In this post, I’ll try to answer the most important questions around our preview game world Paine. Keep an eye on it as I will update it with new information as they become relevant.
What is a “preview game world”?
As the name suggests, this game world provides a preview of upcoming features that are still in development. While these features might still be unstable and incomplete, testing them with actual players in an actual game world with actual data makes testing and tuning them a lot easier compared to a local developer sandbox or a closed test server with just a handful of testers.
What’s in the name?
Paine refers to Paine Field, an airport in Seattle that’s home to Boeing’s Everett final assembly line. Given that this game world will serve a similar purpose - namely finalising and testing new features before delivery - this is a very fitting name. The name was picked by community vote from a selection of similarly themed names.
Who can play there?
The purpose of this game world is to test new features and consequently is aimed at experienced players who are able to provide qualified feedback. As such, I opted to limit access to players with Premium status. This way, there’s a barrier to entry for new players who shouldn’t be running into incomplete/broken features when trying the game for the first time.
Remind me: What’s Premium status again?
Any user who has completed at least one credit purchase receives Premium status for life.
How much does it cost?
Playing in Paine costs 2 credits/day. As one can’t create additional holdings, that’s the maximum, too.
Why is it so cheap?
Technically, Paine is a long-term/unlimited game world. But given that it is essentially a testing ground, there are a few things one has to keep in mind:
- As features are in development, their behavior might change at any time.
- Bugs might occur at any time, including such that actually break things and/or cause data loss.
- Sometimes, in-game data (like schedules or bookings) might be deleted to facility quicker development cycles or migrations.
- Geo and aircraft data changes that wouldn’t be rolled out to production game worlds because they might break things are applied in Paine, for example airport size changes that affect turnaround times.
- Although unlikely and not planned, under some circumstances, a complete reset of the game world might be required.
Consequently, I can’t price this game world at the standard price point of regular long-term game worlds. At the same time, I want to make sure inactive accounts disappear eventually and that there’s incentive for players to delete their airlines in Paine should they loose interest. Hence the symbolic price of 2 credits per day.
Can I provide feedback or report an issue?
Yes, absolutely! That’s the whole point here. If you have any questions, want to suggest improvements, discuss recent changes or just report a bug, please do so on the Paine category right here on the forums.
Technically, you could report issues at the usual support@airlinesim.aero as well, but given that this is a testing ground by design, sharing your findings with other players is the way to go.
Why am I unable to post to the Paine category?
Just like the game world, the respective category on the forums is limited to Premium users, at least for creating threads and posts. If your account has Premium status but you still can’t post on the category, please log out of the forums once and your account status will be synchronised on the next login.
How often is Paine updated?
Updates will occur frequently, often several times a day. Note that a “build” doesn’t imply new features or fixes every time. They are triggered whenever I push code changes to our code repository, translators provide new translations or a new data version is released for testing.
Relevant, visible changes will be communicated via the changelog and on the Paine category on the forums.