11/23 status update from Chantz on IG forums

wervdon · November 23, 2002, 15:01

Original thread: http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=236768

11/23 Update from Chantz
Hi Folks.

Just wanted to drop in and let you all know how things are progressing.

Obviously, we're still *not* Gold yet; we hit a nasty late game save corruption bug and that absolutely needs to be fixed, which we are obviously doing. MP is still being polished; it's quite stable but still needs a little more luv. And this game is all about luv folks.

Also, for the record, I will make one statement.

The *longer* we take to polish, the *better* the game will be. MOO3 is huge and a beast to test. Every time we cut a build, we start from Zero. *Every* victory condition must be fulfilled in both SP and MP, every map size must be played, every race must be exercised, etc ad infinitum. It's like climbing Mt. Everest...while doing a handstand the *whole* way up.

We obviously have real dates looming in front of us and no one is more cognizant of these dates than QSI, our QA team and myself. *We* also want to finish; we're tired, we're weary and sometimes it seems never ending.

That being said, there will be no sacrifice of quality here. If you want someone to "blame", blame me. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Quality is #1. WE want to know that we have shipped a game that has been played in all permutations and has not crashed or wigged out on you. We also want it to be as balanced as possible. As my uncle Louie the Wig (I kid you not!) would say...Capiche? There's no conspiracy to rob you or screw you; in fact, it is the *exact* opposite if you think about it for a sec.

OK, more screenies and interviews and updates coming soon to a theater near you! We are close, so please be patient and hang in there. It will be worth it in the end.

Best as always,
Constantine

PS - Modern manufacturing is a wonderful and scary thing; you would be amazed at how fast our ops team can turn stuff around *and* get it to stores. We're only waiting on 1 disk (albit a very important one!)

wervdon · November 23, 2002, 15:03

Thought Id pass that along since I didnt see any mention of it here on poly this morning yet. Nothing in it about how much if any delay the latest bug will create on the Dec 4th date, though to me the PS and the part about the holidays seems to indicate that he doesnt expect a large one.

November 23, 2002, 17:10

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon
...though to me the PS and the part about the holidays seems to indicate that he doesnt expect a large one.

Nor have they expected--or told us about, until the eleventh or twelfth hour--any of the other myriad and seemingly never-ending delays. At least he did not set another specific date/goal for them to miss.

They keep dangling the same, old carrot. What bemuses me is how we (yes, I too am guilty of it) keep biting. I guess it underlines how hopeful we are that it will ship, ship soon, be relatively bug-free, and be addictively fun.

And by the way, production houses aren't quite the miracle workers that Chantz implied. It's just that everybody else who might have been waiting in line has already completed their production runs for Christmas, so there should be plenty of production cycles available for MoO3 (provided it hits before January--when software production spikes again). That and the fact that all of the other components for the product build appear to have been built and are apparently sitting, waiting on that one, final deliverable!

moomin · November 23, 2002, 17:39

DAT, you're too ghoulish about this thing. If indeeed Moo3 turns out to be solid, I think they're doing a great thing here. Really. Nobody wants another Civ3/PTW fiasco.

As far as I'm concerened, Q1 next year is just fine. Although I'd be pleased if they managed the x-mas sales, because I want Moo3 to succeed.

MarkG · November 23, 2002, 17:47

Quote:

They keep dangling the same, old carrot. What bemuses me is how we (yes, I too am guilty of it) keep biting.

keep biting?? what do you think should the response?

perhaps this?
you're a disgrace cause you spend more time and money to make your product better!

moomin · November 23, 2002, 17:51

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG
you're a disgrace cause you spend more time and money to make your product better!

The scary thing is I can almost hear the Infogrammes suit telling QS this at this very moment.

MarkG · November 23, 2002, 17:54

last time i checked chantz was the infogrames suit making the calls for moo3

November 23, 2002, 17:54

Quote:

Originally posted by moomin
...you're too ghoulish about this thing.

Moomin, I'm not certain what you mean by "ghoulish." Nonetheless, I agree with you--Q1 2003 would be fine. And well worth the wait if the game is everything that we are hoping for and expecting! I have no problem whatsoever with QSI taking all the time they need to make this game the very best that they can make it!

What is not fine, IMO, is to repeatedly announce dates and miss them. (BTW, you'll notice that I gave Chantz kudos for not setting a new date/expectation this time around. It's about time. Announce when you have something to announce. Don't announce the potential/probable date of announcement!)

moomin · November 23, 2002, 18:01

Oh, we kinda agree then. They should have stuck with the "it'll be done when it gets done" line. To improve the S/N ratio at various Moo fora if for no other reason!

November 23, 2002, 18:02

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG

perhaps this?
you're a disgrace cause you spend more time and money to make your product better!

I'm obviously not communicating my point well. I have no problem with QSI taking all the time in the world (slight hyperbole

) to make MoO3 better.

