Honestly, I have a hard time understanding Anet’s policy – it’s unique in this industry.
No it isn’t. It’s extremely common. You don’t talk about what you’re working on until there’s an official announcement, and even then some companies want only public relations folks to directly interact with users.
As a dev, if I visit another studio, I have to sign an NDA, even if the only thing I ever see is the break room. Publicly spilling the beans about a feature I’m working on or a future game before an official announcement would get me in some hot water.
I’ve played 22 mmos for over 24 years now I’ve actually never experienced this until now so please tell us again how this is extremely common and name the games this has happened in because I’d like to know where this has happened, and I’ve participated in the forums for each game I’ve played, never have I ever had a dev team tell me that they were going to do something, and 7 months later even the simplest of fixes weren’t implemented as well as many of the harder ones weren’t discussed in detail about what we might be seeing in the near future, before it was actually implemented. Actually you know I take that back. There was only 1 other game I experienced this in and it was NWO. They told us that new classes were being worked on during the 3 month beta that we all thought was launc but that was the only time. But even that was the only thing I experienced it in, and it was the only thing they didn’t deliver on.
The issue is that they don’t want to make promises they can’t keep, but the question is WHY can’t they keep them?
Firstly they never actually promise anything, even if people take everything they say as promises.
As for them not keeping said non-existent promises:
Development is not just pressing a button and stuff works. It takes time and resources, and it is very unusual for it to work completely the first time around (or at all based on the concept) and as such it can take much longer than planned and/or simply not work at all.
There are two types of writers. Guys like Piers Anthony outline their work and they write it to that outline, hardly ever varying what they write. Guys like Stephen King don’t use outlines and evolve the story as they go.
Stephen King, before he finishes a book, doesn’t really always know where it’s going. I uses the equivalent of an iterative process. I understand it, because it’s the same process I use when I write. I don’t use an outline.
It takes longer and you have to backtrack more often, but that’s what works for me. I strongly suspect WoW is working from the equivalent of an outline, but Anet is, in many ways, breaking new ground. So they won’t always know what works and what doesn’t. So announcing stuff is more of a risk.
After the book/script is finished it takes a lot of planning, time and ressources to produce a tv-series (like game of thrones) or a game-play-series (like GW2 LS2). And in both endeavours there will be unexpected problems and some things that do not work as intended.
From Game of Thrones I know already, that there will be a 5th and 6th Season, even if season 5 will likely start not before march/april next year. I do not know what will be in the next season, I do not want spoilers, but I am pretty sure they will deliver (on time).
Is there a Season 3 of LS in the planning/making? Is there any announcement like “due to the success of (the first half of) season 2 of the LS we have made the decision to produce a season 3”?
No, of course not. It looks to me from the outside: A-Net does not want to announce anything before it is finished, because they know they are very often not able to finish and deliver an announced product and do not want this to became public evidence, so they announce nothing. Which would be really bad.
Greetings.
Surely you realize that programming is nothing like producing a TV series. You can perform a script that’s not quite ready for TV and it will run. Many TV series have individually bad episodes.
But a bad line in a program prevents it all from moving forward.
The issue is that they don’t want to make promises they can’t keep, but the question is WHY can’t they keep them?
Firstly they never actually promise anything, even if people take everything they say as promises.
As for them not keeping said non-existent promises:
Development is not just pressing a button and stuff works. It takes time and resources, and it is very unusual for it to work completely the first time around (or at all based on the concept) and as such it can take much longer than planned and/or simply not work at all.
yes apparently the hobosack problem requires bringing in a legion of interns in order to enter a toggle box and link it to the code for the displaying of kit hobosacks and then testing it for over a year. >.>
There are two types of writers. Guys like Piers Anthony outline their work and they write it to that outline, hardly ever varying what they write. Guys like Stephen King don’t use outlines and evolve the story as they go.
Stephen King, before he finishes a book, doesn’t really always know where it’s going. I uses the equivalent of an iterative process. I understand it, because it’s the same process I use when I write. I don’t use an outline.
It takes longer and you have to backtrack more often, but that’s what works for me. I strongly suspect WoW is working from the equivalent of an outline, but Anet is, in many ways, breaking new ground. So they won’t always know what works and what doesn’t. So announcing stuff is more of a risk.
