Hail all, xenos, infidels, heretics, demi-gods and assorted immortals.

You might be wondering why we would enter Closed Alpha this early. Why would we intentionally slow down development speed by spending time on updating an Alpha build on a weekly basis? Why not full development speed rather than increased feedback? Why don’t we
have both?

It just so happens that we do have both. What we are doing is developing an online game, which will evolve for years to come past launch and be always on. What we are doing today with a live environment and Founders playing, is a smaller version of how we’ll always be in the future. We are getting our groove on, getting into the rhythm and making operating like this second nature
to us.

It also just happens that everything that we add progressively to the Alpha is part of the full development path towards launch. So you see, we are having our cake and eating it and so are you. You also know that the reason we are this early in Alpha is that we want the “Shooter” awesome, before we do “Massive”. Getting the shooter right will take months of Alpha and Beta and we know that. So getting you in this soon and getting your feedback to mold that direction is crucial.

Since Alpha launched we have added over 9,000 fixes and improvements, new features, new weapons, map changes, new game modes, a new map, combat balancing – all based on your feedback and our game direction. In just three weeks! With 5,000 Captains activated we have more than 1,000 unique users (DAU) playing every day. That’s amazing for a vertical slice Alpha. A-mazing! The Emperor would be proud.

The highlights from the last few weeks:

• Lots of tweaks based on 32 pages and 636 threads of feedback in the Closed Alpha Lounge forum
• Blackbolt Defense Station map
• Domination Game Mode
• Power Axe
• Power Sword
• Plasma Gun
• Plasma Cannon

To see the host of improvements we’ve made take a look at our patch notes.

And coming next week:

• Fortress version of Blackbolt Defense Station
• Fortress game mode with destructible walls
• Vindicator tank
• Mountable Defensive Turrets

Those of you in there will see that we tend to keep only one map at a time in rotation. This is to get focused testing. When the Fortress comes in, it will be the only one, but shortly, when we have a good set of polished maps that everyone is happy with, we’ll start full rotations of all the maps.

We want you to know that we’re ecstatic with the feedback you’ve given us about your first impressions. We’re going to continue to do our part making more war all the time. We will update you regularly with summaries and what’s to come every couple of weeks.

This wouldn’t be the same without a shameless plug, because we really need it for the war effort. If you want to participate in molding the future now, the Captain pack is for you. It contains a lot of stuff, will always be the best deal you will ever get and will be gone once we transition to a traditional retail program. The same applies to Sergeants and Warriors; the value is unbeatable. Sergeants are getting access later this month and November for Warriors.

There is an achievement for killing a dev and we’re easier to find when there are less live servers 😉 We’ll see you on the battlefield.

Nathan Richardsson
Senior Producer
Discuss in the Eternal Crusade forums!