When will by ready Europa Barbarorum II?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Here is my attempt at an educated guess.
The first post in the "In The Beginning" thread which was the very first thread for EB was 1-12-04. From that very beginning the first public release was released (exact date, courtesy of I am Herenow's link) on 12-27-05. About two years for the very basic version of 0.7.2 to come out. If you want exact amounts it is 716 days or 1 year, 11 months and 16 days.

Now from what I understand full work on EBII did not begin until 1.2 was finished.
Bovi's 1.2 release thread was formed on 11-21-08. Assuming for small fluctuations in team size (because I doubt the team would change its size too significantly which could disrupt their cohesion, organization and flow) as well as the extra time needed to be put in for M2TW due to its new pros and cons over the RTW, I expect the first public version to be released from about 5-10% earlier (and thats pushing it with both a larger team size and little time needed to be spent on the transition to the new game) and anywhere from 10-20% later (with smaller team size and a lengthy transition to the new game).

What does this mean in terms of raw dates?
Well if we are going to base our entire guessing off of the time it took to make EBI, then the range would be around 644-859 days from Bovi's announcement of 1.2's release.
Which would mean that the first public version of EBII (not refined whatsoever) would be released within: 8-27-10 (Or Friday, August 27, 2010) and 3-30-11 (Or Wednesday, March 30, 2011).

Any additional information would help greatly in my calculations. Such as exact numbers for the EB team during 2004-2005 and 2008-today to provide more accurate numbers.

-ACIN

[BozosLiveHere]

Assuming for small fluctuations in team size (because I doubt the team would change its size too significantly which could disrupt their cohesion, organization and flow) as well as the extra time needed to be put in for M2TW due to its new pros and cons over the RTW, I expect the first public version to be released from about 5-10% earlier (and thats pushing it with both a larger team size and little time needed to be spent on the transition to the new game) and anywhere from 10-20% later (with smaller team size and a lengthy transition to the new game).

Actually, team size and composition fluctuates a lot. For example, not one of the current unit artists were members when I joined the team (around mid-'06).

[Alsatia]

I fear for EB II....


It will take a long time, and i'd probably double the forecast of release because of the sheer amount of data to be modded and the member dissapearences....

[Owen Glyndwr]

Guys, certainly you must realize that the longer you spend thinking about how long it's going to take, the longer it takes. (See: Cartman in the Wii episode of South Park if you don't believe me).

Trust me, things will go faster if you find something to distract yourself rather than pacing back and forth in front of the hypothetical video game store waiting x amount of time for this mod to finally be released in all its gloriousness.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Actually, team size and composition fluctuates a lot. For example, not one of the current unit artists were members when I joined the team (around mid-'06).

Could you or one of the EB team members be courteous enough to provide at least a rough estimate of current members and an estimate of the number of members between 2005 through the first public release?

[Majd il-Romani]

lets hope the CA hires the EB team to help them make R2TW

[Krusader]

lets hope the CA hires the EB team to help them make R2TW

I'm fairly certain CA would not go for EB's level of historical accuracy and realism, as they and SEGA would think it would sell less than a more general and easier to grasp game. CA & SEGA ain't artists, they are businessmen. They make/publish games for profits. And with increasing costs in making games, any SEGA suits would probably throw a hissy fit if they would pay for people doing research as we do (going through JSTOR, looking through coins, archeological excavations etc.) when CA's own people can just "buy a few Ospreys or other books" for general info.

[Alsatia]

lets hope the CA hires the EB team to help them make R2TW

That would be brilliant. It just seems that the developers, as said before, will not go that far and head for quick, easy and lame sterotypes....

[Atilius]

Could you or one of the EB team members be courteous enough to provide at least a rough estimate of current members and an estimate of the number of members between 2005 through the first public release?

Honestly, no.

I've been a member for close to three years and I've never really known how many active, contributing members we've had at any one time. Some members work like hell for a few months, drop off the face of the earth for a while, and later return and make productive contributions again. Some work in areas in which I can tell how much they're contributing, others work in areas I'm not familiar with. Some members join with the understanding that they will do one very specific task. Every member is unproductive for periods of time, whether because of life, school, work, or (ahem!) Carnival.

So I can't answer your question, and I'd be a bit surprised if anyone could.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Honestly, no.

I've been a member for close to three years and I've never really known how many active, contributing members we've had at any one time. Some members work like hell for a few months, drop off the face of the earth for a while, and later return and make productive contributions again. Some work in areas in which I can tell how much they're contributing, others work in areas I'm not familiar with. Some members join with the understanding that they will do one very specific task. Every member is unproductive for periods of time, whether because of life, school, work, or (ahem!) Carnival.

So I can't answer your question, and I'd be a bit surprised if anyone could.

Well with that information, it is impossible to estimate any release date as the group size needs to be relatively constant in order for a reasonable estimate to be made. You might as well point to a random square on a calendar and say it will come out then because any number of people could come back with a load of finished work at any given time if it really is as dynamic as you say.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, as what was basically the whip for EBI, I can tell you that no matter how much cajoleing and pleading and admonishing and guilting you do, that on a volunteer-based project like EB that it doesn't really help a lot, and that you run the risk of alienating folks who are trickling good work in. The project *very heavily* depended on a small number of artists who would flood us with incredible units and then would usually fade away. Spartan Warrior was probably the biggest workhorse but then totally disappeared. There's no way you can change the timeline except to chance upon more folks who will get really into helping the mod and then milking them for whatever they've got.

[Vasiliyi]

Well, as what was basically the whip for EBI, I can tell you that no matter how much cajoleing and pleading and admonishing and guilting you do, that on a volunteer-based project like EB that it doesn't really help a lot, and that you run the risk of alienating folks who are trickling good work in. The project *very heavily* depended on a small number of artists who would flood us with incredible units and then would usually fade away. Spartan Warrior was probably the biggest workhorse but then totally disappeared. There's no way you can change the timeline except to chance upon more folks who will get really into helping the mod and then milking them for whatever they've got.

MILK THEM MORE!

[Blxz]

I think the main thing that will end up delaying the release is that the last few releases of EB have been packed with stuff and improvements. They have a kind of mentality that unfinished work is not good enough to be released. if you compare EB 0.80 to EB 1.2 there are some major differences even though 0.80 was considered good enough to release.

What i am trying to say is that I think the team is much more likely to try and release something as good as or better than EB 1.2, rather than to just get the framework in place and give out somehting based more along the lines of 0.80. While this is not a bad way of looking at things (especially now that they have established themselves in the community) it will definately make the release date further down the track. We just need to wait, give support where and when we can and more importantly, to stop making them take breaks away from their coding to answer our threads about "when is eb2 coming out, please tell me, i lovzors it too much omg omg omg !!!1!".

So chill out some of you. It will go no faster by asking for release dates, even though a generalized schedule of where they are and what needs to be done would at least satisfy some people, this will just take time away from real EB2 work

[bovi]

I can safely say that EB2's first release (The Gaza campaign) will be nowhere near the completeness of EB1.2. Still, Blxz is right that we won't release anything that would be considered just a framework to build on.

Even while we added a lot since 0.8 to 1.2, I disagree that 0.8 was all that incomplete though. The first beta was 0.72 AFAIK, and I think the differences between 0.72 and 0.8 are about as great as the differences between 0.8 and 1.2. 0.8 was more stable than most other mods too.