Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

NoNK · 2019-10-31 18:54:31

This isn't a drama thread, I don't keep up with smiley game gossip.

The other day, I logged into everybody edits (something I don't do very often), and I started hopping and jumping around in one of my half finished/abandoned worlds, and I started to get those good old "hey, that would probably make a cool minigame" vibes. Immediately following this, my thought was "I can't make a level, EEU soon.". But then I did some high level introspection and realized I've been having the thought "I can't make a level, EEU soon" for at least 6 months now. I could have made a level. Maybe two.

What's up with that, eh?

"Early 2019" was a huge mistake for the game because
1. It wasn't strong enough to actually generate any excitement for EEU (once you remove outliers like peace)
2. It was strong enough to dissuade medium to long term playing of everybody edits because EEU might be soon.

I could have made a level! Maybe I could have gotten my anime club level to 2/3rds done instead of 1/3rd done! I am mildly angry on the internet.

mutantdevle, Joeyjoey65, Raphe9000, Charlie59876EE, rat, Onjit, 2b55b5g, Norwee, Falk, Slabdrill

den3107 · 2019-11-01 03:27:40

While I do mostly agree with what you posted above, I think this wasn't the only issue (even ignoring the fact that early 2019 was an overestimation).

I think it's also a part where the community overestimated EEU's "release".
They expected everybody to come in in one big wave (instant community transition).
It almost seemed as if everybody expected it to be an actual release, instead of the advertised beta (meaning (nearly) all current EE content would be in there).

If people hadn't made these assumptions (not going to discuss if this was an error in communication in staff, error in our expectations or a mixture), they would've known that EEU would be a beta. Mostly intended for trying out the game and see the development unfold, not to make a full transition per-se.
Keeping that in mind, people would've known there was an even greater "waiting period" before EEU would be truly EEU, whether or not the open beta was released in early 2019.

And that were my 5 cents, than I tend to sprinkle around now and then before going into a week-long hibernation again.

Falk, BEE

rat · 2019-11-01 03:32:01

we were also kind of expecting a lot more to already be in the game when we got invited

obviously it's understandable to only release it once it's ready. howver, there was so much hype for it, but it just turned out to be an ee clone with edit zones

Processor, mutantdevle, 2b55b5g, Norwee, Falk, Charlie59876EE, Raphe9000, Joeyjoey65, Slabdrill

Kkay · 2019-11-01 04:07:36

Why are you talking about EEU on a mafia forum???

Raphe9000, Slabdrill

Onjit · 2019-11-01 07:26:02

Snagsanga Quest could have been in a lobby near you much sooner if Xenone-**** didn't steal my sausages

mutantdevle, 2b55b5g, mrjawapa

mutantdevle · 2019-11-01 10:51:44

eleizibeth wrote:

we were also kind of expecting a lot more to already be in the game when we got invited
obviously it's understandable to only release it once it's ready. howver, there was so much hype for it, but it just turned out to be an ee clone with edit zones

I think the disappointment around that isn’t necessarily that we were expecting a closed beta to have tons of content, but rather, the fact that they’ve been working on it for so long makes it hard to believe that this is all they have to show for it.

Grilyon2, Norwee, rat, Charlie59876EE, Pqwerty, mrjawapa, Raphe9000, Joeyjoey65, coinage, Slabdrill

Norwee · 2019-11-01 12:52:42

mutantdevle wrote:

eleizibeth wrote:
we were also kind of expecting a lot more to already be in the game when we got invited
obviously it's understandable to only release it once it's ready. howver, there was so much hype for it, but it just turned out to be an ee clone with edit zones
I think the disappointment around that isn’t necessarily that we were expecting a closed beta to have tons of content, but rather, the fact that they’ve been working on it for so long makes it hard to believe that this is all they have to show for it.

