Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Great Expectations, Major Schedule Changes and making SWG the finest MMORPG ever
Pie
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:56 pm
#183
unpfeqwuibsda,ewjzykudxdbnaskiusdyzx,jh,3o838293986ewew78yd
The above was produced by banging my head against the keyboard. Essentially, I have been doing this for 7 months waiting for the combat balance. I refuse to continue doing it.
P.S
Oh, and way to go back and delete my first post even though it had no profanity nor did it break any other conduct rule on the board. Censorship rules.
MarcoRenaldi
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:56 pm
#184
A note to TH:
Look on the brightside, not mayn games can determine the exact monent a game dies. Thanks to the forums we know a exact time.
hoenix
Raikan
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:56 pm
#185
Anr realtwited proves a good point, so many people aregonna be packing up soon we will need to all go to the same server
Engjo
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:56 pm
#186
DEV's plz try to clean up the game before you bring in more stuff...
Dident you mom's teach youto clean your room before you could go out and play?
Betatoxin
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:57 pm
#187
A couple things.
First some posters are suggesting SOE hire more people. Unfortunately getting benefits adding developers to a software team is not immediate. Software development is actually one of those few things were throwing money and staff around actually can slow a project down. I have seen it happen first hand. Fairly amusing watching business folk run up against a problem money cannot fix...but I digress...One of the fundamental principles about software projects is that adding more people actually extends the time it takes to finish a project (Reference: The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 20th Anniversary Edition by Frederick P. Brooks).
Software development is not digging ditches where you give the new workers shovels and they are working at max efficiency in a couple of hours. Software development is just too complex. It can take 2 to 3 months for a new team member to get up to speed on the current code base and project, even if they are experienced in online game development and tools.
So does adding developers ever help? Of course it does. Unfortunately for the players today the time for adding new developers and designers was 6 or 8 months ago for stuff to be completed 2004. On a sytem as complex as SWG it would take at least that much time to get up to speed and developing with the efficiency of the senior devs and designers. The good news is that I got the distinct impression that this in fact did happen and there were team size increases in that time frame. That fresh team of developers has only just started to hit their stride.
So it is almost certainly too late to add anyone in 2004 that would speed things up for 2004. Of course if SOE is smart they are always adding and improving their team, but the user visible gain from any team changes today will not be felt for months.
No adding more developers at this point would slow things down for 2004, not speed them up. A hiring freeze would probably have more short term gain, at the expense of the long term.
The second thing is that SOE may be being overly optimistic.
They seem to be assuming that when JTL goes live that they can pull their A team off of JTL dev and back onto the core ground game. I am perhaps a little skeptical about this. History shows that online games require a constant amount of effort, and a live JTL will still demand a lot of man hours post launch. Now SOE may be anticipating this and is right now training the live team for JTL so that the A team (the senior developers) can actually leave the JTL project sometime early of November. However that means that in a perfect world where it all goes well and JTL launches fairly well the focus at SOE is not going to be really on the ground game until december, and will likely not get into full gear until Q1 2005.
So summer 2005 is probably accurate to finish the final revisions on the ground game, assuming that nothing else gets added before then and the JTL publish is relatively smooth and according to plan.
On the positive side it looks like the live ground team is getting up to speed and we are seeing some more aggressiveness from them (BH changes). For one we are seeing these mini-publishes. I think this is a great change and should keep the game moving forward. So what I am hoping is that the players will see not a sudden sprint in Q1 to Q2 2005 but rather a nice even acceleration of positive changes starting now and speeding through the next 9-12 months.
The game is definitely not out of the woods though and I doubt the players will be satisfied with the compromises that have been made to their game in order to get JTL out the door.
First some posters are suggesting SOE hire more people. Unfortunately getting benefits adding developers to a software team is not immediate. Software development is actually one of those few things were throwing money and staff around actually can slow a project down. I have seen it happen first hand. Fairly amusing watching business folk run up against a problem money cannot fix...but I digress...One of the fundamental principles about software projects is that adding more people actually extends the time it takes to finish a project (Reference: The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 20th Anniversary Edition by Frederick P. Brooks).
Software development is not digging ditches where you give the new workers shovels and they are working at max efficiency in a couple of hours. Software development is just too complex. It can take 2 to 3 months for a new team member to get up to speed on the current code base and project, even if they are experienced in online game development and tools.
So does adding developers ever help? Of course it does. Unfortunately for the players today the time for adding new developers and designers was 6 or 8 months ago for stuff to be completed 2004. On a sytem as complex as SWG it would take at least that much time to get up to speed and developing with the efficiency of the senior devs and designers. The good news is that I got the distinct impression that this in fact did happen and there were team size increases in that time frame. That fresh team of developers has only just started to hit their stride.
So it is almost certainly too late to add anyone in 2004 that would speed things up for 2004. Of course if SOE is smart they are always adding and improving their team, but the user visible gain from any team changes today will not be felt for months.
No adding more developers at this point would slow things down for 2004, not speed them up. A hiring freeze would probably have more short term gain, at the expense of the long term.
The second thing is that SOE may be being overly optimistic.
They seem to be assuming that when JTL goes live that they can pull their A team off of JTL dev and back onto the core ground game. I am perhaps a little skeptical about this. History shows that online games require a constant amount of effort, and a live JTL will still demand a lot of man hours post launch. Now SOE may be anticipating this and is right now training the live team for JTL so that the A team (the senior developers) can actually leave the JTL project sometime early of November. However that means that in a perfect world where it all goes well and JTL launches fairly well the focus at SOE is not going to be really on the ground game until december, and will likely not get into full gear until Q1 2005.
So summer 2005 is probably accurate to finish the final revisions on the ground game, assuming that nothing else gets added before then and the JTL publish is relatively smooth and according to plan.
