The state of CMSF2

[Wicky]

I called the impatience sufferers helpline. I’m in a queue...

[Trooper117]

Bloody Tankies!

Edited August 2, 2018 by Trooper117

[Battlefront.com]

14 hours ago, McMortison said:

As much as I do understand your point of view, I would appreciate to have some information at some point. 

I work in IT and I know how hard it is to keep deadlines. I don't mind waiting. But IMHO it wouldn't hurt to drop some info in advance like "Sorry due to 'reasons' the release must be pushed back or so.

In my experience most people have understanding for that but are angry if the are left blank.

Only my 5cents

I definitely appreciate customers want to be informed about when things are/aren't happening.  We do like you to be informed, unfortunately after 20 years of doing this it doesn't get any easier to make predictions.  The problem is every time I post some sort of update people pester me to make a new release date estimate.  When that comes and goes people want another one.  And if that one comes and goes, I'm pushed to make another one.  I've found it's usually better to say nothing as much as possible.  In the end customers are not better/worse informed because no matter what I do and do not say the game will only get released when it's ready.  And even I don't know when that is until about 10 minutes before it goes live.

Steve

[HerrTom]

With that type of deadline, Steve, are you sure you don't work for NASA? 

I'll satiate myself on the awesome AARs being posted and digging my way through Red Thunder in the meantime.  I kinda agree with the upset about the information blackout, it's always nice to know more.  But perhaps it's best knowing that you're hard at work making things happen!

[ratdeath]

"A CM2 release is never late, nor is it early, it arrives precisely when Battlefront means to!"
 

[markus544]

I also like me some Abrams.  The camo seems a little odd but after all they are in Germany.

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, markus544 said:

I also like me some Abrams.  The camo seems a little odd but after all they are in Germany.

Not odd for Germany.  That's KabbageKamo™

Steve

[markus544]

KabbageKamo...wow  You learn something every day.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, but sometimes what you learn came from a guy with sleep deprivation a slightly askew sense of humor.  Which puts into question the value of learning!

Steve

[MikeyD]

What's that thing where you take a measurement then divide it in half, then you divide that half in half, than you divide that quarter in half, etc etc. Each time you jump 50% closer to the end point but there's always that little bit left that you're only going to move 50% closer to. That's something like game development. You're 50% done. You're 75% done  You're 86.125% done. You're 91.6875% done. You're 94.46875% done. We're getting closer! We're getting closer!

Edited August 3, 2018 by MikeyD

[Dynaman216]

Game development is worse than that (BTW I think that is Calculus, well partly anyway)

 

Game Development goes, I'm 90% done, 95% done, 50% done...

[IICptMillerII]

3 hours ago, MikeyD said:

What's that thing where you take a measurement then divide it in half, then you divide that half in half, than you divide that quarter in half, etc etc. Each time you jump 50% closer to the end point but there's always that little bit left that you're only going to move 50% closer to. That's something like game development. You're 50% done. You're 75% done  You're 86.125% done. You're 91.6875% done. You're 94.46875% done. We're getting closer! We're getting closer!

Inverse square law. 1/d^2 where d is distance, or in our case percentage to completion. You get closer and closer to 0 (100%=0 in this case) but never quite get there.

Uh oh, my nerdy power levels have been revealed!

[HerrTom]

Or the Fletcher's Paradox. There is always half of the work left to do. In engineering, we joke that you can always get close enough for practical purposes haha!

[Splinty]

Or traveling close to the speed of light. You can always get near light speed but you can never actually reach it.

 

[Ultradave]

Another engineering axiom.   There is "Good",  "Cheap", and "On Time"  You may have any 2, but NOT the third.

[Ultradave]

6 hours ago, MikeyD said:

What's that thing where you take a measurement then divide it in half, then you divide that half in half, than you divide that quarter in half, etc etc. Each time you jump 50% closer to the end point but there's always that little bit left that you're only going to move 50% closer to. That's something like game development. You're 50% done. You're 75% done  You're 86.125% done. You're 91.6875% done. You're 94.46875% done. We're getting closer! We're getting closer!

It's a natural log function, which is asymptotic, like radioactive half life.  Half of the remainder is decayed away in the next half-life time period. But as you show, it's never all gone (because the numbers of atoms in anything are eye-watering - law of large numbers says those random decays even out over large numbers of atoms - hence why half life is accurate even though decay is a random probabilistic process).

Edited August 3, 2018 by Ultradave

[Sequoia]

Are you saving the Half-Life game was radioactive? But they sold millions of copies!

[Badger73]

5 hours ago, HerrTom said:

Or the Fletcher's Paradox. There is always half of the work left to do. In engineering, we joke that you can always get close enough for practical purposes haha!

On a Project Management timeline, the final 10% of effort will always consume 90% of your time, money, and resources. 

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

Another engineering axiom.   There is "Good",  "Cheap", and "On Time"  You may have any 2, but NOT the third.

The Project Management axiom is, "In scope, in time, in budget", I can give you two out of three! 

