Game Development: Bed & Breakfast

[Onionfighter]

Can we move the travel weariness from a "buff" to an actual status bar? We can remove the happiness bar since it doesn't serve a purpose yet. I prefer to have my screen as unobstructed as possible.

I agree. Considering that I will probably always have at least some degree of travel weariness, I would like something less obtrusive.

[skrylar]

Dick Move 101: Break more of the game before we even have the fixes for the last break you did (boats). We don't have horses either, which are a VERY low-fi and OLD method of fast transit.

ADD THINGS FIRST
TEST ADDED THINGS
THEN REMOVE THINGS
TEST REMOVED THINGS

THINK IT THROUGH. Play the game without your #0 God accounts. Unless this is just a sandbox for your shits and giggles, in which case carry on with bad practices.

[Blaze]

Unless this is just a sandbox for your shits and giggles, in which case carry on with bad practices.

NOW you're getting into the spirit of H&H.

By the by, this kinda IS the testing part. Y'know, alpha and us being alpha players playing an alpha game in alpha and stuff. Alpha.

[Yolan]

Dick Move 101: Break more of the game before we even have the fixes for the last break you did (boats). We don't have horses either, which are a VERY low-fi and OLD method of fast transit.

ADD THINGS FIRST
TEST ADDED THINGS
THEN REMOVE THINGS
TEST REMOVED THINGS

THINK IT THROUGH. Play the game without your #0 God accounts. Unless this is just a sandbox for your shits and giggles, in which case carry on with bad practices.

You are a dick.

[loftar]

Can we move the travel weariness from a "buff" to an actual status bar? We can remove the happiness bar since it doesn't serve a purpose yet. I prefer to have my screen as unobstructed as possible.

Rather than doing it that way, I plan on removing the speech bubble, and introduce a new "area chat" in the foldable HUD (which would retain the hotkey C-s). Saying things there would still trigger the bubble speech (though the bubble itself would be clipped to some maximum numbers of characters), but also log the message to the area chat pane of everyone who could see the bubble. The only real reason I haven't done it yet is because I'm unsure how to identify the various players chatting without revealing the names of players wanting to remain anonymous, but I guess I could just ignore that until I've removed the ability to fetch their names by opening a PM chat with them. Either way, removing the speech bubble would move up the meters and buffs so that they overlap with the vertical space of the avatar.

Thanks for reminding me, though; I had actually forgotten all about it. :)

[Voideka]

The complaint you raise seems more based on fun for testers than on ability to test features or momentum of development...

Game testing isn't just mechanics. Probably the most important part of a game is that it is fun. If you are doing things that makes the game un-fun, you are hurting your game just as much as if you introduce bugs. Also, the development process is also something that is tested during development. Tons of dev teams have changed the way they work based on feedback or discovered flaws, like changing patching processes or deployment order.

For a game to be good it needs a few things:
Fun
Stability
Reliable development

If the game isn't fun, they need to know. If the game isn't stable, they need to know. If they are making mistakes in development and deployment, they need to know.

When they break any one of these things it also impacts everything else. The more broken it is the more work they need to do to fix it, and the less testers they will have. Yes, we have volunteered to help test this game, but the key is we have volunteered. We're not being paid, it's not our job to test this game for them. We test it in return for fun and enjoyment, and as such they need to make sure they hit those notes. We are not beholden to them nor they to us, we both need to be happy for this sort of thing to work. If they keep breaking these three tenets then people will leave. The people who stay behind will be people like Devour who will react to negative criticism by attempting to ostracize those who show contrary opinions. No game will go anywhere with a bunch of yes-men scrambling around the feet of the devs, as anything bad will just end up explained away as happens on occasion now.

[Devour]

The complaint you raise seems more based on fun for testers than on ability to test features or momentum of development...

Game testing isn't just mechanics. Probably the most important part of a game is that it is fun. If you are doing things that makes the game un-fun, you are hurting your game just as much as if you introduce bugs. Also, the development process is also something that is tested during development. Tons of dev teams have changed the way they work based on feedback or discovered flaws, like changing patching processes or deployment order.

For a game to be good it needs a few things:
Fun
Stability
Reliable development

If the game isn't fun, they need to know. If the game isn't stable, they need to know. If they are making mistakes in development and deployment, they need to know.

When they break any one of these things it also impacts everything else. The more broken it is the more work they need to do to fix it, and the less testers they will have. Yes, we have volunteered to help test this game, but the key is we have volunteered. We're not being paid, it's not our job to test this game for them. We test it in return for fun and enjoyment, and as such they need to make sure they hit those notes. We are not beholden to them nor they to us, we both need to be happy for this sort of thing to work. If they keep breaking these three tenets then people will leave. The people who stay behind will be people like Devour who will react to negative criticism by attempting to ostracize those who show contrary opinions. No game will go anywhere with a bunch of yes-men scrambling around the feet of the devs, as anything bad will just end up explained away as happens on occasion now.

Fun is subjective.

I agree that the implementation wasn't perfect, but I've never seen perfect implementation of a feature in a game, even in a release copy that has been extensively tested by various groups of people.

However, it seems that you chaps just complain about anything, instead of understanding the complexities and troubles with trying to write code for a game, and the amount of time it takes to check for conflicts, lack and the like. Similar to the village system, I'd suggest that there will be more involved in a short amount of time, due to seeing how the current system works before adding more.

( Also, it seems to be relatively bug free, so seeing how it works whilst being implemented is probably the best idea. )

TL;DR? Less QQ, moar pewpew.

[skrylar]

However, it seems that you chaps just complain about anything, instead of understanding the complexities and troubles with trying to write code for a game, and the amount of time it takes to check for conflicts, lack and the like.

Nice attempt to use the smoke screen there ("programming is hard, you don't understand!" unless of course, you ARE a developer yourself).

My point is that they are starting a million branches, not finishing or moving on any of those branches, starting even MORE branches, and when someone comes to call them on it those people are bitten by rabid fanboys who seem to be forgetting.

T-(-1): Carts get stuck in gates because of a malformed hit box. (has this been fixed yet? lofty said it was just a matter of jorb shrinking the hitbox)

T-0: Start of example.

T-1: Alt thieves become a problem because black arts are imbalanced (no reason to risk your massive LP bot grind (even less reason if you do it the legit way) just to steal a few bangars) so they 10x the cost of black arts to stop penalize alt thieves. This is dubbed a temporary solution.

T-2: Map reset; rivers get added and the only way to cross is a skill which is very VERY dependent on godly amounts of a stat which was previously completely useless. Boats are promised for navigation around the world, yet they are not implemented because Jorb hasn't gotten around to drawing one.

T-3: Teleporting is removed, now requires a stat which was previously useless. Ostensibly cities are getting some crossroads feature, yet Jorb will probably have to draw the crossroads too (which he doesn't like drawing often, because this is why T2 isn't done yet).

T-4: ???

[Devour]

However, it seems that you chaps just complain about anything, instead of understanding the complexities and troubles with trying to write code for a game, and the amount of time it takes to check for conflicts, lack and the like.

Nice attempt to use the smoke screen there ("programming is hard, you don't understand!" unless of course, you ARE a developer yourself).

So, you yourself would understand that it's a better idea to implement features one by one, instead of trying to rush in a bunch of ones that may or may not conflict, yes?

[Potjeh]

Crossroads are already in and they work. No waiting here. What we do have to wait for is BOATS, JORB, because now bulk trade is completely impractical.

Frankly, other than loss of bulk trade, I don't see how this breaks anything. I think it makes things easier, actually, as now you can have dozens of points you can port to.