Reply from Igor Belago. Brand new!! 11/17/08
 

As you all know I have sent important questions to Igor Belago on November 15, 2008. This is his reply on November 17, 2008. This is the letter translated into English. You can find the original in Russian here. http://forums.games.1c.ru/index.php?mid=2155332

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Reply from Igor Belago to questions from the Russian 1c forum members.

Good day Yevgeniy!

Thank you and all the other members of the 1C forums for this letter. I will try to answer your questions.

Question: First of all, please tell us what version of Rig'n'Roll was displayed at Igromir 2008? Is this the latest version of the game to date, or is this an old demo/beta version from last year?

Answer: The version, which you saw, was practically the full complete version of
the game. In this version from Igromir, the number of trucks, and other
features was decreased for safety reasons. People who came to the expo could
see that the game had almost no "gray buttons" (meaning deactivated game
controls) also both game modes were accessible, main game and single delivery.

Question: We noticed that there were no pedestrians in the Igromir version of
the game, will there be pedestrians in the final version?

Answer: The pedestrians were removed from the Igromir version because they are still too buggy to show off.

Question: Will regular Al cars also enter gas stations and auto shops (well at least gas stations), since in the videos from Igromir the gas stations were empty?

Answer: We have left this an open question for now. There is still some
instability of the algorithms of the ability to create rush hour traffic near truckstops.

Question: Will AI trucks have trailers?

Answer: Yes they already do. You probably did not see them in the Igromir version
due to the decreased number of AI vehicles, as I said before.

Question: Did you decide 100% that there will be no multiplayer in the final
version of the game, and will you add it later in a patch or something?

Answer: Yes, the final version of the game will not have multiplayer. We hope to
add it later.

Question: In the version of the game at Igromir, the streets looked a little
empty, will the final version of the game have many AI vehicles, pedestrians,
just signs of life?

Answer: I already explained about the pedestrians. The amount of traffic on
the roads is determined by many factors. First of all its determined by the
user. You can select the intensity of the number of AI vehicles and level of
difficulty.

Also the number of lanes, time of day, and quality of the roads
play a role. And finally various events in the game also have an effect, for
example during the truck championship of California, the roads will be cleared
of traffic.

Question: And now we must ask you about the most painful topic for us all, the release date. In your last email, you said the game will be released in 2008. is this still true? Then why does it say 2009 here? http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/rig-n-roll/overview

Please try to understand us gamers, and fans of your game series, we are waiting for so many years already.

Answer: First of all, I would like to thank the members of the 1c forums and
fans of our game on behalf of the entire development team for your patience
all these years. I completely understand you, and believe me when I say that
its even more painful for us developers. This is a hard game, and we did not
expect to take this long to develop it at first.

Sadly we can no longer make a 2008 release. The game still has too many bugs
for a release, and the days when we caught 50-70 bugs a day are over. The game
right now is mostly clean (I think the people who went to Igromir could see
this). The bugs which are left are very tricky in character. They are usually
hard to catch.

The number of bugs in the game is falling rapidly, especially with massive manual and automatic testing, but nonetheless all our attempts to predict the rate at which the bugs are eliminated did not lead us to a satisfactory result for a 2008 release. At the current rate of bug elimination, there is still a couple of months of hard work left by developers
and testers, in other words wait to the beginning of 2009.

Finally I would like to thank the people who were at Igromir 2008 and who
released videos of the game. If we get permission from them, we will
publish these videos on the official game website.

Respectfully yours, Igor Belago

I thought they had finished development of the game? What does he mean "we have left this an open question for now"?

So in other words, keeping in mind their history with announced release dates: maybe, just maybe, the game might come out in the autumn (September, October) of 2009. Maybe. There's no way in hell they're going to be able to release this game before April 2009.

Thanks for the great translation, Ubaku http://www.easysmileys.com/img/other_up.gif

april ill be damned if the game comes out in 2009 from what i just read

For some reason I dont think its getting through to you people. Igor said the game is mostly clean of bugs. They need a couple of months to make it good enough to release. I think for once Igor explained in great detail whats going on.

And yes as you see they do care about us gamers. Igor even visits the forums sometimes.

So calm down, we have never been so close to release as we are now. Just go play something else and you get a big surprise in a couple of months.

I hope you're right :P Great translation btw. and thanks for sending an email to Igor.

After two months SURPRISE!!! We Are Releasing Rig'n'Roll Summer 2009 !!! :D lol tha'ts not funny... it may come true..

He means that if they are successful at fixing the code (which is all they are doing now, fixing code, not making new code) AI vehicles will also enter the gas stations, if not, they wont.

There's no problem to calm down. We only want to play the game after 6 years. ;) If someone is upset, they are in their right to, as unhappy supporters of this forum and this game. They haven't triggered this situation after all this time. At this point, developers can't pretend nothing has happened.

Whenever they want to release the game, we will play it. Like in everywhere else, consumers can't do much more than resign this way, because of this kind of professionals ;)

Yes but you read, and saw that Igor Belago said he is upset himself that they cant release it yet. He cares about us and understands, but we need to face the facts.

