In the latest update, Returns has been pushed back from a January release date to 'May or June'.

At the same time, they've also removed a large feature, in that you can no longer recruit friends characters in your game as fellow runners.

How do you feel about this?

I accepted their reasoning and support the decision.

For me, and social aspect of the game should take a back seat to core features, functions and playability. At the end of the day a successful release will only signal the beginning of Shadowrun Returns. If it's good and successful then features like this will be added over time as more people buy it and they release DLCs and whatnot. If it's not as successful then I'll be glad they worked on core gameplay and that I have a playable game if they have to stop supporting it

On the release date; Not unexpected. I can't remember the last time a non-iterative title (Eg. Not Fifa 12, 13) I was waiting for was actually released on it's originally stated release date. TBH I hadn't even realised that January was the original release so wasn't expecting it yet anyway! With the size of game they're planning it was an optimistic proposal at best.

Seeing how my Birthday is in June, i like it.
Also:
I don't want to be social, why should i have to be in a single player game? <.<

Says the guy with nearly twelve thousand posts. <3

Yeah, it's a shame. We could have had a 'post your character' thread. It's a feature that might still see light eventually though. Just not now

Me too

Where do you get that "latest update" from, something they say in the Q&A vids?

Anyway, the idea of sharing characters in an offline game always seemed a little odd to me and not really interesting.

He's even more anti-social than I am...

coming from you, that's high praise indeed! ^^

RE: the pushback ... I'd rather they delayed a month, or two, or even a year, than release a bad product. Edit to add: I say that as a $60 backer, too. I'd rather wait a bit, and be sure to gt my money's worth ... than rush things, and maybe not.

RE: not being able to hire friends' characters: that's disappointing, I hope they find a way to bring that back, maybe in a future expansion or patch.

This. Working under release day constraints that are inflexible often will lead to REALLY shitty decision making. Better to push back if possible than release on time while making cuts to core areas.

As long as they release it one day. Not rushing is a good thing, taking too long is not.

I was pretty excited to have a new game to play in January, but it sounded like a really short development time to me when they gave that as the release date.

Not being able to share characters you've created bothers me more, but I'm not sure how that would work anyway.

It'd require some sort of central server, that served as a social nexus, and kept track of each player's characters - stats, bio, exploits, etc. The game would then have to hook into that, in order to know who your friends were, and what their characters were. It would then use that information to present options for you to hire NPC runners from.

I'm guessing they decided that building the netcode to handle that, and then maintaining that social nexus free of charge, wouldn't work within their business model.

A shame really, but I can understand that entirely too well. As overwhelming as the response was, they have to be cognizant of the risk that anyone who might want a copy of the game, is already going to GET at least one, due to kickstarter rewards.

If done that way it would also water down the differences to SRO, which the makers probably wanted to avoid. And then there is a bunch of questions about the implementation. How do you make sure the external NPCs have a power level that matches the party? Do changes (including negative ones like death) get backported into the "owner's" game? What happens if your character is hired and you want to play him? After thinking a bit about it, I hereby change my vote from "meh, who cares" to "good riddance".

if characters are stored kinda like save-games in files each of their own, then this could probably be circumvented by players sending each other these files for import/use in their games . .

Dont think so. The plan was for you to be able to hire player runners as party members. Doesnt quite work if you're playing your buddy as a mani.

Import could still allow for your friends' characters to be imported as NPCs for hire.

Definitely this. Make it good; don't rush it!

Chiptruth. Better a good product later than originally expected than a steaming pile of dreck on time.

Canne Can't be worse then the game we shall not mention, high hopes that this will get more people interested in the franchise , I mean even nerds give me blank stares when I mention SR currently...

That makes me incredibly sad.

Personally, I'm a bit annoyed that their output right now is set to "Less, and later".

That's the nature of scoping. Tech hurdles appear, and you end up discovering it will take way less time and money to do somethings you wanted to, and way more time and money for others.

If you spend decades in the industry and can't figure out how to estimate properly yet, you're not good at your job.

That's a remarkably blind way of looking at game developent which bespeaks a great deal of ignorance about how it happens. It's not a straightforward process. If your axiom is true, zero people in game development - and I mean ZERO - are good at their jobs.

You sound like a fanboy.

Way to take that to a rude place, man. Thanks for that. Real classy.

I'm not a fan boy. I'm a game designer. Everywhere I've personally been, and everywhere anyone I know has been, there have been features that get cut and things that take longer than expected, because game design isn't an exact science. This is true from Blizzard to Treyarch to Valve to Microsoft and everywhere in between.

I'm blind and ignorant for suggesting a skilled worker be able to estimate time requirements, yet I'm the one who took it rude? Whatever duder.

You're ignorant of the realities of game design and development when you insist that something be true despite the fact that it provably is not, and then claim anyone who doesn't fit your expectations is "bad at their job."

Definitionally, that is ignorance.

Right. That's why you sound like a fanboy.

Well, you're welcome to your opinion, but I think we've taken this line of discussion as far as it can realistically go unless thumb-wrestling or measuring tapes are involved.

Says the person who has clearly never been involved in developing a software product.

