Information Politics part 2

[narita]

Can't you delay a bit, say a week, your irrepressible instinct of update? I really don't care what's in the update, I just want to know per advance the times of instability.

Knowning this, people are able to postpone the event they prepare like wedding, parties, tournaments, wars...

Just Imagine two guilds make a war, the update occurs but one leader is a Mac or Linux user would be unable to connect the week after or more to sign the peace.

This software is not like a basic text editor. When it does not work people can't use the previous version because it does not work either.

[DaveG]

If we worried too much about these things, nothing would ever get done.  If something like that happens, just postpone the event.

Bluntly put, you aren't guaranteed stability on a test server.  If we update, we update; if it crashes, it crashes.  We should attempt to give more info than we do, but at some point you also just have to go with the flow. 

The main thing I think we can agree on, is that we need to use the news lists for the servers and a mailing list.  A new news thingy was added to Laanx a while back, and we really haven't used it at all.  More info does need to be provided, or rather, better provided.  People can usually figure out what's going on by loitering around in #planeshift and #planeshift-build, and asking the right people.  However, instead of just letting people complain about things in the main room, and waiting for people to login there just to have their question answered before they ask it... we should post the info somewhere.

[Karyuu]

Oi. I don't think delaying a release for a week is going to flow at all. Do you realize how much longer this would make development in general? And people are already complaining that the team isn't working fast enough for their liking. It's unfortunate that some events will have to be stopped or postponed, but please remember DaveG's words - this is a test server. You are a tester of the game first, and a regular player second. We can't finish a release and then wait for a week, twiddling our thumbs, while players get comfortable with the idea.

[Pale]

I like Ekusile Feyorel's idea of having a summary somewhere of what is being worked on. No details need to be given, but what is likely to happen in the next release or two, ie. new armour, new glyphs, expansion of quests, and so on.

Little teasers of what's to come...

And with regards to updates, releases, whenever they're ready, release away! But perhaps that could also be something to have in the upcoming section, the state of the release cycle "working on bugs from last release" "major new work in progress, no release expected for a fortnight" "a lot of new stuff and we're gearing up for a release".

It could be on the forums maybe, but I like the idea of revitalising the mailing list. Once a week or fortnight or whatever, but a few times a month, just reminding we tester/players that exciting things are happening in the background. A few lines on roughly where things are going next.

[DaveG]

what is likely to happen in the next release or two, ie. new armour, new glyphs, expansion of quests, and so on.

Ok, there you go.    They'll be more armor textures, more quests, crafting, bugfixes, and eventually new maps.  But, you already knew that...  There's really nothing more to list than that.  If SF was working, you could check the links in my sig from time to time.  (their best guess is it'll be back online by the end of the month; we may move to SVN by then...)

[neko kyouran]

Not to get off topic much, but since you brought it up.....I second that decision to move.

Not that my opinion counts for much

[narita]

I can't be a regular player or even a regular tester because I'm a Mac user.
It appear to me you're unable to communicate with  yourself when you'll disconnect the server for alien plateforms (Linux, Mac), so I didn't hope much you'll be able to communicate with the thousand of testers or whatever you call them.

If you don't find anything to do during a week, well... here is ideas: clean up the code, fix the last bugs, add comments and documentations, think to next release, add quick and last minute features, make a clean installer from source, prepare a release with the sources (this stuff is supposed to be open source, why is is so hard to have working sources?), do profiling, add missing skins, etc.

[Karyuu]

Narita, we make a release when the bugs have been already fixed. To fix new bugs, we have to find them first, and that is where you guys come in. Part of development is to get things out and let you guys run around and find mistakes so that we can progress.

We are not waiting a week to release something, this is final for now. If anyone has further unrelated suggestions, feel free to make them.