Mike D Posted March 17, 1999 Share Posted March 17, 1999 Dear BTS, While I fully hope BTS doesn’t rush CM out the door like so many other game developers have done (and ended up creating complete junk as a result I might I add). I am beginning to get a little concerned about when we are actually going to see this game released. Granted, you have always stated that none of the dates (more appropriately general time frames) you have tentatively set forth for release to this point were set in stone. However, we have already seen this game "slip", for lack of a better word, from a spring release to what is now being called a summer (possibly early summer I believe I saw here somewhere here recently) release. That is all well and good until I read much of the recent traffic here on the board. People are coming out of the wood work with all sorts of ideas. Not that this is in and of itself a bad thing. In fact it is great. However, when one reads what some of these people are looking for you to add / change in the game one really begins to scratch ones head. Some of the minutiae and totally senseless suggestions (my personal opinion only, so don’t go ape on me here the rest of you) being put forth really don’t seem to make much sense for inclusion in the game. And to your credit BTS you seem to be doing a pretty good job of sifting through all this and deciding what should, and should not, be included. However, in many of your responses, you yourselves even indicate that there are things you are still thinking about adding to the game. This is fine too, but only to a point. And my point is simply this: Sooner, or later, you have to put a stop to all further additions and tinkerings to the game and get on with the final coding so you can actually get the game released. Being an engineer and having worked on a number of very large projects in my day tells me that you need/should establish a date where the configuration of this game is going to be frozen so you can indeed actually get it completed. What I seem to see going on here (and please correct me if I’m wrong) is an apparently endless string of progressions in development of a product which seems to lack a certain direction, if you will, and likewise seems to have no defined ending point. Those "schedules" that I have seen you sarcastically refer to now at least a couple of times in your postings that the other game companies have to follow do serve some other purposes besides a status report to satisfy their upper management. They serve to keep a project "on-track", if you will, and moving forward instead of meandering aimlessly like this project at times appears to be doing. At the very least, please tell me that there is a date, or that you are planning on coming up with one soon, where the configuration of the game (what is and is not going to be in it) is going to be determined. Until that happens I cannot see for the life of me how you are ever going to even begin to talk of an actual planned release date. If you are not careful (and it has happened to plenty of other game and other software projects too numerous to mention I might add) your early summer release will become a late summer release, and then a fall release, and then a maybe Christmas time release, etc., etc. Bottom line is please take the time to produce a product that is fun to play and not full of bugs and other problems. And one which will hopefully include many of the wonderful ideas and suggestions that have been put forth in this forum. But remember that I would much rather be playing this game (hint, hint, it needs to get released) than talking about it here on the board for months and months on end. My personal opinion is that we/you have done plenty enough of this already (how many months has it been now anyway?). Some subjects have been beaten to death here so many times I’ve lost track while the law of diminishing returns seems to be taking effect in that that the overall number of "good ideas" seems to be drying up. There will always be more and more though. And they can always be included in the follow on releases to the game if they do indeed merit inclusion. But for now, let’s get on with completing the original game so that we can all start playing it and enjoying it. Talk, as they say, is cheap. And we’ve seen plenty enough of that here to date. I want to play this masterpiece and I want to play it sometime soon (summer sounds soon enough). Just don’t’ let the proverbial scope creep that kills so many software projects get to the point in this project that it never gets out of the endless loop of adding that one more feature that will somehow make it better. Somewhere (more appropriately, sometime) you have to draw the line. And if you are going to make any sort of a summer release I imagine that line is going to have to be drawn very soon. Best Regards, Mike D. PS: The game is looking fantastic. I can’t wait to actually play it (hint, hint) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Maragoudakis Posted March 17, 1999 Share Posted March 17, 1999 I hope you don't mind me adding my two cents. My feeling is Big Time's designers are not slowed down one bit by the dozens of ideas that flow through this board. I sense they are acustomed to working in a challenging environment. In fact it shows that this game is more than work to them. They seemed truly inspired. It is quite clear that the designers have a clear vision as to the direction they want this game to go in. We don't have the same sense of progress that the designers have so it seems that it is taking a long time. Many of the suggestions are not necessary but some along the line ,like Ken Talley's