The carrot(s) that they keep 'dangling' are the dates. The 'biting' that I am referring to--and I stated flat out that I'm as guilty as everyone else--is hanging on these dates, holding our breath, and then repeatedly being disappointed when they don't prove out--as evidenced by thread after thread here at 'Poly.

MarkG · November 23, 2002, 18:12

Quote:

The carrot(s) that they keep 'dangling' are the dates.

you might want to admit that they are not bringing new dates very often. to be exact

- march 29: date is set for q3 2002
- sep 13: date is set at nov 26
- nov 19: date is set at dec 4

Quote:

is hanging on these dates, holding our breath, and then repeatedly being disappointed when they don't prove out

i'm not dissapointed by delays. i dont think many people have been(at least in the latest announcements)...

November 23, 2002, 18:23

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG
...to be exact...

Aren't you conveniently leaving out the "going gold" teasers?

And I believe it was you who chastised me about a week-and-a-half ago for my 'further delays conspiracy theorizing'. And I quote:

Quote:

...me also thinks that if they say they are on schedule 3 weeks before release they probably mean it

So, you might want to admit that I was right.

P.S. Don't you wish that we were playing MoO3 instead of wasting our time with this nonsense! I know I do.

MarkG · November 23, 2002, 18:30

Quote:

Aren't you conveniently leaving out the "going gold" teasers?

what you call a "teaser", i call it "update". most people call them that way too, and take them as that, not as info that gets posted in the front page of moo3.com(=release date)

Quote:

So, you might want to admit that I was right.

a delay of one week isnt exactly a huge one you know...

Quote:

wasting our time with this nonsense!

since you know it's nonsense why on earth do you start such a discussion(and i such a provocative way)?

November 23, 2002, 18:37

Mark, I truly thought I was following an existing discussion and I did not mean to be 'provocative' in any negative way. I even thought that I was poking fun at myself--but it appears that I have ticked you off. I apologize. End of the discussion, at least for me.

MarkG · November 23, 2002, 18:49

apology not really needed. glad we sorted it out

wervdon · November 23, 2002, 20:11

There's a fine line between perfectionism and trying to make a solid product. At the moment, Id definately say they are on the solid product side, since the bugs they've mentioned delaying gold status so far have definately been real show stoppers

I dont know about yall, but I definately don't want my first moo3 experience to be playing through 2/3rds of a game, having it crash, then trying to load and the save being corrupt ;P

Bird-O-Prey · November 23, 2002, 23:45

Sure they are trying, but patterns are patterns...
Not that this will happen, but I just dont want to see...
- march 29: date is set for q3 2002
- sep 13: date is set at nov 26
- nov 19: date is set at dec 4
- dec 4: date is set at dec 12
- dec 12: date is set at dec 22
- dec 22: (make up your own here)...

fatjoe79 · November 24, 2002, 01:13

hey unless they're flat out lying here, it's good to see QS not just shipping the game and patching a couple days after release. It's nice to see a commitment to quality that most developers *cough*firaxis*cough* don't seem to have.

vmxa1 · November 24, 2002, 02:19

fatjoe79 you may want to hold off on that until we see what we get. I hope you are right.

MarkG · November 24, 2002, 06:06

Bird-O-Prey,

you're not following the trend.

the march 29 delay was for a whole quarter(from q2 to q3)
the next for 56 days(from the last day of q3 to nov 26)
the last one for just 8 days(to dec 4 )

so the next delay should be for 2-3 days at most. then we go to hours...

Master-Mike · November 24, 2002, 09:16

Well i dont mind if its delayed as long as it is as bug free as can be expected. Its great to see them make a very solid product, as most companies just want to push a product out the door and make money, and then they get bagged for it. Now a company delays the release a few times and they get bagged. I must admit im a very excited about moo3, ive been following it ever since it was announced they were going to make it 3 years ago. I will be happy has long as they keep us informed every few days or so to let us now whats happening, and release more juicey information.

wervdon · November 24, 2002, 13:18

Another one: (same thread, about 70ish posts into it)

Folks,

I understand some of you are upset, but let's be *reasonable* here and put things into *perspective*.

Doomsayers(tm), how would you feel if you bought a game, put 30 + hours of play into it, were a hair away from winning and you were stopped COLD with a save corruption. *I* would be pissed, as would you.

Ship it crippled and patch it later is not the way to do business. Upon release, you will *all* have your nit piks, things you hate, things you love; we can't make each and everyone of you happy, but what we can do is deliver solid gameplay that doesn't crash on you 2 hours into it. We probably *will* do a patch after the game is released based on your input and feedback; it's a big part of *community*, something we personally believe in. But we'd rather have that patch be gameplay enhancements and tweaks; not fixing crash bugs.

