PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary

Joel's primary posting place was originally Facebook. He would drop links here on the forum to his facebook development journal. Eventually, he abandoned Facebook and started posting primarily on this forum. That changed again eventually to posting on X and then again on Reddit which is where he currently likes to post.

All of his posts end up here to be discussed. As for official TFP announcements and updates they have chosen X as the primary outlet but again that gets disseminated to here as well. If you go to their official website all of their official announcements are there going back 10 years and of course when an update is released there is usually a steam announcement as well.
 
A method you could do is say nothing until a release is a few weeks from being really done, then announce you will release it 3 months from now, which should mostly guarantee success, if there were such a thing. I think some companies do that, but it is really hard to be that patient with all the pressure to build hype and get products out the door.

Another method is to have marketing executives who insist on making the date and expect programmers to pull all-nighters in the weeks leading up to that date, force the team to push out the update before it is ready, and then have community management people out there spinning damage control...
 
Another method is to have marketing executives who insist on making the date and expect programmers to pull all-nighters in the weeks leading up to that date, force the team to push out the update before it is ready, and then have community management people out there spinning damage control...
Yep, I did leave out the AAA technique of "can you play it?", cut features, ship it now and fix the bugs after.
 
Yep, I did leave out the AAA technique of "can you play it?", cut features, ship it now and fix the bugs after.
That describes EA perfectly. They've messed up so many games. It's unfortunate considering there have been a lot of games released through them that could have been so much better if the dev studios didn't use EA. To be clear, that' the company "EA" and not short for Early Access.

I definitely prefer things being released late but with everything in a good place rather than early with everything clearly not finished. Honestly, I thought 2.0 was rushed out and would have been better left for at least another few weeks considering how many problems there were with it that needed fixed right away. But overall, I think TFP does a good job of waiting to do releases until things are in a good place.
 
Another method is to have marketing executives who insist on making the date and expect programmers to pull all-nighters in the weeks leading up to that date, force the team to push out the update before it is ready, and then have community management people out there spinning damage control...
You missed my new favorite.

Release an update patch at 2AM, radio silence for at least 48 hours, then you get a lone dev posting on Steam Forum to head to their Discord for the Notes days after they break your save because you're playing Russian Roulette when you load up the update.

Or even better, the always informative "General fixes and improvements to gameplay" that 2K includes in EVERY patch note.
 
Yep, I did leave out the AAA technique of "can you play it?", cut features, ship it now and fix the bugs after.
that accurately describes 2.0 imo...you only left out the part where it was already 6 months late...and that it's probably going to take more than 6 months more to fix and finish it. the roadmap I was SOLD on, implied TFP were finishing up what they had. Am I wrong about that? You guys are still imagineering...which even I know means that deadlines do not matter. So how do they put out a roadmap WITH timings and have an open schedule for experimentation? it does not make sense. unless the roadmap dates were just a "device" to get it on the console platforms.
 
that accurately describes 2.0 imo...you only left out the part where it was already 6 months late...and that it's probably going to take more than 6 months more to fix and finish it. the roadmap I was SOLD on, implied TFP were finishing up what they had. Am I wrong about that? You guys are still imagineering...which even I know means that deadlines do not matter. So how do they put out a roadmap WITH timings and have an open schedule for experimentation? it does not make sense. unless the roadmap dates were just a "device" to get it on the console platforms.

And again 90% of your post is about deadlines, roadmaps, timings. While practically nobody agrees with you that it is important that they miss those deadlines. As you can see from the ■■■■storm on youtube, most players are interested in game details not timings. And yes, you missed the fine print where it said that the dates are no guarantees, we got that as well as that you think the dates should still be somewhat accurate. But look at Cyberpunk 2077, their schedule was completely blown to pieces as well, those things happen.

And there ARE alternative explanations to the roadmap that you simply don't accept because you are dead set on your explanation.
So what sense does it do to discuss this with you? The best outcome is being called that one imagineers.
 
I don't understand so much protest over the timing; the ones most interested in finishing it are them, man. I can understand that you're upset, but I don't think it's necessary to continue down that path. Instead of talking here about how this version is working and drawing conclusions, people talk about delays. You have to live more slowly, man; stress is terrible. That said, I like how 7 DTD is turning out, and I'm sure they'll deliver more than what you're asking for. It's just the opinion of one more person. Sorry if the translation isn't quite right.
 
the roadmap I was SOLD on, implied TFP were finishing up what they had. Am I wrong about that?
Yes. The implication was all in your head. It was your own assumption. In actuality, the roadmap listed major new content updates. I don't know how you worked out the assumption in your mind that some final polish to the exsiting game was all that was planned. Storms, bandits, event manager, and story are not tasks that are just finishing moves. There is some of that listed like Crossplay, UI improvement, and Workshop support but a good portion of the roadmap does not point to polishing and releasing.

that accurately describes 2.0 imo...you only left out the part where it was already 6 months late...and that it's probably going to take more than 6 months more to fix and finish it.

You are also wrong about this viewpoint of 2.0. You want to characterize it as an unfinished buggy mess. On the contrary it ran just fine. Storms, biome progression, the new enemies, everything ran well. It was complete as it was. The reason we are taking an additional 6 months on imagineering is due to community feedback and TFP's willingness to accommodate the complaints. They communicated that their actions would delay 3.0 but that they would make changes based on community feedback. They could have ignored community feedback and gone straight on to 3.0 leaving the game as it was. That's what they did with LBD. They stuck to their own vision despite the complaints and continued on with development. If they had done that again here then we would probably be on 4.2 as the final 4.x which would have just been some minor performance and bug fixes for the original 2.0 features and you would be playing the complete 2.x game right now with badges and being forced to progress through the biomes in order, the yeti and the mummy, storms that simply kill you, and-- no jars, no apiaries, and no smell which were never planned as part of 2.0 in the first place.
 
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