Founds Roadmap

Greetings!

Preliminaries:

#1 This is a FOUNDERS FORUM POST.  That means we are looking to divulge information to you that isn't generally known or share with you opinions, etc. that are not generally public.

#2 Reminder: This forum is covered under your NDA.

Where we have our engineering focus on right now:

#1 Ascendancy Wars campaign

#2 User Interface

#3 Army/Meta unit behavior

#4 Multiplayer robustness

Here is our tentative schedule

February

We will be releasing BETA 2 of Ashes.  This will have the multi-GPU features in it. To turn it on, you will click on "Enable Multi-GPU".  If you only have one GPU, the option will be disabled.

 

March

On March 3 we will be making a VIP build available to active testers (with a bias towards founders).  This build will have the Ascendancy Wars Beta campaign.

So what is Ascendancy Wars?

It's a story-driven campaign that takes place in the Arcturus sector of the Milky Way.  Players will see a map full of planets and choose how they go through them.  It's designed to teach people how to play the game, provide the story and give the player a lot of cool game play experience that aren't available in skirmish.  

Remember the game mode discussion we had? Well, this is where that stuff is showing up.  We don't have UI engineering time to make and test these game modes as part of skirmish yet but we can do it in the campaign.

On March 22 we will be releasing 1.0.  It will be BETA 2 + Ascendancy Wars.

 

Spring

We will try to clean up the map editor and give that out (for free).  We will also be releasing a DLC of additional maps we've made.  If a player doesn't have the map in MP, it will download it to them (it'll only be available to them in MP if the host has the map and they don't).

We will be releasing ASAP a way for people to easily make scenarios.  These are incredibly fun to make and once done, allow people to set up custom game play experiences that can be shared around.   In the near term, this will be a single player only feature.

Summer

Ascendancy Wars online.  This is where people can set up an empire with their friends and go and try to conquer planets from other people. Each time you win a game, that planet belongs to you and you gain the resources from it.

We will also be releasing the first expansion pack which will add a bunch of new units, a new map type, a new campaign.

All through this period we'll be making lots of little balance passes and generally improving on the game.

 

Let me know if you have any questions. ;)


 

17,072 views 5 replies
Reply #1 Top

Awesome news!

So your telling us that On March 22 the game will be released to everyone as a Final Build, or Gold Build, it will not be in beta anymore.

I have a few Questions:

  1. About the Map Editor, if i make a map and release it to the Public, will I have some kind of password to this map so not anyway can go ahead and change the map or steal it?
  2. If you guys get in some kind of a big bug in the game will you guys move the Final Build (1.0) to a later date or you just release in on march 22 and fix that bug at a later time?
  3. So us Founders will have 19 days to try and play the Ascendancy Wars before the Public Release?
  4. If i make right now a big User Created map using the Map Editor, that map editor size is gonna be around 300MB. Are you guys expect to optimize the maps to make them faster to Download? most of the users have a 128 Kbps Upload Connection, it may take around 6-8 minutes to download, Will we be getting some kind of of server for the maps so the user can download them faster? what about having a option to review maps and add some kind of of percentage of how much people like that map.
  5. Ascendancy Wars online is looking very cool, how many Empires can join a server? how many players can you add in each Empire? Can a single player Join Ascendancy Wars online alone or need to be in an empire?

  6. We will also be releasing a DLC of additional maps we've made. If a player doesn't have the map in MP, it will download it to them (it'll only be available to them in MP if the host has the map and they don't).
    So the first DLC will be Maps?are you guys gonna charge for those maps? I mean with all respect, making maps is really easy and fast why charge for something really that everyone can do, Trust me when you guys release the Map Editor to Everyone you are going to see hundreds of maps in the first week, i do have like 8 maps done already and some other players already have at least 20+ maps waiting to be released. So if you want to release the First DLC do give maps, its really sad to have maps DLC's, what about you make Side Stories Campaigns  (small ones around 3 maps per story-driven campaigns) something like that, just Saying that the DLC's and Expansion should give the Player Something new and not something that everyone can make like maps.
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Reply #2 Top

Instead of having people download a large map (unless you have got around that somehow), you could put the DLC on everyone's system. Of course only the people who bought it would be able to see them and select them. But it would mean when a non-DLC owner joined a game with someone who owns the DLC they don't have to d/l it. Well, unless you do put the maps on some server as queried by Asad and then it wouldn't be so bad as the D/L would be faster and each map would only be a one time download...right? But still seems easier to stick it on everyone's system.

 

On March 22 we will be releasing 1.0.  It will be BETA 2 + Ascendancy Wars.

I assume you'll also put in any extra polish and fixes which are made between February 25th (Beta 2) and release, 22nd March, as that is a months worth work of improvements in there surely.

Reply #3 Top

If I happen to be one of the founders with access to the VIP build, you can bet I'll be giving it a go.

Reply #4 Top

Quoting eviator, reply 3

If I happen to be one of the founders with access to the VIP build, you can bet I'll be giving it a go.

Me too!