suggestion on having two points on vehicles to help hull down tactics, have helped the game. It's just brainstorming, you never know what can come of it. I'm sure Big Time isn't more distracted than having a radio play next to them while they program. I also get the feeling this game is alot more advanced than we know. Just a hunch. I think this game will be out early summer. It's all coming together. It's also better to cross examine this game now than after release when the game mags will rip in. As it stands now, it's been awhile since a quality product like this has been produced. John [This message has been edited by John Maragoudakis (edited 03-16-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted March 17, 1999 Share Posted March 17, 1999 Mike, Totally know where you are coming from. I will try to address the major concerns of your post... <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However, we have already seen this game "slip", for lack of a better word, from a spring release to what is now being called a summer (possibly early summer I believe I saw here somewhere here recently) release.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> To be fair to us, 1.5 years ago we stated a "spring/summer 1999" release date. All we have done is removed the "spring" part one year after starting this project. Some might call this a slip, but we don't. Generally the first "date" that a developer pulls out of his, ah, ass, is just that. Total guess that is 99% of the time wrong. Now that we are very far along we have a better sense of when the game will actually be ready. Spring is out, Summer is in. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>People are coming out of the wood work with all sorts of ideas. Not that this is in and of itself a bad thing. In fact it is great. However, when one reads what some of these people are looking for you to add / change in the game one really begins to scratch ones head. Some of the minutiae and totally senseless suggestions (my personal opinion only, so don’t go ape on me here the rest of you) being put forth really don’t seem to make much sense for inclusion in the game.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ah, you've noticed too We welcome *ALL* ideas from people, but we do ask that they think hard about what they are asking. Suggestions that we make "spitting" animations for dudes is not worth the time it takes to read it. Unfortunately we get lots of these. However, we have received MANY good suggestions that have made it into CM already. Because of this CM will be a much better game. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However, in many of your responses, you yourselves even indicate that there are things you are still thinking about adding to the game. This is fine too, but only to a point. And my point is simply this: Sooner, or later, you have to put a stop to all further additions and tinkering to the game and get on with the final coding so you can actually get the game released.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Trust us, we are being quite conscious about timing. But we will not "freeze" our design until late in the Beta stage. This is *why* Combat Mission is better than other games. For example, the armor penetration equations have been redone 3 times. Not because they didn't work, but because they weren't as accurate as we wanted them to be. Now we feel we have something akin to DoD equations, so that bit is frozen for good. In the corporate world they would have done a half assed job and kept it because the schedule made no mention of doing something until it was right. I should know... A good example of how our minds are working... Chris suggested that we have Squad leader names tagged to the units. Great feature, something we thought of months ago, but I told Chris we didn't have time to come up with 1200 names. He emailed all of them to us. The feature went in after about 45 minutes of coding (if that). End result is a game that is, in our opinion, *quantitatively* better than it was 45 minutes beforehand. Yet if Chris hadn't sent the names it wouldn't have gone in. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What I seem to see going on here (and please correct me if I’m wrong) is an apparently endless string of progressions in development of a product which seems to lack a certain direction, if you will, and likewise seems to have no defined ending point.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There is a very definite endpoint, but it is "fuzzy" rather than hard defined. Our end goal is to have the most realistic WWII Squad Level wargame BAR NONE! Part of this goal is to have the game done before we run out of time, money, energy, etc. to do it. The two are kept in mind each and every day. If something is going to take too long, or doesn't really add to the game (even if cool), onto the backburner it goes. