Trying to understand

Good day

I think anyone reading the following knows about the delay of Starbound and the subsequent anger and forum arguments surrounding it. I do not want to re-hash any of this as it is not the intention of this post. I am also posting here as I can not seem to find an answer to my question. Laslty, please read the entire post and listen to my question carefully as this is not a hate post but someone trying to understand one very specific thing.

In 2013 I pre-ordered (not early access) Starbound. Then it got delayed. Then, only in 2014 does Chucklefish decide to 'speed up development' by moving staff to the same country and eventually hiring more staff. Chucklefish repeatedly confirmed the release of the game to be 2013. Clearly they were under the impression that they can get the game finished in 2013 with their current setup (not being in the same office) and current staff compliment. Yet here we are a year later with the game hinted for a 2015 release.

Please understand me very clearly: I am not interested in the flamewars or the 'they stolen our money' or starting an argument etc. etc. etc. I am just trying very hard to understand how game development works and how Chucklefish could have been so...wrong...in their estimation of how long it would take to finish their game? So much so that they were off by an entire year (at the very least).

When or where did Chucklefish sit down and think "Mmm...this is what we still need to do...this is how long it might take...we can have this done by December 2013". What were the variables you were working with? What did you misjudge? What did you not take into account? What are the things that you thought you could finish in 8 months but are instead taking more than 16? Was it a failure in productivity? Was it a lack of experience? Was it a gross over-optimism over certain time frames? Was there some part of the code you were struggling with and could not figure out how to do?

This is my sole question and singular thing that I am trying to understand: The horribly miscalculated deadline.

If this has been explained somewhere can someone please link me to it?

I am not talking about a "Sorry, delayed, we misjudged". I am not looking for an apology. I am in search of a reason. I know sometimes things go wrong and people misjudge things. I am perfectly fine with this.
I do however like to see people learn from their mistakes. Simply saying "we will not name another release date" is not learning from one's mistakes. I am wondering if there is somewhere a clear explanation of exactly what caused the miscalculated deadline - What was misjudged? Why was it misjudged? Something that answers, to some extent, my questions posed so that I can not only understand "What" happened but also "Why" it happened.

As a side note: I know Dungeon Siege 1 did not have any teleporters/town portals in the game. So you had to run everywhere. Why? Because the developers said they simply could not figure out, in the time they had, how to mathematically program that feature into the game engine they had. Thus the feature was not in the first game but in the second. They were able to clearly articulate what the precise problem was and why there were unable to implement it in the time they were given.

!!!!!!!!!: If you can not link me to an answer to this question or are not a developer or moderator who can directly answer it for me then please do not post anything as this will most likely only redirect this discussion somewhere else. My only concern is the delay and wanting to learn from it.

Regards

 

One problem with that....

The more time you take, the less patience your community will have for your work.... and at some point, will start demanding refunds.

 

Good day

Thank you for the responses.

@Jonesy: Was this perhaps communicated somewhere? Can you link me to it? That they chose to extend the development time instead of it being a misjudged release date.
I am not up to date with everything and tried reading but there is just so much flame. That is why I am asking. I remember a post last year about the delay of the beta where Chucklefish apologised for the delay and mentioned something about misjudging the time it takes to communicate between the team who are all in different time zones. That is a "Why": the communication delays between the different time zones. My question could probably be then: Is this the only reason why? Did they perhaps mention something else somewhere? Did they misjudge this so horribly by a year? They were doing this for some time before they announced the release date so they must have had some idea of how this affects their productivity?

@xxswateilitexx: Kind of my same question as with Jonesy: Was this perhaps communicated somewhere? Can you link me to it?
Once again: I would be perfectly fine if they communicated: "Hey, we got all this extra money. So we are going to use this to make the game and it is going to take longer". That would also be a "Why". All I can recall however is that apology for the beta delay.

@SivCorp: I shall now edit the OP as I forgot to mention it in case it was not clear enough: My concern is only the miscalculated deadline. If you can not link me to an answer to this question or are not a developer or moderator who can directly answer it for me then please do not post anything as this will most likely only redirect this discussion somewhere else.

