I was just curious.
on the site says December 2018 but no talk about any kickstarter update
INCLUDES:
Get the game on Steam when released.
Estimated delivery: Dec 2018
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What I understand is :
- For 60€ or more backer there will be a close beta in summer 2018
- For the others the full game will be available in December 2018
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I don’t like throwing flowers to anybody, but the devs seem really serious and aware of all the difficulties related to releasing a decent game, with such high ambitions, at the end of 2018.
So their choice for not having a playable alpha is quite itching when seen from a player point of view, but that’s also a real defendable policy – especially as they will soon begin the discussions with the community on the various gameplay features.
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Two sides of a medallion. On the one hand, an alpha would be a good basis for discussion. On the other hand, this can not be hidden from the public. Could be good publicity, but question arises, “Do you want this at this early stage and would the response tend to be positive or negative?” I’m sure they would be positive, but would compared to AoE, Banished and Forrest Village and bang - drawer. Think, better as soon as possible a beta, extended piece by piece.
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After taking part in several Alpha, Beta and Steam Early Access games I believe the Devs are right on track with their decision to not release an Alpha version. With a small team and limited time an early or Alpha release could become overwhelming.
Most players here have enough experience playing City Builders to offer advice on our likes and dislikes while playing. I started a [conversation] (Game Play / Fun City Builders - #4 by mjdflying) earlier for that purpose.
Steam Early Access games get a lot of negative comments that refuse to take “Early Release” into consideration. Forest Village still has not recovered from all of the negativity.
I supported Planet Coaster which handle things the same way the AC devs are, that game has turned out great.
They closed off Alpha and Beta to a few chosen VIP members and didn’t release to Steam until they received thumbs up from the internal Beta players.
After closely watching the videos from the [AC youtube channel] (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZJT9aoKkR0EII6FgCmC6Ig) I believe AC is heading in a great direction that doesn’t need an Alpha release.
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Hear, hear! The developers’ decision to wait until the game is properly ready was the right one. Man is a fickle and short-sighted beast, just as @mjdflying points out with the case of Forest Village. And as @Elfryc points out, the discussions we are taking part of daily is surely already helping the developers, raising important issues, bringing up new perspectives and points. And especially if the developers start more serious discussions with their fans, it will be just that good basis for discussion @tschuschi mentions. At least we can hope so…
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well, i think an alpha , it’s a good way to have a good opinion of the player.
maybe they whant create an alpha version only for selected people “tester”, it’s strange a lot of game have already an alpha or beta version, and all bug or report are send to the developer… i think it’s a good way to know how the game work, they risk a bad impression, if they relase only the finish game and then the player have some bug.
i don’t want do an other time the same thing whit planetcoaster, tons of update every week whit the final verison.
but that’s my opinion
Sadly, that’s one of those technical things that may create resentment among “common players” but have very good reasons – and both points of view are perfectly understandable.
I wrote “common players” by lack of a proper word, maybe “the public” would be better, but whatever: please don’t read it as a “commoner”/“elites” distinction 
You clearly explained the common point of view – which is totally understandable as I said. But just taking one example: according the Kickstarter and Indiegogo, there are currently around 5,000 backers. If all of them have the possibility to post feedback and report bug as soon as the alpha phase is available, it instantly happens what is expected with such high numbers. Just imagine they have 3 bugs to report the first day, instantly the devs are facing 15,000 reports, and innumberable discussions.
There is also to count on the fact that most of those reports would be posted in 50 or 100 duplicates, but still would need to be sorted out, policed, there would also need to ask for the screenshots and saves constantly missing, etc. The clear conclusion is there’s an urgent need to recruit some QA people to do the job, which is not that much efficient as it essentially means sorting out reports.
The policy by the devs for A.C. is far more efficient and reasonable: if you have an alpha with 50 testers (around 30 archeologists and historians, 10 shaman & deity backers, maybe 10 others people the devs trust), then they know the people testing the game, each one may be progressively specializing (UI, content, AI, sounds…) then have naturally a close connection with the devs in charge of their peculiar field of testing, which create very soon some trustful relations.
This allow for an increasing number of bugs to be efficiently fixed, with higher and lower priorities being easily defined.
A second step is the closed beta, were you may have more testers, then the open beta, when you may see a number of issues noted earlier: duplicates, lack of explanation, no saves so no repeatable situations & bugs, etc.
Naturally, at the moment of the release, there will be an horrible number of bugs, that will be reported instantly with a fair number of wooing (“How could your testers have missed such a thing, you clearly should fire the instantly!”). However, there is then to take into account that e.g. 15,000 players playing 4 hours the first day will have seen as much different situations as 4 devs playing 15,000 hours, or 1,000 testers playing 60 hours, etc. So nothing unexpected.
But all in all, the 4 devs (maybe 5 or 6, but never enough in one case or another) will have managed to treat an immense amount of bugs, in the most efficient way given they are human brains and (still not) mechanical coders.
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totally agree. but i see in all the video the “alpha game” banner, so there is the game only for developer. they can open the game only for the 5 people who made the biggest donation on kickstarter. well, alpha game or not, i only scared about the enormus things that they want inside the game maybe a lots. they really finish the game in dicember 2018? XD HOPE IT!!!
I think the developers made the right decision here. What I would appreciate would be a (Live?) Video from time to time showing the current state of development or teasing a specific feature. That sould give us a good basic knowledge of the game development and could enhance (the already fantastic) discussion and the assistance the community has / goves to the developers. That would be easy to pull of compared to a full Alpha/ Early Acess release
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yep, i want see the actual game, in a real gameplay not the same propag video
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Hopefully they will release some updated gaming videos just for the forum members. The previous youtube videos were released for the public Kickstarter campaign. All in all the devs are doing a fantastic job so far!
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I’m sure you’re not the only one 
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Love it, the categories^^
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I do not think an alpha version should be playable for none professional devs. Indeed, an alpha version is the first draw after the prototype, not everything is code, not everything is working. Normally it is just an interne step. From the screenshots and videos we got I guess they are close (already ?) to be in alpha.
However at that stage you do not really need a massive bug research as things are subject to change. You will only lose time (you correct a bug then you decide to change the feature hence all your work on fixs is wasted).
The only reason there is alpha release is to please the players (maybe for early cash too) and I think it hurt the game in the long run. If you are disappointed by the alpha there is a risk that you will not comeback to the game once it is fully done. Moreover, all the time you invest in bug management on not definitive features is time you won’t invest in proper dev so it will delay the proper release of the game.
In the end an alpha is something you show to other game devs/designers in order to have technical feedback (and get nice videos and screenshots for the hip).
Once the game reach the beta step you can start to search for all the bugs that they did not notice during dev time (yes devs do test their work when coding it 
). This is the moment you can give the game to a wider public for testing purpose.
As a player I want to get the game as soon as possible but this is just a selfish thought. It is objectively better for everyone to wait until the game is ready to be deliver to us, even if it mean few extra months of wait.
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yes, ok, but we can see only the propag video. no alpha version? ok… do some gameplay video, the gamer who donated some money are interested to see the work, finished or not. or more pictures about it (better some videos). just to see the actual state of game
buuuuuut is my silly opinion 
This video is 2 months old but show some (limited) actual gameplay so your wish is granted 
More seriously it is very hard to see the state of the game with a video at that stage so it is not very relevant. Two days ago they said on their twiter account that they work on AI core, so it is very important but not very visible.
Unfortunatly, I think we will have to wait until the beigning of next year in order to have “deep” gameplay video. That how softwares work…
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i talk about this video haha