I'd like to see the CDT planning process made public

HughHugh CameramanSan Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
Hi guys! I spend most of my time working on Subnautica these days. I am looking forward to assisting with getting the word out about a future update when the time comes, and playing lots of NS2! Something is bugging me, though.

One of the biggest successes UWE has had with Subnautica is making our entire planning process public. There are a gazillion ways for people to yell at us when we do stupid stuff, and pat us on the back when we do good stuff. This results in consistently better development decisions than when things happen behind closed doors.

I've been trying to get more information about what exactly CDT is doing, but I've been told that plans are 'still be worked on' and 'will go out to the public' when 'ready.' I feel like CDT plans are something that happen separate from the NS2 community, rather than within in. I wonder if there is any support out there among you all to try to open this process up more.

Sometimes I hear things like 'new game modes!' and 'new weapons!' I want to argue that this is a bad idea - That crushingly massive load times, poor animation responsiveness, downright atrocious match discovery, and other fundamental things are more important. But I don't have a vector to do it. An example from Subnautica might be memory crashes - We didn't realise memory crashes were as big an issue as they were, and it was only community feedback that made us realise. We had to stop, drop everything, and improve the memory situation. Perhaps there is an NS2 parallel here.

What's the feeling out there? Is CDT already open enough? Could we open it up more? Maybe these vectors already exist? If so, what's the best way to see this stuff?

Comments

  • BeigeAlertBeigeAlert Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
    I've seen them state many times that after the next build, their development is going to become much more transparent.
  • HughHugh Cameraman San Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    I just had a great chat with Dillon, in which he walked me through a lot of CDT stuff. I've done my best to recount what he said in a post on the NS2 blog: http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/build-me-a-machine/

    It was all great stuff - I'm looking forward to the possibility of a public automated build process, I reckon this will address alot of the 'what is going on questions' for many of us. It will also give the CDT the chance to show off all the hard work they've been doing. Many of these guys and girls are busting gut in their free time, all so we can enjoy a better NS2 in future.
  • babblerblingbabblerbling Join Date: 2015-05-27 Member: 204951Members
    CDT has failed to use the most potent community resource: server operators

    All of them actively offered help in the form of crash reports with dull dump files, weeks of performance records carefully and individually selected in 10h shifts, logfile archives, stats on stability, performance stats, player preferences, game improvements to raise ns2 playercount, bug reproductions, and much more...

    One server eventually managed to capture the engine devs attention with exceptional datasets. 200 emails later, ns2ds performance was improved by a total of 20% with potential for more.

    However once found out by CDT Lead, that activity was quickly and silently shut down.
  • roxxkattroxxkatt Join Date: 2014-12-28 Member: 200431Members
    ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ subnautica steam keys for ns2 players ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
  • JektJekt Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited June 2015
    Apparently you're the only one who doesn't have any idea what the CDT has been doing. It's been public knowledge for months that they have been waiting for a completed build machine, and that the majority of development has been basically put on hold until it was ready. Obraxis and other CDT members have replied within every thread from users that have been asking questions about their progress. 

    Before they were suddenly required to even get a build machine running (that's the parallel you're wondering about btw) without any warning I thought the way they managed community interaction and got feedback was great. They're all extremely active forum users, Wasabi used to do semi frequent blog posts and the Trello board are all enough for me to know what is happening. Once everything is back on track and they can actually start pushing fixes and content I'm sure it'll go back to how it was before. If enough volunteers are still working on improving the game. 
  • NoMNoM Join Date: 2015-04-13 Member: 203407Members, NS2 Playtester
    edited June 2015
    To be honest Hugh, having the CDT re-create an already working (perhaps dated) build system for many months had a negative impact on the game. Considering the great changes promised in the next build.

    The Trello reports I feel are always enough, with the last 5 month update interval as the only exception.

    Remember Hugh, that there are going to be more unhappy people in the long-run if long standing primary issues (performance & bugs) are not addressed. New content isn't as important to me at least.

    --

    Really the best thing that could be done for everyone's interests are streamlining the development overhead. That begins with UWE. The quicker appropriate changes are accepted, integrated and published - the better for the developers & players. :)
  • Cannon_FodderAUSCannon_FodderAUS Brisbane, AU Join Date: 2013-06-23 Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited June 2015
    Much love from AUS, @Hugh . Welcome back in the fold bro . As @Jekt said, the info for the CDT is out there in the Trello board, and they are all very regular forum goers. They tell us as much as can tell us without giving too much away (avoids disappointment I guess). The general process has been pretty good (if labour intensive for the CDT team). the exception was the break for the build machine (though they are still on the forum letting us know whats going on). A big shout out to @IronHorse who loves a good back and forth discussion ;-) Otherwise, it is the same 20-30 of us oldies hanging around, with the occasional new player chiming in to say how good the game is, and how bloody hard it is to learn. The game is kicking along, though the player base is slowing draining out (hopefully a new patch will reinvigorate).
    Here is to another year of NS2, and may many more years it will stay.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    edited June 2015
    I believe it is quite comical that UWE is effectively just finding out that the lack of a build machine, an issue created from the old one being taken away, is the main reason the CDT has appeared to have fallen off the face of the earth in recent months.

    I just pray that they get one working soon so that we can finally get this next update out, it has started feeling like the next NS2 update will be bundled with HL3.
  • Cannon_FodderAUSCannon_FodderAUS Brisbane, AU Join Date: 2013-06-23 Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    @ZEROibis HL3 confirmed (or is that NS3 confirmed??). NS3 to run on HL3 engine...
  • babblerblingbabblerbling Join Date: 2015-05-27 Member: 204951Members
    Actually playing the game outside of testing environments is not currently a requirement for people in decision making positions.

    An operator that doesn't play on his own server to see whether people are enjoying themselves as much as possible will ultimatively crash and burn.

    If you don't play ....







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