The sad state of affairs

[Phi]

Helius and Zolotayas' comments did raise my eyebrows a bit (especially with that little speech about why professionalism is a bad principle to follow), but since I haven't followed their posts, I can't comment on the issue of egomania.

Do you mean this part?

To me, the ideology of professionalism, as an attitude of intellectual and emotional detachment and deferential self-restraint, is not useful. I would always insist that a commitment to clarity and truthfulness must include a duty to call out obscuration and lies.

It is not very understandable if you do not roughly know Helius' philosophical background (and as consequence do not know the meaning of words like "ideology" or "emotional detachment"). Since I am very sure that nobody wants a philosophical debate in this thread, I would not argue about it. As far as I understand him I am very sure that Helius' opinion on the ideology of professionalism is not a problem of MMtG.

[ywhtptgtfo]

Do you mean this part?

It is not very understandable if you do not roughly know Helius' philosophical background (and as consequence do not know the meaning of words like "ideology" or "emotional detachment"). Since I am very sure that nobody wants a philosophical debate in this thread, I would not argue about it. As far as I understand him I am very sure that Helius' opinion on the ideology of professionalism is not a problem of MMtG.

As far as I remember, I only said it raised my eyebrow a bit.

Oh yeah, I sure don't know the meaning of "ideology" and "emotional attachment". I mean, everyone who's not a game dev are just spoiled college students who don't know anything.

[eliphas8]

KOTOR2 is one of my favorite games ever. It's non-Star Wars like plot made it so much better than it would have been otherwise.

You can imagine my confusion though when I opened up this thread and saw talk about KOTOR2 without any forewarning. xD

To segue back to the thread I want to be able to say similar things about MMtG at some point, please dont cancel it! (also I agree with you about the game but please I dont want them to lock this thread over it).

[Helius]

It is not very understandable if you do not roughly know Helius' philosophical background.

I don't think you have to know that I am an Hegelian Marxist to understand the point I was making:

Professional work (skills, applied conscientiously) = good

Professional existence (being paid for, and able to make a living by, applying one's skills conscientiously) = good, too (or even better), if you can find it

Professionalism (an outwardly attitude of deference and detachment) = unrelated to either of the above, and bad in my book


Why? Because if a person carries himself with professionalism, you cannot infer that he is in fact a professional; nor if he lacks adherence to this ideology can you infer that he is not.
The best historians I have met notably lacked 'professionalism'; and instead were genuine, honest, passionate human beings.
I can say the same of people involved in game design.

[PreciousTritium]

So we can infer that your fellow developers who quietly dedicate themselves to their work and don't make the time to comment in forums are not the best game designers that you've met, and that their silence in this thread is bad?

[ywhtptgtfo]

I don't think you have to know that I am an Hegelian Marxist to understand the point I was making

Oh, and I was starting to gett worried about not knowing anything about Hegelian Marxism (whatever it is).

Professionalism (an outwardly attitude of deference and detachment) = unrelated to either of the above, and bad in my book

Why? Because if a person carries himself with professionalism, you cannot infer that he is in fact a professional; nor if he lacks adherence to this ideology can you infer that he is not.

The best historians I have met notably lacked 'professionalism'; and instead were genuine, honest, passionate human beings.
I can say the same of people involved in game design.

While professionalism has a rather subjective definition that differs from profession to profession, I would respectfully disagree with the idea that honesty and passion conflict with the concept of professionalism. But obviously, these attributes must be tempered with sound judgement and EQ. If one is to voice his discontent at a condition that is not fully-understood, then he's not only honest but also rash. If another is to react angrily to mild criticisms, then he's not only passionate but also insensible.

Since there is no universal meaning for the term "professionalism", I dug up an article from SSRN (What a crappy search engine - I hope that's not what the arts people have to live with). Despite not being published in a decent journal, it gives a pretty good 6-page background in the context of legal practice.

[Helius]

So we can infer that your fellow developers who quietly dedicate themselves to their work and don't make the time to comment in forums are not the best game designers that you've met, and that their silence in this thread is bad?

With whom did you take Logic 101?

[Zolotaya]

So we can infer that your fellow developers who quietly dedicate themselves to their work and don't make the time to comment in forums are not the best game designers that you've met, and that their silence in this thread is bad?

Helius has said no such thing - this is exactly what he said and most likely means:

The best historians I have met notably lacked 'professionalism'; and instead were genuine, honest, passionate human beings. I can say the same of people involved in game design.

The best developers he has met were genuine, honest, passionate human beings. The best developers he has met lack an outwardly attitude of deference and detachment.

Anything else, and you are either not comprehending what Helius stated, or you are pursuing your own agenda in his words.

