The mineshaft incident was a bit confusing to me. shortly after the last patch, we had another Green wave through the humble bundle. Surely it makes business sense to invest the time to incorporate samus' mineshaft fix into a hot patch for that one time? The result was that we had loads of new players seeing an official map that was unplayable on most servers, because the mechanism for community fixes to be rolled out isn't universal. You had us vets telling new players to vote yes to map changes, explaining that the map is broken. That was really BAD pr for uwe.
I do understand the need to minimise the number of official updates, but there also needs to be consideration of the impact of that, especially in the light of upcoming sale periods. An alternative solution would be for samus to make a 'hotfix' mod and push that (like ns2+) as a mod that every server operator should run. That would at least provide a far-reaching mechanism for community fixes to be implemented, and would fit better with the medium to long term strategy that @hugh mentioned in this thread.
An official hotfix/improvement mod sounds actually like a pretty good idea.
I certainly don't think you can do this retroactive dollars per hours calculation to justify anything. NS2 has a hefty fun quotient, but if someone feels strongly that gameplay issues like longstanding bugs are an important obstacle to enjoyment for them, then who are we to judge based on a dollars/hour calculation which was not part of the original seller-buyer contract at purchase time?
Problem is that the Pareto Principle aka 80:20 rule is very much true in software development: 80% of the results of a project can be done in 20% of total time, whereas the last 20% take the longest. A software company always has to balance bug finding and fixing and time (= money) spent to fix them, before a release. ( + its hard to unit test a game)
Now I'm not talking about the Mineshaft bug, that one slipped in recently and doesn't take too much time to fix. However time used deploying the whole NS2 in a hotfix and testing it just for that little bug, doesn't justify the costs for UWE.
But doesn't hotfix mean literally to fix one small bug only. I would have thought that repairing mineshaft would not have any impact whatsoever on the rest of the game or other maps, so there would be very little time required to do it. But I think based on posts by devs here, fixing small bugs doesn't work like that on NS2.
I imagine it like this: The lead makes a plan what to do, meetings, locate the bug, coffee, understand the bug, why was it introduced on Mineshaft while patching something entirely different?, is it on other maps?, fix the bug, test, meetings, coffee, you probably need to deploy the whole of NS2 and you wan't to have that tested, so not more bugs slip through. You probably gonna contact the PT to do some rounds on Mineshaft and other maps. Then you need to upload it on Steam and check it again. Hugh needs to write an article etc etc pp.
In the end a whole week has gone by without anything else but a hotfix for a map in return.
No need to apologise @d0ped0g I am happy to expand on this. I mean a bit of both. Natural Selection 2 development is certainly subject to the universal laws of software development. It is also subject to its own peculiar and unique set of constraints. These constraints encompass:
- The particular capabilities of the team working on NS2 at present
- The desires and influence of NS2 players upon that team
- The ingrained 'way of doing things' present in NS2 development, that may or may not be conducive to sustainable long term development
- The extremely open nature of the official repositories (Unknown Worlds places extreme trust in NS2 player contributors with our code and art repositories)
- The resources available to it from Unknown Worlds, given Unknown Worlds has diversified into the development of multiple other projects, (enabled by the success of NS2 sales)
- The specific production methods utilised by Unknown Worlds (i.e. extremely open and non-structured, dependent on individual initiative, self-restraint, and small-team high intensity communication)
Going in depth on each of these elements would take quite some time. If people have specific questions regarding each element then I will do my best to answer them, depending on how long the thread lives and how civil it is.
Thanks for the comprehensive response. I won't bother you with further questions :P that actually covers everything quite nicely.
I imagine it like this: The lead makes a plan what to do, meetings, locate the bug, coffee, understand the bug, why was it introduced on Mineshaft while patching something entirely different?, is it on other maps?, fix the bug, test, meetings, coffee, you probably need to deploy the whole of NS2 and you wan't to have that tested, so not more bugs slip through. You probably gonna contact the PT to do some rounds on Mineshaft and other maps. Then you need to upload it on Steam and check it again. Hugh needs to write an article etc etc pp.