IG & QSI will decide when the game is ready to go gold; no one else. Speculate all you want about IG and XMAS and Heavens Gate, but the fact remains, we have a commitment *down the line* for quality on this one. We didn't put all this time and effort into it to just shove it out the door. I was playing an MP game yesterday with one of the testers (and we were having a jolly good time) and it hung on us after a few hours of play (random crash)...that's just not good enough folks.

Best,
Constantine

wervdon · November 24, 2002, 13:27

My opinion as a programmer:

The random multiplayer crash thingy maybe bordering on the perfectionism. I hope he realizes how difficult it can be for the programmers to fix a completely random bug like that

I know how much I hate it when someone emails me about one of my various shareware programs and says "It crashed on me.", to which I respond "What was you doing at the time?", and get back a "I was you know, using it, not doing anything out of the ordinary." It basically leaves you with a "Ok, do I go back through every single line of code in the thing?" Of course, hopefully, his crash report for that game was a bit more detailed

Its too bad windows doesnt drop core files like linux, it'd make things so much simpler with things like that :P

The corrupted save on the other hand, thats easy to fix. You have the save file to look at, and generally saving the game is a single function or a very small set of functions.

The other thing about the multiplayer crash, it doesnt effect all the players like the save corruption does. And you can safely assume 90% or so of multiplayer players do have internet access, and at least 2/3rds of them are game savy enough to understand how to patch a game.

Not saying I dont want them to fix both sets of bugs

But they definately aren't on the same level of importance, and I personally would not mess a christmas release over a random hang in multiplayer after hours of play, especially not if the cause isn't easy to nail down

If it does ship with those sorts of random hang bugs though, I do hope it has a working non-corrupting autosave feature :P

Bird-O-Prey · November 24, 2002, 13:41

Mark,

Of course I hope for the best. And I wish for a happy ending to all this doom and gloom release date speculation, as it seems to have permiated most of the moo-3 forums. The only way to stop it is for a gold announcement. I see your points about the spread of days involved, but the point still stands that the game has been delayed 3 times already, and I for one dont wish to hear about a 4th, no matter how many days are involved. Thats all Im trying to say

. Im hoping for a hugh hit on a Diablo type scale, for moo-3. After all, this just might allow updates and new add-ons for the game we all look forward to. Thanks for the post Mark, and I think we really are on the same side here-

...

wervdon · November 24, 2002, 13:48

Im going to clarify what I meant, because I think I might of come off as harsh

I think they should delay the game and fix any and all bugs they know about for which they can easily track down and fix. That is the crash report includes a good enough description of the situation so that the bug is repeatable.

I dont think they should delay for bugs which are random and rare, because in my experience you can't really put a time line on when you can fix those because of the needle in a haystack scenario. (if they are random but not rare, then they should be able to catch and isolate them just by running the program in their compilers debug mode)

And they should definately delay for any bug that is going to corrupt save files :P A crash will make me frown, a corrupt save after a crash will make me cuss

Guffawing Crow · November 24, 2002, 15:32

Delayed again? Oh well.

Guess it's getting late enough where I'll have to toss it on my x-mas list for my family to buy me.

Happy bug hunting.

Guffawing Crow · November 24, 2002, 15:37

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG
[a delay of one week isnt exactly a huge one you know...

[

Do you know the feeling when you have to go to the bathroom REALLY bad? In these kinds of situations, it seems that you're going to explode RIGHT before you relieve yourself, causing you to do some arcane polka.

Well, I've been doing this polka for a couple of weeks now!! If they tease me again, well....I'll just burst.

MarkG · November 24, 2002, 15:57

Quote:

Do you know the feeling when you have to go to the bathroom REALLY bad?

perhaps i'm not in the same state cause i've been DAILY following civ games for the last 6 years(this is kind of a scary statement as i think about it)

plus, i have some RON multiplayer games to play and i still havent goten PTW(coming this week). why dont you play some BNT? http://apolyton.net/bnt

wervdon · November 24, 2002, 18:49

Another one from Chantz (sounds like the guys on the IG forum are gonna get what they seem to want--that is being kept totally in the dark until after its gold):

OK, my *last* post on *this* subject.

Lil Fuz, I *know* you all are reasonable people, that's really not my gripe. You ask me for information, i give it to you, good and bad. You say you want to be kept in the loop and updated, i do it as often as i can, good or bad (rantz too). So you see, it's a double edge sword for us; we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. Folks, dates do not come from just IG, they come from QSI as well. We work *together*; it is not a dictatorship.

No one wants the game done more than the people directly working on it and if you think otherwise, you're nuts.

So from now on, not a peep about dates or gold status from me on these boards and we're going to firmly stand by this. When it goes gold, we'll let you know. Until then, we test, hone, balance and squash bugs.

Best,
Constantine

wervdon · November 24, 2002, 18:51

Oh btw thanks MarkG for pointing me to the BNT page, its not moo3, but its definately something to do