Josh, one of the issues I think we in the community are facing at the moment is the absence of any information regarding the upcoming work: specifically, apart from your extremely welcome return to better mental health and your new implementation of sensible working patterns, we really don't have any information at all on the next steps.

I fully appreciate that you don't want to give us a timetable or an estimate or anything that could be misconstrued as a promise so it occurred to me that maybe if you could share some kind of list of tasks to be done for the beta, then maybe we could draw our own conclusions as to the scope of the task? For example, if the task list read "Change UI colour to blue, Ensure Ringu's ships get +10 bonuses" then we might figure that's probably a shorter set of things than if it was "Research new way of performing AI, Solve world hunger, Replace UI with direct brain-linked holograms".

Obviously I'm basically just fishing for more information, but there is also a more serious side; confirming whether or not you have a list of things to be done, or is the beta (and potentially the rest of LT) a bit more Ad-hoc at the moment?
Professionally, I'd say that a task list is a must-have if you are to avoid feature creep and just to know when you're finished, so it seems to me that this is an important step.

I enjoyed your post. There's nothing wrong with fishing for more information, Ringu.

I believe Josh is working on that ship of yours at this very moment. *chuckle*

I agree with you Ringu. It would be nice if I could update my list of features. I'm certain that it is out of date and that most of the things on that list are complete. But if this isn't the case, or more things have been added I would greatly appreciate an update.

AFAIK Josh has a "masterplan" in one form or another. That is, some sort of development to-do list. It had a tree form, then changed to something else. I remember some devlogs about that topic. He also wrote about some ideas to make that "plan" public to us, but then life came in the way and the rest is history.

The problem with listing the tasks that you need to do, is if you try to do something else instead or if you decide not to do something on the list, people may get upset.

Don't get me wrong, it would be interesting, but at this point we are probably best just accepting we don't know what he's doing, what he plans on doing and how close to beta he actually is or isn't.

I would be more interested in a brief and low production summary of what he has done since January rather than what he has left to do. Knowing how long till beta doesn't change how long beta is.

The LT forum community has repeated asked to see the master list since the Kickstarter. Josh has always, wisely, said no. Right now 2013/14 Josh appears to have returned, one that is active on the forums and positive. Let's just keep it like that and let him show us stuff when he's ready.

mcsven wrote:The LT forum community has repeated asked to see the master list since the Kickstarter. Josh has always, wisely, said no. Right now 2013/14 Josh appears to have returned, one that is active on the forums and positive. Let's just keep it like that and let him show us stuff when he's ready.

As I've said before, I may choose to share information at a point where I'm ready to do so. Right now I'm not at the point yet, as the task list is basically "everything" and "nothing" at the same time. Odd and I'll let you guess at what that means, but it's good

JoshParnell wrote:As I've said before, I may choose to share information at a point where I'm ready to do so. Right now I'm not at the point yet, as the task list is basically "everything" and "nothing" at the same time. Odd and I'll let you guess at what that means, but it's good

What might be a nice idea, is a list of systems that you feel *ARE* finished.
Might give everyone some perspective on how much work you have done. (depending on how much you are willing to state is done)

JoshParnell wrote:As I've said before, I may choose to share information at a point where I'm ready to do so. Right now I'm not at the point yet, as the task list is basically "everything" and "nothing" at the same time. Odd and I'll let you guess at what that means, but it's good

Are you polishing again, Josh.

As if you'd tell us if you were. *chuckle*

Victor Tombs wrote:

JoshParnell wrote:As I've said before, I may choose to share information at a point where I'm ready to do so. Right now I'm not at the point yet, as the task list is basically "everything" and "nothing" at the same time. Odd and I'll let you guess at what that means, but it's good

Are you polishing again, Josh.

As if you'd tell us if you were. *chuckle*

"polishing"

[eyebrows.gif]

Could someone change the last cipher to a "6" in the "We're shooting for an early 2015 release" at least? It is irritating somewhat.

JoshParnell wrote:As I've said before, I may choose to share information at a point where I'm ready to do so. Right now I'm not at the point yet, as the task list is basically "everything" and "nothing" at the same time. Odd and I'll let you guess at what that means, but it's good

It basically means the game is complete, but not to Josh's standards for how LT should breathe.

Victor Tombs wrote:

JoshParnell wrote:As I've said before, I may choose to share information at a point where I'm ready to do so. Right now I'm not at the point yet, as the task list is basically "everything" and "nothing" at the same time. Odd and I'll let you guess at what that means, but it's good

Are you polishing again, Josh.

As if you'd tell us if you were. *chuckle*

Since Josh appointed me as the official guesser of what he meant, I'm going to assume it means that my ships are about to become Ozymandian legend

Since Josh did say we could guess here's mine. I think he means that LT is currently being polished and tested for bugs before the beta releases in late October or early November.