Development Update Request

[JunkDealer]

It's been almost 3 months since the last set of release Notes.  Any update on development?

09 November 2018, 02:56:20 PM
by Stef

[Moat_Man]

I hate to break it to you but I don't think Shuffle iT is getting the licence renewed beyond 2019. A big indication is that the longest subscription you can purchase right now is for 9 months. Prior to the calendar rolling over on January 1st, 2019 the longest you could subscribe was 1 year. You'll see the longest available subscription period shrink as their deadline gets closer.

Having said that, the licence hasn't been yanked so I believe they've fulfilled the minimum obligations in their contract. I think this had to do with releasing the digital expansions (Nocturne & Renaissance) concurrent with the physical release date.

Beyond that, one of the two developers left last year and they never recovered. I believe they are in maintenance mode only. As evidence, here is link to the development priorities in 2017. How many are unfulfilled? These are things that a development shop should have made serious progress on now that it's 2019.
http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=512.0

I know Donald X. said that if this version didn't work out he might just pull the plug altogether on digital Dominion but I hope that isn't the case. He just needs a team up to the task.

[JunkDealer]

I fear you may be correct in your assessment.  It's never a good sign when a company goes silent.

Now comes the question of have they met their requirements (ie. an offline version was promised to those who had previous owned the MF versions) or have they set themselves up for claims of false advertising and failing to meet their promises.

*sigh*  To quote the X-Files "I want to believe".  I've been renewing my subscription over and over with the idea that the offline version would eventually come along.  Perhaps it's time I cut my losses and stopped feeding the beast.  Find another game to sink my time into or pull the boxes off the shelf. 

[dane]

Hopefully someone with knowledge will eventually reply, but in the meantime I'll point out more optimistic interpretations:

• The last time Stef went very quiet, he working on a major update that included making Renaissance available for the previews.  His silence now might be an indication that he is tackling one of the major improvements that he has identified in the past as being desirable.
• The inability to renew beyond the end of the year might simply indicate that no decision on the license has yet been taken.  Indeed the matter might not yet even have been discussed.

I've no idea whether it was true, but I did once see a suggestion that one of the major problems that Donald and RGG had with the previous online versions of Dominion was that they received very little financial benefit.  Hopefully Shuffle iT's subscription model should have avoided that being the case with this online version, in which case I doubt that Donald and RGG would see any need to pull the plug on Shuffle iT.  There are, after all, a lot of people very happy with what has been achieved (I never used either of the previous online versions so I'm not qualified to pass comment on their relative merits), though it must be very frustrating for those people whose primary interest was in an offline version.

[Cave-O-Sapien]

Hopefully someone with knowledge will eventually reply, but in the meantime I'll point out more optimistic interpretations:

• The last time Stef went very quiet, he working on a major update that included making Renaissance available for the previews.  His silence now might be an indication that he is tackling one of the major improvements that he has identified in the past as being desirable.

This reminds me of those A Song of Ice and Fire fans who interpret George R.R. Martin's silence/mood/travel itinerary as a sign that the book(s) will be done soon.[/list]