Thank you for replying Comprox. And I think that you make valid points. I think I will let this one die, as my thoughts are now running headlong into my last conflict, which was not answered at all. Ah well. I have nothing more to input unless Flayra himself has somthing to say.
[edit] Oh no.....
Silver Fox: All outward impressions would make us assume that this is the only bug. From the lack of bug notation in the ChangeLog, to the statements that "balance is pretty much figured out, just some cosmetic things" that Flayra himself has said. Comprox said against this and it is occouring to me now more than ever that even Flayra is less than truthfull (or less than disclosing) about many things (originally I thought it was just about my other little tiff). Do not mock me, as I have read everything NS releated. I know all that I could ever possibly be known not being a playtester. Give me some instances of bugs that Flayra has omitted from our viewing and I will concur that Natural Selection needs some more gut-work. [/edit]
I wonder if iKONBoard keeps track of the number of characters you have typed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin--> would make us assume <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And <b>that</b> is your problem.
You assume too much.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin--> balance is pretty much figured out <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't think that said it was done, why do you think so? Like its been said, 5 point tweak has dramatically changed the game play. Its not just something you can toss up and hope to work.
Correct me if I'm wrong (With a solid quote), but I'm pretty sure we never said that all was left was a few finish touches.
Feature complete means that all planned features, ie, all major assets to the game and gameplay were in. For example, all weapons, all upgrades, all aliens, buildings, etc. Models and animations are NOT features, they are purely cosmetic. The reason why some animations are being redone is because one of our animators had to leave for one reason or another, and he used a different animation program to everyone else; so we had to restart those model animations.
As for your claim that NS not being near completion, how the hell would you know? What's this about us giving a 'further release date'? We never had a release date. It'll be done when it's done, and it'll be soon.
I suspect that the main reason you are objecting to the way NS is being produced is because you feel like a fool whenever your friends taunt you that NS isn't out yet, after you have shown it to them and talked about how cool it is.
If that's the case, then it's you who has been hyping NS. And now you're blaming us?
GrendelAll that is fear...Join Date: 2002-07-19Member: 970Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, NS2 Playtester
Comments like Freemantle's are the reason why we don't give release dates.
People like me and Fam don't stay up until 5am testing NS just because we like keeping it to ourselves. It will be finished when it's ready to play. Since the game has totally assymetrical teams it is a little harder to balance than most games. It took Blizzard years to make Warcraft 3 and an army of coders.
What do you want us to do, release Tribes 2 or something?
We could release a game with bugs in it, but that would just mean that people who have systems where the bugs show up would get to watch their mates play it whilst they have to sit around and wait for a patch. If those people have been waiting around 2 years for it then that strikes me as even more unfair.
And just to pick up a specific point, as you clearly know jimmy jack xxxx about games, an animation is unimportant as you can either a) Put placeholders in or b) use some ugly basic animation or model. The game still remains perfectly playable. But since we are finishing the game off in terms of total playability, we are making sure that the animations are simultaneously being improved upon.
Flay has been surviving off 0, I repeat 0, income for the last two years while he's made a game for you to enjoy free. Your contribution to this is to rip into the product and the development process, despite not bothering to arm yourself with anything as important as facts.
As Harry Callaghan put it:
"Opinions are like ---holes, everyone has got one."
Freemantle, we're a lot of pple here that want to play NS all day and night, but you gotta understand dev team. First of all, its THEIR MOD so if they get today and erase it all its THEIR decission or if they want to fix this or that minor bug its THEM WHO decide WHEN the mod is release as its THEM who are working on their hobby time to create it.
Freemantle, it's a changelog. It lists changes, interestingly enough. If a bug didn't get resolved, it tends to mean that the code didn't get changed, so it is excluded from the changelogs. There are still quite a lot of bugs in NS. Most of them are small, and unnoticable, and may not be fixed before release. Some of them are big and very noticable, and will detract from gameplay <i>significantly</i>. As an example, in our bug tracking system, there are currently over 300 open 'tickets' and almost 200 closed 'tickets.' While not all of them are bugs, and some of them are duplicates, this gives you an idea of what's left. Personally, I don't expect every bug to be fixed, as that would take much longer than even I'm willing to wait for NS to be released, but there's still a lot of work left.
