Forsaken wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:53 am
Hello.
[Awesome post]
Welcome, Forsaken!
That was, as mentioned, an awesome post. I think everyone completely agrees with you. Josh needs to be consistent. The dev team still seems to think that everything "has" to be flashy. It really doesn't.
I've made efforts to get Josh to limit the time he spends, with some success, but I think the strain of spending hours per log has gotten to him. I'm not entirely sure how to get him out of that "it must be flashy!" mindset. I wish I had more to say about your post, but honestly, it all comes down to a simple three-word sentence: "I agree completely."
(On another topic, I'm always a bit unsure of how to welcome someone when they've been lurking for years. You can't really say "welcome to the forums" because they've already been there for a long time.
But "welcome" isn't quite enough, either. I'm really glad you're here, Forsaken, and hope you continue to stick around - even if you decide to go back to lurker status.)
Damocles wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 6:22 am
If the situation of LT development is becoming more and more financially risky (I suppose the kickstarter funds must have ran out or very low by now)
I don't actually know Josh's/Procedural Reality's financial situation. I'm not actually sure I'd be allowed to comment on it if I did, either.
I'd have to check the NDA again. Regardless, Josh has told me previously that I shouldn't be worried about his finances... whatever that may mean. That's all I really know about it.
At any rate, I still very strongly doubt that Josh would ever take Limit Theory down the Early Access route. I could be wrong, of course, but I'm still getting that impression.
Kimny wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 9:14 am
1) much worse than the repeated lack of commitment to any promises is Tal saying that lately, communication has been scarce even with him. Well, first of all what is the point of having someone as great as Tal doing a job as great as hie is if you are not willing to give him consistent and regular contact access to the team? Second, why would the team suddenly diminish such contact? Makes no sense to me.
2) I find Adam's hypothesis (reported by Tal) to be particularly problematic. He said something along the lines of the team being mostly working too hard at the code. Seriously? Are we going down those bland, generic, PR routes? All gamedev teams have to code hard. I find difficult to see that consistently missing deadlines, derailing into yet another tool building and not even caring to come here to post a note as being remotely justifiable because coders are doing hard code (I'm a professional coder as well).
Heyaa, Kimny! Been a long while since I saw you post!
First, I know a bit more about what's happening in LT than I'm allowed to say (aforementioned NDA). I'm fairly certain that if I
could talk about it, fears like "Josh must be working on UI again" and "oh god, it's metal shader 5.0 time, isn't it" would be allayed. Unfortunately, that's all I can offer right now: LT development currently seems to be (from what I can tell by watching the assembla) on track and headed in (what I personally think is) the right direction. It still doesn't solve the need for consistent communication, of course... but it's something, I guess?
Josh really did plan on working on gameplay next, and from what I can tell, he seems to be following through on that.
Second, thank you for your support.
I try to do right by everyone here, and it's always reassuring when I get a pat on the back.
Flatfingers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 10:06 am
Imagining myself in Josh's shoes, I might have been disappointed that my last update seemed to spark more outrage ("where's the gameplay?!") than appreciation.
That said, here's a (mostly though perhaps not entirely serious) suggestion for how to communicate progress toward completion:
1. Take a picture/screenshot of the task board.
2. Post the picture to the forum.
3. Repeat weekly until all tasks are in the "Done" column.
Done.
I've tried to put some stuff together for Josh to show that would reflect progress. Some of it has made it to you guys (the
Limit Theory Feature List is one example) and some of it hasn't. I'm currently still working on getting something roadmap-like together that Josh would consider "presentable". I think part of the problem is that for a lot of it, Josh has the code completed, but it's in the wrong language (C++ instead of Lua) and he therefore can't actually call it "implemented" yet. I really think people would understand that, though. The important thing to show is progress. As long as updates to the roadmap come frequently, progress can be shown, and you could even have a progress bar ticking down the remaining "percentage estimate" if you wanted. Perhaps this estimate wouldn't be truly "accurate" -- some features are harder to implement than others -- but it would nevertheless provide a good sense of "LT
WILL be completed" that devlogs, by themselves, can't quite convey.
I'm working on it, though. I'll come up with something he'll be okay with.
I just need to put it through a few more iterations.