EB2 RELEASE DATE CONFIRMED: August 2014

[Kull]

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Though I am wondering if I should change the thread title to "open beta release data confirmed", for the sake of accuracy.

I struggle with that terminology. When we release v.72 of EB1, THAT was a beta. It was buggy and crashed frequently. It was still fun, but the stability issues were frustrating. Not until v.74 (about 4-5 months later) were most of the worst CTDs tracked down and removed. That was a fairly complete game, but we still called it a beta as it was pre 1.0. Another 7 months go by and the team releases v.80. Huge improvements across the board, but randomly buggy and technically still a beta. Finally a few updates later, we released v1.0. Was that "finished"? Were all the bugs gone? No to both questions.

For me personally something is an alpha when it's not even playable...just a mess. A beta is full of bugs and likely to crash at any time. So where is EB2 in all this? We'll have 200 units out of a planned 500, so on that basis we're only 40% done. On the other hand the game hasn't crashed in MONTHS. So what is it? From my perspective, it's incomplete. And it will remain so for years to come, in all likelihood.

But will it be fun to play? Will it continue to be upgraded in various areas? Yes. So people should enjoy it for what it is, and help identify some things that can make it better. But it will not be a chore. It will be immersive and very interesting. The historical accuracy alone is breathtaking to me. Head and shoulders above what we did in EB1.

So people can call it anything they want, but we think you'll enjoy it.