State of the Beta - Post #5

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We are on track for the early July release. There is a lot of focus on polish. The question for most features is not, "can we get it ready on time", but "what else does this need to make it the best it can be".

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innervation wrote:

I have no idea if GGG will keep reading this thread, but something important occurred to me as I was reading the end of the OP:

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We are on track for the early July release. There is a lot of focus on polish. The question for most features is not, "can we get it ready on time", but "what else does this need to make it the best it can be".

Please don't get too carried away with this approach

Please.

I've seen indie companies grow and this seems to be a trend lately amongst indie developers that are seeing success and growth beyond what they ever envisioned when they started. I'm not saying GGG is there, but that last line set off alarm bells in my head.

Where is 'there'? 'There' is the point at which development either slows to a crawl, or nearly freezes because of too much company growth, and a loss of focus on what got the company there in the first place.

'There' is too much management, too much red tape, and too much 'polish'. What happens is someone has a great idea which gets the green light. Let's say it's a feature that will take 10,000 hours of total company work that 75% of the playerbase will enjoy, and the other 25% will kind of shrug and be neutral about it.

If companies aren't careful, some project manager will come along and say - "you know, my boss is really pushing a focus on quality and polish - what if we did x, y, and z with this project - that will make 85% of players love it and cut down on apathetic responses". He may be right, but he also just doubled the workload of the project - for a small improvement in results.

Then, because Super Leet Indie Company has gotten big headed, they push it even further - and are faced with even more diminishing returns on the polish-to-time-to-enjoyment triumvirate. The manager asks for features x 1.1, y 1.2, and z 1.3 - again doubling the size and scope of the project - again doubling the workload - again pushing back the release date, all to get that last little bit of polish that will please that one last person that otherwise might not have liked it.


For a recent example, lets use Riot Game's League of Legends. Years ago they announced that they were working on a feature that I was rather looking forward to. About 8 months ago they announced that they had scrapped it. Their reason? 'It wasn't a 10/10 idea - and Riot games is committed to only delivering only the best experiences'. The disappointing part isn't that they scrapped it - it was their reason for doing so.

Technical difficulties pushing it back? Understandable. 'We reviewed the project and realized it wasn't worth our time'? I can live with that - I understand they need to make money. The feature in question was a system of loyalty rewards where players would be recognized through cosmetic effects in game based on how much they played/spent on the game (kind of like what GGG already has now with the packaged extras in their packs). It was the thought that counted. I didn't need it to be a 10/10 in terms of execution and polish - I was just really happy that they were the kind of company that was thoughtful enough to do something like that.

There is a time and a place to push for quality and polish, but hopefully GGG never let it get to a point where 'polish' is an excuse for actual feature development to grind to a halt. I'm not saying this is the situation with The Awakening. But I have heard other developers use this language before, and it may carry risks if the top minds of GGG aren't...well...mindful of those risks.

As much as I'm looking forward to The Awakening, I wouldn't begrudge GGG if they pushed it back a month or two if it's for the right reasons. Bugs can be tricky, balance can be a fickle mistress, and there are only so many hours in the day for development, coding, drawing, and QA. But if it got pushed back because it wasn't 'polished' enough - that would irk me a bit.

I'd rather have a steady stream of entertaining 8.0, 8.5, and 9.0 content than one 10/10 release per year.

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BestUsernameEver wrote:

GGG tries to stretch it as much as they can since they want to generate as much income as possible by selling supporter packs to people who'd like to get also access to the beta servers, which is an understandable move if you're looking at it from an business perspective.

And if they're seeing a way to extend the beta "testing" then forget the july release date :)

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BestUsernameEver wrote:

GGG tries to stretch it as much as they can since they want to generate as much income as possible by selling supporter packs to people who'd like to get also access to the beta servers, which is an understandable move if you're looking at it from an business perspective.

And if they're seeing a way to extend the beta "testing" then forget the july release date :)