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Bioxx

Update Frequency Poll

Update Frequency   194 members have voted

  1. 1. How Often would you prefer to see Major Builds?

    • Every 2-3 weeks
      11
    • Once a Month
      55
    • Every 2 Months
      21
    • Every 3 Months
      43
    • Whenever you feel like it.
      64

Please sign in or register to vote in this poll.

91 posts in this topic

Ok so I know that we have really been taking a long time with Build 78. Part of that is just my laziness and the fact that Dunk has to deal with school. However we've also been taking a while because we don't want people to have to restart their worlds constantly due to game breaking changes. However, for me at least, this has been a slippery slope since I'm constantly finding ways to break saves :huh: . So my question is, how often would you guys prefer to see Major Builds roll out? Now obviously these times are just rough estimates and can vary depending on the amount of testing that is required and the nature of the changes.

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I'm actually not that concerned, since the amount of content won't be that different between small, regular releases or large, irregular ones.

 

I'm generally a player who doesn't start too many new worlds. A new vanilla version and the generally vastly reworked mod landscape it brings with it is the most common reason I start over. As such, coupling save-breaking changes to vanilla version jumps might be worthwhile. For example, now that Forge finally has a stable 1.7 version out, you could port b78 to 1.7 before releasing it and all its save-breaking changes. I know that some are going to say "oh no that will make it take even longer" but this is a poll, and polls ask personal opinions ;) I wouldn't mind waiting for the various improvements this would bring, such as the revamped resource pack system, revamped game options menu, tons of lighting bug fixes, improved fishing, stained glass and a flurry of bugfixes. And if b78 came first and then a 1.7 port followed, that might potentially break saves yet again.

 

It might not be a bad idea to maybe bundle all non-save-breaking changes into regular minor releases, though. If that brought us things like the sequoia bugfix (I am surrounded by kilometers of sequoia forests in all cardinal directions in my current world), that would be really great.

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Release it when you're ready. Not sooner, not later.

There is a good expression in Russian - "Как только, так сразу".

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I will love to see a new one every 3-4 months more or less. But that's the minimum, rather than being all overwhelmed by having to publish a new update every three months can also lead to stress and things not being done properly. Take your time, or maybe when you're near to releasing the official version add some sort of testing version to players. this way the new major update will come with less bugs. And maybe a new thing.

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trimestral updates are a good idea, but if you think that is going to have to little added content extend it. I prefer to know "hey we dot this thing" and wait for more content to be released at the same time.

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I prefer to leave it to you... You have your responsabilities and your laziness hahaha. Dunk also has school so... It's up to you, I like to see major updates at least once a month, I get really excited to see changes. Right now I'm not playing TFC because I feel like it needs some changes, IDK, add new "working mobs" like the bear, deer or mobs that are in real world. I don't like zombies and skeletons every night, lol, real wildlife is much better, danger everytime. And a new way to feed your livestock... Yeah, I'd love to see many changes and it doesn't matter if I'll lose my saves ^^

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every 2-3 months would be nice. could use up to 1 month fixing any new bugs that appear, and then another 1-2months making new features and the release it

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well my two cents is that really you guys can just make updates whenever you feel they are ready. its not like its some school project that you have to give a finished build every so often XD

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I would like to see a major update about once a month.

 

to me, a major update is fixing as many of the bugs as one can, especially the fatal server ones. I think it should also include a feature update or addition (like adding plants or tweaking alloy percentages).

 

i also think feature changes or major updates that affect several systems at once should probably be done quarterly.

 

 

i think part of what bugs me the most is there is not a set release date. we heard about build 78, and that it fixes major bugs (which take out my TFC server several times a day) for months now, but all we got for a time frame was 'early next year'. I would much rather see you say this exact date here, and then watch you have to push it back for legit (or sorta legit) reasons, than have no date at all.

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It depends on the size of the update. A big update like what you're doing for b78 is fine taking 3-4 months or whatever, but bug fixes, well it's nice to have those fixed before major updates are focused on. Sooner the better for the game-crashing ones. Personally I don't care about save-breaking updates much at all... there's much fun in exploring new worlds.

