{"id":3619,"date":"2015-01-21T23:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vectorstorm.org\/?p=3619"},"modified":"2015-01-21T23:00:07","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T13:00:07","slug":"update-roadmap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vectorstorm.com.au\/2015\/01\/21\/update-roadmap\/","title":{"rendered":"An update on the roadmap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Win32Update\"<\/a>So, now that Milestone 8 is out the door, it’s time to talk about the future again.<\/p>\n

But first, the past.\u00a0 Here is the blog post<\/a> I made immediately after Milestone 3, one year ago today.\u00a0 (image is the broken rendering from the original Milestone 1 Win32 build, in June of 2010)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Initially, there was MMORPG Tycoon.\u00a0 I wrote the original version of the game for the TIGSource Procedural Generation competition, back on the 2nd of June, 2008 (it didn’t win, but did respectably in the voting, despite being a thoroughly broken game at the time.\u00a0 I think maybe it got sympathy votes for chutzpah).\u00a0 After playing around with that codebase for a while and toying with the idea of making a version 1.1, or working on an entirely different game next, I eventually came around to the plan of making a proper 2.0 edition.\u00a0 Milestone 1 (which I was calling a “technology demo” at the time) was released on June 24th, 2010, about two years after the initial game was released.\u00a0 Milestone 2 was released just over two years later than milestone 1.\u00a0 And milestone 3 was a year and a half after that.<\/p>\n

But here’s where things get interesting (and start to really speed up).\u00a0 Milestone 3 was a test I set myself.\u00a0 I’d been thinking for years about going full-time on MMORPG Tycoon 2, instead of continuing to treat it as a side, hobby project.\u00a0 And so at the end of 2013, I set myself a challenge;\u00a0 I took a full month off of work, and spent it working on MMORPG Tycoon 2, as if I was going indie.\u00a0 I worked in an office, every day, doing 9-5 hours.\u00a0 I wanted to reach a new milestone-worthy build within that month, and see whether I could stomach working on the game so intensely and continuously, where for the past five years it had been something I’d spent only an hour or two on per week.\u00a0 The experiment worked out surprisingly well.\u00a0 Well enough to convince me to take the plunge, and as a result I quit my day job and started doing it for real.<\/p>\n

Or rather, I gave notice that I was planning to do so.\u00a0 In practice, I didn’t actually leave my then-current job until May (because they made puppy-dog eyes at me, and I’m a sucker for that).\u00a0 But once I was out, the milestones started coming out a lot faster;<\/p>\n

The “RenderTech” build was released within days after I left my day job.\u00a0 Milestone 4 was a month after that.\u00a0 Milestone 5 was 3 weeks later.\u00a0 Milestone 6 (containing the complete AI rewrite) was 3 months later.\u00a0 Milestone 7 was 6 weeks later, and milestone 8 was 5 weeks after that.\u00a0\u00a0 Things have definitely sped up a lot<\/em> since May, but I was a little surprised to see just how much!<\/p>\n

But let’s look at how I did, compared against my initial plans:<\/p>\n

I planned<\/strong> that by the end of 2014, I would have produced three more milestone builds (MS4, 5, and 6).\u00a0 I actually<\/strong> produced four milestone builds (MS 4, 5, 6, and 7), plus a rendering technology test build (the “RenderTech” build).<\/p>\n

I\u00a0<\/strong>planned<\/strong> that MS4 would be about cities and subscriber progression.\u00a0 Milestone 4 was actually<\/strong> about the new road system I’d implemented.\u00a0 Subscriber progression didn’t make it in until milestone 7, and was really the main new feature in that build.\u00a0 The city-placement system I had envisioned still hasn’t been released (and is currently being redesigned for creation as part of MS9).<\/p>\n

I planned<\/strong> that MS5 would be about “meta-game” elements;\u00a0 game elements outside the main MMO simulation engine.\u00a0 Specifically, this was scenarios, tutorials, VIP demands, etc.\u00a0 Milestone 5 was actually<\/strong> about quest editing;\u00a0 something I’d forgotten to include anywhere in those early plans.\u00a0 Tutorials (or at least, the first signs of them) finally showed up MS8, and the same system powering them should also work for Scenarios (although no scenarios have\u00a0 yet been seen in a public build).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Quests and VIP demands are tentatively on the list for either MS10 or MS11.<\/p>\n

I planned<\/strong> that MS6 would be the alpha build, and would mostly contain polish, along with more game-like UI elements.\u00a0 Milestone 6 was actually<\/strong> about the new, more flexible AI system, which I talked about earlier.\u00a0 The “more game-like UI elements” have come in in the recently-released MS8 build.<\/p>\n

Looking back over what was planned and what actually happened, I have a few notes:<\/p>\n

First, I’m kind of startled at how many builds there’ve been, and how close together they’ve been.\u00a0 I actually don’t remember having made six builds during 2014 (particularly since I spent almost half the year with a full-time job).\u00a0 After leaving that job, I was typically getting out a milestone build about once a month (exception:\u00a0 milestone 6, which took longer because it contained a lot<\/em> of changes, as well as distractions around setting up a company, and some contract work that came up).\u00a0 I’m actually pretty pleased with what’s been done in the time.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I didn’t actually reach an alpha build within 2014.\u00a0 And I’m probably still about three months away from one.\u00a0 I’m still doing a few days of contract work per week, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing me down much, and it mostly pays the bills.<\/p>\n

One thing I do want to do is continue to produce shorter<\/em> milestones.\u00a0 I don’t want another three month gap between milestones, like the one between July and October (between milestones 5 and 6).\u00a0 So I’m trying to define milestones more narrowly.\u00a0 Ideally, I’d really like to have a new milestone build every two to three weeks.<\/p>\n

So with that in mind, I’ve been roughly arranging three milestones.\u00a0 I’m not precisely sure what order they come in yet, but here’s what I’m thinking about:<\/p>\n