After the book/script is finished it takes a lot of planning, time and ressources to produce a tv-series (like game of thrones) or a game-play-series (like GW2 LS2). And in both endeavours there will be unexpected problems and some things that do not work as intended.
From Game of Thrones I know already, that there will be a 5th and 6th Season, even if season 5 will likely start not before march/april next year. I do not know what will be in the next season, I do not want spoilers, but I am pretty sure they will deliver (on time).
Is there a Season 3 of LS in the planning/making? Is there any announcement like “due to the success of (the first half of) season 2 of the LS we have made the decision to produce a season 3”?
No, of course not. It looks to me from the outside: A-Net does not want to announce anything before it is finished, because they know they are very often not able to finish and deliver an announced product and do not want this to became public evidence, so they announce nothing. Which would be really bad.
Greetings.
Surely you realize that programming is nothing like producing a TV series. You can perform a script that’s not quite ready for TV and it will run. Many TV series have individually bad episodes.
But a bad line in a program prevents it all from moving forward.
Every analogy has its limitation and not every comparison is right. A bad line in a computer program would more compare to a bad actor in a tv-series. Both can have a massive negative effect on the result.
But my point was to compare the announcments from A-net with announcement for a tv-series, because some things of GW2 where compared to a tv-series from A-Net themselves.
There are two types of writers. Guys like Piers Anthony outline their work and they write it to that outline, hardly ever varying what they write. Guys like Stephen King don’t use outlines and evolve the story as they go.
Stephen King, before he finishes a book, doesn’t really always know where it’s going. I uses the equivalent of an iterative process. I understand it, because it’s the same process I use when I write. I don’t use an outline.
It takes longer and you have to backtrack more often, but that’s what works for me. I strongly suspect WoW is working from the equivalent of an outline, but Anet is, in many ways, breaking new ground. So they won’t always know what works and what doesn’t. So announcing stuff is more of a risk.
After the book/script is finished it takes a lot of planning, time and ressources to produce a tv-series (like game of thrones) or a game-play-series (like GW2 LS2). And in both endeavours there will be unexpected problems and some things that do not work as intended.
From Game of Thrones I know already, that there will be a 5th and 6th Season, even if season 5 will likely start not before march/april next year. I do not know what will be in the next season, I do not want spoilers, but I am pretty sure they will deliver (on time).
Is there a Season 3 of LS in the planning/making? Is there any announcement like “due to the success of (the first half of) season 2 of the LS we have made the decision to produce a season 3”?
No, of course not. It looks to me from the outside: A-Net does not want to announce anything before it is finished, because they know they are very often not able to finish and deliver an announced product and do not want this to became public evidence, so they announce nothing. Which would be really bad.
Greetings.
Surely you realize that programming is nothing like producing a TV series. You can perform a script that’s not quite ready for TV and it will run. Many TV series have individually bad episodes.
But a bad line in a program prevents it all from moving forward.
Every analogy has its limitation and not every comparison is right. A bad line in a computer program would more compare to a bad actor in a tv-series. Both can have a massive negative effect on the result.
But my point was to compare the announcments from A-net with announcement for a tv-series, because some things of GW2 where compared to a tv-series from A-Net themselves.
Greetings.
You miss my point. It’s 100% completely irrelevant that at TV series can be created on a schedule because there’s nothing in a script that would prevent it from working. It’s not like programming.
There are unseen things that come up in programming that literally prevent programs from functioning at all. That doesn’t exist in a TV series.
Imagine watching a series and suddenly the screen goes blank and that’s it. That doesn’t happen. Programming can’t be held to the same schedule as television shows. It’s not reasonable to expect it or compare it.
I think one of the reasons Anet doesn’t make future announcements anymore is because as soon as they say “we’re working on X” or “we’re looking into the possibility of Y” half a year later people will start complaining “you promised us X and Y, where are they?”
And isn’t that normal? I don’t see the issue here.
U know the community wants X…….u promise to give X….u make X your priority and u deliver it when u say…not replace X with Y and expect the community to feel good about the replacement while indefinitely postpone X.
A company that promises a car and delivers a bike postponing indefinitely the car, seems like a serious company to u? To me it doesn’t. So them loosing our trust after numerous similar situations is only natural.
