It is a result of how they and many other developers (probably) work though you only have a chance to notice it in EA development.
They work in parallel on multiple features. All features then get piped to the testers who try to find bugs. Any day new bugs could turn up, some of them negligible, some of them serious. A serious bug would mean the feature who looked like a release candidate could be relegated to work in progress again. Whenever they think they are ready for a new release, they probably have a meeting and decide which features can be included and which are too buggy.
There could be features they are perfectly sure will be in a release, and on the day of that meeting a bug could turn up and it would have to be removed from the release again or the release postponed.
And I suppose that is the reason they are reluctant to state if any of the features are ready or not, or give times. There were cases in the past where they had to drop features again and it wasn't well received by some players. So they are kind of paranoid about it.
I think it is a bit of an overreaction because the current method isn't well received either, but both ways have disadvantages and the decision is theirs how to manage the information.
there's a laundry list of things that are coming soon(tm)...and by soon, i mean that TFP made a blanket statement about this stuff being done by xmas. Which could only mean it will be in the game, or far more likely, would be out in experimental over xmas break.
I don't know how TFP "plan" to release a .x update. But, I have laid this out before: state what you intend, amend if necessary as the release date gets closer. I appreciate that they try to get the bugs out before experimental...but is that not the point of experimental releases? to catch bugs?
I get that they have had a rocky past...I have been hoping that they have learned from it. They have implied that they have learned from it. But, here we are. ( they really should hire a professional communicator to help them )
I'm not asking for perfect, I am asking for them to show they have learned from the mistakes..while still allowing them to write in pencil, so they can use the eraser when needed, because, communication can be a work in progress and change rapidly. There's still 3.0 and 4.0 to go...that's potentially a looooooong time still to go, at this pace...what has changed from the Alpha system? it looks like it will STILL take between a year and a year and a half, per, for 3.0 and 4.0. and I am not allowed to be mad about that? or expect better communication?
should I just write off TFP as a bad investment? as a company I should never do business with? because that is the attitude I get. That I am being unreasonable...not, that they, should be trying to be better on the business/management side of things.
a free to play Battle royal
