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Poll

Will the update come out on Dec 21st?

Yesssssss...
- 6 (11.5%)
No! It's gonna be my Christmas present!
- 4 (7.7%)
Yes!
- 0 (0%)
My last final is the 22nd, so it ought to come out the 21st
- 0 (0%)
When it's ready(tm)
- 42 (80.8%)

Total Members Voted: 52

Voting closed: December 20, 2016, 03:21:42 AM


Pages: 1 [2]

Author Topic: The Solstice Approaches!  (Read 10928 times)

machinech

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #15 on: December 21, 2016, 05:36:52 PM »
I deeply respect the development process. However at this piont I'm wondering if Alex could maybe consider releasing changed builds a touch more frequently. The barren desert of a wait followed by a wildly changed systems is a wee frustrating at times. It's great to hear from him about the process an systems he's working on.... less so when we're 6 or 7 blog entries down and several huge system overhauls in...and still no newer build. TL;DR Alex does a good job, and I enjoy this title greatly... but I'm not a fan of half a year of not much when we can see huge changes have been done.

One small reason... giving feedback after he's done massive changes, barring a glaringly broken system, seems a bit pointless as there now exists a ton of work to be done to even consider going back another direction after half a years work...
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Soychi

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2016, 09:36:38 PM »
Still the solstice in some parts of the world.....
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ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. -Glory Road, Heinlein

Bastion.Systems

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #17 on: December 22, 2016, 10:35:25 AM »
It's a tradeoff, less releases means faster development and makes it easier to prototype and test systems. On the other hand you have zero feedback about the changes. If you trust your vision over trying to please (or even keep) fanbase it makes sense to not release public builds all that often.
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Soychi

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #18 on: December 22, 2016, 10:44:06 PM »
*tiny violin plays*
Looks like 3 more months of waiting Spot...
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ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. -Glory Road, Heinlein

Seth

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #19 on: December 23, 2016, 12:34:09 AM »
Quote from: Bastion.Systems on December 22, 2016, 10:35:25 AM
It's a tradeoff, less releases means faster development and makes it easier to prototype and test systems. On the other hand you have zero feedback about the changes. If you trust your vision over trying to please (or even keep) fanbase it makes sense to not release public builds all that often.
Fair enough, but some things might appear as broken features or not work as intended in a long run. Alex is good at testing, I'm sure, but when new game features are in use by entire community, unexpected stuff might pop up, so machinech has quite valid point here. Usually in alpha stage it happens a lot, but developers can swing builds back and forth fixing stuff. With an approach Alex has for this game, scrapping half a years works seems rather unrealistic...
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Bastion.Systems

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #20 on: December 23, 2016, 12:54:39 AM »
Well, in AAA development you only release builds to the internal beta testing team once the product is feature complete and to the public only when the bugfixing/balancing period has already concluded. Before beta it does not need to be playable/enjoyable, good looking or optimized in any way.

If you want to maximize development time to revenue you have to get the product to release as fast as possible. And means not wasting time on remaking assets or implementing temporary gameplay systems.
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Camael

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #21 on: December 29, 2016, 03:08:36 PM »
I keep praying to the dark gods (any I could find, actually...), especially as this update brings so many things I have been desperately waiting for (better fighter mechanics, more PvE options, economics...) but alas... only got a car, a perfect girlfriend and lots of money so far. Don't know. I feel empty...

Also, this release schedule, I think, is more mod-friendly, and Starsector kind of needs mods to give it more meat. The gameplay and mechanics are awesome, but there is just not enough content in vanilla to keep people like me happy. Imagine the chaos and possibly frustration among modders with a release every other week...
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Schwartz

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2016, 01:18:49 AM »
I'd say we're probably looking at Q1 2017, and at least another month off. There tend to be a couple of updates to the in-dev patch notes before the next version is released. Unless it turns out to be magically bug-free.

The time between a new version and the various mods catching up with the game is the best one for me. I like playing vanilla. For a couple of weeks, you get a homogenous art style and perfect balance. At least in theory. ;D
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Clockwork Owl

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Re: The Solstice Approaches!
« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2016, 08:40:33 AM »
Quote from: Schwartz on December 31, 2016, 01:18:49 AM
Unless it turns out to be magically bug-free.
If there are no bugs, that is the bug.
-quote from a game dev-
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