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Joel Billings -> Clarification of future development plans (12/1/2004 7:22:34 PM)
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There seems to have been a strong reaction to my last developer's journal post. Let me clear up a few things. First, I did not mean to imply that 1.4 would be the last patch. We are committed to attempt to fix bugs as long as we continue to get good information about them and saves from game players. I did mean to imply that the number of "new features" and/or major system rewrites would greatly decline.
We cannot continue to "improve" WitP endlessly. Perhaps someday we will turn the code over to some outside volunteers to continue working on the code, but let me tell you it won't be easy for anyone to move this monster without adding their share of new bugs. Mike has been very good about adding in new features after release (for both UV and WitP), but this cannot go on for very long. How many boardgame companies do you see rewriting their rules after release?
As for bugs, we're very sorry that some bugs are still in the game. Given the complexity of the game and the program, I think the game is in pretty good shape. But I realize that even one major bug can be a source of great frustration for someone devoting a lot of time to playing the game. I try to keep an eye on the forum for any major bugs, as do Kid, Frag, Mike and Mogami. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's really out there that needs working on. Yesterday someone reported that there were several major bugs and emailed me to say that saves had been send to Kid for these. Kid reported to me that they are working on the vanishing leaders bug, but that no saves have been received on any of the other items. Without saves, we could be spinning our wheels for weeks with no progress. So my major request is that if you know of a bug that you think is important, please spend the added time to get us saves (starting before the bug occurs along with instructions on how to recreate the bug). I realize this is not always possible, but without saves, we may never be able to find and fix the bug.
It has been mentioned that some players have found it too easy for Russia and China to be defeated by Japan early in the game. Of course as the great "I gotta admit, I find it amusing the back-n-forth" thread pointed out, there always someone screaming about something that is unbalanced in the game. Issues must reach a certain level of general agreement before we usually take any particular rant as the gospel. I will admit that with WitP, unlike most other games, the shear size and length of the game made it physically impossible for us to test all (or even most) strategies. We tried to balance what we could, and hoped that the general realism of the model would account for most things that we couldn't test. Anyone that thinks that it is possible to put out a game on this topic at this scale that would be fully tested and balanced out of the box is dreaming. We do realize this and that's why we are open to tweaks as certain "game breakers" are found. This doesn't mean that every claim of a problem means there is one. For most strategies there is a counter. One player beating one player doesn't mean anything. I just took on one of the experienced testers in Gary Grigsby's World at War. Playing as the Allies, I had retaken Italy and France by early 1942 (while the US was not even in the war). Does this mean the game is unbalanced? No. It means that 1) I have more experience with the game, and 2) Knowing this player's general style of play (by watching his AAR's on the forum), I was able to devise strategies best suited to counter those strategies. Throw in a little luck and bang, a lopsided game. Same goes for WitP, except that instead of taking a week to come to this conclusion, it can easily take 6 months.
So to sum things up. 1) We will continue to fix important bugs as they are found and we can get good information and saves. 2) The amount of new features and major system changes will greatly decline, but there will probably come a time where the code will be made available to outside programmers willing to carry on. 3) We will continue to be on the lookout for tweaks that can be safely made to "balance" items that are seriously out of whack.
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