I think there are a lot of people like me that heard about the game after the beta test periods, but who would be interested in trying the game. I'd rather not wait the month plus for the next submission. I wonder if it would be possible to start up a new open beta test for a 2-3 week period while we wait?
No, because we've pretty much burned up all of our device slots. As an Apple developer, you only get 110 device ids that you can use for testing in a calendar year and I think last time I looked we've used 106 of them for the previous tests. So we could run a test, but nobody new could join up.
Do those slots apply to "open beta"?
I'm guessing apples rules don't give tooo many details ;(
That's bs though, because chaos and order had way more testers in beta.
Anyhow, hope you guys getting things done without loosing hope ;)
Keep in mind, Gameloft makes a lot of money for Apple, and are a know entity. We have yet to produce a single game, so we aren't even really a blip on the Apple radar. So getting larger beta's and stuff is just not that easy. While we have 117 keys total, we did get an expansion once from Apple, but it wasn't enough keys to really do anything with. Normally people only have 100 keys maximum. Apple has been working with us, and have been pretty good discussing issues with us.
While it's inconvenient and sets us back a little, it's not the end of the world. We'll be able to push out a new client with some bug fixes that were found after we uploaded the previous version. We also like the new accounting engine we are doing a lot better. It will give us a lot more flexibility when it comes to accounting, and we think the interface will be better for the user experience.
After 3 years of development, we are fine with being pushed back another month. Currently we are hoping to be in the app store around April 12th. Pending no major issues, it should be out then (Maybe the following week depending on App review times etc.)