I'm assuming that the devs have been working crazy hours and that they are very passionate about making PA, especially considering they have full freedom to create whatever they want. I am curious though, from a day-to-day perspective how do the devs manage their workload and prioritize tasks? I imagine it can be very hectic one hour and then very quiet and steady for a few hours. I also think that there is a large consumption of coffee and energy drinks. What about bathroom/fresh air breaks though? Are the chains unshackled from their desks every 4 hours to allow for such breaks? More importantly, has Neutrino become so invested in PA that he occasionally tries to move and think like a Commander unit and does everyone else in the office get freaked out when he gets stuck in character for extended periods of time? Seriously though, I know the devs are pros but I hope that they are taking good care of themselves. What they're doing with PA is very exciting but they are human after all
For humans, this would prove fatal - http://i.imgur.com/mt1OY6G.gif I know especially at the start of alpha (when there was several server-crashing bugs) they were pulling crazy hours, including releasing builds on weekends.
Crunch is not a time I would feel jealous of, I've got to say. I've seen neutrino say they've been effectively crunching like all the time. They've got a grand aim, and I wish them the best in attaining it. Having to deal with clients myself (we're kinda like Uber's clients. Kinda), I understand the pressure to get stuff out and working on time. (speaking of energy drinks, I've recently put myself on detox. Coca Cola every now and then, but I try to avoid taurine products in general)
I only drink water and the occasional herbal tea. I can also survive for a whole week on nothing but the energy of the universe and the dew of a single Ginko leaf. Jokes aside, if it means a little bit of chill time for the devs (meaning more rational decisions in both the short term and long term, as well as saner patrons), I would encourage them to push back releases another few months. Or at least be "flexible" with release dates, but that tends to result in much RAEG and bad PR.
Hopefully not to many crazy hours, mistakes can be expensive, and you make more if you are tired. Its gonna cost them the same money if they spread the hours required over longer time. Im still amazed they can do this for the money they got, when you think about them having to build everything from ground up. I really hope other developers out there picks of this engine and tries to do RTS or something with it. Just seems like amazing tech from my limited understand But im amazed at how far the game has come. Must be some talented people working at Uber.
Good points RMJ. And I agree with your comments about the tech/game engine being built... it's a huge source of my excitement for PA. Regarding your comment about everything built from the ground up, I believe that Neutrino mentioned during a livestream that they didn't actually have to start from scratch with everything. If I recall correctly, development on the engine started a few years prior to the Kickstarter campaign, and Ubernet infrastructure already existed as well. I believe there may some other things that already existed as well...
Oh well that explains some of it, they did seems kinda like miracle workers i guess they still kinda are
I don't recall that being mentioned at all. I do know they talk about how they started on the concepts and core ideas in order to create the Pre-Visualization for Kickstarter about 3-4 months prior, but that was all just created in 3DSMax, not a game engine. MNC and SMNC used UDK(I think? Regardless it was an existing engine) so I'm not sure where they have the time and money to create an engine from scratch without a game to make from it. Basically PA has only existing as a project for at most 1.5 years I believe. It sounds crazy that UBer has created an engine AND and game in about a year, but if you take everything into consideration it not really as crazy as it sounds. Mike
I'm pretty sure Neutrino said he'd started on the engine before the kickstarter, but I'm about to pass out from food coma, so I may not be a good source.
Neutrino did say that he was working on the basic game-engine in his free time for maybe a year? He was in his bed with the laptop, programming... so yeah, they did not start completely from scratch.
But how man can realistically be done by a single person as a side project? No offense to Jon but I doubt the conversation went like this; "So I made an entire engine in the last year on my spare time and now I want to make a game with it." I bet if you plotted out the actual man hours the greater majority of them fall within the last year and a half. It still doesn't really change the fact they did start from scratch at some point thought. Mike
We can only speculate. The answer to your question will need to be provided by Neutrino. My point was that development of PA did not start 100% from scratch after the Kickstarter campaign. Whether Neutrino accomplished a lot by himself or not prior to the Kickstarter campaign does not change this fact. Also, the phrase "start from scratch" is somewhat open to interpretation. For example, does the phrase "start from scratch" imply that every single line of code must be written by hand? It is possible that Uber is using some code that already existed. If this were true, then PA may not have been "created from scratch" at all depending on how you define this phrase. I don't mean to sound silly by arguing semantics, but my point above still stands.
Well, Neutrino explained this a few times already, especially in conjunction of Chris Taylors disbelief. The reason they can do it with only that little bit of money and time is, because they are experienced, he (Jon) did write parts of the game engine already (I guess the very foundation) and they knew what the problems were during the SC1 development. Also, I remember Jon saying that he actually did program parts of the engine, then approached his team members and told them about his idea for a RTS game. I have no doubt that Jon Mavor wrote a big chunk already before Kickstarter... I mean look at the Uber guys, they are soooo ambitious. Also, don't forget that the game might not be "done" when it is being released like an oldschool game... so they will add stuff over time. I like to look at it like SC1 and TA... TA for me was a really great game once the Core Contingency stuff was added in... the same with SC1, when FA was released.
