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i think that as soon as people realise that the game is even less complete than they think it is, and accept that, then they will be fine with slow development. after all, stuff that's being developed now is behind the scenes, not stuff that affects gameplay directly, but will enhance gameplay greatly once it is added.
*once it is unborken
And it will be!
And it will be!
Wow. Great.
I also have no problem with people stating their apt and realistic problems with the game, company, or progress. Although I did think that I had answered most of this over the past weekend.
Questions like "how could you let deliverator get so broken?" are.. interesting. No one in development (of any kind, game or otherwise) usually "lets" things like that happen, they just happen, and commonly in ways that are unforseen and difficult to forsee. For instance, Deliverator is currently written in one of the oldest of programming languages: Lisp. Lisp is a pretty amazing language in a lot of ways, especially as they relate to our deliverator-type development. Lisp code is written and run inside of a process that internally handles memory allocation, garbage collection, and interpreting/compiling code as needed. It's all very elegant, and has worked fine for us for well over a year. Until last month, when Michael released a heavily revised version of Deliverator after a couple of months of work, and found that the lisp CL (the program that does the above running functionality) balloons in memory and bombs out after a few hours. He and Andy then spent a month trying to get the damned thing to work, debugging, swapping lisp platforms (CMUCL, SBCL, whatever) to no avail.
So, now we're changing platforms. Writing and moving to a whole new translated back end which starts in Lisp, for simpler development, and then individual functionality compiles down to light threads of a language called Erlang. Thus, the lisp system says something like "the hive is this big, in these locations, and has this many bots doing.. these activities". Those bots then become specific threads and run in a different lightweight model, which is much more scalable (distributed across as many machines as needed) and more resilient. If lisp bombs eventually, it hardly matters, the started threads are all autonomous.
We've been planning on doing something like this for.. well, over a year, but just for scalability purposes. But we didn't plan on doing it NOW, and we sure as hell didn't plan on being forced into doing it.
Why does this make any difference to development? Unfortunately, most of our interesting next-generation gameplay has come to hinge on the "deliverator" construct, and what it was meant to do. Oh, sure, we had CtC before deliverator, so we could write it in Lua or something, right? But that's part of why CtC has been broken for so long. Using lua to do that functionality, for various reasons, has become a confusing and unmaintainable mess, and is ill suited to the sort of work we're going to need to do as we move ahead. Debugging is a giant pain in the ass, for instance. So, we made this other thing to let us do what we needed to do.. much better, and then it exploded in our face last month when the underlying (and well-used and supposedly reliable) system that runs it.. stopped working right.
When deliverator was working, I could tell Michael a general idea and have him drop it into the game in like a day. Border Skirmish, for instance, which is an unfinished test-case, was implemented almost immediately. Doing the same in lua would probably have been a week or two of annoying debugging when things inevitably didn't work quite right. I haven't given him more refined and finished gameplay to implement in Deliverator, frankly because he's been working on internals, and it wasn't yet clear to me that the system was totally ready for prime-time (looking back now, gee!). So I've been waiting for that to be finished up, while trying to do other things. The three-location Hive launch, which was supposed to happen a month ago, and the new economy, which was supposed to happen about now, were going to be the first game-wide uses of the system.
* * *
There's also nothing wrong with asking us to make periodic updates about what we're doing. On the other hand, if we do say what's going on, there's no value to further beating a dead horse, other than sapping my energy and making any development related to me.. take longer.
We've been working with a system called Trac for a couple of months now, which allows us to post tickets for bugfixes or feature development, and track everything, along with an integrated wiki for new design. The plan has always been to make it public, so you all could get a better idea of what we're doing and where we're going. I haven't made it public yet because we're still getting used to using the thing, and it doesn't yet represent an accurate (or very long-term) picture of our planned progress. It's new to us and new to me, and all it really shows right now is how we've hilariously blown past the planned 1.8.0 milestone, and a smattering of tickets that mean a lot to us and little to people who aren't working on the game.
Once that system is a little more filled out though (something I keep planning to do, and then getting bogged down in more "right now" development.. or writing messages like this one), the intention is for you to see what our goals are, where they are in the general timeline picture, and even see your suggestions appear as new tickets. I think that's a pretty cool goal. But it ain't there yet.
* * *
The faction system and FF changes are coming, we just discussed them yesterday at the meeting. It is unfortunate that people are unhappy about my priority choices. I think I've said about as much as I can say on that subject. Priorities are not always simple. You can choose to be believe me, or choose to think I'm full of it and that everyone else on the boards would do a much better job.
The ships were all set as TPG because they all looked the same. It was our intention to continue adding ships to other factions once they fit more with the stylistic view of that particular faction (especially Itani vs Serco). Hopefully that will still happen, but I don't have a lot of time to spend on that right now. And, if you want to talk about priorities, I don't think that's nearly as important as adding new actual gameplay or fixing some of the long-standing issues.
