100 replies to this topic

[Jasen]

Syllogy, on 27 September 2013 - 09:05 AM, said:

Lack of knowledge about the budget, staff, and intricate details wouldn't stop a ballpark timeframe.

Even if I provided all of those details, I'm sure I'd hear something along the lines of "But what about everybody's qualifcations? I need to know exactly how good they are at their job."

If I provided that, I'd probably hear something like "Well, how much vacation time do they have? How often do they go to the bathroom? How many times do they watch YouTube at the office? All of this is relevant to establish a timeline because I need to know how fast they complete their work."

Assume optimal variables and optimal conditions with a dedicated, adequatly trained operational staff of 30 people.

Ballpark it.

You can't ballpark things that aren't fully defined.

Source: I'm a software engineer.


But to humor you, no way it should even take 6 months unless its built on a crappy codebase that they have to fight non-stop (which is probably the reality - frankenapp)

[Damocles69]

The world cries out for community warfare
PGI whispers "Soon™"

[Dan Nashe]

UI 2.0 December
P1 CW Jan.
P2 CW Jun.
P3 CW Jan. 2014?

S.W.A.G.

If the irrationally angry internet trolls don't pllute it too much :-).

I have become very frustrated with the pace of launch and continued delays.
But that's just the reality.
The degree of vitriol in the twitch chat was disgusting.
I'm not going to get personal about it.

The core gameplay is fun. I don't regret the $80 I've spent on it.
I support PGI they have a fun game and some exciting ideas.
But not holding my breath for the future.
I'll provide reasonable feedback and vote with my wallet.

I'm not playing as much and only take in a few million cbills a week.
A new mech costs over 30 million to elite.
So I won't get new mechs if it takes me that many months.
I won't buy a mech with mc because I would still need 20 million (4-8 weeks) for variants.
I won't buy heroes because $30-$50 for a mech I still have to spend 10 mill cbills to customize is crazy to me. (I own YLW, X5, Ilya from half off sales).
I won't buy premium because I think mc is better spent on stuff that requires mc (paint, heoroes, champions) and because the reward is too small (still less than a mech every 2 weeks).

But I'm not going to call the prices stupid. I don't have sales data.

To spend money I need:
1. NEW game modes..
2.. meaningful cw
3. More cbills per week
4. Premium time that doesn't come at the expense of mc items (I can spend my 6000 mc on paint and hero mechs OR premium. Permanent exclusive content wins).
5. Lower MC prices.

[Vassago Rain]

Unit life.

[Kyrie]

Syllogy, on 27 September 2013 - 09:05 AM, said:

Lack of knowledge about the budget, staff, and intricate details wouldn't stop a ballpark timeframe.

Even if I provided all of those details, I'm sure I'd hear something along the lines of "But what about everybody's qualifcations? I need to know exactly how good they are at their job."

If I provided that, I'd probably hear something like "Well, how much vacation time do they have? How often do they go to the bathroom? How many times do they watch YouTube at the office? All of this is relevant to establish a timeline because I need to know how fast they complete their work."

Assume optimal variables and optimal conditions with a dedicated, adequatly trained operational staff of 30 people.

Ballpark it.

I will give an example of why a budget is important.

If you say that this project has a budget of $300K, then that is one important limiting factor as to the timeline to go from concept to implementation.

If you say the budget is $5,000,000 would it not be logically different than the previous estimate?

For the sake of this discussion, I will make up some numbers to satisfy you. I will start with the assumption that the goal is to implement CW from paper to final code within 6 months (as Bryan announced). As I see it, CW will have many different modules to be developed. In broad terms, these could be split into the back-end (database and rules for CW) and front-end portions (interface).

The database portion of CW is going to be the killer. I would guess that it would take about 2/3 of the overall budget at the very least. At its core, the database encompasses all aspects of CW.

The front-end part is going to be split between required artwork (UI Map being the biggest element probably) and UI functions (unit/social interactions, map interactions, new economy interfaces [black market, etc].) and so on.

So at the very least we are looking at two big teams to develop this expeditiously. On the database side, I would guess:
1) One Senior DB Engineer/DB Lead: $89,000 (see: http://www.indeed.co...-Developer.html)
2) A staff of at least between 6-8 programmers (perhaps $60K each -- see http://www.glassdoor...SRCH_KO0,19.htm)

On the UI side:

Artists to draw the required images in the interface, the map, icons, and so on. Not sure how many exactly here, but PGI already has a very nice art department.

Probably two UI/UX programmers.

One Lead Integrator to oversee the QA of the whole process.

QA staff to identify and stomp out the bugs.

Doable in about 6 months.

[Sandpit]

18 months would be about right. That's about the time cycle of the last CW implementation discussion.
"90 Days after OB"
*about 18 months later*
"6 Months for phase 1!"

