22 replies to this topic

[glepp]

Go read and support!

http://www.eveonline...hreadID=1327362

[Ged Hawkins]

+1 Support checkbox checked

[Larg Kellein]

Support and one interweb awarded.

[DaDutchDude]

Hmmm ..... sorry, too fluffy. I like the sntiment, but it really isn't feasible, and therefor, I can't support it

Who is to say when something is 'ready'? It is easy to say it's not, but there will hardly be a universal agreement when something is ready. Software development is like shooting at a moving target with slow arrows: by the time the arrow is hitting the position it was aimed at, the target itself has moved on, and the world has already changed. You can respond to that in two ways.

Agile
Take very small steps, evaluate the result each time, and move on to the next step. You start with a vision, but the end result might chance quite a lot along the way. You are usually limited by time and budget, which means you might not get to the end result at all, but you are happy with the steps you have taken so far.

With Agile, stakeholders tend to sign off on results from a cycle, and the ideas for the next cycle. If a stakeholder is unhappy, corrections will get scheduled in the next cycle. This allows developers to come up with relatively innovative solutions, while the overall customer satisfaction is guaranteed.

Fixed spec
Write a very comprehensive fixed specification of what you will build, and stick to it, no matter how the world changes. It means you have to invest a lot of time in writing very detailed specifications. Also you are liable for budget and time overruns, because often the implementation is more complex then originally estimated, or the specs were never complete enough. You also ignore more elegant and interesting things you find out along the way because you are committed to the result you originally set out to build.

With fixed spec, all the specifications have to be signed off by stakeholders before development gets started. After this, stakeholders have to accept the finished products if it fits the specifications, even though for some reason it isn't workable / practical / elegant / etc. or because the specifications were incomplete to begin with.

CCP attemps to do the Agile approach, and to be honest, I think it's the overal best approach to develop software that is very user interactive. However, there is a problem when it comes to who stakeholders are. In most agile software developments, the users are also the budgets holders, meaning they control how much budget gets allocated to what. However for an MMO, this isn't direct feasible.

Although it's current subscription base is important financially and maintaining it will be a priority, the ties between subscriber and developer are very loose, to say the least. A monthly subscription is easy to cancel, and although veteran users have quite some in-game capital built up, it's still not like most custom software that is critical to a customers operation, and you cannot just 'drop' it and move on without serious planning and often investment.

At the same time, there is not 'one' type of customer, a 'super user' as we'd normally call that, who is an expert at the system and can represent all the users. In most custom software development, the typical user group is quite small and the way they use the system quite uniform, but with over 200k users that all use EVE in a very different way, it's hard to make the game fit one or a small group of users and know that means the entire user base will be happy with the changes.

So instead of having to look out for a small group of customers that are predictable and have a strong reliance on the software supplier, CCP has to make sure they have a healthy flow of customers, no matter if these are current, new resubscribing customers. And with that, the model of having the subscriber, so the actual end user, be a stakeholder is next to impossible.

CCP has taken a bold step in giving the CSM limited stakeholder privileges and I hope it works out so well that this sort of cooperation will be expanded, but don't fool yourself: we, the subscribers, can indicate our wishes, but we have no control over the development process, nor is it realistic to expect that level of control. I think CCP know all too well about our complaints and they have even addressed them. For example, they have added incentive to factional warfare by allowing it to be a source of income, and they have already pledged to continued work on PI even before they released Tyrannis. However, vague descriptions of how we want CCP to direct their development effort by referring back to some disappointing releases isn't a sensible CSM proposal, it's whining, and the CSM is wasting their mandate by doing so.

[Skrewed]

I support the concept of slowing down on the features and cleaning up some of what you've already done. The interface is still horrendous, the corp interface is even worse, the simple mechanics of alliance disbanding is made for drama not usefulness. Lag is still awful. Just the login screen takes up about 50% of a single core to sit idle waiting for you to login. Eve voice is still an awful tack on. About the best thing they've done of late is the in-game browser which is 3rd party code. Methodologies aside, I realize that big new releases get press, which gets new subscribers, which you have to have to replace the ones that leave. It's a horrible cycle. Some day though, I'd really like a major patch where I logged in and went "wow, that's really cool what they did", I'm really not sure I've ever felt that with an eve update.

[Varius]

[quote name='SkrewedUp]Some day though' date=' I'd really like a major patch where I logged in and went "wow, that's really cool what they did", I'm really not sure I've ever felt that with an eve update.[/quote']

Indeed. With Tyrannis, the novelty of PI (there was barely any to start with) was quickly overshadowed by all of the bugs that had been introduced.

