One point we discussed at the meeting was the provision for more videos, and specifically for brief videos from my covering some essential aspect of the Reloaded engine in 1-2 minutes only. It could be how to best use occlusion, or how to increase performance on mid-range hardware. It occurs that you might like to see more videos, and so I am putting it to my readership that you might want to see videos instead of boring blog text, so would you trade daily blogs for the release of blog videos a few times week? Videos take much longer to prepare, record, edit and finally post, so I need to ensure this obligation consumes no more time than the current status quo. Feedback welcome!
In Reloaded news, I can report that I have seen some very cool graphics coming in the weeks and months. Probably secret right now so no posts here, but expect to see previews of them soon through the forum, news bulletins and newsletter.
Also been making more tweaks and fixes to ensure the A.I is good to play, and I have a feeling we will sit on this version until we get it right. It's already looking good, but we still want it better. Going to make another internal build in the next hour and then we will see how much we still need to do before we can start thinking about a release version.
Personally I'm in favour of the daily text updates rather than blog videos, I prefer the each-day format - as I usually check for updates every day, and if videos were less frequent or not always on set days it would be a lot harder for me to keep track and up-to-date with updates. Thats my thoughts anyway :)
ReplyDeleteAs cool as videos are I'd vote for just text blogs. Nothing should slow down development and I know how time consuming videos can be.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of holding off on 1.007. I certainly don't want anything released in a bad state, but I also don't want to see 1.007 pushed out so far that no one can use it for the competition. So, my personal feeling would be that it would be best if we could count on a release by the end of this week if possible.
ok vids would be nice, can we not have a Friday vid for the weekends and day blogs of text to keep us upto date through the rest of the week?.
ReplyDeleteif the above is a no then I would also rather have the text blogs each day.
now onto the delayed 07 build. I know you guys want to make great beta releases :) and im happy to wait for them myself. but I do understand others views on the competition needing to be updated with the next beta release, and time between it coming out and the comp ending is close as is. I would like also to see it by the weekend tbh with you tgc. or a deadline for comp moved back abit perhaps?
as many work through the week, the weekend is the only time to get some real practice and dev work done. leaving just a few weekend days total.
Good idea. I also concur that pushing out the competition deadline would be another solution. Since 1.007 was expected on the 12th, maybe the competition deadline can be extended an extra day for each day 1.007 is late?
ReplyDeleteCan you post the link which shows a release announcement for the 12th, thanks!
ReplyDeleteAhh this may be my fault I guessed roughly for the calander on the resources wiki and added an entry on the 12th but the date was just a place holder and as such was why the entry read mid may-v1.07, sorry if this was where you got I should put a disclaimer there somewhere
ReplyDeleteI have now removed the entry sorry for any confusion
DeleteI didn't see any official deadline announcement, but I did see the date flying about in the forums. And judging by the recent announcement of just needing a little more and not being quite ready for a release, it certainly seems like the 12th was at least an internal target date. I'm sorry if I misspoke on that. However, it was also announced that we'd be able to use 1.007 to finalize our competition entries so I think we've all just naturally been hoping for it in time for us to do that. It would be tough to add much to our designs if it didn't get out until the 11th hour.
ReplyDeleteSo, not trying to be difficult or anything. Just hoping that the deadline can get extended so that we can all have a chance to really use 1.007 in our entries.
I looked closer at the forums and it does show responses indicating that the 12th was not an official date, not even internally, so sorry for my assumption. I'm not up on every post or blog and the date had just somehow stuck in my head.
ReplyDeleteI prefer written entries. Easier to do, and easy to skim over as well. Videos would be a waste of effort and time.
ReplyDelete(ok vids would be nice, can we not have a Friday vid for the weekends and day blogs of text to keep us upto date through the rest of the week?.)
ReplyDeleteI like this idea.
blog.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think there is plenty of time to show off and promote Reloaded with some great videos. That day will come naturally or not it will happen.
ReplyDeleteI think that the blog containing information indicating progress, being made is what most will be happy with. I don't think Videos are vital for that.
As long as its regular text is good and the odd screen shot to support that is always more than welcome.
I can understand Videos can have a power and ability to impart perhaps more clearly some things though the text is always very informative and a good read!
Whatever we are still under heavy development so actual time on that is most important to most I think still at this stage as confirmed by the requests to "hurry up" with the next release :-)
To that well its best if TGC decide when the development is at a stage that they are happy with along the road of the engine development plan that each release milestone is ticked off as it were as a guide to if enough has been done to make a Beta release generally available.
Obviously as soon as possible is what all would prefer given some measure of judgement being needed to be called upon.
I think that the progress now to date is reasonable in time of releases so see no need to change that. Smaller or more substantial version releases depending upon what stage inclusions are at and how well they are doing in terms of completion and the release stability.
i.e. Release as often as you like if theres enough worthwhile progress but not if the quality and stability is not consistent and there are any known obvious bugs or issues which would detract from the use of the product to the end users which would cause them problems in what they are working on or put Reloaded in a bad light publicly and or promotionally adversely affecting the onwards reputation and attraction/success.
I am sure you have it sussed but again applaude the requests to the community for feedback and your asking for their opinions.
Seems to me as said previously recently elsewhere the current TGC thinking, plan and management of the product development and everything revolving around it is good and helping the product so stick with that unless there are obvious advantages and benefits to change tack at any stage TGC are aware of internally. Of course asking the community goes down well though you don't always have to follow the feedback if its not seen as being in the best interests of the product.
:-)
I've always been in favor of short, raw DEVELOPER VIDEOS on this blog that showcase a specific element or feature. I don't feel it's necessary to create polished videos that would take undue time to produce--if anything that should be a Rick task for blogs and newsletters as he's done with recordings previously. But if he could give approval for you to share simple raw excerpts to compliment your walls of text I would much enjoy it. Like all the talk of AI, hard to envision without some eye candy.
ReplyDeleteI do a lot of video work myself, but for here and now I look forward to the daily (Semi-Daily) blog posts. Reading the ups and downs from your blog helps keep the feeling of being part of the team, and gives us all a better understanding of the challenges you face to bring us your best. Just my opinion of course.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with xCept. I've not noticed it 'til now, but the blog has been getting progressively less interesting as Lee has been forced to hide all the nasty developer stuff. Honestly that's the best bit. I love hearing (and seeing; pictures and RAW videos are awesome!) about the bad bits as well as the good, and in particular the technical stuff.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to vote either way, though, I would say continue with text-blogs.