Can we have the game this week?

Don K Hotay · January 13, 2003, 13:23

Can we please have the game come out this week? Pretty please? Pretty please with a big fat freaking cherry on top!

Lee Johnson · January 13, 2003, 14:25

It's not impossible but it's extremely unlikely, IMO, even if it went gold today.

Alex-C · January 13, 2003, 14:43

Half the month gone and still not a sign. Looks like another (unofficially) predicted date missed then. I hope the game aint this repetitive........

Harry Seldon · January 13, 2003, 15:01

At the rate they're going, we'll never know...

kalbear · January 13, 2003, 15:07

Considering that the most recent statement was Feb 28th, I'm confused about them missing their mark on this one.

That being said, if it went gold today, it could be in people's grubby hands in a week or so.

13Matt13 · January 13, 2003, 15:20

Quote:

Can we please have the game come out this week? Pretty please? Pretty please with a big fat freaking cherry on top!

No!

Especially since Irene said that apparently something bigger than MOO came up. In the "Update the main site plz!" Thread on IG's board.

Harry Seldon · January 13, 2003, 16:28

Something bigger than MOO? How so? I don't ever go to the IG boards so this is my only source of info...

moomin · January 13, 2003, 16:29

I just read that thread. Have to say I'd revoke that Irene's posting rights pronto if I were QS. Customer handling on par with a communist state monopoly there.

Alex-C · January 13, 2003, 16:52

I wasn't aware of the Feb 28th statement. Oh well, my comment still stands

Rantz · January 13, 2003, 17:05

Quote:

Originally posted by moomin
I just read that thread. Have to say I'd revoke that Irene's posting rights pronto if I were QS. Customer handling on par with a communist state monopoly there.

that the wonderful thing about the internet, it allows one to comment without having any idea of the scope and scale of the facts.

Irene doesn't do anything to the site without being told to do so, and she has specific orders to deal with other things. Moreover, Irene does not have the ability to ban or edit posts, so any retribution or infliction of a 'communist state' isn't her action.

(ain't mine either for the record, as the whole thread developed without me knowing until some fan pointed it out after the fact.)

Have hundreds of fans pestering you every day for a game that you want more than anything in the world to *give* them, plus trying to actually make deadlines on other projects and see how it begins to wear on your ability to not be snappy when confronted by the same question the 400th time.

Just a wee bit frazzled and stressed it'll leave you. But, again it's easy to forget with the distancing mechanism of the internet that there are human beings on the other end of it when you start flinging accusations or the like, without knowing what the reality of the situation is.

TCO · January 13, 2003, 17:45

So...is it true that you all have the game done, but the publisher is the one waiting now?

MarkG · January 13, 2003, 18:29

GP, the next time you troll will be the first time you get a real vacation

H Tower · January 13, 2003, 19:13

/me waits patiently and laughs at everyone chewing on their fingernails waiting for the game

vee4473 · January 13, 2003, 19:51

what did GP say wrong?

Zero_Washu · January 13, 2003, 20:04

I assume what GP did wrong was to taunt a developer, which in the eyes of fanbois is the ultimate no-no.

Myself, I would just like Rantz and company to bother telling us if it is this month or not. Heck, its beginning to be easier to respect EB than IG (or anyone associated with them, even moreso after that C3 debacle)

kalbear · January 13, 2003, 20:13

They have TOLD you a date.

What part of "No later than Feb 28th" don't you understand?

Will it be out this month? That's a possibility, but they aren't guaranteeing it. Given the ravenous, bitter nature of the people that post, I'm not surprised about this trend.

Again, the more you ask and pester these people, the longer it takes for them to finish a product.

Kloreep · January 13, 2003, 20:16

They have set a deadline: Feb 28th. And since nothing more will be added in to the game at this stage, I'd prefer it if QS worked on the game rather than spend time visiting boards and giving us updates that won't change anything.

