EB2 Dev Blog discussion

[Ca Putt]

IIRC Sweboz only hold the upper province, Averni and Aedui territories do not touch, Pritanoi start in arduon, Boii do not have a province in northern italy also, you sure about Nabateans starting there? I thought they started in Edom. other than that good work!

[JMRC]

Almost there.
It wouldn't be fun if we tell all the starting positions accurately. It would spoil the pleasure of discovery.

[Brennus]

Almost there.
It wouldn't be fun if we tell all the starting positions accurately. It would spoil the pleasure of discovery.

Err, oops :p

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

From screenies we've seen it looks like the Ptolemioi also start with Halicarnassus and Ephesus unless of course the team showed those screens from a few years in. Also, wonder if Baktria shouldn't get the province directly north, Oxiana I believe it is?

EDIT: Also, did the team consider making Gedrosia part of Eremos and adding another province elsewhere? It always seemed to me to be a very sparsely populated and more or less worthless area. That being said, I've never really read much about Gedrosia outside of Alexander's conquests and passing mentions in Seleucid and Persian histories.

[Ca Putt]

Did we not have a community map progression thread? posting it there might be a good idea so people who are looking for it will have less of a hard time finding it :)

[QuintusSertorius]

Almost there.
It wouldn't be fun if we tell all the starting positions accurately. It would spoil the pleasure of discovery.

What pleasure of discovery? I think that ship sailed a long time ago. I'm as supportive of this project as anyone here, but any sense of anticipation has long since ebbed away to nothing. Releasing snippets and breadcrumbs doesn't keep people keen, not after this length of time, it's more like an insulting attempt to string people along just a little bit longer.

It's not just here, either, I've seen other sorts of projects in other arenas take this same sort of approach and I really don't understand it. We can see the results of that with the way the main fora have pretty much died, compared to a few years ago. There's been a massive die-off in terms of interest, I'm sure a lot of people have forgotten about EB2 altogether, or dismissed it as vaporware.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

What pleasure of discovery? I think that ship sailed a long time ago. I'm as supportive of this project as anyone here, but any sense of anticipation has long since ebbed away to nothing. Releasing snippets and breadcrumbs doesn't keep people keen, not after this length of time, it's more like an insulting attempt to string people along just a little bit longer.

It's not just here, either, I've seen other sorts of projects in other arenas take this same sort of approach and I really don't understand it. We can see the results of that with the way the main fora have pretty much died, compared to a few years ago. There's been a massive die-off in terms of interest, I'm sure a lot of people have forgotten about EB2 altogether, or dismissed it as vaporware.

I don't think this is fair to the team Quintus. There have clearly been some delays and setbacks (ie change in project lead), of that I am sure. But in reality, its a little harsh to non-constructively criticize a group of people who are devoting part of their leisure time to create something which other people may play for free.

I personally would rather have snippets here and there to see that progress has indeed been made on the project, although if the presentation of this info comes at the price of slowing progress on the project itself, I would prefer that more time be spent on development instead.

As far as activity on the fora goes, RTW is how old? Almost 10 years I believe. And EB was never a "mass appeal" mod to begin with. To expect many people to still be playing the mod after 3 new Total War games have been released is a little optimistic. I still play, but to be honest, it was the MP aspect that pulled me back after a hiatus. It is tough to attract new players to an old game.

[QuintusSertorius]

I don't think this is fair to the team Quintus. There have clearly been some delays and setbacks (ie change in project lead), of that I am sure. But in reality, its a little harsh to non-constructively criticize a group of people who are devoting part of their leisure time to create something which other people may play for free.

I personally would rather have snippets here and there to see that progress has indeed been made on the project, although if the presentation of this info comes at the price of slowing progress on the project itself, I would prefer that more time be spent on development instead.

As far as activity on the fora goes, RTW is how old? Almost 10 years I believe. And EB was never a "mass appeal" mod to begin with. To expect many people to still be playing the mod after 3 new Total War games have been released is a little optimistic. I still play, but to be honest, it was the MP aspect that pulled me back after a hiatus. It is tough to attract new players to an old game.

I'm criticising the approach to communication; secrecy mixed with coy in-jokes and occasional misinformation. You don't need formal previews to be straight with people and give realistic expectations as to what's going on. All we need is a paragraph or two every now and then saying what's going on, and roughly what the activities left to complete are. Maybe even a tracker, "we're 60% of the way to completion" or something like that.

Delays and setbacks happen, that's life. What there is a serious failure of here is expectation management - because essentially there isn't any. It's just the same old "it'll be ready when it's done" and occasionally throwing out a preview.

EDIT: And so this isn't just some negativity, if the team want someone to do the forum-liason bit, telling people what's going on behind the scenes and responding to all the usual questions, I'd be willing to do that. I spend more than enough time on various fora just chatting about stuff to be able to devote some to doing something more focused here.

[Maeran]

Quintus Sertorius, would a tracker of the sort you describe serve any real use? What is 60% of a project that can be expected to change in scope? New opportunities/challenges change the definition of what a 100% ready first release would be. A year ago you could expect medieval buildings in place for the foreseable future, now people are (happily) arguing about high status gallic buildings.

You might know what you expect to comprise a first release and plan your project around that, but big changes can and have taken place that make any statement other than "when it is done" a dishonest one.
There is a twitter feed that does post short notes on what is happening in the team. The last post was 2 days ago and the one before was only 2 weeks before that.

Formal previews can attract help in areas the team need to finish the job, as well as court would be players. That alone is worth supporting their use.

[M to the A]

Alrighty then, is this better?


ugh