In the end a whole week has gone by without anything else but a hotfix for a map in return.
If this is true, it really just speaks volumes for the incompetency and inefficiency of how things are done currently. Mineshaft was fixed in a mod on the workshop less than a day after 265 was released. The mod contains one file. ns2_mineshaft.level. My understanding of the bug is that it was a simple prop mistake that caused an error in the nav mesh(?) for that particular map.
To say that:
Rapid patching (or 'hot fixing') of specific high profile issues such as the failure of a map have a significantly detrimental effect on the likelihood that Unknown Worlds can continue to support Natural Selection 2 in the long term
is downright insulting to the customers that just bought the game with the sale which coincided with the launch of the patch. All that would of been involved with fixing the bug would of been to copy paste the ns2_mineshaft.level from the mod, test it in a 20 minute playtest to confirm the issue is resolved, commit the change and push the release on Steam. How you can possibly claim that this process would take a week.. I'm just.. I don't... Help me understand.
Hotfixing something like the Unknown player bug. Which won't be fixed in 265 by the way in case nobody has caught on that yet is understandable. It's an engine bug apparently, unexpected things happen in code. That's fine. But to compare that to something like a map is just wrong. A patch to address the issue should of been out in a day. Instead hundreds of new players were stuck on a broken map that couldn't be played in the rotation for the official servers.
If it was any other gaming company, I wouldn't care. It would be expected. But UWE actually don't have a terrible track record with hot fixes. They've been done so often in the past. The time taken for Hughs 1,000 word blank slate essays could of been spent copy pasting the file and hitting that build button. There's no cost involved when volunteers are doing all the bug fixes and play testing for free.
Scanning through the thread, I see what could possibly be one question, from @Jekt - "Help me understand." I'll try: Most of your post was spent extolling your opinion on how particular development processes work, specifically saying 'all that would be involved is...' Unfortunately, your assumptions are incorrect. Or at least, they are inapplicable to Natural Selection 2.
So, in order to understand why a hotfix cannot happen, you need to change your assumptions, and perhaps introduce a core assumption: That you don't know everything. I think that will help you understand. If you have questions about your assumptions, for example you erroneously assume that a .level file could be copy/pasted, then ask me questions and I will answer them. I don't mean to devalue your opinion, or put you down, only 'help you understand' why things don't happen the way you assume they can happen.
I have not seen any more questions since my last round of answers. If that's it, I'll be ending my pop-ins to the thread. I'll check once more at the end of the day PST.
@2cough, I appreciate your sentiment and see the value in your analogy. I am sorry that some forum users would presume to tell you to 'go away,' you are most welcome in these forums, and no one posting here has the right to tell you to go away. They certainly have the privilege - But anyone telling a friendly poster to 'go away' may wish to consider the implications of such behaviour on the motivation, engagement, friendliness and presence of their fellow players.
So, in order to understand why a hotfix cannot happen, you need to change your assumptions, and perhaps introduce a core assumption: That you don't know everything. I think that will help you understand. If you have questions about your assumptions, for example you erroneously assume that a .level file could be copy/pasted, then ask me questions and I will answer them. I don't mean to devalue your opinion, or put you down, only 'help you understand' why things don't happen the way you assume they can happen.
Too bad you cant flag mods for abuse. You basically called him a moron with no explanation as to why other than "Trust me, i know what i am talking about". You dance around this easy answer that never comes out. You just babble so long people give up. Who are you again? A PR guy (PR... which this game FAILS AT)? You are not a subject matter expert and i dont appreciate you acting like one. You entice anger and frustration with your gibberish.
I do have a question. Can you give us a rough overview about the steps involved from getting a simple hotfix patched into the game? I'm interested how the workflow at UWE works, and I think that would increase understanding from all sides a lot.
I understand, however, if that is considered "too secret" data for the public.
I do have a question. Can you give us a rough overview about the steps involved from getting a simple hotfix patched into the game? I'm interested how the workflow at UWE works, and I think that would increase understanding from all sides a lot.
