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I simply cannot understand some of the critique I am reading here. It is very good to point out the obvious problems and mistakes there still are with the campaign - the very first version there is! But I for one am having a very good time already and it is pretty much what I wanted - RTW2 in 3d and I have to say to me the mission generator is already a lot better than in RTW. Sure, there is a lot that needs to be improved, features to be added etc., but it is WIP. And I reaaaaaallly don't get what people expected. I would appreciate to have more regular updates, even if some features are incomplete/not working at the moment (e.g. movement of ships to other harbours), then not to have those updates at all. Communication and update cycles have been abysmal. No doubt. Now that things are - hopefully - improving, we could all do without the negativity. Point out things that need to be fixed - but no need to be so negative about it. I would really appreciate more regular updates, even for things that aren't quite perfect yet. Biggest issue I am having so far: Way too little possibilities to try out interesting and weird designs, especially early in the game. In RTW, if I wanted to have a CA in 1900 that sported crazy armour and tons of 6", 7" or 8" guns, like an old ship of the line, I could have that. It would not be coast effective. It would not be efficient (though in one war these CAs proved quite successful). But it would be fun! This is missing here. To be honest, I also think this is part of the communities fault. Asking for basically every hull that ever floated under the sun from every nation is taking a huge time. I would be very happy to have a lot of default hulls and guns, available for every nation, looking the same, but very flexible to design, than having a 1890s CA hull for every nation.

Just wanted to show my support as well. Surprised and glad to see how mature the community reacted. Probably due to the nature of this game. Would love to see the next edition of FIFA or season of Fortnite being delayed by several months Anyway, it's great to see some communication here. I hated it when things got silent and was ready to abandon this game (which I already paid for).

I cannot understand people wanting "compensation". It's an alpha, everyone buying into it knew this. Even if a Steam release in the first half of this year was suggested, everyone knows that games get postponed during development. I'd like for it to be available sooner rather than later, but I don't feel the need for them to "compensate" me. I am more disappointed with not being able to play the campaign so far. I'd relish it, even if it was still rudimentary and/or buggy.

I love torpodoes. But not the way they are implemented in the game. In capability and risk/reward they need to be much closer to how they were in real life. As ships don't react too smart in this game on their own, big battles become unplayable if you have to order all those ships to manually evade. Basically, I agree with what most people said before me.

I really, really want the campaign soon. Even a broken one. But putting it on Steam with the campaign would be a really bad idea. The state the online community is in nowadays means that even having it as beta option would be no good. People would write toxic reviews. The campaign first has to be rolled out here before it makes its way to Steam.

This is why I think the game will shine in campaign mode. In RTW2 I actually love playing as smaller nations like AH, working with small, compact but hard-hitting short-ranged BBs, let's say 2 x 3 turret ships, big guns, heavy armor, low speed and comparatively cheap to produce. I sincereley hope this game will allow for different approaches as well.

I like the inconsitency, not knowing what you are up against, as otherwise it is really to easy to make tailor-made ships for certain missions. However, sometimes this also results in opponents that are easily beat, e.g. an enemy BB with 13" guns while you are already sporting 16".

First, I am not disappointed, quite the contrary. I was thrilled when I saw how good the game already was when I joined. I am by no means disappointed yet. I have confidence that the kinks will be worked out. I just wanted to say that there is probably an internal update every other or third day and I wouldn't mind playing those, even if some of those are (and they will be) riddled with game-breaking bugs. If that's more work to the devs, then that's obviously a no go.

I did paid beta testing in the past (as in: I got paid to do it) when I was young (and weighed a lot less )and was surprised to find an Alpha that was already so stable and had less bugs than some of the betas I participated in. When I signed up for this Alpha, I expected much more frequent updates, e.g. weekly updates. I expected some of them to come with terrible bugs. Some of them to even make the game unplayable for a few days. I was fine with that. I would have loved to have toyed around with an unfinished, even broken campaign so far. The devs have chosen a different path. Much more stable, but less frequent updates. With the release of the campaign coming closer, I would like to see more frequent updates, even if some of them break the game for a few days (so what?). I think that this might even help them develop things faster, with more people playing etc. Then again I could be totally wrong and too many people would start bitching about game-breaking bugs/features and this game would get a bad reputation. In the end, they will probably know what's best for them. Just here to say that I would not mind more frequent releases, even if buggy. It's an Alpha after all. And please don't push them to go to Steam before the game is really looking good. Would hate to see it getting burried in bad reviews.

Has ist been confirmed that there will be more/minor nations? Which ones? Also, will we be able to grow our empire through conquest and eventually be able to take on e. g. Britain as AH or Italy on more ore less equal terms of power?

