Timeline speculation

[Frisk]

Let me make it absolutely clear that I have no inside information whatsoever, so the list below is just speculation, nothing more.

 

The subject of the speculation is the timeline - what he community might expect Obsidian to deliver and when. Is it realistic? Well, some of it is probably close - other items are way off ... don't take this too seriously.

 

And no, I don't expect Obsidian to comment on this - it would only cause hassle for them later on when people would complain that "...but you promised..." -

 

November 2012 - Forum badges for the $100+ tiers

November 2012 - More concept art.

 

December 2012 - Paypal donations closed - online store will still allow ordering of some physical goodies.

December 2012 - Special (closed) forum for the $1000+ tiers set up.

 

January 2013 - Game mechanisms/rules will be sufficiently clear for Obsidian to start contacting the $1000 tier to create the NPCs, items and taverns/inns.

 

February 2013 - Main story line, companions and major side quests fully designed.

 

March 2013 - First "real" screenshots.

 

June 2013 - This might be a bit optimistic, but perhaps the game will be demoed at E3 - at least some bits and pieces that are actually working.

 

December 2013 - Most game content (areas/NPCs/quests/dialogue) implemented. Still a lot of fine-tuning and additions left.

 

January 2014 - Selected small group of community members given early access to file format information and parts of the game under NDA.

 

February 2014 - Feature complete - In-house alpha testing to find the worst bugs.

 

March 2014 - Beta available - beta keys sent to the $110+ tiers (and those who paid $25 extra for that)

March 2014 - Obsidian contacts all physical tiers backers to confirm mailing addresses.

 

April 2014 - Game ships - all the physical goodies sent out.

[Monte Carlo]

I simply don't know, but popped in to say that I hope the developers don't get too much hassle. A short weekly update augmented by significant milestone updates seems fair enough to me.

[Monte Carlo]

Or, just a dec blog FTW

[Monte Carlo]

*dev* blog bloody Blackberry keyboards.

[nikolokolus]

[Gfted1]

TBH, I would be shocked and amazed if this game shipped on schedule. Has any game ever? I would expect a few months slippage between now and then.

[Monte Carlo]

Good point then again am wondering if lack of publisher BS might affect it.

[Frisk]

Fair enough. I would not be surprised or disappointed either if the game got delayed a few months (and after 25+ years in the software industry, I have seen my share of delayed projects), but of course I would like to see it as soon as possible.

[Amentep]

Well they've already said that if they have to delay it to make sure its a quality product they will (IIRC from Feargus in an interview or chat). So if it happens and they communicate it to the backers - no problem.

 

I want it good, not Tuesday.

[Arhiippa]

Considering how familiar Obsidian is with this type of game, they might even make it in time, but if they don't, I'll wait impatiently yet happily for a polished and complete game. Also, I think it's quite possible that Obsidian isn't going to show the game at E3 even if they had something worth showing, since preparing for E3 would be a distraction from making the game.

[chisled2bone]

they did confirm that there would be two phases of beta testing, and i expect it to be done more than a month before release. that way they actually have significant time to fix bugs found

[nikolokolus]

Like others I'm perfectly fine with a slight delay so long as the flow of information with the community is transperant. Stable and as bug free as possible is 1000x more important to me than hitting some arbitrary release date target.

 

I love Obsidian's games, but they really need to stick the landing on this thing.

[Rink]

I also would suspect that beta-testing 1 month before shipping may be a bit short. Or is that normal if you want to fix the bugs before shipping the game? I think they said that preproduction/production/postproduction takes 1/3 of the time each, so I guess your postproduction falls short.

Hmm and I guess they will close the physical tiers on paypal but leave a selection of non-limited non-physical awards open, because they do not need to have them produced. Other kickstarterprojects also left that open and I guess in 1.5 years time there will be a lot of people buying the game with us as marketing-people getting updates all the time.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Rink

[moralitis]

It will be interesting to see what the final game budget will be, probably 3m-3.5m hopefully more obviously

[metacontent]

A one month beta? Uhhh...

 

I would think it would be more like 2 months at the least, possibly 3.