VtM: Bloodlines 2 - E3 Gameplay Trailer

Also, many studios consider alpha the stage at which the game is content-complete, but without the final art and assets. Then they ramp up and hire a ton of artists to complete things. More traffic and such is exactly the sort of thing that might appear in the later stages.
 
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Kyrer said:
I hope the streets do have a little more traffic once it's out of alpha, though you can clearly see a moving car at 0:34 so it's clearly possible.
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Good find!
 
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JDR13 said:
Except, like several people have mentioned, it says "pre-alpha". ;)
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Sure ;) When i think of it, Middle-earth: Shadow of War was ""pre-alpha"" up until almost release day. Seems legit. It's a good strategy from the devs because then no one can criticize the game until release.
 
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Are these voices placeholders?
They don't sound "rough enough" for that, but obviously incomparable with previous game.
As for this, not sure they really need the cars/traffic. Takes place at night, you're mostly moving through smaller streets/cramped alleyways.
 
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vurt said:
Sure ;) When i think of it, Middle-earth: Shadow of War was ""pre-alpha"" up until almost release day. Seems legit. It's a good strategy from the devs because then no one can criticize the game until release.
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Well of course! How come I didn't think of that? If Middle-earth: Shadow of War was pre-alpha up until almost release day, then this surely will be too! :)
 
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I think the terms alpha and beta have been somewhat bastardised by certain companies, as a way of selling different stages of early access. In a case like this, though, it looks more like it's being used in the standard sense.
 
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BoboTheMighty said:
As for this, not sure they really need the cars/traffic. Takes place at night, you're mostly moving through smaller streets/cramped alleyways.
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This. I think one of the reasons I found the first game so immersive is that there wasn't a ton of people or cars everywhere. The semi-empty streets added to the late-night atmosphere even if it was somewhat unrealistic for those areas of California.
 
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Ripper said:
I think the terms alpha and beta have been somewhat bastardised by certain companies, as a way of selling different stages of early access. In a case like this, though, it looks more like it's being used in the standard sense.
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There's no way a game is pre-alpha and only a year left to release. It's not how game development works.

This is also something completely new (last 4'ish years or so) for games and its used like this so that people can't criticize it up until release. Fanboys can use it to defend shoddy looking games. It's a good tactic for sure, but it's also easy to see it for what it is.

At first it was kickstarter games that seemed to use this mostly but i've recognized it for the "AAA" titles as well, it's quite ridiculous.
 
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JDR13 said:
Because you've worked on a lot of development teams, right? :)
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Why do i need to have worked on "development teams" to know this? Are you saying it's some kind of secret how it works? lol. But yes i've worked on several games.

Tell me, what is strange in my argument? Do you honestly believe that you in development (whatever it is, doesn't even need to be games) go from pre-alpha, alpha, beta, RC, Final - in a matter of weeks or months? It's not how development as a whole works.

Pre-alpha for a game is such a rough stage in development that you would never show it to the public. It's a buggy mess, most of the graphical assets are not even done (can take years to create these). BETA is when you usually begin to show it to the public because most of the assets are in the game so it's way more representable.
 
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vurt said:
There's no way a game is pre-alpha and only a year left to release. It's not how game development works.
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Well, since the idea of alpha, pre-alpha, etc have no concrete definition, it's a pointless debate. We also don't actually know how long it will take before release - could be 18 more months of work and still hit 2020, or quite possibly be delayed beyond that.
 
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Ripper said:
Well, since the idea of alpha, pre-alpha, etc have no concrete definition, it's a pointless debate. We also don't actually know how long it will take before release - could be 18 more months of work and still hit 2020, or quite possibly be delayed beyond that.
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They have a release date though so there's a concrete definition so they know where they are in the development stage. That's why it would be impossible for the game to be pre-alpha.. you would never say it's pre-alpha with a year to release (well, unless its a really short dev cycle, but its not here)

But yes, if we instead assume that the release date is just absolute bullshit, then of course, it can be pre-alpha. Maybe none of the assets are done, its rough placeholders on everything from characters to textures. I doubt it though.
 
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vurt said:
Pre-alpha for a game is such a rough stage in development that you would never show it to the public. It's a buggy mess, most of the graphical assets are not even done (can take years to create these). BETA is when you usually begin to show it to the public because most of the assets are in the game so it's way more representable.
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Um...except for the fact that Pre-alpha games are shown quite often.
 
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JDR13 said:
Um…except for the fact that Pre-alpha games are shown quite often.
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Yeah, again, like i've said, a few times now; there's a change now that games are ""pre-alpha"" almost up until the release date, and it's not very believable. It's only used so that they can defend e.g graphical shortcomings or crappy A.I.

But please, give a recent example of a game which was shown as "pre-alpha" and the Final game looked and played WIDELY different, which it would if what was shown was pre-alpha. Pre-alpha is not even nearly close to being finished, graphically, A.I, gameplay - its all super rough. But ofc, it should be one of those were it says "pre-alpha" when it's just a year left or less..
 
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JDR13 said:
Pre-alpha games are shown quite often.
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True, but when shown it's usually prealpha + reshade_malware on top of it.
You can't lipsync with reshade however. :D

But whatever, reshade has no place on my PC and I wish there was a filter on Nexus to not show me any reshade mod (and 99% of mods there are that crap).
I'm definetly buying this game.
 
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And add to that, what actually gets shown is often a vertical slice - a small section polished to decent quality - and which is separate from the alpha/beta status of the overall game. That's often what's labelled as pre-alpha footage, because they know it won't necessarily be representative of the final game.
 
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Ripper said:
And add to that, what actually gets shown is often a vertical slice - a small section polished to decent quality - and which is separate from the alpha/beta status of the overall game. That's often what's labelled as pre-alpha footage, because they know it won't necessarily be representative of the final game.
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That's what we used to call a "demo" ;) and yes then it wouldn't even say pre-alpha, its uninteresting because it's just a showcase of how something could end up. But it's not how it's done anymore i guess.
 
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Meh, banal discussion...demo or alpha or beta, who can tell at this point, depends from publisher to publisher.
Visuals, the mood is actually a lot better, but I don't like the music/sounds. Add some Judas Priest to it, everything can be improved with littl' bit of Rob Halford. :p
 
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vurt said:
Yeah, again, like i've said, a few times now; there's a change now that games are ""pre-alpha"" almost up until the release date, and it's not very believable. It's only used so that they can defend e.g graphical shortcomings or crappy A.I.
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Yes, you know for a fact that every single game labeled as pre-alpha is specifically to defend those kinds of things. Ok. ;)

Regardless, I can't see why that would be the case here since the game looks pretty good for being the first footage shown. You're the only person here who seems to think otherwise.
 
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vurt said:
That's what we used to call a "demo" ;) and yes then it wouldn't even say pre-alpha, its uninteresting because it's just a showcase of how something could end up. But it's not how it's done anymore i guess.
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The point of the vertical slice is to represent the final game, its look and its gameplay, particularly to publishers and investors. It's not a prototype, and it's intended to represent the final product as closely as possible. It's often done quite early in development (to secure funding), and could, quite accurately, be described as pre-alpha. It may be "uninteresting" to you, but many probably would be interested, if that's what they have to display at the trade show.
 
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