Four Years (or, Why free passes re: development have to stop)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Canterbury, Mar 11, 2017.

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  1. Brass Knuckles

    Brass Knuckles Avatar

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    I dont care about a fast or slow release but the game needs to be good, and its got a ways to go till I can call it good.

    There are some deep issues, but ill wait them out!
     
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  2. Deliverence

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    No idea as mentioned I'm just an arm chair developer, but based on what Portalarium estimated during KS it should take 2 years to develop and 2 million raised combined with the millions that Richard himself has invested. Maybe Port can give you a better answer.

    "Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue is the first of a 5 game series of full-length, stand-alone games (each using the same game system), referred to as Episodes 1 through 5. Estimated availability of Episode 1, Forsaken Virtues, is October 2014, with Episodes 2 through 5 estimated for subsequent yearly releases."

    "Richard has already invested several million dollars in the game and will almost certainly invest more before we ship. We would have to have a record setting campaign to match what Richard already invested in the company. But there is no reason to suggest that we can't also raise money from the community we are making the game for to get them involved too. 100% of the money raised in the Kickstarter will go to make a better game and the community involvement is a huge bonus for US."

    I believe someone did keep a spreed sheet at one point, not sure if it's still around or not.
     
  3. Black Tortoise

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    OK so I am gonna make the assumption that the OP has never lead, managed, or been a heavy contributor to any large technology project ever. Im gonna make the assumption that the OP is your average end user, pretty unaware of how technology projects unfold.

    This is directed at no one in particular, but to everyone that complains redundantly and then tries to pretend theyre doing something more than complaining:

    How many large scale technology projects do you know of that made budget, and delivered on time? Or even close to on time? Do you know that huge companies like Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Apple, etc, have massive departments of hundreds of people just devoted to trying to figure out why the heck technology projects pretty much never make budget or deliver on time? Do you know how many freaking books are out there, since the 1960s, written by some of the most brilliant minds in the technology industry, trying to assess and assist with this problem of large scale technology projects rarely delivering on time? Have you ever read Joel Spolsky rant about the blunders of Microsoft's project management? Have you ever heard pretty much anyone who knew Steve Jobs describe him as a fairytale demigod of project management? Have you read Fowler's books on Xtreme Programming? How about the Agile Manifesto? Do you know why Agile even came about in the first place?

    By the way, what is the point of this thread? Seriously, its like "no pressure, but hurry the **** up, but seriously no pressure, but Im ******* ****** that this is taking so long, but, like, no pressure!" It sounds like middle management of some uber corporate Manhattan tech startup. Trying to shake your hand with one hand and smack you with the other.

    Ive worked in tech for ~12 years, and am a single person tech team now. Ive seen it all. Ive worked for the biggest media companies in the world, and Ive worked for startups that ended up selling for a billion dollars years later, startups that fail fast, and everything in between. I also was an unpaid programmer for 5-6 years before that. Ive worked in 3d graphics, 3d printing, media/content, advertising, big data, medical, ecommerce, IoT... and dont get me started on IoT. There is a saying in IoT - you will never ship on time ;). I say this for one reason, Ive never given Portalarium a "free pass," so speak for yourself, and dont speak for me. Ive given them compassion and understanding, and not the gripes of a mindless consumer, complaining to the McDonald's cashier that Burger King has better french fries.

    Sorry this gets a laff - "big and sprawling games" have hundreds of developers sometimes. At least, 100 or so. Armies of interns! 15-30 Artists. 8 people devoted to regression testing and technical spec'ing. 15 programmers writing AI and other game mechanics. 15 programmers writing the code for the graphics and physics. Each team having one or more managers. ~15 people triaging bugs, doing random QA tasks, and managing stories. You know what stories are, right, since youre able to critique this so well? Then there is the marketing team. The biz dev team. The HR team. The producers. The execs. That one or two random persons that no one seems to actually know what they do, but they see them around the water cooler and in teh bathroom a lot. The content team. The writers, some writing characters, some writing quests, some writing larger game lore, etc.

