Online Worlds > VFK - Virtual Family Kingdom

Beta is over, and Gamma has begun..

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Purpleduck:

--- Quote from: Bugdozer on July 04, 2008, 10:52 AM ---Hi,

What exactly has changed to make this Gamma besides the wording on a screen. It is being reported that Gail at VFK (lady that answers the phone) is now saying that the waiting list of people will not open today and will open up sometime next week. So besides the map last night I see nothing that would really indicate we are in a new stage. If I am missing something please let me know.

Bug

--- End quote ---

Adventure mentioned this also in his last post.  Like almost everything else, they are behind yet again.

Adventuredaz:
This does not surprise me that there is little difference between yesterday and today - I did think they would open the doors since Beta is done (in theory) Problem is as has been pointed out they really are not done and ready to introduce it to the public (although 50,000 people would be pretty public) 

I think a lot of this is related to things that go back to the beginning with regard to handling and marketing and special thanks going out akwardly.  This is my opinion - and I am by the way satisfied with the development of the game to this point as well as the direction of development.  I also think it's their game and they will decide if they want lava lamps or what type of flags to give and all those details.  however a lot of this Beta Gamma pay to play Opening - not opening is smoke and mirrors.   I don't know if they want the ill effect of it (making unkept promise statements) but I know they want the positive effect of the promises. 

By saying beta is over they were able to meet a goal that they may have promised people (i.e. investors - staff, share holders?) Also it allowed them to sell memberships which could show a revenue stream for the same people. I estimate it brought in around $ 200K

You can argue wheather they have a business plan or if its any good but I am sure they do have one.  Orginization of the development has seemed a little speratic at times but this was probably driven by the promises to money people. 

Staff is saying clothing is being worked on and could be out today or in a few days...clearly this interface is not ready and would be a big reason to not open the doors really.  If they open the game to reviews it would be a poor gamer review most likely. 

I don't want to say I will be surprised to see the forth of July game tonight but...I would not plan my evening around it.  If it opens, someone will post the details I am sure. 


So in short really nothing is changed from yesterday true and a lot of work remains for the staff and developers at VFK.  I think we could make a list a few pages long of what they need to do and work on ... but we do have a game that we can play. BTW I count like 41 know staff in the game so they have a lot of people riding on this.

littlebelle:
Well You can always stop by my animated clock. If you get bored standing around. I took a pic but it lacks the beating of the beach balls that you can imagine it going tick tock tic tock. :)

littlebelle:
 :what:Just wondering what gamma and delta mean.  And I did find it funny that when I read that one person thought the zeta gals will get all excited when we get to Zeta trial.

Adventuredaz:

--- Quote from: littlebelle on July 04, 2008, 01:17 PM --- :what:Just wondering what gamma and delta mean.  And I did find it funny that when I read that one person thought the zeta gals will get all excited when we get to Zeta trial.

--- End quote ---
That was a joke poking at the way they have chose to do this.  Usually they would open the doors and call ir RC1 not Gamma.  If I were them I would have dropped that from the load screen in favor of just the load bars and the date for those that need help with if it's today or yesterday ;)  No need to advertise Gamma its not a normal designation for a game that is released for pay to play.  Athough Sociotown charges for beta charging for things that are unfinished comes off wrong to some people.  I have seen people ask for donations to participate in "free" games and I always found that odd but thats me.

As far as what it means each release of programs get some designation Alpha (internal testing) is usually pre-release testing to a small group of people or just developers then they open to a selected group of the public (external testing) this is  Beta. If they continue to want to call it testing they will ofter call it Beta Phase I , Phase II and so on rather then calling it gamma, Delta, epsilon, digamma, Zeta.  There are a lot of ways to go about Beta testing - this was not a standard beta by most peoples standards.  One thing is clear expectations and scheduling and feedback was not always up to that of a standard Beta program - but then one could argue that it was more then VMK did which was true except it was more of a finished program in terms of functionality of the features and games. They did expand a lot after finishing beta.  VFK put a lot of focus on expanding the world and developing pay features rather then working on the common features and functionality and additional games.  We don't really know where they are on some of these things behind the scenes.  They outlined what they are doing and altimately Gold is when charging would generally start not during continued testing and Gold should be soon after you have a RC out.  Much of this is my understanding of how it works and I am sure many know more then I about the process.

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