Witcher 3 delayed - will same apply to KC-D?

Off-topic
#1

Witcher 3 will be delayed - http://thewitcher.com/news/view/906

Which again revived my fear that KC-D might get delayed as well - which was especially accented by my impression from the latest video-update.

Please do not take this post wrongly - I wish all the best to the hard-working team, I do not see myself as one of those ill-wishing/envious/hating members of (czech) gaming community (not sure about how to translate “zaprdeny” :wink: and also I have no insight (with exception of what I saw in those updates) into how the team is really progressing etc.

But with my experience from IT development (much smaller team, much smaller budget/business, very probably not so complex as FP-medieval-game, not gaming industry) I would see some warning signs.

E.g. if I would compare the testing time that my team needed for the testing of our SW and the times that are presumably needed for something much more complex - such as PC video game, I shiver…
Also e.g. tying all those components together (animations, story/quests, fighting system, side-systems - such as alchemy) when those are still not finalized is probably not a task for 2-3 weeks(?). And I expect that time will be running very fast during the next year, there is ONLY 12 months to deliver the game.

So - if you have experiences from gaming development - please let me know if you think whether there is enough time or not; from what I know and see, it will be a “hell” of Q3-Q4 in 2015 for the team.

p.s. I would generally not mind at all if the game would be eventually delayed, that’s not an issue for me - I just really want to know how it generally works in the gaming development

#2

I would rather a game get delayed because that means they devs are working harder and putting extra features, polish ect into the game. Warhorse announced the deadline for next year not sure when exactly but if it gets delayed then i will completely understand. Like i said i would rather a game be delayed then shoved out the door earlier cough cough battle field 4, assassins creed unity, rome 2 total war.

Im also not sure how the witcher getting delayed would affect kingdom comes deadline seeing how they’re different devs and companies.

2 Likes
#3

I would be reaaally surprised if they didn’t delay it at least for 3 months. And I also think it would be strategic to do so, because I’m optimistic, I want them to be GOTY or at least RPGOTY, and considering this, it woud be really stupid to release the game in the same year as The Witcher 3 is planned…(with all respect) :smiley:

2 Likes
#4

As projects usually take about 3 times longer than expected at the start you shouldn’t look at these early release dates as being final. I think Warhorse knows pretty well but its not that easy so be a bit relaxed about how much time it will cost. I expected The Witcher III to be delayed another time so I didn’t buy it on Steam yet. It is totally common.

#5

I think there is always a market for good games, so some confluence with some other game release shall hopefully not bring some additional stress

  • to release it for the winter/holiday season is probably still best time?
#6

I also expect kingdom come deliverance to have a delay. This is an enormous ambitious project, and I know the first 90% of a project need 90% of the time, the other 10% of a project need also 90% of the time.
I think Kingdom come deliverance will be finished in 2016, but I hope they get it in the end of 2015 to get the benefits of the christmas marked. It is not important to myself, I don´t will be angry if they will need more time.

#7

Dear Warhorse,

If there comes a point where you have to choose to either rush release or get it right: please delay this game.

Love,

Brandon

5 Likes
#8

I didn’t mean that The Witcher would affect sales of KCD, only that it would be harder for KCD to be the best RPG of the year. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#9

I have full confidence Warhorse will deliver and Kingdom come will be the best rpg yet.

#10

I didn’t meant that there should be some direct connection between CD and Warh

But there are some “indirect&speculative” similarities -

  • apparently “huge” scope in case of W3
  • complex(?) branched story (although with fantasy & dragons :wink:
  • not sure about the team sizes or budget but probably in same rank, but probably also bigger(?)
  • first announced on 04/02/2013
  • on other hand W3 has their own proprietary engine
  • senior veterans in both CD and Warhorse

Anyway - W3 was postponed twice already

In case of KC-D - initially the scope was probably a bit smaller(?) + probably some considerable part of the scope got developed during that “vertical slice” period, but those additional kick-incentives might have considerably enlarged the scope (the prologue with female protagonist (?)

And as I mentioned - to put it all together + subsequent testing/bugfixing/releasing might be the biggest challenge of them all (you heard of Screw-Ubi-soft and their recent release “success” ? :wink:

But I believe Mr. Vavra (and his team) must surely all know this and he is “on top of it” :wink:

1 Like
#11

I have also very full confidence that the game will be delivered at some point, but the initial question prevails - when?

And I do not mean it in any “accusative” sense, I’m just interested whether it can all really realistically click&stick till the end of 2015.

#12

Yeah i understand you were’t accusing i was just saying that i would rather a game be delayed then shoved out early :wink:

1 Like
#13

OR - we might all horribly underestimate their capabilities and the team might get really annoyed that we do not trust them that they can make it on time…

In that case - SORRY if my doubts will cause any harm to anyone…

#14

Witcher 3 delayed?!
It isn’t really a delay… only 12 weeks more :blush:
1st release was on February 24th, 2015 and now it is a little bit later, May 19th, 2015
I think that isn’t equal to kill someone.
And if the same occurs to KCD… I’ve waited more than 10 years on a game like KCD.
That will not kill me too :sunny:

#15

Ahem…how exactly should it be possible to delay a game that hasn’t even gotten a release date yet? Or did Warhorse announce one in the past few days?.. :wink:

1 Like
#16

For smart people there is one.
At the end of 2015, 31st of december :smile:

#17

Another delay for the Witcher 3 :frowning:

1 Like
#18

Release date is Q4, 2015, you can postpone this date pretty easily…

#19

To me that’s a release plan or window but not a release date…

I guess for KCD the “when it’s done” term applies. And since KCD will land on Early Access sooner or later and people already play the tech alpha you can’t really compare it to a traditional release dependent game like Witcher 3. In my experience EA games get delayed very often late in the process to incorporate player feedback before releasing the final version which is imo a good thing. But that’s another form of delay than what CDPR told us now for Witcher 3… :wink:

1 Like
#20

I do not want to be too “anal” about the terminology, but usually the overall development project plan must lead towards a specific release date and this date can be also planned into some release window (for better marketing/sales impact) - e.g. Christmas or the November release period (which can be theoretically considered as 2 release windows in 4Q) - internally you always need some date to set your goals against etc, even if you know that this date is still not fully certain and will most probably change

the kickstarter site (still) mentions “Release date: Q4, 2015” - which from the project/technical point of view can mean 01/10/2015-0:00:00 but also 31/12/2014-23:59:59 or any other date-time in between

I agree that the team didn’t mentioned any solid-final date yet, so by me expected release date is 31/12/2014 - if it will be sooner then it would be a bonus for me.

Also I’m not sure whether the Early Access release qualifies as sort of substitute for the final “release date” - e.g. all those non-kickstarter customers would be probably disappointed
Finally if this game would solely depend on the kickstarter then moving date would be probably not such huge deal, but as the team mentioned that they need to sell it also to other customers then the hard release date becomes probably a bit more important (not sure whether it will be initially only digital release or whether there will be some physical boxes in game-shops)

But again, I had to deliver different kind of SW to different kind of customers, so maybe it works differently in this case :wink:

© 2015 Warhorse Studios www.warhorsestudios.cz