I decided to memorize this new release date as October 1st.
And when it gets released earlier than that, I would be positively surprised, instead of updating my internal calendar a dozen times during a month. And that way, I would continue to see Arcen as a company that knows its capabilites well, not a one that is overhyped about their own product.
I already commented on this once, so I wanted to make my point clearer, I am not angry or something :) But seriously, why do you pick a date which can be reached if everything goes super well, and let everyone know about that date without adding any error margin (like 2 weeks or smt). You dont have to really behave according to that date you know, you can always use extra time for marketing, or if not early releases seem always positive thing to me.
New screenshots looks progressively better, and I already said neat for the ones in two posts earlier. So I am liking what I will get after you are done, it is just that I have problems that how do you manage deadlines in front of the public. While I usually appreciate the transparency, it this case, I think the opposite. We dont have to know your actual deadlines that is being shaped up by financial & technical capabilites, and we really dont need to learn any suboptimal events that shifts release 3 days. You should have internal and external release dates, and about changing the external one, you should be more conservative I think.
This really seems unprofessional to me, so I wanted to make my point clear. I know how much you love this stuff, but not every consumer cares about it. What is visible to the public eye is this:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/07/05/in-case-of-emergency-release-raptor-arcen-games/
In July 5, even within the post it is mentioned, there was a delay. Now think about an average consumer that was interested in the game after reading that, and checking out the news here. Before even reading what you added with each delay, in the first look he will see a dozen of delays. He will not spend additional 30 minutes to read your posts to see that the delay was not caused because of you dont care, it is the exact opposite. What I am saying is only that you should not gamble around with this.
Of course I am not trying to teach you your job, this is only a view from a fan, but still can see how may the others think.
As for the transparency, I see it the other way around to be honest. I haaaaaaate when I see a delay from some developer, and they don't bother to explain themselves. It's like, what the heck is wrong? Is something not ready.... or did they genuinely screw something up? One of them has fine implications on the game; if it's delayed because it's just not ready to meet their vision for it, that's a good reason to delay. It's good that they realized that a specific part of the game NEEDS more time to meet it's potential. If it's delayed because they screwed something up so horribly that a delay is created.... that's a bad implication. That doesn't say anything good about it, and says that I should think twice about a purchase. When a developer isn't clear about what's going on, I typically assume the latter.
"Overall though, I'd rather see the game delayed... many times if necessary... than pushed out in a bad state. That'd suck. While everything is looking good, there's just no way it's ready for EA right now.
so I put up a post here a few days ago and now its vanished completely??? are people plotting against me? or am I going mad? either way is rather unsettling I have to say.
fair enough I guess I really should pay more attention to the technical side forums.so I put up a post here a few days ago and now its vanished completely??? are people plotting against me? or am I going mad? either way is rather unsettling I have to say.
Based on another thread, there was some kind of maintainence that caused a few posts (a period of about a minute) that were lost.
As for the transparency, I see it the other way around to be honest. I haaaaaaate when I see a delay from some developer, and they don't bother to explain themselves. It's like, what the heck is wrong? Is something not ready.... or did they genuinely screw something up? One of them has fine implications on the game; if it's delayed because it's just not ready to meet their vision for it, that's a good reason to delay. It's good that they realized that a specific part of the game NEEDS more time to meet it's potential. If it's delayed because they screwed something up so horribly that a delay is created.... that's a bad implication. That doesn't say anything good about it, and says that I should think twice about a purchase. When a developer isn't clear about what's going on, I typically assume the latter.
My problem with transparency is not hearing about what went wrong, I also appreciate that. My problem is only with knowing the internal deadline for the Chris, you, Blue and Keith, which in an ideal company should be seperate from what the public knows.
Needing to delay the game a dozen of times is not that neutral itself you know. I know it is for right reasons, but that is not how a general consumer's mind works I assume. One can easily lose the hype that was build up for July, or can just get distracted you know."Overall though, I'd rather see the game delayed... many times if necessary... than pushed out in a bad state. That'd suck. While everything is looking good, there's just no way it's ready for EA right now.
I also agree with this, and my point was not countering this anyhow. My point can be summed up by the following sentence, even though it would be a bit exaggerated this way:
"When you are about to delay a game for 3 additional days, DONT. Delay it for 2 weeks instead, that would save you additional delays and apologies."
I don't think Chris needs you to defend him every time there's some kind of criticism.
Just got back into town. A couple of responses:
1. The raptor looks very dark right now because of the shader I created for her, which I need to update to be better. It's a WIP in some respects.
2. Regarding the unprofessionalism of delays, I can't argue with that or defend it. I'm not looking to try to, either. However, finances are super tight and we're trying to walk a fine line between getting things out in time and getting things out well. In the end I've wound up putting in a bunch more money than I had intended or thought I was able to ($45k in the end of extra personal funds to make it to the revised deadlines, overall at this point). I really did not want to spend this personal buffer money, and thought that we could get around that. However, I looked at the project and felt like it was not where I wanted to release at the time, and so we have a delay and yet more money drain on my end.
Is that what I want? Of course not. And talking about doing things differently next time is a bit silly, since I am not doing it this time by choice. "Next time you go down the stairs, it's a good idea not to trip and fall down the stairs." Thanks... I'll keep that in mind. ;) In other words, this is a product of still being in recovery mode from events earlier in the year. Hopefully with time and balance on this, we'll even out and not have to do this again. It's certainly not something that I've been doing for the hell of it, though, I can tell you that!
Shifting a release date forward is much harder to do. Press get caught flat-footed, it causes issues with partners and advertisers, etc, etc. The reality is that we'd more likely be trapped into a later release date, and thus be committed to those finances. It's possible that I am misunderstanding your point, but from my perspective of the checklist of things that have to happen for a release, a delay is a lot easier than a push-forward. Delays are a lot more common, and I think a sudden early release of a game would almost be more alarming than a pushback (why the sudden dump of a game into the public -- what corners were cut, etc?).
My point is mostly that there isn't an easy answer here, and I believe I've chosen the lesser of the various evils when looking at the overall ecosystem.
Lots of interesting stuff. Stay tuned for the next couple of days! I'm writing this while waiting on some stuff to compile, heh.
that's something I've never heard of before so may I ask what you mean when you say your codes compiling?.Lots of interesting stuff. Stay tuned for the next couple of days! I'm writing this while waiting on some stuff to compile, heh.
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/compiling.png)
that's something I've never heard of before so may I ask what you mean when you say your codes compiling?.Lots of interesting stuff. Stay tuned for the next couple of days! I'm writing this while waiting on some stuff to compile, heh.(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/compiling.png)
There are also the hybrid languages such as Java, but that's a whole other story.
There are also the hybrid languages such as Java, but that's a whole other story.
Java is weird. I'd still call it a "compiled" language, it just compiles to Java bytecode rather than pure binary bytecode. The Javabytes are then interpreted by/on the JVM.
But it lets you do some really cool and magical* things. Such as creating or modifying classes at runtime (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ObjectWeb_ASM), making 2+2 equal 5 (http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/28786/write-a-program-that-makes-2-2-5), or over-writing std::in and std:out with blank methods, protecting them against further modification or recreation, and hiding exit() (http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/61124/47990).
*sun.misc.Unsafe
?> let 2+2=5 in 2+2This is just beautiful.
5
Yup, that's Haskell.Quote?> let 2+2=5 in 2+2This is just beautiful.
5