Devlog Weekly News – TR Preview Build Coming!

Original: http://thd.vg/weekly-news-tr-preview-build-coming (yes, we know the site needs work)

These last few weeks we’ve thought long and hard about the future of Trench Run.

We want to get a public build released as soon as possible. However, we want to stay away from the “open alpha” preview style that we used for KAG and the division in the community that that caused.

In effect, we want to dodge a messy fate.​

Instead, we’re planning a free, time-limited preview build. The build will only work for set periods, but you can play as much as you like during those periods. During initial testing, we’d be opening it for a week at a time. After release, probably one weekend each month or fortnight.

We’re still hammering out the details and hitting implementation hurdles. The plan was to release it last Wednesday, but each release candidate has had too many issues upon entering testing. We’ll see how it goes this week and keep you posted.

There is no single player mode available in the preview build. The preview build is only able to connect to one “test” region. The test lobby is capable of both “skirmish” and “run” games. The preview build will replace the current demo build, and will patch over it. It will (hopefully!) form a much more PC-relevant, online look at how the game plays, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with you!

Stay tuned!

Max

 

TRENCH RUN DEMO 1 WAS THE BEST GAME EVER I CANT BELIEVE THE DEVS RUINED IT SO BAD PLS WHEN IS NEXT DEMO UPDATE

 

The post did not mention anything about supporter benefits because they're still up in the air, but as long as the free testing goes well, we'll be opening up multiple geographical regions for supporters without any time limitation as soon as we can (and we'll start pushing pre-orders at that point).

At the moment, we're arguing internally over a few of the details of the pre-order stuff, which is why we're avoiding talking about it where we can.

Assuming the worst might be a good strategy for avoiding disappointment, but from the length of a paragraph that could have said "do supporters get anything extra?" I've got a feeling your working yourself up over nothing. Don't worry :)

Re: "what is the point" - it lets us control when the free version is available, and focus on a small period of feedback of a set version of the game from players who would otherwise not pre-order the game. Remember that with online multiplayer, having numbers is important for everyone's enjoyment. With the number of pre-orders as it stands, you would statistically not be able to find a game >99% of the time, and that's assuming people would even sit and wait for 5 minutes for someone else to join.

 

It's so people don't grow really attached to and continue to play a version of Trench Run that's, shall we say, a "Trench Run Classic", well into TR's release, which would both fragment the community and force the devs to leave one half feeling neglected.

Wonder why they would be worried about that?

And if you preorder something with the hopes that you'll get something special for preordering, when it wasn't really explicitly stated about there being anything like that, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. There isn't meant to be a "benefit" to preordering, except in this case a possibly reduced price. I think it's basically just to show trust/support in a dev... the only groups I can think of that I would preorder from are Supergiant because they make beautiful singleplayer goodness that I really appreciate, and THD because kag is gud

 

I should add that an especially attractive part of this is the ability to keep doing free periods as a regular thing to help draw people to the game. If a community does end up forming around the free version (lets call them "Free weekend casuals") then they're still an outreach vehicle for us, in telling their friends that there's this fun game that you can play for free on the Nth weekend of each month or whatever. In our eyes, the promise of permanent coins, tiered play, and no time limits should be enough to bring most of the recurring players over, but there'll always be freeloaders :)

(The recurring free weekend stuff is something we'd love to do for KAG, but the infrastructure issues we've been having with getting it working for TR are probably going to block that. Anything's possible though!)

 

@makmoud98 Responsible for the meta. lynch him when it's released.
Edit: @TheDirtySwine; If you're looking for help try posting here about it.

 

Looking forward to playing the preview build with the community, seeing their reactions and thoughts on how to make this game become amazing. Myself, the testers and the devs have been working hard to keep this game going. It's great fun and I feel like the community will feel the same experience. Although there a few bugs here and there, they will be squashed so you damn people will stop complaining.
On another note, playing with lag isn't that bad. So don't feel discouraged to try the game out with a little bit of delay.

Honestly can't wait, be prepared for the @makmoud98 meta. Have fun.