development cycle viability

[ViFF]

posted this over at agw offtopic, wanted some responses here too:

Every mmog sim has (at least) the following components:

• Interface (splash screen, selection screen, setup screen, periphal compatability & setup, carreer/score management)
  
• Graphics Engine (terrian, terrain objects with/without interaction, animated terrain objects, etc)
  
• Graphics model (FPS model & animations, other 3rd person models & animations, etc)
  
  • Flight model
  • Damage model
  • Gunnery model
  • Collision model
  • Network model[/b] (the comms & glue that holds everything together)
    
  The "pay for play" MMOG media ventures take our money to pay for the day to day maintanence and continued development of the title, yet as we progress into the future, the hardware industry keeps churning out bigger/faster/more capable cpu's, memory chips, vid & sound cards. Same thing applies for the developers software industry, higher fidelity graphic engines, better & more capable versions of DX, OpenGL, 3d art etc etc.
  
  With this in mind I can't ignore asking the following question:
  
  At what point does a new development cycle become unviable economicaly?
  
  I believe that at some point when any "pay for play" MMOG hits a certain "critical mass" in terms of code size & complexity, the next development cycle is either :
  
  a) too long (in terms of development cycle duration) to recode all the components to a certain industry standard (i.e. by the time they have the next development cycle published it is already semi obsolete and surpassed by the competition).
  -or-
  b) too expensive to contract out or purchased from 3rd partys.
  
  
  I honestly believe that at some point all these companies arrive at a "development dead end"  so to speak. This is especially the case with small shoe string budget companys (like ien & htc) and even more so with economicaly challenged companies (with ien being a classic example).
  
  Take the following study cases:
  
  1. IL2:  These guys released their title two years ago and totally blew us away in many sim aspects (especially graphics, damage model & gunnery model). They did it again in March with the release of Forgotten Battles upping the fidelity standard. The competition is still way behind with no signs of catching up.
  
  How the hell did they do it ?  18 talented Russian folks is what they have on the develpment team.
  
  I can only imagine that the financing of development and the cost of employing in Russia is so much cheaper then in the US or Europe that this is the obvious way to go ....  like hardware manufacturing giants building their components in "low cost per skilled man hour" Malaysia ?
  In any case, it seems to me that their publisher and investor, UBI Soft- an French International company struck a gold mine with them.
  
  2. IeN's Warbirds: a classic example of the "dead end" already being reached. They bought the Winter Wolf graphics engine, but have yet to make any substantial advancements with it. Even the most prudent development phase of transferring the entire wb2.77 planeset to WB3 has not been complete yet. The development team is unqualified academicly, too small, and operate on a shoestring budget due to IeN's financial troubles.
  
  3. HTC's AH: another small yet talented company operating on a shoestring budget (by choice). In Jan 03  they anounced the beginning of the next development cycle to upgrade Aces High to version 2, which is said to include at least a new graphic engine. 5 months have passed, no development updates have been reported, no "sneak peaks", just an anemic one sentance forum message from hitech about how he is "knee deep" in graphic engine code, and to shut up. I think case "b" applies to HTC...  by the time they have AH2 out it will probably be obsolete !
  
  3. WW2OL: these guys have had their own share of problems with their financial backing, but through constant successful update after update, patch after patch have seemed to come out with a stand up product regardless. What boggles me is what will happen when they decide they need to update their graphic engine from the simple wb2.77 textured polygonal graphic engine they have now to something more contemporary ?  with the game world so large, and so many objects it just seems (a) too long -or- (b) too expoensive... another development dead end on the horizon !  no ?  
  
  Your thoughts on the "development dead end"  and its financial viability to these companies ?

[devious]

a) too long (in terms of development cycle duration) to recode all the components to a certain industry standard (i.e. by the time they have the next development cycle published it is already semi obsolete and surpassed by the competition).
-or-
b) too expensive to contract out or purchased from 3rd partys.

