IMPORTANT EDIT, January 10, 2021: This post is outdated. Hypixel Studios is still rolling out somewhat vague postcards every week. I doubt they'll post any beta-related news in March 2021.
DISCLAIMER:
The content in this post is either based on pre-release information or how
I imagine Hytale to work. It may not reflect the final game, so this
post is just for fun.
Note that
this speculation video was recorded on March 21, 2020.
5. No Beta
I think it’s
a very bad idea for business since beta sign-ups were available almost as soon
as the announcement trailer was posted back in December 2018. Ruining people’s
long patience can cause a lot of outrage, perhaps much more than the two-month
gap between “Rising expectations” (May 4, 2019) and the Outlander reveal (July
24, 2019). and the three-month gap between “Custom content in Hytale” (August
21, 2019) and the November 27, 2019 progress update.
Fortunately,
I think “no beta” is as unlikely as CanadianFlash thought. Thanks to the acquisition
of Hypixel Studios by League of Legends developer Riot Games, Noxy
described that now that Riot Games has provided the resources, Hypixel Studios
can shift all their focus towards developing Hytale (last year, I think
they were super busy discussing stuff with Riot Games).
4. Beta During Qarentine [sic]
Yes, I’m
spelling it exactly like that because I think it’s funny. Don’t judge me—jk you
can (intentional bad grammar)
DISCLAIMER:
I am not a medical professional. Heck, I think even medical professionals know
next to nothing about the Wuhan coronavirus—Mark Manson’s April 25 Mindf*ck Monday (formerly Motherfuckin' Monday) newsletter claims that nobody knows what’s
going on. I’m seeing reports of Sweden’s economy staying stable and
infections being less than countries like the UK, yet the Philippines, which
has locked down, has fewer infections. Yet, again, many other countries that have
locked down like Italy have loads of cases. RIP brain. If this were a fantasy
world, I would shrink down to microscopic size and skewer the coronavirus with
my spear.
But back to
Hytale before thoughts about the Wuhan coronavirus drive me Ax-Crazy.
I wrote this
after the April
30, 2020 progress update which showed a low-tier Trork being killed by a
player with an iron sword. Like mobs in other gameplay clips, the Trork immediately
“popped” out of existence roughly one second after its death animation, which
was pointed out in a Tweet
by @DudDud18029318 saying it looks “weird”, to which Noxy replied, “we have a
WIP death effect”. Side note: I kind of want corpses to stay around for
longer until the player gets far away from them, akin to Minecraft
hostile mob despawning. Personally, I want to hide bodies after
stealth-killing. Some Ax-Crazy players may want to repeatedly smack the corpses
because There Is No Kill Like Overkill. Some may want to take a weird selfie
with the corpses.
(I was going
to argue that the Trork does too much damage for its tier since I thought many
early-game enemies like in Minecraft don’t deal much damage (2-5 damage
in Minecraft out of 20 max HP), but red Bokoblins in The Legend of
Zelda: Breath of the Wild do about the same damage (1 heart) to a Link with
three hearts as the low-tier Trork (roughly 37% of max HP when not shielding).)
TheAtlanticCraft
pointed
out that the Trork “didn’t react” to getting hit and the block placement
animation will “get annoying fast”.
Actually, the
Trork did react, albeit for a few frames. It did its attack animation before
its “staggered” animation ended, though, which I think is a game-breaking glitch—most
video game enemies, as well as hack-and-slash and fighting game characters,
cannot attack while they’re staggered.
I’m not sure
what exactly made TheAtlanticCraft think the block placement animation will get
annoying, but I’m guessing it has to do with the block being raised halfway
through the animation, which can make certain blocks cover up a large part of
the screen, as shown by this roof block covering about 1/3 of the screen:
 |
| If a speedy or ranged enemy attacks your right side at the last split-second, you’re dead. |
TL;DR:
There’s still a lot of work-in-progress stuff, and I think Hypixel Studios is
aiming for the beta to look as close to perfect as possible, so I doubt the
beta will be released during the quarantine, or at least between the present
and the summer of 2020. Speaking of which…
3. Summer of 2020
Give me a while
to talk again about the firetrucking Wuhan coronavirus. CanadianFlash stated
that he’s “not sure” if we’ll still be in quarantine at this time—I think it’s
because the world thought there was still a chance to contain this virus. On
March 21, 2020, Singapore had 432 total cases, while South Korea drastically
lowered its curve after the spike of 851 cases on March 3. But then again,
Singapore got a resurgence of the coronavirus on April 9, 2020 at 287 new
cases. On April 20, 2020, Singapore was hit with its current highest number of
cases in a day: 1.4k. Again, according to Mark Manson, we don’t know what’s
going on. This coronavirus is a chaotic evil piece of bat garbage.
