ADOM 1.2.0 Prerelease 18 is available... for everyone!

[jt]

Hi.

please read Thomas' announcement for more details.

[anon123]

Looks like those who didn't download a "pirate" copy in the meantime have a lot of catching up to do.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Great news. I have prerelease access, but I think it's very good for ADOM that the general public gets to see the new tiles, music and other improvements, this will also bring more feedback which is always good.

I'm also happy to see that Steam is definitely a goal. It has been mentioned that there are other similar game delivery platforms but, bluntly and honestly, nowadays the others are also-rans. If ADOM wants to be successful and attract a really large audience, it must get on Steam.

[Soirana]

Long overdue if you ask me.

IMO, overall worst kickstarter projects can do is lock showing their progress to limited group people. Especially since these people are fans enough to have paid in advance.

[Grey]

Long overdue if you ask me.

IMO, overall worst kickstarter projects can do is lock showing their progress to limited group people. Especially since these people are fans enough to have paid in advance.

I agree. I understand not wanting a test version to be labelled "public" and having to deal with major backlash from buggy features. But the public releases have been too few in my opinion, and when it just gets pirated anyway one must question why bother keeping it exclusive? In the end the only ones suffering are those who were poor / not around during the campaign who morally object to piracy. Plus wider audience = wider testing environments = more feedback = better game.

Anyway, great to see beta 18 out. I hope this helps with getting more players on board The game has come such a long way from a year ago!

[Stingray1]

All is good. Sorry, I'm a bit sensitive when it comes to people criticizing TB.

Which prerelease did you feel was appropriate to release to everyone?

[jt]

IMHO we couldn't have released it sooner: you only have one chance to make a good first impression.

Yes, the last public release was almost a year ago, but we didn't want to release a version which was unstable or where half the things were missing. For example, the graphics were "completed" for Prerelease 16, which was released around mid August. That's only two and a half months ago.

And there has to be some benefit from being a donor, right?

[Ravenmore]

Edit: jt did a "tl;dr" version of the text below in the post above

Agreed that hiding progress is a bad, highly suspicious thing.

However in this case progress was visible, changelogs and screenshots were publicly announced. Probably more blog posts were in order but Thomas already explained why there were fewer blog updates than planned.
Getting your hands on the alpha software however...I disagree that making all intermediate versions public is a good idea, at least until a certain point.

It's kinda like this: developers are pioneers building a road through rough terrain into the beautiful valley of Release Version. If you decide to accompany them on this journey you'll only see glimpses of the final version between the trees, and the view won't be very spectacular. There will however be lots of snakes, fallen trees, pitfalls and other nasty surprises. There's a chance that once you arrive you'll be so tired of the process that you won't be interested in exploring the final destination at all. So we'd like to know that if you're with us on this journey you're determined to make it through...and I know a financial contribution is an awfully crappy way to judge that, but it has the advantage of being measurable, unambiguous and transparent. And commitment is important because pre-release feedback really matters to the team. By coming along you can have a pretty strong influence on how best to reach our destination.
And for everyone else, we'd like to show a clear safe nice finished path into that place...when it's ready. And ofcoruse take your insight into account as well when that happens.

We're arrived at a point where the land is pretty safe and the view is pretty good, so it's a good spot to let the public in while we roll up our sleeves and dive into the development jungle again. Can't wait to hear your thoughts, both positive and negative, about the progress so far

[Stingray1]

To be quite honest, I could not play in the tile modes in pre16. Currently I can and I never need to switch to ASCII, although I still prefer ASCII.

I think the graphical implementation is almost perfect now. A few sound effects will complete the graphics.

This prerelease will attract a lot of new players.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I think the graphical implementation is almost perfect now. A few sound effects will complete the graphics.

Almost perfect... except for spells! I need bolt animations so that I'll be willing to play a wizard with graphics

For non-casters, I agree it's almost perfect though. The animations in p17 really make a lot of difference.