Well, maybe the campaign is perfectly paced, balanced and polished already and has no bugs, therefore needs no testing...

Sure it's another "WTF?" move from Stardock, but I can't really fault them for this one, after all the real target audience isn't really interested in the campaign. Yet, if that fails and sandbox fails too, we have a "nobody's happy" scenario once again. And I feel quite the same as Sentinemodo about the state of the sandbox game right now.

There are still a lot of bugs and polish left. I to hope they take a bit more time.

I think this game is good, but we need:

1. Bugfixing

2. Balancing (nerf heroes a bit, add monster strength)

3. More content. More quests, more heroes, UMBER, more magic ++

4. More random events and cool stuff

I would never disagree with this, traditional QA Testing is always needed. Even more so with the whole GUI/multi-threaded stuff.

But for instance if the graphics were sufficiently separated from the game logic, which would be good design (for instance according to the Single Responsibility principle), it shouldn't be such a big problem to write a test that assures that AI players can see goodie huts. Setup a small mao (2x2), a goodie hut and a hero unit of the AI player. Stub/Mock external dependencies.

I don't know how the game is build though and must admit that I don't know too much about your code base or game development and C++. I just know that testing often is hard, but if you're dedicated enough to automated testing and quality you often find a way.

edit: to clarify: I'm not speaking about acceptance testing. I speak about unit testing to integration testing. So I'd also love it if all the methods of a single sovereign were tested, which is definitely possible. Not speaking of all the other benefits that TDD brings with it.... Oh and yeah if you haven't already guessed, I'm kind of a hardcore TDD guy.

That's exactly what I hope. When I read the announcement of the preorder some time back citing a release this fall I was mildly shocked. But then I was like: "Nah, they know what they're doing - let's wait for Beta 5 probably the game has moved further then you think". But then when I got around to play Beta 5 I was shocked regarding the state of the game and the projected release date.

  I don't want new features and I don't think FE needs more features. It needs bugfixes and polish. And hopefully an engine with more memory leaks removed...

Have to disagree here. CIV V got the score it deserved. Yes it was buggy but it still felt more complete and I like the new CIV combat system which turns the world into one big tactical battle.

Warlock does the same thing which I love (turning the world into one big tactical battle) And it is basically CIV V with a fantasy setting. There is however a lot missing from it that CIV V has which I wish they would put in. However it is a very fun game.

Now currently both CIV V and Warlock blow away FE in it's current state.

1) They look better. Never liked the art in FE

2) They are more polished which is understandable since FE is still in the beta so this is not a big deal now.

3) FE is just not that fun yet. I have to force myself to play it and get very bored of it quickly. Not a good thing for any game. Not nearly as fun as the other two games. Now again the game is not finished yet so I'll reserve final judgement until the release of the game. (It has potential to be more fun but has not made it yet)

It is much better than WOM but then again Tic Tac Toe is more fun than WOM.

Look we are in Beta 5 (Bug killing phase) and Brad said there will be at least two more phases after this so it gives me hope that this game will be good when it is released however if they release this year it will be a disaster (not as bad as WOM but still bad neither the less)

CIV V was highly overrated methinks and FE is already a far better game with more depth. If Stardock use a month or two on bugfixing and balancing we will have a great game. 

As a Softewear Developer and a part Time Brain Surgeon (I can claim this because I'm on the internet) I will have to disagree. The Sandlot game is the more important part of this game and should come first. The Campaign should take a back seat besides campaigns are kinda lame in TBS/RTS games anyway

@Supreme Shogun: All very good points!     On the staves point, maybe have their elemental damage scale with shards? Just a thought.

@Tuidjy: It saddens me that you say that.   Sandbox is what I'm here for....don't tell them to cast it aside.

@Angry_Hominid: Agreed that the map generator could use some love. However, I think that's low priority all considering...

@joasoze: An emphatic 'YES' to all your points!

Civ V was/is overrated...but that's just imo. I'll stick with Civ IV.

It is to you, and it is to me.  But the campaign is what will make or break the reviews, and there is a chance a campaign can be polished in the time left.  For the right kind of player (read: someone like me and many of the Beta testers) the sandbox is enjoyable as it is, with home rules, modding, and a lot of tolerance for bugs.

I'm not saying to cast it a side.  I'm saying that if they insist to release soon, they should be focusing mostly on the campaign.  If they hope that "the campaign will just work because we will perfect the sandbox by November"...  They better be very, very good, and need no sleep.  Which may be the case.  You'd be amazed how foolish we men can be and what stupid sacrifices programmers do for their projects (and egos)

Do I feel a dig here?  No, it's my wife that's the Brain Surgeon... well, the Cognitive Science researcher.

Absolutely.

I feel this style is better suited for board games.

Ugh I keep forgetting this game will have a campaign. It saddens me to think of the time and effort that is spent on the campaign that could instead be used on the core game. 

Also say what you will about CIV V but its hard to argue against the elegance and ease of use of its UI, something that FE needs more work on

Oh, I forgot that Jon Shafer worked on CIV V. Hope he isn't reading this thread, but CIV V had terrible balance and an AI that couldn't fight back. The primary limiting factor on military conquest was economic penalties. I could go into it more, but if you like you like it. No reason to rehash opinions. I did have a lot of fun once they fixed the game breaking crashes a few months later.

also civ PROMISED a good multiplayer

i clearly remember posts on official site reassuring community online would have been competitive while it was the worst shit ever, even inferior to civ 4 release that was something i want to forget

but yeah ai was ridicolous for months, i won deity np after few days, they just couldnt fight at all

My 2 cents...

