta to make the game do a 180 performance wise for lag and rubber banding.
Lag and rubber banding was sporadically nasty right up until the end but they managed to stick a fork in that and map server disconects pretty well. Still happens every now and again but they really did a bang up job fixing the main nasty bug issues in beta.
"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
I'm sure EQ2 will go out the door on time. It won't be finished or working right. But I've never seen them let that stop them with a release.
You have not been paying much attention then. SWG was pushed back 6 months from it's supposedly solid release date in 2002.
And yet you can't say it wasn't released unfinished and buggy as fuck, now can you.
No, I never said that, nor would I ever say that. I was just commenting that Numtini's comment was patently and ridiculously false. Of the three sentences, he could back one of them up with facts. That the game will be unfinished and not working right. That it will be ontime is a laughable joke, and that an unfinished product will keep them from shipping has been apparent in their many delays for almost every game they have launched. Eventually they are usually unfinished when they do launch, but that is only after they have exceeded their budget and deadline by some seeminly arbitrary amount that the pencil pushers won't accept.
12 months late at a minimum is, like, a standard with PC games. I don't understand how the industry tolerates it. The development studio pitches a schedule they know they can't keep. The publishers takes the deadline with a wink and a nod. Yet everybody acts like the original release date is authentic and they don't talk about reality until the date inevitably has to be moved back.
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