How likely is it that a new estimate will be any better when we know they are really really bad at giving accurate estimates?
PC V2.0 Storms Brewing Dev Diary
- Thread starter Crater Creator
- Start date
How likely is it that a new estimate will be any better when we know they are really really bad at giving accurate estimates?
HammerDano
Banned Users
sorry, but, what a silly defence for not even trying.
State what you intend...amend it as necessary...give explanations. simple. development is a living process...so is informing people.
have you guys not noticed how surprised, and informed people have felt ON HERE, by the posts shared from other sites? like Joel explaining why they stripped some things out...that stuff matters and it should be on THEIR OWN ■■■■ SITE.
Jost Amman
Hunter
I agree on this part, even if it doesn't make me go mad.
Riamus
Hunter
When have they NOT acknowledged that? They've said it a number of times. You just want them to give you dates, which they aren't doing. That isn't the same as not acknowledging that they are behind. In the end, almost all your posts come down to the exact same thing... being upset that they aren't following the dates they posted. No matter how many times you disagree about it, what we all expect from you if they did give you revised dates is more complaints about how they aren't hitting their new dates either. I doubt many here have any interest in hearing you complaining about new dates in addition to the original dates. I am very happy they aren't giving dates and I wish they hadn't given dates to begin with so we wouldn't have to listen to this every day.
You continue to go on and on about lack of communication, yet we are continually updated with information about what they are working on. Sure, some of that doesn't happen on the forum, but their various social media pages are just as official as this forum. I don't look at any of those, so I only find out what was posted there when someone quotes it here, but you don't see me complaining about it. It always reaches this forum and it isn't going to change anything if it is posted by TFP directly or by someone else. The news and information will still be the same thing. Besides, when it comes down to it, a forum is not a normal place to post news. Social media is the normal place, or at least just on the main website. You reach far more people that way than on a forum post that quickly disappears by a lot of random stuff (like this). I won't disagree that they could improve communication, but it isn't really any worse than most dev studios.
If you don't want to play the game until it's finished, then wait for 4.0 and don't bother checking here constantly for news. 4.0 is a long ways off. Check back in a year and see where we are. Check back in two and we might be ready for 4.0 soon. You'll save yourself a lot of anger and stress - both of which you clearly have. Why keep being upset when you can do something else while you wait? A lot of us do that. I have a few hundred games on various platforms that I can play while waiting if I don't want to keep playing this. Even if you don't have many other options, I'm sure you have some.
If you instead want to keep complaining about them being behind, go for it. That's your right. Just don't expect anyone to feel sorry for you, or for very many to agree with you.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
Dropping by the forums late or on a weekend does not take much time. No one tells me to, I just happen to be on my computer, probably going to play a game and like checking in. I also read a variety of messages on Discord from coworkers wanting to share something. Work from home is very different from the old days of having to go in and be in work mode as I can do 5 minutes of work and be done. No travel needed. Pop in or out as often as I feel like other than my wife getting on me if I work too much on a weekend if not doing something important.Hi @faatal , I see you're working on a Saturday... remember you can still call 1-800-911911 to report employer abuse!
On a more serious note: are you guys given a lot of freedom on your work schedule/hours? Just curious.
We have narrow core hours around noon where we schedule big meetings, otherwise people do what makes sense for their time zone or sometimes for other's time zone.
Oh, and that was about 1:30 am Friday night, which was still part of my Friday. I am a late night person and get up late most days.
Post automatically merged:
I guess. Not something on my radar currently.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
It is a property, but it does not work like that. You could put Smell on items, but it persists with the item, not you. It would fade out if you get rid of the items. SmellUse requires using the item.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
Based on my 34 years of getting paid to make games, at about a dozen different companies, 50% of the time when someone gives an estimate it is just plain wrong. The longer the task, the more wrong it tends to be and often massively wrong. The other 50% of the time they may be close or not too far off, but still can be off quite a bit. When wrong it is almost always underestimating. I have worked with guys who I learned to just x3 however long they said anything will take, which is my rule these days for even my own tasks.