Once again: trying to understand the "Why". So that I my learn from it.

 

@xxswatelitexx and @SivCorp: I did not put money into early access. I pre-ordered a game. You two are missing the point of this discussion anyway so can you please refrain from partaking.

@Jonesy: Thank you for the response.
No, I do not believe it is unreasonable for a developer to say they are going to take extra time because they got extra money. I am however trying to find where Chucklefish said so? I also do not expect them to write an entire essay explaining the rationale for the delay. I am however trying to find anything to explain the delay? Perhaps if I explain how I work you will understand why I am wondering: I have always been someone to apologize when I do something wrong. Of course, this is to be expected, everyone does, common courtesy. I however also make an imperative to explain to the person, to whom I am apologizing, the "Why" I did something wrong. I do so in order to show this person that:

a.) I know exactly where my fault was (And that I am not just simply incompetent or lazy)
b.) I will therefore not blindly make that same mistake again (I might make others, but not that one)
c.) They can trust me with a similar task in the future (Because of points a. and b.)

That is just me, on a personal level, working with an individual. In my mind, if I were to be a company, I would think it would be even more pertinent to do so when working with a mass of people - the explaining the "why" part. That is why I am looking for it cause it is how I work. I remember the apology from Chucklefish - all good. I was/am however looking for the explanation, the "Why?".

Perhaps I could use a moral example: Someone steals your bike.
Option 1: The police catches the person and he/she just says: "Sorry" AND you do not get your bike back - This leaves you angry and bewildered.
Option 2: The police catches the person, he/she says "Sorry" AND he explains to you why he stole your bike (he needed the money for food otherwise he was going to die of hunger) - This leaves you angry BUT not bewildered as you understand WHY the person did it. It makes sense - he needed the money for food. You are still angry that you do not have your bike BUT you are not angry at him/her, you are probably angry at the universe, poverty, capitalism, social injustice, etc.
Option 3: You of course also get your bike back. All is right with the world.

Do you see the difference? Not getting your bike back is made more bearable by understanding, by knowing why.

That is why I am looking for the "Why?" and trying to understand what happened.

Oh, and for the love of all that is holy in this world: If any one of you equates the bike in this post with your money and say that "Chucklefish stole our metaphorical bike"...you are missing the point of this thread and should, as noted above, not post here.

Regards

 

I always felt regardless of the words that the delays have been down to the number of things that Chucklefish have had nearly finished, then decided sucked and re done it. Then done so again. Obviously when you re do the progression system 2 times (it's far from the only thing that has been developed to near completion and then redone either) and that's the structure for the game that's going to set you back a long way. Massive numbers of features have gone in but the actual distance to the end seemed to grow for a while on a few occasions and only recently have I started to feel the same as I did when this game first went into beta.

I've mixed feelings about the delay. One one hand we were told one thing and got another. I don't think there's any denying that this constitutes a case of wronging the customer. On the other hand, the reasons are different from most open alpha debacles (and the game still has a good chance to be truly finished rather than just declared complete when interest dies which is because of what I'm about to say). The reasoning comes down to Chucklefish delaying things to redo them because they have decided they can do better. Their workrate is phenomenal. The problem isn't that they aren't doing anything but that they've redone large bits of the game several times. As my mother would say "more speed less haste".

Anyway IF the game never gets finished or if interest dies before it does it won't be because they don't care but because they've repeatedly redone the game too many times. I think there's a good chance this won't happen now as it sounds increasingly like they're not going to backtrack again but then again that's how they sounded just before the about turn last time. I just hope they have the ability to know when to draw the line and say "it's good, it could be better but we could spend forever improving this and never get it to feel perfect". I am not saying that this outcome is a given but that I can thoroughly understand why people would be getting antsy at this point and think it's crazy that certain members of this community can be so hostile to people who feel gipped. The truth is we have been miss sold a product. We have been misled and let down by those predictions. If chucklefish didn't have that dev blog making it clear that this has happened due to their love and dedication to this game and making it as good as they could I would have demanded a refund months ago. I can also sympathise with people who don't feel that blog is enough. The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all and early access games on the whole have an awful track record. Perhaps I say this optimistically but good intentions pave paths other than the road to hell as well.

