Steel Beasts Dynamic Terrain Will Come After New Terrain Engine

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176641

We are talking here about delay of 12+ months, not day or two or weeks because patch with terrain was supposed to happen somewhere around summer 2016, i cant even recall the exact month.... And even by saying that i really dont have any grudge against SSnake or his company - they are giving us something we could only dream off before year 2000...
AS someone with 10+ years of Xp in gaming community handling, im simply stating dont go public with date or announcements until you are 110% sure you can hit that date. It is bad for company image and it aggravate players without a reason because they expect the patch. Nothing more.. If you thought im pushing your buttons on purpose, then i apologize.  I had zero intentions to troll you or any other member of this community.

I've also been thinking more about Ssnake's previously quoted post. It's dysfunctional of him to say "The only way around that would be to remain extremely vague and non-committal in all public communication," and then be generally exactly that over the past several months. But never mind that "Both options, I think, are not in your interest as mature consumers of our product. You want to be informed in time, you want to know what to expect, you want adherence to deadlines, and you want mature and stable software at a reasonably low price." As Ssnake has also said, "Contracts have priority."

[Asid]

" As Ssnake has also said, "Contracts have priority."

It has always been this way. I remember when this point was pushed harder and it was implied that we were lucky to get SB Pro, even though we paid more than $115 for it.

I have many products from many developers. Some are better than others at dealing with their customer base than others.

Whenever I read an update about SB Pro, I just think "maybe someday it will come out". I am used to it now.

[Rinix]

It has always been this way. I remember when this point was pushed harder and it was implied that we were lucky to get SB Pro, even though we paid more than $115 for it.

We are paying more than $115 for it right now, the current price is back to $125.

I have many products from many developers. Some are better than others at dealing with their customer base than others.

Yes. Frankie has already said that eSim Games could learn from others in informing their customers.

Whenever I read an update about SB Pro, I just think "maybe someday it will come out". I am used to it now.

It's sad that it's come to this.

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176657
Ssnake's response to BigBadVuk contains nothing new. It amounts to a shutting down of the conversation.

If you want absolute certainty, I can go back to the mode of announcing "Oh, we just uploaded a new version, by the way"

If that's what you want, all you need is to check the eSim Games Downloads page for changes.


If you want information in advance - like the vast majority of readers of this forum want - you'll have to live with the fact that my predictions about the future not always turn out to be accurate. In 2016 we HAD a working high res terrain, but it lacked in usability because of some changed workflow that was considered too restrictive. This forced us to release 4.0 without the high res terrain support. The user interface had to be redesigned. Our projections suggested half a year of work to do so, which then turned out to be more like eight months. Six months or eight, not too bad either. But then you have "events" and the delays caused by them result in non-linear effects (when you have collisions with other projects, and/or interdependencies). Once that you have a collision between two projects there's a cascade of collisions where either everything goes down, or you decide to pull out one element and push it back to the end of the queue so you can save the rest.

This is what happened. I'm sorry about that, but unapologetic. We need those other development project to earn money. Without that money, no PE version. With those other projects come contractual obligations and hard deadlines. They took priority in the past, they will receive priority in the future. This is nothing new to anyone following our work.

So, again, all I can say is that our announcements reflect the best of our knowledge at the time that we make these announcements. Note that I stopped making predictions since about July, yet it is you and others in this thread who are poking me to make new predictions. So some hate me for not making predictions, others hate me for confusing my projections with promises. We have two different words for these because they aren't the same. 110% certainty is not only mathematically ludicrous, even if we reduce it to 100% certainty it means not to make any announcements, ever, at all, until after the fact, at which point the whole thing loses is usefulness.

I could of course publish our entire development schedule in its full glory and update it on a weekly basis. But, well, it contains business secrets. I'm not at liberty to reveal everything. In summary, you will have to learn to live with a certain degree of obscurity and lack of certainty.

In this world, nothing is certain - but death, and taxes.

[Asid]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176657
Ssnake's response to BigBadVuk contains nothing new. It amounts to a shutting down of the conversation.

Typical response. Like I said, I will play it when it is out. There are many excellent sims/wargames out there with really good devs who appreciate their community 

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176885
I agree with kraze.

One solution that can make everyone happy while we wait is rather simple. Videos. Yeah yeah there's one about "dted is dead" that shows new terrain but just showing a few new minutes of a progress made can chill everyone. Especially if there is more to the upcoming patch than just a terrain engine.

[Asid]

 

[Rinix]

And the predictable strawman from Gibson: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176888

And the net result of that is:

1. People have to be taken off doing the wrok to make the video.

2. People see the video and say "well if you can make a video then why can't you release it".

Any comments about it being a special case or being done on only one map and it doesn't work universally, etc. will be lost in the clamour.

Hey Gibson:

• The only person needed to make videos is Ssnake
• No one has ever said your "well if you can make a video then why can't you release it" strawman
• No one lost anything in the clamor when Ssnake talked about the "4.1: High Resolution Terrain Preview" video after its release

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176906
Ssnake isn't making any sense. Why would an upgrade to DirectX 11 need to be simultaneous across "all versions"? Games that are released cross-platform on the PC can play together in multiplayer. The rendering in DirectX 11 wouldn't affect compatibility with older versions of Steel Beasts, even if you leave out the reality that different versions of Steel Beasts don't play well in multiplayer.

Going DX11 would be a major task, and it would be done simultaneously across all versions.

Let us finish the work on the new terrain and better infantry AI, please. That's more than enough of a bite to chew on.

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176910
Vikingo's hope is my hope as well.

No problem! Just please don't go DX12  Vulcan is nice option and you don't have to install Windows 10 xD

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176922
At least as a result of this joke, we know the new terrain engine is coming after December 11.

[Asid]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11302-eta-on-terrain-patch/?page=8#comment-176922
At least as a result of this joke, we know the new terrain engine is coming after December 11.

I don't know what was posted (I don't visit that site) but it will come someday. Esims is like Eagle Dynamics in some ways......

[Rinix]

I don't know what was posted (I don't visit that site) but it will come someday. Esims is like Eagle Dynamics in some ways......

What was posted was an inside joke from the Il-2 community, referencing 2 weeks to completion. Ssnake's reaction proves that the new terrain engine is coming after December 11 (two weeks after the post was made).

[Asid]

 

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/4546-steel-beasts-content-wish-list/?page=226#comment-177165

Not necessarily, as you always have the option to create a "delta map" that will be (very) small in size if the barriers are all that you add compared to a base map, and they can still be embedded in the scenario file. I concede that it would be more convenient and in would make more sense from the tactical/user interface perspective, but as long as we're under serious time pressure in our development we have to settle for "minimally invasive" changes to the code base.