Niotso Release Schedule

Niotso is currently in planning.

Nearing the end of each development phase, a release will be published which has no known bugs. While the community performs a widescale bug test, an audit of the source code will be conducted to find and fix any possible attack vectors leading to arbitrary code execution.

Planning

 * Entered: June 10, 2011
 * Tech Preview 1: TBD

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

In each Technical Preview, there is a perfectly replicated Log-in screen, although there is no user authentication service; it accepts any username and password, provided they consist of valid characters and satisfy the length requirement. When you click OK, you will be brought to a pixel-perfect Select-a-Sim screen and be directed to a pixel-perfect Create-a-Sim screen. The graphics and sound should be perfectly replicated. Clicking on a city causes a message box to appear explaining that the ingame lot is unimplemented.

Tech Preview 1 has missed its estimated release date, so at the moment, the release date is "TBD".

Niotso will leave the Planning stage once all bugs have been worked out, such that the menus offered in this stage have been confirmed completely stable.

Pre-Alpha
When you click on a city, the game will skip the city map and send you 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 the 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.