* * *
To touch briefly on the initial "I get lag" complaints: for the cargo, this is because your computer is not very fast (cargo, being unused, does not increase bandwidth utilization after you initially learn where it is). For the capships, this may also be the same problem (low framerate), but considering there's also a lot of shots being fired, it may amount to your bandwidth being overutilized. Our game is pretty damned good when it comes to bandwidth utilization. So, if we want to have large scale capital ship battles, with people flying around and lots of shots being fired, it's going to be slow for some people. That's the root of the "system requirements may change" concept that every MMO has. Some of the new content is going to be more computer and bandwidth intensive than old content. Not all of it, just some of it. Flying into a huge battle with 40 people in fighters and 15 capships will be "laggy" for someone with a slower computer or in England. Just like trying to fly around the game at all, right now, is "laggy" for someone with a really slow computer, or in Japan. Does that mean we should never have big battles, because someone, somewhere is on a modem or playing from Indonesia? I don't think so. We'll have plenty of content for everyone, and your mileage may vary. 1) This is an online game, people can get together and make things slow all by themselves, and I have no control over it 2) this is a "PC" game (ie, not console), and runs on a very wide variety of hardware with different levels of performance.
* * *
Every year or so it seems like we go through this. People are unhappy, and uncertain what's being done about it, or why it isn't happening fast enough. I hoped the whole Trac open-development thing would head this off, but I guess I just wasn't in time with that any more than I was with the planned game changes. Anyway, at the end of the day, I don't really know what to tell people. We're doing the best we can. We aren't idiots. We're all very frustrated about how crappy things have gone recently, and the stupid, annoying problems that have appeared and resulted in lots of time spent debugging. Right now, more or less, was supposed to be the timeframe when a whole LOT of new gameplay content appeared. But, now that's pushed back, AGAIN.
But still, what does that mean? People are either too frustrated to continue supporting us, or they still hold out some hope. If you don't want to support us anymore, and you don't think this is going anywhere, and you (as someone put it recently) are having a hard time caring.. well, I respect that, and it's too bad.. and I don't know what the hell else I can do. I'm running myself ragged over this shit already. I posted news on Friday to tell people what was going on, because I felt badly that we weren't releasing anything new and things were going so slowly, and I wanted to show that SOMETHING new and potentially "good" was in the works (silver linings? anyone?). And yeah, I tried to be optimistic in my post, I always try to be.. but ever since then I've been recoiling from more and more complaints, bitterness and outright anger (granted, the latter mostly from Lecter). People say they want more high-level Hive missions, I try to add them as quickly as I can, and I get ripped to pieces for the missions being imperfect. Everyone would like me to know they're unhappy.. hey, I got that. I'm unhappy too, but I don't know who I'm supposed to tell, or what I can do about it other than what I'm already doing.
So, yeah. I'm about out of gas at this point. I no longer think I have anything meaningful to contribute to these conversations. I'm going to go away and try to do something useful for the game, and try not to read the boards for the rest of the week. If people decide we're dumb and leave, well, I'm sorry to hear that, and that we've disappointed, and thanks for all the support you have given. The world is an interesting place. Things don't go according to plan, bugs happen, mistakes are made, development takes longer than expected, employees and spouses have exciting issues, money is always short, and loved ones get abruptly run over by semi trucks. In fact, it's all very funny in retrospect. Hilarious, in that "haha, I'm about to lose my goddamn mind" kind of way.
There's a great book (at least I vaguely remember it being great), called "Don't stop the canival" by Herman Wouk, which is about trying to run a hotel in the caribbean. Perhaps a game-development-centric version of that is due to be written.
I also have no problem with people stating their apt and realistic problems with the game, company, or progress. Although I did think that I had answered most of this over the past weekend.
Questions like "how could you let deliverator get so broken?" are.. interesting. No one in development (of any kind, game or otherwise) usually "lets" things like that happen, they just happen, and commonly in ways that are unforseen and difficult to forsee. For instance, Deliverator is currently written in one of the oldest of programming languages: Lisp. Lisp is a pretty amazing language in a lot of ways, especially as they relate to our deliverator-type development. Lisp code is written and run inside of a process that internally handles memory allocation, garbage collection, and interpreting/compiling code as needed. It's all very elegant, and has worked fine for us for well over a year. Until last month, when Michael released a heavily revised version of Deliverator after a couple of months of work, and found that the lisp CL (the program that does the above running functionality) balloons in memory and bombs out after a few hours. He and Andy then spent a month trying to get the damned thing to work, debugging, swapping lisp platforms (CMUCL, SBCL, whatever) to no avail.
So, now we're changing platforms. Writing and moving to a whole new translated back end which starts in Lisp, for simpler development, and then individual functionality compiles down to light threads of a language called Erlang. Thus, the lisp system says something like "the hive is this big, in these locations, and has this many bots doing.. these activities". Those bots then become specific threads and run in a different lightweight model, which is much more scalable (distributed across as many machines as needed) and more resilient. If lisp bombs eventually, it hardly matters, the started threads are all autonomous.
We've been planning on doing something like this for.. well, over a year, but just for scalability purposes. But we didn't plan on doing it NOW, and we sure as hell didn't plan on being forced into doing it.
Why does this make any difference to development? Unfortunately, most of our interesting next-generation gameplay has come to hinge on the "deliverator" construct, and what it was meant to do. Oh, sure, we had CtC before deliverator, so we could write it in Lua or something, right? But that's part of why CtC has been broken for so long. Using lua to do that functionality, for various reasons, has become a confusing and unmaintainable mess, and is ill suited to the sort of work we're going to need to do as we move ahead. Debugging is a giant pain in the ass, for instance. So, we made this other thing to let us do what we needed to do.. much better, and then it exploded in our face last month when the underlying (and well-used and supposedly reliable) system that runs it.. stopped working right.
