What's criminal here is that you're not showing us these hideous half-breeds.

actually he did link some pics just not here..this is one of such pics

Two whole months without a single beta patch, that sucks!

A short querstion. A few days ago BoogieBac wrote this in the blog:

"So the next big beta is scheduled for this Thursday, where evenone on the beta group will get their first taste of several new features. "

Does it mean this is completely canceled now?

The most recent posts supersedes older posts. Frogboy supersedes BoogieBac. Ergo Beta 1G (which for us normal beta players means to get Beta 1E, 1F and 1G at the same time) is delayed to February 18th unless new changes in plans happen. Uber beta 2 was supposed for last weeks of February but I wonder if it is already delayed to the first weeks of March? Froggy? Any speculative info about Beta 2 for those users waiting to join the Beta, oh mighty CEO of the Navalis Astra?

I hope I will already be able to design new units in the upcomming beta. Instead of those nice peasants with stick I see only strange looking fog. And the core units have quite often zero hitpoints....  So you not yet in the beta, don't be sad! Even though the game looks very promising.

That's one of the things I love about Stardock. Even with something as simple and unpolished as a Beta program you care about what that program says about Quality. Quality, even in a beta, is worth waiting for. Keep up the great work.

The Frog always trumps anything that Boogiebac guy says (who I heard I actually just the office janitor).

Actually, I was just talking to Brad about the possibility of pushing a build on the 11th, and he made several good points that got me thinking this 2 weeks of polish could be used to really make 1G quite amazing.  You'll be getting several features not listed as goals for 1G (Custom Facitons Editor AND Custom Sovereign Editor, to name two) plus much more content for the implemented features. For example, right now there are TWO quests in the game...TWO QUESTS in a fantasy game. Pretty lame, but we can use those extra days to crank out some cool and varied adventures for your sovereign (and other heroes) to go on.

As always, we deeply appologize for the delay, but at this point every day is producing something amazing, so 9 more is going to result in a really polished (and yes, kinda fun) final build in the Beta1 cycle.

Hm....Q3 2010 is still the planned release date? I am just wondering, because the beta phase is still in the early stages...not to mention that I am still having random crashes all the time, so even the latest beta build is unstable.

"Self Righteous mode on"

OK, here is where I draw the line. Please do not apologize as you work to improve the game, especially in the Beta stages.

I hope I am not an anomoly here but I feel honored to have been allowed such an intimate look at the growth of this game. If that sounds silly then so be it. Just keep cranking it out, and Lord willing, as Dad always said, I will be around to see the fruits of those labors.

If it takes 9 extra days to deploy 1G, then so be it. Some how being diassapointed about any sort of delay, or making as if the Dev's owe us testers is ludicrous.

We are here to serve and serve we must, just do so in a manner that befits the honor bestowed...

There. Now I am back to seeing how many Spiders and Ogres I can kill, how much Tech I can get, before this sucker CTD's on me...

That has improved as well...

I need to seeeee...

Its ok Boogie take your time. It will be that much better!

The "latest" public build -- the one you have -- is from last year. Let's keep some perspective.

In Sins of a Solar Empire, the team (Ironclad/Stardock) only got infinite resource in during *release candidates*.  That's right, up until the release candidates, the asteroids ran out of resources after awhile. 

In fact, at this stage with Sins of a Solar Empire's beta (7 months before release) there were no phase lanes, no broadcast centers and thus no culture. Not because they hadn't been put in yet but because they hadn't been thought of yet.

Worst case scenario, they can rush release a bit early, and patch it up later.  Stardock's earned trust in that area.

That said, I'm patient enough to wait, especially since there's enough other good games out there right now (PC has a huge back catalogue) that I can wait.

We wouldn't do that.  We'd just delay the release.  This game is our baby.

I am one of the many who are lamenting that they still don't have any version of the beta yet (Just pre-ordered a few weeks ago)...  That being said, the level of response from the devs on these boards is astonishingly good.  I've been gaming since the early 80s, and have beta tested many, many, many games, and I can honestly say that I don't rememeber another time during beta when so many people received such fast response to their questions/concerns from the devs.

So Bravo, Boogie and Frog and the rest of you...  And no, I didn't just post this to get an early beta key. 

There should be no hand wringing about the release date for a few months yet. Things can change so drastically in even a month or two. Also some of the entire beta phases are only scheduled for about a month. And finally, remember that there is much much of the game that is already functional that we beta testers are just being blocked from seeing. Stuff that could be enabled with the flip of a switch, essentially, but because of the design plan for EWOM (i.e. make it fun with no eye candy and then enable the eye candy) what we see in beta is not even a good snapshot of the true state of the game.

If we get to May or June and we are still on ugly map and there is no tactical combat, etc etc then starting to be concerned about missing the release target will be justified. I expect we will be seeing some rapid changes over the enxt month or two.

Take all the time you need. And apply that rule to the whole game. This has to become a gem that will bear turnbased fantasy alone for quite a while (looking at other devellopers), so it better be REALLY GOOD!!!

If more time helps with that, I'm all for it!

That said I can't wait to try the new version, the current one has run its course and needs a replacement desperately...

After the Empire:Total War debacle, this is music to my ears.

Just do us a favor with those of us who have Elemental withdrawal syndrome. You don't have to patch, but a Youtube video of "cool stuff" you've added would be awesome to tide us over.

Urist McTester Cancels complaint: Object lost/missing.

really 9 days is nothing - keep up the good work guys.

Wow. Next beta is going to be huge. I'm a little concerned, honestly. So many changes at once seems like it will make the whole beta testing job harder. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to be getting my hands on more features soon, especially the custom race option. I just was under the impression that it was good beta testing practice to tackle things one at a time so that you can more easily identify which changes broke things and whatnot. I keep thinking we should be getting new builds every week or 2 with bug fixes (so we can stop reporting the same old bugs and find out if the fixes cause any unforseen problems) and new features incrementally eased in so that their individual effects can more easily be identified.

I know I sound like I'm telling you guys how to do your job, and I have no right to. Stardock's track record shows you know what you're doing, and after SOASE I trust you guys to do Elemental right. I think I'm just having withdawal shakes from all the involvement and frequent, if minor updates I remember from earlier in the beta. This month-or-two hiatus without even a hotfix coupled with the unexpected announcement that you're rolling 2 or 3 stages of the beta into one release has been quite a shock to me.

All that aside, though, I want you guys to take as much time as you need to do this right. If Elemental is your baby, then it's my nephew of sorts. I may not have as much parenting input as you, but I want the best for it, and hope to see it outlive me.

Interesting perspective.  I didn't realize big features like "culture" weren't part of the original design.

Building systems is a lot harder then populating them. There's five beta phases scheduled, but if you look at later betas, most of the basic gameplay is being done in beta 1. Stuff will get tweaked and changed later, but this beta represents a disproportionaly large amount of work compared to the others.

So at the moment, the schedule is still doable. If not, they'll move it. No worries.