I understand, however, if that is considered "too secret" data for the public.
Find something is wrong
Fix it
Commit it
Wait 30 minutes for a new build to be created
PT's test map
Put build in RC mode
Submit build to Steam
Valve approves it
Send build out to users
Create blog post
That requires at least 2 people to be pulled off other projects for a while.
I do have a question. Can you give us a rough overview about the steps involved from getting a simple hotfix patched into the game? I'm interested how the workflow at UWE works, and I think that would increase understanding from all sides a lot.
I understand, however, if that is considered "too secret" data for the public.
Find something is wrong
Fix it
Commit it
Wait 30 minutes for a new build to be created
PT's test map
Put build in RC mode
Submit build to Steam
Valve approves it
Send build out to users
Create blog post
That requires at least 2 people to be pulled off other projects for a while.
Samus, I appreciate your work on the game and my frustration is in no way directed at you, but i fail to see the earth shattering company destroying process here.
You hit the nail on the head with 2 people would have to be pulled from other projects because there is no one actively working on NS2 which is the source of my frustration.
Again, thank you for continuing to help the game out even when the devs don't care anymore.
I think people were more upset about the seemingly lack of... care? for an easy fix rather than the actual problem on the map (not to say that the map problem wasn't.... problematic). That's why people are annoyed by mineshaft - having a glaring and seemingly easy to fix spot on a map and then having nothing 'official' done in this amnt of time (samus excluded (stop working on stuff so we can fully troll this game )).
And, @Hugh, 2cough was calling people spoiled kids and was belittling others. I recommend you reread his posts before you down-talk (passive aggressively of course) those that ended up feeling hostile towards him. Maybe I missed something.
Find something is wrong
Fix it
Commit it
Wait 30 minutes for a new build to be created
PT's test map
Put build in RC mode
Submit build to Steam
Valve approves it
Send build out to users
Create blog post
That requires at least 2 people to be pulled off other projects for a while.
More or less confirming what I thought it would be. @Jekt
All that would of been involved with fixing the bug would of been to copy paste the ns2_mineshaft.level from the mod, test it in a 20 minute playtest to confirm the issue is resolved, commit the change and push the release on Steam. How you can possibly claim that this process would take a week.. I'm just.. I don't... Help me understand.
I maybe exaggerated with the week, just for one Mineshaft bug.
I assume they wan't to work on other things too and coordinate with what others are doing. Everything needs to work just right. Otherwise we will fill forum pages after pages with complaint I mean these things take time. Not just fixing a line of code and everything is well and done. The stuff around that is what makes it time consuming. It might make sense to bundle various bugs into a bigger patch and you need the deployment, testing and finalization just once.
Soo is a hotfix justified for Mineshaft, I don't know I thought it was erranous code and not something that just could be copied over as you said. If thats true it might have been easy enough then to hotfix.
Maybe they just leave the easy stuff to community members like SamusDroid to fix, while they work on the fancycash-generatingstuff. (Except the Unknown engine bug )
@Hugh I hope you got a thick skin, the air in here is getting uncomfortable.
An alternative solution would be for samus to make a 'hotfix' mod and push that (like ns2+) as a mod that every server operator should run. That would at least provide a far-reaching mechanism for community fixes to be implemented, and would fit better with the medium to long term strategy that @hugh mentioned in this thread.
An official hotfix/improvement mod sounds actually like a pretty good idea.
Pretty sure you already heard that idea somewhere... :P
An alternative solution would be for samus to make a 'hotfix' mod and push that (like ns2+) as a mod that every server operator should run. That would at least provide a far-reaching mechanism for community fixes to be implemented, and would fit better with the medium to long term strategy that @hugh mentioned in this thread.
An official hotfix/improvement mod sounds actually like a pretty good idea.
Pretty sure you already heard that idea somewhere... :P
Maybe, if we repeat it often enough, it can become a reality for NS3.