The last update that seemed half-decent was Apocrypha. Dominion and Tyrannis are pretty hopeless.

[Baka Lakadaka]

While I support anything that's going to improve quality, CCP will always go with the commercial reality and look for shiny stuff to attract new players (which I can't really go against, because without the new players and an expanding revenue base, the game will quickly die). I don't believe the CSM will have any success in this, but continually bringing the existing players concerns to CCP is a good thing. CCP won't change their approach. I'll support it on the grounds that the proposal highlights player concerns over quality, but without expectation that CCP will modify their approach. Best case would be that CCP puts a little more attention/effort into quality control.

[Stein Voorhees]

Some day though, I'd really like a major patch where I logged in and went "wow, that's really cool what they did", I'm really not sure I've ever felt that with an eve update.

Were you playing the day Trinity or Apochrypha shipped? Those were days my jaw dropped.

CCP has taken a bold step in giving the CSM limited stakeholder privileges and I hope it works out so well that this sort of cooperation will be expanded, but don't fool yourself: we, the subscribers, can indicate our wishes, but we have no control over the development process, nor is it realistic to expect that level of control. I think CCP know all too well about our complaints and they have even addressed them. For example, they have added incentive to factional warfare by allowing it to be a source of income, and they have already pledged to continued work on PI even before they released Tyrannis. However, vague descriptions of how we want CCP to direct their development effort by referring back to some disappointing releases isn't a sensible CSM proposal, it's whining, and the CSM is wasting their mandate by doing so.

Couldn't agree with this more.

I think CCP keeps itself pretty on the ball in terms of understanding player concern. However, turning that understanding into code and a playable game must be hard.

To take one example. Consider the number of times over the years Microsoft decided it was easier to just create the latest versions of various Office projects like Word and Excel from scratch rather than building on an existing codebase. The Eve codebase must be what, nearly 10 years old in places, and I guess the option to do a complete re-write from scratch is beyond the resources of a comparatively small company like CCP. Couple that with having to keep subscriber numbers on the up and I think they are doing a pretty good job of balancing priorities. Could it be better? Absolutely. Would that be easy? I'm betting it would actually be a hell of a lot harder than most people think.

[Kasandra Mae]

In my opinion this is about showing CCP that players would actually be thankful (or even demanding) some polishing of existing content. CCP seems to have this understanding that they need to supply players with completely new stuff every six months otherwise they would stop playing. I think that is nonsense and I'd rather have a high quality game experience than being besieged by new broken "features" all the time. Nothing wrong with having one development cycle (i.e. 6 months) dedicated to just polishing stuff imo. The point I am trying to make is that the players are (direct) stakeholders in the game and we need to show CCP where our priorities are.

[Tea]

CSM5 are discussing this issue at the moment and are hoping to get a roundtable with CCP at the summit. This proposal adds weight to the discussion but fundamentally the CSM only represent (12% of ) existing players and CCP also want to have new features to sell the game to new subscribers...

[Kerzack]

Don't try.... if you don't believe ... try not ... do or whatever... ... insert yoda wisdom now!!! ----------- all BS aside - if we don't tell CCP what we want then we get what we ask...

[Laurentius]

CSM5 are discussing this issue at the moment and are hoping to get a roundtable with CCP at the summit.

This proposal adds weight to the discussion but fundamentally the CSM only represent (12% of ) existing players and CCP also want to have new features to sell the game to new subscribers...

The CSM represents all the players, wheter they chose to exerceise their voting right or not. Also, of the 12% that did vote, there is a majority of veteran players. These players are vital in what ultimately constitute the sandbox in which we all play. Without them, the sandbox would be a mere shadow of what it is now. As for gaining new subscibers, i'd say that ensuring that the sandbox is actually playable is vital before expanding the playerbase with huge numbers. If not, the game will failcascade.

[Sever Aldaria]

Some day though, I'd really like a major patch where I logged in and went "wow, that's really cool what they did", I'm really not sure I've ever felt that with an eve update.

Were you playing the day Trinity or Apochrypha shipped? Those were days my jaw dropped.

I don't remember what came in Apochrypha but Trinity was sweet sweet candy to my eyes. Watching the trinity trailer still gives me chills and makes my eyes water (it's that epic). Best trailer ever.

/me goes to watch the trailer again.

[Stein Voorhees]

I don't remember what came in Apochrypha ...

Wormholes and T3.

