First of all, thank you to everyone on Gamebanana, Discord, and ModDB who posted concerning HellStrike's release. Whatever opinion you had it showed interest to the mod, the stuff that helps us keep going.
I came to this decision by looking back to why I started this project. And it was simply to create something great that I didn't think I could do. Whether people liked it or not was secondary.
Releasing HellStrike as an 'alpha build' was actually a safety net. The real plan was to release a complete or almost complete version. Any bugs or missing stuff, that's where the 'alpha' comes in.
Over time our circumstances have grown less and less ideal in working on HellStrike and I've become more and more lenient on missing features and placeholders for release. The multiplayer, however, is a significant chunk of this mod. I know a lot of people play CS mods solo nowadays. But by principle the multiplayer is half of the mod and with that broken, the mod technically is half broken. Releasing it now goes against why I started in the first place.
But we, the team, do have our limits so I promise not to be stubborn. The aim now is to fix multiplayer into something decent and playable. Any other things that needs to be fixed, added, or changed will be worked on post-release.
Also if I'm going to be totally honest, we need time to assemble the client for release. We're working on a stripped down version so it could easily be up/downloaded. A manual also should be written, credits updated, and other admin stuff.
For now there'll be no set or estimated date. I don't want to make empty promises. You'll know it's out when you see it. Cheerio!...
I'll be waiting.
Take the time you require, you can have a bearing in the game in its development and keeping your expectations will be very important to keep your audience.
Regarding the criteria of the game, the time that they dedicate to it is valuable since this will mean that the video game / mod has enough quality and will hook a target audience, who will see the effort and time in this.