no it's easier to confine repetitive whinging. you know where bug reports go.
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[Megathread] Leviathan Release Problems
- Thread starter neheri
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What? What's going on... hello?
What does the last part mean lol, I've tried to decipher it but this must be programmer language I'm too right-brained to decrypt
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Nah it's just intentionally vague, don't worry about it. Programming is actually about being as clear as possible, not the opposite.
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tl;dr Johan released a broken patch so he could stay in Barcelona and work on that tan.
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...unless you want to prove to the team how smart you are by writing the shortest code possible using the most advanced language features.
...or you leave a TODO to refactor something later to be more readable once you crack a solution, but you have PDX managers on your back, so you never actually manage to get back to it. ...or you have your own definition of what "clear" means, and obviously it's everyone else who's in the wrong. ...or you don't even think in these terms, because it's your first project, and you haven't had to return to modify a year old code yet. What I'm getting at is that programming is about telling a 'puter what needs to be done, but there's more than one way to skin a cat, and also more than one way to shoot oneself in a foot. Existing solution can be so vague, that people literally draw charts to reconstruct original author's intent. Some call it code archeaology or forensics. It's very artistic in a way! And most likely one of the reasons why Tinto has so much trouble with 1.31.- 4
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Whoa now. Vicky 2 is a wonderful game. Sure, it obviously isn't as rich and deep as EUIV, but was on par with EU III for awhile.
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If I understand the OP:
Johan had to choose between halting EU4 development, and let his devs go to other projects, or release an incomplete patch / DLC?
Or
In PDX, making quality releases gets you the animosity of big bosses?
Johan had to choose between halting EU4 development, and let his devs go to other projects, or release an incomplete patch / DLC?
Or
In PDX, making quality releases gets you the animosity of big bosses?
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I only know the economy code was written by someone who isn't in the team anymore
Which was the reason Wiz said he tried to read the code and was left crying on the floor in fetal position.
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I suspect that the code base for EUIV is complex. I wonder what it's complexity can be related to? An operating system? I imagine the code base is challenging to learn. Similarly, I wonder what a fair point of comparison is in terms of testing. An ERP system? I mean, I can't think of any other game that has been worked on for eight years in a row, with one revision after another, built on top. How many games have carried such a burden of iteration and featured such tremendous depth? I think that is a good first step: accurate comparisons to contextualize the scope of the challenge.
A reasonable second step is to talk about how teams of programmers work: some of your fan base may be familiar, but most are probably not. Particularly, it sounds like there has been re-organization and re-alignment, and sometimes that doesn't work out, particularly at the start. Maybe the re-org realizes a long term goal that is still nascent, or perhaps some mistakes have been made in the process, which is pretty hard to avoid!
Finally, the ground has been established for an apology note in context. The development team and the fan base are not adversaries. On the contrary, your team stands for a set of values, and those values aren't reflected by the product that was put out. We all recognize that both the devs and the fans are not transactional: fans don't just pick up a game off a shelf and play it. Playing EUIV is a long term intellectual commitment. This recognition led for example to changing the DLC system years ago, when you made many parts of DLCs a core part of the regular update even for folks who didn't buy it.
EUIV has reached a state of meticulous curation and fine balance, where gameplay can range across the world for centuries in engaging, immersive, and new ways with every play through. The more the game has matured, the harder it has become to release a DLC that achieves that balance. Thus, the cost of delivering new DLC may in fact be increasing, while the pressure to quickly release runs counter to the game state. Maybe these axioms make an apology tough to do, because perhaps the golden goose has been needing a rest.
A reasonable second step is to talk about how teams of programmers work: some of your fan base may be familiar, but most are probably not. Particularly, it sounds like there has been re-organization and re-alignment, and sometimes that doesn't work out, particularly at the start. Maybe the re-org realizes a long term goal that is still nascent, or perhaps some mistakes have been made in the process, which is pretty hard to avoid!
Finally, the ground has been established for an apology note in context. The development team and the fan base are not adversaries. On the contrary, your team stands for a set of values, and those values aren't reflected by the product that was put out. We all recognize that both the devs and the fans are not transactional: fans don't just pick up a game off a shelf and play it. Playing EUIV is a long term intellectual commitment. This recognition led for example to changing the DLC system years ago, when you made many parts of DLCs a core part of the regular update even for folks who didn't buy it.
EUIV has reached a state of meticulous curation and fine balance, where gameplay can range across the world for centuries in engaging, immersive, and new ways with every play through. The more the game has matured, the harder it has become to release a DLC that achieves that balance. Thus, the cost of delivering new DLC may in fact be increasing, while the pressure to quickly release runs counter to the game state. Maybe these axioms make an apology tough to do, because perhaps the golden goose has been needing a rest.
