First, I want to say thanks! The recent patch has a plethora of good changes. Balance, fixes, a fantastic winter mod (<3 it, I’d like to see the main menu theme as a mod as well!).
To the topic, I strongly prefer to see many tiny releases instead of a huge one. I imagine there’s restrictions I don’t know about, but there are a lot of benefits to more small updates. Frequent updates will keep players happy as bugs are fixed faster and players are more aware of work being done. Community management plus a better game faster at the cost of more releases.
Also, it’s easier to do a rollback in the update. The last patch for aoe (december’s update) messed a lot of games (low fps, crashing, etc). If they released small parts before, the problem could be easier to isolate and fix. But when you change 500mb worth of game files…
Quality assurance could be a delayer, tho. Devs gotta test before sending stuff online, and i understand that it takes less time to test a massive update than a lot of small ones.
There are some good ideas on this discussion, but I can’t help but ask: how fast do you want? I know that the launch and all its issues were troubled, but they took only a month to deliver a huge update. Four weeks.
I can’t grant for sure, since I’m not involved with the development of the game, but let’s wonder about it togheter on what is the process of addressing a demand, like a bug correction.
Search out what is the bug and a way to reproduce it. Generally achieved through player reports.
Fix the bug. This can vary in difficulty, but it’s safe to say that bigger issues demand bigger efforts on solution.
Playtest the fix. This will often loop back to the previous step, and also need to search for things such new precedents for bugs.
This can be a lot of work. And among those there are things like planning priority decisions, parallel works, issues that demand multiple skills (coding + sound design, e.g.), investment on new content and many others.
Taking that in account, I find a montlhy update rate pretty fine, to be honest.
Also, having updates coming in smaller chunks and faster rates could be very counterproductive, since the game is developed by a few studios, instead of a single one, and they need to coordenate their works — that alone is some work. And the process that I confabulated above can become messier and more stressfull too, since each step would run on a shorter deadline to be delivered.
Actually finding the problem, fixing it and testing it has to happen no matter what, your release cycle is independent from that. The extra cost comes from performing additional releases.
For my work, we release every commit, but I also work on services, not software like this. Naturally every commit is unreasonable, but my preference would be features are released. Fixed an achievement? Send it. Increase Cuman TC build time? Send it. Winter mod? Send it!
Again, that may be unreasonable, but something like weekly I’d be happier with.
Multiple studios is an interesting point though, something I hadn’t considered. Coordination is always time consuming. If it keeps up a monthly pace, I’d be happy enough I think.
I would also like to point out, I doubt this patch was four weeks of work. The patch was four weeks from the release date, but the initial release version was probably ready well ahead of time. I’d expect future monthly patches to be smaller in general.
If you were around here during beta tests you would know for sure that this is not correct. Devs were running hard against launch deadline. That’s why the launch have been so troubled, and the hottest topic on beta forums was a supplication to delay the launch.
Not a problem if the game gets well polished and future issues aren’t as big as they are right now, honestly.
But to stay on the discussion, the hotfix announcement have some sayings that can collaborate to our conversation on the perspective of those who develop the game. I quote:
Crashes, disconnects, and bugs are frustrating—both as players and as developers of the game. It’s impossible to anticipate every problem, which is why we will continue working with you to gather information, gain an understanding the issue, and hopefully find a solution that gets you online and playing. Sadly, these issues don’t always come with a simple fix, which is why we ask that you gather and include as much information as possible whenever you report a problem!
Finding a fix can also take time, and we appreciate your patience as we work to investigate, test, and implement new improvements during the early months of the game! We’re already working on a new, major content update aimed for later this month, and will continue to monitor your discussions as you have time to play with today’s build!
Updates are <3, absolutely! I’m not questioning the amount of time it takes to actually fix a bug, I get it takes time. The topic was moreso about the time between fixing a bug internally and releasing it to the public. Today’s hotfix included 4 pretty major points (crash fixes, performance, walking over foundations) which could (probably, at least) have been released piecemeal. As a player, I’d like to see major fixes like that as soon as possible instead of waiting potentially weeks.
As it was pointed out earlier in the thread, there are many ways the release cycle can be slowed down. If the current pace keeps up, 1 month between patches and the occasional hotfix, that’s probably enough to keep people informed with a reasonable wait time for fixes. That said, more is better!