[Discussion] Tired of hearing "soon"? Thoughts on the Q&A

[Firestorm29]

Okay, so, I'm new to StarMade, but I know a little about coding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

The Mythical Man Month is a book by Fred Brooks that says, in essence, adding people to a project after it has started will just make the project later. I would love to see someone else on the Schine team, but I don't think any new people should be added until after the game core is done.

As far as the game being in Alpha goes, it looks to me (correct me if I'm wrong) like it's approaching the end of alpha. Almost all the basic functionality is either there or planned for the next update So why complain about it now? You have to remember that the main point of an alpha build is not to garner a large community (although that couldn't hurt), or even to release frequent updates (although again, it's not a bad idea), but just to build a playable game. Right now, StarMade is ~80-90% playable, with a few kinks (economy being a big one) still to be worked out. Once it goes into beta, however, frequent updates will be required, and it will be important to build up a community. So, all these points people keep bringing up are valid, but not super relevant until the game exits alpha.

I don't think Schine has handled this development perfectly, but considering it's an indie game being developed by one guy, I'm willing to wait for an update. Heck, there's plenty to do in the game as is. So many ship ideas, so little time... And while I do think that new content should be released, IMO, as long as Schema is working steadily, I'm happy. Regular updates aren't very crucial until the game is out of alpha. And I don't see much of a way to speed up the releases.

Still again, releasing in smaller chunks would be nice. First decoration, then new planets, then logic, etc. It would make the interim a little more interesting...

Ah, I remember this.

To quote a quoted wiki quote "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". I wish I had this quote earlier, it helps to show my concern in adding people during this current patch.

I'm not too against adding people once this patch is done, since it would be done while planning what the next patch will contain and the work can be planned around the new peeps over having people join in mid-task and complicating things.

I wouldn't go as far to say most the functionality is there, since the AI needs more work, economy overhaul, faction overhaul, reworking how ship damage is handled, shield rework, the fauna systems needs to be added, and that's all I know. There's enough to be done that adding people I don't think would threaten to invoke that law like it would gum up the works like adding people mid-patch. Less stuff to worry about.

 

[Neon_42]

For those of you who are interested and don't subscribe to the starmade subreddit schema has said we can expect the next release in about two weeks. Then we can expect a release about two weeks after that.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Starmade/comments/267s9f/any_news_on_the_release_datetimeframe_of_015/

 

[ghettodexter]

Neon_42 Thanks so much for the reddit link I've never used until now thanks to you! :p

 

[The_Onion]

The only thing I ask of schema, is if he could check out the suggestion threads once in a while, and comment on the more popular ideas( whether he thinks it would be a good addition, if its even possible to do, etc). There are some really great suggestions in there, but I feel they just fall by the wayside and are forgotten.

This suggestion in particular could be an amazing addition:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/han...r-decorative-items-repost-from-old-forum.830/

 

[Ithirahad]

The only thing I ask of schema, is if he could check out the suggestion threads once in a while, and comment on the more popular ideas( whether he thinks it would be a good addition, if its even possible to do, etc). There are some really great suggestions in there, but I feel they just fall by the wayside and are forgotten.

This suggestion in particular could be an amazing addition:
http://starmadedock.net/threads/han...r-decorative-items-repost-from-old-forum.830/

While the Schine staff claim to read the Suggestions forum (and I believe them), it would be nice to see an occasional comment or two, yeah. Even if it's just "X is planned to come in the form of Y; look back at the Q&A transcript," "No, that wouldn't work for performance reasons." So far, all I remember seeing is a post by Schema saying 'This sounds like a good idea; I'll look into this" on some thread about storage changes.

 

[Viridis00]

While the Schine staff claim to read the Suggestions forum (and I believe them), it would be nice to see an occasional comment or two, yeah. Even if it's just "X is planned to come in the form of Y; look back at the Q&A transcript," "No, that wouldn't work for performance reasons." So far, all I remember seeing is a post by Schema saying 'This sounds like a good idea; I'll look into this" on some thread about storage changes.

I dunno, I don't mind either way because we do get those Q&A sessions. That saves them the time of replying every single day, time that they can use to develop and plan more.

They certainly read them, seeing as how oreo planets were the plan until some dude came up with the dodecahedron thing and Schema did it. Honestly, not all of the suggestions are really that worth commenting on either. Even going back, some of the stuff I've even suggested I just think "damn wtf was I thinking writing that?". We've got a very wishful community, myself included.

Also , damn man this thread is still alive? I didn't realize where I was for a minute.

 

[Ithirahad]

I dunno, I don't mind either way because we do get those Q&A sessions. That saves them the time of replying every single day, time that they can use to develop and plan more.

They certainly read them, seeing as how oreo planets were the plan until some dude came up with the dodecahedron thing and Schema did it. Honestly, not all of the suggestions are really that worth commenting on either. Even going back, some of the stuff I've even suggested I just think "damn wtf was I thinking writing that?". We've got a very wishful community, myself included.

Also , damn man this thread is still alive? I didn't realize where I was for a minute.

I didn't mean every single retarded duplicate crappy undetailed topic, which would be a waste of time... :P I said 'an occasional comment or two,' and meant a comment or two on the best, most well-thought-out suggestions written.