Progressbar for development

If I remember right you use scrum (or scrum-look-a-like) as development model and you obvious have graphic designer that like¹ do to nice progressbar. So at every sprint end (something like every 2-4weeks) you do a "release" and for us in the crowd by:

• Do a release blog post on http://planetaryannihilation.com/ telling the outcome of the last sprint and maybe the goal of the next sprint.
  
• If you like do a video blogpost (you are after all doing an documentary )
  
• Do an update on the progressbar, no need for percentage in the beginning just an approximate indicator where you are.

Here you can include major goals and achievements in PA as well. You can also add (when you know) when alpha, beta and first release will be done. In the beginning you can just have the alpha, beta and first release hanging at the line with no dates to them.

/EgU

-----------------
¹/ You might have forced him/her be twisting his/her arm or something, but continue todo that then

make a yes no poll, I say "yes please"

As a general dev myself, I'd feel a heck of a lot of pressure from something like that being so public

Pretty much..

Features like this are great for the silent majority but horrible when in the hands of the vocal minority.

Basically.. ask yourself this question: What public response are we most likely to see:
'Great job getting part A and B finished guys!' + 'Wow with part C complete.. we are nearly done.. nice'
or
'Why did part A take xxx hours?' + 'At this rate part C is never going to get finished!'.

this

I'd like to see it happen though. Or an ETA for Alpha/Beta. Just approximately, it's not a 'goal' as some would see it.

ETA for Alpha is spring
http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryannihi ... ?context=3

ETA for "Finished" game is summer

The dates may vary, nothing is set in stone.

Progress bar is live:

FTFY

Game Development is waaaaaaaaaaay to fluid to be represented by something as simple as a progress bar, it'd have to be arbitrary as hell and then still not accurately represent the actual progress.

Mike

two of the core elements of most progress bars.

Fixed! ;p

Mike

I see what you did there

But seriously, Game development is an iterative process. It is impossible to foresee how much iterations each element is going to take to work correctly, so basically the progress bar would go back and forth, making the entire idea pretty useless.

There is also a different "law", that states you are going to use all the time you have, not less. This is especially true when trying to create a good game and are passionate about it, which Uber is.

Games never get perfect (at least for the developer), so after implementing all the features you have promised, which happens very rarely in the first place, there can ALWAYS be put more work in the game. It is just that at some point you have to decide that the extra work you are putting in it, is not worth it anymore and release the game.

That is the ideal situation, way more often things get released because there is no budget left. But in this case Uber is less constrained by a budget as they don't have to back a publisher at the end. They "just" need to deliver the game and make enough to continue to exist as a company. Which is relatively easy with the business model used for PA

http://coding.abel.nu/2012/06/programme ... ion-table/

Honestly a progress bar would be useless. The sprint goals put too much pressure on the developers. I think the best method would be just a weekly blog that say what they are working on and the successes they have had. No pressure on them just letting us know how its going.

soooooo


..

planetary annihilation in two days? :mrgreen:


Edit: wrong qoute

Starting the end of the kickstarter. Where is my game?!? grrr......

I'd like to see something like a weekly / bi-weekly update on how things are going, regardless of how useful it'd be to us.

Also, any comments would require a minimum of 10 smilies and 2 sentences praising it (to keep morale high). Example below.

" :!: Awesome work! Can't believe you did this in 2 weeks ! Looking like the best game ever!!!! I wonder what next update will bring? :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :idea: :mrgreen:

... so, what does it do?"

that's one of the drawbacks of the kickstarter system.
You get the people hooked on a project in a really early stage and then you can't get rid of them to do some serious work.

I suppose the first step in any project is to create a forum bot, which answers randomly posts and keeps the impression of active interaction alive. Perhaps you can reuse the bot later on as an AI.
works better than a progress bar...

Neutrino, are you real? <pokes him with a stick>

Instead of a percentage scale for completeness, I recommend a non-linear, and not necessarily mathematical scale, to represent how complete the game is.

Valid values for completeness could be 42, Pi, any complex number, -1, eggs, Mavor, annihilation and the Clark Orbit, in no particular order.

Think of it like a Calvinball scale.