EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

January 31, 2013

Well, it's the last day of January, and if you have been following out progress, you may have guessed already that Omega will not be launching today. However, I am happy to report that as of today we are FEATURE-LOCKED! This means that they features we wanted / needed for Omega are completed. As I said before, we wanted to be feature locked by last Sunday to release by this week, but that did not happen. Releasing this Friday or over the weekend may seem like an option but the release would not be adequately tested and there would be no support staff to help if issues arose. If we release early next week, with a fully-tested release, we can patch bugs and handle any other issues comfortably. Early next week seems like the best time to release given the current progress.

Some may be wondering: with 2 programmers and 2 artists and a team of testers -- how could a release be delayed so much?  Development is always more work than you think it will be. Without Charfade and Rabblefroth, Omega would have been shot down immediately in the planning stages for being too complex. Omega is miles away more ambitious than any previous release -- even more than the initial launch with Artix in 2009. We want new development phases to shake things up. Omega is a 10.2 magnitude earthquake. It is practically a new game -- it certainly feels that way when we compare Omega to the current live version of the game.

I can tell you how hard we worked and how sorry we are, but none of that really matters. All that matters is the release. I will echo Titan when I say that we will release Omega when it's ready -- no sooner. If you try to pry open a chrysalis before the butterfly is ready, you won't find a sleeping butterfly  -- you'll find a mangled organism, not ready for life. Was that a good analogy, Cindy?

That said, we understand your frustration and the fact that you've stuck with us this far demonstrates that you're as excited for Omega to go live as we are! Probably moreso at this point. All we ask is that you hang in there for just a bit longer! The end is in sight, and we're at full sprint, but we are also want to be careful not to stumble.

Also, I would like to add one final reminder that a metric ton of gear and missions are leaving the game (some permanently) when Omega goes live. For a complete list, check out this DN post from December! 

One last, last thing -- here are some previews of new Core abilities from Dev: Meteor Shower and Energy Storm!

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