A simple question about the future of Empires development

Discussion in 'General' started by Xyaminou, May 16, 2017.

  1. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    Guys, relax, I don't think the creation of this poll is coming from discussions among developers. (I'd say that inclusion of Thexa in the first line is misleading)

    But keep the votes coming, can't be bad to know what people support. (At least we will know how much people we'd piss off if we are not going one of the ways)

    Developers, unless being paid & hired (aka we follow the ideas by "designers"), should have full rights to decide what he wants to work on. <= Not even my words btw, I think that's common sense among Empires developers.

    Like, it doesn't even matter if Empires is a paid game or not, as long as we are "stand alone workers", we always have full rights to do whatever the fuck we want, because fundamentally, it's not a "job" for us. (My definition of job here, is that you have to obey someone for your money & position)

    If developer A wants to fix bugs, he gets to fix bugs, if developer B wants to have some new features, he gets to have some new features.

    Now, here's a shot fire for you guys, goes to everyone, don't create a poll just because you are losing an argument.
    When you are losing an argument, you have almost 0% chance of getting YOUR things done, because you are not convincing people.
    But I know it is very convenient to just, create a poll, and HOPE that people would support you, then you can talk louder because you are not alone, and HOPE that people would skip the part where "you were losing the argument".
    But if you are losing the poll? Doesn't even hurt, your winrate can't go below 0% and we don't ban people for polling.

    That's just convenient as fuck.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2017
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  2. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    I want more small fixes. More hot fixes.

    Bio mg is op, small hotfix.
    Armor too good, small hotfix. Not a complete weapons and armor rehaul every patch.
     
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  3. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    that makes absolutely no sense, but its fine as long as it comforts you - at least you have a scapegoat, damn vets ruining all my fun durr.

    i tell you a secret, but dont tell, everyone wants new features, the difference is the approach.
    if "vets" are against your super awesome idea, maybe there is a reason for it beyond just ruining your fun, experience is a bitch.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2017
  4. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    Didnt u make a poll once to prove a point
     
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  5. Xyaminou

    Xyaminou Member

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    Too bad I had already read it, and it showed that you didn't read half of what I said
    Love monty python though.

    1. Yes it will, and I have said many times I am okay with that.
    2. Indeed, they won't, Empires doesn't have the player base to do proper testing. And even games with a real development team miss bugs, and that's okay.
    3. I have said many times, I don't expect them to fix them prerelease. I expect them to take the time to deal with problems in the 2 or so days after the release, either by hotfix or rollback.

    Developers have already specified what they need for testing, but it's just not available.
    You can't stop development just because not enough players to playtest, you just use different contingencies.

    Well hopefully the next patch will be handled differently from this one.

    You're so very wrong. I care about stability, balance is subjective and is not something I expect anyone to get right, not me, not the current developers, not the previous ones.
    I definitely want new features, I thought it would be obvious by the amount of threads I've made in feedback. I just don't want them to cost the game's stability and population
    When you play a brand new game you don't want something new because you've just found out and presumably are still exploring the possibilities the game has to offer. So, no, new players don't want something new.

    I really don't know how to reply to this. You don't wait for problems to accumulate before you fix them, because sooner or later you become overwhelmed.

    Who said anything about a discussion among developers? I literally had a conversation with Thexa 5 minutes before posting this thread. Please don't talk about things you don't know anything about.

    No, just because you're a volunteer doesn't mean you can do whatever you want, you still have responsibilities. I have already explained that to many people and an analogy I used is "If you volunteer at the popular soup, you can't just come, toss people soup in people's face and get away with it". (Yes I'm terrible at analogies, shut up)

    Again, you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. I created the poll because I want to know what people want, and you should too. I don't give a shit if they support me or not.
     
  6. Thexa4

    Thexa4 Developer Staff Member Moderator

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    I understand the point you're trying to make. We'll try to give more thought to reverts in future releases. I can't promise that it'll happen every time we encounter an issue as the factors that influence a decision like that vary wildly between issues but we'll consider it more strongly.

