General Discussion

Originally posted by Vincenz

 

 

I'd say Age of Conan is getting close.  5 delays starting in 2006 stretching to May of 2008 now.  I don't care how much stock people are putting in all the fantasies about this game, removing classes...removing prestige classes...AND delaying the game again...are not something to be excited about.

Close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear weapons ;)    That's 2 years of delays, not the 5-7 years of delays the OP rants about. 

I'm not trying to argue the point of your doubts regarding any particular game, I'm just saying that the OP's post tries to artficially inflate numbers to make his case.

If you've actually been waiting 7 years to see a game, then I'd agree that you need to move on.   But the recent delays announced by the major titles expected in 2008 are not something that deserve the kind of reaction from the OP.

The MMORPG community has finally convinced Developers not to release half-finished, garbage games.  Just because the OP is willing to throw away his money to eat complete trash doesn't mean the rest of us should follow suit. 

Yeah push backs and delays are annoying, but I believe the bigger problem are companies that gives dates for "possible" launch then pull back.  This done several times is poor business practice folks, no matter what the reason.

Wouldn't it be easier, or better for a company  to just simply refrain from any release date at all until said game was uhm..shall we say pristine enough for open beta announcement?

Companies that put themselves into a corner are the ones that hype a date(s) for release and then find all those bugs right before release.

Now, this is me not any of you.  Of course you may agree or disagree, but my philosophy here is simply just don't hype a release time at all.  Let us see the pretty pictures and tell of the wonderful worlds we will encounter.  Maybe even release some type of promotional video, but for the love of all that's logical, DO NOT tell us the cake will be ready on xx date and then confess that an ingredient was left out and so we need to bake it again for you absolute enjoyment!

Jiminey Cricket..it's not "rocket science"...SHHHHHHH! is the best policy!

The MMORPG community has finally convinced Developers not to release half-finished, garbage games.  Just because the OP is willing to throw away his money to eat complete trash doesn't mean the rest of us should follow suit. 

I hope you're not simply basing this on the fact they're delaying their releases, because from what I"ve seen of recent releases...they ain't changing anything.

POTBS is pretty "half finished" IMO, for example.  Vanguard was pretty "half finished" IMO.  Those are the only two big releases I can think of recently, but neither are shining examples of developers deciding to delay until they're "done".

both were also delayed, btw...but still not finished.

As a professional software developer with 15 years of experience I can say that delays always = bad project management, which typically means there will be problems other than delays. 

I’m not saying it’s easy to predict how long it will take to complete a complicated software project, but:
A.  They don’t have to give an exact timeline from day one. 
B.  They kind of software I write has to meet deadlines no matter what, there can be no delays, and if we fall behind there are always ways to pick things up (hire more people) as long at the managers and leads know what they are doing.

In their defense they won’t lose 100 million like my company would if a project is delayed.  So they can do what they want.  But there probably is some bad project management going on.

Really there is no way to know whether a delay is for the best or not, because it is unknown the true reasons for the delay. If the delay is because they can't meet their original goals, due to the project being a bit harder or longer than expected, that's fine. In game development, trust me, accurately projecting how long a task will take is VERY DIFFICULT.

There are other reasons for the delay though. Development could be slowed due to personell changes, where new people have to be retrained and acclimatized to the project - this could be bad, if too many new people work on it and bring too many new ideas later on into the project. There can be a conflict there where new ideas and old ideas make a sort of frankenstein game, if the leads don't keep things on track well enough.

Similarly, delays could happen because goals for the project have changed. This could be bad as well. Trying to alter the course in the middle of a project is tricky, and you can easily knock it off course completely. Look at Tabula Rasa. I was excited about this game 5 years ago, when it was Lord British, and the game sounded pretty cool. Over the years the game completely changed like 3 or 4 times. Now it's become some sort of knock off game that lost it's heart a long time ago.

Delays can happen because of feature creep. The "just one more feature" concept can continually delay a game when it is perfectly done enough to release. These new features can throw development way off course very easily. "What if we add this?" "Oh, we HAVE to have that. Lets put it off another month to add it in."

Finally delays can also occur because the developers aren't competent to complete the project as planned. They will either scale back the project to a level they can complete, or keep trying to solve all of the problems. The final release will probably be very trimmed back in features, with many features cut, and also likely be a buggy mess to boot.

Without knowing the reasons for the delay, it's hard to tell what the delay really means. Delays are just as often a bad thing as they are a good thing. But you can be pretty sure that if a delay happens, NOT delaying was probably the worst option imaginable, except in the case of feature creep.

How long it terms of time was WAR delayed? I have the feeling it's becoming a trend after the resent flop of a major title and it doesn't necessarily have to do with any particular AAA title.

StarCraft2 - Not an MMO but a good example.

We saw a good looking, working, playable version (somewhat at least) 7 months ago and still no release date.

You can hype a game without a release date.  And when the do give a date, I bet they will still have some work to do, but they will know how long that work will take, because they know what they are doing, and they (Blizzard) are competent.

Originally posted by GreenChaos

As a professional software developer with 15 years of experience I can say that delays always = bad project management, which typically means there will be problems other than delays. 

I’m not saying it’s easy to predict how long it will take to complete a complicated software project, but:
A.  They don’t have to give an exact timeline from day one. 
B.  They kind of software I write has to meet deadlines no matter what, there can be no delays, and if we fall behind there are always ways to pick things up (hire more people) as long at the managers and leads know what they are doing.

In their defense they won’t lose 100 million like my company would if a project is delayed.  So they can do what they want.  But there probably is some bad project management going on.

What ever happened to the Mythical Man Month?

Originally posted by wjrasmussen

Originally posted by GreenChaos

As a professional software developer with 15 years of experience I can say that delays always = bad project management, which typically means there will be problems other than delays. 

I’m not saying it’s easy to predict how long it will take to complete a complicated software project, but:
A.  They don’t have to give an exact timeline from day one. 
B.  They kind of software I write has to meet deadlines no matter what, there can be no delays, and if we fall behind there are always ways to pick things up (hire more people) as long at the managers and leads know what they are doing.

In their defense they won’t lose 100 million like my company would if a project is delayed.  So they can do what they want.  But there probably is some bad project management going on.

What ever happened to the Mythical Man Month?

But this post is right on, these projects suffer from the "first time, first use" syndrome in spades and its very hard to predict a fair release date with all the variables that come into play. 

It would be better to hold off on announcing a release date until they are very near an open beta level of quality.  As the people making WAR and AOC found out, once you get those closed beta testers involved things can come up that require drastic alterations of the game and you need the time to get it done right.