[Loash]

I do think CCP tends to go with the "look shiny!" approach, in the hope that the new paint job will help distract the players from the fact that there are still some fundamental errors in the game. Whilst this might work in some games, they should have realised that they have designed a game that tends to appeal to people who pay attention to detail, who after nodding appreciatively over the latest "oooh shiny" offering will turn around with a huge list and say "now, if you could just let me know where you are with items 1.1.2 through 1.1.20 we'd appreciate it very much".

[Kaiman]

Granted I've got no clue about software development in general or CCP's trouble with the ancient code (that apparently has been left by some aliens around the times when the pyramids were built) in special. But I'd really prefer if they'd actually put a little more emphasis on fixing old bugs, rather than breaking stuff that worked fine by implementing new "shiny" content.

[Sever Aldaria]

I don't remember what came in Apochrypha ...

Wormholes and T3.

Oh yeah. Good stuff though I wish T3 was a little more affordable for me

Granted I've got no clue about software development in general or CCP's trouble with the ancient code (that apparently has been left by some aliens around the times when the pyramids were built) in special.

But I'd really prefer if they'd actually put a little more emphasis on fixing old bugs, rather than breaking stuff that worked fine by implementing new "shiny" content.

It's probably easier said than done. For all we know, there's many people on the bug fixing team but we just don't notice that emphasis as much since new content is more interesting than 10 lines in patch notes of "fixed an issue with xxx" which each expansion does seem to have a fair amount of. Most of the time the issues that get fixed are issues that I haven't encountered but that doesn't mean they aren't issues.

[Luccul]

I'm missing how new content brings in new players. If someone hasn't played current content, how does new content attract them? I'm inclined to see updates and expansions as tools to keep the game fresh an interesting to the current player base. But I agree that CCP needs to either scale back their rate of expansions (new content), or reduce the amount of new content per expansion because they seem to be creating more bugs and broken functionality. As a 2-year plus subscriber, CCP can do as much to keep me interested in the game by improving existing content (ie fix bugs and make features work better) as they can by giving me new content to play with.

[Secluse]

I didn't take the proposal as a whine to improve the development process, I took the proposal as asking CCP to *finish* the features they have added. Such as FW, 5th sub-systems for T3, PI (they have promised to keep working on it, but they have said that about lots of features). Either CCP need to finish the features they add, or the marketing department needs to stop over-selling each expansion. It would also be great to be communicated that CCP are reworking the overview to try fix lag, so that when it breaks you can understand why.

[Larg Kellein]

I'm missing how new content brings in new players. If someone hasn't played current content, how does new content attract them?

Press releases. They're not gonna make the front page of Gamespot, MMORPG.com etc with a list of 200 bug fixes, but two impressive sounding new features might get them there. Sadly, the media has the attention span of a teenage goldfish and needs the shiny factor to maintain interest.

[Pesets]

New content may also cause older players to resub in order to see what the fuzz is all about. Of course they might very well unsub the next day after realizing that the new content is as half-baked as what made them quit in the first place, as opposed to seeing the improvements and staying... Unfortunately, there's also the problem that half the time CCP tries to improve stuff, they do it in ways that breaks usage scenarios they didn't realize existed. So care must be taken in wishing for "improvements".

[vRava]

In my opinion this is about showing CCP that players would actually be thankful (or even demanding) some polishing of existing content.

CCP seems to have this understanding that they need to supply players with completely new stuff every six months otherwise they would stop playing. I think that is nonsense and I'd rather have a high quality game experience than being besieged by new broken "features" all the time. Nothing wrong with having one development cycle (i.e. 6 months) dedicated to just polishing stuff imo.

The point I am trying to make is that the players are (direct) stakeholders in the game and we need to show CCP where our priorities are.

A game that worked properly *would* be new content!
That's what CCP does not understand - that thousands of players might re-subscribe if they could actually have fights without lag bombs, if they could do FW plexes in T1 frigs (impossible now due to the profusion of overpowered Dramiels), etc.

[Silas]

In my opinion this is about showing CCP that players would actually be thankful (or even demanding) some polishing of existing content.

CCP seems to have this understanding that they need to supply players with completely new stuff every six months otherwise they would stop playing. I think that is nonsense and I'd rather have a high quality game experience than being besieged by new broken "features" all the time. Nothing wrong with having one development cycle (i.e. 6 months) dedicated to just polishing stuff imo.

The point I am trying to make is that the players are (direct) stakeholders in the game and we need to show CCP where our priorities are.

A game that worked properly *would* be new content!
That's what CCP does not understand - that thousands of players might re-subscribe if they could actually have fights without lag bombs, if they could do FW plexes in T1 frigs (impossible now due to the profusion of overpowered Dramiels), etc.

Dramiels are not overpowered; HTFU. That is all...