Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Anything related to PR, release planning and any other non-technical idea how to move the project forward should be discussed here.
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ElderTroll
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Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by ElderTroll »

Raevol suggested the idea of beta to increase interest in the project. Next year on May 2nd, 2017 is the fifteen year anniversary of the release of Morrowind. Releasing 1.0 of the engine would be an easy story for a lot of internet and gaming news websites. "Celebrate 15 years of The Elder Scrolls III with this open source release." "Morrowind's 15 and owners of the pc version are getting a present." "Morrowind is 15 and a team of fans released a new engine to immortalize it."

That's also 15 months from now for the project to develop.

Maybe we could try to get the Tamriel Rebuilt team, Morrowind Rebirth developer, and some other communities on board. Wouldn't that be a cool way to celebrate this community?

Maybe someone website would be willing to review vanilla morrowind vs Morrowind at 15 (something akin Morrowind Rebirth, Tamriel Rebuilt running on OpenMW).
Last edited by ElderTroll on 18 Feb 2016, 03:26, edited 1 time in total.
Chris
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by Chris »

Makes me a bit hesitant, honestly. Do we know if Bethesda's planning to do anything for Morrowind's 15th anniversary? I would hate for OpenMW's 1.0 release to be overshadowed by Bethesda surprising us with something for the game on that day.
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ElderTroll
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by ElderTroll »

What could they do?
- Put Morrowind on sale for a few days (That would be great way for people to learn about OpenMW when the game doesn't cost 20 dollars.)
- A small release of new content for Elder Scrolls Online (really unlikely they would release something now for skyrim since it'll be 5 or 6 years old at that point).

From a story perspective if the various community projects jointly released updates on the same day that might make a better story. "Morrowind is 15 today, but some fans and developers never left." If Bethesda did make an announcement wouldn't the stories combine the two? "Bethesda celebrates Morrowind at 15 with.... and Morrowind Modders celebrate it with...."
Chris
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by Chris »

ElderTroll wrote:What could they do?
Perhaps announcing that they're releasing MW for free (unlikely, but possible), while also announcing some other sizable TES-related project. It's still over a year away, so who knows.
If Bethesda did make an announcement wouldn't the stories combine the two? "Bethesda celebrates Morrowind at 15 with.... and Morrowind Modders celebrate it with...."
Depends. If Bethesda's announcement is big enough on its own they may not want to put them together, or may not give the "smaller" (OMW/TR) announcement due consideration. They could just get relegated to a small blurb somewhere near the end of the story ("Today is Morrowind's 15th anniversary, and Bethesda announced this, that, and this other, and so on and so forth. Oh, and OpenMW hit 1.0 I guess and TR updated."), rather than being the story's main focus that can go into detail about what these projects are, what they do, their benefits, etc. IMO, the OpenMW 1.0 release should be a full story on its own, so combining it with another full story/announcement could dilute it.

I do think it would be good from a PR perspective to have the 1.0 release around the 15th anniversary, I just wouldn't want it to get drowned out if Bethesda announces stuff on the same day as the 1.0 release.
SquireNed
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by SquireNed »

Chris wrote:
ElderTroll wrote:What could they do?
Perhaps announcing that they're releasing MW for free (unlikely, but possible), while also announcing some other sizable TES-related project. It's still over a year away, so who knows.
If Bethesda did make an announcement wouldn't the stories combine the two? "Bethesda celebrates Morrowind at 15 with.... and Morrowind Modders celebrate it with...."
Depends. If Bethesda's announcement is big enough on its own they may not want to put them together, or may not give the "smaller" (OMW/TR) announcement due consideration. They could just get relegated to a small blurb somewhere near the end of the story ("Today is Morrowind's 15th anniversary, and Bethesda announced this, that, and this other, and so on and so forth. Oh, and OpenMW hit 1.0 I guess and TR updated."), rather than being the story's main focus that can go into detail about what these projects are, what they do, their benefits, etc. IMO, the OpenMW 1.0 release should be a full story on its own, so combining it with another full story/announcement could dilute it.

I do think it would be good from a PR perspective to have the 1.0 release around the 15th anniversary, I just wouldn't want it to get drowned out if Bethesda announces stuff on the same day as the 1.0 release.
I wouldn't necessarily rule out Morrowind for free; they've done it with the earlier Elder Scrolls games and it's a very id/Bethesda thing to do.

I think near the 15th anniversary might be good; maybe a few days earlier to let news trickle out? Something like "Celebrate Morrowind's 15th birthday with OpenMW 1.0!", with a bunch of fanfare even though it's coming out a week before the anniversary for the sake of making sure that it doesn't get trampled by announcements.
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raevol
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by raevol »

Maybe we could shoot for May 3rd?
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ElderTroll
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by ElderTroll »

Prior to the anniversary would be better especially if a few Morrowind related projects jointly released updates. Openmw going to 1.0 is news worthy in its own right in the gaming world, but if it was a concerted effort between Openmw, TR, Morrowind Rebirth, maybe Skywind, then it'd be a bigger story and probably reach more outlets.

Releasing prior to the anniversary would probably benefit the story if folks are right about Bethesda making Morrowind free temporarily. Just a day or two ago there would have been our news story, recent and relevant enough that bloggers and writers would probably link to our story. "Bethesda celebrates Morrowind's 15th birthday by making the game free. The perfect accompaniment to what the community of Morrowind modders and fans released on May 1st."
SquireNed
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by SquireNed »

ElderTroll wrote:...if folks are right about Bethesda making Morrowind free temporarily.
Keep in mind that they did release Arena and Daggerfall permanently for free. It wouldn't surprise me too much if they just made Morrowind free, though I'd imagine that since it's still available for sale they may not do so quite as readily.
Chris
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by Chris »

Also this is just speculation. For all I know, they could do nothing on that day. It just has me wary in case they do, since it wouldn't be good for OpenMW's big 1.0 announcement to be overshadowed by Bethesda also doing something big.
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lysol
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Re: Suggestion for 1.0 release date

Post by lysol »

My thought is more about... Is 1.0 really that far away? Feels like it could be in just a couple of months. On the other hand, that's exactly what I thought around 0.28 too. Haha.
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