Game development is full of unknowns. How do you estimate time of an unknown? By finding something close and trying to remember how long that took. Good luck, as most tasks were not done in a linear fashion but mixed up with other tasks.
Smells is like noise, but different, but wait the new smells is copying parts of noise, so does it even matter how long noise took you if you could even figure that out as we are not starting from square one. Months ago I told people, hey I could make it like noise and have it working in a day or so. That only gets your foot in the door, so really several days, then others wanting this change or that and hours of talking about it and more changes and has probably been a week of work so far of just my time, with Allan also roped in for hours of xml changes and testing.
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.
And now my 5 minute drive by estimate is way off, but my wife is sleeping, so don't tell.
Riamus
Hunter
Thank you for writing that out for people. Even with my FAR more limited development work, I know how difficult it is to hit a specific date on something if you are giving the date closer to the beginning of development rather than the end of development. There are just so many things that can need to be changed or go wrong or whatever that you can't know about in advance. You can estimate a far longer time period, like that x3 you mentioned, but then you are not building the hype and people think you're taking too long. Of course, if you choose a shorter time period, you're likely to miss it, potentially by a LOT, and then people are also upset about it taking too long. There's no way to win when giving dates. But you're also right that not giving dates also hurts hype. People did get frustrated at hearing "it's done when it's done," but the overall tone from them was less angry than now when we have the missed dates, it seems.
I feel that focusing on the upcoming features rather than dates can build enough hype without dealing with missed dates, but I also have far less experience in professional software development (over 30 years non-professional, though) and so I can't really say what is best.
Khurune
Refugee
As someone who also works from home. I can relate. They'll be lots of times I'll quickly sort something out or follow up on a few things when I'm off the clock. Doing the odd 5minute job here and there can save up a lot of time for the following day in my opinion which means I can focus on bigger things throughout my shift.
TFP actually gave out information about features they were planning to do a long time ago, and they also were giving out dates from time to time (though I think I came to the forum after that and only saw a few discussions that it was stopped not too long ago). They seem to have stopped both practices after noticing that they did not work out really. When they dropped info about planned features too many of them were later dropped for various reasons, but many players were disappointed after that. And dates invariably were wrong.
They are doing this out of a position of experience, you are theorizing without any experience in software development. Just saying.
It is, long lost information that I have read a long time ago and that you would have to search for, but it is buried under similar topics. TFP explained why the stripped those things out already, but obviously they can't explain the same things again and again for every new guy, a forum isn't a good place for something like that.
HammerDano
Banned Users
You got one part wrong and it effects the overall. I have not been asking for hard dates of any kind. The road map markers are the content...so tell us in general terms how it is going, and roughly how long it should take...do it in bite size chunks so it is easier to predict...but, do something different. Amend your guesses by what you can see, keep us in the loop. SIMPLE.
You want hype? Try actually talking to us...across all of the socials. LIKE A BUSINESS.
I already agreed to not ask about 3.0 Bandits until Q4 2026...THAT IS A YEAR...where do you think they will be with this? still working on 3.0?
I would like it if it was 4.0, but, I have no reason to believe it will be true.
I want to play a complete 2.0 THIS YEAR...so sue me. I've already played the mess...not my cup of tea. The schedule I bought into had NO ROOM for imagineering...it was buttoning up the game. You touched on this...the idea that the dates influenced HYPE. THAT IS WHERE THE ACKNOWLEGDEMENT ENDS. No following THAT line of thought out to where I am...questioning WHY they are so far off their dates and not bothering to answer for it. Why does it not look like they slapped those dates on JUST TO GET IT ON CONSOLE...in such a ■■■■ty state for console players? Stop with the nonsense about they were listening to the people vocal about wanting it back on console. I do not believe they bowed to that pressure. The fake town hall is a different animal...people tanked the ratings and that was affecting their bottom line. Money seems to be the motivating factor in their decision making.
