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[Truean]

[Edited for length--Heaps praise on Toady but does not waste space]

Can we do a well defined moderate release schedule?

In .40d we went well over a whole year without releases, it was too slow.
Now, we have 3 update/bugfixes in less than a week; it is too fast and unstable (and Toady warned us).

I think the answer is a schedule of one major update every 4 months with one or two bugfixes the week or so after that release (to fine tune stuff).

This would ease demands on the Toad, and in return all we'd ask is that he make an accurate time and progress estimate. Things would be more stable.

FUNDING ISSUES
The unquestioned reason Toady is on his current release schedule is that we are donating more this way. To address this, I think we should follow rainseeker's lead and do sponsorship drives. The animal drive was a huge success. Toady got the money he needs and we got game features (animals) we want. (I chipped in a bit for bees). 

Is this viable? Are there any flaws or objections?

[Levi]

Although I don't mind the current random release schedule, I would enjoy some more sponsorship drives.  Maybe it should wait until the previous animals are all entered though.

[Lav]

I think recent release schedule has nothing to do with donating and everything to do with several critical bugs found one after another. :-)

[Truean]

I think recent release schedule has nothing to do with donating and everything to do with several critical bugs found one after another. :-)

Nope, it's cause of money: From Toady himself:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=56115.0

"Well, that was awesome.  Just on April 1st itself, $3466.76 came in from 83 different people.  It has been a crazy hectic month in a great way, and I'm happy that so many people are still supporting the game even after such a long delay.  I'll try my best for more frequent releases from here on out."

Toady made $16K that month.... Yeah. Check the monthly donation logs before then; he wasn't getting jack.

Although I don't mind the current random release schedule, I would enjoy some more sponsorship drives.  Maybe it should wait until the previous animals are all entered though.

Point taken. The old stuff needs to be gotten done first. I don't think it's so much of a hassle for him to actually add in new animals. I think its a major hassle to add new industries around those animals. The reason freaking BEES won is honey and wax.... Industries and skills take longer to add.

[sockless]

There should be a nightly build that auto-compiles every night. I know that it takes ages to do optimisation, but that doesn't need to be done, since it's a nightly, not a release.
We should then have bugfix releases whenever there are enough bugs, then we should have feature releases whenever all the features on the release schedule are done for that release.

[NW_Kohaku]

I doubt a nightly build would give you much - Toady is the only person working on the code, so it would only be updated at times Toady himself is actually adding code.  Yes, that's often, but it's not all the time, even Toady takes a day off now and again.  Then he does things like make ascii art for the donations or answer questions or stop to moderate the forums every now and again, and it's not like those are bad things, either.

Further, I doubt he actually just sticks every piece of code straight in the game.  He has to work on functions individually, and probably creates very obvious bugs that crash the game or that do very obviously wrong things that Toady doesn't need to release to see have problems.  The only things that would have immediate results are the bugfixes... and those are the things that he DOES release immediately, already.

In fact, this sudden update-haha-no-just-kidding-I'm-updating-it-again-whoops-too-late-update-it-some-more schedule is just making me nervous about trying to start up a serious fort I've been itching to start on the latest stable release, because I've not even made positively sure I like the site, and am reaching for the latest version of Legends Viewer to really scope out the world I'm going to build my fort on before SURPRISE! Your version is out of date again!

[sockless]

Isn't that what the save game conversion tool is for?

[bombcar]

Nothing forces you to upgrade to the latest version the moment it comes out. I'm still on .24 because I like my fort and the fixes in .25 don't really apply.

[Kogut]

Now, we have 3 update/bugfixes in less than a week; it is too fast and unstable (and Toady warned us).

Nobody forces you to use new version - and .25 fixed for me bug causing worldgen crash (every-single-time for games with FD mod).

[Untelligent]

Now, we have 3 update/bugfixes in less than a week; it is too fast and unstable (and Toady warned us).

I'm confused what the problem with this is. The reasons we had a handful of bugfixes in a row was because they were quickfixes that intended to fix a nasty bug that popped up in the last one (and were slightly rushed because of said nasty bug, which is why other nasty bugs were able to arise). I'm also confused by what you mean by "unstable," because 31.25 should have fewer bugs than any version since 40d.



Also the reason there was such a long wait between 40d and 31.01 was because Toady 1) realized a feature or two he wanted to put in would break save compatability, and 2) decided to do everything else that would break save compatibility so it wouldn't happen as often. Since all those things are in the game now we're not going to see a wait as long as that for a long, long time (if ever; Toady has already stated that was way too long and isn't going to do that again if he can avoid it).

[Draco18s]

Nothing forces you to upgrade to the latest version the moment it comes out. I'm still on .24 because I like my fort and the fixes in .25 don't really apply.

So in other words, the current release schedule is too fast as it is already.

[bp1986]

I think the Toady should just do whatever makes him happy. A non-stressed programmer is a good programmer. And programming when you don't want to (or not programming when you do want to) is no fun at all.

However, I do love the crazy amount of progress that DF has made lately, I just hope that the Toad isn't getting burnt out. 

[Patchy]

I'd say let the man update on his schedule. If he wants to spit a new update out everyday, awesome. If he wants to cut it back to once a week or less then let him.

[Truean]

I think the Toady should just do whatever makes him happy. A non-stressed programmer is a good programmer. And programming when you don't want to (or not programming when you do want to) is no fun at all.

However, I do love the crazy amount of progress that DF has made lately, I just hope that the Toad isn't getting burnt out. 

I think 2 or 3 releases a year would be easier and more predictable for Toady to deal with. Let's say 2 a year and maybe some tweaking/bugfixes immediately after release. Do people not think this would be easier for him? Cause I'm pretty sure it would be.

[FallingWhale]

If he doesn't release often we can't find things he missed.

This is alpha, it needs updates nonstop.