REALLY sorry, I mean the game is still ALPHA

Quoted from Taleworlds forum:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,326507.msg7712670.html#msg7712670


Since the players on TaleWorlds may not be aware on that, I will quote myself posting for another site, about how the current version of Caribbean looks like, compared to the plans of the developers.

Long story short, they needed to make full release now, while still will be adding the most important (and money consuming) content to the game for free in future updates.

"Caribbean!" will be released in 5 days, still unfinished!

That's right, as of this moment the date of release has been set to 20 th February 2015. But the game will not contain a lot of features on it's day of release. Interestingly enough, the game will receive content crucial(!) to the game, AFTER the official release.

Giving an incomplete list of things that will be there from the beginning :
- Completely new fame / renown system.
Become renowned sailor, feared pirate, well known merchant or outlawed smuggler. What you can do within a game depends on whether you choose to get military or trading fame.
- Taxes and smuggling
- New Quest receiving system
- Completely new Town outlay, and different system of building in towns.
- New economy system
- Character traits
- Many other minor and major things. Really kinda lot (More than any other
- Advanced Diplomacy and troop commanding
- Advanced morale system, having a lot more impact on the battles than ever
Mount & Blade game before)

But the game will have features that will be added to the game LATER and this are very crucial! Contains the following :

- Multiplayer Game (!) - That's right, the initial release does not contain multiplayer, players have to wait for it to be finished first.
- Naval sieges
- Creating your own towns
- Strategic kingdom control
- Units forming regiments in fights (Player and NPC owned troops with officers, drummers, flag bearers marching in one formation)
- Fort / Castle management - Need to repair walls, buying cannons and other things to make it harder for the attacker.
- Ability to enter taverns
- Native tribes
- Walking on the city scene
- Female characters.

As you can see the amount of things that will NOT be added on the initial release, is so big, you could already form a new M&B game out of it, but developers calm us, that all or at least most of this features will still be added to the game, later and most importantly for FREE.

What are your thoughts on this choice guys? Was it right call to released the game early to gather funds for the most important features? Or maybe they should have waited with the release for the game to be fully complete, een if the money could run out and require some cuts? Comment

Yeah. I don't like this myself. Also, the review on the store page are about it being broken so far.

On one hand, I've seen indie games sell in what could be considered a "Full Game" and the devs keep adding to it after launch. Terraria comes to mind. I enjoyed the game in the state I bought it in, but they really added a large amount of content afterwards.

Still, for Caribbean, some of the future features seem like they should be base game features. I'm not sure which side entering a tavern should be on, but things like unit formation, native tribes, and walking the town seem like they should be features in the game and tested at launch.

I'll be keeping an eye on the title for patches and improvements, but as of now, I'm very glad I decided to wait on buying it.

there really should be some sort of "early access" warning for this game. Trying to sell this as 'finished' product is borderline scam.

The original Mount & Blade built up a lot of good will with me, but I no longer buy anything in that "line" on release.

I haven't bought Caribbean!, because when a developer tells their audience the game is "stable" enough to be released, I won't buy it. The right word is "polished". A merely "stable" game is like an "edible" dinner - not worth paying for at a restaurant.

Even if the game IS actually stable, which I can't legally check (no demo = no proof, some reviews claim otherwise).

Plus, whenever I see developers suggesting they'll continue working on the title to add things they (apparently) considered important features, I'm tempted to write them an e-mail about how I'll gladly buy their game with monopoly money that will be "upgraded" to a recognized currency once the product meets my quality standards.

I'd be obliged to let my clients do that if I did my work on a "it's good enough, pinky swear" basis.

I'll be honest, I don't want to be negative or even critical about this game. Because Pirate games like this are rare and being a big fan of Pirates of the Carribean, aka Sea Dogs 2, it hurts me to see the game in a state like this.

If the game does get the listed features in the future, I think this game will be brilliant based upon the current positive feedback and what the dev videos are showing.

I got the game around the time it got released on gog and after fiddling around a bit was very surprised (read: shocked) how it could get past gogs, in times, overzealous QA.

I took another look at it since it recently popped quite often in the "updated games" list. And while I did not give a rats ass about multiplayer in such a game the SP part does feel more like a game now instead of an clobbed together experiment. Its nice to have slider for female faces (most even working!) which makes it possible to change from really ugly to passable if not watch close enough. There is still lots to do IMO but if they keep it up with the updates they get it to an great state.

Most annoying thing I encountered: 8 angry enemy sailors shouting at the crowsnest mast for 10 min since the last survivor of a lost boarding was up there. Either let my char recover a bit after laying around for 30sec to a min nothing happening, add a "quit to menue" button in combat so one can reload out of that tragedy, let the NPCs decide faster who goes up next or (at best) all of the above.