It will be interesting to see what happens regarding a head start. Right now, I think most people (including the Devs) would just be happy to get the game up running and stable. The way things are going, it isn't readily evident we will even have a playable game again by the 15th.
So, I'm not one of those that are immediately worried about whether I get a head start. In fact, I'd be happy to welcome others into the game in two days, if the game is running with everything turned on, isn't crashing every hour, and has little or no lag.
One step at a time ...
no offense are flame here but the people that are angry have a right to be. you can say we got to play early but to do what pull weeds,jump and run i mean im not angry but some have the right to be.
Headstart, too, can mean different things...not just having built some shelters and leveled some skills. Could also be taken as having got to experience it before the final wipe and having more of an understanding of how things work, where you wanna live etc.
Head start has a common meaning: you get to play the game before other people do.
For Xsyon, it has no meaning. If you paid the money, you get to play. You do get a weapon for "pre-ordering", but you don't get to play before anyone else. In fact, nobody can play now.
As a programmer having worked on very large projects, there are definite stages: concept, alpha, beta, pre-release, release. We are about 1/2 way between concept and alpha right now. In software terms, beta means you have all the features in, and they have passed unit testing. The system has been put together, tested, and you believe it should all work. You allow friendly people to try it, with no warranty that it will work in production. Alpha means you have all the features in, and they have passed unit testing, but the system has not been completely activated, and no one expects it to work. That is where we are now, except the features are not all in.
So what does "head start" mean in this context? Nothing really, you can pay your money now to get to play a barely-alpha stage game. Except you can't even do that now. All you can do is pay the money, as of today.
no actually i spent the last month playing the game fully except when they turned teraforming off didnt say i was angry notice how i said that in my post but whatever seem's no one can post here without someone trying to make other's look stupid lol. people have a right to be angry and people have the right not to be and defend the game but you have to respect each other.