When deliverator was working, I could tell Michael a general idea and have him drop it into the game in like a day. Border Skirmish, for instance, which is an unfinished test-case, was implemented almost immediately. Doing the same in lua would probably have been a week or two of annoying debugging when things inevitably didn't work quite right. I haven't given him more refined and finished gameplay to implement in Deliverator, frankly because he's been working on internals, and it wasn't yet clear to me that the system was totally ready for prime-time (looking back now, gee!). So I've been waiting for that to be finished up, while trying to do other things. The three-location Hive launch, which was supposed to happen a month ago, and the new economy, which was supposed to happen about now, were going to be the first game-wide uses of the system.
* * *
There's also nothing wrong with asking us to make periodic updates about what we're doing. On the other hand, if we do say what's going on, there's no value to further beating a dead horse, other than sapping my energy and making any development related to me.. take longer.
We've been working with a system called Trac for a couple of months now, which allows us to post tickets for bugfixes or feature development, and track everything, along with an integrated wiki for new design. The plan has always been to make it public, so you all could get a better idea of what we're doing and where we're going. I haven't made it public yet because we're still getting used to using the thing, and it doesn't yet represent an accurate (or very long-term) picture of our planned progress. It's new to us and new to me, and all it really shows right now is how we've hilariously blown past the planned 1.8.0 milestone, and a smattering of tickets that mean a lot to us and little to people who aren't working on the game.
Once that system is a little more filled out though (something I keep planning to do, and then getting bogged down in more "right now" development.. or writing messages like this one), the intention is for you to see what our goals are, where they are in the general timeline picture, and even see your suggestions appear as new tickets. I think that's a pretty cool goal. But it ain't there yet.
* * *
The faction system and FF changes are coming, we just discussed them yesterday at the meeting. It is unfortunate that people are unhappy about my priority choices. I think I've said about as much as I can say on that subject. Priorities are not always simple. You can choose to be believe me, or choose to think I'm full of it and that everyone else on the boards would do a much better job.
The ships were all set as TPG because they all looked the same. It was our intention to continue adding ships to other factions once they fit more with the stylistic view of that particular faction (especially Itani vs Serco). Hopefully that will still happen, but I don't have a lot of time to spend on that right now. And, if you want to talk about priorities, I don't think that's nearly as important as adding new actual gameplay or fixing some of the long-standing issues.
* * *
To touch briefly on the initial "I get lag" complaints: for the cargo, this is because your computer is not very fast (cargo, being unused, does not increase bandwidth utilization after you initially learn where it is). For the capships, this may also be the same problem (low framerate), but considering there's also a lot of shots being fired, it may amount to your bandwidth being overutilized. Our game is pretty damned good when it comes to bandwidth utilization. So, if we want to have large scale capital ship battles, with people flying around and lots of shots being fired, it's going to be slow for some people. That's the root of the "system requirements may change" concept that every MMO has. Some of the new content is going to be more computer and bandwidth intensive than old content. Not all of it, just some of it. Flying into a huge battle with 40 people in fighters and 15 capships will be "laggy" for someone with a slower computer or in England. Just like trying to fly around the game at all, right now, is "laggy" for someone with a really slow computer, or in Japan. Does that mean we should never have big battles, because someone, somewhere is on a modem or playing from Indonesia? I don't think so. We'll have plenty of content for everyone, and your mileage may vary. 1) This is an online game, people can get together and make things slow all by themselves, and I have no control over it 2) this is a "PC" game (ie, not console), and runs on a very wide variety of hardware with different levels of performance.
* * *
Every year or so it seems like we go through this. People are unhappy, and uncertain what's being done about it, or why it isn't happening fast enough. I hoped the whole Trac open-development thing would head this off, but I guess I just wasn't in time with that any more than I was with the planned game changes. Anyway, at the end of the day, I don't really know what to tell people. We're doing the best we can. We aren't idiots. We're all very frustrated about how crappy things have gone recently, and the stupid, annoying problems that have appeared and resulted in lots of time spent debugging. Right now, more or less, was supposed to be the timeframe when a whole LOT of new gameplay content appeared. But, now that's pushed back, AGAIN.
But still, what does that mean? People are either too frustrated to continue supporting us, or they still hold out some hope. If you don't want to support us anymore, and you don't think this is going anywhere, and you (as someone put it recently) are having a hard time caring.. well, I respect that, and it's too bad.. and I don't know what the hell else I can do. I'm running myself ragged over this shit already. I posted news on Friday to tell people what was going on, because I felt badly that we weren't releasing anything new and things were going so slowly, and I wanted to show that SOMETHING new and potentially "good" was in the works (silver linings? anyone?). And yeah, I tried to be optimistic in my post, I always try to be.. but ever since then I've been recoiling from more and more complaints, bitterness and outright anger (granted, the latter mostly from Lecter). People say they want more high-level Hive missions, I try to add them as quickly as I can, and I get ripped to pieces for the missions being imperfect. Everyone would like me to know they're unhappy.. hey, I got that. I'm unhappy too, but I don't know who I'm supposed to tell, or what I can do about it other than what I'm already doing.
So, yeah. I'm about out of gas at this point. I no longer think I have anything meaningful to contribute to these conversations. I'm going to go away and try to do something useful for the game, and try not to read the boards for the rest of the week. If people decide we're dumb and leave, well, I'm sorry to hear that, and that we've disappointed, and thanks for all the support you have given. The world is an interesting place. Things don't go according to plan, bugs happen, mistakes are made, development takes longer than expected, employees and spouses have exciting issues, money is always short, and loved ones get abruptly run over by semi trucks. In fact, it's all very funny in retrospect. Hilarious, in that "haha, I'm about to lose my goddamn mind" kind of way.