I'm irked whenever a deadline is missed, but since they don't have a January deadline to break, I'm happy.

Asmodean · January 13, 2003, 20:29

My God...MarkG is really breathing down GP's neck these days, isn't he. That like the third reference I've from Mark to GP's trolling. And that's today only

Asmodean

vee4473 · January 13, 2003, 20:37

Quote:

Originally posted by kalbear
They have TOLD you a date.

What part of "No later than Feb 28th" don't you understand?

Will it be out this month? That's a possibility, but they aren't guaranteeing it. Given the ravenous, bitter nature of the people that post, I'm not surprised about this trend.

Again, the more you ask and pester these people, the longer it takes for them to finish a product.

they have told us many dates, all have been wrong, i think that is what contributes to the "ravenous" nature.

Being someone that is in the industry of developing products, i would think that you should understand how wrong it is to give release dates that are unrealistic or dates that keep getting pushed back.

That kind of bogus marketing creates a "ravenous" response.

kalbear · January 13, 2003, 20:41

Actually, it makes me wonder even further why people insist on asking more and more about dates, if the dates continue to be wrong.

If I ask someone what 2+2 is, and they keep getting the answer wrong, I'm going to stop asking them.

I don't like the practice either, but in reality it's somewhat unavoidable. The alternative is much worse, IMO - release the product based on an artificial date chosen by forces outside your control (specific customer, publisher, convention) and release it no matter what form it's in.

The "when it's done" model is much better. No matter what version of software engineering you do, there's only so much you can predict. Multithreaded networking bugs between heterogenous platforms aren't exactly easy to diagnose much less fix; predicting that you will have them and how long they will take is much worse.

13Matt13 · January 13, 2003, 21:25

Actually, on the Yahoo stockholder's forum, some of the IG stockholders were discussing the possiblity that the game was being held up in a power struggle between the French IG and the US IG. So, its not that wild of a theory.

MarkG · January 13, 2003, 21:37

Quote:

MarkG is really breathing down GP's neck these days, isn't he.

it's because i know he can avoid his bad habit of trolling. otherwise i would just ban him

Quote:

C3 debacle

what's this? the re-incarnation of coracle??

TCO · January 13, 2003, 21:57

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG

Quote:

MarkG is really breathing down GP's neck these days, isn't he.

it's because i know he can avoid his bad habit of trolling. otherwise i would just ban him

I'm like an addict, Mark. I'm getting worse. Soon I will be as bad as Paiktis. Maybe I should go to the bar around the corner (where I took Colon and DanS) and have a drink to soothe my nerves. At least I will be away from Poly than.

Don K Hotay · January 13, 2003, 22:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Rantz

...But, again it's easy to forget with the distancing mechanism of the internet that there are human beings on the other end of it when you start flinging accusations or the like, without knowing what the reality of the situation is.

Febuary 28th? Unbe-f###ing-leavable!!! At this point, can even the loyal, bum-kissing, hardcore IG/QS fans ignore the suspicous nature of this game? I'm frustrated with everyone involved in the MOO3 project, the publishers, developers, the fans...the entire community. What an aggravating fiasco this has turned into. I don't care which or what kind of people are at the other end of the internet, because they deserve whatever crap gets thrown on them. Moreover, none of them deserve to be in the business that they're in, because they are abhorrently ignorant of the bottom line....not their bottome line, but THE bottom line {{{THE FANS}}}. I don't want this stupid game, and I don't care if you ever put it out, IG/QS. If I ever see any of the names involved in this project on other projects, I'll make it my mission to convince everyone to boycott it.

vee4473 · January 13, 2003, 22:33

Quote:

Originally posted by kalbear
Actually, it makes me wonder even further why people insist on asking more and more about dates, if the dates continue to be wrong.

If I ask someone what 2+2 is, and they keep getting the answer wrong, I'm going to stop asking them.

