Post#37 » 16 Jan, 2017 8:03 am

Hello Repopulation..population! I am here to introduce myself and give some more answers/views on the questions, but please note my answers will usually be much more on the technical side of development, I cannot answer questions about the company or anything outside of the game.



I am a Technical Director here for The Repopulation, in short this is a large number of jobs within development but I do also have a large number of hours with Hero Engine, (and other engines) over a number of projects. Right now I am reading everything I can within these and other forums, taking a look at what is being asked from a technical stand point, and I am going to take a crack at answering some of these right now.



Over the years I have played many many MMO's, but the one that stands out with The Repopulation is SWG. I did play SWG a lot before NGE but not quite as much after, (Pistoleer/Combat Medic back in the day!), and I understand all of the references made to the game. I want to give you my own assurances that The Repopulation is to stay as a Sandbox MMO, there are no plans to change any of that, and right now our focus is actually on things which are more immediate, and I will get in to that in a bit. We have seen many bugs when playing The Repopulation, but looking at it back end can give a whole different outlook on what work is required.



I did see questions about DX11, and one benefit of working within the same studio as the Engine developers is the communication between engine and game. Sarrene only got involved with IF in 2015, she became COO late in the year and her primary focus was to clean up and prepare for the DX11 Update for the engine itself, when it does hit the engine we wont immediately have it within The Repopulation, but we will be moving towards it, the reason is that there will be a few changes we have to make within The Repopulation source that has been through years of development.



Pay to Win comes up a lot here, and I can say that none of the developers want to go in that direction in any way. We want to keep close to the method ABT had (Back/Purchase the game and play in 'Early Access' as Steam calls it). We may streamline things slightly, but nothing dramatic will change. Moving forward we do plan to implement Cosmetic Micro-transactions as previously planned by ABT. Always remember that the project needs an income, if we have no income... eventually that leads to no project. As we move forward there are other options that we might look in to but Pay to Win is not something we ever want to put on the cards.



Nobody is going to have to repurchase the game, and we want to do our best to assure everyone who has already backed the repopulation gets their 'in-game' rewards where possible.



When the servers go up all characters 'should' be intact, (bar any issues we may face), it's certainly the plan right now but I can't say with 100% certainty. I should note, and not to allude to any misconceptions, there will be a full wipe later down the road just before full release of the game. It's important to note that things will be just as buggy and so forth when the servers go up, please don't expect all of the bug fixes in right away.



At this moment in time, we cannot give a 'Timeline' as such, but I can give a very, very general roadmap, how long each stage takes is unknown at this point. This is certainly not going to be a standard Alpha/Beta development, but this is certainly not a standard situation either. More iteration and expansion on this will come in time.



Please remember, none of this is set in stone, this is extremely general and priorities can always change, (especially as we go over the review):



Firstly (what I like to call 'New Development Alpha'), we want to review all of the project as is, fix up bugs/issues that are currently in there, and open up the servers as they were to the public who could access it. Whilst this goes on we will be taking feedback from the community for many aspects, we will however be focusing on what features need fixes/changes without adjusting any of the core already in.



Then (what I like to call 'New Development Beta'), when we are happy with that, we want to move on to implementing the said fixes and changes with the current systems, this would also be where we start implementing DX11 if it's available, (DX11 will be implemented in stages over time, as it is not a switch you can just flick), along with fixing any of the major game breaking bugs. This is also the stage where we will be looking at content, all major feedback and looking to make sure its a well rounded sandbox to play in. All the while, keeping the vision of The Repopulation in play.



Please note we have a lot of new reviewing to do. Now that the acquisition has been finalized, we have a lot of new documentation and also the game code itself, we cannot give a timeline or any idea of exacts at this moment, but many people in the community have commented on it being extremely buggy and glitchy, fixing that is by far our highest priority. We will tend to all of this before we can even look at future content updates right now.



Thank you for reading, and I will be on the lookout for the more technical related questions.