    To all players: if you can spare the time, please help us test releases as it has a chance of reducing the amount of bugs encountered in the live version.
     
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  7. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    No one said anything but the community should know that this is not an official polling AND the development of the game will not necessarily follow the result of the polling.

    Someone actually PM'd me, thinking you were instructed by devs to post this and this is official..etc.

    Can you name the "responsibilites"?

    Still, this is dead fact, nothing you say will change this unless you start paying us or a company somehow wants to purchase Empires : if developer A wants to fix bugs, he gets to fix bugs. If developer B doesn't want to work on something, he gets to not work on that thing.

    It's why I said "keep the votes coming" in the second line, it's never bad to know what people think.

    But you are not the one that should be making this poll.
    Polls like this should be created by developers when the developers are not sure what to do and/or they like both options equally and they'd like to hear from the community

    Anyway, the result seems to be 50-50, we are heading back to "let devs do what they want".
     
  8. Xyaminou

    Xyaminou Member

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    I am not responsible for people's stupid assumptions. If they have a doubt then they can just ask instead of assuming everything.

    Yeah well I've been doing lots of things I should not have to do. Ask yourself why.
     
  9. MartinPL

    MartinPL Member

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    Okay another my post goes into trash because i'm a retard at writing to people... Well, another example i can't write.
    I have no idea how write my post better so i just gonna put this there:
    @flasche
    I think that actual situation with devs gonna block us at choosing one thing than both. Veterans are mostly pointing bugs and balance issues, but i not see to much threads about expanding new mechanics for game and expanding the Empires universe like lore and other simple things. I don't believe Empires is in perfect state and not need new things.
    And about ruining fun. It isn't good feel being completely destroyed, because some veterans teamed up in one side and leave second one just with people on lower skill level. Maybe i'm taking Multiplayer games too serious but it isn't really fun being slaughtered every time... Well, glory to the Draft plugin!
    @Xyaminou
    By dividing i mean taking sides on what should be priority for devs. Not everyone is like this but some can just throw the towel and say they don't want to be here anymore because of X and Y.
    And by saying big bag of things to do i mean, it works for me. I do a lot of things at once, in one day than take things in parts. For me taking things in part is exhausting and quickly throws me off. Well, i not sure if it gonna work for someone else if he don't try it.

    And i'm pretty sure 100% that my post again gonna avoid the point i meant. Well, my signature isn't placed for just decoration, I'm just a Moron. *Casually puts more "kick me" stickers at my own back* (Weird? it isn't for someone being masochistic person, trying to go into depression because, feeling pain is only thing left for me...)
     
  10. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    New features will not attract new people. That should be clear. When they launch the game, they will not know a new feature is new.

    HOWEVER, new features can bring us up to speed with other games that have passed us and have refined both genres better. IE FPS games have been far more refined than Empires is as Empires is 10+ years old. This is the same for RTS games as well. Empires is from the era of "Figure it out yourself" games that didn't hold your hand as you went through it. I'm not saying we need to go full on hold your hand, but we definitely need to improve it for new people to pick up easier. I'm not saying lower the skill cieling, but perhaps lowering the skill floor so more people can play it easier.

    As they refactor the code, new bugs will pop up. The code base is a mess, so I've been told, as there are numbers and variables that are mentioned in places they have no place being mentioned. It's a lot of work for them to refactor such old code, and there are actually businesses out there that refactor old code to work on modern machines and these jobs can be 6 digit figure incomes, yet our devs do it for free. For example, this tank overhaul/turret overhaul fixed one bug from so long ago, second seat being stuck with the tank. We can't expect perfection. This game is 10 years old and was hacked together by a mad man on an aircraft carrier. It's amazing it works and I remember hearing that from Trickster/Someone in game 5 years ago. This isn't to mention each port to the updated source engine made it worse, or so I've been told.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2017
  11. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    i stongly believe "devs" dont block anyone at anything, they as much as everyone else (possibly even more) want this game to be as great as it can be. the real issue is time and much slack needs to be cut. call me naive to believe that, but why else would someone spent countless of unpaid hours and cope with a community with an utterly shit attitude - i can only see one reason for humans to act so utterly retarded and thats being love. but love can fade, and there are many doing the best to bring it to an end.

    as for the empires "community", since i fail to find nice words i just leave it be.
     
