Topic: Miners Wars Beta

[-<WillyP>-]

From Miners Wars:

Dearest Fans,

last week Miner Wars has been released at a 70% discount in its pre-alpha version. We have allowed our fans to buy the game before its even released and save a lot of money on its purchase. I can already state that the sales have been going spectacular and the sheer number of new registrations proves it. Never before have we seen so much interest in the game! We have also given our fans the possibility to contribute money to the development. Some of our fans have donated some really nice sums! We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all of the people that have contributed. Your help was much appreciated and will never be forgotten.
At the time of the release we have promised our fans that there will be frequent updates to the game.

So here is the first one of many!

Sandbox mode - players now can generate their own sectors that will contain random asteroids and enemies.

Harvesting / mining - YES! Players can now start to accumulate funds by harvesting materials. We have kept our promise on persistent world so your harvested funds will stay with you all the time. They will never get erased. You have a few good reasons to start harvesting now. All the materials will now give you the same amount of money and your funds will be accumulated instantly. In the future builds different materials will yield different earnings and the player will have to sell the materials on motherships or stations. So start now and get a decent headstart!

Editor - start creating your own sectors. Soon you will be able to share these sectors with your friends.

Ship customization screen - tweaked

Mining drill - now working properly

Some minor bug fixes.

This is just the first of many upcoming releases. Not only the game will cost less now but you will also get a pretty nice headstart when the game is released. Its a good idea to buy Miner Wars now!

Your Miner Wars team

www.minerwars.com

[Matthew]

In case anyone didn't notice, the paid miner wars beta is up now Has anyone played it? How is it?

[Kaiaatzl]

I'm buying it as soon as I can (I wish that was now).

[karx-elf-erx]

So they make people pay for a beta?

That's indeed an inventive business plan.

Edit: It's not a beta - not even an alpha: It's a pre-alpha version.

The incentive is that you get it at 30% of the retail price plus have an advantage over people entering the MW universe at a later point of time and/or stage of game development.

[Foil]

They're asking people to pay for a Beta (or pre-Alpha, for that matter)?!?

Wow... I've been seeing "red flags" about Miner Wars for a while, but this takes the cake.

There are only a few possible reasons a company would ask for $$ in an Alpha or Beta stage, and every one of them are BAD signs.

Sorry, guys.  I'm staying far away from this one.

---------

[Prediction: A year from now, most of us except the die-hard hopefuls will be chalking up Miner Wars as another failed (or faked, for profit?) commercial 6DoF attempt.]

[karx-elf-erx]

I just tried to log into my Minerwars account - proper username given, unsure about password - and couldn't. So I had them send me a new password. It properly arrived and stated the correct username I had been trying to login with. So I retried with the new password. It didn't work. I had another password be sent to me. Login still didn't work.

WTF?

[Matthew]

DERP! Didn't notice the thread.

Methinks the people going "omgwtf" at being charged for an alpha should look at Minecraft. Look at the stats. Look at the sales per day. It's over 9000. It's over 10000 in fact. That mean's they're doing something right.

You can either buy it now at a fraction of the cost, or buy when it's done for full price. Free alpha's (especially ones for MMOs) are lost money for a company. They may not have the resources to host their game for free for another year while they finish it.

Though I'm curious what these red flags you've seen are.

[Kaiaatzl]

When you buy the pre-alpha that means you'll get access to all updates for free, including the final version.

[SaladBadger]

Yes, minecraft is selling like a madman at the moment. It's in alpha stage with a ~48% discount.

In general Miner Wars is starting to sound like a fancy minecraft in space, but this isn't a bad thing! It may be worth it in the end.

[NUMBERZero]

Yes, it is very bad that you have to pay for a beta. I know that I will be buying it because a whole bunch of things hooked me.

BUT! It is 70% off if you buy it now and you will get the full version when it is released.



Plus the guys that were in the tournament get something else special than the other regular guys.

[-<WillyP>-]

DERP! Didn't notice the thread.

Sorry, Matt, it's my fault. I posted this then noticed your post with almost the exact same title.  I tried to merge the threads, but it wanted your post on top, because it was older, I guess. So I copied your post to a new one here and deleted your original post.  My post needed to be first so it shows on the front page.

[PyroJockey]

They're asking people to pay for a Beta (or pre-Alpha, for that matter)?!?

Wow... I've been seeing "red flags" about Miner Wars for a while, but this takes the cake.

There are only a few possible reasons a company would ask for $$ in an Alpha or Beta stage, and every one of them are BAD signs.

Sorry, guys.  I'm staying far away from this one.

---------

[Prediction: A year from now, most of us except the die-hard hopefuls will be chalking up Miner Wars as another failed (or faked, for profit?) commercial 6DoF attempt.]

I recall people paying for beta releases of Windows 95.

I too am curious as to the "red flags you mentioned". The fact that they are already 1 year behind schedule?

I have already bought the pre-alpha, for $14 it was worth the risk. Wait and see.

[Scyphi]

I personally thought this "buy the pre-alpha now for dirt-cheap and essentially get the final for free as a result later in life" was a move that would rob them of money in the end, but it seems to be working out for them. The production people have come out and stated that interest has at least doubled in the game since they made the pre-alpha available. I look at that as a good thing. And I personally think the game has already proved that it has a good chance of some success already, so I don't see why there are those fearing this will all end in failure.

I am curious as to some of those red flags Foil alluded to, though.

I have not yet bought the pre-alpha yet, as I am not sure our computers have the capabilities to support it as of yet.

[Foil]

Okay, regarding the red flags I'm seeing here:

Some of it has to do with marketing vs. development. 

Over the last couple of years, they've spent TONS of time on videos, website, promotions, competitions, etc.  They've promised all kinds of features, talked endlessly about graphics and realism, gone to trade shows, worked up a bunch of videos... but with almost no real functional work to show for it.  (I'm sorry, but an online-game alpha/beta without any online functionality at all doesn't do anything to encourage me about the development.)

Some of it has to do with the financial aspect.  They're not only asking for people to pay for what is essentially a non-playable Beta, they're actively asking for donations (note that they've already apparently convinced a few people to give them large sums).

There are other red flags, but the above are the two big ones.

---

These guys are going to get as much money out of this as they possibly can (watch for more videos, more promises, more talk, none of which will end up in anything playable).

...and then we'll never hear anything about Miner Wars again.  It would be nice to be wrong on this, but I'm certain I'm not. 

I give it perhaps a year, two at the most.

[karx-elf-erx]

Sorry Foil, but that's mostly speculation, and of the negative kind.

I have seen some of the source, and the game has a working foundation. There's also been an early playable version where you can fly around and shoot stuff (including asteroids). The engine is there, and some smart ideas have gone into it.

Of course making a full blown persistent MMO game with high quality web based services is another story.

Btw, my login problems have been resolved.