Yet, with the current EVE Online expansion cycle, this is exactly what happens. Entire systems are inundated with multiple changes all at once, and the effects of any single change within the system cannot be accurately judged.
This happened when CCP nerfed incursions. This happened when they updated the war declaration mechanics. This happened when they rewrote the faction warfare system. Player behaviour changed remarkably in all three of those systems, and with each of those new systems, multiple changes were implemented all at once. The degree to which any one change altered player behaviour was lost.
Incursions were eventually rolled back to their original state, but that might not have been necessary, were it possible to pinpoint the individual changes that were problematic. Perhaps only a couple of the changes actually required reversion, but it was impossible to tell which individual mechanics those might be.
We face the same problem again this winter, as faction warfare faces another set of major iterations. These eight to ten changes will be introduced in one fell swoop, and once implemented, it will be difficult to tell which of the individual changes had the greatest impact on player behaviour.
Predicting player behaviour is exceptionally difficult. Some people point to SiSi (the EVE Online test server*) as an appropriate testbed. As I pointed out in a previous post, SiSi is unsuitable for testing player behaviour. Players do not make the same time investments on SiSi that they do on Tranquility (the live server.)
Rather than have these specific dates when a mass of changes hit the live servers all at once, why not have expansion cycles. An expansion will run for a specific period of time, and in that time frame, fairly regular updates will occur, as they are ready. The Summer Expansion cycle can run from April to September. The Winter Expansion cycle can run from October to March.
Within a cycle, introduce changes to large systems gradually, see how they affect player behaviour over a time period of a few weeks, before introducing more additions and iterations. These changes can also be iterated on more quickly if they produce undesirable results. Changes might also prove that other planned updates are unnecessary.
Take faction warfare as an example. Perhaps the change of moving the complex structure closer to the warp-in point for the room, that could be made available as soon as it is ready (it seems like an easy enough change to make.) See what sort of effect that has on AFK/PvE plexing behaviour, before introducing any other changes. That change in itself might have enough of an effect on player behaviour that coding new NPC AI could be unnecessary (thus development resources can be spent elsewhere.) New NPC AI will probably still be necessary, but hard to tell unless changes are introduced in isolation from each other.
Isn't this one of the principles of agile development? Being able to introduce new features quickly and then be able to respond to the results of those changes as quickly?
* Yes, I know we now have a new test server called Buckingham, but that seems temporary for the time being. I will continue to refer to the test server as SiSi, since it's still what we're all familiar with.
There hasn't been an "expansion" since Incarna, and there hasn't been a "successful expansion" since Incursions.
ReplyDeleteAn "expansion" means that you are *expanding* the game, with new content, and hopefully new players. Tweaking existing content and/or fixing long-standing bugs is called "maintenance".
Crucible and Inferno are nothing more than "maintenance" releases, at best, as is the upcoming Winter release.
But, with the dumbing down of many aspects of the game, such as research agents and item naming conventions, as well as the ongoing and terrible homogenizing of the ships, you might also consider that these releases are actually contracting the game, not expanding it.
True, with respect to the definition of "expansion."
DeleteBut that has nothing at all to do with the point I am trying to make.
An ongoing release, as you propose, is one of those things which is good in theory, but has proven to be bad in practice, esp. when dealing with large, complex systems.
ReplyDeleteThe primary problems are system stability and required manpower.
With a single annual (or semi-annual) release date, you have a development period, followed by a QA/testing period, prior to the release, followed by critical bug fixes, the release itself, and then a long period after the release for finding & fixing bugs which did not get caught during QA. The system becomes more stable, as bugs are fixed, and usually few new bugs are introduced during this period. As the major bugs are identified & fixed, the priority of bug fixing drops and the staff can work on new features for the next release.
With an ongoing release, new bugs are always being introduced with the incremental features each week/month, and usually at a rate faster than the QA dept can catch them, and faster than the devs can fix them. The sad result is that the system never achieves a state where it is "almost working", but instead remains "constantly broken". And, as the QA and dev teams fall further behind, the situation becomes progressively worse, juggling the priority of coding/testing new features vs. catching/fixing new bugs.
The solution is to add more QA and dev staff, so that testing and debugging is happening simultaneously, and at the same rate, as new feature development & deployment. But, ofc, this means significantly added cost, which usually outweighs the benefit, esp. for a company which is borderline with regards to profitability and had to layoff a large number of folks last year.
Did you see any new content specifically for Eve in that video blog?
ReplyDeleteAll I saw was Guard relieving himself (which seems like a fitting metaphor for what players can expect from CCP), and Unifex rambling on about DUST.
Personally, I plan to grief and scam the hell out of the DUST players. Figure you can sell them gear and then blow it up from orbit. But, even if it cost billions of ISK to bombard them, I'll go for it, just for the tears. Hmm... I guess you can call that new content - providing new stupid targets.
What happened with the Incursion nerf was pitiful. Any one in IT knows you try to never make multiple changes at once to fix something as you have no idea which change does what. Even then, the fact they took so long to revert it was also a joke.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason they waited to revert the changes was to give Inferno some content which was a joke as the reversions could have been implemented at any time. In the meantime, the players were made to suffer. CCP Affinity, I'm looking at you
Nerfing Incursions was pointless. People are always going to farm pve content to the limit no matter what. Should of just let the hisec bears have their fun and focus on fixing lowsec and I don't mean faction borefare.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that when you have a highly complex, interlocking system there is no practical way to test every scenario: the number of tests is 2^N, where N is the number of options in play. Think about the number of options in play just when you're fitting a frigate.
ReplyDeleteI agree that, at this point, EVE can't do the "new game every year." That made sense during the early, building phase. It doesn't make so much sense now. What they can do, is design what used to be an expansion, and roll it out gradually, with the most crucial features leading so that they can make sure that the whole design doesn't have feet of clay. Fix bugs, patch pathological corners in the design by calling them exploits, and continue.
That's what they should have done with Incarna, instead of promising the moon and the stars above. Actually, they should have rolled Carbon out by itself first, and *then* started rolling out Incarna. But if wishes were Titans, I'd have a hundred of 'em.