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A Quick Development Update
We have no release for you this week, so I wanted to talk a little about what we have going on, as much as I can, to help people understand the current development goals and progress.
Gameplay changes, fixes and improvements are our single biggest goal for 2012. At the same time, we're balancing this against other opportunities that arise which can strongly benefit the company, potentially creating a situation where we're able to hire new people, further improve the game, and so on. That picture then needs to be meshed with our greater long-term plan for timing and milestones (yes, it does exist), such as development dependencies: certain game improvements need to be in place before we can start on others, and so on. Sometimes this leaves us in situations where not a lot of new content gets dropped for a few weeks, while we're trying to wade through some kind of development and debugging sludge, or where we have a lot of our resources going to some other improvements that we can't yet publicly discuss.
We currently have two major projects in the works:
- Adding in-game account creation
This has been needed for quite some time, but is strongly needed on mobile. As it stands, we have kind of a unwieldy system by which web browsers are fired up at one stage and then the user proceeds with the install and login at another stage.. it's kind of a mess and requires the user to navigate both the website and the game, potentially on a small mobile device.
Thus, we are adding a mechanic by which people will be able to create new game accounts entirely through the game client. It is secure and robust, but also adds some new development complexities to our process. I made the choice to add this now, for production reasons (it will be needed for another planned milestone that will happen later this summer, and it's better to get it out there and tested in advance). Development has taken a bit longer than we anticipated, but is still moving forward. Hopefully that will be wrapping soon, and we'll be allocating the resources to other areas.
- Major game platform and renderer updates
This may cause some people to kind of go "ruuhh?", especially when compared to the need for certain gameplay changes or fixes. Unfortunately, this is also one of those areas I can't talk about very much right now, except to say that it strongly benefits the company to take advantage of opportunities where we are paid to accelerate certain development of our own engine that we were going to do anyway (although probably later in the year). It may also bring us some other opportunities for VO, which could be cool.
This project is moving forward quickly. We expect it to wind-down a bit in early June, with more development being allocated back to gameplay fixes and enhancements. But, at the same time, these are big changes, with the potential for big bugs as well. They're good changes: for the game, the userbase, the ongoing value of the NAOS engine, and so on. It might not be the work we would have normally picked to do right this instant, but it makes sense for us to juggle development in this particular case.
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So, all that being said, we will be returning to gameplay and fixes/improvements as soon as we can. I would like to do some simpler content drops in the near future, hopefully next week, perhaps relating to capships and the like. Maybe some mission and addon work that I can add independently, without interrupting our other projects. I would welcome feedback on that, posted to the Suggestions forum. I am definitely aiming to add some cool stuff before I vanish for E3 in early June.
FYI everyone, thanks much.
Gameplay changes, fixes and improvements are our single biggest goal for 2012. At the same time, we're balancing this against other opportunities that arise which can strongly benefit the company, potentially creating a situation where we're able to hire new people, further improve the game, and so on. That picture then needs to be meshed with our greater long-term plan for timing and milestones (yes, it does exist), such as development dependencies: certain game improvements need to be in place before we can start on others, and so on. Sometimes this leaves us in situations where not a lot of new content gets dropped for a few weeks, while we're trying to wade through some kind of development and debugging sludge, or where we have a lot of our resources going to some other improvements that we can't yet publicly discuss.
We currently have two major projects in the works:
- Adding in-game account creation
This has been needed for quite some time, but is strongly needed on mobile. As it stands, we have kind of a unwieldy system by which web browsers are fired up at one stage and then the user proceeds with the install and login at another stage.. it's kind of a mess and requires the user to navigate both the website and the game, potentially on a small mobile device.
Thus, we are adding a mechanic by which people will be able to create new game accounts entirely through the game client. It is secure and robust, but also adds some new development complexities to our process. I made the choice to add this now, for production reasons (it will be needed for another planned milestone that will happen later this summer, and it's better to get it out there and tested in advance). Development has taken a bit longer than we anticipated, but is still moving forward. Hopefully that will be wrapping soon, and we'll be allocating the resources to other areas.
- Major game platform and renderer updates
This may cause some people to kind of go "ruuhh?", especially when compared to the need for certain gameplay changes or fixes. Unfortunately, this is also one of those areas I can't talk about very much right now, except to say that it strongly benefits the company to take advantage of opportunities where we are paid to accelerate certain development of our own engine that we were going to do anyway (although probably later in the year). It may also bring us some other opportunities for VO, which could be cool.
