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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#511
JoshParnell wrote:This is perhaps why I was afraid to share information of what I'm currently doing, because I didn't want to start the "Perfectionist 3.0" debate.
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Best I can explain it at the moment :monkey:
Thanks. That's what I meant with a professional would react to critics with explanations!

Now an advice, in private between you and me :shh:

Learn to lie

:o :shock:

A status report need not to say what you are actually working on, if it may be misunderstood by the backers (which have no clue anyway and only see schedule and budgets). It should actually present a couple of key milestones and the advancement. As long as you judge that "AI strategic planning" improved from 30% to 70%, nobody needs to know you reached this result by playing tetris while your genetic algorithm was optimizing the AI characteristics.

My advice, with will be as costly to ignore as it was to give ;) is therefore to select 5-10 key indicators of your game advancement, going from graphic engine, to user interface, to asset generation, to tactic/action AI, to strategic AI, to economic simulation, to mining/blueprint/manufacturing. Anything else? That would already be a stong game.
Then give all those items an advancement, from 0% = no clue how to tackle the problem, to 90% = ready for beta, via some intermediate status like 30% = concepts in place, 60% first rough implementation.
Then every 2-3 monthes you issue a 10-liner post with the status of your key indicators. Be modest, so you keep option to increase next time even if you spent more time on tetris again...
Makes for a simple life for you, and for happy campers by your stakeholders.
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#512
As a developer, I agree what CSE said. Not so much lie, but hold information back if only so you can share it next time even when nothing is happening.

I myself have been working tirelessly and endlessly* on TurBoa and every day it draws closer to completion**.

* in my mind
** as measured by time until completion, by virtue of the fact that it will be completed in the future and every day is closer to whatever that date in the future is
Games I like, in order of how much I like them. (Now permanent and updated regularly!)
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#515
@CSE
Quote:"

Now an advice, in private between you and me :

Learn to lie

A status report need not to say what you are actually working on, if it may be misunderstood by the backers (which have no clue anyway and only see schedule and budgets)."


Quote:

(2012 KICKSTARTER Kampagne)
"At this stage, much of the graphics technology has been completed, most of the core engine is in place, and many of the procedural algorithms are well underway.
Gameplay is the largest part of what remains, and I fully intend to make gameplay my burning focus for the rest of the development process. Gameplay is king, I recognize that! Limit Theory will not be about graphics (although they will be good!). It will be about gameplay."

So the work had almost been completed back in 2012.
Surely a Missunderstanding.

Seems your advice had already been followed.
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#516
notami wrote:@CSE
Quote:"

Now an advice, in private between you and me :

Learn to lie

A status report need not to say what you are actually working on, if it may be misunderstood by the backers (which have no clue anyway and only see schedule and budgets)."


Quote:

(2012 KICKSTARTER Kampagne)
"At this stage, much of the graphics technology has been completed, most of the core engine is in place, and many of the procedural algorithms are well underway.
Gameplay is the largest part of what remains, and I fully intend to make gameplay my burning focus for the rest of the development process. Gameplay is king, I recognize that! Limit Theory will not be about graphics (although they will be good!). It will be about gameplay."

So the work had almost been completed back in 2012.
Surely a Missunderstanding.

Seems your advice had already been followed.
Huh, google fails to produce that quote.... link please?
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#517
So the work had almost been completed back in 2012.
Surely a Missunderstanding.

Seems your advice had already been followed.
If the tone of that is to suggest Josh was deliberately lying during the Kickstarter campaign (and consequently from then on, because something close to ready in 2012 only could be even more ready in 2013, 2014 or 2015), I think that is going way too far. I mean, questioning somebody's character is a bit too serious and while in the last days I've been one of the lauder critics of Josh's choices after his dark days, I never felt the right to question his character and am still not willing to.

Still, for BFett who asked for the link where Josh said that in 2012, it's here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jo ... escription
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#518
Gameplay is the largest part of what remains, and I fully intend to make gameplay my burning focus for the rest of the development process.
Well, gameplay is still what is being worked on, among other things. I believe that this statement is still true, even though there have been detours in the development process from time to time. It's things like the mining, RTS interface, commodity market, and UI work which makes me confident that Josh is on the right track to finishing the game.

As long as we get some sort of information every three months or so I'll be content. More frequent is nice, but hardly necessary.

