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Dancing Bear -> RE: playable yet? Part II (3/29/2009 12:52:12 PM)
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Pzgndr, for the sake of time, I am going to agree with you that anyone who has posted to this thread is a chimp with a credit card, who should be happy punching keys on a coloured box, while ignoring the ever increasing sound of flushing as the economy goes down the toilet.
Now as to the facts, I take a different interpretation.
1) How many people play the PBEM vs the AI?
We don’t know much about the ratio of PBEM’s to solo players, but if you recall the poll Matrix did a while back in July ‘08, asking what Matrix should improve first: most wanted PBEM speed increases; closely followed by AI improvements; and trailed by an editor. The editor is in 1.06 so no longer a factor. So, let’s say about half the people wanted AI improvements, and half wanted a faster PBEM game (I suspect that in the second year since game release, that almost all the AI players have moved on).
2) Can a list of past fixes tell us what we can expect the Marshall to be diligently been working on in the future?
Yes, I agree, it can. And the problem is we don’t like what we see.
The list of fixes you provided is typical, in that it reveals the Marshall has spent a good chunk of this time on bugs, which everyone agrees is the priority. Almost all the remaining items are AI improvements, followed by Rule deviations (which many would consider bugs). None address PBEM game speed that at least half of consumers wanted.
This game has been out now for about 16 months, so the Marshall has had about 2,600 hours of programming time to fix the problems. In that time, the Marshall has probably spent 1,300 hours on bugs, 900 on AI improvements (from Dec 07 to Dec 08 and ongoing), 300 on the editor (Dec 08 to now), and maybe 100 on PBEM streamlining (the Marshall whipped out skipping in almost no time at all).
So, what I take away from the above is we can expect more AI improvements and debugging in the future. And no speed improvements, even though PBEM’s, who make up about half the people that brought the game, and 90% of the people that post to this forum, have been crying for a faster game since at least July. Isn’t time, after 16 months of post-release development, isn’t time the Marshall got serious about improving the PBEM game speed?
Why PBEM speed? Well for us players: 1) because we want it, and 2) it will reduce the demands the game makes on PBEM to meet the “24 hour” rules that many groups have implemented to make the game playable, which would get a lot of players to relax and be a lot more forgiving.
For Matrix: 1) The PBEM’s won’t be so mad and won’t demand their money back so much, 2) They might start pulling back those players that quit in disgust, 3) They might be able to persuade some new players to join, 4) because the game will be faster, we’ll find bugs faster as well, the Marshall can fix them faster as well, and the game will be “playable” sooner, and 5) the Marshall might get a well deserved break.
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