  12. MartinPL

    MartinPL Member

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    I think i pick wrong word. I not meant block Totally, just that it is hard to develop new things AND doing many fixes. It takes a lot of time and can generate some more problems than doing One thing and then thinking what is need to be done. Devs don't have time stopper, more time something is taking, more people can be inpatient due to lack of full info what is going "behind the door". It is the way my brain thinks how it is going on.
     
  13. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    well if the foundation is unstable you better fix it and not start building a house on it - and especially not the 2nd floor - no matter how impatient you are.
    as said before, everyone wants new features and the best game possible. patience is a virtue.
     
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  14. Grantrithor

    Grantrithor Member

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    You know who was a great dev who shat out bug fixes daily?
    Candles.
    Right now he's probably working on some cool stuff where people don't hate him.
     
  15. Xyaminou

    Xyaminou Member

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    He actually was on the forums yesterday, we tried to get him to come back.
     
  16. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    you do not get free reign to do whatever you want just because you can code. you get leeway to do things you want to do. but you shouldnt ignore everyone else in the community to pursuit your goal of whatever you want (i think you remember mootant who made great changes but did some really stupid stuff while ignoring everyone)

    theres been changes im really happy about in regards to the code. but seeing stuff like vehicle lag prediction issues and making tanks movements slower (under the pretense of an exploit noone knows how to actually do) is very disheartening.
    the only person who hated candles litterally only did it so he could become a dev of a game 100 people play and then proceded to do absolutely nothing. its pretty funny when you think about it
     
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  17. Grantrithor

    Grantrithor Member

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    It wasn't just catface, I remember there were a couple of others who were doing some serious shit talking. Think one of them was guns and whammo and another was some literal who from 2006.
     
  18. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    This is exactly what I said, it's just a polite way of saying "do whatever the fuck we want".

    If we are to ignore the community, there's no way in hell you'd be hearing from us THIS often.

    I've been through like 10 communities, Empires dev team out-performs all of them, in terms of the "availability" of the devs, it has always been like this, like, for the past 10 years.

    Devs might be doing things that make people feel satisfied for like, 80~90% of the time.
    But people tend to go crazy about that 10%.
     
    Last edited: May 21, 2017
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  19. JustGoFly

    JustGoFly Member

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    CatFace did not do nothing. He was very active at:
    1) Disrupting the community
    2) Pissing off every server owner such that some of those servers shut down
    3) Promised the world, Promised many new features, UT Engine, it was quite funny how he could spend all day writing posts. I didn't know where he found time to code.

    It's silly to ask if you want new features or bug fixes because every single real developer knows that BUG FIXES take priority over new development. Any programmer that just wants to add new shiny things and ignore the good work of making the code rock solid, is NOT a developer. He probably is asking "Would you like Fry's with that" during the day, and coding at night. Here's a quote from one of my favorite dev books on the attitude of a developer:
    "If a programmer believes that a bug can simply 'go away', or that fixing bugs 'later' won't be harmful to the product, bugs will persist.... Having a good set of habits and attitudes is possibly the most important requirement for consistently writing bug-free code.".

    PS: I haven't read through this whole thread, but losing Candles was the worst thing to happen to Empires in the last few years. He loved fixing stuff. He rarely added new features - he said he felt there was plenty of work to do just making everything work. The exact opposite attitude of the guy who pissed him off enough to get him to leave. I'm glad to see him back playing. I wish someone on the dev team would talk to him about getting involved again.
     
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