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Post by hardly on Jul 30, 2014 3:45:53 GMT
As others have pointed out I think peter is being disingenuous when he describes the experimentation and backtracking that 22cans has done as necessary and normal to game development.
I completely understand that you can't design a game on paper, code it in one foul swoop and then declare it fun. I understand that by developing the game, testing it, developing it some more you can identify improvements that you could never think of or understand in the first design. This is what I understand to be iterative development.
The problem I have with the 22cans approach is that they appear based on the information we have to have produced no design document. There is by there own account no document explaining GODUS the game. Instead it appears they had a vision - followers, layered landscape and advancement. Everything beyond that seems to be peters musings that are released to the team who then interpret them, implement them, and test them (internally or via EA). Well I say this is a crap process for developing a game. As danjal said its the equivalent of throwing mid at a wall and seeing what sticks.
Now you can say hardly who are you to criticise the great PM and that's a fair point. I have no game development experience and very little coding experience. Still you don't need to take my word for it being a crap process, look at the development u turns we've seen. I believe these come down to two things. (1) the lack of understanding of what the essence of the game will be. Yes it's about sculpting and guiding but how does that equal fun. (2) the conflicting design requirements of mobile and PC. They've sabotaged themselves for mixing the two games.
Maybe they'll hit gold with the new settlement update but I think the game will continue to struggle. It feels like hubworld is late and that they had hit some major technical challenges with that. It will be interesting to see when that arrives how good it will be.
Question to the CMs. Can you please update on progress of hubworld? Is it weeks or months away? Presumably it arrives on PC before PC sprint commences since hubworld is cross platform concept (but not necessarily cross platform implementation). So I'm guessing maybe 2 months away?
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Post by Danjal on Jul 30, 2014 10:17:53 GMT
I suspect we will not be seeing Hubworld this year - if we will see it at all. (I'm not going to be surprised if it gets scrapped entirely)
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Jul 30, 2014 11:03:12 GMT
Question to the CMs. Can you please update on progress of hubworld? Is it weeks or months away? Presumably it arrives on PC before PC sprint commences since hubworld is cross platform concept (but not necessarily cross platform implementation). So I'm guessing maybe 2 months away? I'm afraid I can't provide a more accurate ETA for Hubworld other than "before the end of this year" right now. We were making good progress before diverting the entirety of our attention to the Settlements revamp, once that's out the door I presume Hubworld will be the next big thing we focus on and it's at that point I'll be able to share details of our timeline for that feature, however we may choose to focus on something else. In my own, personal opinion based on previous experience of other projects (i.e. I'm not talking in an official capacity here), I reckon it's about three months away, although I don't know how that synchs up with the PC-focused sprint. Additionally, we do share our design documentation when we can, for example in this sprint planning doc. I'm hoping to be able to share more of them once the Settlements revamp goes live. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Jul 30, 2014 11:40:16 GMT
What about the settlements revamp, isn't it about time you told as that it has been postponed until the end of August?  |
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Jul 30, 2014 12:02:12 GMT
What about the settlements revamp, isn't it about time you told as that it has been postponed until the end of August? It hasn't (not even slightly), but if it does then I will. |
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Post by banned on Aug 1, 2014 4:08:43 GMT
any change to the PC game shall remain as it has to date, in on the PC once ported from the touch screen mobile P2W PoS.