Great ideas. I also hope there will be no fixed ending time. It's so anticlimatic to be in a huge game/war and suddenly it's all over because you've reached December 1940 or August 1945.

Weekly dev diaries would be great but certainly way too much of a drain to their resources. However, a general road map would be much appreciated. They are not very forthcoming when it comes to sharing that. I get that unfortunately today people are whining a lot when something was suggested to be implemented soon and then it takes longer. But right now I have gotten tired of missions (I rarely play missions in other strategy games as well). I need campaigns, I need the feeling that the result of my battle actually means something, it carries over to a meta level, here the campaign. So it would be nice to have an idea how far away that campaign is. Will the first draft be in the next patch (highly doubt it)? Will it be in 5 or 10 patches roughly?

This is urgently needed. I applaud the general design of this game and the state it is in right now, I think that the bigger issues in combat are most likely going to be fixed. I mention this because I also absolutely cannot understand why custom battle comes with such poor features after several updates. It should at the very minimum allow you to design all your own ships. It should also allow you to design all enemy ships. When I think of custom battles, I immediately think of SSI's Steel Panthers. It had all those options (and even allowed you to deploy enemy troops if you wished to do so, although I rarely used that option) - and that was designed in 1995!

I disagree. Playing an AI has never been as thrilling as playing a human being for me. The problem with humans is rage quits, insults, immature behaviour etc., nobody needs that. But this is more of a strategy game/simulation, where you are more likely to find mature opponents to play with. So this could be good.

Kudos on a brilliant post @Steeltrap

Biggest problems with MMOG is indeed the huge time sink they are. That's fine for people who prefer to focus on just one game. I for instance want to try many different games. I played Naval Action and quite liked it, but at a certain point it became apparent that you need to devote just too much time to it to make reasonable progress.

I agree when it comes to the design process. MMOs are often poorly designed and dumbed down to appeal to the broadest possible player base. However, there is no such danger in designing a game with single player in mind and then allowing two friends to face off in battles or a PvP campaign (again, repeating myself here, but think Total War MP here).

You used to be able to play the campaign in early Alphas, I have read (by left-clicking and shift or alt I think). Anybody here who saw what the campaign looked like at this early stage and has some impressions he can share?

I'd like that. At the same time I am also pretty sure that such logistics originally played no part in the designers' vision of the game. Maybe some of those ideas will now get implemented. Hopefully.

That last idea sounds really cool, not sure if that's possible though. What I have always wondered, with for instance the reworks the Kongo class got - was that really more cost efficient than building new ships?

- Like the tougher BBs, agree on soft kills being too difficult atm - Ships are too fast - AI really needs to be improved, as I don't want to have to micro manage every single ship once the campaign is there and we have battles with 10/20 ships on every side, and at that point you WILL start caring about losing four or five DDs/CLs - A while ago I read that torpedoes were fine, as they did less damage than historically, but we were granted more of them and would thus hit with them more often I reaaaaaaaaally don't like that idea. Torpedoes should do close to historical damage and hitting with one should possibly be a decisive event in a battle. This will change the whole dynamic of battles closer to something that is realistic - Balancing the game's economy will be a task in itself, so I am hoping for them to release the campaign soon. I don't mind if it's rudimentary/faulty, but it makes sense to try out different approaches: a fleet without BBs, only CA/DDs, maybe even only CL/DDs, old BBs, just BC/No BBs, the possibilities are endless.

Absolutely agree. I used to play Silent Hunter III (or maybe it was II) and will never forget that moment when I surfaced into a rough Atlantic storm, visibility well under 2,000 metres, it was just awesome. This should absolutely make it into this game.

I absolutely love the fact that this game already starts in 1890 and not in 1900 (like RTW), giving us some time with pre-dreads. However, I am not so sure how much I loved the pre-dead battles I have had so far, they have such a hard time hitting enemy ships and this also seems very realistic. While I would appreciate an earlier start in general, I agree that it makes no sense to have one if this means the team has to work on making another generation of ships playable in game.

I bought Victory at Sea: Pacific. Have hardly played it. Have sunk tons of hours into RTW2. While I agree that we should not ask for too many features from such a small team, I just feel that planes are a must. They are integral to naval warfare of the period in the game, it just feels totally weird not having them. Especially strange that some of the people that push for realism all the time are cool with omitting planes and CVs. I absolutely understand and appreciate the RTW/RTW2 analogy. IF we could be certain of getting a UAD 2 within a couple of years, I would be fine with UAD 1 not having planes. But there is always the danger of not getting that and tbh I really don't like RTW 1 that much because of its lack of planes.

These kind of suggestions were what I was hoping for, I like all of them. Keep them coming