OpenMW featured on Niche Gamer

[lysol]

The main goals of OpenMW, the version nummeration, and the project's status are things I will definitely address in the following release commentary videos. You can't stress these points often enough.

Maybe you could correct some misunderstandings about multiplayer as well, because that seems to be a common misconception.

I personally don't get why the guy doing the multiplayer developement doesn't register here to talk with the devs. Everyone would benefit from this.

[ezze]

Sorry, need to bump this.

Another fine example of journalism!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_TyVWNzJqE

And yeah, it's me raging in the long comment. Haha.

While I agree with all other points, OpenMW is INDEED an Alpha.

[lysol]

Sorry, need to bump this.

Another fine example of journalism!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_TyVWNzJqE

And yeah, it's me raging in the long comment. Haha.

While I agree with all other points, OpenMW is INDEED an Alpha.

Yes, but the thing is that he pointed out that it's not only alpha, but "definately an alpha", based on the version number. He makes it sound like it's buggy as hell and not very playable since it's "only on version 0.37".

[psi29a]

He said that if you take _only_ the roadmap and feature-complete into account then is OpenMW very much alpha.

I don't agree with his definition, as it would indicate that almost all applications are alpha as they are constantly working on adding new features and by definition are never 'feature complete'.

I'd say that OpenMW is playable, now, from start to finish and is more enjoyable to play than Morrowind as-is. Is it finished? No. Will it ever be finished? No. It will be constantly improved.

[ezze]

I guess I am with Zini in this. Assuming the usual definitions OpenMW is Alpha.

However not only it does not really matter technically, but it tend to confuse people as they don't usually really know that alpha/beta is because too many times those terms are been misused. So it is better to simply focus on what you can do already.

So: "OpenMW is playable, now, from start to finish and is more enjoyable to play than Morrowind as-is."

[johndh]

Maybe we could use a general "state of the game" blurb with each release or on the front page so that it would be more clear to journalism-minded folks doing reviews. Something like: "While missing a few features that will be present in a 1.0 release [bug tracker link], OpenMW is fully capable of playing Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon from start to finish, including significant enhancements [wiki link]", with directions for how/where to ask questions.

[psi29a]

I think you both hit the nail on the head. We should probably have something on the landing page that is up front about OpenMW current utility.

[Atahualpa]

Seconded!
The "project status" should be visible (and clear) to all visitors. Also, it should be somehow part of every release note, release video (and news post). Most of our Outreach pages need an update anyway (https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Outreach), so why not combine those with a general status update when releasing version 0.39.0?

[raevol]

Agreed with all of this, we should have more transparency into the project status. The bugtracker is great, but it takes that extra bit of insider knowledge and clicking around to get a real understanding of where the project stands on there.

[SquireNed]

One thing I see a lot of projects do is have a sort of percentage completion bar/set of bars, with various color coded things (like complete in release, complete in next release, partial in next release, to-do, post-release, rejected, etc.)