Why don't the developers say "We do updates on Tuesdays at 12 PM ET." ? If the game is up at 12:05 there's no update. No speculation, limited frustration.
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Why don't the developers say "We do updates on Tuesdays at 12 PM ET." ? If the game is up at 12:05 there's no update. No speculation, limited frustration.
To truly understand this, you must have developed a game yourself. :)
In all honestly my biggest frustration with this game is the slow development time. I'll be in the grave by the time I see the end of the proper game.
What's even more frustrating is that its a completely self inflicted wound. Citan refuses to increase his development team size, preferring it to remain between himself and his wife, minus the odd jobs where they acquire third party help for (i.e. the interface) and so we see very slow development of the game. Its a project, true to the word, and one that we might all die before we see the conclusion of.
Its frustrating because with a proper team this game's potential is limitless. The proof of concept has been tried and found to be true. If only we could properly commit a full team.
You are assuming Citan has enough money to hire people full time. I'm pretty sure that if he could afford it, he would.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aionlasting
I mean, a larger development crew doesn't necessarily mean faster updates.
Project Gorgon actually has a fairly steady rate of content releases when you compare it to other games - the content that is released doesn't always appeal to everyone, however.
Anyway, a couple WoW patches lasted for roughly a year and they certainly weren't stumped by a lack of staff.
In a MMO environment, bugs can have a lasting impact as well.
I don't accept this as a valid response. Condescending to your audience is not only insulting to them it should be embarrassing to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niph
I also don't appreciate someone trying to hijack my thread.
The team shouldn't do your original suggestion imo. They should have flexibility to update stuff when it's ready.Quote:
Originally Posted by s5669111
The previous posts Eric had suggested this is meant to be a very significant update. Some patches are behind the scene hardware jazz and others are content.
We don't know what this next one exactly is, but we know it had hiccups.
For the pro contractor crowd, I like Eric's goofy idea of lore VS some hired gun. Contractors aren't the best tool everywhere.
I don't play many other games that have frequent updates, but I don't recall any having a fixed schedule on when they do updates. If I was running a game company and was going to introduce a system that would dictate when patches were expected, I would want to see case studies that prove the net positive benefit to the company. My opinion is, that it wouldn't lead to no speculation and limited frustration. I think that it would lead to increased speculation and heightened frustration.
If it was an industry wide standard that you have a set update day, and Elder Game was the only one not complying. Even then, I would be inclined to let Citan do what Citan wants to do. We have gotten by this long, with the system of updates that we have. The game is making progress. Other entertainment projects like movies and other games have unexpected delays. Citan and srand are giving it their all, and programming complex systems are going to result in certain kinds of bugs that need to be addressed before making an update live. This is for our benefit.
It is fine to suggest that it might be a better system, but to up-end the current system you would need strong, empirical proof that it would be a huge benefit for all parties.
The idea that I want to be here coding my ass off at 5am on a Saturday because I insist on doing everything? That's complete nonsense. I want to be the person designing, yes, but not the person designing, coding, analyzing, performing database maintenance, overseeing CS, prepping ads, etc.
I would love to hire more people, and we definitely will. Actually I expect the first full-time developer hire may be possible soon... but I'm not hiring anyone unless I can do it responsibly.
I realize you're all familiar with indie companies that burn their budget fast and end up successful. Minecraft (or whoever) did it, so why can't we? Because the successful ones are extreme outliers. I've been involved in a half-dozen of those projects where indie teams burn their money fast and pray it works out. It almost never works out. I'm too old for that shit, and I won't keep passing that sort of tragedy on to other game developers, or to you. Because the people that usually lose are you, the customers that buy in early.
How many Kickstarter MMOs have failed after reaching their goal? Most of them. But I can confidently say we are not gonna fail. Really! We won't hit our time estimates at all... but eventually we will make good on our crowdfunding promises. Reaching the finish line is my top financial priority, and I won't jeopardize that goal.
So we hire contractors when we can. And when we can hire full time people -- and give them realistic time windows to get ramped up before we expect them to pull their weight -- we will! We're watching our bank account carefully and planning when we might be able to hire more people. I'm optimistic, but I don't have a crystal ball. When we can hire, we will, simple as that.
--
As for schedules, this is an MMO in development. We release updates when they're ready for testing. Your job as Early Access players is to help playtest, so we can't release them too early: when we do that, you just find the obvious bugs that we already knew about. Getting bug reports about already-known issues is a huge waste of time for everybody! We need the updates to be clear of obvious bugs or design flaws, so you can give us feedback on finished ideas.
So why don't I just announce a launch day that's like an extra month delayed? Because we need feedback on changes ASAP. We're back here working really hard every day, and we need that new info as soon as we can. So I'm not gonna sit on a finished update for even a single extra week!
And I don't think people want us to delay updates by a few weeks to ensure we hit the deadlines... what I think people really want to know is "why don't you work FASTER!!!!" And it's because we literally cannot work any faster. We are working as fast as humanly possible. When we can hire people to work faster, we will.