Urrrggghhh!!!
Now, what
does that rant have to do with Hytale or CanadianFlash? Well, assuming
CanadianFlash didn’t specifically refer to the period between March 2020 and
summer 2020, “Beta During Quarantine” may overlap with any of CanadianFlash’s
other beta release date speculations. Mark Manson stated “the most optimistic
guesses [for a vaccine or therapy to be created] are some time in 2021” and
linked to an article by Bill Gates stating that “by the second half of 2021,
facilities around the world will be manufacturing a vaccine.” Yes, I think the
Wuhan coronavirus is ridiculously resilient and that…makes…me…ANGRY! *whacks
punching bag with baseball bat*
Regardless, I
give “summer of 2020”, or at least July 2020, a generous 10% chance. I
think there will still be a lot of work-in-progress content by late May and I
doubt the game will be polished enough by July, but there’s still a chance
Hypixel Studios may get that unexpected burst of mental energy. I’ve been stuck
in quarantine for 2 months and I’m now used to it—if Hypixel Studios is like
me, they may grow accustomed to their partnership with Riot Games by June,
making things way easier for them.
Coincidentally,
July 10 is my birthday. If the Hytale beta opens on July, it would be
the ultimate birthday gift.
CanadianFlash
thinks another trailer might come out before the beta, which I think is a good
decision. It’s been more than a year since the announcement trailer and I think
thousands, if not millions, are super bored to the point they don’t regularly
check the Hytale website or any of the staff’s Twitter profiles. When
this trailer comes out, Hypixel Studios better go all-out with the advertising
and make sure it goes as viral as possible, which will be extra challenging
considering YouTube is extra paranoid of supposed “fake news” about the Wuhan
coronavirus to the point that Pokétuber MandJTV described this as the “worst time
for YouTube ad rates that [he] has ever seen”, The Game Theorists titled their
video “Who Will Survive
[CENSORED] Virus?” to avoid getting demonetized for saying “Voldemort”—I
mean, anything to do with the coronavirus, and ThirtyVirus is getting way fewer
stream viewers than usual.
2. October/December 2020
This is where
I have a lot more certainty…though I can’t really explain why.
The 2021
release year is kinda vague, so, from my Crazy-Prepared
cynical
perspective, if Hypixel Studios delivers as promised, Hytale may be
officially released on December 2021. If the beta goes live between October and
December 2020, the full release will more or less be 1 year away, so,
obviously, players will have more than a year to find all those freaking bugs
and balance issues. Considering the speed Hypixel Studios is cranking out new
content with every monthly progress update, I think a year is more than enough
to address beta issues.
A beta on
December 2020 would be a cathartic Christmas gift for those who are horribly
bored by most of the world being on quarantine.
1. Early 2021
This has the
highest probability, according to CanadianFlash.
Not much for
me to say here, to be honest. I think it’s a similar case to the
October/December 2020 prediction.
I think
there’s a minor error: At 6:03, CanadianFlash said, “I presume the game will
probably be released mid-2020.” I think he means 2021. CanadianFlash,
kindly clarify. (And yes, I read the description and all the comments
and replies, but no one pointed out that error.)
Speaking of
mid-2021, if that is indeed the Hytale official release date, early 2021
has a very high chance—I’d say 85%—to have a beta release. In an old release date prediction
video, ThirtyVirus collected data of gaps between the announcement trailers
and official releases of games he likes and got 1 month minimum and 8 months
maximum with an average of 4 months, so this seems like a reasonable gap for me
to apply between the beta (instead of a trailer) and the official release.
LT Being Crazy-Prepared: November 2021
Because I
think there should at the very least be a 1-month gap between beta and official
release. At this point, I think the beta will reach a state of such
near-perfection that even the harshest critics will have to exert some effort
to nitpick the game with some credibility.
Behind-the-Scenes
I actually
wrote a draft about this back in March 2020, but I still had firetrucking
school work and I got stuck on getting ideas for “Beta During Quarantine”. I wrote
this new draft on a different PC since my younger brother Ivann was busy on my
usual PC, and boy am I glad I waited for the April progress update.
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