I do have a question. Can you give us a rough overview about the steps involved from getting a simple hotfix patched into the game? I'm interested how the workflow at UWE works, and I think that would increase understanding from all sides a lot.
I understand, however, if that is considered "too secret" data for the public.
Find something is wrong
Fix it
Commit it
Wait 30 minutes for a new build to be created
PT's test map
Put build in RC mode
Submit build to Steam
Valve approves it
Send build out to users
Create blog post
That requires at least 2 people to be pulled off other projects for a while.
That's the point of hotfixing though -- you streamline the processes so all of the above should really only take a relatively short time to hotfix a map like the broken mineshaft. For the player names list, this is a engine issue so would be more time consuming of course.
1. What is the justification behind the lack of blog posts speaking about internal development at UWE? (NS2 or otherwise)
2. What is the purpose of keeping everything so secretive in terms of development? (I tend to imagine UWE as not trying to PR informatino about its games, but rather, being straighforward and open about the thought and production processes)
2a. Is it to cause News Headlines elsewhere or to reinvigorate the community?
2b. If so, why does this seem like the "best idea?"
From my perspective, the secrecy concerning the builds and the future of NS2 cause massive amount of frustration among non-PTs/Samus.
Let me reitterate btw how greatful I am for Samus' work. I am so happy you have become involved in keeping this games development up to snuff.
SamusDroidColoradoJoin Date: 2013-05-13Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited April 2014
A community fix mod sounds great and I would love to do it, except when the workshop inevitably fails and the server restarts. All server admins have to do is run my mod which I will soon be clearly and adding new fixes too.
I think this thread shows a major division in the NS2 community...
Anyways, you guys should not give @hugh such a hostile attitude, or anyone else for that matter. You solve nothing by doing that.
Nothing is being solved anyway, so... squeaky wheel gets the grease. NS2 could have been SO much better... and might still be by some miracle. It is hard adjusting to the fact that the game is dead in its incomplete state and will continue to be unless the community acts.
At least im not like a lot of these blind fan boys saying UWE is a model company and they did such a GREAT job. The game is STILL a polished beta with broken and incomplete features made by a company who believed it was a good idea for people to set their own pace and choose their own projects. No wonder the hard stuff never got done. Amazing they could NEVER make a deadline. Astounding that they have jumped ship to make a completely unrelated niche game.
I think it becomes hostile because he's in uwe and we rarely see them post in the forums nowadays. So, naturally, but illogically, people direct all frustration with uwe towards him. Bbbbbbbuuuuuuttttt, some of the posts that he has made have legitimately, at least, annoyed people. No hate, I'm sure that in-person it wouldn't sound as people take his post. Idk.
Astounding that they have jumped ship to make a completely unrelated niche game.
You do realize that Subnautica will be a much bigger and much more successful game than NS2 don't you? You do realise NS2 is a niche game? Hence why only 500 people play it at any one time.
You do realize that Subnautica will be a much bigger and much more successful game than NS2 don't you?
Hahahahahaha. Like Sudoku was bigger than NS1 right? Your fan boy ways are clouding your judgement. UWE is making a game no one is asking for and is filling a genre that doesnt really exist. If it recieves the same marketing expertise as did NS2 it wont even have 500 people play it at all. The fans made NS2 what it is today. Period.
but hey, if the fish bowl simulator becomes a smash hit at least there will be funds to make NS3.
You do realize that Subnautica will be a much bigger and much more successful game than NS2 don't you?
Hahahahahaha. Like Sudoku was bigger than NS1 right? Your fan boy ways are clouding your judgement. UWE is making a game no one is asking for and is filling a genre that doesnt really exist. If it recieves the same marketing expertise as did NS2 it wont even have 500 people play it at all. The fans made NS2 what it is today. Period.
but hey, if the fish bowl simulator becomes a smash hit at least there will be funds to make NS3.
If you don't like how NS2 was developed, then don't play it, I'm sure people won't miss the negativity.
