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Release 5 Impressions & Release 6 Revised

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Apr 29, 2014.

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  1. Montaigne

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    You have addressed all my concerns in a very thoughtful post and any doubts I had, have now been alleviated! Thank you :)
     
  2. Lord Regis

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    I disagree with you, I like the look of the map, it has a rustic feel too it. I just hope they fine tune the map too at least match the hex with a the scenery, ex, no mountains in the the delta area.
     
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  3. mike11

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    Although I know nothing about making games and game production schedules, from my point of view I'll say I can't disagree more.

    I really don't think your team should be considering polish at this early stage of development, there is a large base of members here who think your goals should be to continue building those core systems and game framework foundations to support things like multi-player functionality, so that those important features don't feel like a after-thought later on.

    great work
     
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  4. mike11

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    What do you have to say about the fact that there is pretty much a resounding preference for the older style graphical over-world map?
     
  5. Eriador

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    I had U9 original, and I could not play it because of bugs. XD But actually you can do it, with the patches. :)
     
  6. Sagewise

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    The teams dedication and hard work show in many levels. This is great news and can only make for a better quality and finish. Keep up the great work.
     
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  7. Floors

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    I stopped reading at this point.

    A hint : don't ever do this.

    You never want to undermine your own argument or standing like that.

    Let's let the professionals do their job, and we'll stick to forum arguments. What we're good at, eh ?
     
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  8. UnseenDragon

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    I think actually taking a release to refine the existing content/functionality is a fine idea. While we all know there is a slew of capabilities still to add, everything so far has, at least for me, a 'getting there' feel. Having some of it more polished/refined so the tests can evaluate the iterative process I think would help.
    Of course we'd like to see more (combat is a biggie) but continuing to expand horizontally in functionality after having done so for 5 releases isn't necessarily the best idea.

    Just a thought. And I agree, great work! :)
     
  9. G Din

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    Obviously, the game will be released later than expected. I proposed such and idea on April 3rd in another thread. Instead of dragging out the release date, I believe it would be best if you would set a time frame for a delayed release.

    3 Months, 6 Months, 1 year? Better to be honest right away then to upset people on a monthly basis. You don't want to hit Nov then Dec etc and have to explain each month why the game was delayed.

    Given time is money, what is the latest date you could release the game? Do you have the funding/financials to postpone the game 3, 6, or 12 months later?

    If you can keep the entire dev team funded for 6 months past October, then lets be upfront now and say we could release the game as late as April 2015.

    Postponing launch means you need more time which will require more money and resources. How much time can you guys afford to work past October?
     
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  10. Floors

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    Well, while i understand where you're coming from, since I do software development for a living I will tell you it's not that easy to timeframe projects. Especially big complex ones like this. They tend to slip.

    Good project managers tend to get a feel for their team's speed and build padding time in so they can be "on time".

    However, sometimes the **** hits the fan, and Starr is totally right when he says "They remember how you launch"

    The media attention alone on a botched launch could sink your whole project. Cause that's the medias job, to fan a firestorm for ratings.

    So, as fans, I suggest that we forget about demanding arbitrary dates and just see how we feel when we get to the end of the year.
     
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  11. High Baron O`Sullivan

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    is everything.
    I don't think a single person actually thought this game would be released on time. No surprise there, glad to hear it.
     
  12. Eriador

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    I can wait but... I want the release tomorrow! :p
     
  13. G Din

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    You read it wrong. I don't give a damn if the game takes 2 more years to develop properly, but if you have to have this discussion every month, then its gonna start pink sparkly bunnies.

    Considering the funding available, can we delay this game between 3-6 months ? That is all i'm asking. It would be ludicrous to believe Starr could give me an exact date. I think a ballpark time for delay would be better than going month to month.
     
  14. High Baron O`Sullivan

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    is everything.
    Personally, 3 months is understandable. 6 months is pushing it. Another year? Man you gunna have some pitchforks son.
     
  15. Ravenclaw [BEAR]

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    If it's done right.. I'm not even going to care how long it took. Looking forward to a great game and some monthly testing in between.
     
