The most important suggestion this game will ever get.

[Lz3]

The problem that creates all problems is this: We only have two developers and 2 graphical designers. The game progress is unbearably slow (see the time we've had before release) and features cannot be updated quickly. New PvE content and new features take too long. I know another developer will be pricey and cut into profits. But to make money you need to spend money. Or even better, hire an experienced person that has worked with MMOs for a long while and knows what he is doing and how to perfect a game. This all comes down to if the current devs believe in this game and want to spend the money to potentially make this game large. Because right now you started another game as well. I cannot imagine how this will ever work with anything less than 10 devs.

[TheHaney]

Well, apparently they have 2 devs and 2 artists working on it.

But they can't afford more.

But they're working on two other games with two other teams. That they're presumably paying.

 

I doubt there's anything actually shifty going on since the Ultimate General series seems feature-complete and the games in development seem to have passion behind them, but I definitely question the workforce allocation. In the companies I've worked with, if a project is starting to slow down or founder or generally lose steam (like in the case of Naval Action), you either allocate more resources to it or you start focusing elsewhere and let it die out. With NAL and This Land is My Land in development now, I'd say they're taking the latter stance.

[jodgi]

Oh, you guys... <tired exhale>

[Captain Jean-Luc Picard]

From experience can say that "recruit more people, you need to spend money to make money" is... not.. the most important suggestion, nor the most original one, someone will hear...at all...marketing excepted.

 

 

 

[Hodo]

Something I learned a long time ago from a friend who was a developer at EPIC Studios USA.   Hiring more programmers actually slows down the development.   You need to bring these new programmers up to speed on your current database and how it is coded.   It can take days if not weeks for a good programmer to come up to speed on how your system is setup.   Which ultimately costs you man hours to do work until he/she is able to do it on their own.  

At this stage let them work.   Things will get done or they wont.

[Captain Jean-Luc Picard]

More so, not every programmer is able to train someone ( and even then not always fast enough ). And at that time you may have literally nobody able to do the job since the only person who knows how to do it properly is busy. Especially if you have a very custom homemade system, like, say, a game, instead of some standard system. And if we're talking programming, the new guy will probably still be asking questions about why the heck is this weird line of ugly code in this weird place a couple years later, and the only person who will be able to answer that will be someone who has worked here from the start. But hey, who cares, just spend more money to make more money right? preferably throw it a someone who is both skilled an experienced enough ( easy to find, especially in IT and video games.)

Fun story, I once had this great case where the new extra experienced hands and more money thrown at them managed to mess a project enough to actually kill it instead of speeding it up.

I know it's always well intended of course, but more people and more money is not always the answer, and even when it is it may not the best one.

There has been great games made by less with less, in part because the team was small. Sometimes 1 or two people small. You don't need to imagine anything, you can just compare to other games.

[vazco]

On 30/11/2017 at 5:14 PM, TheHaney said:

you either allocate more resources to it or you start focusing elsewhere and let it die out. With NAL and This Land is My Land in development now, I'd say they're taking the latter stance.

I believe so as well. NA is right now valuable only due to testing grounds it gives, and due to sales that it can generate once localized. To make it relevant in a long term, it would have to be monetized better - continuously, not only on sale. I've made a post about it here:

 

[LLLocal]

can the Mod crowd have a go at it?