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I would be elated to see any update provided.

 

Starting anew, especially in an updated world, is a fun and challenging experience; even if that update is extremely minor.

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New updates is what generally brings me back to playing the game after a hiatus, it's what keeps things fresh and interesting.I know some people have servers and worlds they are understandably reluctant to restart. My thinking, though, is that people are not required to update. They can keep running older versions until they are ready to restart, and if archived older versions are available to download (which they are, if memory serves) then I don't see an issue with shorter updating frequency.I've been rather looking forward to Build 78, and check the site almost daily for an update even after all this time, but I am also patient and realize that this is a project of love, and you guys can only dedicate so much time to it. So I would say this: update when it's ready. The people who want to start new games will start new games. The ones who don't will wait and keep playing on whatever version they have.

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In my opinion, betas are meant to break saves and go through changes. Isn't Terrafirmacraft still a beta? I don't see what the problem is about breaking saves. If someone doesn't want their save broken they wont download it and they will wait til they are ready for a new world to start the new version. This is a mod after all and it is expected to break saves. There aren't many options to avoid it and people will understand that. A lot of people would like to see some of the mobs finished like deers dropping meat, revamped monster mobs (I don't care for fictional mobs in a mod that supposedly have no magical elements, but wouldn't be as annoyed if they only spawned underground or something), etc. and I feel most of us don't care about saves breaking. I planned to start a new world anyway with the new build.

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Short answer: whenever you feel like it - it's a hobby, not a job.

 

Longer answer: It would be nice to have more frequent updates to newer versions of MC & Forge if that can be done without taking too much time from normal development.

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Well game breaking isnt really an issue, at least for me. On my server we have a multiverse where we work to keep an archive of all our old worlds and convert them to the new formats. We still have our original TFC world from way back when. That being said, game breaking updates should be limited (if possible) to major minecraft updates or other things that would force a world reboot anyway. 

 

On a side note you can code a script to convert old tfc into new tfc upon launch. (could be a nightmare and more trouble than its worth, but would be nice for the people who mega built life sized castles and such.

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You're already strapped for time and motivation, just add code to detect old worlds and that adds to/replaces/deletes obsolete blocks/items/entities as the server starts up the new version for the first time, because that would be fun, right? It could be like vanilla, where you gotta explore to get new terrain generation. The people who keep old worlds are probably a tiny minority.

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"Whenever you feel like it"

 

While it is good practice to try to keep to your goals time-wise I personally would rather wait a bit longer for a more polished off update than see an update released earlier that is too buggy to play or looks unfinished. Since this is not a job for you and you have lives outside of TFC, and I'm not paying for the mod, I'm happy to wait as long as it takes.

 

A suggestion might be to maaaybe divulge a little info on how the update is progressing every so often, just so people know what's happening with the mod and if it's still alive.

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"whenever you feel like it"

 

Why? Because Minecraft is also constantly updated and at the moment frequent MC updates have broken most mod compatibility (worse than before) for an extended period. With this in mind, I do not expect that you could adhere to a schedule of regular major TFC updates.

 

However, when you do not plan to proceed to the next MC version (e.g. 1.6.x to 1.7.x), you may consider 'smaller' major updates than what i believe you are planning at the moment with Dunk. It's a balancing act and i'm confident that if you release more, you will feel the rewards and be motivated to work on TFC more. And yes, we get to play more :P

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While I'm inclined to say "Whenever you feel like it", I find that there's a problem with keeping people- myself included- interested in the project if it goes too long between updates. Even more, when the last post on the front page is months old, it makes the project look abandoned.

 

Personally, I preferred the incremental updates every 4-6 weeks, with the occasional major, drastic change that requires a fresh start on a new world every 2-3 months. If you're concerned about world-breaking, a solution might be to make previous versions available.

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hey bioxx i would say u should upload whenever you like to but still i think you should be kinda faster with being up to date of minecraft. like ftb got to 1.6.4 i think a month ago and were still stuck here.

