Brad had to know this post would turn into us talking about the picture, right?

Anyway he has a whole forest grwoing on the top of his head and likely along his back.  I imangine he has just risen up from the swamp and startled that guy on the horse in such a way that his he lost control of his bowels.

Yes I would have to agree. Longer beta would be wonderful. We can get in more features and hammer out more bugs. We can get better features that get tons more love and care... and with community ohhh my god this game will be amazing....

Beta 1 in august? Wasn't in in september? Not that I don't like the sound of that. Must mean no alpha thing?

I was going to vote for a delay in the game release until august of next year due to players' feedback so naturally, I must agree with directly delay it and prepare a longer beta period.

How many players should/can we allow in a game? 8? 12? 32? Just humans? Don't know, it's not like I'm going to play much multiplayer (unless something really weird happens, who knows).

How sophisticated can we make dungeons in the game? Let me build dungeons a la Neverwinter Nights 2, for example. It wouldn't work the same way (not being a group but a stack of units) but it gives you an idea.

How sophisticated can we make quests in the game? As long as they are not pointless and they are worthy of the time and resources they take, that would be a good start.

How sophisticated can we make tactical battles in the game? Hmmmm Not a spreadsheet? I'll let more qualified people judge this part of the game.

How big of a scope can we give the campaign? EPIC!!!! I want to have a feeling of "Wow, that was epic!". I understand that many people don't want campaigns because they are going to be playing sandbox only. But I want one (as long as, obviously, it's interesting and challenging).

This is a rare, if not unique**, opportunity to experiment with development cycles.  For that, I'm curious to see the outcome.  So, I would support the proposal.

I say this with the assumption that I'd be playing through all of those alpha/beta/gamma cycles.  If the game were unavailable to play during the proposed time period, then I may be less interested in being part of the experiment.  If I'm going to be part of this experiment, then I want the full Monty.  I don't want to sit on the sidelines with an incomplete product as it runs through an experimental extended development cycle.

** It occurs to me that such a reiterative cycle of development --> test --> feedback --> development is what we see in MMOs that release regular patches and content updates, though I agree the scenario here differs in some ways.

How many players should/can we allow in a game? 8? 12? 32?

In reality, my MP play time will be overshadowed by my SP play time, unless something wonderful happens (which I'll mention at the end).  So my short answer is 8.  My longer answer will follow in a separate section, under the question "How big a scope can we give a campaign?".

How sophisticated can we make dungeons in the game?

I'd rather you ask "How sophisticated can player content creators make dungeons in the game.

How sophisticated can we make quests in the game?

See above

How sophisticated can we make tactical battles in the game?

This is more complex than the above items. If the core game functionality can provide for massive battles of highly-varied and often-unique units wielding a variety of weapons/skills/spells/powers, then my objective would be to see the game developed to the point where such epic (read: huge, massive, varied) battles can be realized.

How big of a scope can we give the campaign?

This is where my dream gets aired.  I want to see the ability to chain multiplayer servers and their respective campaigns together.  So that as a player, I can log on and run aroudn in my 'world' while being able to hop over (in a hopefully relatively seamless way) to some other player server/world.

So the short answer to campaign scope is that I want it limited only by the number of game worlds I can connect to.  Players can get semi-organized and perhaps even develop their custom world maps such that thematically, they are similar.  Providing the appearance of a single campaign, that in fact is the result of running through gateway/portals that carry a player from his/her world over to another player's world.

That's for next weeks Alpha...Betas can be played by anyone that preorders.

It's not unique outside of games. Google is somewhat famous (infamous?) for endless "beta" projects before finally tagging them as final.

It certainly is rare though, particularly in a genre like gaming where a typical non-MMO game has a fairly short sales lifespan. I mean short relative to something like Excel, Quicken, and other business/professional software.

I have reconsidered my answer re: the extended dev cycle.

I think a better option might be to continue with the February release date beta cycle, then around December evaluate and at that point ask "Can we release the game that we want in two months?" "Are there a lot of new ideas that we have gotten from the community from the betas so far that extending the development cycle to August is going to be worthwhile?" All software projects will grow to fill the available time to release, my change of heart is that it might be best to keep the beta schedule as is at least for a few months of beta, with the comfortable knowledge that the option to extend is there.

As I said in my previous post, I don't think that to us as testers it makes a terrible lot of difference because we are going to have "the current product" in hand in February one way or the other, and the decision whether that is the release date of not is really a financial and an internal "is it ready" gut check for you guys.

I still love the idea of additional months to shape the game and possibly even get some beta user generated stuff included in the "canon" version - which unless y'all are completely against doing it, I think extending to August makes that much more likely to happen. On the other hand if come January, you feel and we feel that the game is functionally complete and just needs some polish - then it seems it would not make sense to postpone for six months just because you can, and I think that now (pre-alpha) is not the time to make that call.

Unless you are planning on pushing every phase back - such as the phase when tactical combat gets added, etc. If you are needing to make those kinds of schedule decisions NOW then my inclination is to go for the August release date. It really seems like different phases of beta need to be milestone determined (since time is not an over-riding factor)

So I would take your two possible schedules listed in the OP. Then I would say, The milestones we need to reach before going from Beta 1 to Beta 2 are that we are absolutely solid on x,y, and z. And then start beta 2 when those milestones are met. If the milestone/reality matches the original beta schedule then you will know you are on track for the February release. If the various milestones you set are much later than the original schedule, then you will know that August is the better choice.

You're kidding, right ? Sins has one of the weakest multiplayers I've ever seen for an RTS. Go to the forums, there are a ton a people complaining about how very few people play online. At peak time there's about 150 people online

Most games these days would benefit from a longer testing/beta phase, so if you can handle that financially:

Chalk me up in the "Definately yes" camp.

It doesn't really work that way, though. If you're planning on a February release, you need to have a feature list that you know you can do by then. The issue is that with that February release, that feature list may not be as extensive and "awesome" as if the game was slated for a later launch, giving them more time for the planned good stuff.

It's not really as simple as "well just stick with February, and then decide". A lot of wheels start rolling early (press, retailer contracts, etc) and the release date would be more or less locked in probably a couple months before, which would only give until December/January to figure out if they should delay, which isn't a whole lot of time from September's start of beta.

Honestly, the Sins beta lasted for several months longer than if Elemental would launch in February, and even though it came out extremely polished, there was still no time for things like a better diplomacy system. Elemental is already a more complex game in some respects, and with a shorter beta period it may end up lacking a lot of "oompfth". I have no doubt it would be a good game, but it has a much higher potential to truly stand out if the beta lasts longer.

IMO, as long as possible without letting the technology on which the game engine is built become obsolete. As long as by the release date the game doesn't look like it is outdated (mostly graphically), I would say... Carry on development!

Also, those things on the top of the monther are definately trees. If you look, there are at least 2 other trees further on the thing's back. It looks like one of WoW's creatures on growth hormones... http://www.wowwiki.com/Bog_beast

Edit: Also, make absolutely sure that if you do interviews with game magazines (previews and such) to include a short snippet informing the readers that they can get into the open betas if they pre-order.