Wow i'm not the only one that thought this? How long Benjamisen take to design EE? Probably just like 1-2 months at most. Yet now after like 3 years of promises we get a EE clone with slightly altered physics. It reminds me of those EE client mods that people made in their free time, which were interesting but never really managed to capture the magic of early days EE.

rat, Charlie59876EE

LukeM · 2019-11-01 15:06:49

Just going to respond to this bit ^

The reason it's been taking longer is that we've been making sure that we design things in a way that is sustainable, it's a lot faster to build something when you don't care what happens with it (EE was originally just supposed to be a quick and easy proof of concept for Benjaminsen's main project PlayerIO). EEU is supposed to, among other things, be a chance to start from scratch and make the correct design decisions from the start so that it doesn't end up as a mess like EE has, this just takes a bit longer than throwing something together without planning for the future.

I get that a lot of this work isn't obvious to the general player yet, so it doesn't look like we've been making much progress, but that's a price we decided early on that we were willing to pay for hopefully a better outcome in the long run.

N1KF, Raphe9000, den3107

den3107 · 2019-11-01 15:47:19

Perhaps an extension to what LukeM said above, not sure if this is true (LukeM could confirm this I guess)

Benjaminsen also had a lot more time he could put into the original EE, whilst I'm fairly certain the devs of EEU had EEU, potentially other personal projects, study, work.
While it might've taken a long time, we don't really know how much FTE was actually put into the development (and they really don't have or had any obligation to share that information).

LukeM, Muftwin

Kira · 2019-11-01 15:53:51

I got that feeling too. I honestly didn’t even opt-in the closed beta because I knew and expected what was going to be in it. I’d much rather
wait for the completed product than playing an “ee clone” and get bored of it.

Another fair point, I’m getting too old to play EE now, my mind has moved on to better games because let’s face it, the reason everyone stuck around for so long is because of the community, not because of the game itself.

But hey, be my guest and surprise me with EEU! That’s all I wish for.

Joeyjoey65

mutantdevle · 2019-11-01 15:57:39

I'm aware that almost all of the time that's been spent working on the game has been the planning of it. But naturally, since we can't see planning as a physical thing players are naturally going to be frustrated/disappointed by the current state of development. The things you've told us about what you plan to add to the game does get me genuinely excited, especially when thinking about how the different features can synergise, and I can only hope that the promises live up to expectation and the amount of time y'all have seemingly spent planning pays off in the end.

LukeM

Tomahawk · 2019-11-01 16:03:22

It's worth pointing out that EEU's dev(s) are working only part time, and for a fraction of the pay of a real developer.

LukeM, mutantdevle, N1KF

LukeM · 2019-11-01 16:05:33

den3107 wrote:

Perhaps an extension to what LukeM said above, not sure if this is true (LukeM could confirm this I guess)
Benjaminsen also had a lot more time he could put into the original EE, whilst I'm fairly certain the devs of EEU had EEU, potentially other personal projects, study, work.
While it might've taken a long time, we don't really know how much FTE was actually put into the development (and they really don't have or had any obligation to share that information).

Pretty sure PlayerIO was Benjaminsen's full time job at the time, yes, and EE was basically just an extension of that, but don't quote me on that as I might be mistaken.

Right now EEU isn't really any of our full time jobs, it's more of a hobby with a potential job if you want it at the end I guess. I'm a full time student at University, Josh is a self employed game developer but he has several other projects than EEU, and I think similar things are the case for the graphics and music teams (and for pretty much everyone else when they transition to working on EEU), Xeno is probably the closest to working full time on it, but it's not really making enough money to be a full time job, so he earns most of his living from other things on the side.

So I guess tl;dr: don't expect it to be developed as fast as games with a budget for a full team of developers or whatever, but we are trying to make sure that what we do produce is as high quality as possible, it'll just take time.

Blackmask

peace · 2019-11-01 16:09:17

joshua aka byte alos is developing games on kong lukem idk what he does for wokr prettysure something related to coding as hes a really good dev xeno lives wiht some toehr poeple in a house and therefore isnt home aloen much wiht free time cercul1 is workign on EEO but his arm is i guess ytill broken and i think thats all dves we have + the ccode benjaminsen made was an quick easy way to let thigns work wiht nede dup being messy

NoNK · 2019-11-01 22:02:20

I don't really care about what EEU is or isn't, I think it just straight up shouldn't have been announced the way it was.

Processor · 2019-11-02 02:17:11

LukeM wrote:

The reason it's been taking longer is that we've been making sure that we design things in a way that is sustainable, [...]. EEU is supposed to, among other things, be a chance to start from scratch and make the correct design decisions from the start [...].

I wish what you say was true...

▼Hidden text

I feel so removed from the community when playing EEU due to the way the menus obstruct my screen if I keep them open.
Is this really the best you could do?

Phinarose, rat, Luka504, Slabdrill, Joeyjoey65, coinage

LukeM · 2019-11-02 02:58:30

Processor wrote:

LukeM wrote:
The reason it's been taking longer is that we've been making sure that we design things in a way that is sustainable, [...]. EEU is supposed to, among other things, be a chance to start from scratch and make the correct design decisions from the start [...].
I wish what you say was true...

▼Hidden text
https://i.imgur.com/kUTlthd.png?1
I feel so removed from the community when playing EEU due to the way the menus obstruct my screen if I keep them open.
Is this really the best you could do?

I meant more the sorts of things that aren't easily changed later on, but yes, we are currently in the process of working on a better layout for things like chat and the user list, that was just a first concept for how we might decide to lay things out so that we could try it out and see what it feels like, that's what the beta is for after all.

Atikyne, N1KF

Processor · 2019-11-02 07:11:43

LukeM wrote:

I meant more the sorts of things that aren't easily changed later on

Like what?

Kira · 2019-11-02 08:11:48

>This is bad
-Good news! We are planning to change it.
>This part is really bad
-You’re in luck! We are changing that in the future
>I think this is badly designed
-Worry not, we are planning to change all of it!
>I’m talking about the game, It’s trash
-Of course but hey! It’s just the start of a great premise

Charlie59876EE, Zumza

peace · 2019-11-02 10:55:54

LukeM wrote:

Processor wrote:
LukeM wrote:
The reason it's been taking longer is that we've been making sure that we design things in a way that is sustainable, [...]. EEU is supposed to, among other things, be a chance to start from scratch and make the correct design decisions from the start [...].
I wish what you say was true...

▼Hidden text
https://i.imgur.com/kUTlthd.png?1
I feel so removed from the community when playing EEU due to the way the menus obstruct my screen if I keep them open.
Is this really the best you could do?
I meant more the sorts of things that aren't easily changed later on, but yes, we are currently in the process of working on a better layout for things like chat and the user list, that was just a first concept for how we might decide to lay things out so that we could try it out and see what it feels like, that's what the beta is for after all.

imo i liekd the older useerlist always open at the right side of the game chat was good place tthere but if you have na other really cool place for it im open for it i alos hate needing to click the menu to ope the userlist and the go tolobby button

LukeM · 2019-11-02 16:52:56

Processor wrote:

LukeM wrote:
I meant more the sorts of things that aren't easily changed later on
Like what?

The core physics engine, the ways we handle state, how we handle varying framerates, those sorts of things.
I guess things like the graphics and UI systems too, but we're still in the process of designing those systems so they're not final yet.

XxAtillaxX · 2019-11-02 20:43:23

Woah. It's almost as if doing game development through charity-driven funding with part-time amateur developers is a really bad way of creating a game and has unrealistic deadlines!
Who could've possibly have predicted that these sort of pursuits are impractical? Who could have possibly come to the conclusion that no company creates games this way for a reason?

I think we should all sit back and relax. I think it should only take a few more early 2019s until the game is in a state where it doesn't look like a Chinese rip-off of a smiley face game made in 2010.

