This game seems more like an alpha release for tons of reasons. Mainly being the inability to continue some saved games, quests being ruined from glitching npc’s, and npcs acting very strangely; running around, glitching around. Sometimes NPCs vital to your quest wont talk to you. Requiring using a previous save. Lots of areas to get stuck. Story line is very vague in terms to how to complete your quest. map markers will go away but stay on your compass. Please don’t screw us warhorse…
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Don’t be so concerned about alpha and beta. They are new terms that have no clear definitions. This is a significant improvement over the alpha, and Knight tier didn’t have access to the alpha, but do have access to the beta. If for no other reason than that alone, this is the beta.
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The reason it scares you, is because you’re used to the “Betas” that AAA companies release now a days. They’re always released just a few months to even a few weeks before the game is out, and they are usually no different than the finished product. KC:D is what a beta is actually supposed to look like, and please keep in mind the game will not be complete for a year or more.
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I second everything, im stuck right at the beginning of the main battle because I cannot talk to any npcs at all! And I follow the quest directions and after getting stuck in trees and having to reload (a fast travel option is not a bad idea) the quest fails to recognise I have completed previous tasks so I am in limbo…frequent reloads and travel time doing the same thing for hours is kinda offputting.
There’s your problem right there. Most of the problems you’re experiencing are probably down to corrupted saves. The save feature barely works. Stop using it so often, or at all, and definitely not frequently.
Yes, this is annoying. Worse than trees though, are the random invisible walls. Sometimes you can ride through them. Other times you get knocked off with no visual indication of what hit you.
I got stuck fighting the two Cumans from the alpha once. I got into an invisible maze, and one Cuman kept running into me, draining my stamina, while the other one casually shot at me. One of the longest, most boring, and stupid deaths I have experienced.
Not sure if bad AI and map design, or epic troll fest.
Most probably the last one.
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Thanks for the heads up I realise the frequent saves are not the best but because the game glitches so much it seems a necessity, I guess I will have to maybe tough it out and try play in a few saves. Do you know how I can delete older saves? Cheers
Just empty the save game folders. (or delete the ones you don’t want). In the install directory.
{KCD}\user_kingdomcome\profiles\default\savexxx.whs
{KCD}\user_kingdomcome\whgame\default_savexxx.whs and .meta
I don’t mind broken quests/getting stuck/glitching, that’s why they have the beta version in the first place - bug chasing. What worries me a bit is that some of the core gameplay systems are still not implemented. However if you see some of their game development presentations I get why it’s taking time, they are really trying stuff nobody has really done before. I always remember how Bethesda failed so hard implementing Radiant AI (which was at least on paper a bit similar to what we’ll see in KCD) in Oblivion that they didn’t even try with Skyrim.
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Mayyybe, but remember this is public beta and we don’t know the state of any internal build(s). Also what the wiki says is in general, but the terms are used quite loosely from what I have seen with other Early Access games (as Aradiel pointed out too).
“Generally”. Also known as ‘not always’, or from my own experience of Beta testing, never, as features are added (or added to) during the progress towards a release candidate.
Sometimes whole functions are completely rewritten, discarded or introduced.
While recent “public betas” have been essentially at the release candidate stage, this is no where near representative of the actual Beta process as it operates within most projects I’ve tested for.
Furthermore, while the alpha was only available to a small subset of backers - this version is more widely available, and is substantially more complete, including an indication of how the questing system will operate in the story.
It is quite obviously a very early Beta, and is buggy and not feature complete, but it is a definite step from the Alphas with examples of the techniques and technologies aimed at present if not universal. (E.g. the mix of voiced and unvoiced dialogue, different standards of motion capture and animation in different places, the degree of completeness of the environment (both inside and outside the ‘playable area’. etc. )
You’re right, I think the cycle is a bit different with games when people are willing to pay for the unfinished product so it doesn’t really apply here.
I just jumped on board and have only 35-40 minutes so far in game wandering around the first town, hassling “Reeky’s” dad and what not. I have a fairly new build PC I built in November. I am running at max settings, 144Hz and my FPS bounces from around 30-100+ but it is highly variable. With that said, however, it plays smoothly so far for me and what a beautiful world it is.
