Twitter discussion

[easytarget]

While I agree with this sentiment, it does lend itself to a bit of the opposite problem where the beta release date forever is on the horizon one or two qtrs away and never happens.

[moonburn]

rather hve a proper game then being disapointed in the end

eb equals itself to all the relations i took it slow just to discover in the end when the time to do the deed came that i had hyped it so much that it couldn´t live up to the created expectations

i hope eb is the exception

[d'Arthez]

It can be a bit frustrating to have the release delayed time and again. But, what would happen if whatever build is released is too bare-boned? Or too unstable? What good would a 12-turn campaign, before permanent CTD, do? Not much. It could even kill of the interest for the mod. No one likes bad press, least of all the volunteers who spend their precious free time to create EB2. No one is getting paid for their efforts. Releasing it too early can be highly demotivating for everyone involved.

Seeing that a total conversion is quite a complicated affair, there needs to be a lot of centralized planning, a lot of testing to see that introduction of additional features and such do not lead to bugs or other unintended consequences. Sometimes coding can be very annoying - it is not a coincidence that bug-fixing for software usually requires a substantial amount of time. It is even worse when you are creating a mod, since your ability to check for errors and flaws is more limited. Never mind the tools you have at your disposal. It is no coincidence that it took such a long time to discover the "path-length"-issue in EB1 (and other mods).

That being said, it is quite possible that the team has "too high" standards for a first release. Very rarely it happens that a program or mod is perfect as it is, or does not have some highly unbalanced / annoying features. With something like the scope of EB2, it is virtually impossible to avoid, since there will be thousands of lines of code, tens of thousands of lines of descriptions (units, provinces, buildings, etc.), and undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of lines of communication in the internal forums of everyone involved, to ensure historical accuracy, quality, bugfixes, balancing issues, etc..

Bug-hunting and balancing (which will partly be based on the quirks of the combat engine, for example) can be notoriously difficult if you have only a limited number of people being engaged in the task. Especially when there are a few hundred units, and close to 30 factions to check. I am reminded of the AI expansion threads for EB1, in its various incarnations. I think such threads could help substantially with balancing overpowered and underpowered factions, ahistorical expansion tendencies etc. For instance the AI steppe factions were quite weak in the earlier EB builds, due to auto_calc issues.

These are just meant as general observations. EB set the benchmark very high, considering what was possible with the RTW engine. And I am sure that the team for EB2 wants to improve on EB1 in all its aspects, and that is by no means an easy task.

[Brennus]

While I agree with this sentiment, it does lend itself to a bit of the opposite problem where the beta release date forever is on the horizon one or two qtrs away and never happens.

We are equally frustrated. When we posted the "State of the Mod Address" in December we genuinely thought that we were a matter of weeks away from release; we had more active team members than at any time in the prior 8 months and we were clearing work faster than at any time in the preceding 3 years. However real life began to bite and our productivity slumped as more and more team members were forced to address problems regarding employment, family and finances etc.

But we are still ploughing on, regardless of what it takes

That being said, it is quite possible that the team has "too high" standards for a first release. Very rarely it happens that a program or mod is perfect as it is, or does not have some highly unbalanced / annoying features. With something like the scope of EB2, it is virtually impossible to avoid, since there will be thousands of lines of code, tens of thousands of lines of descriptions (units, provinces, buildings, etc.), and undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of lines of communication in the internal forums of everyone involved, to ensure historical accuracy, quality, bugfixes, balancing issues, etc...

Actually I think part of the problem was that the team's standards were too high at the beginning. A grand and impressive plan was created for EBII which involved all sorts of features. The problem is that no-one could have foreseen the problems which occurred as time went on. Now, we are by and large sticking to the original plan, as in some cases we have no choice (things are too far along in some places for us to simply drop them and go for something simpler), but certainly for the coders and the modellers it has been a real challenge.

Don't worry, when EBII is released it will be a much more complete and stable game than EB was, likewise from an historical perspective we by and large have what we need for a first release. We just don't want to release EBII in a condition where (like Creative Assembly and Rome 2) we will have to spend months responding to mssages from disapointed fans who either (1) Can't get it to work or (2) Accuse us of underdevelopment.

As it stands though we have 85% of the strat map characters finished, Tsar has been doing great work with the UI, as did Skyn0s before him, so that when you play as a faction you will be doing so using menus which are immersive. Tux, Gustave and nazgool, as you have seen from a few of the tweets, have made great progress with the units, in fact in some cases they would challenge Rome 2 for graphics. Likewise V.T. Marvin has done wonders with the various governments, for example if you play as the Pritanoi you get a unique government. And to this list I can add Kull and bovi's work in stabilising the game, paullus advice on all manner of Greek related issues, abou's improvements to the Seleukid governments and descriptions, sirtim who has made Iberia one of the most immersive regions in the game (contrast that to EB, and especially RTW), fightermedic's work on the maps, Haithabas who has pretty much done every job you could ask of a modder. Also the other historians not mentioned; cmacq (currently writing the equivallent of a novella on the Jastorf culture), TheTank, Gaius Scribonius Curio, Mithridates VI Eupator and Moros who have all added details and information which put EB to shame. And not forgetting of course the testers who have identified numerous problems which many of the above have ironed out.

[Yavana]

Thank you for information, Brennus. I do not care when the EB II is done, even thought I wait for it since the beginning of development checking this website almost everyday, I just hope EB II will be as great as EB I, and I belive wastly majority of EB fans have the same opinion, that's all.

Thank you for your effort!