I think it's possible they were never planning for an August release. Throwing that date out there as well as implementing the Army system most likely got many people to preorder over the past week or so, and once beta 2 starts all of those people will be charged and gain access. This could be a huge burst of funding allowing the devs to continue working on the game until February without budget issues.
I don't mean to say they were trying to trick us or anything negative, as we will have the beta to play so it doesn't really matter. I just think it's a possibility, and the February thing always seemed a bit odd to me.
I just don't see this game hitting all the steps in the beta in 2 months. It doesn't really matter how easily they can add these features because it's the testing, bug fixing, and balancing that take up time.
Hi Sanati.
While I respect your opinion on this, I am going to disagree. From a financial stand point, Stardock never based it's business decisions on needing funding from their internal produced games.
Because they have their own budget that is supported by their own needs, and being extremely sound financially. They don't need boosts of preorders. Do they help? Sure. Need, no. This company doesn't work that way, and hasn't. It's sort of seeing an ethical company, producing things they want to experience and play with themselves, and also yet as it is a business that they can make money on.
This game is obviously budgeted for a certain funding level. But if it takes longer, it's polish, and enhanced features. Not, because they are living paycheck to paycheck. They make a LOT of money off of their own products. And this stuff here with Elemental, is an engine. Now that it's roaring, that removes development time on it in the future. That's why this is so robust. And the game world is able to be a Fantasy Civ with RPG flavors. And then added in all those extra cool things the niche market of D&D players, would be able to get into.