Another thing is that you all seem to expect that NS will ship as a <i>beta</i>. <span style='color:red'>I'm not speaking for the team,</span> but if I were releasing the finished product you'll be getting, I'd call it version 1.0. Hell, what we got back when playtesting started is comparable to most mods' early and middle betas. What we're playing now, I'd expect to see in a box on a shelf. Just because it seems to be the mod community standard to release buggy betas and have open testing does not mean that every mod has to follow.
Furthermore, I simply have to wonder at the impatience of most of you. I've been a member of the NS community for almost a full year now. I was following NS for 7 months before I got to play. 7 months. When I finally got to play, I loved every single minute of it, though I fully know that if I hadn't been a fan for so long, I would have walked away from the game then and there. And yet, during those 7 months, I never questioned whether NS was vaporware, if it was never going to come out, or even <i>when</i> it was going to come out. Sure, progress seemed to be faster back then, but that was only because there was so much left to add, and almost all of it could be shown to the public in a qualitative manner (i.e. pictures). You can't easily show with a picture that hive build times are now # minutes, that HMGs now cause # damage and cost # RPs, that blinking no longer inadvertantly gets you stuck in a wall, or that onos hitboxes have been fixed so that they actually work. Freemantle, you've been here since June. You may have been following the mod for longer than that, but you've only given NS any sort of realistic time commitment for 3 months.
People who've been following the mod for a really long time, but who have never given a time commitment to it on a level approaching that of some people on the forums will be the best off. They've spent theiir time doing other things with their lives in the hours a day that most of you spend on the forums and such. They'll suddenly see one day that NS has been released, they'll grab it, and they'll have their fun. It won't mean as much to them as it will to you, but they aren't getting all hot and bothered over nothing about now.
I speak from experience (FLF) when I say, the general public are idiots when it comes to "beta" vs "1.0" areas. At about nearly every single interview, even by big "distinguished" (and supposedly intelligent) sites, they'd always ask "when is the beta coming out?" to which I would reply "it isn't. Release 1.0 is blah blah blah" but of course nobody gets it.
The typical gamer things "beta" means nothing more than "mod release". Thank CS for that. Some people even blindly defend the tag <i>beta</i> as not making any difference and of being of no difference than a final release, or a release candidate (thank firearms for that). And of course these people know nothing about software development but still debate it against people who know what they are talking about.
cl_idiotrant 0
[edit]
cl_edumacation 1
for those that are curious about these sort of things, here's a breakdown:
<b>alpha</b> - early stages of development, lots of stuff not done yet, placeholders galore, that sorta thing.
<b>beta</b> - supposed to be "feature complete" stage, but afaik this gets labelled a lot before it, pretty much when the alpha starts to really shape up and resemble the final product, but still there are bugs and whatnot that must be sqished
<b>release candidate</b> - basically a "if there are no problems, we'll slap 1.0 on this and its done!". but as you might've guessed that is hardly ever the case. There are many RC revisions until finally one is satisfactory, then that version ships/is released.
<b>version 1.0</b> - the first publically released version!
A good way to think about this is to think about what you buy: You don't go to the store and buy a copy of Adobe Photoshop RC4, or Windows XP Beta 7. You buy Photoshop 5.5 (da bestest version, you can do 6 or 7 if you are into that jazz heh) and Windows XP Home (or Professional).
okay my hands are tired, no more typing from doomy!
WTF?!?! Since when did you become a PT Doom? Ah well, I don't care, in two weeks, I probably won't be able to play HL for a year. I'd like to say something on this thread, but I'd likely be nuked.
It seems to me that misleading messages about NS's level of completion were sent to the public.
The term "feature complete" is obviously understood differently than the team intended. The layman sees the word 'complete' in it and draws his conclusions, and the slightly more experienced gamer wonders why several months <i>after</i> feature completion, a complete new Heavy Marine model pops up, and the head developer posts something to the effect of "Now if I only knew how to put this thing into the game".
Another cause of the wrong public image are the playtest stories, easily the most popular topic on this forum. They are entirely about complete, enjoyable and bug-free NS games. It is not at all surprising that the public has the impression of an almost bug-free game when all talk about the (obviously prevalent) bugs is artificially suppressed.
The more you tell the public about the things that are still broken or incomplete, the more understanding the public will have for a further release delay.
