Attn Dev's/Kunark

[toyodafenninro]

I love P1999, have had a blast playing here, and wish to continue playing here. What these devs do on a volunteer basis is very cool, and I don't think anyone would seriously dispute that. I used to chuckle at the "20 more mins" replies to the "when's kunark?" posts, and was seriously happy back in October when the issue was addressed by Nilbog.

On 21 October, Nilbog addressed Kunark by writing:

"Is it more than 50% done?" Yes. "Is it coming out next month?" No. "How fast is work proceeding?" Compared to prekunark, work is being completed at a rapid pace. As we near completion, I will be able to provide a better estimate or date.

My question to the devs is the following: could there possibly be more regular updates regarding kunark? I believe kunark is being completed at a rapid pace, as previously stated. Two months have passed since the last update, might the community inquire about another?

Since Nilbog has not provided a "better estimation or date," I must assume the project is "not near completion." Would it be possible to get a loose estimation based on: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th qtr 2011?

[Ralexia]

Kunark isn't going to be out for a while. The beta they put up is far from finished. And thats only about 1/3rd of the zones. They'll probably do another 1 or 2 phases of the beta. My guess is at least 2-3 more months, probably more.

The Dev's probably won't give a date, or quarter, anyway. If they give one then people will just be angry when its not finished by then, or they'll be pressured to release it incomplete. Both are bad situations.

Have fun with classic. Lots of the items and dungeons will become worthless once Kunark comes out, so enjoy them while you still can.

[Glorfinrod]

Become worthless, or become available for the non-ubers?

[nilbog]

I love P1999, have had a blast playing here, and wish to continue playing here. What these devs do on a volunteer basis is very cool, and I don't think anyone would seriously dispute that. I used to chuckle at the "20 more mins" replies to the "when's kunark?" posts, and was seriously happy back in October when the issue was addressed by Nilbog.

On 21 October, Nilbog addressed Kunark by writing:

"Is it more than 50% done?" Yes. "Is it coming out next month?" No. "How fast is work proceeding?" Compared to prekunark, work is being completed at a rapid pace. As we near completion, I will be able to provide a better estimate or date.

My question to the devs is the following: could there possibly be more regular updates regarding kunark? I believe kunark is being completed at a rapid pace, as previously stated. Two months have passed since the last update, might the community inquire about another?

Since Nilbog has not provided a "better estimation or date," I must assume the project is "not near completion." Would it be possible to get a loose estimation based on: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th qtr 2011?

If I paid the developers.. I could give you a date. If I was paid, I could give you an estimate of how long my particular tasks would take. Since no one here works for $, the best estimate I can give you is.. when its done. Some devs have come and gone. Some devs are new. Training them takes time. DDOS attacks take time. Our real lives take time.

When I posted that, if the devs at the time would have continued their tasks at the same rate, then all my statements would still hold true. If a developer decides to resign, or have RL issues, they leave. It's not a job.

My past few weeks, aside from holidays, have been spent training people, fixing the posted Kunark bugs, and polishing up the next zones to be released. When there is a trained team working together, things get accomplished faster.


The beta they put up is far from finished.Are there outstanding issues in the opened beta zones that haven't been addressed? I'll be offended if you do not report them.

There hasn't been a patch in a while. Like a month. I'd expect the beta to be back up soon.

[Agecroft]

I think that's a fair update. Thanks Nilbog!

[President]

Thanks nilbog.

[toyodafenninro]

If I paid the developers.. I could give you a date. If I was paid, I could give you an estimate of how long my particular tasks would take. Since no one here works for $, the best estimate I can give you is.. when its done. Some devs have come and gone. Some devs are new. Training them takes time. DDOS attacks take time. Our real lives take time.

When I posted that, if the devs at the time would have continued their tasks at the same rate, then all my statements would still hold true. If a developer decides to resign, or have RL issues, they leave. It's not a job.

My past few weeks, aside from holidays, have been spent training people, fixing the posted Kunark bugs, and polishing up the next zones to be released. When there is a trained team working together, things get accomplished faster.


Are there outstanding issues in the opened beta zones that haven't been addressed? I'll be offended if you do not report them.

There hasn't been a patch in a while. Like a month. I'd expect the beta to be back up soon.

Thanks for the quick response. Please understand, the following is merely discussion, and I continue with all due respect. Even with unpaid volunteers, and a busy schedule, it should be possible to give a release based on the current situation. You have a general idea of the time it takes to train developers, and a general idea of how many currently work on what areas of the project. You likewise know exactly where the project is, at this current moment, regardless of how many people are working on it. It should be possible, even with the variables you mentioned, to say something along the lines of "From where I'm sitting, assuming there are no further problems, the best case scenario for Kunark would be sometime near X qtr 2011, and further problems might push this date back."

