2.6 release pushed back to 18th December

[Chaosphere]

yeah played a little star marine and even with my 1080 it lags,does feel like cod in space.

Cod in space sounds like something I might be good at Yay haha

They DID a COD in space, it was rubbish!!! :woot2:

[TeaLeaf]

Downloading a fresh 30GB as we're at 2.6.0L now! :roflmao:

[albert]

It's about a 12GB update.

If they can stablise Star Marine in time for Christmas, we could have dMw vs dMw games on there.

It is visually amazing and you don't just die hardcore style with one kill because of the armor so you are better taking your time and playing as a team to get to the objective.

Seems the first game type is capture and hold style play.

[albert]

They DID a COD in space, it was rubbish!!! :woot2:

Starting to think you've gone all Smilo on us and are negative about everything ;-)

[Sneakytiger]

yeah about 12gb update, updating now.

[sulky_uk]

If they can stablise Star Marine in time for Christmas, we could have dMw vs dMw games on there.

Could do but i haven't received an invite for the new version

[albert]

Show them da money! It's pay to play!

[smilodon]

The PTU is not about playing Star Citizen it's about testing and QA.

There are enough bugs in this test build to make getting any sort of guaranteed multi player game a complete lottery. However for anyone bothered to stay up to date with the release schedule the PU build is planned to go live tomorrow so downloading the PTU build for a tournament is a complete waste of time, as baring another delay to the PU the PTU will disappear tonight/tomorrow.

People should be joining the PTU so as to test the build and post bug reports on the RSI website Issue Council not just to get an early go at 2.6.

Personally I think pushing the PTU out to Subscribers was a dumb thing to do. 1st Wave PTU testers get that privileged specifically because the are willing to download (often several times) PTU builds and test them. That's why PTU is normally invite only as it's a waste of time letting others simply fly about and do nothing useful. I'm guessing CIG need to stress test the build and so simply want bodies in the Universe rather than people who are actually willing to contribute to the bug testing process. There was a big test at about 8pm last night specifically for that reason.

That's not to say that all Subscribers will not bother to submit bug reports. I'm just guessing the vast majority won't be bothered. Just because someone pays a few pounds a month doesn't mean they will automatically contribute to the testing process.

[sulky_uk]

just followed the procedure for getting it and the option is grayed out for me. Ill have to wait then

[albert]

My "Show them da money" comment was sarcasm, I seriously hope they are not just giving PTU access to subscribers.

As for reporting bugs, I seriously hope they have data gathering and crash reporting coming in from each client as a matter of course in an Alpha. Depending on people to actually do it is so unreliable and since they have a piece of software on each client machine they have access to all the data they need from the client and PC that is running the software.

My point about dMw vs dMw wasn't about doing this on the PTU but on the PU when it is released tomorrow. I would expect them to put out a PU with star marine that actually works most of the time otherwise players will lose interest.

I personally would rather see them release an end product or a Beta of some part of the game and then develop the other parts of the game into that but CIG are using a rather waterfall approach to their development of the game where nothing is delivered for users to test in terms of end product and they are trying to deliver lots of big buggy things simultaneously but no real cohesion. Very old skool.

[Obsydian]

The Evocati (approx 800 players) have been testing and bug reporting in 2.6 for some time now, and have gone through iterations a-i.  2.6j was released to subscribers and an undisclosed number of "others" to stress test the servers, as Smilo said.  Patch 2.6k went out a day or so ago to even more testers, and 2.6l has now dropped (as of last night) and I'm seeing lots of reports from some very happy people concerning how much more stable it is, how much smoother it is and, most importantly I guess, how much fun it is!

The live release is slated for 22nd (so probably early hours of 23rd for most of us).

In the meantime, have any of you seen the "Emergent Gameplay" video put together by CIG?  It's staged, of course, but played out in the style of two teams online in the PU and showing off some of the new assets, visual effects and gameplay improvements, interspersed with some previously video - it's a lot of fun:
[video=youtube;e9JgXvBX73s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9JgXvBX73s[/video]

[smilodon]

Yep the PU is the place to play :-)

I have to disagree with the comments about open development. The open way CIG are developing the game and allowing players to be part of that process is very unusual. It's for some a real eye opener as to how a AAA game is created. Even stuff that comes out as early access on Steam is mostly in a far  more complete state than Star Citizen. I applaud CIG for how they are  creating this game, pity them for the ignorant flack they seem to get  from time to time and am glad to be able to take part in shaping the game and am really enjoying being part of the process.

Normally no one would see these builds except internal testers. We would indeed all sit and wait for a Beta to appear. I'm glad CIG are not going down that typical route. The down side to creating a game in the open and allowing backers to play and try to break the bits that are done, is that some and especially the web based press seem to think the PU etc are a beta and fit for public consumption which they are not. No matter how many times CIG try to explain the process some web sites and a lot of non backers don't get it.

There are going to be plenty of backers who want to back the game financially but who don't want to see the 'Verse until it's all polished and done. That's absolutely fine, they just don't download the PU builds, simple.

[Liberator]

Got an invite to PTU today, but if it's slated for live tomorrow then I won't bother downloading.

[albert]

I think you misunderstand me Smilo. I applaud their open involvement in shaping the game, that's unique. I work in a company where we use an agile development approach and the main principle of agile is to deliver fast and often engaging the user and feeding back regularly, then retrospective review, and improve. I think that works best when you actually have products to deliver in smaller chunks. CIG are trying to deliver large products then as a result take a lot longer to get something out to the user base. Now perhaps the 800 main testers are seeing this progress and the rest of the Alpha backers don't get that insight but that in itself goes against agile as they're excluding the majority of users or customers. I think it's commendable they added more testers from 2.6j onwards but maybe they would move faster with more data from more test client machines (not the manual bug reports method).

[Obsydian]

Now perhaps the 800 main testers are seeing this progress and the rest of the Alpha backers don't get that insight but that in itself goes against agile as they're excluding the majority of users or customers. I think it's commendable they added more testers from 2.6j onwards but maybe they would move faster with more data from more test client machines (not the manual bug reports method).

I disagree albert - I think the Evocati is a great idea, as it is made up only of players who are actively testing and reporting bugs, vs the main bulk of the community who, as Smilo says, think they're in beta and the game should be playable.  CIG view the Evocati as an extension of their in-house test team, and they have a good amount of people who are focused on hunting for bugs, reproducing and documenting bugs in a controlled manner.

Simply throwing the latest build on the PTU for all to download would not accomplish anything more than driving up CIG's bandwidth costs and causing the servers to topple over every time they inadvertently ship a networking bug.

Add to that that the community have proven time and again that they are not fit to bear witness to the state of the game between major releases, and I can understand why they stop the agile process at the Evocati stage.  They will whine that they signed up to test the game, bugs and all, but then whine yet again if they encounter something that stops them from playing, sorry testing!, for more than 5 minutes before crashing.  Poor old CIG can't win either way!