There's a great book (at least I vaguely remember it being great), called "Don't stop the canival" by Herman Wouk, which is about trying to run a hotel in the caribbean. Perhaps a game-development-centric version of that is due to be written.
I agree, some people need to quit bitching once in a while and maybe listen. *I* have a nasty habit of doing that too, maybe we should all cut the devs some slack here. Also for the people that write posts that are a bit disrespectful need to grow up a bit. Everything seems to have gone to hell lately and I think some people seem to think that the devs are just sitting on their asses or something, we should just chill out and give them some breathing room to get it fixed instead of bitching at them on the forum wich causes them to have to waste more development time to answer some of your undeserving posts.
As usual, Inc's just given us about 30X what other game developers give their users.
Indeed, Whistler. Good stuff, Inc.
'course, I knew all that already. >:P
Although, I'd have loved to see Michael's face when he read "How'd you LET Deliverator get so broken?" Heheheheh. Like he left an infant in an overheating car and went on a crack binge or something...
'course, I knew all that already. >:P
Although, I'd have loved to see Michael's face when he read "How'd you LET Deliverator get so broken?" Heheheheh. Like he left an infant in an overheating car and went on a crack binge or something...
inc's lengthy response brings another issue and, working for a large company, i can actually relate to this specific issue: communication.
the hour or so that inc spent pondering this thread and building a concise answer is precisely an hour or so that he didn't spent dealing with the issues themselves.
as he (and others) mentioned, some (all?) of those issues were adressed at some point. the problem is that a forum might not be the best way to keep track of issues, pending features and other items worthy of ulterior (or more immediate) attention. add to this the fact that some users might not see some of the responses given s/he has not followed a particular thread (for various reason like a derailed topic).
the small dev team that composes vo actually compares well to a project i'm working on at oracle, wich comprises about 200 developers. no kidding. the situation, here, though, is that there are 4 developers and 200 testers: us users (i usually refer to those as low-level users, or lusers...)
the way this is resolved, to some degree, in a large enterprise is through bug tracking. every feature in the product spec, every enhancement requests, every bug and every note regarding the product is entered in the bug tracking database.
when the project starts, these things accumulate at a staggering rate reaching many thousands of outstanding "bugs". an unimplemented feature *is* a bug.
as development progresses, items are routinely sorted out and assigned to developers or groups. eventually, an item find itself on someone's desk and gets resolved one way or another.
people who have access to the bugs database can go in and add information or reassign them and so forth. managers routinely go in and reset bug priorities as things progress or when things are dependent on others.
let me illustrate:
this is a typical bug list (of a product i'm not longer working on: there are still 4 bugs assigned to me but they're being re-assigned gradually and transfered to someone still on that team--there used to be dozens in there).
see the second item on that list? it was logged on all platforms. it wasn't a bug per say. it was a user (client) request that ended up (through a more or less indirect channel) in the bugs database.
the issue was not dealt with in that iteration of the product but eventually found it's way into the design specs of the next version of the product in question.
every bug is linked to a more concise description, step to reproduce, reassignment chain etc:
this basically allows large organisations (aka, 200 developers or 4 developers+200 testers) keep track of things to come.
now, i'm not saying guild software doesn't use this internally (there are open-source bug tracking solutions out there), but the problem us lusers have is that we dont have a single clue as to what to expect in a short term and somewhat longer term.
(guild bank anyone?)
so, on the suggestion page, there's a slightly outdated list of things that have *already* been suggested (wich serves the nit-pickers as basis for RTF-READ ME FIRST!).
what guild software could do is to update the http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7692" pending suggestions and add a tag to every item, that would give us an idea on what to expect, without going into the details:
- pending review
- pending dependency
- under review
- design phase
- in development
- in testing
- in deep shit (applies to deliverator only)
- discarded (until further review)
- ready & pending release
- released
(oracle has about 10 priority codes and about 50 severity codes ranging from i-dont-care-your-wife-is-in-labor-this-gets-fixed-tonight to lets-wait-the-next-jesus-coming)
these dont tell us *when* we'll get them, nor does it forces guild software to commit on either of them. guild software is also free to reassign any of those based on their dev schedule and whatnot.
but it would give us an idea that anything might be on your radar (like guild banking).
one example i might have mentioned before is guild banking. but until i have something to hold on to (hey, even "discarded"), i'll just keep asking.
i want guild banking.
the hour or so that inc spent pondering this thread and building a concise answer is precisely an hour or so that he didn't spent dealing with the issues themselves.
as he (and others) mentioned, some (all?) of those issues were adressed at some point. the problem is that a forum might not be the best way to keep track of issues, pending features and other items worthy of ulterior (or more immediate) attention. add to this the fact that some users might not see some of the responses given s/he has not followed a particular thread (for various reason like a derailed topic).
the small dev team that composes vo actually compares well to a project i'm working on at oracle, wich comprises about 200 developers. no kidding. the situation, here, though, is that there are 4 developers and 200 testers: us users (i usually refer to those as low-level users, or lusers...)
the way this is resolved, to some degree, in a large enterprise is through bug tracking. every feature in the product spec, every enhancement requests, every bug and every note regarding the product is entered in the bug tracking database.
when the project starts, these things accumulate at a staggering rate reaching many thousands of outstanding "bugs". an unimplemented feature *is* a bug.
as development progresses, items are routinely sorted out and assigned to developers or groups. eventually, an item find itself on someone's desk and gets resolved one way or another.
