I think I'll start with a quote from zwzsg in the other topic since it'll help establish our standing:
I lost interest when I realised they wouldn't release I.W. before reaching perfection.
It's not that we're shooting for perfection, we're just shooting for a positive first impression. Existing Spring players are either going to like our game or they won't, and that's fine, but the point is that it's a relatively small group of players who are used to dealing with Spring already.
We want to make our game as accessible and enjoyable to first-time users as we possibly can when we do eventually release. We don't want, "Well the game seems fun but it was a pain in the ass to install it" or "It looks pretty but the interface is awful" or, the worst of all, "This isn't bad but the heaviest walker is an AT-RT and there aren't even x-wings". People in general don't usually forget the "buts" if they remember the game at all. I can't even count how many freeware games/mods/etc I've tried once or twice then forgotten about because it was just too rough around the edges to bother with.
Our major goals for our eventual release have essentially always been:
-A coherent UI that doesn't look as bad as the default
-Decent looking (spectacular/perfect aren't necessary but preferred) art assets, animations and special effects
-Core gameplay intact so we don't have to completely overhaul the game later
-Easy installation and (enough players permitting) a frictionless experience getting online and playing and/or playing alone with a bot
-A unit set on par with SWS 1.0/SWTA pack 5, including walkers up to the AT-ST and aircraft up to the x-wing and b-wing. 'Superweapons' like the AT-AT and Jedi would come in a later expansion.
-Probably a couple others I'm forgetting but they must be less important
Secondary tasks include our own maps with custom made features, audio work (though we do have a lot of recorded voice clips), and things like that.
Here's a basic rundown of where we are with the above major tasks:
-I've made significant progress with the UI code, I mainly just need to finish the build/commands menu and do a chat thing.
-Art-wise, we've only got one or two units left to skin and they're being worked on right now. Good special effects are largely in-place thanks to Zerggin. Animations are the big art department holdup since I'm awful at making nice looking walk animations in bos/lus.
-Getting the core gameplay intact is/was the point of the closed beta. The game from the start of the closed beta is significantly different from the one today. Once we add the "pack5" stuff to the beta unit set, it'll probably only take a good month of testing to hammer out the major gameplay issues those units will certainly introduce, but after that balance patches like every other game has will suffice
-I think the engine has matured enough that we can make an installer which will be friendly enough to newbs. We also have CRAIG support thanks to Tobi.
-I already summed up the unit set situation.
So yeah, that's basically where we are. Our biggest holdups right now are animations and time. A lot of the remaining work is just animations, finishing the UI, the grunt work of importing new units, sorting through the voice clips and equalizing their volume and such, and other things of that nature.
tl;dr: we won't deny help but we need animators more than anything. I certainly wouldn't deny a couple reliable grunts importing all the post-beta units for me though
