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Integral said
We do have an internal road map for expansion but are not ready to share that. The road map includes items that will be in the updates after launch. But as far as dates, that is not anything we can discuss at this time. It depends on what happens between now and launch and how successful we are at launch. Funding from the launch revenue will go towards accelerating development on our road map.

To answer the specific questions we can answer, we can say that there will be missions off the ship, and visit to other worlds, some of it available at launch, some planned for post launch updates. Some careful observers may have noted that the collection of images on Steam includes some pictures that are definitely not Ship bound. The character level range has not been completely settled yet.

We have some concepts for holiday content other than Halloween and Christmas, including a mid-summer Launch Day event that celebrates the original launch of the ship on July 4th, but we will probably start with Halloween and XMAS during the first year. We have a lot of that content already. Again, this is not a final decision. It depends how things go.  

Me Laird Integral, Countless thanks again, for the detailed reply, with insight, and Behind-the-Scenes doings. 👍👍 10⭐

Oh my word, please let us Beta the Off Ship quest to a planet. It is my belief, that just the idea of Planetary Missions, will bring many players into the SOH fold. I hope there will be some animation intros to Off Ship missions too. Things like a Shuttle hatch opening, and SOH Shuttle exits to enter the atmosphere of the planet below. Having the camera center on the Shuttle, as it departs, and heads down, then leaves a "contrail" in the atmosphere before the scene changes to the Shuttle landing on the planet? That'd be beyond Awesome. Of course the Shuttle's landing site, could be used as an overlay for other Planets, Cities, or even Alien Ships, with minimum tweaks in the artwork to match the Story-line. Oh my mind is spinning with ideas now.

A lot of my questions come from pre-Beta observations, readings of SOH topics, and in-game play sessions. I think that some of them may even have come from your PAX interview, a few years ago, with the now defunct competitors.

Consultant said
At the moment, we just looked at Early Access again and kind of concluded that it is probably not for us. We've always said we want to create a small, good game, and then add additional content to it over time with regular expansions. Expansions will be included in the download cost. In that sort of a situation, we don't think early access is a positive for marketing the game. Lots of players ignore early access, especially for MMORPGs because they fear that an EA game will be so buggy that it is not fun to play. We're thinking that we will just keep doing public betas with our community, and then fixing anything that needs to be fixed.

Even as I write this post, part of our team is creating the next public event, and a slightly larger part of the team is analyzing and (when needed) fixing bugs or shortfalls.

No launch date has been set, but since we had a couple of significant issues in the Steam Beta, and we need to do some intensive testing to ensure that these have really been fixed, we are not ready to announce a firm launch date yet. Believe me, we wish we could. 🙂 But showing more content, and showing fewer bugs will make for a much more pleasant launch for all of us.

Thanks Gerald for asking these questions, and for your unflagging support over the years. 🙂  

Highly informative response, in my experienced opinion. That said... (yes I always have one of those) Is their a Roadmap/Plan to show some static Artwork planned for the ships 20+ Levels/Floors/Zones? Maybe make it part of a Poll, for players, and potential players to consider and vote on?
Also, I recall a few years ago, a conversation with Golden, about Planetary and Space based Missions. If still being considered, How long before we hear more, and what Character Level Range will they be keyed to?
Everybody loves Holidays in games they play. How many different ones will there be in SOH, besides Halloween, and Christmas?

Keep up the great work TEAM SOH! 👍👍💝