this is from krenzo's interview on some website or other. http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=3854 I was wondering if the devs still advocate a view similar to this, and if any credence is still being lent to this statement. Given that krenzo is pretty much done on empires so that he can work on smashball, afaik, I was curious as to if his views are a factor in current game development. Or, more importantly, whether it is accepted that there is a supportive community that he maintains is needed for a "release early" model (given that current consensus seems to be that the present community is dying/dead). I would say that such a community exists, but one could argue that I don't know enough about actually producing a mod to make such a claim with any authority.
I still think "release early, and release often" is still better than the alternatives. Nothing screams "This mod is dead!!!!" better than no official update for over 6 months.
My strategy has always been 'when it's done'. 'When it's done' being synonymous with 'when I feel like it' and 'when I think it's good enough'.
In general, rushing releases isn't a good idea. Posting updates like "We're working on remodeling the LT and AFV so they're more equal, working on the weapon scripts, and adding more stats." is great. In the case of remodeling, screenshots are also a nice indicator of how things are going.
True, but I don't think that waiting till your comfortable with the release is a good idea for mods. Since mod devs don't get paid (or don't get paid much) for releases they can't spend as much time as paid game developers = longer development time or lower quality release. I think the true danger to modders is that they wait too long to release and both the community and the devs lose interest in the mod. Krenzo's experience with the 1.0 releases may not have been ideal, but I think the alternative is a completely dead mod (think such fallen greats as RC2 or SI2, etc, etc).
