Hello Community,
first of all we want to thank the moderators and of course you for the collected feedback and your remarks regarding Cattle and Crops. We had an extensive conversation with the mods and discussed, with the aid of an elaborate feedback document, what you think should be improved. We will separately address some core points of this criticism and hope that you will thus get a better overview of the current situation.
Update - Roadmap, Timeline, Bug tracker, Homepage, Q&A
Roadmap: At the moment we don’t have the required time, apart from development, to constantly update and improve some things. Among those is the roadmap. It helps nobody, if an outdated and/or incomplete version is online. That’s why we will temporarily deactivate the roadmap until we find the time to properly maintain it.
Timeline: Therefore, the timeline will be adjusted. Soon you’ll be able to see what milestones we have planned until version 1.0. We won’t post an exact date any longer, but only the month of the upcoming updates.
Bugtracker: We have mentioned that we wanted to release a bug tracker, but here as well we don’t have the necessary time to maintain such a public tool (corrections, translations, updates) and program and provide the required interfaces. We’ll keep using the existing system for internal scheduling. All the bugs that you post in the forum are reported to us for our project planning.
Interval for Q&A: The question was raised about the interval in which the Q&A questions are answered. Unfortunately, a weekly reply to the Q&As isn’t possible, since they mean more effort than it might seem. We want to answer your question accurately and honestly and to ensure this, 3-4 people have to look at the questions, edit, comment, translate the, and finally bring them into a form with which everyone is happy. That’s why there won’t be a change in regards to the frequency of answering the Q&As, since the time needed to do this is just too much.
In order to give you a better overview over the questions that have already been answered, we will try to revise the Q&A section and categorize the questions. There will soon be another Q&A post. And don’t worry, no questions of the last thread are lost, everything is listed internally. In case your question doesn’t appear, it is because we don’t have an answer at the moment.
Status updates & development: We would love to keep you posted with information every day, but it is very time-consuming to post material and news, so we have integrated most of the news into our update texts or posted them in small status updates in between. We have considered this issue and as soon as we are able to, we will increase the interval and the newsrate.
Communication, update interval, postponement
Postponement of updates: It is our goal to have at least 1-2 weeks in advance for an update. We finish the update, give it to the testing department and optimize it as good as possible. Ideally, the update is then ready to be released a few days in advance.
Unfortunately we couldn’t acquire this timeframe yet. A lot of updates have been finished on the last day. As a result, the one or other bad bug slipped in which we had to patch with a hotfix in a timely manner, since it wasn’t possible to fix existing problems in time.
That is why we will make some changes in the update rhythm. We have evaluated the feedback and decided to release fewer, but better tested updates. In order to ensure a higher quality and therefore more gameplay fun for you, we want to release the updates within a bigger time interval.
We are aware that this kind of update politics isn’t optimal for everyone, we have decided to integrate all assets and necessary functions until the grassland update as quickly as possible and then to optimize and synchronize the existing basis.
Miscellaneous
Vehicles: There are vehicle types, for example tractors, where a difference in the level of details can be noted. This is due to the evolution of our 3D development and its workflows. The machines of the “first generation” are not as detailed as the majority of the current vehicle fleet.
Why not simply adjust it? almost all available machines, as far as possible, have received an upgrade of the 3D model to the “second generation”. This did cost us many hours in the double or three-digit range. For very old machines of the development we weren’t able to accomplish the upgrade completely, since this would have meant literally a new construction. For CNC v1.0, all 3D models will presumably stay like this, apart from smaller changes and further functionalities.
Different content between announcement and Early Access release: In the CNC Kickstarter trailer and in the first announcements we had promoted the Early Access v0.1. We subsequently had to struggle with the change of the 3D workflow, the massive effort of upgrading the machines and the slow progress with some aspects like the AI.
So we had the choice to postpone everything again completely until it is finished or give you access to small bits of CNC until the release of Early Access v0.1, in order to get feedback from you as early as possible. So we decided against the postponement and in favour of a tech demo v0.0.1.
We are aware of the fact that not everything that you and we had hoped for is already implemented or complete, but unfortunately it can’t be planned exactly how long it takes to develop an extensive feature like multiplayer, dynamic soil etc.
We are constantly learning and through the growing experience with the engine and the technologies we are able to plan more precisely so massive postponements shouldn’t happen any more. However, we can’t rule it out 100%.
Since the delays and reasons for it haven’t been clearly stated and phrased by us and therefore caused misunderstandings, we wanted to sincerely apologize to everyone, it wasn’t our intention. Among other aspects, the postponements came into being due to the changes of the 3D workflow, the complete exchange of the physics engine to Nvidia PhysX, the improvement of the AI and the mission system. Especially the AI and the change to PhysX ended up in much more workload than we had expected.
In the coming days we will step by step rework and update the above mentioned things like Timeline, Roadmap and vehicle fleet. Another conclusion is that we want to meet with the moderators more frequently to ensure a better flow of information.
Current “construction sites” are the multiplayer, the machines for the grassland update as well as the programming for the swath system, chopped crops and a system for bales and their handling. We also have to create an environment in which the employee can do his job.
We hope that we were able to answer some of your questions and shed some light on the matter. We thank you again for the extensive feedback and of course also for the response that you share with us daily in form of forum posts, bug reports, Emails and Let’s Plays.
We wish you a relaxed weekend!