KungFuSquirrelBasher of MuttonsJoin Date: 2002-01-26Member: 103Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
You think they'd be worth anything if we wrote about the games with endless crashes and horrible exploits and bugs? Hell, who would WANT to read that? Fortunately, those days are (mostly) over. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
Yes, this NDA is the cause for the wrong public image and the growing impatience. My signature might give a hint where I stand in the "propaganda vs. truth" controversy. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
Woo post #50! A mile stone <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->
hey, silver (or any othe PT or dev) what exactly is in the NDA? As NDAs go (as far as I have seen) this one is rather lax, most dev teams don't let things like the PT stories, but oh well (/me just curious
FamDiaper-Wearing Dog On A BallJoin Date: 2002-02-17Member: 222Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Sorry, cannot tell you about the NDA. Ironic, no? <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
lol, oh well ;D I am happy with the NDA though, seeing how as it alowes for PT stories as well as lots of Qs about the games <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
I think Flayra/someone else important gives the PTs the ok on the stories. And the Qs about the games, well, they are probably authorized to give out information within reason. Or something.
Anyway, I'm just posting again so it dosen't seem like I'm singing with my fingers in my ears. I hear what you all are saying. I understand that the game has some obvious bug that need to be fixed. I understand that there are tremendous balance issues, especially with the teams being non-symmetrical. I also get that Flayra and Co want to release this game as good as possible.
I <b>assume</b> too much of the developers. But I rarely forget what I read. Please don't tell us things like "sooner than you think" or, "you'll see sonn enough" and "prepare for the final stretch" when the game is not yet playable. I reconviened with some of the lanners this morning, specifically charles, as he has followed NS longer with me. I directed him to the post and he agreeed with me from his non-playtester point of view. This really dosen't matter. My complaints don't really need to be responded to. All I am doing is expressing my feelings with correct grammar, somthing that non-playtesters don't do a lot around here. Keep playtesting, keep writing your animations and coding your features. Just remember that there are people out there who care. People who will likely buy Natural Selection should it go retail for the sentiment they have for it. Go about your business, and I'll keep thinking stuff up for Beta 2.
P.S. I'm all for calling the public release Beta 1
I don't know who to address this to, but why the great length between playtesting the Release Candidates and releasing the Mod? Is it because it is almost done, so work is moving the slowest? there can't be that many bugs <i>after</i> RCs1-3, for example, can there?
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Release Candidates are Feature Complete .
<b><span style='color:white'>DEFINITION OF FEATURE-COMPLETE:</span></b> All "features" of the game are present in the build for bugtesting and balance. This includes things like: all major coding elements. player weapon effects/abilities full functionality in Commander Mode upgrade scheme evolution scheme resource system
After this point, there is still work to be done. Even though jetpacks are "in", they may not be working properly. Even though the resource system is complete, it may unfairly distribute RPs to one team or the other. Even though a weapon is in, it might be unreasonably powerful or perhaps the hit detection/damage allocation is messed up.
Additionally, "Feature Complete" does not necessarily include all artwork or sounds. The first RC contained many placeholders; there are still a few that remain. ----------- For a good deal of playtesting, even after I joined at PT7, we were playing without the Level5 alien in the game. You simply couldn't evolve to him. Obviously, when he finally went in we could start balancing the game with the level5 factored in. Feature complete means that all the elements to be balanced/fixed are *present* and ready to be tweaked.
...Except the Heavy Armor, which I think Flay kept just to have a fun surprise for his PTs. (:
I can see why there's this whole argument. I'm not pointing fingers, but maybe the community should stop worrying and pushing for the game like it's their duty to. If anything, it's going to be counter-productive. Don't even mention your friends that left because it was taking too damn long. What's the logic behind that? NS doesn't NEED to come out before a particular date for it to be worthy of play. We know the game is feature complete. It won't be long. Everyone should just relax and let the team do their job. Just relax.
wow, thats a fast nuke <!--emo&:0--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':0'><!--endemo-->
Comments
[edit] Oh no.....
Silver Fox: All outward impressions would make us assume that this is the only bug. From the lack of bug notation in the ChangeLog, to the statements that "balance is pretty much figured out, just some cosmetic things" that Flayra himself has said. Comprox said against this and it is occouring to me now more than ever that even Flayra is less than truthfull (or less than disclosing) about many things (originally I thought it was just about my other little tiff). Do not mock me, as I have read everything NS releated. I know all that I could ever possibly be known not being a playtester. Give me some instances of bugs that Flayra has omitted from our viewing and I will concur that Natural Selection needs some more gut-work. [/edit]
I wonder if iKONBoard keeps track of the number of characters you have typed.
would make us assume
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And <b>that</b> is your problem.