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Those "schedules" that I have seen you sarcastically refer to now at least a couple of times in your postings that the other game companies have to follow do serve some other purposes besides a status report to satisfy their upper management. They serve to keep a project "on-track", if you will, and moving forward instead of meandering aimlessly like this project at times appears to be doing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, I know what they are supposed to do, and what they in fact do. I had to manage schedules at Sierra. Even had to have meetings each and every day about the darned thing, sometimes two. There are many reasons why these are necessary in a corporate sense. The most important is coordinating everything else needed for the game; artists, sound guy, video guy, PR, marketing, CD replication, manual production, etc. If I blew a date I might not have someone available to do what needed to be done. But we are a different animal here. First of all, we work 10-16 hour days all the time, not just during the crunch period. Also, since Charles is the only programmer (and a damned fine one) as well as the lead designer and visionary, stuff goes in SO MUCH MORE SMOOTHLY than in a corporate setting. I have seen stuff go into Combat Mission in an hour that would have taken about 5 man days in a corporate gaming world. And since Charles is not rushed to make his arbitrary "deadlines" (and they always are arbitrary) he isn't slopping code together that will cause problems (even delays) down the road. I've seen the results of this first hand all too often... Upshot is stuff goes in, it works, and we move on. Not because there is a little blob of ink that says "time's up, next feature" but because we are READY to move on. The results are already readily apparent to us. CM in Alpha kicks the ass of any release game we have ever played. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If you are not careful (and it has happened to plenty of other game and other software projects too numerous to mention I might add) your early summer release will become a late summer release, and then a fall release, and then a maybe Christmas time release, etc., etc.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Pst... I got a secret... all of those games you speak of... ALL OF THEM... had... schedules. Didn't help 'em out very much, did it My point here is that schedules don't get a creative process done on time; individual discipline, talent, vision, and a host of other human factors is what does it. Charles has NEVER had a strict schedule for his games and has always released within a few months of his original "out of his ass" date. Compare this with games like {name withheld to protect the guilt} that is almost 3 years late... <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>But remember that I would much rather be playing this game (hint, hint, it needs to get released) than talking about it here on the board for months and months on end.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Don't worry, we are of the same mind. We know we can't keep adding stuff in, and that is why we are careful. But this is a creative process, so nailing it to a piece of paper with some flow charts isn't going to get it done any faster. Well, at least not for us. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>My personal opinion is that we/you have done plenty enough of this already (how many months has it been now anyway?). Some subjects have been beaten to death here so many times I’ve lost track while the law of diminishing returns seems to be taking effect in that that the overall number of "good ideas" seems to be drying up.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I agree that there are plenty of horses that have been severely beaten to death on this board, but we still see gems. The squad names is one of the best recent examples (thanks again Chris!). Problem is you can never tell if the next post is going to be another lump of coal or a diamond in the rough. So we always keep our eyes and our minds open. Thanks for the concern though. Honestly. I hope I have been able to reassure you that we are on track and tightly focused. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted March 17, 1999 Share Posted March 17, 1999 <applause> This thread is so good, it should be read by EVERYBODY in the industry... [This message has been edited by Moon (edited 03-17-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Posted March 17, 1999 Share Posted March 17, 1999 And let's not forget, BTS doesn't see a dime until CM gets released. Rex PS Any chance of a 'Pinard' showing up in the game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted March 24, 1999 Author Share Posted March 24, 1999 Steve et al, Thanks for the insight into what is going on in the design and development of CM. It always helps to understand what you guys are doing and why. If you guys have come up with a better way of doing business that cuts out all the beauracratic BS that's great! My main concern was that once the slips start they never seem to end. And while it is wonderful that you are incorporating a lot of great features into the game, it is nonetheless way, WAY, too easy to fall into the trap of constantly adding these new features to the game and getting caught in the proverbial design loop spiral that leads to nowhere. Sounds like you guys have a rough cut-off/freeze date in mind though. So that shouldn't be a problem. To you, Charles, and the rest of the crew keep up the good work. Game looks and sounds like a sure hit. Can't wait to see the final product. Best Regards, Mike D. aka mikester@ibm.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted March 24, 1999 Share Posted March 24, 1999 HAHA!! Looking at your email address I can now see why you are concerned! Back in the early 80's, HOW long did IBM execs figure it would take to ship an empty box? Six months, wasn't it? Seriously, we do understand your concern. Most people out there aren't capable of sifting through stuff and determining what should go in and what must wait. NOT to mention the "how long is it going to take" feeling. We've been doing this for 12 collective years, so we feel pretty confident that we know where we are at on any given day. Thanks, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts