Automatic Patching...

[Parts]

acraig, have the developers agreed to a \'freeze\' once a certian number required features are complete or are you all out there trying to fight moving shadows?

(Not havin a go like......)

[acraig]

Originally posted by Parts
acraig, have the developers agreed to a \'freeze\' once a certian number required features are complete or are you all out there trying to fight moving shadows?

(Not havin a go like......)

Yes, we have a plan that we follow and try to stick with it the best we can. There are no major code areas that are in design at the moment. A lot of it is just fine tuning and testing sections that have not been tested in a long time to make sure they still work and work as they are supposed to.  The big task now is coordinating and gathering the resources together to make sure everybody plays nice when it is all together.

[Harwen]

Originally posted by aarobber
One big challenge is that an auto-patching technique must have a solid base to be successful. Adding something like a patch that implements half the functionality of fighting will render the game unusable.  

CB is a major structural change to PS, not a large series of small patches.

That\'s not my point, what I said, twice even, polish up the game. And by the way, read the news a while back, they\'ve got fighting down pat.  Did you all see the video? I don\'t see the problem with letting us walk around a better, prettier, maybe, possibly bigger map, with MAYBE a fighting system, MAYBE some more items to find, and MAYBE....catch my drift yet? I\'m not asking you to go finish up already, just to read my post and get what I\'m trying to say.

And...um....

But what I was asking is why not, release the game as-is, close the few holes left, and patch the rest? I don\'t mean patching MB up to CB, but releaseing CB then patching when someone makes an addition.

Wow, I feel like I\'m repeating myself...and no one is answering a single question.    

And as Acraig said,

no more major coding areas in design, just tweaking and fine tuning

And what about us testing the game? I mean, what\'s with a few bugs, just slap on an alpha label on it and there you go. Pre-Alpha Beta anyone?

[acraig]

Originally posted by Harwen
And what about us testing the game? I mean, what\'s with a few bugs, just slap on an alpha label on it and there you go. Pre-Alpha Beta anyone?

I don\'t think we are quite ready to go live with that yet.  Chances are things will crash the server and we will be flooded with the same error report 100 times.   I think we are close to this point though. If people can build their own development version then they stand a better chance of testing early.

[Parts]

Originally posted by acraig
Yes, we have a plan that we follow and try to stick with it the best we can. There are no major code areas that are in design at the moment. A lot of it is just fine tuning and testing sections that have not been tested in a long time to make sure they still work and work as they are supposed to.  The big task now is coordinating and gathering the resources together to make sure everybody plays nice when it is all together.

Well, I\'m glad you\'re meeting goals as I was reading a post which i believe was by you a while back on some game-developers forums (gamdev itself perhaps??). - I\'d say you have a lot of doubters from that thread that you need to prove wrong

I seem to remember that they were a really optimistic bunch; \"Can\'t be done\" \"open/free MMORPG is impossible\" - Cheerful lot!

Keep up the excellent work! - But feed the baying masses regularly

[acraig]

Originally posted by Parts
Keep up the excellent work! - But feed the baying masses regularly

Well this is my hobby.  It\'s something I do when I get home after working on computers all day.  It\'s something I do for fun and relaxation ( believe it or not  ).  I know it\'s fustrating for people to wait but consider: I don\'t come to your house and tap my feet when you are building your model airplane or sit around and watch you play on your playstation .

[Parts]

Originally posted by acraig
 If people can build their own development version then they stand a better chance of testing early.

Yay! I accidentally built CVS HEAD the other week so hopefully I can

[Parts]

Originally posted by acraig
Well this is my hobby.  It\'s something I do when I get home after working on computers all day.  It\'s something I do for fun and relaxation ( believe it or not  ).  I know it\'s fustrating for people to wait but consider: I don\'t come to your house and tap my feet when you are building your model airplane or sit around and watch you play on your playstation .

When I say \'keep up the good work\' I don\'t ask anything of you, its just a very British use of the saying that means \'You\'re doing great and we appreciate it\'.

