PC Hey Mooooom.... the Meatloaf..... we want it now!

Poojam

Poojam

Refugee
What are you Fun Pimps even doing in there? No, but really...

Programmers working on "optimization and performance" as of 2 weeks ago (tweet). Art guys are apparently done with A17 and moving on to A18 (tweet).

We know the plan with RWG, fancy new books, etc.

You released a message 3 days after christmas acknowledging the "state of Alpha 17", in other words, is not good.

"We are gathering data on a case by case basis, balancing and addressing the true problem areas most of which so far center around optimizations, stamina, balancing XP for all play styles, land claims, increasing zombie loot drop chance, zombie block damage, skill/perk balance and gating and random world gen improvements."

Seems like with A17.1 and A17.2 experimental you have you made some sort of motion on optimizations, stamina, balancing XP, land claims, but haven't addressed; zombie loot drops, zombie block damage, skill/perk balance, gating, nor random world gen improvements?

What's the plan? Are you going to release A17.2 stable and then work on those things for A17.3/A17.4?

Madmole indicated in another post that A18 is "not far away." Seems like work on those last few items are 2+ months of work for your team. A17.2 experimental has gone through two releases and has been on the street for 3 weeks, which is long for a Exp->Stable .X release. Been over 2 months already since A17 officially dropped. If you spend the next 2 months pushing A17.X updates, you'll have basically nothing except art for A18 to release in the timeframe "not far away" which usually means (3-4 months).

 
A17.2 will be released to stable this week and then they will start on A17.3. Yes.

They have been talking about changes to the zombie loot drops recently but haven't implemented any changes as of yet.

Zombie block damage options have been implemented as of 17.2.

Skill/Perk balance and progression tweaks will be ongoing but nothing radical is going to happen as far as changes.

Random World Gen improvements may make it into some future 17.x or maybe not until 18.0 They reverted the highly unpopular 17.2 to the slightly less unpopular 17.1 for now.

It is very possible that this time around there won't be much of a wait between the last 17.x and 18.0. We'll see what really happens.

If it were me I would trust history...

 
If it were me I would trust history...
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That's why I created this post. The direction seems to be meandering a bit, things they said they would do aren't wholly completed from the December post, and the art man is establishing an expectation for delivery of improved assets that he doesn't touch. This is setting off my project management sniffer, and I hope they get A17.2 stable out and have a progress meeting to be sure everyone is on the same page.

 
I'm sure they'll all email you their profuse thanks for getting them back on track.
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That sort of attitude is precisely why A17 took over a year to happen. Someone has to drive the boat.

 
I'm sure they'll all email you their profuse thanks for getting them back on track.
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I love you. But not when that is directed at me. Then i kind of want to pinch you.

Thank you for the heads up on stable. Its much appreciated.

 
That sort of attitude is precisely why A17 took over a year to happen. Someone has to drive the boat.
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I assure you that MY attitude about inaccurate player speculation over project management had zero to do with the length of A17's development time.

Your problem is that you are sniffing at the docks looking at boats while the actual train is moving along just fine with an Engineer who is paying attention to the planned route.

 
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That sort of attitude is precisely why A17 took over a year to happen. Someone has to drive the boat.
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I gather: Regarding public relations we only have Roland, and since he is not a shareholder he doesn't pull any strings regarding real marketing limits: what to share and not to share. So they share everything with character flaws included, which is so pure and awesome that sometimes feels like the dev team is a bunch of beer brothers achieving a breakthrough in game development.

It doesn't matter to me. They always deliver, and they always deliver late because of awesome features and/or rethinking fabulous awesome features.

Fabulous awesome enlightning sensitive powerful balanced works of art don't take time. They take TIME.

And then there's console and the thorn of console reviews, which did a lot of damage but will be overcomed with fabulous awesome enlightning sensitive powerful balanced meaningful musically sound features and the reliability of a team that always delivers.Unlike some studios out there that one feels like they are driven by money and lawsuits and less by ancient scrolls, magic and dragons.

 
I assure you that MY attitude about inaccurate player speculation over project management had zero to do with the length of A17's development time.
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Don't worry he called us arm chair developers for giving him the sections of code and how to fix it.

They ask for bug reports but hate when you tell them a fix.

 
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You're problem is that you are sniffing...
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(Forgive me) :emptiness:

-Morloc

 
Don't worry he called us arm chair developers for giving him the sections of code and how to fix it.
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Madmole, I take it? That's because you are outside the purview of the project manager not being on any of the project teams in the role of programmer or QA teams not being an internal tester. You literally are an arm chair developer for this game seeing as you exist on the outside of the actual development team much like arm chair quarterbacks exist outside the actual strategy being discussed on the football team. The actual team works with more than xml edits and they have programmers who have the whole code in front of them and they have priorities that they are following and they communicate changes they wish to make to be sure they don't break something for somebody else. They aren't going to copy and paste xml code edits from random internet user into their game editor no matter how wrong or right those edits might be.