[PreciousTritium]

I'm just repeating what he said.

Let's say that an MM developer has strong feelings about her project, but refuses to voice them in this thread. She would have an outwardly attitude of deference and detachment. She defers to the parties making the decision, and seems detached.

This would rule her out as one of the best developers that Helius has ever met, simply because she was passionate, but not honest and genuine. Right?

[Zolotaya]

I'm just repeating what he said.

Let's say that an MM developer has strong feelings about her project, but refuses to voice them in this thread. She would have an outwardly attitude of deference and detachment.

Helius has said no such thing. For one thing, you are the one saying that a developer who has strong feelings about her project but refuses to voice them in this thread

"have an outwardly attitude of deference and detachment."

I can look at that same developer and see disinterest and laziness ... neither of us are saying what Helius said regardless.

... She defers to the parties making the decision, and seems detached.

or she is disinterested and non-aware These are qualities you are giving her, not Helius.

... This would rule her out as one of the best developers that Helius has ever met, simply because she was passionate, but not honest and genuine. Right?

or it might be because she has no interest in the project is lazy and not really aware of the situation...

This adding of personality traits is fun.

[AndrewT]

Keep this thread on topic (such as it is). No more personal comments about each other, or about UV or Paradox personnel.

No infractions issued but some of you are not far from it.

[PreciousTritium]

Okay.

I love history, Europa Universalis 3, and the Magna Mundi mod.

I really, really, really hope this game comes out.

[4TyStigma]

Okay.

I love history, Europa Universalis 3, and the Magna Mundi mod.

I really, really, really hope this game comes out.

So do I. I am seriously checking this board 5-10 times a day right now - when i am not playing Diablo III :P

[stt0002]

I really hope there is some solution, it would really be a shame if this is cancelled after all these efforts...

Frankly I can't see why paradox won't give UV some more time to try and fix some issues. Releasing it even later in a good state is better than not releasing at all, or releasing in current state.

p.s. I couldn't care less about multiplayer, but I guess paradox knows better about what percentage of the players play their games multiplayer.

[PreciousTritium]

Frankly I can't see why paradox won't give UV some more time to try and fix some issues. Releasing it even later in a good state is better than not releasing at all, or releasing in current state.

There is a maxim that people much more easily forgive an awesome delayed game than a buggy game released on time, though that seems to be more true with bigger releases like those from Blizzard or Valve. There are many examples of niche, hardcore games like Minecraft and Mount and Blade having a paid beta.

The first sticking point seems to be the funding of development. Paradox claims in the first post that "money is long gone", but UV claim that they can only work part time and get paid very, very little.

The second is that, according to Paradox, the game seems to be unstable and is not getting better. UV counters by saying that single player tests of 50 year games are fine without any CTDs.

Anyway all of this is armchair quarterbacking because we really don't know what's going on. I just hope I can get my hands on this game/

[Phi]

Oh yeah, I sure don't know the meaning of "ideology" and "emotional attachment". I mean, everyone who's not a game dev are just spoiled college students who don't know anything.

For example "ideology" has a special meaning in marxism (in particular in some parts of Western marxism like the Frankfurt school).

I don't think you have to know that I am an Hegelian Marxist to understand the point I was making:

I think that your point is understandable without knowing that you are a Marxist. But I think also that you did not explain your point very well until yout last post.

[Creature]

It is completely true that some people on the developer side are guilty of hubris. Hurling insults as an answer for legitimate customer doubts is rarely a good sign for the developed game and is mainly a reason why I stopped following the forum closely.

The feature creep is also a fact. The proof enough is the whole hypothetical Austria-Hungary idea. One of the developer pushed for (absurd) idea just so his national pride would be satiated, and no one from the team tried to rein him in. Lack of control over development process, it seems to me.

I was myself a target for the "many hours" argument, I've seen it also in this thread: "the developers put so many hours in the game, so... (they couldn't be criticized, the game would be awesome, etc, etc.)". To the MMtG team I have to say this: Nobody cares. Neither the publisher, nor the customers (well, at least majority of them). It is harsh reality of our world - you are judged by the quality of your final product, and not the effort put in it.

Surprisingly (for myself mostly), I didn't come here to gloat. I felt the need to say all that to be fair. Being fair, I have to add that MMtM is an awesome idea, and brilliantly executed one. I, and countless others undoubtedly, had a great time playing it. So I can see, and always saw, a great potential behind MMtG; even if I was not satisfied with all the developers' choices, and put off of the attitude of some of them...

