Release Date

[visible structural damage 0]

This sim is looking like an awesome piece of work, I had the Harrier Jump Jet add on for MS combat simulator 2 and enjoyed flying the Harrier immensely, the Harrier was my favourite aircraft as a kid and still is, my interest in aircraft coming from my father who was in the RAF based at RAF Abingdon, Oxfordshire UK in the 50's, like an idiot I lent the harrier disc to a friend and funnily enough I haven't seen the game since !!!! Anyway back to my question...... On the official site it mentions "don't expect to see this sim this year or next" ..... is there a date pencilled in for release yet ????

[+Dante-JT 6]

On the official site it mentions "don't expect to see this sim this year or next" ..... is there a date pencilled in for release yet ????

 

Well, I hope that this year we'll be able to release a small techdemo (not really a game demo) to at least show the unique features of our flight sim, like the full V/STOL capability and the pitching carrier decks - as soon as we have this features working, to be more exact, to have Sea Harrier FRS.1 operating onboard HMS Hermes and maybe one or two missions to go (against Mirages or bombing Stanley airfield) we'll have it as a small 'proof of concept' tech demo of the flightsim's engine. The full demo is planned when we reach Beta - I plan for the full demo to have at least 3 flyables - Harrier, Pucará and Skyhawk, and a bit of multiplayer capability. Consider it as Multiplayer Demo, as opposite to the single player of the engine's demonstration/proof of concept. :)

[Guest Shadowcat]

The full demo is planned when we reach Beta

FWIW, I'm strongly against the idea of releasing a public demo until the code is actually representative of the final retail product that you are supposed to be demonstrating. IMO, the purpose of a demo is to allow potential customers to see how the retail product will run on their machine, and preview some of its features. If the demo is based on beta code, it is not representative of the retail product, and (again, IMO) that does ThunderWorks no favours at all.

 

If you do release anything before the game is 'gold', please consider taking a leaf out of the books of id software, who have released public "test" versions of their games for the purpose of finding bugs and determining the game's performance over a wide variety of machines, and only later release an actual demo of the game. The word "test" carries very different expectations to the word "demo", and I feel it is a much safer naming scheme, particularly in the flight sim genre where for all their good intentions, people are notoriously harsh in their criticism, and even relatively minor bugs can lead to widespread opinion that the entire game is bad.

 

I get frustrated both on behalf of the developers (who may lose sales) and the customers (who are being misled) when companies base their "demo" versions on beta code.

[+Spectre_USA 7]

I wish you had been on the beta team for Lock On, ShadowCat.

 

It would have been another voice of reason for the holding off of it's demo. Needless to say, I agree with your statement whole-heartedly...

[PG_Raptor 0]

I agree. And I would like to be one of the first (I know not THE first) to volunteer my services to this sim :)

[+Dante-JT 6]

Excellent post, ShadowCat! I want you guys in the Beta for Jet Thunder. :)

 

I agree, I should have named the "tech demo" or proof of concept, in my first post, as a "test", not a demo, as suggested by ShadowCat.

 

My idea of releasing this 'test' was to break some of the scepticism I see sometimes regarding our project (like "this is all vapor" or "it's something based on a modded engine of the XYZ flightsim"), this way, people will run the test (I liked the word :)) and they will see for themselves the Harrier hovering, the engine at work, the volumetric clouds and all other promised features.

 

But we're still far away from this test, at the moment we have several 'converging' works in the programming department. It's all very fragmented. One executable does the A-4 Skyhawk + its cockpit/instruments, the other executable is external view camera, the other is a test for VTOL dynamics, the other shows bits of the networking code in tests, the 'big one' comprises a whole new terrain solution with accurate SRTM terrain data being loaded on the fly... but we need to integrate it all in one modular package, add a GUI, make it run stable in several configs.... and will take this whole year to do this properly - but at the end, it'll be worth and it may be the test.

[Sweep 0]

So, with Dante inputs, we can hint that Jet Thunder will not be technically ready before late 2005 early 2006

 

BTW Dante check your PM.

[Bard 0]

It is looking very good.

[Guest Shadowcat]

I agree, I should have named the "tech demo" or proof of concept, in my first post, as a "test", not a demo

My comments were directed more at the "full demo... when we reach Beta" than the "tech demo" (I think people are less likely to misunderstand "tech demo"), but renaming the tech demo is probably a good idea too -- heck, any avoidance of the word "demo" prior to the sim going gold sounds like a sensible move to me :)

 

Basically, if at all possible, only release a "demo" when the sim is completed. Anything released before that point should be full of disclaimers explaining that it is not a demo, that users should expect bugs, that changes are still being made, and that people should wait for the demo version if they are not happy trying out the test version.

[scary_pigeon 0]

well i must say, it is my goal, that we beat dantes estimates, but so far dante has been proven right.