Preacher
18-02-2009, 01:35 PM
Guys, interested in your thoughts re: ACE change control. It's obvious from the last couple of releases that we can expect frequent updates for some time to come, although I expect that the number of changes in each release will gradually reduce and plateau out over time as it matures. It's also painfully obvious that the changes are not without bugs. So the question is: when and how often do we update?
The challenge is that different people have different tolerances for problems and I need to satisfy as many people as possible. Some players just want action and aren't too concerned with new features - they just want stuff to work all of the time, every time. Others (like me) love the new features that every ACE release gives us and are more tolerant of any associated issues. Some of us can happily spend hours just shooting off different guns into the air to see what they can do. I mean, how cool are thermobaric rocket launchers!! ;)
I've already posted that I'm proposing that all upgrades happen on a weekend to give people more time (Sunday night maybe?), rather than having to download 500MB on a Wednesday night 10 minutes before the game. The only exception is when we have major bugs (eg crash bugs) such as v1.02.
The other question is how do we decide what version to run? Some ideas:
We forge ahead with each new release and hope that the developers fix any bugs quickly.
We adopt a strict "version n minus 0.01" policy where we can read the release notes of the release "n" to see if any bugs are addressed from "n-0.01". If not, we upgrade to "n-0.01".This will guarantee the most stable upgrade approach at the expense of new features.
Open up a poll thread for a fixed period of time (eg 2 or 3 days). This will allow people to review the changelog and see if the new features outweigh the risk of potential new bugs. This is my preference.
Thoughts?
The challenge is that different people have different tolerances for problems and I need to satisfy as many people as possible. Some players just want action and aren't too concerned with new features - they just want stuff to work all of the time, every time. Others (like me) love the new features that every ACE release gives us and are more tolerant of any associated issues. Some of us can happily spend hours just shooting off different guns into the air to see what they can do. I mean, how cool are thermobaric rocket launchers!! ;)
I've already posted that I'm proposing that all upgrades happen on a weekend to give people more time (Sunday night maybe?), rather than having to download 500MB on a Wednesday night 10 minutes before the game. The only exception is when we have major bugs (eg crash bugs) such as v1.02.
The other question is how do we decide what version to run? Some ideas:
We forge ahead with each new release and hope that the developers fix any bugs quickly.
We adopt a strict "version n minus 0.01" policy where we can read the release notes of the release "n" to see if any bugs are addressed from "n-0.01". If not, we upgrade to "n-0.01".This will guarantee the most stable upgrade approach at the expense of new features.
Open up a poll thread for a fixed period of time (eg 2 or 3 days). This will allow people to review the changelog and see if the new features outweigh the risk of potential new bugs. This is my preference.
Thoughts?