people who have access to the bugs database can go in and add information or reassign them and so forth. managers routinely go in and reset bug priorities as things progress or when things are dependent on others.
let me illustrate:
this is a typical bug list (of a product i'm not longer working on: there are still 4 bugs assigned to me but they're being re-assigned gradually and transfered to someone still on that team--there used to be dozens in there).
see the second item on that list? it was logged on all platforms. it wasn't a bug per say. it was a user (client) request that ended up (through a more or less indirect channel) in the bugs database.
the issue was not dealt with in that iteration of the product but eventually found it's way into the design specs of the next version of the product in question.
every bug is linked to a more concise description, step to reproduce, reassignment chain etc:
this basically allows large organisations (aka, 200 developers or 4 developers+200 testers) keep track of things to come.
now, i'm not saying guild software doesn't use this internally (there are open-source bug tracking solutions out there), but the problem us lusers have is that we dont have a single clue as to what to expect in a short term and somewhat longer term.
(guild bank anyone?)
so, on the suggestion page, there's a slightly outdated list of things that have *already* been suggested (wich serves the nit-pickers as basis for RTF-READ ME FIRST!).
what guild software could do is to update the http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7692" pending suggestions and add a tag to every item, that would give us an idea on what to expect, without going into the details:
- pending review
- pending dependency
- under review
- design phase
- in development
- in testing
- in deep shit (applies to deliverator only)
- discarded (until further review)
- ready & pending release
- released
(oracle has about 10 priority codes and about 50 severity codes ranging from i-dont-care-your-wife-is-in-labor-this-gets-fixed-tonight to lets-wait-the-next-jesus-coming)
these dont tell us *when* we'll get them, nor does it forces guild software to commit on either of them. guild software is also free to reassign any of those based on their dev schedule and whatnot.
but it would give us an idea that anything might be on your radar (like guild banking).
one example i might have mentioned before is guild banking. but until i have something to hold on to (hey, even "discarded"), i'll just keep asking.
i want guild banking.
Much like upper case is suggesting (and as I briefly mention in the above epic response), we're using a tracking program called Trac:
http://trac.edgewall.org/
..which is open source, web based, and will be completely public. The intention being to have a system where suggestions can move from the forum and be propogated into a ticket, and where users can then see the intended priority and target milestone of said ticket, and watch its respective progress. So things aren't like "hey yeah, that's a good idea" and then vanish into the woodwork, but instead are actualy propogated visibly into a tracking system.
Like i also said, I hoped the release of said setup would head off this kind of.. discussion. But, it's taken awhile just like everything else (although we have been using it internally for a few months now). And I'm afraid to make the damned thing public before most major topics have been added, for fear people will then go "But <enter favorite desired feature> isn't in there@!# What the hell! Where are you priorities, devs?!@#" and then I'll tear my hair out and jump off a cliff.
http://trac.edgewall.org/
..which is open source, web based, and will be completely public. The intention being to have a system where suggestions can move from the forum and be propogated into a ticket, and where users can then see the intended priority and target milestone of said ticket, and watch its respective progress. So things aren't like "hey yeah, that's a good idea" and then vanish into the woodwork, but instead are actualy propogated visibly into a tracking system.
Like i also said, I hoped the release of said setup would head off this kind of.. discussion. But, it's taken awhile just like everything else (although we have been using it internally for a few months now). And I'm afraid to make the damned thing public before most major topics have been added, for fear people will then go "But <enter favorite desired feature> isn't in there@!# What the hell! Where are you priorities, devs?!@#" and then I'll tear my hair out and jump off a cliff.
like guild banking.
:p
I'm going to say this because I think it needs to be said, and then I'm going to stay out of any msgboard that doesn't have a URL ending in 7 for a while.
Whistler notes that Inc and the Devs in toto are uber-communicative here as compared to any other online game. Inc is frustrated with the fact that he's doing his best and still getting complaints from a player base that just isn't understanding enough.
Inc does note repeatedly that things are, to put it mildly, behind schedule. And while that's more or less not the Dev's fault--I fully believe most of the problems VO is having now aren't the sort of thing proper previous planning could have avoided given all the facts--that sort of response misses a key point.
At the end of the day, GSW, we're not primarily your friends, family or loved ones. We're your subscribers, and we're paying you for one (or more in many cases, myself included) VO account each month because it provides both potential and present entertainment. I don't hold stock in GSW or VO, I pay to play it. I understand that there are serious limits on GSW resources and that factors into my expectations of VO's current status and the rate at which its potential becomes reality. But at the end of the day, I'm giving you $20 a month and I have expectations for what I get in exchange.
What Whistler described is only half of what I see as the issue: there's a lot of after the fact communication, and that's good, but there's not a lot of warning when things are perpetually kept in "Soon-tm" limbo. But that sort of preemptive notice does eat up time that could be spent actually fixing and improving. And it's not really the issue because no matter how much warning we have about delays and problems and limits on new missions, eventually each individual player is going to reach a point where Soon isn't Soon-Enough. At that point we can do two things: complain long and loud, or quietly fold our cards.
I understand that you may not like the approach I and, to a lesser extent--thanks for the shout out, btw--other players, have taken to expressing our frustration at continued delays and stagnation of real content. But first off, I'd say don't take it so personally: you need to really believe that you're selling a game and not looking for personal approval from the player base. Second and more importantly, realize that if we're making loud complaining noises here... it's because we want to keep giving you money in exchange for a product we like. You should appreciate the notice and warning by your customers, even if you'd prefer a more sugar-coated form for the message--the bulk of unhappy customers simply never tell a business why they're dissatisfied, but instead just take their money elsewhere.
