State of the Game

    February 21st, 2011 - Thank you for taking the time to visit us here at FutureFleets.net! We have been working very hard over the past several months to get this game online, and now that we are rapidly approaching the day when we can open the site up to the public, we wanted to take some time and update everyone on the current state of the game.

    Since January 1st, the site has been going through Closed Beta Testing. A very small group of trusted users have been exploring the site and testing the functionality of it as new things are added, and thus far, things have gone exceptionally well. Over the past seven weeks, we have added dozens of new features to the game which have vastly improved its quality and complexity, but what seems to amaze us most is how much more we still want to add to the game before it is made available to the public.

    As of today, the game allows players to register for an account, create up to five Federation characters (civilian or Starfleet), teach them department-specific skills at Starfleet Academy, and beam them to a ship or Starbase in orbit for further exploration. On Earth Spacedock, shops have started to open selling Holodeck Training Programs and Starship Models for decorations. On each ship, Quarters are now available for members of the crew, and characters can adorn them with items they want to display, or they can hide their items, if they'd like. Over a dozen consoles are available now, ranging from the standard Operations, Tactical, and Navigation to special Shuttle consoles and ones which operate Mining equipment or Shipyards. Most recently, Mining and Strategic Resources have been added to the game, allowing characters to locate different resources and begin extracting them so that they can be sold or utilized by their ship, fleet, or alliance.

    Unfortunately, as the end of February draws near, we still do not feel that the game is ready for launch, mostly because there are still a number of important features we need to add and will likely need several more weeks to finish. For instance, Fleet Management has been delayed repeatedly because there are not enough ships in testing to warrant the system's creation thus far. Ship-to-ship and combadge communications are still pending, as are in-game Missions. Beyond those key features, we want to add numerous minor (but useful) functions to the game, including e-mail alerts, referral rewards, deck listings, improved Battle statistics and displays, non-playing characters, banks, new star systems, new skills, new console functions, and, of course, new starship classes. Many of these have been put off one at a time so that we could complete work on larger projects within the game, and as a result, we now have them piled up at the end of testing.

    So, what does this mean for the game's future? To be on the safe side, we will likely continue making improvements to the game for at least another month. We are hopeful that, with another four weeks to work on the site, we will be able to add enough of the essential features listed above to make the game self-sustainable, enjoyable, and relatively complete. Of course, that timeline is entirely dependent upon our real world schedules, which everyone knows can be highly unpredictable, especially when you don't want them to be.

    All in all, though, we are very pleased with how the game is progressing, and we are happy to see that, even though we are not a highly-advanced or mega-flashy website, people are still taking an interest in the site and giving us a chance. It is our hope that, by the time we launch (around April 2nd now), the game is immersive and interesting enough for people to tell their friends and keep coming back for more.

    Thank you again for visiting our site! Please keep checking back for more updates!

-The Future Fleets Team