When will by ready Europa Barbarorum II?

**Atilius** · 06-10-2009, 20:34

Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Could you or one of the EB team members be courteous enough to provide at least a rough estimate of current members and an estimate of the number of members between 2005 through the first public release?

Honestly, no.

I've been a member for close to three years and I've never really known how many active, contributing members we've had at any one time. Some members work like hell for a few months, drop off the face of the earth for a while, and later return and make productive contributions again. Some work in areas in which I can tell how much they're contributing, others work in areas I'm not familiar with. Some members join with the understanding that they will do one very specific task. Every member is unproductive for periods of time, whether because of life, school, work, or (ahem!) Carnival.

So I can't answer your question, and I'd be a bit surprised if anyone could.

**a completely inoffensive name** · 06-11-2009, 08:15

Originally Posted by Atilius

Honestly, no.

I've been a member for close to three years and I've never really known how many active, contributing members we've had at any one time. Some members work like hell for a few months, drop off the face of the earth for a while, and later return and make productive contributions again. Some work in areas in which I can tell how much they're contributing, others work in areas I'm not familiar with. Some members join with the understanding that they will do one very specific task. Every member is unproductive for periods of time, whether because of life, school, work, or (ahem!) Carnival.

So I can't answer your question, and I'd be a bit surprised if anyone could.

Well with that information, it is impossible to estimate any release date as the group size needs to be relatively constant in order for a reasonable estimate to be made. You might as well point to a random square on a calendar and say it will come out then because any number of people could come back with a load of finished work at any given time if it really is as dynamic as you say.

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 06-11-2009, 15:09

Well, as what was basically the whip for EBI, I can tell you that no matter how much cajoleing and pleading and admonishing and guilting you do, that on a volunteer-based project like EB that it doesn't really help a lot, and that you run the risk of alienating folks who are trickling good work in. The project *very heavily* depended on a small number of artists who would flood us with incredible units and then would usually fade away. Spartan Warrior was probably the biggest workhorse but then totally disappeared. There's no way you can change the timeline except to chance upon more folks who will get really into helping the mod and then milking them for whatever they've got.

**Vasiliyi** · 06-12-2009, 19:47

Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

Well, as what was basically the whip for EBI, I can tell you that no matter how much cajoleing and pleading and admonishing and guilting you do, that on a volunteer-based project like EB that it doesn't really help a lot, and that you run the risk of alienating folks who are trickling good work in. The project *very heavily* depended on a small number of artists who would flood us with incredible units and then would usually fade away. Spartan Warrior was probably the biggest workhorse but then totally disappeared. There's no way you can change the timeline except to chance upon more folks who will get really into helping the mod and then milking them for whatever they've got.

MILK THEM MORE!

**Krusader** · 06-12-2009, 20:21

I think too many keep forgetting that we are a volunteer project and Teleklos sums it up very well.

Professional game developers have a "9 to 5" job or well, "9 to 9" job more like it. They have set timelines and managers and most important of all...salaries.

We don't work 8-12 hours 5 days a week on a project. Our workload can be utterly random and many of our members have other more important RL commitments. That is why we always use the "Its done when its done" line...because we don't know when its done, but we keep on working anyhow.

You want EB faster out? Then we need modelers and skinners, so if you know these things you are welcome.

**Tellos Athenaios** · 06-12-2009, 21:20

Plus another important thing about being a volunteer project is that you don't just get to do the fun bits like actually developing things. Nope: you get to do the far more tedious job of testing (I once saw it called "eating your own dogfood") too.

EDIT: Before anyone unintentionally starts commenting about how much he/she would like to help test things: for a real-life (EB 1) example of bug testing/fixing:

Heavily edit the garrisons of the various cities that are used in the UnitSize triggers of the Campaign Script
Comment out the little line of code that hides the UnitSize traits from your view in the campaign.
Re-calculate and re-adjust the values for comparison in the UnitSize triggers
Test and confirm that they work correctly for all 21 factions.

The time it takes you to do that mostly depends on how fast you can load EB campaigns from a cold start. And how quickly you realise that the world according to the Koinon is most definitely different from the world according to the Saka when it comes to starting armies (and/or populations): which means that some easy shortcuts are out of the question.

For a bonus: it is possible to introduce an exciting (new to most of you, I guess) bug if you get the values wrong whereby you can no longer save a new campaign started under these new conditions... Have fun!

**Vasiliyi** · 06-13-2009, 03:24

Seems like a ton of work. I respect you all for doing what you do. I never meant to push anyone away from RL. Its done when its done.

On a side not, tellos are we allowed to guess what you have hidden behind all the black paint on your occultus sig?