Reply from Igor Belago. Brand new!! 11/17/08

[Ubaku]

As you all know I have sent important questions to Igor Belago on November 15, 2008. This is his reply on November 17, 2008. This is the letter translated into English. You can find the original in Russian here. http://forums.games.1c.ru/index.php?mid=2155332

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Reply from Igor Belago to questions from the Russian 1c forum members.

Good day Yevgeniy!

Thank you and all the other members of the 1C forums for this letter. I will try to answer your questions.

Question: First of all, please tell us what version of Rig'n'Roll was displayed at Igromir 2008? Is this the latest version of the game to date, or is this an old demo/beta version from last year?

Answer: The version, which you saw, was practically the full complete version of
the game. In this version from Igromir, the number of trucks, and other
features was decreased for safety reasons. People who came to the expo could
see that the game had almost no "gray buttons" (meaning deactivated game
controls) also both game modes were accessible, main game and single delivery.

Question: We noticed that there were no pedestrians in the Igromir version of
the game, will there be pedestrians in the final version?

Answer: The pedestrians were removed from the Igromir version because they are still too buggy to show off.

Question: Will regular Al cars also enter gas stations and auto shops (well at least gas stations), since in the videos from Igromir the gas stations were empty?

Answer: We have left this an open question for now. There is still some
instability of the algorithms of the ability to create rush hour traffic near truckstops.

Question: Will AI trucks have trailers?

Answer: Yes they already do. You probably did not see them in the Igromir version
due to the decreased number of AI vehicles, as I said before.

Question: Did you decide 100% that there will be no multiplayer in the final
version of the game, and will you add it later in a patch or something?

Answer: Yes, the final version of the game will not have multiplayer. We hope to
add it later.

Question: In the version of the game at Igromir, the streets looked a little
empty, will the final version of the game have many AI vehicles, pedestrians,
just signs of life?

Answer: I already explained about the pedestrians. The amount of traffic on
the roads is determined by many factors. First of all its determined by the
user. You can select the intensity of the number of AI vehicles and level of
difficulty.

Also the number of lanes, time of day, and quality of the roads
play a role. And finally various events in the game also have an effect, for
example during the truck championship of California, the roads will be cleared
of traffic.

Question: And now we must ask you about the most painful topic for us all, the release date. In your last email, you said the game will be released in 2008. is this still true? Then why does it say 2009 here? http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/rig-n-roll/overview

Please try to understand us gamers, and fans of your game series, we are waiting for so many years already.

Answer: First of all, I would like to thank the members of the 1c forums and
fans of our game on behalf of the entire development team for your patience
all these years. I completely understand you, and believe me when I say that
its even more painful for us developers. This is a hard game, and we did not
expect to take this long to develop it at first.

Sadly we can no longer make a 2008 release. The game still has too many bugs
for a release, and the days when we caught 50-70 bugs a day are over. The game
right now is mostly clean (I think the people who went to Igromir could see
this). The bugs which are left are very tricky in character. They are usually
hard to catch.

The number of bugs in the game is falling rapidly, especially with massive manual and automatic testing, but nonetheless all our attempts to predict the rate at which the bugs are eliminated did not lead us to a satisfactory result for a 2008 release. At the current rate of bug elimination, there is still a couple of months of hard work left by developers
and testers, in other words wait to the beginning of 2009.

Finally I would like to thank the people who were at Igromir 2008 and who
released videos of the game. If we get permission from them, we will
publish these videos on the official game website.

Respectfully yours, Igor Belago

[digit]

Originally Posted by Ubaku

Question: Will regular Al cars also enter gas stations and auto shops (well at least gas stations), since in the videos from Igromir the gas stations were empty?

Answer: We have left this an open question for now. There is still some
instability of the algorithms of the ability to create rush hour traffic near truckstops.

I thought they had finished development of the game? What does he mean "we have left this an open question for now"?

[obsolum]

Originally Posted by Ubaku

(...) in other words wait to the beginning of 2009.

So in other words, keeping in mind their history with announced release dates: maybe, just maybe, the game might come out in the autumn (September, October) of 2009. Maybe. There's no way in hell they're going to be able to release this game before April 2009.

Thanks for the great translation, Ubaku

[KENWORTH]

Originally Posted by obsolum

So in other words, keeping in mind their history with announced release dates: maybe, just maybe, the game might come out in the autumn (September, October) of 2009. Maybe. There's no way in hell they're going to be able to release this game before April 2009.

Thanks for the great translation, Ubaku

april ill be damned if the game comes out in 2009 from what i just read

[Ubaku]

For some reason I dont think its getting through to you people. Igor said the game is mostly clean of bugs. They need a couple of months to make it good enough to release. I think for once Igor explained in great detail whats going on.

And yes as you see they do care about us gamers. Igor even visits the forums sometimes.

So calm down, we have never been so close to release as we are now. Just go play something else and you get a big surprise in a couple of months.

[movo.]

Originally Posted by Ubaku

For some reason I dont think its getting through to you people. Igor said the game is mostly clean of bugs. They need a couple of months to make it good enough to release. I think for once Igor explained in great detail whats going on.

And yes as you see they do care about us gamers. Igor even visits the forums sometimes.

So calm down, we have never been so close to release as we are now. Just go play something else and you get a big surprise in a couple of months.

I hope you're right Great translation btw. and thanks for sending an email to Igor.

[Freak Of Nature]

Originally Posted by Ubaku

For some reason I dont think its getting through to you people. Igor said the game is mostly clean of bugs. They need a couple of months to make it good enough to release. I think for once Igor explained in great detail whats going on.

And yes as you see they do care about us gamers. Igor even visits the forums sometimes.

So calm down, we have never been so close to release as we are now. Just go play something else and you get a big surprise in a couple of months.

After two months SURPRISE!!! We Are Releasing Rig'n'Roll Summer 2009 !!! lol tha'ts not funny... it may come true..

[Ubaku]

Originally Posted by digit

I thought they had finished development of the game? What does he mean "we have left this an open question for now"?

He means that if they are successful at fixing the code (which is all they are doing now, fixing code, not making new code) AI vehicles will also enter the gas stations, if not, they wont.

[mbp]

There's no problem to calm down. We only want to play the game after 6 years. If someone is upset, they are in their right to, as unhappy supporters of this forum and this game. They haven't triggered this situation after all this time. At this point, developers can't pretend nothing has happened.

Whenever they want to release the game, we will play it. Like in everywhere else, consumers can't do much more than resign this way, because of this kind of professionals

[Ubaku]

Yes but you read, and saw that Igor Belago said he is upset himself that they cant release it yet. He cares about us and understands, but we need to face the facts.

Softlab is a small company and they took on a project that even large companies would avoid. They are the underdog here.

Microsoft would look at a project like this and scream and say no no no way in heck would we try to make a game where we totally recreate California piece by piece, every single town in the state.

This project was a crazy idea to begin with, but when its done we will see something unique in the history of games.

Yes people have a right to be upset, but Igor finally proved to us that he understands us being upset, and feels sorry for it. I think we need to respect him and Softlab for taking on a project this insane, and giving us something much cooler than 18 wheels of steel or Euro Trucker.

And like I said, WE HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS CLOSE TO RELEASE EVER BEFORE. Only a couple more months before it actually goes gold, not before they tell us the release date. We should be happy thats its really almost here after 6 years.