So much potential here and I have yet to swing a sword so I cannot comment on combat as of yet. I am pushing 50 years old and have been a gamer for over 35 years. I have tested more games than I can honestly count and at all various stages. With that said, so far this has been a smooth beta but then again I am quite early in.
I have backed some other projects currently that are supposedly in beta stage and I wouldn’t even consider them late Alpha. I am sure I am going to run into issues and I expect that. But my first 40 minutes of play have far surpassed other games I access in supposed beta stages. Just my 2 cent copper for what its worth.
5 Likes
I am also worried about it. It’s hard not to be worried considering the normal development cycle. What we have here, in a traditional sense, is an early alpha from Warhorse. I’m not sure why they decided to call this a beta because it sends the wrong message to basically everyone.
I can mention a bunch of games in alpha right now that are less buggy and more complete than this beta is. Sounds harsh, but I say this kindly because I love this game. That’s why I paid more money for it than I have for any other game in my life. I want to see it succeed and be a masterpiece. I sincerely hope that what the rest of you say is true and that this isn’t the feature complete kind of beta.
Well, I would not dare to call it beta either, it’s more like tech preview. It contains almost finished, but unpolished part of the world, unpolished fights that are doable and even challenging, i would say very early AI and everything is optimized only to level that it runs on high end PCs.
Sort of problem is that it contains way to much bugs, that must be obvious to developers from start and lot of unfinished and not polished features. Beta just added more content than latest alpha and main quest aims to higher quality standard. In my opinion developers can find and fix most of the bugs themselves at this state and there’s no reason to made game to public except …
1/ people may be curious and buy game early knowing it will be likely finished and sort of support development and be ok with it
2/ it’s sort of reward for backers
3/ people may expect that game is nearly finished and be disappointed
4/ it’s sort of advertisement and some elements of the game are worth presenting to reviewers and wider public (tech demo)
I’m only disappointed by state of beta that is broken in so many ways that most of the quests can’t be completed. I expected that developers would put some effort into fixing major bugs that make completing of easiest quest challenging because you may brake it or it may brake itself in too many ways. They were easier to complete in alpha (perhaps cause Henry had more skills from start). But people didn’t refuse to talk at least.
I just have to say that beta runs almost without crashes after patch.
I have 2 hours in now and still no issues. I have roamed all over the place and have yet to swing my sword! Other then a few dialogue errors in NPC chat all has gone well. The only thing I struggle with is the downtime to sleeping. Man it takes forever for that cycle to complete and I know its already sped up.
Here are my specs and its a new build:
MOBO: Asus TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 LGA 1150
Processor: I7-4790K
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Power Supply: EVGA Supernova 850 G2
Video Card: EVGA GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0 SLI ready with back plate cooling (will SLI or triple when price comes down)
Ram:Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
Hard drive:WD 1TB
Optical: Samsung SH-224FB Multi
Monitor: Asus VG248QE 24", 144Hz
Windows 10/x64
I think you may have misunderstood what alpha and beta mean. During alpha new features and assets are being created, things are being changed, and ideas pitched, though to a lesser extent compared to pre-alpha. In beta the focus shifts toward bug-hunting and polishing existing features.Game breaking bugs are perfectly normal in beta.That is a reason why we are given a preview; to help the quality assurance guys find these issues before gold.
Is it Alpha or is it Beta?
This depends on personal experience. When you get the game and the game launcher makes troubles, when it crashes every 5 minutes and you have only 10 frames, than you will say this is bloody alpha.
When starting the game, and you can play one or two hours without problem, than it´s a Beta. 
Two days ago I could test the beta on a high end PC from a friend. It´s breathtaking, and real fun!
At the moment it´s for me an advanced, extended alpha. But I´m not the “standard”, because I have over 270 ingame hours. 
(And know nearly all bugs, and there are a lot!!)
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Such a discussion ought to start from the definitions of:
Alpha version: Software that has just been compiled and ready for its initial test in-house.
and
Beta version: A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to try under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as a result.
From what I’ve seen in videos and read on this forum: generously I would call it an “early beta”. Though, as somebody else here said, I’m not sure the alpha-beta-gamma terminology applies to kick-started projects, where various early access promises have been made to the backers.
270 horus? Do you know what that does to a man?
I suppose you do… sneaking about, jumping walls, killing Quest NPCs… there is no going back now… you are The Bug Ninja!
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