Greetings Pilots! We thought it was time to talk about our plans for Heliborne moving forward in greater detail. The level of detail that I think many of you may recall us promising some weeks ago. What is that detail? In short, we are sharing with you our road-map and plans for the development today, in full. So, let's get started.
Introduction to the Road-map
The Road-map as it stands in it's current version is divided in to three "Phases." Each phase represents a level of additional content, features, changes and updates that help push the game closer and closer to release, which is planned currently to be this December.
Phase One: Warm Up
Phase One is designed to move the game out of the view of being an "Alpha-state" product and more in to line with a Beta-State or "Pre-release" state product. We call this the "Warm Up" phase. Phase one will bring the following,
- Statistics: Full implementation, with rankings, leaderboards and other standard features related to Stats tracking in multiplayer titles. (This also includes heavy server improvements which are necessary for more advanced features later on in development.)
- Gamepad, Joystick and HOTAS support
- Flight Model improvements and updates. These features including things such as new physics updates, oscillation in a hover, etc *Features subject to change.
- Hangar and UI improvements with the addition of a new training ground map, and hangar scene. Thus allowing training and tutorials, as well as firing ranges and test flights. More on this later.
- Gameplay improvements, in-game communications and game ambiance.
- Unity analytics integration.
- Community: Events in-game on weekly basis as soon as statistics are introduced.
Deadline for Phase One Completion: End of September 2016
Phase Two: Pre-Release
Phase two is considered our actual "Pre Release Stage" and will see our actual promotional launch on a full scale. This stage will include the highest number of giveaways and promotional deals, as well as a high degree of media coverage. The following features are planned for Phase Two.
- Tutorial implementation.
- Progression system - fully implemented
- Basic matchmaking system
- Cheating prevention: VAC integration, distributed anti-cheating system (client instances will check their client instances for possible cheats)
- Cosmetic items - initial-pass
- Steam achievements integration
- Final Localization passes
- Community: Weekly events, and large giveaways
- Launch on new platforms (gog[dot]com, humble bundle and so on)
- Chinese release (full chinese localization + chinese helicopter + event)
Deadline for Phase Two Completion: First half of November 2016
Phase Three: Release
Phase Three will be our "Release Phase" in which we announce the final release date, as well as our "out of early access" price point increase. The following is planned for Phase Three.
- Cosmetic items - final pass
- Steam trading cards integration
- VoIP-chat (Subject to technology constraints, this may be a post-release feature or may not see integration. It is included here as part of the "Plan".)
Deadline for Phase Three: December 2016
Other News
Now, I would be doing you a great disservice if I did not at least include screenies of one of the biggest things coming down the pipeline very soon. That being the new fullscale /map/ that the Hangar will be seamlessly integrated with to provide our training, testing, and firing range scenarios.
The Hangar Map
This, Pilots, is the new Hangar map. This is where you will conduct training and tutorial missions. This map will also have a firing range, and will see the introduction of the ability for you to "test" any helo out FULLY, before taking it in to combat.
The New Squadron View
As you can see here, how you see and view your squadrons will change to showing you all three helos at the same time. We hope this helps show that you really are the leader of a "Squadron" of helicopters heading in to battle.
The new Helo Overview
This pilots, is the new camera overview for looking at individual helos. Should be pretty self explanatory, we hope.
Closing Thoughts
It's our hope with this announcement and our choice to share with you our final plans for features and updates, as well as these new screens of upcoming content, that we can show that we are truly dedicated to seeing Heliborne become a "released" title. We would not be here without each and every one of you, and to that, we thank you all for your support and dedication.
-Rayne
Team JetCat