Frequency of Updates

[Jose]

Hi Teddy et-all!

First, I'd like to thank you guys for making an exceptionally fantastic game thus far. I've put over 40 hours into the game and have had nothing but an enjoyable experience so far.

I would like to raise a bit of an issue, however, namely with the frequency of updates which were previously outlined. Reading through Teddy's thread 'How to switch between Stable and Frontline, and why', Teddy mentioned that updates for the stable version would come every 1-3 months, and frontline would "usually patch once a week, sometimes several times a week, and sometimes every other week". So what gives exactly? I really hate to be that guy, but I'd like to point out that between 0.571a & 0.572b, over a month (approaching 1.5 months) took place for the new frontline version to ship. To add, tomorrow will mark the 1.5 month mark since the previous frontline patch. Again I'm sorry to bring this up, but you have my money already, and everyone else on this forum as well.

I don't know what I'm asking for exactly, hire more people? Change what you originally outlined with the community? I honestly don't know, but in a time where several indy developers (green light, kick starter, etc), are abandoning games, or releasing unfinished games as 'complete', we need something.

Thanks again for the game (so far).

 

[GarlicJelly]

Do you read the weekly recap? http://www.secretsofgrindea.com/index.php/dev-blog

The last post about the progress was posted 2 days ago so I don't think you have any reason to be afraid that they took off with your money before giving you the full game. I'm not a part of the dev team but I think I've been around long enough to know sort of what's going on. First of all I can say that the estimated update schedule for frontline and stable was based on the previous testing done earlier on in the developing which means = everything was new so there was a lot to fix. Now that we've hit a fairly stable point where the story is being worked on and not skills (that were causing all sorts of bugs) there is less frequent updates. Again I'm not part of the dev team but if I've understood them correctly then the next patch will be big. If a whole new area and a new tower/dungeon is added in the next patch then that will be (just guessing here) as big as the Jumpkin Forest PLUS the Flying Fortress. Again you can not take my word for this since I'm not involved in the process.

TLDR: Read the weekly recap, the game has not been abondoned (atleast not yet), the frequent update estimating done by Teddy was and IS not accurate (he was just guessing), calm down, everything you just read about the comming update could be wrong.

I hope that this gives you an answer to your questions and clears the confusion around the updates. If you still have questions don't be afraid to post them.

 

[Vilya]

I think the lesson we (and every other game developer on the planet) should learn is to just stop giving estimates altogether, honestly!

It's just like GoodStuff said, when we made that estimate there were a lot of small bugs and other stuff to fix after every patch - which resulted in more patching - and as that kept going for a long time we had good reason to believe it would continue the same way. Turns out though, there aren't as many smaller things to add or fix, so instead more of our focus has been on creating more content.

Now, there's also another problem with our estimates that we didn't take into consideration when we made them. What do we do when we're working on something bigger, that isn't suited to being introduced in fragments? Because that's what's happening now, and it's exactly what happened last time we had this complaint as well.

So, currently we've been working on the Toy Factory, which could best be described as a mini-dungeon of sorts; there's a couple of challenge rooms and a boss fight. The rooms are more or less done, except for the boss fight which lacks some animations and polish. In order to update the beta in a timely manner - based on our estimates - we could have patched it room-by-room, which then would have resulted in updates every other week or so. But the problem is that experiencing the Toy Factory like that isn't the way it's meant to be. It's a whole package, meant to be played in one sitting and not one room every other week. Releasing the rooms one by one would not only give you the wrong experience, it could possibly bring us the "wrong" feedback, because playing one room for the first time is not the same as playing the entire mini-dungeon for the first time.

The last time we took long between patches we had the same issue, but with a couple of cutscenes (and a fight) that took place close to one another. I guess we could have patched one cutscene into the game, only to have you wait another week for what would happen once you left the room it took place in, but I personally don't think fragmenting things that way would make the experience very nice.

So, that means we now end up with a lot of unnecessary dilemmas on how/when to release new patches, all thanks to that estimate! And every time we decide the experience would be better if we group together a bunch of stuff, we'll end up disappointing you guys because we made promises that weren't realistic taking such things into consideration.

I guess I should ask Teddy to update those estimates to something more realistic (or perhaps even pessimistic, just to be safe)..

Super long rant, sorry! Also like GoodStuff suggested, we update the blog every week with what we're currently working on and some sneak peeks of the art, so that's a good way of checking if we're still in business

tl;dr: Estimates were partly based on times where we had to do a lot of bug fixing, which hasn't been as necessary recently. Patches also take longer because we group things (rooms, cutscenes) together instead of fragmenting what's best experienced in one go. We should probably update the estimates to take this into consideration!

 

[Dissius]

I support the blogging process. I usually don't read it because I like to be surprised but I understand some folks enjoy knowing what is what.

But I'm pretty darn patient for this. Back when I first heard of SoG, I was floored. I'll be willing to wait as long as it takes. It's not just about the nostalgia factor any more. It's about seeing how the game grows and enjoying the interaction with the Devs. But that's just me. ^.^;