The sentiment of having to know “what they plan on doing” is exactly because they didn’t give us what we want (or be years late…i mean seriously…WvW feature pack 3 new colors hard to add bro..took 2 years). It’s like wanting to verify they actually put our needs/demands/requests on their list. That’s the whole source of the problem.
If i knew that what i want would definitely come in the promised timeframe or atleast see work done on it, i would never even think of their roadmap.
What I mean is that Anet says they might implement something, and as soon as they do that people will consider that a definite promise even if Anet never promised anything, they just said that it might be something they’d add in the future.
Any plan that involves dead quaggans is, by design, foolproof. I’m an unmitigated genius!
There are unseen things that come up in programming that literally prevent programs from functioning at all.
(…)
Programming can’t be held to the same schedule as television shows. It’s not reasonable to expect it or compare it.
Of course there is some uncertainness in software development. Bugs happen. Testing and fixing bugs takes too long. Ressource and time estimations were wrong.
So if you are new to software development and project management, maybe it is your first bigger project, or you are building a big software (like a computer game) from scratch the first time, then I can agree with you.
But A-Net ist not a start-up company or a rookie in game and software development and is not builiding a complete new GW2. So the software/game development cycle is nothing new to them and should be streamlined by now. They know how much errors typically have to be found and fixed before a release and how much in general this will take. Thats all part of the project plan. The should know by now how much “security margin” before scheduled dates they need. If they do their job good.
And there is nothing intrinsic in software development that prevents them for announcing (as an example) “we have decided to produce a LS 3.0 and expect to start the season in Q1/Q2 2015” and to hold that schedule.
Greetings.
P.S. And of course the point of view can differ if you are a software developer who does not like schedules or if you are the boss of a software developer and schedule the deadline.
Have you seen what happens on these forums if something that have been announced is ever changed even in the slightest way?
That’s pretty regular in the gaming industry. If it’s subject to heavy change, let the community know. It won’t eliminate upset fans, but it will minimize their numbers.
Have you seen what happens on these forums if something that have been announced is ever changed even in the slightest way?
That’s pretty regular in the gaming industry. If it’s subject to heavy change, let the community know. It won’t eliminate upset fans, but it will minimize their numbers.
You think these forums are bad with that?
Did you ever witness Diablo 3 when they completely scraped the PvP aspect of that game lol? which was promised to them.. except they left players with a completely ridiculous “brawling” form of PvP which not one single person liked….
I’ve never seen so much hate in my life on a forum but at least blizzard came out and talked about it, their reasoning behind and what they plan on doing in the future about it. They almost always have blogs/dev posts about roadmaps that will be happening in the future..
Point is if you can’t take a bit of harsh critisicm from internet warriors, you are in the wrong industry. Man up and continue talking, doesn’t matter about getting your feelings hurt as a company lol. Theres plenty of ppl out there who still value information.
Any information is good… completely leaving your community in the dark because you are too afraid to talk about something just shows how afraid you are of criticism… Welcome to reality, stop expecting everyone to be nice angels…just talk
Point is if you can’t take a bit of harsh critisicm from internet warriors, you are in the wrong industry. Man up and continue talking, doesn’t matter about getting your feelings hurt as a company lol. Theres plenty of ppl out there who still value information.
That’s really the long and short of it. Is the behavior of some fans appropriate? No. But it’s GOING to happen, and you can’t let that behavior run you off and give EVERYONE the silent treatment.
The issue is that they don’t want to make promises they can’t keep, but the question is WHY can’t they keep them?
Firstly they never actually promise anything, even if people take everything they say as promises.
As for them not keeping said non-existent promises:
Development is not just pressing a button and stuff works. It takes time and resources, and it is very unusual for it to work completely the first time around (or at all based on the concept) and as such it can take much longer than planned and/or simply not work at all.
You are arguing against a point I did not make. I know they don’t make promises. But the issue is that they don’t. Even vague timelines are better than none at all.
Toons: Foreseer, Geikamir, Rapscallion, Specimen, Scythian, Zeau, Ärtifact, and Replica.
There are unseen things that come up in programming that literally prevent programs from functioning at all.
(…)
Programming can’t be held to the same schedule as television shows. It’s not reasonable to expect it or compare it.
Of course there is some uncertainness in software development. Bugs happen. Testing and fixing bugs takes too long. Ressource and time estimations were wrong.
