24x7 
08/31/2007 | Devlog | | Discuss
First, we think of beta as the real deal a live service that needs to run smoothly for our players. Clearly, itll have problems (its beta!!) but its also the right time to start moving into retail mode, which means providing great customer service in a timely fashion. To that end, weve moved to 24×7 for our beta customer support. Its not only useful for beta testers who need GM support to replicate a bug but it gives us more people to plow through reported bugs to keep our backlog down.
Second, weve moved over from our old bug tracking system to a new one that will enable us to more easily take in external bug reports. This not only streamlines things for our customer service group to report bugs to us, it provides a direct way for our various partners (such as SOE and Akella) to give us their bug reports. This is the kind of work item that isnt very exciting, but its a huge multiplier effect on the value of our beta test. The more efficiently we can find bugs, fix them, and regress them, the better the game is. Speaking of bugs, were on the positive slope on our bugs, by which I mean that for each milestone, we have fewer bugs than the previous milestone, which is a VERY welcome development!
And third, weve been rolling out the actual game servers and networking topology, which is really exciting. The second floor of our office has many forts built out of equipment boxes as they arrive for configuration, after which they are dispatched to our datacenter. Having the real equipment makes our stress testing that much more real, and it also provides extra machines to function as headless clients to perform automated stress testing. Plus, it lets us test out various configurations to see how the equipment really works, as opposed to how its supposed to work. Weve been doing the deployment at Internap in Tukwilla, and you can read the press release about it http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070821/20070821005315.html?.v=1. Its all very cool, except for the fact that I have to account for the increase in our burn rate to cover the overhead of all this equipment!! Still, Id rather have it extensively deployed for a large scale beta where we can learn all the lessons, then keep it small and hope that things go well for opening day.
So, things are coming along, but I know people are wondering exactly when the game is going to show up! Weve been working towards an internal release date for a while, but havent been announcing it because we didnt want to get people excited and then have to move it. Its one thing to move your date when its a year away, its quite another when its just a few months. But this turned out to be a good idea, because the date has been changing somewhat, mostly due to Europe.
Were planning on allowing players to be able to play on any of the servers that we directly control, so that if you live in France, and you have some friends playing on a US server that you want to play with, youre not restricted from doing so. But we also want a great release in Europe, which means we have to give retailers our full support and do a simultaneous release. If we let players play on any server, and dont have localized boxes ready to go on day one, the hardcore market is going to order it from Amazon in the U.S., and the local retailers lose that market which, though numerically small, drives other traffic. If we dont release simultaneously in North America and Europe, we lose that traffic, retailers arent as excited about their prospects, and stock less boxes and do less promotions. Its very much a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to retail.
Weve been working on the localization side of things to get ready for a simultaneous release. Its a big process (were over a million words in content) and is going to take a lot of effort. And not only are we going to ship in French and German, but were also going to be the first MMO to simultaneously release in Spanish! Its a huge effort to get it done on time, but I believe that Europe is going to be a great market for us specifically and for MMOs in general. That is, MMOs that take the time and expense to localize and do it right.
Localization is only half of the battle, though. Unlike the US, where distribution is dominated by four companies, European distribution is made up of many small outlets. When I say many I mean MANY. Getting them educated and evangelized is a big task, and while were working like mad on it, theres still a ways to go. Launching without everything in place means that you get a smallish number of boxes on the shelves, they sell out, and then youve got to wait for the re-order. Its a big issue, and were working on it right now. Leipzig was a big part of that effort. I got to meet the various potential partners, show them the game, and talk about how it would fit into their market. Theyre playing in beta right now, and the response has been pretty enthusiastic, so were looking to see who will put the most weight behind the box and really get it everywhere in Europe. Once we have that partner nailed down, the release will be nailed as well, and well announce the ship date. I know that you guys want to know now, but when we announce it, the ship date will be cast in stone, locked in with iron bars, and wont be moving so much as an hour, let alone a day.
As we look to launch, weve gone through our last iteration of where we are on the game, and what were going to ship with. When we put out the big beta update in July, we had all the features that wed planned to ship with in the game. It still needed polish, but it was there. When we realized that we needed to put in some extra time for distribution, we went back to what wed created, and looked at how we could improve it. As Test will tell you, the best way we can improve the game is to polish, polish, polish. But polish means different things to different people. Is changing out the avatar camera control polish, a bug fix, or a new feature? The fact is, its really all of them. Our goal is to use the time that we have left to make changes that will deliver maximum value to the player for minimum disruption. For example, we have a central mission tool called the Standard Encounter. When we touch that, we have rippling effects throughout the missions. That ripple effect can create a lot of bugs, so instead of touching the central system, were creating hand crafted missions which are independent of the Standard Encounter. We can add these right up to the last moment, because we can always turn off a new but problematic mission. Not only is it safe, but it lets us do more unique missions, which is always a good thing.
Missions touch on another area thats interesting. Weve built for breadth, which is the size of the game. A thousand missions per nation, eighty ports to visit, staggering number of clothing options, etc. And while weve always had content that was more unique and crafted (such as the role playing story line which is like nothing youve seen before in an MMO), now we have an opportunity to go back and really flesh out some of the cooler places. For example, the old version of Tortuga was fine, but come on, its TORTUGA!! THE PIRATE CAPITAL! I just saw the new plans for Tortuga, and its breathtaking. Its simply on another level than anything weve ever produced, and will be one of the cornerstones of our world.
Thats not to say that were just making improvements on the content. Our bug count is going down, but there is still a lot to do. The major work is on the swashbuckling combat. The combat system has a lot of cool elements to it, but its often held back by a variety of bugs (such as latency adding to your cool down timers) and the mission support. For example, there were no patrols in the first iteration, and patrols are critical for having unexpected danger. To address these issues, weve put together an interdisciplinary strike team that iterates on swashbuckling every day. Theyve been fixing the bugs (the build I used at Leipzig had the aforementioned latency bug fixed) and working on all the elements needed to really do a fantastic swashbuckling mission. When weve got all the pieces in shape and polished, well roll out the changes to the swashbuckling missions already in the game. As I mentioned earlier, the line between new features and polish blur here, but the goal is always the same: to make swashbuckling combat as fun, gorgeous, and addictive as the ship combat.
Other areas that were improving on are driven by our playability testing, which has already generated a lot of good data (and action on our part!) for things like the camera control, the in city map, the tutorial, and so on. The polishing never stops, even after release.
Finally, onto marketing. Ive been on the road non-stop showing the game to press and game retailers, and were going into overdrive on that effort. In a few weeks Rev and I will be flying down to Las Vegas to show 4,000 GameStop retailers what makes Pirates so special. Ive also signed off on the pre-order box, which has some really cool extras, and were working on all the events were going to be doing for the rollout. And next month is Talk Like A Pirate day!
The beta is ramping up big time, so make sure that your application is current (http://www.flyinglab.com/pirates/beta.php). Its really exciting around here, and while its been a long road, the end is very much in sight. Or, more accurately, the end of the beginning. See you on the high seas!
08/31/2007 | Devlog | | Discuss