It would at least be an update, a little morsel, for the players who happily have faith in you as project manager...enjoy very much playing "in your sandbox," and truly support project 1999.

Again, thanks for your response. I appreciate the quick professional reply.

[Rangerous]

I would be willing to lend some time and some passing SQL familiarity if needed. I for one would be willing to help to get Kunark out.

[President]

Really Toyoda, really?

[Chanus]

If I paid the developers.. I could give you a date. If I was paid, I could give you an estimate of how long my particular tasks would take. Since no one here works for $, the best estimate I can give you is.. when its done.

What part of this is so difficult to understand?

[toyodafenninro]

Really Toyoda, really?

Really.

[Ihealyou]

If I paid the developers.. I could give you a date. If I was paid, I could give you an estimate of how long my particular tasks would take. Since no one here works for $, the best estimate I can give you is.. when its done. Some devs have come and gone. Some devs are new. Training them takes time. DDOS attacks take time. Our real lives take time.

When I posted that, if the devs at the time would have continued their tasks at the same rate, then all my statements would still hold true. If a developer decides to resign, or have RL issues, they leave. It's not a job.

My past few weeks, aside from holidays, have been spent training people, fixing the posted Kunark bugs, and polishing up the next zones to be released. When there is a trained team working together, things get accomplished faster.


Are there outstanding issues in the opened beta zones that haven't been addressed? I'll be offended if you do not report them.

There hasn't been a patch in a while. Like a month. I'd expect the beta to be back up soon.

So 25 more minutes?

[President]

Really.

With all the spammers, trolls, DDoS'ers, cheaters, etc. You should be thanking him hes even willing to continue. Not bothering him about when Kunark is coming out.

I see you have been a member since July. Many of us have been here since Oct last year. Cry me a river.

[Ravun]

the best estimate I can give you is.. when its done.

I thought his response was quite clear.

[Raylan]

Id just like to point out most of us are thankful for the work that has gone into this whole project. Especially in Pantheon so great to be back! :D

[toyodafenninro]

With all the spammers, trolls, DDoS'ers, cheaters, etc. You should be thanking him hes even willing to continue. Not bothering him about when Kunark is coming out.

I see you have been a member since July. Many of us have been here since Oct last year. Cry me a river.

First of all, I'm not crying. I'm asking legit, straight-forward questions. I am glad you have an opinion of what I should be doing. Understand, though, unless your title is "Project 1999 Developer," your opinion means zero to me. You've been here since October, 2009? Congrats! Again, I do not care. None of your statements are relevant to my questions. Good day.

[TJHooker]

What they had out on Beta was pretty close to ready, so if the rest of the zones are at that point it won't be very long, but if they are not close to the Beta stage... then it could be a while.

[President]

First of all, I'm not crying. I'm asking legit, straight-forward questions. I am glad you have an opinion of what I should be doing. Understand, though, unless your title is "Project 1999 Developer," your opinion means zero to me. You've been here since October, 2009? Congrats! Again, I do not care. None of your statements are relevant to my questions. Good day.

He already answered your question, and your response was basically "bullshit nilbog." That is crying.

[TJHooker]

Since few people were testing Kunark maybe they need to take the regular service down so that people actually help test it... Just a thought.

[Icecometus]

The problem I saw with the first beta was that people didn't get what it was for and started pointlessly leveling up their 50s in the dreadlands instead of making a Iskar and testing the newbie areas.

A BIG xp boost might have helped out a bit.

[Scrooge]

Thanks for the brief update, nilbog.

[knottyb0y]

I would just like to add my two cents to this discussion.

I work for a software development company. I can tell you this much, even with teams of developers working 50+ hours a week its very difficult to accurately set an estimate for release, and more often than not you ARE late. That is just the nature of software estimating. With that said I could only imagine how difficult it would be to make an estimate when you have **VOLUNTEERS** who all probably have a full time job, or class or something else going on in their lives to make any estimate on a project when you probably, at very best get 10-15 hours a week from a single developer. P1999 giving us an Estimate on when Kunark will be released with their current staff would only be setting the community up for disappointment, as I previously said with FULL time devs a project is rarely delivered on time. And we have no idea what kind of QA process the team has (and trust me QA is as important as development time if you want Kunark or any software to be released with ANY form of quality).

Just wait, it does not matter if it takes a week or 10 more months or whatever enjoy the server. If you want to help it come out faster take a systematic approach to testing the kunark server whenever it is up. It is probably hard to comprehend the scope of the task, yeah the creatures are made, and the zones are made, but itemization, quests, making it CLASSIC alone is a huge undertaking, and prone to bugs and errors galore.