On the positive side it looks like the live ground team is getting up to speed and we are seeing some more aggressiveness from them (BH changes). For one we are seeing these mini-publishes. I think this is a great change and should keep the game moving forward. So what I am hoping is that the players will see not a sudden sprint in Q1 to Q2 2005 but rather a nice even acceleration of positive changes starting now and speeding through the next 9-12 months.
The game is definitely not out of the woods though and I doubt the players will be satisfied with the compromises that have been made to their game in order to get JTL out the door.
Rubicon48BC
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:57 pm
#188
MarcoRenaldi wrote:
A note to TH:
Look on the brightside, not mayn games can determine the exact monent a game dies. Thanks to the forums we know a exact time.
Too true
Serenius
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:57 pm
#189
How does it feel to condemn your company's coffers to losing at least half of its subscription base to Blizzard?
Your smoke and mirrors have lost their power, Magician Thunderclout.
Fix the existing game, then worry about JTL and Jedi.
Here's what the majority of your subscribers think of your "Great Expectations" ----> .|.. ..|.
WookieInLaw
Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:59 pm
#190
TH, I'm probably one of the few people left on your side, buddy. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now, but hey, at least I'm still standing beside you.
As someone who really loves this game, though (and will probably be here when they pull the plug on Starsider), let me try to calmly convey what upsets me about this, and one way it could be fixed:
Check around a little, if you haven't already, and see just how upset most people are about Jedi at this point. You know, I could be a Jedi right now if I wanted to. I could have done the grind. But I looked at the state of Jedi in the game and said, "This has nothing to do with actually being a Jedi: it's nothing but bad @sses with lightsabers." I'm sorry, but Lightsaber does not equal Jedi.
Now we're seeing more and more of these so-called "Jedi," and most of us who give a damn about Star Wars are absolutely sickened by it. First off, there is absolutely nothing in this game to encourage the so-called "Jedi" to actually act like such. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Lightsaber-wavers in this game are encouraged to be anything BUT Jedi. I've seen more Lightsabers in this game than in all of the movies combined, but I have yet to meet one person worthy of the title "Jedi." If these "warriors with glowy sticks" as I call them were in hiding, or what have you, that might be a bit better, but they're not: they're waving their glowy sticks in Coronet like nobody's business because they know they're invulnerable.
So here's what might be a better solution: forget your plans for Publish 10. Make that wait until after JTL. Now, granted, lots of people will whine, "Oh, but when do I get MY Jedi?" And they'll whine loudly, yes sir indeedy-do. DoI think the backlash will be as bad as what you have on your hands, though? Probably not. So let's put the "Jedi" on hold, and give us our PvP back again. If you've got time to sprinkle in some of the GCW changes on top of that, all the better.
But right now you've got two half-finished systems: "Jedi," and PvP. I know people want the GCW revamp, and I'm one of them, but let's face facts: the biggest thing holding back the war right now is the borked PvP system. So if you fix that, the war will pep back up on its own to a degree.
You guys are at a crossroads right now, facing two systems that need fixing, and I think what most people are trying to say (yet going about it too harshly, in my opinion) is that you picked the wrong system to fix first. The last thing in the Galaxy we need right now is more uber dudes with glowy sticks. So cut the line. Say that's it; no more Jedi until we get it ironed out. First, we need to get the majority of the player base happy.
No matter what, TH, something has to get delayed right now. That's reality -- that's "Ka," if you will. To complain that something is going to have to get delayed right now is to complain that you can't walk through a brick wall. We can accept that. But please, at least consider delaying the rest of the "Jedi" fixes. At least consider putting that on hold and getting PvP balanced, if it's at all possible.
/deep bow
dezi
Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:01 pm
#192
TH, can you give me one **edit**in reason why i would by an expansion for a game that doesnt work? To expand the broken **edit**?
Please, tell me your logic, id love to hear it. You got your promotion, now take the responsiblity that goes with it. Please explain to us why we would want to buy something else from a company that sold us a faulty product?
Here's another big prediction, TH will be gone when JTL comes out. You can only shovel **edit** for so long. Q gave it up, so will TH.
Genrader
Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:02 pm
#193
I would just like to state one thing. The devs don't have any priorities.
They give use useless content that we can complete in 5 minutes that they spend 30 hours working on, hoping it will tide us over.
I have defended the devs until the past month or so, and even then I have tried to look positive. All I can say now is screw it. My account: CANCELLED.
They give use useless content that we can complete in 5 minutes that they spend 30 hours working on, hoping it will tide us over.
I have defended the devs until the past month or so, and even then I have tried to look positive. All I can say now is screw it. My account: CANCELLED.
Miztah
Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:02 pm
#194
Serenius wrote:
How does it feel to condemn your company's coffers to losing at least half of its subscription base to Blizzard?
Your smoke and mirrors have lost their power, Magician Thunderclout.
Fix the existing game, then worry about JTL and Jedi.
Here's what the majority of your subscribers think of your "Great Expectations" ----> .|.. ..|.
Ehehe, you're posts always stick out from the crowd. Maybe its you're suave way of putting things.
Then again, It could be those red hearts that are noticable from across the room 
RozhlokLightningskull
Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:02 pm
#195
D'oh! See you in 3 days. Devs don't like that variety ASCII art trust me... I know. Lousy weapon switch delay... getting me in trouble.
Serenius wrote:
How does it feel to condemn your company's coffers to losing at least half of its subscription base to Blizzard?
Your smoke and mirrors have lost their power, Magician Thunderclout.
Fix the existing game, then worry about JTL and Jedi.
Here's what the majority of your subscribers think of your "Great Expectations" ----> *edit*