Any word on the patch / SDK?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Locutus
Yes, that's why it was posted in 2002 in the CtP2 forums

Then why would you tell a Civ 4 player to try it?

[Locutus]

Because most people here own more than one civ game and because CtP2 is the only game that has this kind of feature?

[padillah]

It looks easy enough to implement: Disable Settlers and come up with a site finding algorithm. Then spawn a city and set the owner to the player.

The site algorithm is the hard part. What makes the best city site? You know it would have to be almost perfect judging by the responses most people have had to the AI city placement and the blue-circle suggestions. But the simple fact is there's too much to take into account: Resources, coastal distance, trade routes, food, rivers, production, distance from the capital... and how do you stop it? With city maint you don't want to bury the user in cities they can't handle.

Factoring all that would be the hard part, the rest should be easy.

Tom P.

[Older than Dirt]

But without settlers we won't have the fun of watching barbarians chase after them even though the barbarian cannot (or should not if it has the same sighting capabilities of the human player) see the settler. A game without settlers and workers is not CIV - its SimCity or checkers.

[smacfan]

OK, enough with the insider beta jokes, boys (and girls?). For those of us who are *not* on the inside, is there any *realistic* date being bandied about? Or are we now into "maybe 2nd quarter or so"?

smacfan

P.S. -- As an IT person myself, I agree wholeheartedly with the comments about what the sales staff do to dates in order to lure clients into signing that contract. Also upper management when the size of *their* bonus needs *you* to "officially" get something out the door, regardless of whether it's ready for prime time or not.

P.P.S. -- I also would prefer to see it done *right*, not necessarily sooner, but you really do have to draw a line in the sand and say to yourself, "I *will* make this date." And then work however hard it takes to do just that.

[Solver]

Well, the best answer is that it is indeed soon. As Locutus also said in the other thread, the next patch, which will come out with the SDK, is currently in final testing. Obviously, final testing means that the release is close.

I also would prefer to see it done *right*, not necessarily sooner, but you really do have to draw a line in the sand and say to yourself, "I *will* make this date." And then work however hard it takes to do just that.

And what if, on that date, you discover that the product/patch has critical bugs and whatnot? I'd much rather there would be an internal deadline set and aimed for, but no release at that date if it's known that the result isn't good enough. That's the only right way for software development, IMO.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Solver
And what if, on that date, you discover that the product/patch has critical bugs and whatnot? I'd much rather there would be an internal deadline set and aimed for, but no release at that date if it's known that the result isn't good enough. That's the only right way for software development, IMO

That's why you have "Good Enough" testing. You elaborate on what's getting fixed, establish what can't be broken, and determine how many of what level bug you are willing to "live with".

There is nothing to say that a software company doesn't release a product with critical bugs, it's just been determined that the risk is worth it.

I mean, what if the developers knew that Civ4 crashed on quad AMD64 systems with 4Gig of RAM and ATI v4.2 drivers? It's a critical bug, it causes a crash. Should they not release because of this bug? Of course not, the odds of this conglomeration of equipment comming together to play CIV is pretty remote. That's a critical bug I can live with.

Everybody knows they don't have to wait until it's perfect, but they don't even have to wait until it's non-critical. All they really need is to get it to a level of comfort they can defend.

Now, having said that, as a QA lead I always want everything tested as much as possible and my PM is constantly telling me to stop, that's enough.

I guess what I'm saying is - I agree with you. Software release is a much more complicated decision than "are we done yet?"

Anyway, good to hear it's in, what ostensibly should be, the final stages.

Tom P.

[Robert]

If I would do a beta test every morning and decide to not release myself into the day because I got some critical bugs then I would never release myself ever.

We're living on earth dude, life is not perfect.
If you are perfect you can requier perfect products from Firaxis. If you're not perfect, accept that others aren't perfect either.

[Solver]

That's why you have "Good Enough" testing. You elaborate on what's getting fixed, establish what can't be broken, and determine how many of what level bug you are willing to "live with".

That doesn't work. A ton of patches for different games get broken because of last minute changes that aren't shown to the testers. Surprisingly enough, changing or fixing one thing can break another, seemingly unrelated thing. Which is why every time there's a new version of the patch, it needs to be thoroughly tested by the test team.

And CyberShy... there's a big difference in what sort of bugs you can and can't release with. Of course, there are always going to be bugs, and of course there would never be a patch if the goal was to have it fix every single last bug. But, there's a very real difference between bugs you can release a patch with and bugs that require it to be delayed and for another version to be made.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Solver

That's why you have "Good Enough" testing. You elaborate on what's getting fixed, establish what can't be broken, and determine how many of what level bug you are willing to "live with".

That doesn't work. A ton of patches for different games get broken because of last minute changes that aren't shown to the testers. Surprisingly enough, changing or fixing one thing can break another, seemingly unrelated thing. Which is why every time there's a new version of the patch, it needs to be thoroughly tested by the test team.

And CyberShy... there's a big difference in what sort of bugs you can and can't release with. Of course, there are always going to be bugs, and of course there would never be a patch if the goal was to have it fix every single last bug. But, there's a very real difference between bugs you can release a patch with and bugs that require it to be delayed and for another version to be made.

Unless I miss my guess... we are vehemently agreeing.

I don't see how what you said is different than what I said. Software release is a complicated process that is not remotely perfect nor stable.

And I'm pretty sure you are agreeing with CyberShy as well, but I'll let him decide that.

Tom P.

[Paddy]

/me looks for a needle and thread...

we will probably be asked to do our own patches soon

allow them to concentrate on the next version of pirates

/me takes his bottle and goes to sit under a tree

[player1]

Well I guess those who are *inside* are not allowed to talk to those *outside* about thinks done *inside* due to NDAs.

[Solver]

Actually, Paddy, once the SDK is out, no one prevents you from making your own patch .

And of course, indeed, we can't talk about the specifics of what's going on due to the NDA.

[smacfan]

Originally posted by Solver
Well, the best answer is that it is indeed soon. As Locutus also said in the other thread, the next patch, which will come out with the SDK, is currently in final testing. Obviously, final testing means that the release is close.

That is good news, thank you.

And what if, on that date, you discover that the product/patch has critical bugs and whatnot? I'd much rather there would be an internal deadline set and aimed for, but no release at that date if it's known that the result isn't good enough. That's the only right way for software development, IMO.

As have others here, I quite agree with you. As I said, you do "everything you can". There are indeed times when that's not quite "good enough". If your planning and testing are up to snuff, that shouldn't happen too often. But it does, unfortunately, happen. As Bobby Byrnes, the poet, said, "The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley".

BTDT.

Thanks for the news you can give, NDA notwithstanding.

smacfan