I try to keep you in the loop on where we are in the update process. It does change a lot though, and I'm often wrong. But it's the best I've got. If you'd prefer to just be surprised when an update comes out, you can easily accomplish this by not reading my twitter -- that's usually the only place we talk about timelines.
Thank you for supporting us while we struggle with this Herculean task. The game is finally starting to feel like a "real game", which makes people assume we're a large development team. That leaves us in a weird spot because we aren't. We're what we can afford to be. We work super hard, and we haven't stopped for years and we aren't gonna stop until the game is done. And hopefully, soon, there will be more of us doing that work.
And you're here now to see it happening, and to help shape it. I'm excited to show you this next update, but even beyond that, we have great ideas in store for the future. Thank you for the opportunity to show them to you.
:clap :clap
Happy to be wrong citan. Glad you are looking to hire some fulltime help, a proper team, to move your vision forward for the game. We've all been here for a long time with you, many of us, so as strange as it sounds, we are also passionate about this game though it is your work and your wife's.
Maybe I was under the wrong impression, but for years, it seemed to me, you had no desire to have a proper development team at your disposal and preferred for your team to be just yourself and Srand. I'm not sure if that impression came about because of something you said, in some interview, a long time ago, or if I had imagined it, but I'm happy to be wrong.
I hope you can find affordable, competent, and passionate help. I'll be playing your game either way, whether you go it alone or do find some help, but yea, what I said was what I felt.
Kindly offered,
Aion
The first mmorgp I played was one that Eric and Srand were involved with. So 17 years later I can say this imho....
I've read the articles and interviews given by the devs. I read the old forums and followed the development of this game as it progressed until I invested my time and money to start playing.
This is just my opinion of course, but the Dev team has always been open and upfront with the player base. I appreciate that aspect. When they are about to put out new content they seem happy and excited to give us a heads up about it. If it's a little later than originally planned, well I know few people that are always to the tee on time with even arriving for dinner when we make arrangements to meet somewhere. Things come up.
It seems to me that Eric prefers to put out a product he is happy with rather than hand the players something half-assed just to say I got it out by xyz date.
I love the game, the concept and the endless hours of entertainment I have received over the years for the embarrassingly low amount of money it has cost me for said entertainment.
So well said, Eric, regarding your response. Much respect to you and Srand, the devs are doing a great job. I appreciate that you have the passion and desire to stick with such an undertaking and listen to all the bitching.
If I wanted to play a corp backed cookie cutter game with a large dev team, I wouldn't be posting on this forum or playing this game.
/bow
z
in all honesty, my first thought is to wonder why you assume they are beholden to you as to the update schedule on a game not yet officially released?Quote:
Originally Posted by s5669111
To be fair to them, the admins are in game very very regularly, and have been very open about the situation and are very quick to answer questions of all kinds, especially related to this topic.
Is it any more insulting than telling a developer how they should do their job and assume you have authority over them in doing so?Quote:
Originally Posted by s5669111
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coglin
Hey Bro, you got some kind of superiority/persecution complex going. NOWHERE am I requesting let alone demanding that anyone do as I say. I posed a question with a couple of possible benefits.
Maybe you should move beyond your first thoughts before you put them out for review.
Umm, you accused someone of being "Condescending" and "insulting". I asked a reasonable question in return based on the tone you set with them, as I found them unreasonably presumptive. I have no idea how that equates to being "superiority/persecution" to use the same terms in a polite question back towards your perspective. My question was directly related to the topic and using the tone you set for it. So do you have anything directly related to the topic, or have you simply chosen to derail the topic to attack and insult anyone who questions the perspective of our point?Quote:
Originally Posted by s5669111
You already deemed other folks post here, with reasonable responses as "invalid". Which is a bit condescending in and of itself. Why do you feel you have the right to claim other posters opinion as "invalid" and insults others for asking a reasonable question back to you in response?
I stand by my thoughts that I put out for review. My question was reasonable based on the discussion. It is interesting to me that you find it insulting to be asked a question back to you, that you deem is not insulting to ask to another.
First off, Thanks to Citan for the responses. They are greatly appreciated.
Second, Love the Admins, Guides and the rest of the PG staff!! I hope you continue to provide as knuckleheads with the awesome experiences we've grown to anticipate.
Third, I consider my question answered.
Fourth, well....
Tell me about your mother...Quote:
Originally Posted by Coglin
Just kidding. No really, tell me about your mother.
You're some kind of turing machine, right? Or maybe a trollbot.
Yaaaa, I was going to respond further with something other than "You're a troll." but I think that covers it. Your responses are incoherent and overly provocative RE: the subject.
I capitulate, feel free to mark this as a major coup/victory for TEAM COGLIN.
Another MMO, that shall not be named, tried to keep a tight schedule for updates, and the results were disastrous. Releasing an update before it was complete required more time and effort to fix than if it had simply been delayed until things were put to rights. Personally, I do not except updates to occur until the team has something worth an update.