I know why it's taking so long.

[Richrd]

Look at who is on the development team and the nature of their staggering contributions to the community. These men are born tinkerers. They live for it. Their sources rival the library of congress. They know, without reference, how many rivets in an F4F, how many buttons on an officers dress shirt, how many grains of sand to draw onto the beach at Guadalcanal, and whether or not Pvt Isomuri was sick that day. They have an infinitely huge album of plane art, each rivet and bullet hole faithfully rendered. They have ship art before and after seaman Bentley spilled the bucket of paint. They are in paradise. They’ve got the game and a canvas. They gleefully sputter to each other; ‘I’ll tinker for a bit and then send it to you for some tinkering, but get it back to me quickly, because I’ll be needing to tinker again very soon.’ They get to modify not only their game but everybody’s. (Sorry, boys, but once I get it, I’ll start tinkering straight away and soon make it right.) They don’t want it released, because when it is, life as they’ve loved it, will be over.

[DuckofTindalos]

Well, there's that...[:'(] Doesn't speed the process along that we're all part-timers...

[cantona2]

Should be a cracker then Rich

[m10bob]

I suspect it was delayed a few months by the sheer amount of "input" from we gamers adding our 2 cents,(even to this day when we have been told any good input will be for a future possible patch)..The lack of constant forum babysitting by the AE crew is a good thing, because while here, they are not THERE!!!!!


We weasels MUST 'fess up to our role in the delay of AE.[8|]

[undercovergeek]

its all mdiehl's fault

[JWE]

Actually, it's all Terminus' fault. He keeps trying to sneak the Jens Krogh into the OOB, and every time we think we're ready, somebody notices a Danish gaff-rigged ketch, with 2 bow and 2 stern torpedo tubes, 18 reloads, a centerline naval rifle, and a stealth profile, cruising through the reefs and shoals of the Pacific.

[DuckofTindalos]

Duuuude! Shut up![:'(]

[pad152]

Don't worry, they are trying to fix the AI, now that's life time job!

[Nomad]

We know it will never come out, Terminus has told us that there really is no AE. It is all smoke and mirrors. I'm not waiting for something that doesn't exist. [:D]

[jwilkerson]

Two years ago, even one year ago, I could tell you exactly how many people were on the project on any given day. Now if I really needed to know, I'd have to sit down and count them up. It is about 30, give or take. About 8-12 Betas at any given point, with about 15-20 "contributors". The "contributors" are mostly researchers, OOB, map, economy, etc. about 3/4 of the contributors are researchers. The few remaining types are the programmers and project management.
This is kind of a blend between an open source project and a commercial project. But we've worked out changement processes which enable many changes to both code and data to all happen simultaneously and then get merged together into our weekly build. There was a time, when the weekly build was an almost impossible challenge, but like most challenges, we've gotten to the point where we can do a weekly build of both code and data and make something that works.
We've had contests for the beta's so encourage them to "find the issues" and they have. I think we've hit 88 bug reports in one week at the high point and we've had many weeks with over 50.
I've been participating in software projects for 3 decades and managing them for about 1.5 decades and I've still learned a lot from this one. How to "manage" a team of people in countries all over the world, who I will probably never meet and yet still keep everyone focused, with the correct priorities and have them not quit, at least not too many times [:D] techniques I've learned on this project help me on my day job too.
So, while no piece of software this complex will ever be "perfect", or even ever be "done", we hope this one will be better than stock, that is our goal. Not better in every dimension, but better in many many dimensions. And all tickering aside, we also are trying to make it a better game. That is the really tough part. It is easy to tinker and add another widget, but how do we make it a better game? We've been asking ourselves that question too, for a number of months, so hopefully we've got somethings in that address that as well.
So anyway, hopefully Elf will come back soon and give us another show. I even liked watching that AAR. [:)]

Joe

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

There was a time, when the weekly build was an almost impossible challenge, but like most challenges, we've gotten to the point where we can do a weekly build of both code and data and make something that works.

Jesus. Weekly builds? That's mind blowing. My project was a long duration, multi-turn game mod (Europa Barbarorum), and we HAD to wait months so the Betas had time to burn through the 100s of turns necessary to fully test a faction through the 300 years or so of it's possible existence.

I'm very confident you guys are nailing down the bugs and playability problem, but how are you handling the late game issues? As short period scenarios?

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Actually, it's all Terminus' fault. He keeps trying to sneak the Jens Krogh into the OOB, and every time we think we're ready, somebody notices a Danish gaff-rigged ketch, with 2 bow and 2 stern torpedo tubes, 18 reloads, a centerline naval rifle, and a stealth profile, cruising through the reefs and shoals of the Pacific.

This certainly confirms my suspicions. The aroma of room temperature Havarti was revealing, but stale Tuborg should have been the clincher![8D]

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

There was a time, when the weekly build was an almost impossible challenge, but like most challenges, we've gotten to the point where we can do a weekly build of both code and data and make something that works.

Jesus. Weekly builds? That's mind blowing. My project was a long duration, multi-turn game mod (Europa Barbarorum), and we HAD to wait months so the Betas had time to burn through the 100s of turns necessary to fully test a faction through the 300 years or so of it's possible existence.

I'm very confident you guys are nailing down the bugs and playability problem, but how are you handling the late game issues? As short period scenarios?

Some of it's done like that, yeah... Sandbox scenarios and "fast-forward" situations, where the AI has played itself for x number of turns and then a tester takes control.