I understand that given the fiercely loyal nature of the VO player-base and the obviously beyond-human efforts of the Dev team, my voicing this will fall somewhere in the heresy category. As opposed to what Mecha said, I have no illusions about the Devs "sitting on their asses"; I know things are quite the opposite. But at the end of the day, how hard you try only gets you so far. We appreciate your efforts and the difficulties of life, but it's desired results for which we are paying.
[EDIT] Player proposes, Dev disposes... but that's no reason for players to stop proposing, Genka, or for Devs to get hot under the collar because they forgot that no matter the form, it's a mere proposal.
Whistler notes that Inc and the Devs in toto are uber-communicative here as compared to any other online game. Inc is frustrated with the fact that he's doing his best and still getting complaints from a player base that just isn't understanding enough.
Inc does note repeatedly that things are, to put it mildly, behind schedule. And while that's more or less not the Dev's fault--I fully believe most of the problems VO is having now aren't the sort of thing proper previous planning could have avoided given all the facts--that sort of response misses a key point.
At the end of the day, GSW, we're not primarily your friends, family or loved ones. We're your subscribers, and we're paying you for one (or more in many cases, myself included) VO account each month because it provides both potential and present entertainment. I don't hold stock in GSW or VO, I pay to play it. I understand that there are serious limits on GSW resources and that factors into my expectations of VO's current status and the rate at which its potential becomes reality. But at the end of the day, I'm giving you $20 a month and I have expectations for what I get in exchange.
What Whistler described is only half of what I see as the issue: there's a lot of after the fact communication, and that's good, but there's not a lot of warning when things are perpetually kept in "Soon-tm" limbo. But that sort of preemptive notice does eat up time that could be spent actually fixing and improving. And it's not really the issue because no matter how much warning we have about delays and problems and limits on new missions, eventually each individual player is going to reach a point where Soon isn't Soon-Enough. At that point we can do two things: complain long and loud, or quietly fold our cards.
I understand that you may not like the approach I and, to a lesser extent--thanks for the shout out, btw--other players, have taken to expressing our frustration at continued delays and stagnation of real content. But first off, I'd say don't take it so personally: you need to really believe that you're selling a game and not looking for personal approval from the player base. Second and more importantly, realize that if we're making loud complaining noises here... it's because we want to keep giving you money in exchange for a product we like. You should appreciate the notice and warning by your customers, even if you'd prefer a more sugar-coated form for the message--the bulk of unhappy customers simply never tell a business why they're dissatisfied, but instead just take their money elsewhere.
I understand that given the fiercely loyal nature of the VO player-base and the obviously beyond-human efforts of the Dev team, my voicing this will fall somewhere in the heresy category. As opposed to what Mecha said, I have no illusions about the Devs "sitting on their asses"; I know things are quite the opposite. But at the end of the day, how hard you try only gets you so far. We appreciate your efforts and the difficulties of life, but it's desired results for which we are paying.
[EDIT] Player proposes, Dev disposes... but that's no reason for players to stop proposing, Genka, or for Devs to get hot under the collar because they forgot that no matter the form, it's a mere proposal.
Lecter said: At the end of the day, GSW, we're not primarily your friends, family or loved ones. We're your subscribers, and we're paying you for one (or more in many cases, myself included) VO account each month because it provides both potential and present entertainment. I don't hold stock in GSW or VO, I pay to play it.
Funny, I always see the players as being the ones that have trouble with this concept.
Edit: (to respond to lecters edit)
Like I said. A concept the players have a lot of trouble with.
Funny, I always see the players as being the ones that have trouble with this concept.
Edit: (to respond to lecters edit)
Like I said. A concept the players have a lot of trouble with.
Lecter, I don't mind the loud complaining noises, or telling people what's going on. But eventually, my ability to respond hits a point of diminishing returns. A point where I've said all I can say, am doing everything I can do, and it's up to the individual consumer to determine whether what I'm saying and doing is enough for them.
Difficult times are always frustrating. On the one hand, it's frustrating to have any project that's very personally important get continually delayed by annoying Murphy's Law-isms. It can also be frustrating to want to make people see that we're doing everything we can, but seemingly be unable to get that point across. It's tough to watch people give up on you, on the shared dream that both of you hope for, and prospectively walk away.
If I viewed this more from a purely business standpoint, I'm sure I'd have a much easier time of it. I wouldn't take things personally, like you said. And yet, there is little MORE personal to me than this project, my dream, and what I have put into it. I genuinely care what our userbase thinks.. and if I didn't, we probably wouldn't be here. Maybe you, Lecter, are paying for what you get right now, but a lot of other people (as previously mentioned on here).. are paying for what they hope this game WILL be. That is practically a unique sitation in game development or business in general. And it's one I take very much to heart, and it's because of this that I do take it personally when people think we're out of touch with what the game needs, or generally being idiotic. Because we are doing the best that we can with the resources and situations we have available, but that doesn't always live up to expectation. And when that happens, there's little I can do other than say what can be said, and then let people make their choices.
Difficult times are always frustrating. On the one hand, it's frustrating to have any project that's very personally important get continually delayed by annoying Murphy's Law-isms. It can also be frustrating to want to make people see that we're doing everything we can, but seemingly be unable to get that point across. It's tough to watch people give up on you, on the shared dream that both of you hope for, and prospectively walk away.