Luckily for me there are people who love this game so much they have made a mod addressing a lot of NS2 issues. I play that pretty much exclusively now. My problem isnt so much how the game was developed (though im not happy with it), it's the total abandonment of NS2. The excuse was "it's a beta" but it has now been released for quite a while and nothing was done. Things only got worse and continue to do so which cripples the growth of the game. Sorry for being bitter about that. I guess i have higher standards than most...
How many times have they released a broken patch on a sale weekend? At least twice that i can recall off hand. Stop with the sunshine and rainbows attitude. They wont learn if people stay quiet.
You do realize that Subnautica will be a much bigger and much more successful game than NS2 don't you?
Hahahahahaha. Like Sudoku was bigger than NS1 right? Your fan boy ways are clouding your judgement. UWE is making a game no one is asking for and is filling a genre that doesnt really exist. If it recieves the same marketing expertise as did NS2 it wont even have 500 people play it at all. The fans made NS2 what it is today. Period.
but hey, if the fish bowl simulator becomes a smash hit at least there will be funds to make NS3.
I don't know whether you can actually make that claim, but playing devil's advocate: didn't Apple fill a genre/niche/form-factor that didn't exist with the iPad? And it was a smash hit, generating billions of dollars of revenue. Maybe UWE will be similarly successful with SN? (in terms of creating and filling a genre I mean, not necessarily earning billions).
Comments
An official hotfix/improvement mod sounds actually like a pretty good idea.
In the end a whole week has gone by without anything else but a hotfix for a map in return.
Thanks for the comprehensive response. I won't bother you with further questions :P that actually covers everything quite nicely.
If this is true, it really just speaks volumes for the incompetency and inefficiency of how things are done currently. Mineshaft was fixed in a mod on the workshop less than a day after 265 was released. The mod contains one file. ns2_mineshaft.level. My understanding of the bug is that it was a simple prop mistake that caused an error in the nav mesh(?) for that particular map.
To say that:
is downright insulting to the customers that just bought the game with the sale which coincided with the launch of the patch. All that would of been involved with fixing the bug would of been to copy paste the ns2_mineshaft.level from the mod, test it in a 20 minute playtest to confirm the issue is resolved, commit the change and push the release on Steam. How you can possibly claim that this process would take a week.. I'm just.. I don't... Help me understand.
Hotfixing something like the Unknown player bug. Which won't be fixed in 265 by the way in case nobody has caught on that yet is understandable. It's an engine bug apparently, unexpected things happen in code. That's fine. But to compare that to something like a map is just wrong. A patch to address the issue should of been out in a day. Instead hundreds of new players were stuck on a broken map that couldn't be played in the rotation for the official servers.
If it was any other gaming company, I wouldn't care. It would be expected. But UWE actually don't have a terrible track record with hot fixes. They've been done so often in the past. The time taken for Hughs 1,000 word blank slate essays could of been spent copy pasting the file and hitting that build button. There's no cost involved when volunteers are doing all the bug fixes and play testing for free.
So, in order to understand why a hotfix cannot happen, you need to change your assumptions, and perhaps introduce a core assumption: That you don't know everything. I think that will help you understand. If you have questions about your assumptions, for example you erroneously assume that a .level file could be copy/pasted, then ask me questions and I will answer them. I don't mean to devalue your opinion, or put you down, only 'help you understand' why things don't happen the way you assume they can happen.
I have not seen any more questions since my last round of answers. If that's it, I'll be ending my pop-ins to the thread. I'll check once more at the end of the day PST.
@2cough, I appreciate your sentiment and see the value in your analogy. I am sorry that some forum users would presume to tell you to 'go away,' you are most welcome in these forums, and no one posting here has the right to tell you to go away. They certainly have the privilege - But anyone telling a friendly poster to 'go away' may wish to consider the implications of such behaviour on the motivation, engagement, friendliness and presence of their fellow players.
I understand, however, if that is considered "too secret" data for the public.
Find something is wrong
Fix it
Commit it
Wait 30 minutes for a new build to be created
PT's test map
Put build in RC mode
Submit build to Steam
Valve approves it
Send build out to users
Create blog post
That requires at least 2 people to be pulled off other projects for a while.