You assume too much.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->
balance is pretty much figured out
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't think that said it was done, why do you think so? Like its been said, 5 point tweak has dramatically changed the game play. Its not just something you can toss up and hope to work.
Feature complete means that all planned features, ie, all major assets to the game and gameplay were in. For example, all weapons, all upgrades, all aliens, buildings, etc. Models and animations are NOT features, they are purely cosmetic. The reason why some animations are being redone is because one of our animators had to leave for one reason or another, and he used a different animation program to everyone else; so we had to restart those model animations.
As for your claim that NS not being near completion, how the hell would you know? What's this about us giving a 'further release date'? We never had a release date. It'll be done when it's done, and it'll be soon.
I suspect that the main reason you are objecting to the way NS is being produced is because you feel like a fool whenever your friends taunt you that NS isn't out yet, after you have shown it to them and talked about how cool it is.
If that's the case, then it's you who has been hyping NS. And now you're blaming us?
People like me and Fam don't stay up until 5am testing NS just because we like keeping it to ourselves. It will be finished when it's ready to play. Since the game has totally assymetrical teams it is a little harder to balance than most games. It took Blizzard years to make Warcraft 3 and an army of coders.
What do you want us to do, release Tribes 2 or something?
We could release a game with bugs in it, but that would just mean that people who have systems where the bugs show up would get to watch their mates play it whilst they have to sit around and wait for a patch. If those people have been waiting around 2 years for it then that strikes me as even more unfair.
And just to pick up a specific point, as you clearly know jimmy jack xxxx about games, an animation is unimportant as you can either a) Put placeholders in or b) use some ugly basic animation or model. The game still remains perfectly playable. But since we are finishing the game off in terms of total playability, we are making sure that the animations are simultaneously being improved upon.
Flay has been surviving off 0, I repeat 0, income for the last two years while he's made a game for you to enjoy free. Your contribution to this is to rip into the product and the development process, despite not bothering to arm yourself with anything as important as facts.
As Harry Callaghan put it:
"Opinions are like ---holes, everyone has got one."
I think yours stinks.
<!--emo&:angry:--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':angry:'><!--endemo-->
just wait.
<!--EDIT|coil|Sep. 09 2002,23:49-->
Another thing is that you all seem to expect that NS will ship as a <i>beta</i>. <span style='color:red'>I'm not speaking for the team,</span> but if I were releasing the finished product you'll be getting, I'd call it version 1.0. Hell, what we got back when playtesting started is comparable to most mods' early and middle betas. What we're playing now, I'd expect to see in a box on a shelf. Just because it seems to be the mod community standard to release buggy betas and have open testing does not mean that every mod has to follow.
Furthermore, I simply have to wonder at the impatience of most of you. I've been a member of the NS community for almost a full year now. I was following NS for 7 months before I got to play. 7 months. When I finally got to play, I loved every single minute of it, though I fully know that if I hadn't been a fan for so long, I would have walked away from the game then and there. And yet, during those 7 months, I never questioned whether NS was vaporware, if it was never going to come out, or even <i>when</i> it was going to come out. Sure, progress seemed to be faster back then, but that was only because there was so much left to add, and almost all of it could be shown to the public in a qualitative manner (i.e. pictures). You can't easily show with a picture that hive build times are now # minutes, that HMGs now cause # damage and cost # RPs, that blinking no longer inadvertantly gets you stuck in a wall, or that onos hitboxes have been fixed so that they actually work. Freemantle, you've been here since June. You may have been following the mod for longer than that, but you've only given NS any sort of realistic time commitment for 3 months.
People who've been following the mod for a really long time, but who have never given a time commitment to it on a level approaching that of some people on the forums will be the best off. They've spent theiir time doing other things with their lives in the hours a day that most of you spend on the forums and such. They'll suddenly see one day that NS has been released, they'll grab it, and they'll have their fun. It won't mean as much to them as it will to you, but they aren't getting all hot and bothered over nothing about now.