I wouldn't say that the game is ready for release right now. But I think anyone suggesting that it's months away is being hyperbolic. You could spend 10 years on something and there will still be people who will say it's not ready.

Just a casual look through the beta reports makes it patently obvious that the game is just about ready for release. It's no longer about crashes or game stopping bugs. It's UI nitpicks or balance nitpicks.

Even the OP goes out of his way to list the inability to have multiple weaknesses in character creation as if that's a bug instead of a design choice he just happens to disagree with.

I think the next update will tell us a lot about where it stands. Maybe it's ready for release in a week, maybe it'll take a month. But more than that? Please.

Just nitpicking again, but then the label should be "Weakness" not "Weaknesses" - it's just something that was bugging me. Just like the combination of natural leader or other stuff I don't want to get into right now

I disagree by the way about being hyperbolic, there have been games were I was like: "Release them already, god damn it!" and there are still big bad crashes and big bad memory leaks if you look around the forums... and actually not being able to do quests more difficult than weak is pretty game breaking to me.

Like a lot of people said here - fun factor is a major problem. Most of us who find ourselfs forcing us to play are real, true old school veterans of the 4X and RPG-genres. And there just is something, something that the game is lacking or has wrong. 

From my point of view the bugs aren't a big problem. It's a beta and I can live with bugs. Sure, it might crash or behave weirdly, but I kind of trust Stardock to get these fixed over time.

Starting position problem is big fun-wise. Map generator needs to have "2nd phase" after starting positions have been set. If it has that already, improve it. A fun game needs to start "easy", so that you can quickly and somewhat fast settle a couple cities, get attached to them and think your doing fine. It's important to feel you are actually doing something. Only after getting attached to your little empire challenges should start.

Cities and troops being simply irrelevant is possibly one of the biggest problems. I know I don't need those cities. I know I don't need to built those troops. What I don't know is if 5B will fix this. You will just use those now cheap troops to defend your cities, but still use your sov and your sov alone to to kill and conquer everything.

Minimized UI design is annoying and actually obstrusive. It works on some games, say space RTS-games like Homeworld or The Jupiter Incident. In fantasy setting hiding and making the UI to "tell" as little as possible is just annoying. In this kind of a game seeing UI adds to the immersion, not take away from it.

Btw, font improvement was massive.  

Maybe the biggest problem is that the game cannot decide what it is.  There's a lot of stuff but it's not really connected well, you don't get attached really to any parts of the game, your empire, your heroes or your sov. It's a little like Microsoft OneNote, you kind of want to like it, you kind of want to use it, it kind of has lots of nice features, but you don't really need it for anything. Take a deep breath and talk together why game lacks fun. What was fun in the games it's recreating or trying to improve upon. What kind of a play session is fun in the first place.

Personally hoping that this^ is just being treated as polish and reserved for a future update.  In a game that can be called nothing less than a work of art, the UI should follow suit.  Windows can be hidden if so preferred, especially if we get hot key customization.

Why would 'monthes away' not be realistic? Two monthes from now would be late November, would qualify as 'monthes away' and could be considered by many to be more realistic a goal than in two weeks. Obviously, the relativity of such a statement is based off of how much beta tester thinks Stardock can complete in the time they alot themselves and what they hope to acquire as a final product.

I'm sure Stardock will wait until the community thinks the game is done before ending Beta5. However I agree that it will probably take them longer then they think to balance the game correctly and fix most of the bugs. It will take them as long as it takes, the end.

I have this same feeling for the game.  I like to play after each new release, just to see whats new, but then it doesn't have that replay fun factor for me.  I thought maybe it was just balance, and maybe it is, but I think you have a point.  Why do I want to build more cities and troops?  I can just smash everything with my heroes.  I like the idea of wildlands, but do they help the game progress? no.  By the time I can clear one, I am already the most powerful empire in the game.  Wonders/Unique building?  I don't really care about them and am not dissapointed when an opponent builds one.

I dunno, it just feels like something is missing.

I was thinking about Fall From Heaven and what made that fun, and I think it was that each faction played so different.  Cool traits, different troops, different heroes.  I wanted to start a new game and play as a different faction each time.  With FE, it just feels like I make the same choices each time, which is basically to just make my heroes powerful and then trounce the world with them.

I think it will get good reviews, because it does have that immediate cool factor, but replayability is low IMO. But, maybe I've played it too much and need a break.

Nice comment Ausland. I feel somewhat the same, however reading through my post I found myself thinking that most of your problems are in theory solvable with balance improvements.

• Smashing everything with heroes and not needing troops/cities - balance issue
• Already won by the time can defeat wildlands - balance issue (and AI arguably because the AI needs to remain competitive but not overpowered) all game.
• Wonders/unique buildings not worth caring about - balance issue.

So perhaps there is hope. However just because they can in theory be fixed with balancing doesn't mean they can be in practice because the act of fixing them may cause too much damage - there may not be a viable solution that balances everything with the current mechanics! (eg balancing heroes may make heroes too boring and not worth the effort, etc).

Hard to know. But I certainly think Stardock have a lot of work ahead of them. They've got mechanics that I can see making a good game now but turning it into a great game is a whole different level.

You should try Civ 5 with the expansion... The AI is significantly better and the game overall is just that much better ..  its easy to forget Civ 4 wasnt that good or balanced before its expansions.

In saying that Civ 4 remains the greatest TBS game of all time IMO.

As far as FE goes review wise, personally I think its going to get savaged deservedly or no particularly in its current form. Each component needs to gel together alot more coherantly, it was said more eloquently in another post that the game currently feels like an RPG-lite, with a city sim lite tacked on. Id add that the tactical battles feel tacked on as well.

CIV IV rules supreme among the TBS, but FE will be up among the best (for me).