Commando Archive
Thread: Well it has been 4 months..
Novock wrote:
garvin wrote:
Besides all that...TH NEVER said that the Docs would be posted...he said he would try and get some or most of the information out when he could...It's the Correspondents who, after the CU, lead folks to believe the Docs would be posted publically...At the Summit we were told "When you get back home, we'll post the Docs"...Many of us thought that meant publically....turned out that it meant "post them in the Correspondent Development forum for further review"...We had an inkling about the Sandbox, but nothing about Beta or that it was there that people would get the Docs...
Huh?
Th 7/16/04
Right out of the gate, I’ll be working with the community to develop plans for the Combat Balance and post them on the site; we’ll do a few features and I will continue to post updates.
Where ANYWHERE in TH's post does he say things he hasn't done? He has worked with the community (via the Correspondents...it's our jobs to act as a funnel both to the Devs and then back to our communities) to develop plans for the CB...he has made posts that gave a CU general overview...he has also invited each Correspondent to pick 5 testers to participate in special forums with more posted information...Since the start of all this he has posted overviews, a HAM overview changes, status updates, reports regarding delays, etc...
No where in there do I see TH say "I'll post the CB/CR/CU Docs...TH doesn't even say anything about posting the docs that the Programmers developed...he only says he'll post information on what is being discussed (and he did post a General Overview post that was about the things we have discussed)...It also doesn't say "Friday Features"...its says "features"...the posts he has made ARE features...
Around that time TH was TOLD to focus on JTL (after he made that post)...all of SOE was told to focus on JTL...
There are CU Friday Features coming...But if you read my hints (which I thought were more then obvious) you'll know what the hold up is that is preventing them from being posted...
Message Edited by aeuralis on 12-14-2004 05:42 PM
Message Edited by garvin on 12-14-2004 04:14 PM
Message Edited by Novock on 12-14-2004 06:29 PM
aeuralis wrote:
But since nothing is infinite but space and human stupidity( I am not sure about the first), mine is wearing thin.
Message Edited by aeuralis on 12-14-2004 03:37 PM
Two things are infinite; the universe and human stupidity, but I'm not so sure about the universe. -Albert Einstein (may be a word or so off, but thats all out of memory of something I read a few years back).
Other Einstein quotes:
When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity. –Albert Einstein (I love this one)
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. –Albert Einstein
aeuralis wrote:
Since TH posted this
"I"m excited to say the Keldarin has lead a strike team for the combat balance and come up with some very exciting stuff. I'm working on putting it all into a single article and make it next week's Friday Feature "
And i must say that I now understand TH's defination of "SOON". To him, what has been 4 months for us, has been less then 10 days.
So in TH's world, the CU/R/B is only about a month a way, ie SOON.
Its funny you made this post...I was thinking about this very statement by TH just yesterday...
Maybe he thinks in terms of dog years when time is concerned....
Dark Apprentice?
garvin wrote:
Kalano wrote:
So, what your saying Garvin is that.......Its all Skeptics fault for holding back the CURB. Lets beat him up.
Actually YES...it's all Skeptics fault...blame him...
(laughs in an evil tone as the secret comes out why he really brought Skeptic in as a Sandbox tester...the fallguy)...
YES...it's all Skeptics doing...get him boys...
j/k
Actually...We are all equally to blame and obviously it's not a bad thing...some of the proposed changes brought up by the various sandbox testers have included new weapons, incorporating a bit of non-combat things into the CU that would benefit combat professions, re-examining certain roles and tweaking them slightly, special and weapon cert placement, etc...I can already tell you that some professions recently received new weapon certs that they wouldn't have gotten if not for the recent Sandbox delay.
I'll restate that I don't think the big issue is when the CU will go live...it's obvious, especially by this post, that the the bigger issue is lack of communication...Something that I bring up just about every day over in the Correspondent forum and often in the CU forums...
I read an interesting quote today in Star Wars book I'm reading (1000 points goes to the person who can name the book):
Kip: But there is so much more to learn.
Jedi Master Luke: Yes and patience is one of those things.
The ability to do a thing is not all there is.
You must know the thing.
You must understand how it fits with everything else you know.
You must possess it for it to be truely yours.
Possessing something doesn't just mean that you have it in your hands...it's also means "grasping" it in your mind...I think that's the idea the Devs are working off here with their communication plan...They want you all to "understand how it fits with everything else". They want to make sure that the info comes out in a way that you see how it "fits" with everything else...that's why the docs can't really be posted publically seperate of each other...for the most part, you have to have them altogether to understand how it all "fits together"...and having an environment where you can ask questions, get answers and read the responses of those who are already familiar with the docs helps big time too.