They ask for bug reports but hate when you tell them a fix.
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Probably because they asked for the report and not the fix. It's their project and the actual project manager gets testy when fixes and tickets jump the line of the priority he has set.

 
If at least they could make the RWG similar to the one that the first public

experimental's released with it might even be playable. Snow up north,

forest in the middle and desert in the south.

 
Madmole, I take it? That's because you are outside the purview of the project manager not being on any of the project teams in the role of programmer or QA teams not being an internal tester. You literally are an arm chair developer for this game seeing as you exist on the outside of the actual development team much like arm chair quarterbacks exist outside the actual strategy being discussed on the football team. The actual team works with more than xml edits and they have programmers who have the whole code in front of them and they have priorities that they are following and they communicate changes they wish to make to be sure they don't break something for somebody else. They aren't going to copy and paste xml code edits from random internet user into their game editor no matter how wrong or right those edits might be.


Probably because they asked for the report and not the fix. It's their project and the actual project manager gets testy when fixes and tickets jump the line of the priority he has set.
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Sounds like a classic problem of inexperience or micro management. I manage projects for a living, with often times 15-20 people on 4-5 teams and external subs. People taking the initiative to reconcile a problem, and do the leg work to ensure it doesn't goof up others are to be rewarded.....because they are literally working together.

The process you describe is not unique, but establishing a culture like you mention (where staff fear commiting contempt of pm) might help ensure quality of the product, but it is highly detrimental to staff development and turnover. Believe it or not, the people modding the game might actually be knowledgeable and helpful to the development team. Is a shame they are often ignored or treated with such disdain. I feel for the people that have to show up to work and operate in that environment.

 
If at least they could make the RWG similar to the one that the first publicexperimental's released with it might even be playable. Snow up north,

forest in the middle and desert in the south.
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This is one time that I disagree with you. I would rather have RWG be random. I don't want to know that I can choose a direction to get to a specific biome. I want to explore.

 
Madmole, I take it? That's because you are outside the purview of the project manager not being on any of the project teams in the role of programmer or QA teams not being an internal tester. You literally are an arm chair developer for this game seeing as you exist on the outside of the actual development team much like arm chair quarterbacks exist outside the actual strategy being discussed on the football team. The actual team works with more than xml edits and they have programmers who have the whole code in front of them and they have priorities that they are following and they communicate changes they wish to make to be sure they don't break something for somebody else. They aren't going to copy and paste xml code edits from random internet user into their game editor no matter how wrong or right those edits might be.


Probably because they asked for the report and not the fix. It's their project and the actual project manager gets testy when fixes and tickets jump the line of the priority he has set.
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You are right, they wanted the report, not the fix.

Madmole? No, you called us armchair devs. Myself and two of my admins at the time. Not worried about it but it was a fitting moment to recite and you confirmed your feelings of it.

We deobfuscated your asset code and showed where the issue was. We stopped though, no worries. We're not in the loop like you said and so moved on. Some of us are programmers from the various server management mods.

 
Ah. An armchair project manager. Just what we needed....
Cheers
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Hopefully not me. Never sent them a fix and don't plan to. Not my area. Any fixes we DO implement (and we HAVE fixed vanilla issues) will be found in the mod.

Until then I look forward to our one sided debates on 17.3 ;)

 
Sounds like a classic problem of inexperience or micro management. I manage projects for a living, with often times 15-20 people on 4-5 teams and external subs. People taking the initiative to reconcile a problem, and do the leg work to ensure it doesn't goof up others are to be rewarded.....because they are literally working together.
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You are twisting my words here and due to you not being a witness to actual team dynamics you actually have no idea what is happening behind the scenes. Even your example is ridiculous. Are the people on your 4-5 teams not vetted at all or are you staffing them with random people from an internet message board? If so do those random people have access to all the information?

There is great synergy and sharing between the actual employees of TFP. People giving bug reports and posting xml edits are not included.

The process you describe is not unique, but establishing a culture like you mention (where staff fear commiting contempt of pm) might help ensure quality of the product, but it is highly detrimental to staff development and turnover. Believe it or not, the people modding the game might actually be knowledgeable and helpful to the development team. Is a shame they are often ignored or treated with such disdain. I feel for the people that have to show up to work and operate in that environment.
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I never described a system where staff fear committing the contempt of the project manager. Wait a minute....you think everyone who bought early access is....staff?

Sorry no. Ask Gazz about it. He actually made the leap from “not staff” to “staff” so he can explain it to you clearly.

Psssst...you’re “not staff”

 
Hopefully not me. Never sent them a fix and don't plan to. Not my area. Any fixes we DO implement (and we HAVE fixed vanilla issues) will be found in the mod.
Until then I look forward to our one sided debates on 17.3 ;)
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No not you. This armchair jam guy :)

Cheers

 
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