This is Pete Hines giving the status of Skyrim as of February 2011.

http://twitter.com/#!/DCDeacon/status/36455029074432000


When do you think Skyrim will reach beta?

By E3.

Hopefully soon. Maybe around E3? It has to advance from pre alpha to alpha before it gets to beta.

Well that was two months ago when he said that. So what the people above said. By E3 it will probably be in the beta stages.

It doesn't go from pre alpha to beta. It needs to advance to alpha first.

Once alpha is reached, they stop adding features. So there is not much time left to add mounts, spears, etc.

Well it's obviously already past the start of Alpha as that was the "Milestone" they talked about a month ago. It really doesn't matter when the game reaches stages except when it goes gold and even then, we already know what day it's coming out.



No, Alpha still adds in features. Features can be added and removed all the way up until the game goes gold, there is no set stage where features aren't added anymore.

Then it probably won't advance to alpha until late summer.

@Sleign What milestone?

Pete Hines wasn't talking about the game. You would know this if you actually read the context in which it was said.

worm82075: Can you give us forum rats some ammo against the haters and confirm the screens released are from a 2009 build of Skryim?

DCDeacon: They're gonna hate no matter what I say. But no, we did not release screens from a 2 yr old build. Dunno why we would.

W: Your right, they will, I was just hoping they were from an older build so it would explain the lack of polish found in some shots.

D: How about "It's pre-alpha and far from done"

W: I wish that would shut up the haters but like you said nothing you can say will do that deed. Ty for your time. Have a great day.

I know. I'm pretty sure their in the Alpha stages. Since they're showing a demo at E3 you'd think they have advanced to Alpha by now.

Uh, yes he was. :stare:

I think some people really need to stop deluding themselves. People loved to use the line "it's from a 2009 build" or some variant of it to try to explain away/defend what even they didn't like about Skyrim. Being in denial isn't healthy nor is building up unrealistic expectations. No, everything we've seen so far is not a placeholder, it's the game. They waited to show it off precisely because they wanted what they showed to reflect, more or less, a finished version.

The terms alpha and beta tend to fluctuate wildly between different developers. I've had a lot of experience testing alpha/beta games, and I still often puzzle over the differences I've seen, but that comment takes the cake. "pre-alpha"? he had to mean pre-beta. Pre-alpha is basically just cooking up the engine or securing an engine from another developer and egneral brainstorming idea and whatnot.

They gotta be in late alpha by this point. Easy.

Confused.

I can't remember wich article or video Todd made the comment but his words were "We are now adding to the game" Sounds like a stolid beta. Regardless it's still a lot of time to add content. :mohawk:

This was in the last weeks batch of articles/interviews

With 6 months to go before "going gold" there's no way in hell they're still in "pre-alpha" or likely even "alpha". Especially after we've been told that there were people working on it as early as 2007, with the bulk of real work beginning immediately following Fallout 3's release. That was in November 2008 btw, so unless they're the lamest developers of all time, they're deep into beta phases.

I'm hoping that what Bethesda showed at BFG was it's Alpha stage. And now they're moving onto Beta until E3. It might explain the lack of footage to the public, as well as marketing and all that jazz.

This. Discussion over, close thread.

The one where they had a huge celebration about about a month ago or so and they had cupcakes!

Yep, they were celebrating the first successful across the board test of the entire game engine and all of it systems. If that doesn't signify a move from alpha to beta then nothing does.

...And they were delicious...

When there are still things left to discuss about? the fact that the OP was wrong doesn't mean that the thread has to be closed.

I for one wanted to comment it's obvious they are waaay after the alpha stages due to the fact that they have assembled a press conference that showed a demo of Skyrim to 100+ people. So it's pretty obvious.

Don't shush people =.=

He was talking about his tea actually, worm82075 asked him questions but Pete ignored him, telling everyone else that he put his teabag into the mug(Pre-alpha) there for it is not finished yet, he is yet to add his sugar(alpha) and his milk(beta) then of-course adding the hot water to his cuppa to make the final product, so yes it is also far from done his tea.

But anyway I found it quite rude when worm said "Your right, they will, I was just hoping they were from an older build so it would explain the lack of polish found in some shots." Lack of polish? Sure it isn't finished yet but I just found that statement rather rude.lol :confused:

I'd have to say somewhere in late July or early August. I'm not really good at predicting those kinds of things though. I don't exactly know how much time the average developer spends on beta.

You obviously spent a lot of thought and time into writing this comment so I see no other choice but replying to it.

I don't think it was tea he was talking about it xD

Game developers seems to use the pre-alpha=alpha, alpha=beta, beta=released. MMO developers are great with this.

Although, with the iterative process you have features that are in pre-alpha (planning), alpha (implementation) and beta (debugging).