When would the next module be coming out? [Already announced as pushed back]asked by Ravi Sinha
TL;DRChris Roberts says the module was delayed because the existing CryEngine net code couldn't support so many players and he'd rather build a proper back end with instance servers than throwaway work.
This upcoming module is being pushed back because I want to have the proper back-end system so originally when I was first speaking about this modular approach. But to do this I knew I'd need to use the existing CryEngine net code because proper back-end is a big engineering job and we've been working on it for quite a while. So I thought that would be alright but the further we got, the bigger audience we got, we've thought we've got 200,000 people now who are eligible for the alpha.
Just supporting that online requires the net code that's not built for that sort of volume of people would require a lot of work and we'd have to do a lot of maintenance. Of course this work will never be used in the final game, so that sort of deal is like a bad, bad use of resourcing and so I'd rather delay this so I could polish it a little bit and we can get a proper back end with the systems and instance servers and all the rest of the stuff working. Then we'll be able to test the game in a proper set-up and hopefully that will help reduce the…down the road but also it's going to allow better activity between the modules.
The way it's going to work and should work is that in the back end multiplayer, you're allowed to chat with your friends and the organization and say "hey, let's go". To do all that, really requires a proper back end and the systems, so it's definitely worth doing rather that than putting out something tacky out first or the other option which is to do a single player shoots some ships down but that doesn't seem very appealing to me. I'm more interested in testing the game with all the pilots flying around.