Every new game does somethign that defies any effort to "accurately estimate" diddly over squat: INNOVATE. They're not just wrapping a Shadowrun skin over an existing engine and calling it a day; they're doing new things. As such, once they're actually hip-deep in coding ... some of those new things will prove harder to implement than they had initially expected. Some will prove easier. Some will have to be altered in order to be doable within the resources budgeted for them.

And a few might even prove to be flat-out impossible.

Pretty much. Learned that in BASIC Programming alone. Unless you're copying something right out of the book, it might take a day, and it might be the project you hand into your teacher at the end of the year with a look of frustration and rage and have him go, "I didn't think you could do that in BASIC."

Of course, I was sent to the Principal's Office a few minutes later, but at least he let me get the swearing out of my system first.

I love your stories, CanRay. Just enough detail to make it memorable, not enough to squelch the punchline.

^^^ This, most definitely this. ^^^

Reminds me of that Access project... Spent a few hours losing my sanity on an overly complex SQL request with heavy visual basic code around, finally got something that did what was asked. Received an e-mail the day after from the teacher: "You can drop requirement x, it's not possible to do it.". Sent in my project "I didn't know it was impossible so I did it anyway. I hope you don't mind."

Back on topic, as a software developer, I'd say that you should be able to estimate correctly the time you need and when making a date public, you need to add some safety margin.
But what happened here is what always happen in software development: marketing announces a date before the scope is fully known, then development begins and drastic changes are made in the scope of the project, then development explains that it's not possible to deliver on time. In most companies, Marketing would then ignore Development (or tell them that it has to be on time), and development would either reduce scope without telling marketing, or would keep on working and be late and tell "told you so". Here, the public is told about the scope changes and delays, which is a pretty good thing.

I've also worked in the industry, though admittedly as a tester rather than designer. Developement cycles change all the time. Publishers set deadlines based on financial reasons, developers set release estimates based on expected dev cycle.
As SRR is Kickstarter funded, I'm guessing it hasn't really got a publisher or the same time contraints that publisher-funded games would have.

As an example of why this is a good thing, see games such as Hellgate London. Potentially one of the greatest arpg's ever, released early after being pushed over the line by EA. It was loaded with bugs, and by the time they managed to sort it out and turn it into the game they wanted everyone had already stopped playing it and they folded.

I'm not interested in play-testing a game I've paid for. I'd prefer to wait for them to do that and deliver it when it's finished

If you look at the history of video/computer games you will find many (most?) highly rated games which have been delayed by weeks, month and sometimes years - and become sometimes the best games ever produces. Prime example: Starcraft / Brood Wars. I suppose same goes for music, art, literature.

SYL

I did just enough coding in university to realize that it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. That said, I have maximum respect for those who stuck at it and are good enough to do it as a job.

@almost normal: You would hate my development technique. My version of a deadline is 'When it's done to my satisfaction'... which so far it isn't.

Or Auto Assault. NCSoft pushed for it to be released, months or even a year before it was ready. IT launched with bugs that killed the latter quarter of the game, bugs that slaughtered the PvP multiplayer which had been sold as "the endgame". Within only a few months, after being brutally pounded on in reviews and customer word-of-mouth, they closed all but one server. Which then slowly withered away, until they closed the whole thing.

Or, same publisher, this time Tabula Rasa. Go pushed out the door before it was finally ready, and inevitably, it died.

...

Time estimates are plans ... and "no plan survives contact with the enemy".

Hehe. I also did just enough at uni to realize it wasn't what I wanted to do, only I left it too late to switch course and had to slog through 2 years of it before barely scraping a pass in my degree. True story.

i had to do some coding and database work for my training for a job . .
and i did 10% more than i had calculated i needed to do to have a passing grade . .
because coding and database work sucks and i can't get my head around that <.<

You'll probably find just as many counterexamples (like Daikatana). Delays don't indicate anything about quality, neither good nor bad.

You seem to be missing the fact that "a skilled worker" is hardly ever the one making the estimate. There are marketing guys for that, or management guys for that, or someone trying to coordinate all the different departments for that. This is very much a normal thing in the industry -- in several industries, actually -- and to insist otherwise, and to say that they're bad at their job for it, is just wearing blinders.

To be fair, a lot of this is just that NCSoft is bad at running MMOs. Look at right now, they're closing down City Of Heroes effective tonight, a game which has been a steady profit for eight years and is being taken down because it doesn't fit in with their portfolio of Korean pay-to-win games.

Or rather, that NCSOft does not understand WESTERN MMOs, nor know how to properly manage and nurture them.

Still, the failure of AA and of Tabula Rasa (I was a closed beta tester for TR - first NDA I ever entered into, and one of my suggestions even became a permanent feature) are directly linked to the hideous flaws they launched with ... because NCSoft said "Go! NOW!"

Working in a programming-centric industry myself, I can confidently say that I feel that the above statement is bunk. There are ALWAYS unseen technical hurdles.

It's hard to put a timestamp on "something you've never done before".



And this also has a lot to do with it.

It sounds an awful lot like school teachers (and Michael Scott) saying they thrive under 0 accountability, and no testing.

It might, from a certain point of view.

Until you try working in the field, even peripherally, and find out that you have to literally have the teddy bear in the right place in order to make the mainframe work right (No, I'm not joking) that you understand that anything to do with computers is Chaos in Reality.

And once Chaos enters the field, timeframes goes right out the window. Sometimes it doesn't even open the window first, either. Which causes even more problems.