 

to put it short:
"ok lets make this game"
"holy crap lots of people like this game"
"holy crap more goals"
"holy crap goals met"
"holy crap people want more content"
"we need to work on the game longer"

 

Game Launch delays are fairly commomplace, and delays of a year or more is not exactly unheard of. We see that kind of stuff in the AAA industry quite often and, in most of those cases, little to no explanation is relayed.

Simply put, estimates are misplaced, scopes gets broadened, features starts to creep in, bugs rears their ugly heads.
Same old same old...

As a matter of fact, the game engine underwent a massive overhaul on the account of bugs and planned features support. I figure that's the main source of delays.

 

Sometimes, delays or problems in group settings happen not because of any individual error, but because each "correct solution" did not take the big picture into account, and each individual decision added up to a huge problem.

For example:
If you want to save up $50 to buy something, and you are given the choice between getting a gift of $20 now, and paying $5 now in exchange for a gift of $30 later, which would you take? Neither will get you all the way to the goal of $50, but each takes you a step or two closer. That is, of course, if the $30 gift is not forgotten about or something bad, and if you have the $5 to spare right now.

After you've made that decision, you're again given the exact same choice. $20 now, or pay $5 now and receive $30 later.

If you took $20 before, you will not be able to get to your goal of $50, because you can only reach a maximum of $45, and that's if you accept a delayed payment as the second decision. You COULD end up with $15, if that later payment doesn't come through. Do you take the second $20, knowing that you will only have $40, which is still short of what you need to do?

If you chose the -$5 and +$30 before, AND the gift-giver made good on their promise, do you trust them again? If they are truthful each time, you would then reach your goal of saving $50, and you would be able to afford that thing you want. Or, do you take $20 now, because you aren't sure if they will be truthful again, and this only leaves you $5 short?


While this seems silly, this is an extremely simplified example of how software development works. You do your best to make informed decisions now that either have an immediate positive impact but may cause problems later, or you make decisions that cost money now and HOPEFULLY have a greater impact later.

In the case of Starbound, the devs did not have the initial $5 to invest, therefore they had to choose the $20 that would leave them short of their goal. It was the only option.
After choosing that option, they reached a point when they had the money to invest, and the $20 was no longer good enough. They had to re-do the engine and tile generation, they had to essentially "give back" the $20, and THEN spend the $5 in order to receive $30 later. This extra cost was because they had to undo the work they did before, to do it again in a way that would work with the new requirements in mind.

Was it wrong for them to do a "good enough" job on the tile generation and engine when they didn't have the time or money to invest, and not do a "really great" job on the tile generation and engine using money they didn't have, knowing that it would not be useful unless they increased the requirements and goals for their project?

 

I've never been able to discern enough about what was going on, but I can assure that as someone who donated, it was not just the early access people who were discontent at the drastic extension in the development calendar; it was the donators, too. The reasons just never seemed sufficient enough. It wasn't that we got what we had paid for and then wanted the revised full game to "come out already," but rather that while revising plans, it seemed like they weren't making progress toward a finish in the game that we originally donated for. Tiy talked about the importance of getting it correct, even if that takes time, but if anything, it seemed to us at the time that development hadn't gone much more careful and deliberate as it had just slowed down. I'm not saying I think that's the case, but to this day, it seems we don't really have a solid reason why the game is still in beta stage 1.

 

I think that plan was scrapped. There won't be the 3 stages as previously announced, or those 3 stages won't entail whatever content was previously planned.
A strong evidence of this is the novakids, that were supposed to be implemented only around stage 3 of the beta, yet there they are now.

 

Good day

Sorry for the slow response. Exams. Work. Life.

