Has development been halted?

[WizzyThaMan]

You are posting on a public forum where people actually have the right to reply as they wish. If you dont want people to reply to your 'simple' question which has been answered by many of us who have been around for over a year (most of us) and know what is going on, then either send a private message to Daffyflyer, KillRob, or zeussy and get your answer from there, and stop being ignorant and calling us either immature, not intelligent, or saying we are arguing. The fact 5 people here have told you the exact same thing, should open your eyes and maybe accept the fact that you already have gotten your answer and dont necesarrily require a developer to tell you the same thing.

You are a selfish person, willing to have the devs reply to your question while they can spend the time developing the game. I'm glad there isnt 20 of you everyday or else this game would actually be halted in progress.

[Jakgoe]

I could care less whether or not a Beta tester does a minute of work, or a million hours. They still aren't a developer, they are an employee, or a contributor, or whatever you want to call it.

Its so simple, and yet you people can't seem to understand. I am not asking you. I am not asking any Beta tester. I am not asking the trolls. I am asking a direct question to the developers.

And unlike you, I really hope the developers have the intelligence to spot a simple question/concern.

Me: "is the game still in development" "what changes have been made since April"
Developer "yes we are still in development, although progress is slow. We have fixed a few gltiches and wil be adding blah blah blah update in 2 weeks blah blah blah"

I don't need a bunch of noise and arguments from trolls and beta testers. i asked the developers a question. they will answer it, or they won't. the rest of you have no place to answer a question that wasn't asked to you.

I'm sorry? Did you just say a beta tester is not a form of developer? While their title might not say "developer" the definition of "developer" is "a person or thing that develops something", which the testers most certainly do.

You are calling me a troll? I hate to use idiotic phrases, but "I can't even".

Look at the "Developer Questions" section of the forum. You will see that many, if not most, of the questions are answered by the beta-testers and "trolls", which seems to be your name for the rest of the great community. In fact, the knowledge of the game, and willingness to answer question, is one of the biggest reasons that this community is great.

[PowerSports420]

You are posting on a public forum where people actually have the right to reply as they wish. If you dont want people to reply to your 'simple' question which has been answered by many of us who have been around for over a year (most of us) and know what is going on, then either send a private message to Daffyflyer, KillRob, or zeussy and get your answer from there, and stop being ignorant and calling us either immature, not intelligent, or saying we are arguing. The fact 5 people here have told you the exact same thing, should open your eyes and maybe accept the fact that you already have gotten your answer and dont necesarrily require a developer to tell you the same thing.

You are a selfish person, willing to have the devs reply to your question while they can spend the time developing the game. I'm glad there isnt 20 of you everyday or else this game would actually be halted in progress.

yes, you have the right to reply as you wish. and yes, you have the right to be nice about it, or be a dick about. and for whatever reason, all but one of you has chosen to be a dick.

you answered the question, and I don't consider it an answer from the developer. So we disagree. its called being human. stop causing problems, and stop putting words in my mouth.

[PowerSports420]

I could care less whether or not a Beta tester does a minute of work, or a million hours. They still aren't a developer, they are an employee, or a contributor, or whatever you want to call it.

Its so simple, and yet you people can't seem to understand. I am not asking you. I am not asking any Beta tester. I am not asking the trolls. I am asking a direct question to the developers.

And unlike you, I really hope the developers have the intelligence to spot a simple question/concern.

Me: "is the game still in development" "what changes have been made since April"
Developer "yes we are still in development, although progress is slow. We have fixed a few gltiches and wil be adding blah blah blah update in 2 weeks blah blah blah"

I don't need a bunch of noise and arguments from trolls and beta testers. i asked the developers a question. they will answer it, or they won't. the rest of you have no place to answer a question that wasn't asked to you.

I'm sorry? Did you just say a beta tester is not a form of developer? While their title might not say "developer" the definition of "developer" is "a person or thing that develops something", which the testers most certainly do.

You are calling me a troll? I hate to use idiotic phrases, but "I can't even".

