No Q3 schedule post. Is there a plan?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by mystarr, Jul 2, 2019.

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  1. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    And honestly I don't care two bits about Episode 2 right now. I'm happy to have 1 polished up to 100% first.
     
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  2. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Agreed. As much as I want the new content, what good is it if it's a buggy mess?
     
  3. Malimn

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    Alas, ever since they have started to have people work from home, it seems they are not as focused as they were in the past. I was hoping for better results but so far this has not happened, it seems they have no focus, things see to happen on a whim and good lord it seems ATOS is the one running the ship which I am not a fan of. I have spent close to 5 figures on this game to help its development based on Richards vision and now he is rarely visible and is not around that much anymore so it makes me feel like the money was NOT well spent.
     
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  4. Pawz

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    I think we can all agree the game needs more taming artifacts...as long as we get those and a better way to heal our pets, everything will be fine :)
     
  5. Steevodeevo

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    We have been somewhat spoiled but things seem to be changing. I read around 20% of the last quarter milestone features were delivered. From my perspective several features I didn't ask for or want or indeed didn't appear to be planned came along instead.

    They have moved to chaos theory for development (everyone go home, work on what tickles your fancy, Starr and Richard are AWAL), fill your boots!.

    So it isn't surprising they have given up on formal project management and published milestones, it would just be embarrassing for Starr (no one else seems to care).

    I say we are spoiled as a great number of games are silent about content in the next release cycle and indeed silent in whether there will be another release cycle, be it a patch, expansion, new module etc..

    Many folks argued that Port should stop shooting themselves in the foot publishing targets they couldn't possibly meet either at all or on time. Many argued they should dispense with monthly content release cycles, which were often buggy as were rushed and untested or underwhelming. If they 'go dark' and hit us with polished and substantial content modules, expansions or whatnot whenever they are ready and in their own time instead I'd be a very happy subscriber.
     
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  6. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I don't need a loaded schedule. Actually, I'd just prefer a single feature that they plan to deliver each release (and turning on and off seasonal content is not a new feature), and if that doesn't get done that month then have an ETA of when it will be. But silence doesn't allow us to get any hype, or have any hope for what we most want to see.

    I'm not holding out hope for anything, now that "agile nomadic" devs are the norm, but at least throw us a bone. When are the new tiers of subscriptions coming? I'm sure they won't include FPO changes (grumble), but the way Chris talked about them it they should be done by now.
     
  7. Boris Mondragon

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    “Looks into crystal ball and throws it against the wall”.

    Q3 : More taming upgrades and only taming artifacts”.

    Q4: After realization that taming can not be made OP any further, EP2 title is revealed “Shroud Of The Tamer”.

    R/Boris/El Pirata
     
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  8. Elwyn

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    Richard's father just passed away. From personal experience I can say this will mess you up for at least six months or so after passing, especially if you are the executor. (Fortunately I've had plenty of savings to live on during this time.) Richard was never involved in day-to-day stuff anyhow, he's more of the concept guy.

    And what does AWAL mean anyhow?
     
  9. Lained

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    Starr was recently on annual vacation. I think Chris being more visible on the daily streams has given the false impression that others are less active.

    Probably thinking of AWOL, military jargon acronym for absent without official leave.
     
  10. Arcanoxer

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    The majority does not watch the streams from Chris.
    The impression that Portalarium has become less productive is probably more of the content downer spiral that has reached its peak in recent months.

    Giving up the Standup Corner contributes to this.
     
  11. Forum Name

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    You didn’t work for six months after someone close passed away? And think that is the norm? Again, condolences on LB’s loss, but the “his dad died three months ago , that’s why he seems more absent” is strange to me. Most people can juggle the loss, settling an estate and get back to work.
     
  12. Feeyo

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    I really was hoping not to make this post but.. I told you so....Said it from the start and will say it again.
    When everyone is working from home, and development has no clear plan, it will all go downwards.

    You can not just work on the fly on anything you choose is interesting as a game development team. Priorities will go the wrong way.
    A good example is the so not planned leader board stats. Yes its cool, but totally unexpected feature, and is getting priorities over a lot more important stuff that was promised.
    I am very scared this project is starting to get slowly abandoned, as the monthly release notes are already getting shorter and shorter and so less interesting.
     
  13. Vladamir Begemot

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    The patch notes are getting longer though. PSA you can read the patch notes by opening the launcher, there's a small "Read Patch Notes" in the upper right area. Not sure if there is another way to find them.

    I like seeing the constant updates. I like seeing the constant work on the New User Experience, probably the single most important part of keeping the company afloat. It wasn't expected, but it's incredibly important.
     
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  14. CICI

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    Don't think we need a monthly release TBH per 3 month (13 weeks) will work :)
     
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  15. Astirian

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    I must admit I really enjoyed reading the quarterly updates. And the monthly releases were fun enough (I've got all the hats yay!) but when they started highlighting seasonal content I kind of zoned out a bit.

    I like Star Citizen's transparent Roadmap approach but they've got a lot of moolah.

    Elite Dangerous is on the other end of the spectrum. You hear nothing. And then they blow everyone's minds with a quarterly or biannual update.

    (Well at least they used to up until they said no news till 2020)
     
  16. Gia2

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    Look where we are now
    We can't see each other
    We can't sense each other pain
    Or hold out hands to touch fingers hold
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2019
  17. kaeshiva

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    Personally, I'm not thrilled with the notion that we've thrown planning out the window and are just going to (presumably) poke at Jira with a stick and see what someone fancies working on from one day to the next.

    But, I can kind of see the flipside -why have a plan if you won't/can't stick to it? The "broken promises" again (particularly with regards to crafting specialization "choose your bonuses" and Port completely reneging on a feature promised on every telethon for over a year and every release update publication for at least as long) are, I think, more damaging to player confidence than not having a plan at all. At least this way, we aren't being blatantly lied to.

    Flexibility is good - it can allow attention to a lot of low-hanging fruit that a formal schedule sometimes misses.
    But are we throwing the plan out the window so we can be more flexible ? Or is dev team now afraid of any sort of commitment about the game's direction?

    I think we have been a bit spoiled here, with regards to how much interaction/communication we get from the devs, compared to other games in this space. In those, you'll likely find out about stuff when the patch notes hit or maybe slightly before if there's a public test server, but you don't often get the level of insight/feeback that we get here. Then again, they did sell us "dev+" access precisely so we could give feedback on dev decisions, though that seems to have largely fallen by the wayside.
     
  18. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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  19. Elwyn

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    I didn't work for two years because my mom had dementia that reached a bad point, where suddenly the person she was living with couldn't handle her anymore, so I did what I could with nobody else to help me. But feel free to be gleeful about such things.

    And you've still ignored the whole point that LB isn't a hands-in-the-code developer in this game, what exactly was he doing that was important that he isn't doing now, and why do you think it's so bad?
     
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  20. Beaumaris

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    Interesting analysis there. Either a project management or resourcing failure to miss so many goals, many of which sounded like minor mechanical things not major content stretches. I'd guess the best course now is for Port to rally the team to deliver just one or two features per month. Get back on a cadence of defined delivery vs. a planned short list around which everyone can see progress, instead of under delivering on a long list that languishes.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2019
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