[General Jack Ripper]

On ‎8‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 12:32 PM, MikeyD said:

What's that thing where you take a measurement then divide it in half, then you divide that half in half, than you divide that quarter in half, etc etc. Each time you jump 50% closer to the end point but there's always that little bit left that you're only going to move 50% closer to. That's something like game development. You're 50% done. You're 75% done  You're 86.125% done. You're 91.6875% done. You're 94.46875% done. We're getting closer! We're getting closer!

By that measurement, the game will never be completed.

[Erwin]

Software is usually released with the last few percentiles not done.  These days, early adopters are guinea pigs and later updates and versions get the product closer to the 99.999%.  If God hadn't intended development to be this way, it would be different.  So, relax and be happy.   

 

[markus544]

Think this kinda sums it up...

Edited August 6, 2018 by markus544

[Lethaface]

17 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

By that measurement, the game will never be completed.

That all depends on the precise definition of the function 'completed' and requires a declaration of 'the game' 

[MikeyD]

To quote Dick Cheney:  "First we'll field it, then we'll fix it." At least CMSF2 isn't meant to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

[DougPhresh]

I don't mind that things are delayed, I mind that the customer base is often left in the dark, often for months on end.

This has admittedly gotten much better in the last few weeks, but it has been months of waiting for the 4.0 patch.

 

I can't say for sure how this is effecting the player base but look at how posting has died off for CMFI and CMRT -  titles I personally really enjoy. There are threads detailing bugs and TOE/OOB errors and omissions from 2014 that have still not been commented on. Are they being fixed in the next patch? Who knows?

If BF is aware that for example FJ gun transports in CMFI carry 50mm ammo regardless of the gun in the platoon, and it's being fixed in the next patch, then that's something I don't have to worry about, if they let the customers know and then I don't have to resurrect dead threads from 2014 in the hopes that it will be noticed, only for there to be no response because nobody is posting in the CMRT forum, lest of all devs.

 

In my opinion, it's not the big things like delays with the website or CMSF2 being a little later than expected, and certainly not major additions like France and Italy being added to CMSF2 at launch, it's the lack of patches and dev blogs on the existing titles. Little things like the graphics issues with the BMP-2M in CMBS, generated many, many community posts and were met with silence. Would it be so much to say "We're aware of that, we're fixing it, it will be in the upcoming patch for the 4.0 engine".

The responses to the question about CMBS bugs persisting into CMSF2 and asking if they will be addressed in a patch for CMBS is a ray of hope, I can only hope that there is a more organized way of doing that going forward.

Maybe have pinned threads in each of the titles' boards and one day a week (if possible) have someone a dev or beta tester come in and give a little update on what's being done on the title, what the known issues are, maybe even solicit help from the community if there is uncertainty about a TOE or OOB. So on Tuesday say, go into the Development Thread in CMFI and say "You know, we looked at that Italian infantry handbook you guys posted back in 2013 (and was reposted in 2018!) that mentions the squad breaking down into 3 man teams, but we think that was just for running in bounds and the Italian rifle squad was fundamentally a LMG section and a rifle section and couldn't maneuver as smaller elements than that." and then on Friday post on the CMFB board and say "Yeah, we're aware that the availability dates for HVAP for the 76mm gun might be off, we'll address that" (No more specifics needed, 10 seconds to post!). The following Tuesday, if there's less going on in the development of CMFI maybe just check in and say "We didn't really take the time to go back to look at the Italians after the engine updates, since they were in the initial release of CMFI and we couldn't just port over assets from other titles when we added AAA. We'd like to add stationary Breda 20mm guns to give Italians the ability to have AA units, and luckily we already have this modeled in game on the AS. 42. We'll hopefully have time to add this as a small patch to CMFI between CMSF2 shipping and Rome to Victory"

I know people like to say customers ask for too much. I disagree. We're not asking for detailed weekly dev diaries, just some indication of what is being done.
I know people say that posting on the forum takes away from development time. I disagree. Just say something like: "Not only will Module 1 for CMRT bring the timeline to the end of the war and add German formations and equipment, but the Soviets got a second looks too. So now Cavalry Uniforms are a selection as appearance in the unit purchase screen instead of a mod tag. Oh and since we already had Polish voice files from other titles, we're adding the First Polish Army to the Russian side". That took about 30 seconds and covered questions raised in dozens of threads and hundreds of posts dating from 2014.

 

 

[Mannschaft]

On 8/2/2018 at 11:11 PM, Battlefront.com said:

I definitely appreciate customers want to be informed about when things are/aren't happening.  We do like you to be informed, unfortunately after 20 years of doing this it doesn't get any easier to make predictions.  The problem is every time I post some sort of update people pester me to make a new release date estimate.  When that comes and goes people want another one.  And if that one comes and goes, I'm pushed to make another one.  I've found it's usually better to say nothing as much as possible.  In the end customers are not better/worse informed because no matter what I do and do not say the game will only get released when it's ready.  And even I don't know when that is until about 10 minutes before it goes live.

Steve

 

You know what? You're right. I am terribly sorry I inconvenienced you and your company in my excitement to exchange paper for a digital product. I'll check back in a year and maybe there'll actually be something to buy on here that I don't already own. I'll go ahead and pester some other unfortunate company with my wallet. Thanks.