Depends on the underlying software structure. If you don`t cut corners, define meaningful and clear interfaces etc., refactoring existant and exchanging old for new code are pretty simple.

HTC has the advantage of knowing his way around his code easily.

With bigger teams, a lax enforcement of software development rules results in a growing mess of code which *noone* can modify before delving deep into the workings of the given code.

When you have a magnitude of change not bearable with the old software, rewriting it from scratch should be easy (as in 10 times faster than building the old software from scratch), because you already know the general workings of the solution.

So, the problems you pointed at are entirely avoidable. Note that even in professional business software developement, they *aren`t avoided generally* !

Now if you reach a point where the incoming money can't bring the new or improved software to produce more money, you loose. You either have to rush an unfinished product, or fold up the project.

So for the cases you mentioned:

IL2/Maddog: They`ve got a well coordinated team, and probably adhere much to good software design guidelines. Also, qualified Manpower is very much cheaper in Russia than in the US/Euroland

WB: A show of particularly bad software design. Lots of developers, where the left hand doesn`t know what the right one is doing. Look at all the inconsistencies in their FM....

HTC: At the given time, getting more manpower is futile, because the candidates would have to learn the workings of the old software (taking
*away* from HT's already sparse time) before they could be productive.

OT: Let HiTech hack away and wait. There's nothing more annoying to a programmer than guys asking "when is it done" while he's got his mind a few thousand lines of code up a problem. Even answering such a question usually costs me my concentration for 10 minutes or so before on the problem at hand again.

[straffo]

Criticall mass

creeping featurism

[Zanth]

Aces High II was promised "3rd Quarter" they are yet 3 months short of exceeding that time.  Perhaps a bit impolite to come into hitech's house and begin the whining already.

P.S. ( I define the term MMOG to mean Massively Multiplayer Online Game.  IL2 is still a 32 player maximum game, right?  Apples and Oranges. )

[T0J0]

Obviously written by a IL2 fanboy who forgot the definition of MMOG. Pure propoganda disguised as a study.. This guy musta worked for the New York Times:P

[Dowding]

Il-2 is not Massively Multiplayer. If you consider it to be so, then so is BF1942. And twice so, since BF1942 cn contain 64 people on a server.

MM means a permanent server capable of supporting hundreds of people, mostly (if not always) made possible by players paying a monthly subscription.

I played Il-2 FB for a week and haven't played it since. It's great eye candy, but I've been spoiled by large scale multiplayer games like AH.

[SlapShot]

I work for a software development group and believe me, "sneak peeks" in software development cause nothing but problems. They set a level of expectation that can be changed in mid-stream during a development cycle. Show them one thing and then deliver something different and the "pissin' and moanin'" is non-stop just for the sake of "pissin' and moanin'".

We got a "sneek peek" at the new hanger ... If HTC decides to change it, the post will come in saying ... "why did you change it? ... it looked great to me ... what you delivered sucks ... blah blah blah".

This post is nothing but a thinly veiled whine. Its gonna cost another what ? .... $45.00 to see what HTC delivers in the 3rd quarter ...

[oboe]

I take ViFF at his word and don't think of this as a whine.  He did take HTC's "shut up" out of context - HiTech was making a joke as a response to an earlier post.    It's not the way ViFF painted it.

One thing he didn't mention was sims which are increasingly using community volunteers as a way around the tremendous amount of work in keeping a game updated.  WarBirds I think has finally done this with its Player Development Corps, but for me its too little to late.   WB has pretty much dropped off my radar.

Targetware titles are interesting developments, licensing the engine and providing servers, but letting the community do everything else.   Without having reached even an open beta, the jury is still out on how well it'll work.   I like it in concept, but they seem to be having timeline problems just like anyone else.   At least it doesn't put them under financial pressure to release a product to early, as WWIIOL and WBIII did.

However AH2 turns out, I know I would've preferred much more information from HTC along the way.    For me, AH2 is too far away to worry about.