Grilyon2, Zumza, Onjit, Shockfield, Norwee, Muftwin, coinage, skullz17

peace · 2019-11-02 21:35:00

go create a game when you have a full time job and make sure ti has no bug and is easy to update wiht new ontent esp action blocks and doesnt en dup wiht messy **** code lik eEE did alos make sure that your devs live all aroudn the world and make sure that you the owner doesnt live home aolone but more in some sort f students house

NoNK · 2019-11-02 21:49:28

peace wrote:

go create a game when you have a full time job and make sure ti has no bug and is easy to update wiht new ontent esp action blocks and doesnt en dup wiht messy **** code lik eEE did alos make sure that your devs live all aroudn the world and make sure that you the owner doesnt live home aolone but more in some sort f students house

Who cares?

I play games if they're fun, not out of pity.

Gosha, Onjit

den3107 · 2019-11-03 14:39:09

Kira wrote:

>This is bad
-Good news! We are planning to change it.
>This part is really bad
-You’re in luck! We are changing that in the future
>I think this is badly designed
-Worry not, we are planning to change all of it!
>I’m talking about the game, It’s trash
-Of course but hey! It’s just the start of a great premise

There's a method called Agile (Scrum specifically, since I don't know if all Agile methods follow the following concept).
The point of Scrum is to release products ASAP. It might be that some things don't 100% work as intended (such as the UI for chats), but at least it's there. Once it's released, and only then, can it be reviewed by the client (which in this case would kinda be us).
We can then say: Oh yeah, chat works fine, font is readable, I don't need any additional chat features (such as markdown (bold, italics, etc)), but the UI part of it sucks.

Good, they put it on their backlog of stuff to do (or it's perhaps already there).
Most important thing to note here: They don't know 100% yet what UI items they will create (the whole point of an Agile vs waterfall method). While they have a rough idea (player list, chat, minimap, bottom bar, message popup at top), it might turn out they want to add additional stuff. A random example for this would be a crew window (ignoring the fact that crews as we know them won't be there, but just for the sake of argument).

It's just not worth it to already flesh out the whole design of the crew stuff too, since it'd be something they would have to worry about much later. If they wanted the current UI to be (somewhat) final, they would have to flesh out EVERY UI element they might want to add before V1.0, including what information that feature would contain and what would be displayed how.
If you take that development method (waterfall), you generally work on a project (full-time) for one or two years, before suddenly releasing a (pretty much) completed game, making it much harder to receive and process feedback since you're already in such a late state.

And that was the elusive den3107, striking yet again with another 5 cents.

Kira, Onjit, mutantdevle, LukeM

Official Everybody Edits Forums

#1 2019-10-31 18:54:31

Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#2 2019-11-01 03:27:40

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#3 2019-11-01 03:32:01

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#4 2019-11-01 04:07:36

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#5 2019-11-01 07:26:02, last edited by Tomahawk (2019-11-01 09:10:09)

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#6 2019-11-01 10:51:44

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#7 2019-11-01 12:52:42

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#8 2019-11-01 15:06:49, last edited by LukeM (2019-11-01 15:08:23)

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#9 2019-11-01 15:47:19

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#10 2019-11-01 15:53:51, last edited by Kira (2019-11-01 15:54:42)

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#11 2019-11-01 15:57:39

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#12 2019-11-01 16:03:22

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#13 2019-11-01 16:05:33, last edited by LukeM (2019-11-01 16:09:22)

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#14 2019-11-01 16:09:17

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#15 2019-11-01 22:02:20

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#16 2019-11-02 02:17:11, last edited by Processor (2019-11-02 02:17:45)

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#17 2019-11-02 02:58:30

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#18 2019-11-02 07:11:43

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#19 2019-11-02 08:11:48

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#20 2019-11-02 10:55:54

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#21 2019-11-02 16:52:56

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#22 2019-11-02 20:43:23, last edited by XxAtillaxX (2019-11-02 20:44:09)

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#23 2019-11-02 21:35:00

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#24 2019-11-02 21:49:28

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

#25 2019-11-03 14:39:09

Re: Mistakes in transitioning EE to EEU

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