    PLUS - this is an online product, so the "big sprawling games" have also an operations team, a security team, and a website team.

    And Port has what, ~30 people?

    Bravo to RG and team for declaring delivery this year. I think its an ambitious timeframe, but is possibly realistic.

    Everyone else can go take a break and read Mythical Man Month or some other beginners guide to the madness of tech.
     
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  4. Ravicus Domdred

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    I would like to think that the game would have come out much earlier if it was not for the constant wanting of the community. I need this and that and so and so forth. It delayed the game so much. IMO it would have been better to get the game out as promised then do all the stuff the community wants in E2. That would have honored the kickstarter.
     
  5. Black Tortoise

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    You dodge the middle ground. There are plenty of directions this project have taken that I am not fond of. But I know they arent building a product for me, but for lots of people with varying opinions and tastes. Ive spoken my words at the time, the project went in whichever direction it went, and Im still here :). If I diddnt like SotA, Id stop funding it, and do something else with my time and money. I wont sit here and rant and complain, its bad energy for me, and bad energy for others. Cant see the point in that.

    So it sounds to me like you think that just because some people arent complaining, that the believe no mistakes, missteps, and/or misturns have been made. Im here to prove that wrong. I backed original because I thought this was going to be Ultima Online 2. Now I have a slight chuckle at that idea, and get on with life. I still cant wait for the next telethon!
     
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  6. jammaplaya

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    Just to add, I would think that another part of this is that they are trying to build Portalarium as well as SotA.

    And yeah the telethons are great lol. They put on a good show, and seeing them being able to be so merry through all the people harping on them no matter what they do is inspiring.
     
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  7. Black Tortoise

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    Yeah, the community doesnt realize how much the team has bent over backwards to stop what theyre working on, and work on what the community demands. Guess what? The little progress bar for Episode 1 TTL gets reset every time that happens :D.
     
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  8. mass

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    Actually need inflation adjustment due to the timeline.:eek:
     
  9. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    And yet there are those that claim that the Dev Team ignores the community.
    The above being a prime example of the truth of your statement, jammaplaya.
     
  10. Black Tortoise

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    Yah, inspiring is an understatement. Have you (or anyone else reading this) ever read Daring Greatly? Portalarium is a Great Dare. The telethons are a Great Dare. Every postmortem is a Great Dare. Every Release Notes DS puts out is a Great Dare. And my oh my do they pull it off so well.
     
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  11. Ravicus Domdred

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    Well we are here and now and hindsight is 20/20. I do not know if you are happy that they are delaying launch or not. I certainly am in the camp that over time things have changed and always not for the good. I understand that many people are happy for this and that is ok. We are just talking here and expanding on why some people are upset I believe. Its good to hash things out and not belittle people and their feelings or opinions. My opinion is that port overextended themselves and shot themselves in the foot for episode one. They could be rakeing in the money for episode 2 right now and not have the negative connotation of not fulfilling the kickstarter.
     
  12. Gideon Thrax

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    What happens if the Kickstarter for Ep2 doesn't get funded?
     
  13. Ravicus Domdred

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    as pointed out we are in a perpetual episode 1. Maybe there is no episode 2.
     
  14. mass

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    LB calls up Elon Musk?:p
     
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  15. yarnevk

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    If devs wanted to get a free pass from cheerleaders that would sit back and wait for a great game, they could have followed all of the AAA devs listed in this thread, got themselves a publisher and not announce a game until it was ready. Game devs do that all the time, look at Bethesda announcing Fallout4 for example. But instead they decided to do open development with monthly updates, as RG himself said they want critical feedback as long as people can do it without getting foul mouthed and slanderous.

    So we should not be giving them a free pass, because an echo chamber of 'the devs can do no wrong' is exactly what they do not want. Look at the starter camps being added to the game, as stated in the telethon, this unplanned new feature is solely in response to critical feedback obtained from unmoderated forums that the starting game needs much work, is nowhere near ready to release. Rather than dismissing it as foul mouthed axe grinders, they went and verified this feedback by observing game activity that nobody stuck around for the free trial much past the starter town. They are now going to add a much larger starting instance that exposes players to a much wider view of the game, even though this was never part of the release plan until the day before the telethon!