So the cancellation would be a terrible waste. I can see that (yet another) delay makes Paradox uneasy, I can see that after the SOTS2 fiasco they are super cautious about the quality on the release date... But if the Paradox post's aim is to test the customer reaction (well, aside the obvious pressure on developers), my vote - for what it's worth - is to give MMtG (yet) another chance.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Frankly I can't see why paradox won't give UV some more time to try and fix some issues. Releasing it even later in a good state is better than not releasing at all, or releasing in current state.

And perhaps that will, indeed, happen.

But you cannot act as if delays and repeated testing of release candidates don't cost Paradox money as well as time - resources that may also be in need on other projects; every single delay, every single test that doesn't go in accordance with what is planned is expensive for both UV and Paradox.

That said, based on what is public information (Paradox statements and UV statements about the state of their release candidates over the last half year and availability of development resources), the greatest issue seems to be not cost as such, but a declining trust by Paradox in the ability of UV to a) make realistic assessments of the state of the project and b) finish the project.

Meaning that something has to give.


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I read through the entire "release date thread" and "sad state" thread wearing not my fan glasses but my professional games developer glasses (which I strictly speaking am not entitled to wear any longer as I've gone into more lucrative and boring software development these days but did wear for 9 years), and it read like a train wreck in progress. A train wreck of well-intentioned and dedicated developers, who, for whatever reason, just weren't capable of the golden triple. Delivering on time, on budget, and on quality.

Between on the one side fans shouting with joy when they were informed that months after the first release candidate had been delivered, core aspects of the game were finally ready, or the game really had its systems integrated now and things finally clicking, or the number of crashes in at least one part of the game were manageable, or...

..and on the other side developers explaining sincerely that they worked really hard, which was never in doubt, and part-time, which while it is nice to know is utterly irrelevant to the question of what or when they are supposed to be delivering, as that is something that should have been planned for at project start, and explaining that the problem was not finding bugs, but that they were buried in the amount of work, but surely they'd have everything fixed by release, except possibly in areas of the game that weren't their primary focus, and explaining that certainly new bugs showed up in every release candidate but they were really, really, close to the goal now...

The picture that paints itself is one of developers in denial, honest and dedicated people, who are willing to do whatever it takes to finish their project, and who have overcome unforeseen problems of staffing, changing requirements, and umpteen tricky coding problems, who know that their game is great, and who see the light at the end of the tunnel because surely they are almost at the finish line, but just aren't capable of consistently making realistic assessments about the work they are involved in any longer.

We've all been there.

It is the point at which the project's manager/producer has to step in with a bitter reality check. Bitter, because everybody on the project hates it. Cut features, throw extra resources at the project, kill the project,... anything to put together a realistic road map that will lead to a plausible time-boxed end for the project.

Now, is this actually the case for the Magna Mundi development team, that it suffers from a collective inability to make consistently realistic abilities about the state of their work and the amount of work remaining ? I don't know. It is certainly possible that it it isn't, but it is surely what it reads like.


The best thing that can be said at this point in time without knowledge of how the negotiations are ongoing is that, regardless of the final outcome, the process of going through a professional development project will have taught the core UV team important lessons and professional skills that will stand them in good stead for future development.

One obvious one is that great ideas and having a vision is all very well and good, in fact, they are essential,...but they don't substitute for good planning and people management.

One that may not be so obvious is that Paradox has, presumably because it was seen as in its own interest to start licensing its game engine to fan developers, gone far beyond what many other producers would do with respects to deadlines, release dates, and, possibly, costs. ROI has killed projects and studios for less. Whatever UV's next project is, they should not expect to get a better deal than they've gotten here unless they decide to self-finance and self-publish. (They might get a better one, but it certainly shouldn't be expected).

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Either way, here's hoping the game gets released some time, if not in the near future, then some time at all - and released with functional multi-player, since that'll make me a customer.

I am not myself a core customer for Ubik's design philosophy*, as he well knows from discussions a few years back, but I love supporting small strategy games developers because, hey, there are few enough of them to start with, I see it as an investment in the future, and I like playing lots of different games rather than a few games intensely; if something isn't exactly to my preferences yet has good production values, why not throw money at it and gain at least 5-10h of entertainment? At the low cost of computer games it is certainly worth the money, and I might be positively surprised.


* I tend to consider history to mostly consist of a set of blooper-reels of implausible happenings that are only considered plausible now, because they are the ones that actually happened.

[Coincollecter]

So do I. I am seriously checking this board 5-10 times a day right now - when i am not playing Diablo III :P

So do I

I´m always hoping for an official statement when I check this thread. I just hope MMtG will become reality and is released as soon as an accetable RC is available.

[InnocentIII]

Well, if professionalism means making programs which don't crash, then:

Professionalism +1

Emotional detachment is in order when trying to figure out whether a game crashes too much.