  16. Turguin

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    I'm in the software business. What you're proposing is reckless for a few reasons:

    1) you're just pushing a big pile of work to later in the cycle. What's best in many cases is to keep the quality bar high the entire life of the product (think of it like making sure that you could ship at any time) because that way the delta between being done with features and being able to ship is minimal. Pushing a mountain of bugs along is poor development & quality management and also makes it very difficult to know you might ship. ("Ok, we finished all the features, now let's figure out how to fix these 1000 bugs waiting for us.")
    2) It underestimates the work required to 'polish' the game. Some necessary polish requires deep architectural changes to achieve. The original post lists several changes which are just that kind of thing (the relief/detail shaders and lighting changes). If you just push polish bugs out to the end, they'll say "Woah, bummer, but no way at the end we're going to rearchitect the lighting engine - we've tested the whole product one way and that's how we'll ship." It's much better to pay attention to those details now, while you're mid-development.

    For these reasons alone, I strongly welcome the notion of taking the time to bring the quality up to par, even at the expense of pushing other features and/or the shipping date out. It will mean a better game in the long run.
     
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  17. Dermott

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    As a game gets more complex with more system, the more bugs will obviously need to be worked out, so it makes sense in my view to work on a "polish release" at various points. That always seemed to be one of the issues with UO over the course of 16 years... more and more content, more and more systems were added in without ever finishing what was already started. Virtues in UO STILL remain unfinished (not to mention there's no real rhyme or reason between the system in place), THREE client upgrades released before they were truly finished, two of which were then later ignored before being scrapped in favor of the current upgraded client which again languishes in a "not-quite-complete" state.

    So it will be nice to see R6 not so "gung-ho" on pushing out systems and content and instead being a polish, fix, and tweak update.

    Of course I will still be doing my best to find just exactly where I will be able to jump off the Edge of the World™.

    Edit to add: I see people mentioning having the release date slip a bit. That's fine by me, but if it comes down to it, I wonder if there is a plan to allow for a SotA episode 0 (being a persistent, fleshed out Lost Vale) while the rest is being finished up...
     
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  18. UnseenDragon

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    It's a careful balance. You are assuming they have a firm idea and enough data to predict their 'real' finish date. If you give another firm date and miss it, that's really bad. But you are correct that if every 2 releases has a 'we need to push it back more' that's aslo not good.

    But honestly, we see it each release, we all have a good feel for it's velocity and completion. As O'Sullivan said, no one was surprised it's not coming in October.
     
  19. Dermott

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    Via Lord British ingame during Release 5 (via screenshot including text box, DLMB disclaimer note as well):

    "To us, 'launch' means 3 things 1) No char wipes planned, 2) No need to buy outside the game, 3) Playthrough of the story is done. Otherwise, we just keep letting the game get bigger and deeper forever"

    And I think the difference between Target Release Date as a goal and Target Release Date as a hard point is more apparent given last week's (literal) unearthing of a game that was made with the "hard point" Target Release Date.

    Just being able to get into program and mess around with the spaces provided has been something big for me to look forward to each month in order to test to find bugs and ideas to maybe help make it even better, and to see how each Release progresses from previous ones. While "it's not for everyone", for me it has been a lot of fun. I think there are some people expecting it to instantly be where UO is in terms of skills and systems to play with right out of the gate, in which case we're trying to compare ~16 years vs ~16 months... not quite a good comparison really.
     
  20. PeteWi The Disoriented

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    I've done QA work for 15 years and no product ever ships on time. October was a "projected" ship date from the start and I would be much happier to see more features worked out, fixed and polished and the date slip a few months, than try to meet an arbitrary deadline and release a game that no one is happy playing. Besides October is the start of the holiday season and the last thing you want to do is scramble to fix bugs when everyone wants to spend time with their families. If we make an October deadline that's great, if we don't I'm not going to be upset. We're all working to make the product better and that takes time. I think April feels a bit more realistic.

    And let's not forget, this isn't the first game these guys have put together. They know what they can do and what it means to release the right product at the right time. Take your take and let's release that right product.
     
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