Questions and answers

Great stuff. You'd like some clear questions. Maybe Baal should split this thread down and rename it.

1. I was expecting a finished game last September (8 months ago). When can we expect:

A. Detail of the project timelines showing KPIs?
B. What does the project end look like?
C. What is the projected (revised) project end date?

2. We were given an indication over three weeks ago of an update 'within days''. What's the delay? When is the next update due for release?

It would be nice and may give some credibilty if we we had some actual dates to aim for rather than just a vague promise.

Finally from me, FFS leave the BS, marketing, corporate bollocks somewhere else. Just communicate.

Welcome and Thanks. You do get bonus points for no PR speak, sorry Matthew. That is what I like to see, telling us what what you can and when you can not, saying you can not. But I hope you pardon me as I am sure others around here will , keep my hopes to a minimum till I see more.

1 (a): Godus is a live game with a perpetual development cycle, so timelines are fluid and will be in flux relating to the number of outstanding bugs/glitches following each update, plus features that (a) the team and (b) the community want to see implemented. Therefore a fixed timeline that never gets revised after being shared release isn't really fit for purpose when it comes to this project, but rolling timelines should be deliverable.

NB: Please understand it's my first day in the office after the long weekend (at time of writing) and my last post was just before the weekend break, so I've no new info to share about when I'm going to get a roadmap up and published, but I have stressed internally it's something I really want to get out there ASAP and haven't met with any resistance whatsoever so far, I just need to lock down a meeting so I can pull this information together.

Question: Why do you need to know KPIs and how would it be of benefit to you (outside of simple curiosity)? If I can understand this then I can make a case for it, but KPIs aren't usually shared publicly in my own experience.

(b) I don't know the answer to this question yet, but as mentioned, Godus is a live game so naturally the higher/deeper/later stages of the will evolve and change and over time following how releases/updates are received by by both the dev team and the community. Live games don't follow traditional, rigid boxed-product development processes; they're produced along more fluid and agile lines allowing for new ideas/mechanics to be incorporated/removed part-way through development. So, the plan for the endgame in month X may have been revised by month Y (in my experience of working on live games), however I don't 100% know if/how this applies to Godus just yet.

(c) I don't know, however I don't think Godus' development works like that - it's in perpetual development like most live games in which fresh, game extending content is being added over time. It's not so much that we're thinking about an end to the project as a whole as an end to particular phases and/or aspects of it (opening section, the various different ages, god powers, multiplayer, etc. etc.) as these will be delivered to you as and when they're ready for release, rather than at the end of the entire project (as is the case with traditional boxed games).

2. Development is not an exact science and many unexpected obstacles pop up part way through that need to be tackled immediately, which has an obvious lengthening impact on dates. I'm pretty sure that sentence won't be news to anybody and I'm assuming everyone here has a passing knowledge of how videogame development cycles operate (if not, I'd be happy to clarify). This is why giving dates out publicly before a new build is 100% in shape and truly ready to be published is always a risky process. I do not currently know when the next update (2.0.5) is set for release, but I do intend to start communicating where we are with updates more frequently on the blog, with the caveat being that more frequent news updates means vaguer news updates, as you can only really start sharing specific release times when you're 100% sure a feature is stable and fun enough for it to be released soon.

I agree 100% that sharing actual dates would give you more confidence, but I also want to avoid a situation where we're constantly revising our dates as we'd only continue to lose credibility with you. I think it should be possible to balance out both by telling you what's coming next sooner, and when it's coming later. This, along with most of the ways in which I'd like to interact with you all, is not set in stone and we (as in you the community and we the dev team) can and will revise how we share specific details until we find a comfortably happy medium.

As for the "just communicate" thing, I agree and will do my best not to fall back on jargon, acronyms and buzzwords (which is partly why I was surprised to see your request for KPIs).

Again, I hate to have to ask for your patience but I'm really very new to the team, to the project and to Godus' community, so please don't expect to be delivering my best work for a couple of months yet, which I hope you'd agree is the case with any new individual joining a pre-established team.

Okay, back to setting up some processes for me!

Just as an aside, I would LOVE to start updating the 22cans blog already, but right now I don't have anything concrete or revelatory to say and so would prefer to wait until such a time I have genuinely new and valuable information about the game to share rather than a bullshit, ego-based, self-congratulatory introduction post. I hope you understand!