Look at the "Developer Questions" section of the forum. You will see that many, if not most, of the questions are answered by the beta-testers and "trolls", which seems to be your name for the rest of the great community. In fact, the knowledge of the game, and willingness to answer question, is one of the biggest reasons that this community is great.

YES, a beta tester is NOT a developer. There are 4 developers on this game, and thats that. Deal with it. Beta testers are very important, but, they are not developers. I asked a question directly towards a developer, and thats where it stands.

And no, I didn't call you a troll. Where does it say that? Where is your name mentioned at all? Are you being rude? yes. Are you making assumptions? yes. But did I call you a troll? No. I never mentioned your name ever before in my life, so chill out kid. Just like the person above you, your are putting words into my mouth that have never been spoken.

I ASKED A QUESTION TO THE DEVELOPERS. I will only accept an answer from one of those four people.

If you beta testers had said, "yes it is in development, I'm sure a developer will confirm soon". Then that would of been ok. But instead, you turned it into an argument, accusing me of attacking the game's progress. I asked a simple question, and I am waiting for a simple answer.

[Killrob]

Alright, let's get in a word from a dev here into this rapidly expanding thread.

Yes, the game is still in development. Progress has been slower than usual in the last two months because a) the Australian part of the team moved from Melbourne to Wellington and b) the (then) Kiwi part of the team was on a EU trip for three weeks after not having a proper vacation for some 2 years time. During that time I was the only working member of the team, but of course limited in what I could do: I'm not a programmer or artist, I just do production stuff and balancing, etc. The videos you're seeing on Youtube for instance.

I'm curious actually, how come you call adding the scenarios to the game "no progress"? That is a huge milestone, as it for the first time puts all the design tools into proper context and lets people design their own solutions to various problems you might encounter in the tycoon part of the game. I agree that it doesn't look like much when we've "just" added costs and manhours to the game, but under the hood that is a massive undertaking. To give you a little insight, check this out, and think of that this is just a tiny fraction of all the things that need to gel together in order to make a playable game: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing

We put out updates when they make sense and they are done. We'd like to be quicker but the reality is that this game is a massive, complex undertaking, not to mention that we're only 3 core developers. Your perceptions seems to be rather selective too (not criticizing, just pointing out); when I check on KSP I see their last proper update was 17th Dec 2013... we're faster than that. And they planned on "just adding a few numbers", i.e. budgets, etc., too!

Anyway, if you don't like what you see that's fine, we're working on it as hard as we can and that definitely won't be enough for everyone's taste. I'd suggest you pick up the game again once it's done. This Early Access thing is not necessarily a fun ride.

Cheers!

[PowerSports420]

Alright, let's get in a word from a dev here into this rapidly expanding thread.

Yes, the game is still in development. Progress has been slower than usual in the last two months because a) the Australian part of the team moved from Melbourne to Wellington and b) the (then) Kiwi part of the team was on a EU trip for three weeks after not having a proper vacation for some 2 years time. During that time I was the only working member of the team, but of course limited in what I could do: I'm not a programmer or artist, I just do production stuff and balancing, etc. The videos you're seeing on Youtube for instance.

I'm curious actually, how come you call adding the scenarios to the game "no progress"? That is a huge milestone, as it for the first time puts all the design tools into proper context and lets people design their own solutions to various problems you might encounter in the tycoon part of the game. I agree that it doesn't look like much when we've "just" added costs and manhours to the game, but under the hood that is a massive undertaking. To give you a little insight, check this out, and think of that this is just a tiny fraction of all the things that need to gel together in order to make a playable game: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing

We put out updates when they make sense and they are done. We'd like to be quicker but the reality is that this game is a massive, complex undertaking, not to mention that we're only 3 core developers. Your perceptions seems to be rather selective too (not criticizing, just pointing out); when I check on KSP I see their last proper update was 17th Dec 2013... we're faster than that. And they planned on "just adding a few numbers", i.e. budgets, etc., too!

Anyway, if you don't like what you see that's fine, we're working on it as hard as we can and that definitely won't be enough for everyone's taste. I'd suggest you pick up the game again once it's done. This Early Access thing is not necessarily a fun ride.

Cheers!

