I hope y'all are having a good holiday.

The Manifest Destiny team (such as it is) has just released what we feel is our final pre-alpha version of the game. We are about to move into alpha (which is to say, a playable version of the game with some planned features missing).

We are putting together our final list of things which need to be done to have a playable and fun version of the game. The problem is, we are all so closely tied to the game, I think we will likely miss items that really ought to go in before we call it playable.

And that's where you come in

If you get a chance to download and evaluate our new build (#855), take a look at it and ask yourself, "Self, what needs to be done here in order for me to want to play this game?" Make a list, and either post it here for discussion or send it directly to me (as the de-facto spokesperson for the game design team). We've made the same request of the folks on our newsgroup, but we would like as many opinions as we can get for this evaluation.

Now, before you go off and produce a 300 item list, keep in mind this will be an alpha release. What we are looking for is the minimum requirements needed for people to be interested in playing. There are many many items which will be added during the course of the alpha stage which will make the game more fun (roads, more leader skills, more technologies, city improvements, etc.), but they aren't critical to gameplay at this stage. Put down those you feel must be in, but leave out those that you think can wait until later, that you can play the game without.

Also, we are not going to implement single player mode yet (the AI is neural net based, and it just won't be ready in the next week) or combat (for the same reason).

So, under those limitations, give us a list of what you feel is required. I will take all such lists (and any discussion associated with them) and distill them into a single master list which we will use to produce our first Alpha version of the game.

Thanks everyone. Have a happy new year!