Why Can't GPG ever make an announced Beta release Date?

Just wondering we get in the Journals these supposed or suggested dates why do we never make that day. Just Curious|||Software in general never gets released on time.|||Nah, the games industry is a lot worse at it than regular software companies. Hell I've received commercial software months early than expected.|||Usually the cause is a critical bug being discovered close to the planned release, but there are other reasons as well.|||HorseRadish|||at least they are consistent|||Short answer. Fans aren't the only ones who demand dates. Publishers do too. And they aren't compelled to hold the information until their prerequisites are locked down. For better or worse, we still feel compelled to be honest with our customers/fans/publishers.



From my perspective I would rather be late than dishonest, but unfortunately we are only judged by the former.



Only very wealthy developers can avoid the date question. It is impossible to be late if you never publically commit to a date. What is the release date for Starcraft 2? Diablo 3? WoW X3? Any of their betas? Does not knowing anger you? More than knowing and being dissapointed?



- Servo|||Thank's Servo but I think it's safe to say the majority of us knew this. HorseRadish is just being impatient, I think.



What we would really like to hear more about are the Generals and the potential conflict between modding and anti-cheating



In any event I wont ever judge you guys for missing a date, or not giving one. It's always better to under promise and over deliver (or promise nothing and deliver :) ).|||it's good to see some feedback from the developer, even if it doesn't answer all the questions.





for the record; it's really a trade off between late and dishonest. i can accept that there's always politics going on behind the closed doors of a dev. house, and more-so between devs. and pubs. i can also accept that engineering a complicated product takes time, and there's always unforeseen hurdles that crop up at the most inconvenient of times.



but, trust only ever extends so far. it's a question of if the trust extends long enough until release day.