This project is moving forward quickly. We expect it to wind-down a bit in early June, with more development being allocated back to gameplay fixes and enhancements. But, at the same time, these are big changes, with the potential for big bugs as well. They're good changes: for the game, the userbase, the ongoing value of the NAOS engine, and so on. It might not be the work we would have normally picked to do right this instant, but it makes sense for us to juggle development in this particular case.
-----------
So, all that being said, we will be returning to gameplay and fixes/improvements as soon as we can. I would like to do some simpler content drops in the near future, hopefully next week, perhaps relating to capships and the like. Maybe some mission and addon work that I can add independently, without interrupting our other projects. I would welcome feedback on that, posted to the Suggestions forum. I am definitely aiming to add some cool stuff before I vanish for E3 in early June.
FYI everyone, thanks much.
Very cool. I just have one question: Where does the faction redux sit? The way the faction sits, its like you're on a merry-go-round that you can't get off of. Basically people are choosing one side, but up the other side to admire anyway and have admire for both factions. Basically nothing has really changed in that aspect of the game. It really hampers any nationalistic/backstory play. Because we simply can't do anything because everyone is still friends with everyone. Its virtually impossible to be accurately nationalist if we're not allowed to shoot each other in places that actually matter. Going to grey space and fighting all the time doesn't really have any meaning. While I don't have any intentions of backing out of my current project (RED, I've been too busy to play much this week, barely ever home). I feel like this issue is causing a lot of gameplay problems, there simply is no punishment or reward for being nationalist as it stands, we can only fight where it doesn't matter and we have to tolerate each other in nation space and play these silly little games around the stations.
I don't think new people even know about the conflict.
Just my two cents.
I don't think new people even know about the conflict.
Just my two cents.
Do what ya need to do Inc... but +1 to everything Mecha said.
The current system is supposed to allow PoS with one side and Neutral with the other, or Respect with both sides. Not Admire with both sides. If people are achieving Admire with both sides, that's a bug. But, this kind of faction discussion is probably better off on its own (new) Suggestions thread, linked from here, so it doesn't overwhelm all the other topics I posted about.
Anyway, the faction system is not done, by any means, I still plan to re-appraise the point at which certain behaviours are triggered and the like. But, I have no people to implement any of that right now.
Anyway, the faction system is not done, by any means, I still plan to re-appraise the point at which certain behaviours are triggered and the like. But, I have no people to implement any of that right now.
Yeah, but it should be dislike/respect hate/admire kos/pos. you are just too soft.
Being able to be admired in both spaces and still have access to ships (people think the Valk requires like +800 Itani because of the wiki, but really its +690, SVG is about the same) really changes nothing. And because someone:
Incarnate [x]
Not Incarnate [ ]
Broke the trade guild missions some time ago, it takes like 1 mission to buy the best Serco ship, then another to flip it back and buy the best Itani, and re-flip through the two. That really is silly and promoted no faction elusiveness at all.
SO without "people" you could still make the mutual exclusiveness a little more *uhum* exclusive?
Being able to be admired in both spaces and still have access to ships (people think the Valk requires like +800 Itani because of the wiki, but really its +690, SVG is about the same) really changes nothing. And because someone:
Incarnate [x]
Not Incarnate [ ]
Broke the trade guild missions some time ago, it takes like 1 mission to buy the best Serco ship, then another to flip it back and buy the best Itani, and re-flip through the two. That really is silly and promoted no faction elusiveness at all.
SO without "people" you could still make the mutual exclusiveness a little more *uhum* exclusive?
Maybe some mission and addon work that I can add independently,
Inc, about missions, what about using PCC missions for recurring Events ? Seems only small features missing...
Inc, about missions, what about using PCC missions for recurring Events ? Seems only small features missing...
Ok, flipping back and forth is a reasonable criticism. The ship faction levels aren't important to me, I'm going to be changing those regardless.
Feel free to link to the historical Bugs or Suggestions post about the cause of the trade guild issue. I didn't personally change anything related to that, but I may have directed someone to do.. something. I really don't remember. I want to remove the trade guild mission entirely, but haven't been able to yet.
Feel free to link to the historical Bugs or Suggestions post about the cause of the trade guild issue. I didn't personally change anything related to that, but I may have directed someone to do.. something. I really don't remember. I want to remove the trade guild mission entirely, but haven't been able to yet.
I love these progress less progress updates!
I'm interested in the details of the renderer updates. Can you (or ray) be more specific about the changes?
I'm interested in the details of the renderer updates. Can you (or ray) be more specific about the changes?
I'll make a post at a later time that gives more detail in what we're doing, or have done. There are some confidentiality and timing things right now that are making me stay vague for the moment.
I'll make a post at a later time that gives more detail in what we're doing, or have done. There are some confidentiality and timing things right now that are making me stay vague for the moment.