[Syllogy]

Kyrie, on 27 September 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

tl;dr

Doable in about 6 months.

Now we're getting somewhere.

I can work with "Doable in 6 months." which falls into the timeline outlined by Bryan in the video.

Now, he also said that the first phase was coming shortly after UI 2.0, and that UI 2.0 is about 4 weeks out.

So, assuming that "shortly after" is within 4 weeks, is the first phase doable within 2 months? Again, ballpark it.

[Kyrie]

Syllogy, on 27 September 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

Now we're getting somewhere.

I can work with "Doable in 6 months." which falls into the timeline outlined by Bryan in the video.

Now, he also said that the first phase was coming shortly after UI 2.0, and that UI 2.0 is about 4 weeks out.

So, assuming that "shortly after" is within 4 weeks, is the first phase doable within 2 months? Again, ballpark it.

With enough resources, certainly. Almost all obstacles can be overcome with an iron will and lots of money.

[Henree]

Kyrie, on 27 September 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

With enough resources, certainly. Almost all obstacles can be overcome with an iron will and lots of money.

the Original founders brought in 5 million $ I wonder how difficult it would be to create a central server with a leaderboard on which you can flip planets dependant on a win or loss in mechwarrior living legends?

[Dymlos2003]

People forget that they are working on UI2.0 which means they had to rewrite everything. CW is probably in a basic form right now and when UI2.0 is released that's all they'll be working on.

[Sephlock]

MustrumRidcully, on 27 September 2013 - 02:37 AM, said:

I couldn't watch the video itself yet

[Jonathan Paine]

I, for one, am glad that PGI is focusing on CW again!

[Praehotec8]

Budget = (#Project Phoenix Preorders - # Project Phoenix Refunds) * $80.

There you go.

Seriously though, if UI 2.0 appears in the full release of the game in 4 weeks, that's actually not that long. Even a couple of months after that for implementation of the first part of CW is not too bad. Is it as fast as everyone wants? No. At this point it really comes down to whether or not you believe the project will get done or not. If not, just leave and let PGI alone. If you believe it will get done, let it happen. Play this game, or play another to take a break and come back in a couple months.

There's little point in constantly railing at PGI to move faster...they won't. Whether they're good, bad, or just ran into some unforseen issues, what's going to happen is.

As an aside, after hearing that presentation, I'd rather see new game modes than the CW stuff. I somehow feel I am content to wait longer before having some player who thinks he's hot stuff be able to tell me how and where to play, and to pay more for mechs not in my faction (after already needing to play 20+ hours to get enough CB for a mech * 3 to master a chassis).

[IceLom]

From what I understand ui2.0 has allot of the user interface back end done for all of CW... Meaning once its finished CW nay come fairly fast and that 6 month window may be fairly accurate.

I choose to be optimistic, there are those on this forum who choose to be pessimistic that is there choice.

[Riptor]

Syllogy, on 27 September 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

The same could be said for the original quote.

However, there are extensive sources that state that CW has been in development since early this year.

Well its not like it wasnt said in the damn presentation!

He said himselfe that after UI 2 is done they can put all their coders and engineers finaly on CW

If that doesnt say "Welp.. we havent actually begun working on CW" then i dont know.

[Roland]

Syllogy, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

Just for giggles, how long do you think it would take to code a system as massive as CW?

Numerous groups of amatures basically implemented such systems back in MW4 for various planetary leagues. Took less than 18 months.

[MustrumRidcully]

Sephlock, on 27 September 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

Thanks. But it was only a question of opportunity, it was not opportune to watch it during work.
I've now watched it.

[Sandpit]

Roland, on 27 September 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

Numerous groups of amatures basically implemented such systems back in MW4 for various planetary leagues. Took less than 18 months.

Pretty much. Even way back in MW2 we had player created leagues that had IS maps and the same core features of battling over planetary control. Every MW game and even much commander had player driven leagues that included all of this. There's no excuse for a multi-million dollar professional game development company to not have this done in two years

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

Cant you just be grateful they are taking their time to do it right. No you would rather QQ and have it pushed out unpolished and lacking.


I have no problem waiting 6 months for Phase 1. They are going to make this awesome!

I get it, you founders are impatient and want it now or already. Life sucks then you die, get over it. QQing it not going to change anything.

[keith]

desgin time. well if anyone played in NBT. http://www.netbattletech.com/nbt-mp3/ if i remeber right the automation for that league took around year to 2 years to make up. that is basiclly what CW wants. ever world of IS named able to PA, send in mechs and garrsion them, send around DS. mind that was made with 1 or 2 programers. i'm sure MWO has a bigger budget then something made for MW4 with ppl to have fun with. though if PGI makes it just as much fun as that league, MWO will last 5+ years.