The goal of Godus, as I currently understand it, is to build a civilization from its first few members and guide them through history. There are a bunch of mechanics in game to support this, with a shedload of more to follow (reliant of dev time to execute and deliver them).

Nevertheless, I do take your point - live games aren't ever really finished and in Godus' case, you feel like it's barely started. To be honest, it's probably better to think of Godus as being in open beta rather than RC just yet as so many functions and features have yet to make it into the game, and that's on top of rolling content updates.

I don't know the date for an RC and as such would be wildly inappropriate for me to pluck one out of thin air, but at a guess (based on team size, workflow and scope), and please don't hold me to this, I'd say months, as opposed to weeks or years (which is actually a super short amount of time in terms of dev, when you have to remember that Minecraft was publicly released for the PC in 2009 but wasn't published as a full release version until 2011).

There's still a heck of lot yet to be implemented (including several Kickstarter rewards), which is compounded by the fact that game dev cycles are not short processes by any means. The game you all want to play is coming, but it being available and up to your expectations isn't right around the corner and lots needs to happen between now and then.

Sorry, genuinely wasn't aware that Minecraft had been used as an analogy before. And yes, perhaps it wasn't the most accurate comparison to make. For clarity, what I was cack-handedly attempting to get across is that a videogame's development takes time - we can't come up with an idea one week and for it to be in-game and publicly available the next... but then again, right now I don't feel the Godus community's expectations are that unrealistic.

Nevertheless, I agree 100% when you say "[Godus] needs to start showing something as soon as possible" - with the emphasis being on the word "possible". The earliest instance of possible to my mind is later this year, not later this season.

Does that make sense and sound reasonable, or does that still seem unjustifiable to you?

Btw, please don't take my questions as being confrontational, this is just my first attempts at establishing a line of dialogue with you all.

I actually said that on my second day, although not in relation to "how much fans love it." Hmmm, I suppose I need to educate myself better if that reaction was inappropriate.

I've spent around 10 - 12 hours in-game now with the build I have and to be honest I'm actually finding it very enjoyable (addictive, even); it's just not a complete game yet. And to me, that's okay - I understand that with live games, the game when you first play it will be a very different experience to 12 months down the line. I feel it's important to mention that I am actually a Godus Kickstarter backer (along with ShadowRun Returns and Elite: Dangerous) so I have a passion for this title that belies the amount of time I've spent in-game.

(Just as an aside, I realise I do need to play the game more, but there's a bunch of community work I want to do ASAP and unfortunately I can't do two things at once, so right now the job is taking precedence over familiarity with the game. That said, I'm hoping to get a few workflow processes in place over the next couple of weeks that will free up at least an hour or two a day for me just to play Godus).

Atmosphere and morale in the office is actually very good - the thing is, the team here know that the game can and will be better and are both excited by and committed to creating and delivering that experience in due course. Once I've shared a roadmap with you, I can let you in on that vision and hopefully that will foster a bit more confidence (as well as, fingers crossed, earned some additional patience from you).

As for the reception, people are only able to play a game that is currently advertising itself as less than 50% complete, and anyone who's ever worked in dev knows full well that games aren't as much fun to play with in their early phases of development as the later ones, so we're fairly sanguine about player and reviewer reactions so far - if anything, they give us a heck of a lot of room to improve.

The mistake I feel right now would be to rush out not-ready-for-primetime updates rather than take the time neccessary to focus on quality. We don't have a big name publisher trying to get us to commit to a release date and that's a luxury we should use to our advantage, IMHO.

Isn't that just the same as the opt-in builds? More info here: How to opt-in to the development branch of GODUS on Steam.

If not, what in your opinion would be the value in returning to a non-current version of the game?

Perhaps I have project management too ingrained in me. I don't understand how any reasonable development can occur if you don't know where you need to get to. That's just guessing and sloppy evolution - and goes a huge way of explaining why Godus is where it is. Perpetual life cycles? Really? I understand that things don't always run to plan, but surely there must be a plan - with KPIs to measure how you are doing.

I find it difficult to imagine a place where a product is in development and target dates come and go without question. If I was to tell my boss that I'd do something 'soon' and then consistently fail to deliver, I'd expect to be elsewhere pretty quickly. The team must know where they need to get to, with achievable chunks between where they are and where they need to get.

"Good news - we're refunding everyone's money and going away!!"