Kunark will come out in good time, hopefully not rushed but when it's ready, and we will rejoice!

[Erazmus]

I just discovered this sever. Maybe when I'm level 50 with all my tradeskills maxed I'll join the chant for Kunark. Right now, I'm enjoying Classic!

[SirAlvarex]

I also work for a software development company, and this is the one rule that seems to be consistent:

Building new software takes 20% of the total project time. The rest of the time is spent testing/debugging/polishing.

While P99 Kunark might not technically count as new software, it's pretty close. It seems the developers want to have a clean release, so there will be a lot of testing/fixing going on. It's also the least amount of fun. I *hate* finding out some section of my code breaks, I imagine it'd be worse if I were doing the coding voluntarily.

Considering the state of Classic, I say they're doing a damn good job. They can take all the time they need on Kunark.

[Raylan]

So tonight my brother brought his kids over and my nephew asked me twice a second when the pizza was coming. Just saying I know how you feel guys.

[Dantes]

Take all the time you need. I'm still trying to get to raid-level. ;)

[Rahnza]

When the server came up I started an Iksar monk, spent hours leveling to 3 and was like "oh god my life" and AFKed from beta until the exp rate's significantly increased.

[Randy]

Though I agree that updates about Kunark would be nice, it would probably cause more problems than they're worth. If they said, 1st quarter and it got pushed back.... there'd be idiots bitching up a storm about it. And if they push it out too fast, people will complain its too buggy. You basically can't win with the community so its easier to keep them in the dark, do a good job, and let rumors fly. People came back to this game after 10 years, they'll wait until its done.

Speaking of which, is Duke Nukem Forever out yet?

[Tiggles]

Ban Toyoda

[Pringles]

I'm pretty new to the server, but I just want to take the time to publicly thank the devs, PMs, guides etc etc for all the time they put in here to make this great. To me, p1999 "feels" exactly like Live did back in the day, and I'm loving every minute of it. My only complaint is that I dont have enough time to play as much as I would like :)

From my perspective, I see a few ungratefuls that might possibly cloud the MANY that are very grateful that play here. Please do not let the minority ruin it for the majority and deter your efforts. Keep up the good work.

I work in a thankless job, as an IT professional, and its hard. But always remember that for every one complainer, there is almost always 100x that completely satisfied, but never say anything.

Thanks again for making P1999 rock!

[SirAlvarex]

I'm pretty new to the server, but I just want to take the time to publicly thank the devs, PMs, guides etc etc for all the time they put in here to make this great. To me, p1999 "feels" exactly like Live did back in the day, and I'm loving every minute of it. My only complaint is that I dont have enough time to play as much as I would like :)

From my perspective, I see a few ungratefuls that might possibly cloud the MANY that are very grateful that play here. Please do not let the minority ruin it for the majority and deter your efforts. Keep up the good work.

I work in a thankless job, as an IT professional, and its hard. But always remember that for every one complainer, there is almost always 100x that completely satisfied, but never say anything.

Thanks again for making P1999 rock!

Quoted for emphasis. That really is how it goes. There is what, thousands of accounts for the server and only about a hundred people post on the forums? And only a small percentage of those posters give negative connotation. That means the majority of the people truly love what the devs have done, and have no reason to complain at all.

For a dev, sometimes silence is the greatest compliment of all.

[Teeroyoyort]

Kunark is alive and good to go on other servers, but is it like classic? Is it bug free? Heck no lol. You have basic quests, not so perfect spawns. Alot of things not tweaked for classic. It'll be ready when they feel it's good enough for us. The longer they take, the better Kunark will be for us. Let them do their work. If you really need a kunark fix, log into PEQ and play theirs. If you want a superior old skool Kunark, stfu and wait.

[fastboy21]

first, thanks for all the work you do for free to make a game for us. truly appreciated, and very cool. if we ever have a "fanfaire" for project1999 i owe you all a lot of beer.

my only suggestion would be that once kunark is ready you give the community here a heads up about it before launching it. i would really be weird if on some random day i checked the patch notes and found "Kunark Open Today! Surprise!"...Just like on live (i.e. classic) i think it would help to assign a release date after you have finished the work, and roll it out on a schedule. Maybe a week or two notice would suffice.

Thanks for your work.

[Kaleadar]

Jim - Thank you for the free lunch, I know you did not have to give me it, i know it was a personal gift from you to me. I do have something small to say about it though.

The food was cold, my bread was to toasted, it gave me heart burn, you did not give me chips or a drink, and to top it all off I dont like the place you got it from... BUT I did eat it all. Next time please bring the silver spoon

[corradojeff]

Sure is a lot of "Devs" posting in this topic whom are *NOT* volunteering...tisk tisk.