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You should release a major build whenever you feel like its ready, stable, and balanced. In the meantime, you should incrementally release added features and bug fixes as experimental snapshots on a much more frequent interval. It keeps the rest of the community in the know and allows us, for better or for worse, to provide more relevant feedback. We (the community) have the development on github to eavesdrop on, but it would be nice if such development was more representative on the forum/website in the form of pre-built snapshot releases, quick updates/announcements, and polls like this. I don't think there's anything wrong with not having an ETA, but I think its important to keep users aware of where things stand up until a release. I think its healthy to provide users with an active way to participate in the development of the mod they like. Whether it's playing with the latest changes, discussing it on the forums, or submitting bug reports, making TFC development more engaging/involving and less speculative than it currently is would be a great change.

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The game is in Beta. According to Extra Credits, one of the basic rules of game design is to fail faster. Get out your content, no matter how broken, sooner than later. The users will tell you what they want, what is broken, and the updates will keep people coming back often. Now, I also understand that there are only 2 developers on this project, with dunk being preoccupied with school and everything, and the project is unfunded. Feel free to take your time making the features themselves, but I think that you should get them out there as soon as their done, and let the user help fix and shape the features, instead of spending a lot of time perfecting the feature and then finding out that users would prefer it another way, or there was a better way to handle the problems.

 

Don't worry about breaking other people's worlds, since they can simply choose to not update until they are ready, or manually rebuild or change their world to become compatible (generate new terrain only in new chunks, replace switched item IDs, spawn back in mobs, etc.). I feel the majority of us don't hold our worlds as 'precious' anyway, and are coming back for the updates, not playing through them. People would probably want to play a more finished game longer than a less finished one, anyway. Plus, that means early game should be the main focus for development, which is my favorite part :P

 

tl;dr - Update as often as features and fixes come about, and don't worry about saves.

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hey bioxx i would say u should upload whenever you like to but still i think you should be kinda faster with being up to date of minecraft. like ftb got to 1.6.4 i think a month ago and were still stuck here.

 

I don't agree all that much with the 'being up to date' with the minecraft version, personally.

I mean, staying with the most recent minecraft version will bring more new players, sure, but I prefer they focus more on the new content.

 

I mean, nearly all vanilla crafting recipes are gone, so new updates won't have much of a impact tfc wise.

Why spend time making TFC work with a minecraft version with slimeblocks and better commands, when we never use them?

 

I'd prefer updates with new content rather then updates with new version compatibility that adds nothing to the gameplay.

 

I mean, BTW is still on version 1.5.2 and is incompatable with every mod ever, but that doesn't prevent players from using it, liking it, and keeping the community going.

 

I think having an update that stayed on the same mc version but added more content will be much better than lots of updates that did nothing but let us play in the newest version of minecraft(and let's face it, do we need to play mc version say, 1.7? TFC has it's own terrain gen, so the 'update that changed the world' will not do much on the terrain gen(atleast, I don't think so). New flowers, sure, I'd like them, but I'd much prefer say, better hostiles and spawning, or a hot spring)

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Here's my opinion.

 

Game-Breakers:

I run a server with a couple of my friends, and we have built some pretty worthwhile stuff. However, if there is an awesome, albeit game-breaking, feature that you want to add to the game, then go ahead and add it! If it makes the mod better then I don't care about my past worlds. Rebuilding is fun and encourages new ideas.

 

Upload Times:

As a modded myself I know it can take some time to update depending on how motivated I am to do the work. I mod for fun, as I'm sure you do too. However, I try not to "do what I feel like," because what I feel like naturally is to be lazy. I set deadlines and I miss them, but I don't set a vague "eventually" time to get stuff done, otherwise I never get anything done. I say go for the 3 month updates for big stuff that changes the game mechanics, and monthly updates that fix littler things, but prioritize the bigger updates.

 

Best of luck to Bioxx and all the TFC Modding Team! I love you guys for making this mod and I love playing it! Sonic out ~~~>

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I have to say that I am very grateful that you and Dunk do all this coding to make a great mod.  How you find the time is beyond me, It would be nice to have regular 3 monthly updates but live your lives first !

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