If I viewed this more from a purely business standpoint, I'm sure I'd have a much easier time of it. I wouldn't take things personally, like you said. And yet, there is little MORE personal to me than this project, my dream, and what I have put into it. I genuinely care what our userbase thinks.. and if I didn't, we probably wouldn't be here. Maybe you, Lecter, are paying for what you get right now, but a lot of other people (as previously mentioned on here).. are paying for what they hope this game WILL be. That is practically a unique sitation in game development or business in general. And it's one I take very much to heart, and it's because of this that I do take it personally when people think we're out of touch with what the game needs, or generally being idiotic. Because we are doing the best that we can with the resources and situations we have available, but that doesn't always live up to expectation. And when that happens, there's little I can do other than say what can be said, and then let people make their choices.
Another hilarious subtlety in life is how the angry tend to double as the loudest. They have a nasty habit of assuming they speak the player-base, like Lecter here, and this illusion is called "Self-righteousness". Personally, my interests into this game are primarily due to the efforts and difficulties in life that the Devs pour in. It's my sincerest hope that the makers take a genuine personal interest in their creation, not only for the quality of content, but also in fear that one day when the VO universe becomes all it's meant to be, it'll end up in the hands of Sony Online Entertainment, and four happy men will walk off all the richer leaving the player base screwed. Anyone who's played Star Wars Galaxies knows what SOE does to their games. Even Lecter should be able see why it's important that our Devs take things personally, not from a purely business standpoint.
So, here's a quick list of some new changes I thought improved the game:
- stranded npc convoys creating a commotion around stations and wormholes (... making the universe seem like a much more bustling and alive place to be! Not to mention some tasty profits to be had, yeeeargh!)
- annoying pirate bots that made sedina/odia/bractus desolate, forgotten places on our universe map (... and that make the actual nations no longer a series of such forboding ghost stations.)
- new hive/leviathan that take[s] boring, repetitive hours [of] shooting, reloading, [and] repai[ring] to kill. (I enjoy a fair hour PvE grinding here and there.)
- new station interface (which I can't *wait* to see modified with new options, now that it's set up to easily include whatever the Devs think for it.)
- new guns [like the] hive gat/positron, [and] lawgun (because these make excellent player given rewards from veterans to new players who can equip them anywhere.)
- new trade widgets (that further add variety to the content in VO.)
- [The] TPG raptor and new npc piloted capships (provide an interesting and unique challenges.)
- new engine sounds for heavy ships (finally give traveling in space that more "real" feeling)
- new hive/escort/liberation/liquidation missions (are endless fun, especially when in groups!)
- ship repair costs (make my Itani Border Guardian feel that much more valuable and posh, as I strut around the Sedina race courses.)
- storm sector radar visibility (gets really interesting when in Deneb C-10. Those are the times when Border Patrol was the absolute funnest.)
Maybe one day we'll see the HAC, Incarnate clash with the Momeranth Mk XLII in Deneb, because everyone knows that the best game developers play their own games.
So, here's a quick list of some new changes I thought improved the game:
- stranded npc convoys creating a commotion around stations and wormholes (... making the universe seem like a much more bustling and alive place to be! Not to mention some tasty profits to be had, yeeeargh!)
- annoying pirate bots that made sedina/odia/bractus desolate, forgotten places on our universe map (... and that make the actual nations no longer a series of such forboding ghost stations.)
- new hive/leviathan that take[s] boring, repetitive hours [of] shooting, reloading, [and] repai[ring] to kill. (I enjoy a fair hour PvE grinding here and there.)
- new station interface (which I can't *wait* to see modified with new options, now that it's set up to easily include whatever the Devs think for it.)
- new guns [like the] hive gat/positron, [and] lawgun (because these make excellent player given rewards from veterans to new players who can equip them anywhere.)
- new trade widgets (that further add variety to the content in VO.)
- [The] TPG raptor and new npc piloted capships (provide an interesting and unique challenges.)
- new engine sounds for heavy ships (finally give traveling in space that more "real" feeling)
- new hive/escort/liberation/liquidation missions (are endless fun, especially when in groups!)
- ship repair costs (make my Itani Border Guardian feel that much more valuable and posh, as I strut around the Sedina race courses.)
- storm sector radar visibility (gets really interesting when in Deneb C-10. Those are the times when Border Patrol was the absolute funnest.)
Maybe one day we'll see the HAC, Incarnate clash with the Momeranth Mk XLII in Deneb, because everyone knows that the best game developers play their own games.
Sorry if you found yourself offended by my post Incarnate.
That was not my intention.
As Leber said, I posted this because I CARE. Recent VO developments made me concerned and I voiced my concerns in order to find out what is actually going on. Sure, I picked up bits and pieces from your replies to other posts but I still had my doubts about GUILD SW priorities.
After your lenghty and somewhat angry post i consider all of my questions/doubts answered and I will therefore refrain from posting even a single word on VO boards for the next 3 months.
P.S.
It makes me sad that ill have to stop pvping because I am European using 4Mbit DSL and part with my beloved 17' Powerbook thats too crappy for playing VO.
That was not my intention.
As Leber said, I posted this because I CARE. Recent VO developments made me concerned and I voiced my concerns in order to find out what is actually going on. Sure, I picked up bits and pieces from your replies to other posts but I still had my doubts about GUILD SW priorities.