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Post by banned on Aug 1, 2014 4:16:55 GMT
22cans' Kickstarter clearly states September 2013 as delivery date... Follow now? I think we listed September 2013 as when we'd be releasing the download keys and such. Granted, I wasn't with 22cans during the Kickstarter and was just casually following the campaign as someone interested in the project, so you might know some aspects of the campaign more intimately than I do (though I've definitely tried to get as caught up and familiar with everything as possible). I genuinely wasn't trying to be snarky when I said that I wasn't sure I followed. Because I wasn't.  That said, one of our last videos goes into some details about iterative design and how things, despite our best intentions, can and will change but how this isn't always a bad thing. You may have already seen the video though, but figured I'd link it your way just in case. Cheers! such brilliant revisionism. But no one really cares that it is not on the optimistic time table. I care that it is a pay to win mobile game ported to PC. Not that any at 22cans gives a fuck, they have my money. Sadly in the 21st century misused backers have recourse beyond pointless litigation. Enjoy the just fruits of your labors. "As you'd expect, players kicked off. This wasn't in the Kickstarter, they claimed. No-one told us Godus was pay-to-win, they barked. Then, Guildford developer 22Cans reacted to the uproar and plastered the message, "There is no shop," inside the virtual shop window for everyone who clicks on their gem total in the top right-hand corner of the screen to see." Best of luck with the corp. PoV. |
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Post by 13thGeneral on Aug 1, 2014 14:22:29 GMT
I'd like to reiterate a point I was trying to make in the Steam forum yesterday in the topic A Tentative Release Window for the Settlements Revamp in regards to Monkeythumbz post above; What about the settlements revamp, isn't it about time you told as that it has been postponed until the end of August? It hasn't (not even slightly), but if it does then I will. It was stated in the Steam forums yesterday; My summation of that is that 2-3 weeks from now would be mid to late August. Now, that's not exactly, precisely "end of August" but it's tentatively close. Interpretive perception is everything. As I said before, be very careful in the choice of words when stating ETAs - people will hold you to it like a marshmallow to a campfire; it might get golden toasty, but it's probably going to burn. |
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 1, 2014 15:14:10 GMT
I'm super confident that the update will reach you within the next couple of weeks.
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Post by nerdyvonnerdling on Aug 1, 2014 15:28:52 GMT
Super confident? You were only pretty confident about a mid-July release, so I guess we're moving up the confidence ladder!
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 1, 2014 15:37:02 GMT
I'm super confident that the update will reach you within the next couple of weeks. Lol! That is so nice and vague. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 1, 2014 15:38:32 GMT
Well, as this update is apparently going to be released smack bang in the middle of the timeframe within I'll be migrating to Norhtern Ireland, I doubt I'll have time to check it out any time soon.
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 1, 2014 15:38:47 GMT
Super confident? You were only pretty confident about a mid-July release, so I guess we're moving up the confidence ladder! Exactly! |
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Post by 13thGeneral on Aug 1, 2014 15:44:41 GMT
Super confident? You were only pretty confident about a mid-July release, so I guess we're moving up the confidence ladder! Exactly! Let us know the moment it escalates to "extremely confident".  |
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Post by engarde on Aug 1, 2014 15:45:25 GMT
Nah, when its actually happened. Last two updates we got them before they told us there were there.
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 1, 2014 15:50:50 GMT
Nah, when its actually happened. Last two updates we got them before they told us there were there. What can I say? I'm a slow blogger. |
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Post by banned on Aug 2, 2014 0:52:37 GMT
Give so few actual rendered text items I'm sure its more a matter of the helpum sounds that are the translation pain. I look forward to the English (UK) translation, hopefully that will remove helpum... If they colloquial for UK, then we in Texas demand our version say, "Y'all help 'em" |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 2, 2014 1:36:20 GMT
Give so few actual rendered text items I'm sure its more a matter of the helpum sounds that are the translation pain. I look forward to the English (UK) translation, hopefully that will remove helpum... If they colloquial for UK, then we in Texas demand our version say, "Y'all help 'em" You could offer yourself as a voice actor. |
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Post by Gmr Leon on Aug 2, 2014 2:14:14 GMT
For those that don't frequent the Steam forums as much, here's my TL;DR version of my speculation on the delays: They've had to push back the mobile worldwide release, and as such, the PC revamp will also be delayed into the first/second quarter (Jan-March/April-June) of 2015. The simplest indicator of this is that the settlement revamp exceeded expectations for dev time as they let themselves get dug into hammering in some features into it and as this is only a smaller part of the mobile sprint (if the old roadmap is anything to work with) it means they must consequently extend it. The reason this has allowed George to confidently assert he and Matthew won't find themselves in this situation again may be related to getting themselves settled in and knocking some sense into the rest of the team allowing them to streamline info to them and thus share more freely, or otherwise working their way out of whatever NDA-esque situation they found themselves in. My bet is that they will relapse into their existing pattern, however, as they don't like to talk about details until they're set and that doesn't happen until closer to update releases. |
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Post by banned on Aug 2, 2014 23:29:36 GMT
If they colloquial for UK, then we in Texas demand our version say, "Y'all help 'em" You could offer yourself as a voice actor. I am groot |
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