Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Alfador]

...a better task to give to a few low level employees...

Scamps totally sucks at typing.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE is about the limit of his abilities, yes.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Hey, that's still better than some most of the forum trolls. 

[Zironic]

Scamps just needs to raise his skills and attributes.

[zchris13]

Scamps just needs to raise his skills and attributes.

IT'S TIME TO START GRINDING.
In all seriousness, this update is going to be really awesome.

[sonerohi]

Too bad not a single one of us will be able to handle. I know it'll take me near a month to accrue enough funds to power up my computer to skynet level so I can handle all the epic new features.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'm actually having a computer build special just for the update.

[Footkerchief]

I hope you aren't actually ordering parts yet.  Four months is time enough for substantial price drops, and that's the optimistic estimate.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Nope, not yet. I still have about 700$ to raise for the effort, so I figure by the time I've done that, there's a good chance the update will be released.

[sonerohi]

I'm hoping to make a rig that could run Crysis at 4x the max settings, since I heard that u liek mudkips Crysis is some sort of worthiness test for a computer.

[Aqizzar]

Cardinal sin time.  Forgive me oh lords, for my chest need unburdening.

So four months is the new nebulous everyone-nods-in-agreement time frame?  The last update was September 6, 2008.  If this last stretch of squads, sites, and finalization takes more that three months and a week, that would make an entire year between releases.

This development arc includes descriptive paragraphs, a vastly improved material and body system and damage thereof, an overhauled and expanded stat and skill system, a restructuring of squads and governance, an industrial scale healthcare system, and a slew of new map features.  Each of those bullet points is awesome, but none of them are directly dependent on each others' implementation.  Each could have been released in turn.

Now, I'm not threatening to stop playing or anything.  I'm not going anywhere, and as soon I pay some bills I'll be donating again.  But I'm a die-hard fan.  An entire year between 'updates' is getting silly, because a lot of people are just going to stop paying attention or caring.  I say again, screw save compatibility or whatever the need for bundling so much work into distinct releases, and let us play with it.

[Footkerchief]

I say again, screw save compatibility or whatever the need for bundling so much work into distinct releases, and let us play with it.

For context, here's the need as most recently stated:

I'm seeing items get colourful, and I'm wondering: are we going to see a release with half the items done, or is that idea right out?  It seems like the body construction issues are probably separable from the squads and etc, so we can playtest those while the squads code gets written.

I suppose this might have the disadvantage of two save format breaks in quick succession.

It sounds like it's out.  Although I'm not sure why breaking save compat is such a big deal -- I'd be totally okay with compat breaks every 3 months or whatever.  Having releases every 3 months would more than make up for it.

The main thing here is that I've been on the "Army Arc" for a couple years without much to show for it, so I made a rare promise early on here (maybe just to myself, I don't remember) to include the squad rewrites and military positions with this release, rather than a future release, and I'm going to stick with that.

[...]

Also, for save compat, I know many of you don't care, but I still like to break it the fewest times possible.  If I'm ultimately encouraging people to "play the world" or to play many games in the same world, it's important for me not to get in a pattern of tossing saves each time I update.

I'm more or less with you on this, though.  The Army Arc will be cool and all, but if it takes a year-long heave like this to get it rolling, I personally would be just as happy to see it shelved for now.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Aqizzar: I'm with you in not caring about losing saved games, but the game as it is is still very playable. Update or no, I don't really see a whole lot of people abandoning ship. Infact, the large range of items being updated seems to have attracted more attention, rather than less, and generated some good discussions.

There's something to be said for anticipation, and Toady's been very good about discussing the updates, and including us as much as is possible.

If it were the release of a new game--ie an unknown quantity--then yes, continuously pushing back a release hurts a game, but in this case, it's not new, and it's not delay after delay. It helps a lot that we can see the items as they're worked on/completed, and it helps that we know it'll be out by December 31st, at the very latest.

I'm content to wait, ofcourse. Even if it came out yesterday, I still couldn't play it for a while, but I haven't noticed too many instances of public outrage over the time it's taking, either.

Trying to get it out any faster than it needs to be seems to me to be risking lower quality and even more bugs than we already anticipate. So I don't see pushing for a quicker release to necessarily be very profitable, to be honest.

Everybody wants to open our presents right now, which is very understandable, but I say we wait for Christmas to come when Santa's good and ready, rather than spoil the surprises.

[Neonivek]

I say we wait for Christmas to come when Santa's good and ready

Ohh my goodness.

SANTA DOESN'T MAKE CHRISTMAS!

Possibly the worst instance of this I ever seen was "The Year without a Santa Claus" where he apperantly had the authority to cancel Christmas. Worst yet is it is set in the same continuity as Jesus, The Drummer Boy, and lets not forget that Rudolf got his powers from an angel.

Alright you can go back to the normal discussion.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Santa does too make Christmas...

[Mel_Vixen]

Everytime when, anywhere on the world, words like "I dont believe in Santa" get used one of his Elve/kobold/"midget in green suit"-helpers dies. This is why the toy-industries developed TV and every other form of mass media - to kick santa out of the chrismas buisness. Nike is now producing in Kambodsha because the slaves err workers on the northpole die to quickly. Go team (hot ) easterbunny! Go for the heathen-traditions!

Ok bad jokes aside i could life with the fact that some stuff in the update isnt completed or included. I could also life with 2 or 3 versions in row where safe-comp. is noit given. But i also respect toadys wish to do it as one thing so i am not going to press anything. A d12 version meanwhilöe woulöd be nice thought if it isnt to much work.