[ramzey]

did HTC disappointment players any time? i not saw that
patience grasshoopers;)
for whine we have enough time after HTC relase AH2;)

ramzey

[ViFF]

This was not a whine its just a thought I wanted to share with people on this board.

The reason I brought up IL-2 was for the high standards it set in some of its components, that no one can argue have passed all of mmog sims at this time. they essentially have raised the bar and set the standard  thats all !

Like many of you, I am a hardcore sim nut and fly all of them, but most of my time is spent right here in Aces High. I would love to see HTC surpass the bar and raise it even higher  I would love to see what he's doing, and I don't think it should be kept such a big secret.  But I am also patient so no problem there.

All you guys who think this is a whine: chill out, I just want to see what your ideas on the subject is

ok ?

[ra]

The reason I brought up IL-2 was for the high standards it set in some of its components, that no one can argue have passed all of mmog sims at this time. they essentially have raised the bar and set the standard thats all !

Il2/FB is miles ahead in graphics and sound, but they are miles behind as an mmog.   It doesn't compete 100% with AH.  There is a lot of overlap, but one cannot replace the other.   That is why so many people play both.

ra

[SlapShot]

ViFF ...

Sorry ... thats was my interpretation from reading your original post. My apologies.

I'll say this again ... letting the proverbial "cat out of the bag" during a development cycle can set levels of expectation, and if what is delivered differs from what that expectation was, it can only cause problems ... believe me ... I live with this everyday.

If we, the AH community, were part of the requirements team for the development of AH: TOD, then we would probably get some sneek peeks, but .... we aren't.

The AH community has proven itself to be quite sharp when given the opportunity to comment. It would not be something that I would want to hear or deal with during a serious development cycle. After development ... fine ... no problem.

oboe ...

If I were HT, there is NO WAY that my source code would leave the walls of the HTC complex. What you and I don't know it is the fact that he may have some very top secret algorythms that are only employed within the  AH product, and if these were to hit the street, he could very well be shooting himself in the foot. I don't know HT personally, but from forming my own opinion, after reading many post from him and stories of the past, he won't be taking that chance anytime soon.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I fail to believe that this genre will go thru any type of transforamtion within the next 3 months that would make AH: TOD obsolete or make it fall so far behind its competitors that AH would be in trouble.

All I have seen from these other sims is fluff and eye candy. WHERE'S THE BEEF?

Have these other games developed a server that can handle over 500 people flying simultaneously ? ... ok ... 100 people ? No hands ... didn't think so.

[Charon]

ViFF, I think your points are more valid for single player, or FPS style/console style games that rely more on action and pushing the graphical bar up a notch. For example, I can't wait for Doom 3 but I have seen no real need to play IL2 (or any other non MMOG flight sim) even though the graphics are impressive.

I played air warrior for 8 years when the competition was years ahead in graphics. The "periscope warrior" era didn't even provide a full screen view. However, because of the MMOG nature that is to be expected to some extent and any MMOG will never be up to the latest single player type game.

As long as I have confidence that the AH flight/physics models are about as good as you can get using conventional methods (I couldn't say if IL2 is better or worse, but I give Pyro the benefit of the doubt) and they keep the graphics fairly updated and keep adding a few planes now and then I'm happy. Nor do I think there will be a lot competition to choose from given the niche nature of a sim like this (both a MMOG and a realistic fighter combat simulation). What drove me out of AW is what I hope isn't happening here, a game play change to the "big pork."

Charon

[mia389]

I look at it this way. I own them both and what do I play most. ACES HIGH everyday
FB once a month

Yes FB has nice graphics but I pay 50 a month for cable Im gonna use it. Multiplayer is 15times better than ai traffic. Im looking forward to AH2 I think it will be alot alike AH1 but with better graphics, thats all Im expecting anyway. I think alot of guys are going alittle overboard with AH2 and setting there expectations way high. Give me better graphics and damage model Ill be hapy. And oh ya new terrains too :-)

[Flyboy]

Viff you gotta stop smoking that toejam dude
really its gone too far:eek: