Hey guys,
We really are getting close to putting it in your hands. What we didn't fully anticipate was how big the demo is. Backers will easily spend 6+ hours on it. That's a full game in many new releases and it's just the first half of Arizona for us. While the level guys are cleaning up issues in their areas, we also need to essentially have all game systems at a point where they are functioning well enough to give you a good idea of the games feel. It means we're going through a modified version of gold mastering a game, minus the polish and iteration time.
By modified, I don't mean we're trying to remove all bugs or make sure each element is fully polished, but there is a ton to do just to make sure it's ready. We have to take a bit more of a critical eye on how the systems work and that takes time. In development, there is so much to do. Many times you need to stick and move on features early on to get the basics in so you can start to see how they mesh together. This means you get it working, then move on. Sometimes you live with things that might be wonky but function, since there is so much else that needs to go in. These unfinished features might be confusing to someone who just picks up the game for the first time, but since we've been working on it 18+ months, we know how to fudge it to make it work. Other elements are working great (and you can see everything great in the dev console) but when you hide the console, the lack of feedback hurts that feature. We are focusing on the worst offenders in these areas and have the luxury of not being contractually tied to a specific line in the sand, and that allows us to not have to make big concessions to keep the doors open and the team paid.
As a producer, it's important to have vision of what a feature can eventually be, but to be critical of it. Have we proved the feature out enough to believe it will be good with some clean-up and iteration or do we need to scrap it and try something else? This is how much of development goes as you get diminishing returns taking something too far early on. Now we're taking all the things that generally worked and making sure they can be understood by the player.
Our goal is not to take this beta to "completion" and send it out. We want feedback once it's in your hands. I'm a huge believer in iteration and now we can get the feedback on where it would be best to spend our time during the last part of development.
Chris