So if you are new to software development and project management, maybe it is your first bigger project, or you are building a big software (like a computer game) from scratch the first time, then I can agree with you.
But A-Net ist not a start-up company or a rookie in game and software development and is not builiding a complete new GW2. So the software/game development cycle is nothing new to them and should be streamlined by now. They know how much errors typically have to be found and fixed before a release and how much in general this will take. Thats all part of the project plan. The should know by now how much “security margin” before scheduled dates they need. If they do their job good.
And there is nothing intrinsic in software development that prevents them for announcing (as an example) “we have decided to produce a LS 3.0 and expect to start the season in Q1/Q2 2015” and to hold that schedule.
Greetings.
P.S. And of course the point of view can differ if you are a software developer who does not like schedules or if you are the boss of a software developer and schedule the deadline.
It happens to Microsoft too. It happens to all software developers, big and and small. Late and over budget is the rule in this industry not the exceptions.
Edit: Also, how many of the programmers are new and take longer. You mean everyone who works here is an expert programmer that’s worked on many big games?
As I understand Anet is hiring lots of new people. They take time to learn the ropes, fit into the structure. I think you’re oversimplifying something that can’t be easily simplified.
It happens to Microsoft too. It happens to all software developers, big and and small. Late and over budget is the rule in this industry not the exceptions.
Yes, errors, i.e. management errors happens to every company, not just in a software company. The rule of thumb is “humans make errors.” No problem with that.
But if you are stating that “late and over budget” is the general rule in sofware development, than you should prove your statement, because I doubt it from my experience with several companies.
Edit: Also, how many of the programmers are new and take longer. You mean everyone who works here is an expert programmer that’s worked on many big games?
Yes, and why do you think that the bosses of these new junior programmers do not know this and can not take this into account i.e. in project planning?
Greetings.
P.S. This is now very off topic, so I will not post more about this.
The reason Anet’s original policy of announcing what they were working on backfired… is that they announced about 2 things every six months… as if those things were close to completion. Hell, they even put “by the end of this year” as an estimate. And then said nothing more until very strongly pressed months into the next year.
If something is being worked on, but is in a sufficiently preliminary stage of development as to be iffy, then an announcement that says precisely that would generate significantly lesser levels of expectation. If something is announced as being worked on and then scrapped, a note to that effect in the next announcement (or reasonably soon, anyway) would stop people from wondering about it (which would have fixed most of the angst about precursor crafting, for instance).
Make announcements honestly and in a relatively low-key way, and players will respond well, even if the developments don’t come to fruition. Imo. I could be wrong.
The reason Anet’s original policy of announcing what they were working on backfired… is that they announced about 2 things every six months… as if those things were close to completion. Hell, they even put “by the end of this year” as an estimate. And then said nothing more until very strongly pressed months into the next year.
If something is being worked on, but is in a sufficiently preliminary stage of development as to be iffy, then an announcement that says precisely that would generate significantly lesser levels of expectation. If something is announced as being worked on and then scrapped, a note to that effect in the next announcement (or reasonably soon, anyway) would stop people from wondering about it (which would have fixed most of the angst about precursor crafting, for instance).
Make announcements honestly and in a relatively low-key way, and players will respond well, even if the developments don’t come to fruition. Imo. I could be wrong.
I think you are exactly right.
Toons: Foreseer, Geikamir, Rapscallion, Specimen, Scythian, Zeau, Ärtifact, and Replica.
ANet doesnt tell us what it’s working on, for the reasons already stated.
They might drop hints about stuff here and there, but the stuff they mention is usually minor.
They say that announcing things ahead of time will cause anger and dissappointment if plans change, but I feel the real danger is that players don’t have any faith that ANet is working on anything meaningful -at all-.
So here’s a question to everyone: Do you have faith that ANet is secretly working away on something REALLY BIG that is meaningful and relevant to you, that will address your concerns about the game, that will give it new life and make you enjoy the game more?
Or do you expect that they are completely ignoring you and are either on autopilot and doing nothing, or working on stuff you actively don’t want?
(WvW, PvP, and Dungeon players seem particularly likely to fall in this group?)
Do you have faith that ANet is secretly working away on something REALLY BIG that is meaningful and relevant to you, that will address your concerns about the game, that will give it new life and make you enjoy the game more?