As for feeding the baying masses on a regular basis - I meant that in terms of \'self-defence\' - I personally have all the time in the world

[Harwen]

This is seeming pointless, because no one wants to give me a straight answer.

And instead, other questions are answered if that\'s what you want to call it...

I don\'t think we are quite ready to go live with that yet. Chances are things will crash the server and we will be flooded with the same error report 100 times. I think we are close to this point though. If people can build their own development version then they stand a better chance of testing early.

Um, the best testers are players. We already have this kind of bug reporting on the forums, don\'t put it on email. Screen emails if you do decide, to do this then. Not many of us can build our own development version, or don\'t know how. Most of the bug reports are pointless, since they have been ironed out already, or have to do with client-side problems. Most importantly, they deal with MB. Is it really just an excuse? Seriously you\'ll find us sending you those same 100 error reports anyways once you people decide to put CB out. This many players will obviously find things wrong you couldn\'t.

So, again, someone answer my question and my main point please? I just love how on topic everyone is.

[Vengeance]

Maybe your question needs clarifying if no one is answering your question instead of just repetitively posting about how no one is responding to you?

Why doesn\'t linux release every day?  They could do a daily patch of their code too right?  Some random devs somewhere said it was \"easy\" so why don\'t they do it?

Why do mysql, apache, gcc, redhat, kde not release daily?  This is an outrage. :-)

It just isn\'t that simple dude.  Art, content, quests, npc dialog scripts, other data all must be coordinated with code and the people who produce those things don\'t always get done at the exact same moment.

We are going as fast as we can and we will release when we can, as often as we can.  That\'s it.

Any non-lazy person have a url to the gamedev.net thread about how we\'ll never make PS?  :-)

- Vengeance

[Parts]

Originally posted by Vengeance

Any non-lazy person have a url to the gamedev.net thread about how we\'ll never make PS?  :-)

- Vengeance

I only *think* it was on gamedev. - I\'ve just been for a look but the seach system there is so old it could have been written in BASIC on a Commodore Pet.

I saw that thread quite a while back and one of the participents used the name \'acraig\'. The discussion didn\'t specifically mention PS but I later put 2 + 2 together when I came here.

The man to ask would be acraig.

A release every day? how riduculous - I demand a release every hour!

[Harwen]

My question was clear.

I got tired of repeating it after clearing myself up twice.

And go tired of replies but no answers or anything halfway helpful.

And I won\'t re-state my question, because it\'s on the first page of this post.

 :rolleyes:

[acraig]

But, what I find difficult to understand, is the game playable?

I guess you mean this.  If so then there are two answers. The first is yes, it does work in that you can login, walk around in our test map. So it is playable for potential developers or people that are fixing things.    The second is \"no\" for general gaming.  In order for that to happen we have to bring together all the necessary resources ( map files, models, graphics, etc ).  For example I am only halfway through placing the new graphics for the widgets.  Also not all the models have their animations in place and all the dialog for npcs are not in place.  This makes it very hard for the general public to offer any constructive help at this point since we already know the trouble spots and are working to fix them.  Once we remove most of the problems that we know about then we can offer this up to people to test.

[acraig]

Originally posted by Parts
I only *think* it was on gamedev. - I\'ve just been for a look but the seach system there is so old it could have been written in BASIC on a Commodore Pet.

I saw that thread quite a while back and one of the participents used the name \'acraig\'. The discussion didn\'t specifically mention PS but I later put 2 + 2 together when I came here.

The man to ask would be acraig.

I\'ve been a memeber of the Gamedev.net forums for a loong time. ( my id is something like 64 of 600000+ so it probably was me. I don\'t post very much though.   Most of my posts are just to encourage people to work hard on their projects and ignore everybody who says \'it cannot be done\'.  Most posts think that you have to be some huge development house to make games and you need millions of dollars for servers, etc.   Most of the responses I\'ve read about PS on their forums have been positive.

[Harwen]

Thank you very much Acraig