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Crusader Kings 2. Released in February of 2012, with updates continuing until shortly before the release of Crusader Kings 3 in September 2020. So, better part of 9 years, and currently holds the crown for longest development cycle, at least in Paradox games. Also, very notably, the decision to wind down CK2 was made well before that 8 year mark, as evidenced by CK3 being in development for probably a couple years by the time it released.
I think the problem here is that EUIV didn't make take the same path when its time came, and we're now starting to really see the consequences.
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Not many of them, but they exist. WoW holds a record, I believe.
Still, you see, that's the problem. Imagine it's a ship. Modern warships are the most complex technological systems on the Earth. Would people who order and bought new ships comply with explanation "well, you see, it's hard system so it's obvious that your communication system isn't working, and promised marching speed is half of the promised, when it's not breaking at half when it goes around"?
Saying "we screwed up because we have just eight years of developing this particular game, not to mention other games on this engine, not to mention other games" is child excuse. "Sorry, did you expect us to be competent in our job?!"
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Do you have any idea how buggy most lead ships of a class are, especially when new features are introduced?
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This speaks to me. I’ve worked on a large 15-year-old software project for 5 years. I know it as well as anyone, but there are still many parts where I have only a vague idea how they work. Some parts no one still in the team knows how they work, and they tend to be the oldest, most spaghetti-code ones.
many parts of the system we’ve rewritten from the ground up over the years. It was far better, in the long run, than maintaining the old version. We’ve moved to new, more modern technology stacks and systems. EU4 I don’t think has had either of these luxuries. It also has even more moving parts and more people devoted to breaking it than the one I work on. I definitely sympathize with the devs a lot. It doesn’t excuse the release, but I think it does explain it.
many parts of the system we’ve rewritten from the ground up over the years. It was far better, in the long run, than maintaining the old version. We’ve moved to new, more modern technology stacks and systems. EU4 I don’t think has had either of these luxuries. It also has even more moving parts and more people devoted to breaking it than the one I work on. I definitely sympathize with the devs a lot. It doesn’t excuse the release, but I think it does explain it.
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That I do, and it seems you missed my point. I took this particular example for a reason.
The point is, you would rarely see the excuse "well, it's obvious that people who made it are incompetent for their job, whatever you expected". Customers wants explanations and working ships that fits projects. Shipbuilding industry found some workarounds for that, because that's exactly what you need with working with such a complex technologies.
"They're just incompetent" is a bad defence, and saying "well, this task is too hard for this team" is saying "they're incompetent". I feel for people who work on legacy code, but it was their choice.
(and yes, EU4 isn't a lead ship of its class)
I sometimes get the feeling that with the change to tinto, that they lack experince with the game/code and that is what is also messing up this dlc( though emperor was with the old team). I know many who feel that the team works slow and not efficient, and that modders although having less time, are better and understand the game better. I am an achievment hunter so no mods for me lol, but mission trees seem to be easy enough and the wonders as well, there was a mod out the next day or so.
They should have not release an update and a DLC that breaks the game and renders it unplayable. It can be not rationalised as Paradox is not a small indie company anymore.
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Haha, because it is, as proven by their own community.
They review bombed it into oblivion as a knee-jerk reaction to this, but they tried so hard to argue that it was warranted, because the game is literally not good (yet).
People suddenly started pointing out every single flaw in its design and there were lists of issues floating around.
FYI, Johan was the game director for all their games until CK2. Which included Vicky 2. Sorry to have burst your bubble.
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This is kinda stating the obvious though. No one thinks EUIV is an easy thing to write code for. But this makes the move to Tinto all the more questionable. No one knows better than Paradox how complex the game truly is, so they couldn't ignore the risks when they chose to put it in the hands of a team of mostly new recruits.
One thing that may not be so obvious, is that when new people learn to work on something, interactions with teammates are essential. You would often ask for help understanding small things, someone comes and shows something on your screen, etc. With the pandemic and everyone working at home, those learning interactions might have been severely hampered. That doesn't excuse releasing Leviathan before it was finished, but it helps explain why the dev team might have needed much more time than anticipated to familiarize themselves with their new jobs.
One thing that may not be so obvious, is that when new people learn to work on something, interactions with teammates are essential. You would often ask for help understanding small things, someone comes and shows something on your screen, etc. With the pandemic and everyone working at home, those learning interactions might have been severely hampered. That doesn't excuse releasing Leviathan before it was finished, but it helps explain why the dev team might have needed much more time than anticipated to familiarize themselves with their new jobs.
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And how it come out for the game?
If Vicky was crap like, say, CK2 - we would get millions of DLCs and continuous development for years! But no, Johan stumbled and made a game that was so good from the start, that PDX stopped futured development and we will probably NEVER see Victoria3 because of this. NEVER.
And now new inexperienced dev team made the same mistake with Imperator - and boom! Game is perfect, time to move on to the darkness of Polar Circle Studios.
Developers beware!
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