The typical gamer things "beta" means nothing more than "mod release". Thank CS for that. Some people even blindly defend the tag <i>beta</i> as not making any difference and of being of no difference than a final release, or a release candidate (thank firearms for that). And of course these people know nothing about software development but still debate it against people who know what they are talking about.
cl_idiotrant 0
[edit]
cl_edumacation 1
for those that are curious about these sort of things, here's a breakdown:
<b>alpha</b> - early stages of development, lots of stuff not done yet, placeholders galore, that sorta thing.
<b>beta</b> - supposed to be "feature complete" stage, but afaik this gets labelled a lot before it, pretty much when the alpha starts to really shape up and resemble the final product, but still there are bugs and whatnot that must be sqished
<b>release candidate</b> - basically a "if there are no problems, we'll slap 1.0 on this and its done!". but as you might've guessed that is hardly ever the case. There are many RC revisions until finally one is satisfactory, then that version ships/is released.
<b>version 1.0</b> - the first publically released version!
A good way to think about this is to think about what you buy: You don't go to the store and buy a copy of Adobe Photoshop RC4, or Windows XP Beta 7. You buy Photoshop 5.5 (da bestest version, you can do 6 or 7 if you are into that jazz heh) and Windows XP Home (or Professional).
okay my hands are tired, no more typing from doomy!
<!--EDIT|DOOManiac|Sep. 10 2002,00:33-->
The term "feature complete" is obviously understood differently than the team intended. The layman sees the word 'complete' in it and draws his conclusions, and the slightly more experienced gamer wonders why several months <i>after</i> feature completion, a complete new Heavy Marine model pops up, and the head developer posts something to the effect of "Now if I only knew how to put this thing into the game".
Another cause of the wrong public image are the playtest stories, easily the most popular topic on this forum. They are entirely about complete, enjoyable and bug-free NS games. It is not at all surprising that the public has the impression of an almost bug-free game when all talk about the (obviously prevalent) bugs is artificially suppressed.
The more you tell the public about the things that are still broken or incomplete, the more understanding the public will have for a further release delay.
/me watches as Monse waves his whooping paddle named NDA around
eh ... never mind ...
Woo post #50! A mile stone <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->
As NDAs go (as far as I have seen) this one is rather lax, most dev teams don't let things like the PT stories, but oh well (/me just curious
I am happy with the NDA though, seeing how as it alowes for PT stories as well as lots of Qs about the games <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
I <b>assume</b> too much of the developers. But I rarely forget what I read. Please don't tell us things like "sooner than you think" or, "you'll see sonn enough" and "prepare for the final stretch" when the game is not yet playable. I reconviened with some of the lanners this morning, specifically charles, as he has followed NS longer with me. I directed him to the post and he agreeed with me from his non-playtester point of view. This really dosen't matter. My complaints don't really need to be responded to. All I am doing is expressing my feelings with correct grammar, somthing that non-playtesters don't do a lot around here. Keep playtesting, keep writing your animations and coding your features. Just remember that there are people out there who care. People who will likely buy Natural Selection should it go retail for the sentiment they have for it. Go about your business, and I'll keep thinking stuff up for Beta 2.
P.S. I'm all for calling the public release Beta 1
Is it because it is almost done, so work is moving the slowest? there can't be that many bugs <i>after</i> RCs1-3, for example, can there?
<b><span style='color:white'>DEFINITION OF FEATURE-COMPLETE:</span></b>
All "features" of the game are present in the build for bugtesting and balance. This includes things like:
all major coding elements.
player weapon effects/abilities
full functionality in Commander Mode
upgrade scheme
evolution scheme
resource system
After this point, there is still work to be done. Even though jetpacks are "in", they may not be working properly. Even though the resource system is complete, it may unfairly distribute RPs to one team or the other. Even though a weapon is in, it might be unreasonably powerful or perhaps the hit detection/damage allocation is messed up.
Additionally, "Feature Complete" does not necessarily include all artwork or sounds. The first RC contained many placeholders; there are still a few that remain.
-----------
For a good deal of playtesting, even after I joined at PT7, we were playing without the Level5 alien in the game. You simply couldn't evolve to him. Obviously, when he finally went in we could start balancing the game with the level5 factored in. Feature complete means that all the elements to be balanced/fixed are *present* and ready to be tweaked.
...Except the Heavy Armor, which I think Flay kept just to have a fun surprise for his PTs. (:
<!--EDIT|Fam|Sep. 11 2002,02:47-->