TatterSalad wrote:
I was just browsing by the Commando thread in search of my next profession after the CU, because I know that my current profession is going to get destroyed (Rifleman) and I seen this thread.
I can't really say much on Riflemanbecause of the NDA and because Waste93 is really the expert, but to be honest, from what I've seen, there are some really cool new features (one especially) coming to Rifleman that may make me finally take that plunge with Commando.
I must say I agree with several posters here. Why is to hard to ask for a reasonable time table of when the CU is going to atleast going to live testing? I don't know about anyone else that has posted recently but at my job, every project has milestones that have to be meet and with those milestones is a time table, and within that time table are dates that, that part of the project are to be compelted by. Now I know in every project that milestones are sometimes not meet by the date that was planed. However, the fact still remains that DATE'S are set and the milestones in MOST cases are completed within a very short time after the original completion date. So that being said why is so hard for SOE to give is an actual date range. Not longer than "this," but shorter than "this." It is completely unreasonable to assume that the project managers at SOE are allowing the team to have a flexible completion date of this project of more than 1 months time.
It's different when you are working in a software business. I've had that pleasure and I know what working with programmers is like. Some projects are a nightmare to estimate a narrow timeline on. You can try, but if bugs and other issues come up that take you away from your current project, delays are inevitable...combine that with the higher ups constantly "adding" to the project and you have more delays. So the programmers try to give a firm date of completion, the Customer Service person on the Forums reports that timeline out, bugs and additions delay the timeline and guess what happens next? SOE get's the holy heck flamed out of them...
When your company doesn't meet a date, do your customers come pounding on your doors and start bad mouthing you on various electronic outlets? If they did, and it happened a lot (since that's basically happens often to Software/Game companies), do you think your company would continue to publically release their timelines? They might, but they'd be likely to publish a wider scope timeline to try and be safe...
Look how often TH get's flamed. People don't realize that he is just given dates that he passes on to us, but when things get delayed, he get's targetted specifically for the blame? SOE got tired of getting flamed over delays...it's not good for the overall mood in the forums and not good for their business, so they may the decission to stop posting timelines. The only way that is going to change is if people STOP flaming them regarding how long things are taking and try and look beyond the fact that a "delay has happened" to actually focus on "why did the delay happen"...in most cases, delays are actually because (1) There was some huge bugs/issues that pulled the programmers away from their projects (2) SOE decided to give into adding something new to the project (3) Something that may have been overlooked could present an imbalanced spoiling certain efforts and therefore must be added to the project (4) A Programmer underestimated just how long it would take to program something (for this one, remember that SOE is trying somethings within the CU that ARE NOT currently in the game...think "new effects"), etc...
Delays happen...Flaming SOE over missing dates only makes them NOT want to post dates...and to be honest I can't blame them for that...A Minority of trolls have ruined it for the rest of us who cared less about things being delayed and tried more to focus on the causes of the delay.
The key is to stop focusing so much on "timelines" and focus more on communications...If you knew WHAT they were working on, it wouldn't be hard to figure out the timeline on your own as well as find it more understandable when and why delays happen.
The problem we face is that we can't DEMAND they post the communications...demanding it or telling them we deserve to see them doesn't do anything to convince SOE that we won't repeat things that have happened in the past. The best way we can get those Communications is to prove to SOE we will take them in with open minds AND that we understand EVERYTHING is subject to change. To get what we want, we have to CONVINCE them things have changed. If I got bit everytime I tried to pet a dog, I'd stop petting that dog...doesn't matter if it goes to obedience school or the owner tells me it's changed, that dog has to prove to me that I won't get bit if I pet it again. How long would you keep trying to pet that dog who keeps biting you whenever you try? How long would it take you to learn your lesson?
On a side note, someone that I used to play SWG with told me the other day that since the release of WoW and I believe EQ2 (Not sure about this one) that SWG has experience a customer loss of about 46%. Has anyone else heard of this?
Haven't heard that...As far as I've heard, SOE still has one of the fasted new player growth rates of any MMO game (of course the newer games may have changed that because, well, they are new, but when they settled down, it'll be interesting to compare growth rates).
PS...look who EQ2 is made by (SOE)...so any loss that SWG has to EQ2 isn't really a "loss" to the company...Other then that, look at Blizzards track record on Games, Customer Service, and Bugs...WoW looks very cool, but I've heard it has it's own HUGE issues and many people are already leaving...