Samus, I appreciate your work on the game and my frustration is in no way directed at you, but i fail to see the earth shattering company destroying process here.
You hit the nail on the head with 2 people would have to be pulled from other projects because there is no one actively working on NS2 which is the source of my frustration.
Again, thank you for continuing to help the game out even when the devs don't care anymore.
And, @Hugh, 2cough was calling people spoiled kids and was belittling others. I recommend you reread his posts before you down-talk (passive aggressively of course) those that ended up feeling hostile towards him. Maybe I missed something.
@Jekt I maybe exaggerated with the week, just for one Mineshaft bug.
I assume they wan't to work on other things too and coordinate with what others are doing. Everything needs to work just right. Otherwise we will fill forum pages after pages with complaint
Soo is a hotfix justified for Mineshaft, I don't know I thought it was erranous code and not something that just could be copied over as you said. If thats true it might have been easy enough then to hotfix.
Maybe they just leave the easy stuff to community members like SamusDroid to fix, while they work on the fancy cash-generating stuff. (Except the Unknown engine bug
@Hugh I hope you got a thick skin, the air in here is getting uncomfortable.
Pretty sure you already heard that idea somewhere... :P
Maybe, if we repeat it often enough, it can become a reality for NS3.
That's the point of hotfixing though -- you streamline the processes so all of the above should really only take a relatively short time to hotfix a map like the broken mineshaft. For the player names list, this is a engine issue so would be more time consuming of course.
1. What is the justification behind the lack of blog posts speaking about internal development at UWE? (NS2 or otherwise)
2. What is the purpose of keeping everything so secretive in terms of development? (I tend to imagine UWE as not trying to PR informatino about its games, but rather, being straighforward and open about the thought and production processes)
2a. Is it to cause News Headlines elsewhere or to reinvigorate the community?
2b. If so, why does this seem like the "best idea?"
From my perspective, the secrecy concerning the builds and the future of NS2 cause massive amount of frustration among non-PTs/Samus.
Let me reitterate btw how greatful I am for Samus' work. I am so happy you have become involved in keeping this games development up to snuff.
Anyways, you guys should not give @hugh such a hostile attitude, or anyone else for that matter. You solve nothing by doing that.
Nothing is being solved anyway, so... squeaky wheel gets the grease. NS2 could have been SO much better... and might still be by some miracle. It is hard adjusting to the fact that the game is dead in its incomplete state and will continue to be unless the community acts.
At least im not like a lot of these blind fan boys saying UWE is a model company and they did such a GREAT job. The game is STILL a polished beta with broken and incomplete features made by a company who believed it was a good idea for people to set their own pace and choose their own projects. No wonder the hard stuff never got done. Amazing they could NEVER make a deadline. Astounding that they have jumped ship to make a completely unrelated niche game.
You do realize that Subnautica will be a much bigger and much more successful game than NS2 don't you? You do realise NS2 is a niche game? Hence why only 500 people play it at any one time.
Hahahahahaha. Like Sudoku was bigger than NS1 right? Your fan boy ways are clouding your judgement. UWE is making a game no one is asking for and is filling a genre that doesnt really exist. If it recieves the same marketing expertise as did NS2 it wont even have 500 people play it at all. The fans made NS2 what it is today. Period.
but hey, if the fish bowl simulator becomes a smash hit at least there will be funds to make NS3.
If you don't like how NS2 was developed, then don't play it, I'm sure people won't miss the negativity.
Why would they want to make another game for a community that is full of angry people complaining about everything they do?
How many times have they released a broken patch on a sale weekend? At least twice that i can recall off hand. Stop with the sunshine and rainbows attitude. They wont learn if people stay quiet.
I don't know whether you can actually make that claim, but playing devil's advocate: didn't Apple fill a genre/niche/form-factor that didn't exist with the iPad? And it was a smash hit, generating billions of dollars of revenue. Maybe UWE will be similarly successful with SN? (in terms of creating and filling a genre I mean, not necessarily earning billions).