Or do you expect that they are completely ignoring you and are either on autopilot and doing nothing, or working on stuff you actively don’t want?
(WvW, PvP, and Dungeon players seem particularly likely to fall in this group?)
An expansion?
GW2 took Anet over 5 years to develop and they were exclusively working on GW2.
For an expansion to be feasible I’d have to believe they’ve been secretly working on it in the background while also working on: Living Story (multiple teams), Gem Store items, Feature Packs, and the China release.
I don’t have faith that an expansion is in the works nor do I believe Anet in it’s current state is even capable of delivering one without taking a large chunk of time and development staff away from the Living Story.
Well, what IS true is that not EVERYONE in the company is working on the Living Story. Arena.net has said that much. And I can PROMISE you those people aren’t just sitting on their collective kitten doing nothing.
So SOMETHING is being worked on behind the scenes. The question is… what?
Well, what IS true is that not EVERYONE in the company is working on the Living Story. Arena.net has said that much. And I can PROMISE you those people aren’t just sitting on their collective kitten doing nothing.
So SOMETHING is being worked on behind the scenes. The question is… what?
That’s my point. We assume Anet is working on stuff. But since they’re not telling us, they’re relying on trust for players to stay hopeful that good content will come.
But without any real communication and only evasions and token PR efforts, how many players still have any trust left?
The problem with this thread and many others lies in the fact that the vocal minority which visits forum to tell us about how the game would be better if it was played in their way thinks it’s representative of the whole playerbase.
As in any mmo, the number of people actually visiting forums for the game are somewhere under 10%. Once you get this into your head you’ll start to see that statistically speaking, majority of playerbase is almost always
a) not at all interested in what you think as “game-breaking”
b) not coming to forums because they enjoy the game for what it is.
Kill me again or take me as I am,
for I shall not change.
Well, what IS true is that not EVERYONE in the company is working on the Living Story. Arena.net has said that much. And I can PROMISE you those people aren’t just sitting on their collective kitten doing nothing.
So SOMETHING is being worked on behind the scenes. The question is… what?
More gemstore skins
Any plan that involves dead quaggans is, by design, foolproof. I’m an unmitigated genius!
Something to ponder regarding all this. “pre-cursor crafting” or “an expansions worth of content”. These 2 statements alone have been thrown back at them probably 100’s if not 1000’s of times. I’d be really leery to talk about what’s in development too.
I’d really like to be hyped again, but i can definitely see why things have pretty much been hush-hush.
Something to ponder regarding all this. “pre-cursor crafting” or “an expansions worth of content”. These 2 statements alone have been thrown back at them probably 100’s if not 1000’s of times. I’d be really leery to talk about what’s in development too.
I’d really like to be hyped again, but i can definitely see why things have pretty much been hush-hush.
And the expansion’s worth of content line was explained very clearly by Colin, but everyone seems to have ignored his explanation.
But without any real communication and only evasions and token PR efforts, how many players still have any trust left?
Well, I’m only speaking for me here, but my trust is pretty much irrelevant. I already know this. Whether or not I “trust” they’re doing something awesome isn’t going to change their development one whit.
They aren’t going to talk about that background development until they are ready to do so, no matter how much you or I or anyone complains. As a result, I’m not particularly inclined to raise my blood pressure raging about it.
yes apparently the hobosack problem requires bringing in a legion of interns in order to enter a toggle box and link it to the code for the displaying of kit hobosacks and then testing it for over a year. >.>
looooooooooooooooooooooool
that made me laugh so hard and it is sooooo true.
If there would be a games con where the company wins that could present the most reasons why something is not possible A-Net would need extend their building for a trophy room.
I’d like to add that I would also like to know what Anet is working on long term. We are all old enough to listen politely and contain our expectations. But, Anet also has to keep communication open to us. Anet, please tell us what you are doing. And then keep us updated on how it is going.
For example, Anet could report: “Working on the ninth class, the third heavy class. We’re currently working on weapons and attacks. This class should be out before the end of 2014.” And later, they could say: “Redesigning the utilities for the ninth class, suffering some setbacks. It may arrive later than 2014.” And later: “Animation is doing a great job on the attacks for the ninth class. This class is expected out in 2015.”
Leader of the Kingdom of [Shu] Guild
Devona’s Rest
”
