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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

Since there's been no further additions to the two branches in more than a week, I suppose we're nearing the end of B78 development?

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Since there's been no further additions to the two branches in more than a week, I suppose we're nearing the end of B78 development?

 

Quite the opposite actually. There is usually a very large surge of commits right before release. The lack of additions lately to the two main branches is because I've been out sick and currently in my final week of this quarter of school, Dunk is likely also dealing with finals for his school, as well as being distracted with Banished, and Bioxx is distracted with the third "secret project" branch as well as a new side project of a different game that he is messing with.

 

Especially since body temperature is still in the very early stages of development, and there are a fair amount of bugs with everything else that it would be extremely surprising if 78 was released before April. While I am by no means able to give a definitive ETA, and my opinions are purely speculation and should not be taken as fact, if I had to take a shot in the dark and guess when 78 is coming out, I would say June or July.. maybe even August.

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Quite the opposite actually. There is usually a very large surge of commits right before release. The lack of additions lately to the two main branches is because I've been out sick and currently in my final week of this quarter of school, Dunk is likely also dealing with finals for his school, as well as being distracted with Banished, and Bioxx is distracted with the third "secret project" branch as well as a new side project of a different game that he is messing with.

 

Especially since body temperature is still in the very early stages of development, and there are a fair amount of bugs with everything else that it would be extremely surprising if 78 was released before April. While I am by no means able to give a definitive ETA, and my opinions are purely speculation and should not be taken as fact, if I had to take a shot in the dark and guess when 78 is coming out, I would say June or July.. maybe even August.

 

on one hand aww D: thats a long time. on the other hand its not like I expected it to be done within the next two weeks anyway so yay more stuffs going to be added :D

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Ok, thanks Kitty. I'll check back in again in a few months.

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School? Oh wow that's an eye opener.

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School? Oh wow that's an eye opener.

 

Yeah... Dunk is 19, I'm 22 and just going back to school, and Bioxx is 25.

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@Terex

Well, if it wasn't school. It would be work. If it wasn't work it would be family life.

I had to leave university due to poor health. Hopefully I'll be going back soon though, I had to stop working too...

 

@Kitty

Keep at that schooling. As boring as it is, it's necessary to get anywhere these days. I'm 22 as well and couldn't get a job with just my associate degree and ended up working labor. Not the best decision, but I didn't have much choice haha.

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I voted "whenever" because I'd rather have the confidence of the creator that his build is stable. However, I'm sorta inclined for the three month thing because I believe it is wise to allow your audience to gauge the effectiveness of a addition over its stability. As we all know, not all thing on paper work out when played through.

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Yeah... Dunk is 19, I'm 22 and just going back to school, and Bioxx is 25.

 

Ah, so you mean like college  :) Of course, regardless of your occupation, it comes before TFC development. I'm quite simply impressed at all that (young) people find the time to work on incredible mods in their spare time. For some time, I did a few skins for a media player (sadly 'dead' now) and already considered that was the most i could do.

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Since my answer depends on it, what constitutes a Major Build?  Clearly what went into Build 78 couldn't be expected from you every month.  

 

I think a better question would be "How often do you want to download a new TFC update and start a new world?"  This gets to the heart of people's play habits and allows updates to be timed closely to when people are ready to move on to the next world anyway.  The size and scope of updates can then be scaled accordingly.  

 

Also, it might make sense to offer weekly snapshots of content in development like how Mojang does it.  This would allow those interested to access bleeding edge content and assist in QA efforts while those who prefer more stable builds can stick to the standard releases.  It would also make this poll a moot point, since you could update things as you like and the players could decide for themselves whether they want to try the untested stuff when they're ready for a new world or wait for a more stable version.  

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The problem with weekly snapshots is that often times there are no new commits for over a week. Other times a new mechanic is implemented and tested over the span of multiple commits, so the snapshots would likely be constantly crashing, and the players using them would just be bombarding us with crash and bug reports for things that technically weren't even fleshed out enough for proper testing anyways.