Dear Killrob,

Thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate all the time you put into your very detailed answer, and I also thank you for all the hard work you put into the game. You can definitely keep my $35, lol, and I will be trying to convince my friends to play it with me. I will also continue to be a proud supporter of this game across the social media sites I have access too.

I did not mean to insult the scenarios, but I'm not really a "follow the rules" person when it comes to automotives. My main attraction to the game was the engine building sandbox. I hope to see the V6 soon! Already have all the bore-stroke measurements and etc from my Mustang waiting to be entered!

Yeah, I know about KSP's downfall. Idfk what happened, but something is not right in the background. But before that, they were fairly regular. I guess they were a bad example, haha, you guys are beating them atm for sure.

My only suggestion, is to get this thing on STEAM asap. For whatever reason, if you search "Automation" in the Store, or the Early Access Store, it doesn't show up at all...??? Steam may be a corporate hog, but they sure know how to generate sales!

Good luck and I look forward to future updates!!!

THANKS!!!

[Killrob]

Thank you for your reasonable reply!
Ohh yes, we're coming to Steam... after the upcoming update we'll polish up till Early Access release.
Hmm, looky looky, what do my eyes spy here on my Steam games library!?

Capture.PNG (373.83 KiB) Viewed 6736 times

[PowerSports420]

OMFG how did you do that!?! Is that your developer version?

I can't wait till that is on my Steam list!!!

^_^

Edit: Das ist gut, ya?

[Daffyflyer]

Yup, that's what you get when you "create" a game on Steam. It doesn't actually attach to any game files yet, but it's still kinda exciting



Regarding development news etc. what do you reckon would be the best way to dispel people's fears? Currently we post any decently interesting news on the front page, moddb and steam greenlight make a youtube video about every semi-major feature we work on, do a development livestream every few days and post random little posts on facebook and twitter.

It does seem we need to improve our communication, as a few people have mentioned they have no idea what is going on/if we've all run away to the Bahamas

Anybody have thoughts/suggestions?

[Pleb]

I don't know if there's any way to maybe put out a monthly newsletter via PM (Don't know if there's an efficient way to send it to ALL members) or have some sort of 'Live News' feature implemented in the launcher, and would display the most recent news etc when the user is connected to the internet?

Just firing ideas off the top of my head here .

[PowerSports420]

Haha yeah it seems like I just joined at the wrong time...

But, I think a weekly "official" post usually qualms most skeptics. And it doesn't take more than 5min or so to write up.

In fact, I think the main thing that set off my internal alarm, was that the actual main website is a bit out of date. It doesn't seem to have changed since April.

Maybe you can embed an official forum update thread into the site, and make it so only the four developers can post on that particular thread. That way, when you update the forum, the main website is also updated.

[PowerSports420]

I don't know if there's any way to maybe put out a monthly newsletter via PM (Don't know if there's an efficient way to send it to ALL members) or have some sort of 'Live News' feature implemented in the launcher, and would display the most recent news etc when the user is connected to the internet?

Just firing ideas off the top of my head here .

Yes! Live news in the launcher would be great too. With a quick update posted every week.

That way, when you launch the game, the first date you will see will be within a week, instead of April. Lol, that would make the game appear much fresher.

[WizzyThaMan]

There is. You can easily do that with MailChimp for example.
I'd love to advice the devs on this if they are willing to do such thing?

PowerSports, good to see you have a reasonable side. As I said earlier, sorry if I came across agressively or insulting, that is totally not what I was trying to be. But hopefully you get the point that we were telling you the same thing all along. Anyway, enjoy the game, have patience, V6s will be there! Like you, I'm eagerly waiting for them, too!

[Daffyflyer]

I shall ponder these ideas and see which of them we can impliment. The more news we get out the better

[Wirenfeldt]

yeah.. that'd be really great.. i know how passionate you guys are about what you are creating here so i don't think you'll be taking all your Steam Greenlight billions and running for the hills.. but some sort of weekly or biweekly update would be seriously fantastic.. even if it was just one or two lines of text:

this week we have been working on *insert something here* and are waiting for testers to provide feedback on *insert something else here* before update release.