Official SE5 release date announced - September 12

[Captain Kwok]

Who is saying the game isn't worthwhile now?

$40 is an excellent value.

[Tampa_Gamer]

I would also keep in mind (based on his history with SE4) that Aaron is always committed to fixing bugs and adding player-suggested improvements well after the usual two month patch window of most other games. By releasing in September, instead of trying to aim for a December release of the holy grail (e.g. a bugless game), the fans benefit from being able to suggest improvements and provide feedback.

[Ragnarok-X]

Tampa_Gamer said:
I would also keep in mind (based on his history with SE4) that Aaron is always committed to fixing bugs and adding player-suggested improvements well after the usual two month patch window of most other games. By releasing in September, instead of trying to aim for a December release of the holy grail (e.g. a bugless game), the fans benefit from being able to suggest improvements and provide feedback.

This is dead argument. I would rather have a bugfree game, then a bug-filled (or even only with occasional bugs) game 3 months earlier. Its easy, releasing a bugged game earlier will allow the producer to earn money "earlier". Since a decent game usually earns you a load of $$$ you not only win a lot on interests, but "patching" will require less work than a "full" day of coding for a proper release.
There are so many examples of this...MoO3, Civ4, HoMM5, Titan Quest etc ++
In response to your "the fans can ask for suggestions" thingy -> what exactly makes it different, if the fans ask for support in september or december

[Saber Cherry]

Ragnarok-X said:
There are so many examples of this...MoO3, Civ4, HoMM5, Titan Quest etc ++

Titan Quest is already in the "Halls of Shame", I see That's not really fair, though, considering that half of it works half the time, and that 25% is very fun. For some reason, people (probably nVidia users) seem very willing to forgive/defend Civ4... not me, though.

Games get reviewed at release. If a 'C' game at release is patched a month later to be an 'A' game, it will still eternally have 'C' reviews, and have sold like a 'C' game for the first month... and forever after, because in month 2, people will still see 'C' reviews. I understand why people ship an F- piece of trash, and patch it later so it won't delete your registry anymore... since in another 2 months, it would basically be an F- piece of trash with slightly more obsolete graphics. But I don't understand why people spend years developing an 'A' game, and ship it 2 months early as a 'B-' game.

Not to say this is happening here; I have no idea, and I'm not commenting on Space Empires (though I do wonder if GalCiv2 is stable yet). But in general, this whole concept of "faster and brokener" that plagues computer games is utterly baffling to me, since it is so obviously idiotic and self-defeating. Even the excuse 'I thought it was done' is obsolete in elementary school, when you find out that turning in a test as soon as you have scrawled something by every question does not magically grant you a better score than people who take time to make sure the answers are right.

[Fyron]

I still have some graphics issues with Civ4 on my ATI card.

[Tim Brooks]

I would also keep in mind (based on his history with SE4) that Aaron is always committed to fixing bugs and adding player-suggested improvements well after the usual two month patch window of most other games. By releasing in September, instead of trying to aim for a December release of the holy grail (e.g. a bugless game), the fans benefit from being able to suggest improvements and provide feedback.

I hope you are correct. But, there are two things that could possibly work against this:

1. It takes two for patches. Both the developer and the publisher must support the game. Aaron wanting to update the product doesn't work if SF won't allow it. And SF has a record of not supporting releases for long. Look at JA and many of their other titles. They are still selling half completed games from 3-4 years ago.

2. Aaron is no longer an independent contractor and now, more than ever, not in control of his game. Malfador is now SF.

[Xrati]

Face up to the times! MONEY / GREED drives just about every business decision these days. Even if Arron is not ready to release SEV there will be pressures by SF to get it out. All business's have their "profit schedule" for the end of the year business projections. You as a consumer, will never know "what goes on behind closed doors" when it comes to product releases. I've seen companies put garabage out, knowing that they'd have to rework the product, just to meet their promised delivery date.

Be careful of what you ask for, you may just get it!!!

[DarkHorse]

You can wait until the year 2047 and there will still be bugs; every game ships with bugs. There are millions of possible computer configurations out there, and it's impossible to thoroughly test them all. If you want homogenized hardware, buy a Mac and enjoy the two or three games that are available for it.

Personally, I'm drooling over fully scriptable AI. I can't wait to start tinkering...

[Ragnarok-X]

DarkHorse said:
You can wait until the year 2047 and there will still be bugs; every game ships with bugs. There are millions of possible computer configurations out there, and it's impossible to thoroughly test them all. If you want homogenized hardware, buy a Mac and enjoy the two or three games that are available for it.

Personally, I'm drooling over fully scriptable AI. I can't wait to start tinkering...

I seriously hope you dont want to argue over bugs. If you compare todays games with the ones from 10 years ago, you will see a rise in bug/problems within the hundreds %. And most of the bugs we are talking about are NOT, i repeat NOT, referring to system/setup, but rather a failure in the GAME itself.

[Fyron]

Of course, the games of 10 years ago were much less complex beasts... But even 10 years ago there were tons of games knowingly shipped with bugs. There was never this utopian ideal of bug-free game shipping at any point in history.