After your lenghty and somewhat angry post i consider all of my questions/doubts answered and I will therefore refrain from posting even a single word on VO boards for the next 3 months.
P.S.
It makes me sad that ill have to stop pvping because I am European using 4Mbit DSL and part with my beloved 17' Powerbook thats too crappy for playing VO.
bojan: I'm glad I answered your questions, and my frustration was not really directed at you. Buttons had been pushed by others over the weekend, and I didn't mean to take anything out on you, personally. I apologize for that. Don't stop posting on the boards because of me.
If the game is slow on a 17" powerbook, that's unfortunate.. you might try using the different Visual Quality settings (up at the top of the Video menu, try using the 32 or 16MB settings). I know you said you've tried this to no avail.. it's a bit odd though. Also, try enabling texture compression, and don't run at too high of a resolution (and *only* run the game full screen, do not run in a window). Basically anything involving asteroids being slow is strictly client-side (on your computer). Things that do not move around in space (including rotating asteroids) do not send any network traffic. So stations, cargo and dense asteroid fields being slow.. that's strictly on your machine. Apple was not exactly on-the-ball with driver optimization during your generation of computer, unfortunately. If you aren't running a recent version OS X, upgrading that might also help (certain versions had major improvements, but often only for specific video chipsets).
As for high-ping gameplay, the only cases where it gets really bad should be Border Skirmish type gameplay (lots of ships, lots of laser shots and things). There isn't much we can do there. Outside of that, though, we do continue to try to improve things. The convoys being slow at jump-in may well be a graphical (computer) slowness again.. all those effects at once. But there are a few things we have planned to make convoys use less overall bandwidth, and hopefully we'll get a chance to implement them, once this deliverator->erlang thing is finished.
If the game is slow on a 17" powerbook, that's unfortunate.. you might try using the different Visual Quality settings (up at the top of the Video menu, try using the 32 or 16MB settings). I know you said you've tried this to no avail.. it's a bit odd though. Also, try enabling texture compression, and don't run at too high of a resolution (and *only* run the game full screen, do not run in a window). Basically anything involving asteroids being slow is strictly client-side (on your computer). Things that do not move around in space (including rotating asteroids) do not send any network traffic. So stations, cargo and dense asteroid fields being slow.. that's strictly on your machine. Apple was not exactly on-the-ball with driver optimization during your generation of computer, unfortunately. If you aren't running a recent version OS X, upgrading that might also help (certain versions had major improvements, but often only for specific video chipsets).
As for high-ping gameplay, the only cases where it gets really bad should be Border Skirmish type gameplay (lots of ships, lots of laser shots and things). There isn't much we can do there. Outside of that, though, we do continue to try to improve things. The convoys being slow at jump-in may well be a graphical (computer) slowness again.. all those effects at once. But there are a few things we have planned to make convoys use less overall bandwidth, and hopefully we'll get a chance to implement them, once this deliverator->erlang thing is finished.
Thanks Incarnate. :)
I've been playing this game for 2 years... paying my $10 and receiving in return a good deal of entertainment. I'm not sure how you all value money, but the game as it stands is worth 10 measly dollars a month easily. If/when it improves... great. If it folds tomorrow, I got my money's worth every month. And as long as I keep getting even a few hours of enjoyment a month out of this it'll be worth that $10... I just spent $12 at Taco Bell this evening for 15 minutes of (dubious) enjoyment and 6 hours of difficult digestion! :)
I at least am content to wait. I've done a certain amount of programming myself and I can easily understand how you could "let deliverator get so broken." Breaking things is a natural part of development, every time you add functionality to a project there is not just a chance but a strong likelihood of breaking existing functionality. There are ALWAYS unforeseen consequences to every modification. I can also understand how difficult, frustrating and incredibly time consuming it can be to get every thing working again. Which you generally have to do before you can even begin to consider adding any more functionality... especially with a deployed product. So, do what you need to do, and try not to let player frustration get to you... they don't (for the most part) have any clue what's really involved in this process. Unfortunately, they ARE your customers so somehow you do have to keep them mollified (and most importantly subscribing)... so you can't just ignore them.
It's a tough job you all (and you especially Incarnate) have chosen... I hope you can keep at it though. I do rather enjoy this game.
Thanks for building this small and imperfect, yet enjoyable, universe for us to play in.
EDIT: Damn, you have a 17 FOOT Powerbook, Splash? And I bet Apple still called it a laptop. ;)
I at least am content to wait. I've done a certain amount of programming myself and I can easily understand how you could "let deliverator get so broken." Breaking things is a natural part of development, every time you add functionality to a project there is not just a chance but a strong likelihood of breaking existing functionality. There are ALWAYS unforeseen consequences to every modification. I can also understand how difficult, frustrating and incredibly time consuming it can be to get every thing working again. Which you generally have to do before you can even begin to consider adding any more functionality... especially with a deployed product. So, do what you need to do, and try not to let player frustration get to you... they don't (for the most part) have any clue what's really involved in this process. Unfortunately, they ARE your customers so somehow you do have to keep them mollified (and most importantly subscribing)... so you can't just ignore them.
It's a tough job you all (and you especially Incarnate) have chosen... I hope you can keep at it though. I do rather enjoy this game.
Thanks for building this small and imperfect, yet enjoyable, universe for us to play in.
EDIT: Damn, you have a 17 FOOT Powerbook, Splash? And I bet Apple still called it a laptop. ;)
Sure Bibi, chill out. :)
Group Hug!