Mod strategy

[skodkim]

Hi

First of all let me start of by saying that I'm not trying to pay disrespect to anyone here! Thal and others have done a fantastic job with the mod so far and I've enjoyed it immensely. IMHO it's been the best Civ V mod by far since start.

That being said I'm having a hard time understanding the strategy behind what's been going on lately. With BNW having been out for a couple of months it seems were simply slowly adding more stuff without supporting what's already there. Just take a quick look in the bug reports sub forum and you'll see game breaking bugs that hasn't been solved - why have a mod and add new stuff at all if there's game breaking bugs in what we've got? Even worse the feedback seems to very limited now - it would be so much easier to understand that problems aren't being solved if at least we had some feed back.

I'm actively following the posts here at least two times per day and based on the number of posts here it seems people are slowly abandoning the mod - what a shame

So therefore I ask - what's the grand strategy behind the mod now? What's the priority of things about to be added? What about bug tracking?

I miss playing Civ V and I fear that this mod is on the verge of dying.

Once again - hope no one gets offended by this post

\Skodkim

 

[Xaddarr2]

+1
more bugfixes less new buggy content

 

[Breez]

Correct me if I am wrong, The mod is getting a full rework from the ground up. My understanding is it is in Beta. The point being to find bugs. A lot of the mod hasn't been implemented yet. (For instance I read lately that the AI had not been fully implemented yet to tell it to use combined arms)
http://civmodding.wordpress.com/

CEP v3.5.2 Beta

I created the new “Communitas Interface” part of the project. This will focus on improving the interface. The first simple update sorts religious beliefs by type, instead of by name. I also made minor improvements to the gameplay and tools parts of the project

You can see that this latest patch is focusing on Interface. If you scroll down you will see there has been MANY bug fixes.

Playing a beta the POINT is to iron out bugs in an uncompleted game. It really isn't meant to be fully functional at this point. Personally I have refrained from Downloading it yet simply because I don't have time to assist in the beta process and if I played I would be, like you, wanting to actually PLAY.

If people are LEAVING because they are dissatisfied with a BETA product then they are fooling themselves about what beta means. Too often people think it means "Hey I get to play sooner" and that is simply wrong.

my guess is if the Beta isn't to your liking, then check back in 6 months and see how it is going.

 

[skodkim]

If people are LEAVING because they are dissatisfied with a BETA product then they are fooling themselves about what beta means. Too often people think it means "Hey I get to play sooner" and that is simply wrong.

I think you misunderstood me here - I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with CEP being at beta stage and that people are leaving it because of this. What I'm trying to say here is that even a beta stage mod need some kind of stability for players to want to play it, test it and give feed back. And wasn't that what the hole Communitas idea was all about?

You can see that this latest patch is focusing on Interface. If you scroll down you will see there has been MANY bug fixes.

Correct. The latest release contains bug fixes but AFAIK these are not (to any great extent) from the bug reports forum and game breaking bugs like the science spike bug Link have NOT been fixed (actually there has been no comment on this particular bug from Thal since September 11th). I don't know how these bugs were discovered but even though I've been following most threads in here closely I haven't seen any mention of them by users.

I don't expect a fully functional mod by now - I'm used to playing mods that are unfinished and that's the way it is - Thal and others are doing this in in their spare time and completely voluntarily. On the other hand I really think its important to get some kind of stability into the mod (fix reported bugs) before moving to much on. As a person I'm willing to play a mod with bugs and also spend time testing and reporting bugs (which I've spent a lot of time on for GEM/CEP/... - I've even spent a lot of time coming up with and reporting solutions myself when possible) but if I know there's really bad game breaking bugs around I'm going to hold off and wait for a fix before I even start up the mod.

\Skodkim

 

[mitsho]

I do see your point, there are quite some big bugs apparently that have not been adressed. But on the other hand, I personally haven't gotten around to play for quite some time (before September 11th) myself and so there are some times when you simply can't do bugfixes like a developer studio would be able to. One probably would need someone to do these bugfixes only, as a big percentage are simple xml/text problems. The bigger bugs (1-turn-research, some yield spikes, etc. ) may need attention soon as I agree, I won't start up the game if I know there's a big gamebreaking bug anyways or I won't play as that one leader I want since I know he's bugged.

Thal does inform that he doesn't have much time around, but he does seem to visit the forums only sporadically (to then answer a lot of sometimes old bug threads at once), which is a pity to a degree since communication in that area seems quite necessary. (But maybe contact him directly instead of via such a thread?)

 

[Xaddarr2]

Well Thal should make a thread and ask for help from the community.

I'm sure alot of other people are itching for a playable version and wish to support this project.

I personally have almost no coding experience but I will contribute financially for a stable version.

 

[mystikx21]

There's the github thread, accessible off his website. I'm pretty sure ExpiredReign and some others have been helping out with code as it is through that.

The problem with a few persistent bugs is that they don't appear to be as easily replicated to show what the exact cause is. It looked like the science spike was narrowed down but wasn't clear yet from following that thread. I recall the gold/faith accumulation bug in GEM being incredibly persistent and a major problem too. It's possibly related if it has to do with the yield library.

