Niotso Release Schedule

Niotso is currently in planning.

Planning

Entered: June 10, 2011

The Niotso project began planning on June 10, 2011, with its name decided and project page set up on this date.

Technical Previews

Technical previews are releases of Niotso which do not meet the criteria for Pre-Alpha.

Pre-Alpha

There is a perfectly replicated Log-in screen, although there is no user authentication service; it will accept any username and password, provided they use valid characters between x and y characters long. When you click OK, you will be sent directly to an empty lot where you can build a house, place objects, walk around, start skilling and having to eat and use the bathroom, and possibly other basic features. Night and day will work. The graphics and sound should be perfectly replicated. Only a select few objects will be made available for purchase. The user can change the cash on his character to any number.

Niotso will leave Pre-Alpha stage once all bugs have been worked out, such that all of the basic single-player interactions offered in this stage have been confirmed completely stable.

Alpha

All the "primary features" have been given a rough, buggy implementation. We will be using a VPS or dedicated server to host actual lots between connected players online. (Maximum players at a time: 50)

Primary features include joining or hosting a lot with more than one player, having public and private conversations, and all of the features worked out in Pre-Alpha but for online play. A few more objects may be added to Buy/Build Mode. You can still edit the money in your account.

Niotso will leave the Alpha stage once all bugs have been worked out, such that all of the primary features have been confirmed completely stable.

Beta

All the "secondary features" have been given a rough, buggy implementation. The maximum players count is raised to 100.

Secondary features include city rendering, lot categories, money objects, transferring, and all remaining features that exist and have not yet been implemented in The Sims Online. All objects will be available. You can still edit the money in your account. (This will discourage you from taking your Sims personally and remind you to sniff for bugs. Real-life beta testers are paid to do exactly this; without the money compensation, it's easy to forget.)

Niotso will leave the Beta stage once all bugs have been worked out, such that all of the secondary features have been confirmed by them to be completely stable.

Release candidates

These are possible candidates for the actual grand release. It is presumed by the beta testers (through their power to cheat and reach all corners of the game quickly) that the game is completely stable. Money editing is closed. A navigatible city (assumed to be Alphaville) is added, replacing the boring lot select list. The maximum players count is raised to 200.

Stress tests

If we decide to do so, we have purchased our own hardware and installed it in a colocation datacenter.

The entire public may join at this point, and we inform everyone who has an account to log on at specific time intervals. There is no maximum player count, at least until we determine one based on hard evidence provided by this testing. This is practically the real game, but the data will be wiped when we're done.

Grand release

We did all that we initially wanted with this project.

Everybody who tested the game during or before beta is automatically a tax-approved resident at the start of the game; all other players are non-citizens. All players who helped test the game during stress testing or earlier may reuse their prior account credentials or specify a new username.

All statistics are wiped, and the game is released into a fresh economy.