Worried

Victor32

Been reading various Trello posts and updates the past few days and couldn't help but worry.

• Several cards have been archived, in bulk, meaning they'll never be done.
• Several more have been moved to backlog, to await the same fate, most probably.
• March update got delayed.
• Xbox early access got delayed.

Are there trouble in the underwater paradise or is it just temporary deadline crisis?

starkaos

Looks like standard procedure for creating a video game. Everything has a certain priority level and projects with a really low priority get pushed aside for more important projects. There will always be projects within a game that we never see since it either takes too long to properly implement it or doesn't fit the style of the game.

etherealyandere

Its an early access game, the roadmap is going to be shuffled around a lot. Would you rather nothing changed or that they ignored their issues? Delaying things is a sign of a good dev team as they're able to look at their work and say "Nope, this isn't good enough, we need more time" instead of rushing and pushing out half-complete features.

Don't worry, if there was a serious issue Im sure the devs would say something; they've been very active with the community so I doubt they'd just let us sit in ignorance and confusion ^^

Calarand77

I don't think there is any reason to worry, even if some delays have indeed crept in. This dev team is very dedicated to their project, it's clear that they have a lot of passion for what they do, so giving up is just not their style. Subnautica will get finished and it will be an amazing game. And like the previous posters said - change is perfectly normal for endeavor as big and complex as creation of a brand new computer game is. Timetables will shift, priorities will change. Sometimes a new, much better idea shows up and replaces the old one. I'm sure that what you've seen on Trello is mostly just a clean up of such outdated ideas, so chin up!

project_mercy

That's just how software development goes. Games or not. You start out, and you have some core requirements. When your users suddenly get a hold of it they're throwing a billion ideas at you because everything thinks "it would be great if.." and so you start gathering up the ones that seem to show up more than once. You ask the developers, and they say "oh, that's not that hard, it's only like..." and so you end up with what's probably an optimistic estimate. Most leads/project managers then tack on another 50% to the estimate just for safety, and still in the end you run into unforeseen bugs and such that waste a huge amount of time.

I mean, I wasted all this whole last week updating some stupid ORM library to get around some bug I should have never had to deal with. It just happens. Now all my tickets got pushed back into another sprint.

Eventually someone says, "No for reals guys, we need to actually release this at some point. We need to limit the payload, and then we'll talk about the next version/expansion/etc. if this actually makes any money." That's what you're seeing. It's unfortunate if the features you were super interested in are in the ones getting pushed back, but it's actually sort of a positive thing. The longer the development cycle the more it has a tendency to get wonky.

Victor32

Thanks everyone! I feel much more optimistic now. I suppose I just shouldn't spend so much time digging around Trello cards when I have no real idea how game development works. Cheers!

starkaos

There is nothing wrong with digging around Trello cards if you don't mind being spoiled about what is coming since it gives an idea on how game development works. All that you need to keep in mind is that what the devs are currently working on might be months away before we see them. There is certainly a lot of cool features coming with the next build like Scanner Rooms and changes to the location of Blueprint fragments.

Obraxis

We got a little behind this month. Not through lack of trying, but just LOTS of things going on.

We had the Oculus launch, Xbox build needing to pass certification, human frailties....aka, a lot of the team got sick for a week & also vacations. Stuff happens, and you just deal with it and move on.

ChaosKnight626

@Obraxis Is that why the backend has been a wasteland for the past week? Because I was just wondering if you all were okay or preparing something super secret

Rainstorm

Obraxis wrote: »

We got a little behind this month. Not through lack of trying, but just LOTS of things going on.

We had the Oculus launch, Xbox build needing to pass certification, human frailties....aka, a lot of the team got sick for a week & also vacations. Stuff happens, and you just deal with it and move on.

As shown in this post we all can live with delays as long as the updates are as finished as you'd like them to. hopefully those of you that got sick are okay now. keep up the good work!

ComicalSkate

ChaosKnight626 wrote: »

@Obraxis Is that why the backend has been a wasteland for the past week? Because I was just wondering if you all were okay or preparing something super secret

From what I heard, the backend changes and checkins is broken.