Regards
The MBB team
first of all we want to thank the moderators and of course you for the collected feedback and your remarks regarding Cattle and Crops. We had an extensive conversation with the mods and discussed, with the aid of an elaborate feedback document, what you think should be improved. We will separately address some core points of this criticism and hope that you will thus get a better overview of the current situation.
Update - Roadmap, Timeline, Bug tracker, Homepage, Q&A
Roadmap: At the moment we don’t have the required time, apart from development, to constantly update and improve some things. Among those is the roadmap. It helps nobody, if an outdated and/or incomplete version is online. That’s why we will temporarily deactivate the roadmap until we find the time to properly maintain it.
Timeline: Therefore, the timeline will be adjusted. Soon you’ll be able to see what milestones we have planned until version 1.0. We won’t post an exact date any longer, but only the month of the upcoming updates.
Bugtracker: We have mentioned that we wanted to release a bug tracker, but here as well we don’t have the necessary time to maintain such a public tool (corrections, translations, updates) and program and provide the required interfaces. We’ll keep using the existing system for internal scheduling. All the bugs that you post in the forum are reported to us for our project planning.
Interval for Q&A: The question was raised about the interval in which the Q&A questions are answered. Unfortunately, a weekly reply to the Q&As isn’t possible, since they mean more effort than it might seem. We want to answer your question accurately and honestly and to ensure this, 3-4 people have to look at the questions, edit, comment, translate the, and finally bring them into a form with which everyone is happy. That’s why there won’t be a change in regards to the frequency of answering the Q&As, since the time needed to do this is just too much.
In order to give you a better overview over the questions that have already been answered, we will try to revise the Q&A section and categorize the questions. There will soon be another Q&A post. And don’t worry, no questions of the last thread are lost, everything is listed internally. In case your question doesn’t appear, it is because we don’t have an answer at the moment.
Status updates & development: We would love to keep you posted with information every day, but it is very time-consuming to post material and news, so we have integrated most of the news into our update texts or posted them in small status updates in between. We have considered this issue and as soon as we are able to, we will increase the interval and the newsrate.
Communication, update interval, postponement
Postponement of updates: It is our goal to have at least 1-2 weeks in advance for an update. We finish the update, give it to the testing department and optimize it as good as possible. Ideally, the update is then ready to be released a few days in advance.
Unfortunately we couldn’t acquire this timeframe yet. A lot of updates have been finished on the last day. As a result, the one or other bad bug slipped in which we had to patch with a hotfix in a timely manner, since it wasn’t possible to fix existing problems in time.
That is why we will make some changes in the update rhythm. We have evaluated the feedback and decided to release fewer, but better tested updates. In order to ensure a higher quality and therefore more gameplay fun for you, we want to release the updates within a bigger time interval.
We are aware that this kind of update politics isn’t optimal for everyone, we have decided to integrate all assets and necessary functions until the grassland update as quickly as possible and then to optimize and synchronize the existing basis.
Miscellaneous
Vehicles: There are vehicle types, for example tractors, where a difference in the level of details can be noted. This is due to the evolution of our 3D development and its workflows. The machines of the “first generation” are not as detailed as the majority of the current vehicle fleet.
Why not simply adjust it? almost all available machines, as far as possible, have received an upgrade of the 3D model to the “second generation”. This did cost us many hours in the double or three-digit range. For very old machines of the development we weren’t able to accomplish the upgrade completely, since this would have meant literally a new construction. For CNC v1.0, all 3D models will presumably stay like this, apart from smaller changes and further functionalities.
Different content between announcement and Early Access release: In the CNC Kickstarter trailer and in the first announcements we had promoted the Early Access v0.1. We subsequently had to struggle with the change of the 3D workflow, the massive effort of upgrading the machines and the slow progress with some aspects like the AI.
So we had the choice to postpone everything again completely until it is finished or give you access to small bits of CNC until the release of Early Access v0.1, in order to get feedback from you as early as possible. So we decided against the postponement and in favour of a tech demo v0.0.1.
We are aware of the fact that not everything that you and we had hoped for is already implemented or complete, but unfortunately it can’t be planned exactly how long it takes to develop an extensive feature like multiplayer, dynamic soil etc.
We are constantly learning and through the growing experience with the engine and the technologies we are able to plan more precisely so massive postponements shouldn’t happen any more. However, we can’t rule it out 100%.
Since the delays and reasons for it haven’t been clearly stated and phrased by us and therefore caused misunderstandings, we wanted to sincerely apologize to everyone, it wasn’t our intention. Among other aspects, the postponements came into being due to the changes of the 3D workflow, the complete exchange of the physics engine to Nvidia PhysX, the improvement of the AI and the mission system. Especially the AI and the change to PhysX ended up in much more workload than we had expected.
In the coming days we will step by step rework and update the above mentioned things like Timeline, Roadmap and vehicle fleet. Another conclusion is that we want to meet with the moderators more frequently to ensure a better flow of information.
Current “construction sites” are the multiplayer, the machines for the grassland update as well as the programming for the swath system, chopped crops and a system for bales and their handling. We also have to create an environment in which the employee can do his job.
We hope that we were able to answer some of your questions and shed some light on the matter. We thank you again for the extensive feedback and of course also for the response that you share with us daily in form of forum posts, bug reports, Emails and Let’s Plays.
We wish you a relaxed weekend!
Regards
The MBB team