I don't like the practice either, but in reality it's somewhat unavoidable. The alternative is much worse, IMO - release the product based on an artificial date chosen by forces outside your control (specific customer, publisher, convention) and release it no matter what form it's in.

The "when it's done" model is much better. No matter what version of software engineering you do, there's only so much you can predict. Multithreaded networking bugs between heterogenous platforms aren't exactly easy to diagnose much less fix; predicting that you will have them and how long they will take is much worse.

I don't think anyone is forcing them to put forth release dates. No more than there own false marketing has.

And if the game is so damn complex, they should have the marketing knowledge to say that they can't give a release date, or realize that the game is so complex that they just can't produce it.

I mean, it seems that IG and QS have made the most complex game of all time. After all, they can't seem to do what other game companies have done and continue to do.

Wow, this must be some game, does it make me dinner and take out the trash for me?

ravagon · January 13, 2003, 22:36

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG
it's because i know he can avoid his bad habit of trolling. otherwise i would just ban him

That, or you could just go ahead and make him a mod...

H Tower · January 13, 2003, 23:10

that would just drive him insane.

kalbear · January 13, 2003, 23:15

I think it's a bit much of an oversimplification to say that no one, ever, has gone over-time on their code. Or blown estimates.

The best developers simply don't give estimates. Or at least the best development houses. Blizzard, for example, gives quarter estimates that are almost always off by a year. Id has, once, given release dates that were dictated by Activision. That worked out...well, really bad. Quake 2 was horrific upon release, full of crash bugs and other silliness that made it unplayable or nearly so.

I suspect we're at the mercy of a couple forces, and neither are particularly believable. On the one hand, we have IG, who has marketing releasing dates based on somewhat vague knowledge about the development process. On the other hand, we have QS, who have basically perfect knowledge of where they're at but the inability to release public knowledge all the time and the inability to control their own destiny. In other words, if IG says 'you will not release this' they can't, no matter how much they might want to. If IG says 'you WILL release on this day' they've got to, despite knowing that X is broken.

In either event, we the fans essentially demand release dates from them one way or another.

And personally, I have stopped believing in those dates. I _hope_ that they can make them, but I have no confidence in them. That is a poor management issue, IMO; what the ultimate source is, I'm not sure.

Finally, I do sympathize with QS. I know how it can be to hunt down that final, elusive bug forever and ever...and believe I've fixed it, only to find that it broke X and Y - which were found after a week of testing. On the other hand, I've been on the side where we've released and found a particularly embarrassing bug in the public domain, and our customers (and thus, my managers) reamed us out for it. That's a MUCH worse situation.

Funny story that. We had done this big release for Brazil in Portugese, for cell phone IM. The buddy screen when you first load it up is supposed to say 'you have no online buddies right now'. Well, localization didn't do such a hot job on that phrase. They translated it as 'you have no friends'.

Great, we're telling a bunch of teenagers that they have no friends. Good job, guys.

TheMaestro · January 13, 2003, 23:16

I really don't think they meant Feb 28 as any kind of deadline date, more like a goal date...kinda like what they've always had.

I want to know when the game will come out, but I'll settle for when it won't....like, Summer 2003...sometime before May, sometime before September 2003...

But...do you all remember the movie Spaceballs, the scene where Dark Helmet lures the princess out of Yogurts cave when he "changes himself to look like the king," then she runs out, he reveals himself and yells,

"Foooooooooooled you!!!!"

I kinda think that's what some people do everytime a release date comes along and passes by.

campfreddie · January 14, 2003, 11:37

FYI, the Feb 28th date comes from a quote by rantz that went something like 'If it isn't out by the end of February I'll kill myself'.

There are many ways to interpret that quote, but I don't think it can be interpreted as an 'official release date'.

OTOH, some of the betas have been saying good things about the latest build, hinting that it'll be gold very soon. Again, it's not an official date or anything.

The whole point is that they are bug fixing and no one knows how long it'll take. If they knew how long it'd take, they'd give a date. They don't so they can't.