@Jonesy : Thank you for the response and the post. Reading it I can say the following:

Most of what is said in the post is with regards to reasons why Chucklefish would rather delay the game than release an unfinished game. That is understandable. Something brought them to this point that they would have to release an unfinished game. So he is explaining why they decided not to do so and rather delay the game. It does however not answer the question as to why the game was delayed in the first place? What brought them to this point?

There are two exceptions to this in the post:

1. "Uncertain challenges and untested genres don’t mesh well with the AAA world of budgets, publishers, deadlines and goals".

Chucklefish was not operating in the AAA world of budgets, publishers, deadlines and goals. They are an indie company that set their own release date without any pressure from an AAA company or CEO. So this, in my mind is still not a reason.
I mention this quote however as he mentions that "uncertain challenges and untested genres do not mesh well". This I can fully understand and see as a possible reason: Chucklefish is doing something new. This will bring about uncertain challenges. They perhaps did not anticipate an unknown/uncertain challenge. However, this is not explained to be a reason for the delay. Also, once again, a challenge(s) that takes them more than a year to overcome? What would that be? I am extremely curious to know.

2. "We also underestimated the time spent on communication overheads when working with a remote team in several different timezones. (Honestly I think if we’d all been in the same office we may have met our release date goals)."
This is a reason "Why": they underestimated the communication problems when working in several timezones. Also understandable. However, as far as I recall Chucklefish had been working on Starbound for more than a year by the time they announced the release date. Were they not used to this communication delay by now? Did they miss judge this problem so horribly that it extended the development time by more than a year?

So, in that piece, I believe I have found 2 reasons as to "Why" starbound was delayed:
1. Chucklefish faced uncertain/unknown challenges.
2. Chucklefish underestimated the communication problem.

Once again though, and this probably brings me back to my first post and to respond on your comment, did they misjudge this so horribly that it extended the development time with more than a year?

@Jonesy : Perhaps this would also help you to understand my question. I found this whilst reading up some more. It is a post by mollygos:

http://community.playstarbound.com/...sort-of-evaporating.24843/page-12#post-976402

That post was made in June 2013. Tiy posted in October. What happened in those 4 months? For them to go from sure it is coming out to not. What went wrong? Or is there something I missed? A post explaining why?

@TiddleFits & @BloodyFingers & @Akado : All good examples and possible reasons. Once again though: can you link me to any such statement by Chucklefish?

@Matchew: "The reasons just never seemed sufficient enough."...This is my concern. I am looking for that "Why?" to explain this.

 

pah, I was summoned here because I thought Jonesy mentioned my name. It was just the quote. Bummer...

As for those points:

Well, here's the thing: That post is from june 2013, as you've pointed out. Here's a more recent update on the situation at HQ:
(Warning: A lot of dreck has gone down the forums at the time and this post is why)

http://playstarbound.com/some-thoughts-on-early-access-release-dates-the-big-1-0/

And then this:

http://blog.chucklefish.org/?p=327

So what's to take from all of this? That's up to you frankly, all I saw is that they simply aren't done with what they want to do. Call it unrealised vision, call it feature creep, call it whatever.

Your call...

 

Good day

Once again, thank you for the feedback.

@BloodyFingers: The two links you provide are with regards to early access and finishing the game. These two are somewhat past the point of time in my query: 2013 when the game was delayed.

@Jonesy: I am still looking for the same thing. Trying to understand why the game was delayed. Which, from what I can gather through the sources I could find was:

1. Chucklefish faced uncertain/unknown challenges.
2. Chucklefish underestimated the communication problem.

If it was the first: I was wondering what this challenge was that delayed them by a year. Keeping in mind it must have crept up between June and October 2013.
If it was the second: I was wondering how they could have misjudged this so horribly (by more than a year) even after working like that...for more than a year.

But alas. I think I found the best answer I could/am going to find from anyone at Chucklefish. This was the response from @Matchew: "The reasons just never seemed sufficient enough."

Regards

Leon

 

I misunderstood the issue then. You were asking why the game was delayed way back when. I am of no help then.

carry on...