So here's a fair warning: The majority of answers I see on socials, when someone asks if this game is worth buying is, " wait a couple more years until it is done or they give up"
I honestly think that would change...IF they did start giving people a reason to believe in them.
HammerDano
Banned Users
To me their official site should be the last word on any topic. Just to clear up any confusion caused by TFP not being consistent in posting across all of their socials...which they don't.
imo...this site should be the source from which all posts to socials should be generated from.
Jost Amman
Hunter
I've found the solution for all these communication issues with TFP:
HammerDano will be the new...
Thanks @Laz Man, I did let twitch run on Fubar's channel that night just in case, but I didn't understand what I had to do to claim it.
I will say I'm not a fan of twitch drops being the only way to get these goodies, a lot of people don't like (or have time) to watch streams (on Twitch only on top of that), they just play the game.
I think it would be nicer to just give it to the people playing the game in that time frame for instance.
At the same time, I don't really care that much to be honest, but if this remains the only way to get these freebies, this might become slightly annoying.
Something that stood out right away was the message "Subscribe to earn drops". Subscribe on twitch means a paid subscription. Others have pointed this out too. While I was able to get drops watching a streamer I am neither a subscriber or even a follower of, others have said that they received no progress on the drops while watching any streams.
Laz Man
Fun Pimps Staff
I have asked if any of the promotional cosmetics will be available as DLC at a later time. Will cross my fingers.
As far as having trouble getting the drops, here is a helpful link.
Twitch Help Portal
help.twitch.tv
Adam the Waster
Hunter
It still didn't work ■■■■ you xboxI have asked if any of the promotional cosmetics will be available as DLC at a later time. Will cross my fingers.
As far as having trouble getting the drops, here is a helpful link.
Twitch Help Portal
Riamus
Hunter
They seem to post most news on Twitter (I refuse to call it X
). If you're watching there, you'll likely get almost all of the information without needing to look anywhere else. Forums, whether here or on Steam or on Reddit, are not a good place to post news. It gets lost too quickly. They do so on occasion, but it won't reach as many people or remain as visible as if it's on their social media pages.I hate to break it to you, but the chances of that are very low. I also agree with Roland that 2.0 is complete. Only 2.x is not complete. You can bemoan that all you want, but 2.0 is done and gone. But if you want the final version of the 2.x series before 3.0 comes out, then the odds are not in your favor for seeing it by the end of the year. We're already into October. They'll have 2.5 experimental at some point, and faatal has already stated that some things for 2.5 still have a lot of work left on them, so that is probably not going to happen until close to the end of October. Add a couple of weeks or so for experimental and then stable maybe mid November. I would be very surprised if there isn't a 2.6 and that will not come out immediately after 2.5 stable, so it'll likely be into December and then a couple of weeks for that, and then there are the holidays, so it'll likely be at least January before 2.6 is stable. And there is no guarantee we won't see a 2.7 if it's needed.
You seem to be unwilling to accept that development takes time and isn't something that lends itself to exact dates. You say you don't want exact dates, but estimates are what they gave us before and you're treating those as exact dates. If they say 3.0 around Q6 2026 (I'm thinking later, but we'll see), then people like you will treat that as an exact date and will get upset if they miss it. You've already stated you don't accept "subject to change" as a reason to think that an estimated date isn't set in stone, so why would you accept any other estimate wouldn't also be set in stone? Faatal has just explained why dates are often wrong.
BFT2020
Hunter
In my work, adding additional things beyond the project scope / plan is call project creep and can delay the project being completed on time. Adding things after the project is completed is called continuous improvement. Attempting to or completing items from the next stage of the project during the current stage is called pulling forward.
- Project - V2.0
- Pulling forward - Attempt to launch cross-play during v1.x
- Continuous improvement - V2.1 to V2.x