I didn't think Philip took preorders. I know he contemplated it but I
thought he'd resolved not to, especially given the uncertain status of that
particular project at the moment.
Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Ward
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 10:02 PM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] New games for windows not being produced any more?
Hi Shaun,
Yes, it is true if a person is a game developer, a software developer
of any kind for that matter, he or she must willing to put up with a
certain amount of flack from the user base. That is all apart of the
territory of designing software. Someone will like what a developer
does and others will down right hate it. However, the important thing
to me as a developer is how that flack or backlash is worded.
I personally can take constructive criticism. If someone doesn't like
something I do by all means tell me, but also suggest how it might be
made better. What I can't take is negative comments like "your
software sucks," "its crap," "it is buggy," whatever without pointing
out how this or that might be fixed or improved upon.
The other issue is being realistic. I suppose because most users are
not developers themselves they sometimes have wildly unrealistic ideas
such as put in an extra mode, an extra setting, or add this or that
and be able to turn it on or off at will. That might sound reasonable
to an end user, but they aren't the one having to rewrite entire
sections of code to make that happen, nor do they have to deal with
the issues of debugging the code when something breaks because of
adding said setting or mode. The point being if a person is going to
make a suggestion try and think of one that does not involve an
unrealistic amount of work to be done to change it.
As far as pre-ordering goes I have mixed feelings about that. Sighted
developers often take orders six months in advanced because they have
a team of developers, working regular hours, on a pretty regular 9 to
5 schedule and can pretty much estimate down to the day something will
be released.
Audio game developers are at most one or two man operations. As a
result many of them have families, other jobs, and their programming
schedules are likely to be erratic at best. Even if they have nothing
else to do but write games anything from the common cold to a nasty
case of the flu can throw development off days or even weeks because
there is no safety net to rely upon. A single developer has no team to
take up the slack for his/her illness. So it makes it nearly
impossible to give an exact release date unless that person works
really hard to release on that date come what may. Even then it is
pretty iffy.
As for you not having bought any of the games from Alchemy Game
Studios, AKA James North, I'm not sure that is relevant to this
discussion. What happened to him is unfortunate, but the important
thing for us to do is to live and learn from that situation. I don't
really care to get into a debate about that affair again.
What I think we have learned as a community is that if we want to buy
games, take pre-orders, we need to be able to offer up stable demos or
builds for people to download and try while the game is in active
development. Rail Racer, for example, was developed at the same time
Che was taking pre-orders for the game, but it worked out just fine.
People who wanted the game could download all the betas, the patches,
etc and not have to worry about Che just taking their money for
pre-orders and not giving them a product in return. That worked out
fine, and if I were ever to do pre-orders that is the way I'd do it as
a developer.
There is also another option here. It is to release a preview or demo
of the game the way Philip Bennefall did for Parilous Hearts, take
pre-orders, and then give himself six months to complete the game.
Even if it wasn't fully completed in six months there would be at
least something available for the paid customers to play such as a
unlockable demo or a beta to play.
Cheers!
Post by shaun everissOk, Ok!
Enough is enough.
I wasn't going to chime in because of the reasons below.
However enough is enough.
No one has pushed this and yes I expect to get a backlash from here
but it needs to be said.
With my testing groups I have never sugar coated things.
If something is really bad I have said so.
To be honest while there are a few trolls on this list forums etc and
there will always be some, I strongly feel that when you are a
dev you need to expect and deal with a bunch of flack from your users.
If your stuff sucks I'd like to know so I can fix it.
I don't want people to say how good it is then I find later its total
crap and guess what I can't fix it because its to hard to do so.
I do agree we learned a lot from james north's mistake.
Preordering is fine but if you don't have something close to
finnishing then well.
The sighted preorder stuff munths in advance at least 6 months in
advance sometimes but still a few years is a bit much to wait.
Releasing something before you actually plan to release it without
allowing yourself headroom is not a good idea either.
And thats where the line must be.
Now I know some won't like me because of this but I strongly feel it
needs to be said.
I never brought james stuff because I honestly never got round to it.
I did support the general user base though my experience was not as
it is now I'll give you that.
Its my opinion that though maybe not meaning to supporters of some
devs decide to adjust the story to suit their god like devs.
I realise that all the james north stuff never happened on the lists
in fact I know a lot of it wasn't.
I just remember things went weird towards the end.
And before I am flamed off the list, I understand all sides.
I know about the stresses of actually designing stuff for games now
and also what the user expects and what its like.
I say this to be telling everyone my opinion.
And I am trying to be as nice as I can.
To be honest I do not agree that its all bad.
True expect a bit of bad press everyone should expect some everyone
has their critics.
If you are getting to much then somewhere along the line you have an
issue, now I realise it may not be that obvious but still to say
there is to much bad comments is really not correct.
I realise you may need to waid through a bit but thats life.
There I've said my piece, take it or leave it.
I can't force you to believe anything however in the short time I
have done design and testing I have always said how it is.
If its broke I have not been affraid to say it and where it is and
what may be wrong.
All I am saying as devs and users need to have some flexability with
this sort of thing.
I agree, flaming for no reason but to get noticed is really bad form
however at the same time saying everything is fine because you are
to scared to actually say it isn't is not good.
I strongly feel that more people need to say what is not good rather
than saying its all fine and expecting it to be fine when its not.
This is now I feel.
I will not argue with you on this, I have a good idea what some of
the people on here will think of my opinion and thats fine I don't
expect everyone to think as I do.
I only put this out as an alternate opinion only.
---
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