The other problem is that a few persistent issues are more in the design form of new features that don't seem to work "correctly", like immigration. Which in turn are, at least from forum feedback, rather unpopular anyway. We haven't had much input from design on how those are to work, whether or why they should be working at all, so there's a bit of a one-sided discussion going on that makes for less enthusiasm and more frustration.

Edited: I should add that some frustration and many bugs are to be expected in this phase, particularly as interface changes come online rather than simple data edits. It's just a question of how responsive bug squashing is going and how resolving confusion or disdain for particular features or feature creep goes along in further stages. Typically this has been a productive community that resolves the features questions through debate and experimentation, presentation of options, and so on. It's just not as productive as usual because some of the participants aren't as visible as usual. That happens. This isn't the game-company, it's a game-community. And people have stuff to do. It just doesn't make for much progress at times.

 

[stackpointer]

The only other contributor to the GitHub other than Thalassicus is ExpiredReign. So if anybody else would like to help with the bugfixes, that would be where to start.

 

[skodkim]

The only other contributor to the GitHub other than Thalassicus is ExpiredReign. So if anybody else would like to help with the bugfixes, that would be where to start.

You are of course right that it would be ideal if moe people could contribute to the github but i guess a lot of people just dont have the skills.

As for myself i have yet to use it. I have contributed to fixes by proposing solutions in bug report threads, by making a lot of testing and i guess also just by reporting bugs (and doing it properly to make them easier to track down). Unfortunately my modding skills are limited to basic xml modding. I've also contributed financially to the mod more than once.

Once again i'm certainly not trying to show disrespect here. I think Thal (and expiredreign) has done a marvelous job - GEM was a masterpiece and hope CEP will be too!

\skodkim

 

[kc_bandit]

New updates won't let me open up build menu for first city. Going back to older versions...

 

[stackpointer]

New updates won't let me open up build menu for first city. Going back to older versions...

Please start a thread in the bug report subforum with your issue and your lua log.

 

[EricB]

I'd like to help if you need it. I've never used Github, but I just went there and created an account. I'm now installing the windows app for Github.

I've done programming before with C/C++. Never used LUA, but I see it's a scripting language. Learning a new programming language is easy as it's just a matter of learning new syntax. Is there anything you need done? I'd like to do some stuff but need some direction on what to change. Thanks.

 

[skodkim]

I'd like to help if you need it. I've never used Github, but I just went there and created an account. I'm now installing the windows app for Github.

I've done programming before with C/C++. Never used LUA, but I see it's a scripting language. Learning a new programming language is easy as it's just a matter of learning new syntax. Is there anything you need done? I'd like to do some stuff but need some direction on what to change. Thanks.

That fantastic EricB!

I'm guessing that a lua programmer will be very welcome and that the first thing you should do is PM Thal.

\Skodkim

 

[ExpiredReign]

As you may notice Thalassicus gets very ...focused... when he is on to some coding work. This means he is not able to respond to ALL reports here in the forum. He is however aware of them and no doubt will pay them the due attention when his time permits.

I have been away for a short break and am now back looking into some smaller issues. However, I am by no means a programmer. I can read some code and make out some sense of what is trying to go on but my error tracking and bugfixing are primarily around data edits of xml/sql.

The actual process of helping is not as painful as you might expect. Anybody can help. Keeping tabs on where bugs are at, updating the wiki pages to reflect the latest changes, (this is really a great need) or even offering suggestions here in the forum for ways to help. Notable mentions here to @stackpointer. So whether you have coding skills or not anyone can help.

A really helpful way of making the bugfixing process run smooth is to not make duplicate entries of the same problem. I know you all probably feel you found the first occurrence of the bug but please do a check first. That way all the relevant info about the bug is in the same spot. Minor point? Yeah but still helpful.

 

[Endovior]

if the Beta isn't to your liking, then check back in 6 months and see how it is going.

This. I've tried a few of the beta versions, and encountered various fun-ruining bugs and issues... so I've shifted this to the back-burner while I wait for more content to be available. I'm still keeping an eye on things while the mod develops, but not following it obsessively.

 

[Hawawaa]

Can we use the fall beta patch with mods right now? If so I'll start a new game.

 

[stackpointer]

Not with this mod.

 

[Hawawaa]

Thank you.

 

[Thalassicus]

I apologize for the confusion.

I posted some updates on the news site in recent weeks that explain what's going on. You can subscribe to the site to receive updates by email. In short, there was first a family medical emergency that occupied my attention for several weeks. Then a sink overflowed in our home, and the flood forced me to leave my room for a week until the carpet was taken care of.

Finding and fixing bugs requires a lot of concentration, which I haven't had recently, due to the other things going on in my life. The most fun part of the project is the gameplay-focused stuff like redesigning leaders. I've been doing that as a way to relax and take my mind off other things.

I'm starting to visit the forum and fix bugs now that my life is settling down again.