    The problems are something that people have been trying to say on this forum for years, but get attacked and moderated from being able to say it, they should not have had to learn of the problems from sources off the forum. We should not have to wait for the devs to say something is wrong before we can say something is wrong. We should not be told to leave and go play something else if we do not like the game. We should not get accused of being armchair game devs.

    I give them kudos for doing the battlecamps, because I already proposed the idea of fixing the questing/grinding issues by pulling out the questing from housing towns, and put some story into adventure scenes to create merged quest/mob scenes outside of town and not to give a damn what the homeowners think about that change. It is a shame they did not get to hear when I had that idea months ago, but those threads got moderated and closed because some people did not think someone should be criticizing the state of the game before release, even though RG himself has said that is the purpose of doing open development is to get that criticism.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2017
  16. jammaplaya

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    Not very worried about this personally. All they really need to do it put in some regular mounts for a gold sink, and then have the best mounts follow their current kickstarter formula and I think they'll do just fine. Heck, they'll probably do better with mounts than they did with housing lol. That is, if this is anything like a UO freeshard.. which it very much is.

    @Black Tortoise Looks like a great read, ty for sharing.
     
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  17. Gideon Thrax

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    "Do not try and finish Ep1, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no Ep1. Then you will see it is not the Kickstarter that bends, it is only yourself."
    [​IMG]
     
  18. Preachyr

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    Out of curiosity, what would be some good examples of this?
     
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  19. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    The earliest, and one of the most major examples I can think of is the complete scrapping of the original Overland Map and the complete rebuilding of the same. That change, by the way, going directly against the stated preference of Starr Long. That fight was tenaciously led by @Lord_Darkmoon.

    There have also been several major revisions of the combat mechanics to bring more 'skill' into the combat, where the original concept had been more traditional MMO style.

    More recently, the revamp of the mechanics of the "Key Word" system of talking to NPCs was revamped based on Community feedback. This is also leading to a method (a method that isn't a 'bang' over the quest NPC's head) to make the presence of a Quest NPC more obvious to the Avatar engaged in the quest.

    I'm sure I can keep editing this post and adding examples as I think of them... I hadn't been keeping records as I didn't believe there was a need. Is this list sufficient for the time being?

    Ah... some more... The addition of Blood Bay, and making Shardfalls and Ruins only accessible in Multiplayer Online mode for the PvP Faction...

    Most recently, the addition of the New Player scenes, one for each of the starting scenes, to improve the new-player experience. The first of these will appear in Release 40.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2017
  20. Frederick Glasgow

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    No matter what RG will or will not admit to,this game has progressed a great deal,but seems to have been delayed because of backers. Give us this, give us that,this is too much. I see people on here all the time starting threads giving their opinion about how"this wasn't as promised" and I am leaving. Then banter back and forth starts, with people complaining they are right and others saying that Portalarium is doing all they can with the size of the team they have.
    I have been involved in pre-release games,Alpha and Beta testing for 15 + years and probably 75% of the complainers in forums anywhere have zero clue what it takes to develop and get a game ready for release.

    This poster is very correct. How RG and his team have gotten this far with the size of their team is amazing to me. Obviously the team has really good talent,if not they could not be where they are,yes after 4 years. You want to talk about giving them a pass, we ought to be to some extent. It's very easy for myself and probably many others to see they are hard at work. Just because they may not meet everyone's expectations or their original release date does not take away from the fact that they are a dedicated, hard working group. I am sure they want a release as badly as anyone,but if they had released it too early,folks would be on here complaining about that.
    I have done my best to tell the truth,but I hope no one will view it as a personal attack. I am just doing my best to state what I know. Anyone else that has been involved in game development having a differing opinion, I am open to listen.
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2017
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