Keep up the good work Josh! I'm rooting for you.
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#519
As long as we get some sort of information every three months or so I'll be content. More frequent is nice, but hardly necessary.
Hardly necessary? Each three months for a game in development since 2012 and after one post of news in an year? Well, that's kind of shocking to read and would be outrageous if true. Specially if you consider that "every three months" means then a beta is due for like 2016 Christmas or more. There are limits, my friends, there are limits...
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#521
JoshParnell wrote:Also, one more point, is that I have no problem with you guys voicing concerns about my approach. It used to cause me great angst pre-dark-days. At this point, I'm mentally secure enough to understand the legitimacy of the concerns from the outside without questioning the validity of what I'm doing inside :)
Nice to see you posting some stuff again Josh :D

I think it worth keeping in mind that just by the nature of crowd-funding this added pressure is just part of that deal, but with small inputs from your end it will be enough to keep the global happiness levels from the fan base, and that is all it takes really. The 'AAA' standard dev updates you started out with were awesome, but not really needed for a one man project (atleast not after the Kickstarter had made it). So small bits of info, even text only, is the way to keep things smooth, probably for yourself as well as the rest of us on the outside of your dev process.

And just a quick note on perfection. Morrowind. What a game......it can be made into. Full of flaws and exploits, imbalances and imperfections in it's default state (but still pretty awesome), but once 'the people' had been let lose on it it was lifted to another level. So keep in mind what you loved about Morrowind in terms of LT. There does not need to be any pressure from yourself to release the 'perfect' or 'finished' LT, as just like with Morrowind, 'pretty decent' will be good enough for the majority and it is going to be fun to see what the modding side of LT brings to light :)

In fact if i look at any of my favourite games over the last decade or so, nearly all of them only became 'favourites' after plenty of Modding.

So perfection, might all be in the eye of the beholder, and aiding creativity might be a solution in itself?
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#523
JoshParnell wrote:This is perhaps why I was afraid to share information of what I'm currently doing, because I didn't want to start the "Perfectionist 3.0" debate. I'm well-aware by now of my tendencies (after all, I have to put up with them in life, not just in LT development, and they cause me plenty of pain there as well).

However, at the same time, please keep in mind that it is I who have had my head around the problem of building LT for three years now. I don't wish to condescend at all, but do consider that I've a lot more knowledge of where my mistakes have been and where I've lost time than anyone else. This puts me in a better position to understand the correct way forward than anyone on the outside.

The path that I'm on currently is nothing more and nothing less than my interpretation of the optimal solution to the completion of LT given the sum of all of my prior experience working on it. Despite what might look like an endless cycle to those of you on the outside, internally I feel very differently about it. It's not a circular path, but one that spirals inward, converging on the correct solution.

I've been wrong countless times during the production of LT, but all I can do is use those wrongs (along with the new gift of mental stability) to guide my way to the right. Every wrong pushes my spiral inward. At the most fundamental level, it is only going to take one "right" for the rest of LT's development to unfold without causing more issues that require backtracking.

Best I can explain it at the moment :monkey:
This, along with your follow-up statement, is very reassuring (to me at least). Given what you've gone through to get to this point, when you say "trust me, I know best", it's far more reassuring than trying to convince us that your current task is the best thing since sliced bread. You weren't really doing the second thing, but still
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Re: The Beginning of the Golden Days!

#524
JoshParnell wrote:This is perhaps why I was afraid to share information of what I'm currently doing, because I didn't want to start the "Perfectionist 3.0" debate. I'm well-aware by now of my tendencies (after all, I have to put up with them in life, not just in LT development, and they cause me plenty of pain there as well).

However, at the same time, please keep in mind that it is I who have had my head around the problem of building LT for three years now. I don't wish to condescend at all, but do consider that I've a lot more knowledge of where my mistakes have been and where I've lost time than anyone else. This puts me in a better position to understand the correct way forward than anyone on the outside.

The path that I'm on currently is nothing more and nothing less than my interpretation of the optimal solution to the completion of LT given the sum of all of my prior experience working on it. Despite what might look like an endless cycle to those of you on the outside, internally I feel very differently about it. It's not a circular path, but one that spirals inward, converging on the correct solution.

I've been wrong countless times during the production of LT, but all I can do is use those wrongs (along with the new gift of mental stability) to guide my way to the right. Every wrong pushes my spiral inward. At the most fundamental level, it is only going to take one "right" for the rest of LT's development to unfold without causing more issues that require backtracking.

Best I can explain it at the moment :monkey:
That's good enough for me. Thanks, Josh.

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