 

I suggest you read my earlier post in this thread if you haven't already:

 

One thing to keep in mind that it seems a few people are not quite understanding is the difference between a Major Update 0.xx.0 and a Hotfix 0.00.x

 

The focus of the poll was for Major Updates, which are releases that contain new content and features. Hotfixes, which contain bug fixes, are almost always released as soon as the bug is reported, and a solution has been found. For example, Build 77 had its first 10 hotfixes within the first 10 days of its release.

 

The exception to this general rule with B78 is because solutions to bugs in B77 were found after enough progress was made with the new build that it would be exceptionally difficult to back-port the fix from 78 (where the fix was easy to do) to 77 (where the fix couldn't really be implemented). It was the overhaul of certain mechanics for 78 that made the bugfixes possible.

 

In my personal opinion, the other issue with releasing regular "snapshots" is that often times the code isn't finalized enough to be open to bug-hunting and other suggestions. My best comparison for this would be to equate it to making a pizza. Once the pizza is cooked and ready to eat, any feedback from the people eating the pizza will be helpful to the chef. However, if the chef starts getting feedback while only getting far as making a shopping list, or starting on the dough, the feedback is going to be all over the place, full of unrelated opinions, and not all that helpful. Yes there could still be helpful feedback such as "you don't have any flour, and it isn't on your shopping list," but we have a small team, including myself, of people who are already handling this. Opening up a release to the community at these points could very possibly do more harm than good.

 

I agree that is updates that keep the community interested in the mod, which is why I voted for every 3 months rather than whenever you feel like it. I also chose this option because I personally can get about 3 months worth of play out of the mod before I've done everything I feel like there is to do and I get bored with it.

 
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Perhaps weekly wouldn't be the right interval then.  However, if a major update is made up of components A, B, C, and D, would it be feasible to snapshot after each of those components is completed?  Build 78 adds a lot of stuff, but releasing any one of those new features early would give people enough to play with to avoid losing interest.  

 

I feel that build 78 is more like a "complete overhaul" update than a major update in terms of development time, and previous major updates were both smaller in scope and frequent enough that people didn't lose interest.  For me, the key is to sync development time to the rate of content exhaustion, so that people have something new to play with around the time when they're done with their old world and ready to start over.  

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Every 2-3 weeks (10 votes [5.46%])
Once a Month (51 votes [27.87%])
Every 2 Months (21 votes [11.48%])
Every 3 Months (41 votes [22.40%])
Whenever you feel like it. (60 votes [32.79%])

(current data)

--------------------

~33% of you dont care 60:123, 60/183

~67% of you want it at/less then 3 months 123:60, 123/183

~45% of you want it at/less then 2 months 82:101, 82/183

~33% of you want it at/less then 1 month 61:122, 61/183

~5% of you want it at/less then 3 weeks 10:173, 10/183

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As a perennial lurker who picked "whenever you feel like it," I contest your claim that those of us who picked the option "don't care" when an update is released. Programming is as much a creative endeavour as a scientific one, and demanding a regularity of schedule is like as not to decrease the content quality.  What I WANT is very specific: for the mod to be awesome when it's done, and for updates that are released to work (and also be awesome). That may take a while. Quality is worth a wait.

 

Plus, Bioxx and Dunk are volunteers, and I dislike imposing scheduling demands on people who create awesome material and then let me have a copy of said material for free. Worst-case scenarios are the devs being lazy and not updating a lot. And as someone who struggles to find motivation for something as small as being a GM for a DnD campaign, I lack both the right to talk and the willingness to object. 

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Well said, HiddenSage. It is one thing for volunteers to work with one another to set collaborative schedules, but entirely another for 'customers' to impose them. I took a break from TFC when the b77 server I was playing was abandoned, but I'm stoked to rejoin at the release of b78 (today! wooo!) I think if the pace of updates leads to people getting bored and taking breaks, then the pressure is on the devs to make the changes enticing enough to start again. I can live with that.

Thanks for the mod!

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