Friday with Means - June 3rd, 2011 - Thanks to a busy team

[byteflush]

Let's just go off topic for a second. I haven't been around for a few months, but now I've read the last few FWMs.

My great mind came to a conclusion:

Soon™ = ∞™

Is there a Nobel Prize available anytime soon? How do I enter the contest?

[Alternity]

Yes Soon is approaching infinity It is converging on it infact

[-yeny-]

I personally like the idea of a progress bar for activities that they choose to keep us in the loop on because sometimes the updates are not helpful.

I am not a game programmer so when certain things are said or updates provided it doesn't really tell me anything. I have no idea where in the process the team actually is in terms of how close they are to completing the engine. Certain buzz words, for me as a non game programmer, sound a lot like "we're almost done" but apparently they mean "we still have another year or so to go".

I guess a lot of the forum posters are in the game industry or well versed so perhaps I am in the minority with this issue. I have no issue with legitimately admitting my ignorance on the behind the scenes process for game development and engine design. A % completion number would be more helpful to me than any sort of details on what specific tasks have been done, reviewed or completed.

For instance, we've gotten details on engine progress. Does anyone here, including the folks that step up to defend Funcom's slow progress, have any idea what % complete the engine work is at this point? Anyone know how close to being done the rebalance work is? I don't even think I've really heard any details one way or the other regarding the new player starter experience. We've gotten a lot of information but I just don't think that information adds up to truly informing the playerbase on the timeline... which is probably the most debated topic on these forums.

the progress bar would be stuck for months at 95% with the comment "maybe(tm) soon(tm)". atleast there was no progress made in the past 3 months^^ balancing patch should allrdy be on live servers when you believe funcoms "promises". i personally expect it to be ingame before christmas IF we are lucky... but everyday my hope gets more loose. the prof docs are still not finished. and if they are finished in some weeks/months we still need a testing phase of maybe months to fix everything. and then it will need a re-rebalancing. + perk-re-rebalancing... etc etc etc... that all adds up to MAYBE christmas in fc´s work-speed. cant think of the engine... just getting more angry when i think about it and fc´s promises. i rather quit ao instead of waiting for vaporware (oh yeah, duke nukem will be released btw^^)... idling in a nrly dead game as 20th in bs queue for 2h is just annoying... soon we will need a merge with rk2 anyway.

[Worldofalts]

the progress bar would be stuck for months at 95% with the comment "maybe(tm) soon(tm)".

if that were actually the case, then players would have every legitimate reason to say "seriously, what the blip are you guys doing!?" (if it hung at 95% for a long time)

the whole idea about a progress bar, isn't so much that you can tell how much time is left, but that you can gauge by milestones (goals) how much is done, and how much is left to do. of course it would hang at a certain percentage for a while, they are only a skeleton crew after all, trying to do the work of what should be 200 developers o.O

[-yeny-]

funcom would never do that... how often did they claim to be close to release for the engine for example? or how often they were at the point to say: its half way done YEARS ago?!?!

[Eponyx]

Saw this somewhere and thinks it fits just nicely for the engine.

Good things are made slowly and in pain.

[Worldofalts]

funcom would never do that... how often did they claim to be close to release for the engine for example? or how often they were at the point to say: its half way done YEARS ago?!?!

can't argue here. only conclusion most people can draw is that the new engine isn't so much a project with concrete goals, but a "shoot with blindfolds on till we hit the target" type of thing. thats not fact really, but it is the perception a lot of players have these days. it would help their cause immensely by taking half an hour to put all the project milestones into a progress bar. of course, at this point, anything below 90% on that bar would infuriate the playerbase. yeah, like i say, can't argue with you there, they likely wouldn't do it at this point.

[Warhammer]

Saw this somewhere and thinks it fits just nicely for the engine.

I got another quote for you:

Life punishes late comers

The punishment obviously would be, that there could be nobody left to applaud their efforts...

[Ayria]

I got another quote for you:

And I for you:

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese

[quieter456]

Do mice take cheese that is sitting next to dead, or possibly horribly disfigured and squeaking brethren?

[Tazalanche]

Do mice take cheese that is sitting next to dead, or possibly horribly disfigured and squeaking brethren?

If given the opportunity, they will chew through their brethren in order to get to the bait trapped under its corpse.

[quieter456]

The more you know! la la la *magic rainbow*