Softlab is a small company and they took on a project that even large companies would avoid. They are the underdog here.

Microsoft would look at a project like this and scream and say no no no way in heck would we try to make a game where we totally recreate California piece by piece, every single town in the state.

This project was a crazy idea to begin with, but when its done we will see something unique in the history of games.

Yes people have a right to be upset, but Igor finally proved to us that he understands us being upset, and feels sorry for it. I think we need to respect him and Softlab for taking on a project this insane, and giving us something much cooler than 18 wheels of steel or Euro Trucker.

And like I said, WE HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS CLOSE TO RELEASE EVER BEFORE. Only a couple more months before it actually goes gold, not before they tell us the release date. We should be happy thats its really almost here after 6 years.

hey thanks for the translated letter. Sure clears up some questions I was having.

Good job as always.

Still can't wait to see it in the stores

Bigbubba467

I understand it's a big game for a small company. Ok, put a real date for your fans. Don't keep delaying release date for four years. Even if you couldn't figured out how hard this game could be at begining, in third year stop putting dates you cannot acomplish.

I mean, if you haven't finished the game yet, and you see there's a lot of bugs to fix and re-test for your small company, at least delay the game for one year. Even most of your fans knew in 2007 you cannot release the game at that time.

It's annoying. I bet the game will be a genre-classic for its detail and fun. But this is annoying.

This is DeJavu or what, but I heard the same story last year, when we,d been told that the game will be released in 2008 and developers need a couple of months to test it :D anyway it's the filnal two months of testing.

It has been stickied. And I agree with Ubaku

I only have two words for them:

Stuff It!

I've waited long enough. When this game was announced, by eldest son was at school; Last month, he joined the RAF as a Pilot Officer. I have been married and divorced in the time its taken. If I were to treat my customers like this, I wouldn't have a business.

I certainly won't be patronising this comapny, for anything they ever do in the future.

Yes, I know it has been stickied. Nike-it deleted the part where I asked him to sticky the thread. At least that part is not there for me. Where do you see the words sticky movo?

robbo3166 everyone has a right to an opinion, and you have a right to be mad. But really Softlab is a tiny company. Sometimes small companies have a lot of talent, but the tradeoff is waiting such a long time.

If this game really does come out in a couple of months, I will play it with joy, I even have a wheel and pedals I bought especially for it. If you are a real truck driver it might not be as fun for you, but all I ever drive is a small car, never driven a truck.

Calm down Ubaku, Movo was supporting you. ;)

People who express their opinions are not "mad": they are free.

Ubaku is always yelling. Maybe you should get laid or somethinn.

I see nothing's changed. Every excuse possible. **** this foresaken game. I'm gonna go blow myself in the name of allah, the bomb will be named igor.

dirky dirky

We know they are small company,and they had taken a work that is really hard,but if they will delay it that much,why did they agreed with doing that? Come on guys this is just like playing Russian Roulette with the 6-shot gun that has 1 EMPTY (not Bullet) HOLE ! For 4 years they have found bugs and they are STILL finding... lol

Now,there is a game called HEADLIGHT...it may be released in 2009---or 2010. It uses DX9. I am waiting that game more than this because there are news every month...even small news.
I BET HEADLIGHT WILL BE RELEASED BEFORE THIS GAME !

And Ubaku...if you bought SW and pedals for RnR,too early mate :D When it gets released i think Microsoft will be starting to make new Truck Simulator and will design wheel and pedals for trucks LMAO. We just need to gather all fans and send e-mail to there.

2009 beginning......Summer 2009.....17/12/2009.........April 2010......June 2010......Dec 2010.....And finally, 10 July 2011 (check the old pictures. The DATE lol)

We should just stop thinking about the game til we hear some more news. I am planning to email Igor around March 2009 or so. It might be released before that. Who knows. I'm not worried, my life is not made of this game.

Btw I am very excited about Headlight too. Should be a really cool game. ;-)

almost two months since we have heard about Rig'n'Roll, Developers should be finishing the testing, but I'm sure they aren't :/ Ubaku, will you send a letter to Igor in this month or February? cause if we don't write to them, they do not write to us either.... Maybe they finnaly say something else than we can't say release date yet

From TruckPol:

December 22nd, 2008

I have received email from Igor Belago about Rig'n'Roll status.

It is really hard to schedule a completion date. A lot of testing, a lot of bugs, a lot of fixes. We just move forward step by step.
Probably we will be on a final stage at the beginning of next year, you are right...

.... What they have been doing last 7 years? Developing game or bugs? Looks like testing has taken more time than developing.... they were already testing it in 2006... And the begining means March, or hopefuly in February they can say when they finish testings it, wich looks like never ending process, well good luck for them, better finish faster :/

As for me, it is clear, they call it testing and are just enjoying the game. they get paid for it and they have fun too. I am just waiting for "that game project is canceled because of financial unreliability" and then? i thnik we should establish a RnR waiters club, where we will discuss conspiracy theories xD