Will there be more development?

[AdamH]

No one seems to be asking these questions, so I'll ask them now.

It was eight months that development updates were requested and there was absolutely no response from Stef. Bug reports have come in and there are still tons of outstanding bugs. I, along with many others, just gave up trying to report things or ask for new features because there was no response for such a long period of time.

There was one small update but even then there were issues because it seems regression testing wasn't done and some other weird things were broken briefly. It doesn't make much sense to me why RGG would renew a contract with a company who just dropped off for such a long period of time and only after that would we see an attempt at improvements to the software -- I would have expected the other order.

People now have the ability to buy more subscriptions, but is this software ever going to be completed? Are bugs going to be fixed? Is the long list of features that Stef said were going to be worked on in 2017 (!!) going to be worked on? Or will we get more of the last eight months? I personally am not going to renew my subscription unless we see some improvements made to the software AND better communication about what is coming.

So what's the plan for the next couple of years?

[xtruffles]

From a business standpoint, RGG would have only chosen to renew the contract if they deemed it to be beneficial to them. The development of a platform like this is pretty non-trivial, and the opportunity cost of signing a new contract with a different development group to start development from scratch, given that this platform already exists and is pretty darn great (despite a few quirks), seems pretty big and risky.

And re:bugs, let’s remember that people are human and while the period of silence wasn’t ideal, we can be thankful that a lot of bugs have been fixed recently, that promo development is in the works and that the renewed contract can be a new starting/motivation point for everyone. 

[jsh]

And re:bugs, let’s remember that people are human and while the period of silence wasn’t ideal, we can be thankful that a lot of bugs have been fixed recently, that promo development is in the works and that the renewed contract can be a new starting/motivation point for everyone. 

To be totally fair, this hasn't been publicly posted at all, so it's reasonable for people to not know it's happening and have doubts. I didn't even know, and I'm usually in the loop on this stuff.

That said, if Stef was waiting on a new contract to continue development, I would 100% understand his decision. We don't know all the details, so I think it's best not to make assumptions.

[AdamH]

I appreciate your optimism. My subscription lapses over this weekend though and the last time I renewed it 3 months ago I regretted doing so. I need to know that something is going to change to make this software better before I put more money into it and I need to hear it from the developer(s).

Lots more bugs have been discovered in the last 7 months than have been fixed. I need to see the trend go the other way. Still all of the communication has come through other people and there has been next to nothing stated by the developers, specifically I'd like to know why the things promised at the start of 2017 haven't been done yet and what has changed to make us think that things might go better in the future. If RGG sees something worth renewing the contract for, maybe share it with the paying customers?

[xtruffles]

Lots more bugs have been discovered in the last 7 months than have been fixed. I need to see the trend go the other way. Still all of the communication has come through other people and there has been next to nothing stated by the developers

http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=604.75

[AdamH]

I guess I would like to hear an update about what is coming in the next couple of years from the developers.

And at this point I'm not renewing my subscription if I don't hear anything.

[Ingix]

I think the experience has shown that a timeframe of years is unlikely to be realistic, weeks or a few months seem more realistic. Also I agree that any subscription decision should be based on the current state of the game, not a "maybe/hopefully feature X will be implemented in y months" consideration.

Like all online-only services it may change at any time, though I consider it unlikely that it will become worse (of course, new features may not be liked by everyone).

[JunkDealer]

I don't think AdamH is asking for "Will feature x be available in y months".  JUst some kind of update that there is work being done, what the priorities are and a rough timeline of when we can expect something.  I don't think any of that is unreasonable.  Personally I'm still holding out for news of a new campaign mode, but am resigned that that will likely never happen since it seems like this has long been left in the dust.

THe key here (and I've said it many times and say it again) is communication.

Even if it isn't written in stone or changes... Letting your customers know you are alive and working is kind of important, but ShuffleIt continues to fail in that manner.  I really do hope that changes.

[Ingix]

Adam asked explicitely what's coming in the next couple of years. I pointed out that this (taking past experiences into account) seems unreasonable to me. An update on what's being worked on my be reasonable. But from past experience I know that even things that are 95% complete can take some time to get 100% complete, because testing may reveal more problems than anticipated.

[AdamH]

I didn't explicitly ask what's coming in the next couple of years, as in exactly what features will be released? I asked "What's the plan for the next couple of years?" as in, will any new features be worked on at all?

Really I want to know if there is any plan at all to do anything at all to improve the software. It wasn't too hard to give a priority list at the start of 2017, really any sign of life would be a vast improvement.

Edit: as of now my subscription has lapsed and I don't have any intention of renewing it until I have some indication that something is coming.

[Ingix]

We agree on the fact that communication about planned/worked on features should be better.

On July 4th, you asked about updates for next couple of years. My replay (which was to that post and not your first) was that I thought that was unrealistic. I see now that your qusestion was maybe not that literally meant, so my answer may have felt wrong to the intented question, when I was really only answering the literal question.

[mrfiat]

How about getting rid of the trolls on here as the first priority?  That would make this site MUCH nicer to play on.   Isotropic had it perfect, but these guys don't seem to care.  :-(

[xtruffles]

Isotrophic didn't have spec chat, if I understand correctly.

It's hard to ban trolls because players who get banned simply make new accounts.
Perhaps, there could be a way to prevent slow-playing by adjusting the 4-minute timer.

[irata]

No idea what "spec chat" is?   Isotropic had a chat and they had the super cool feature which allowed you to mute any player in the chat.  That feature would sure be nice when the trolls are saying all the hateful things.   But like I said, they seem to have no interest in stopping the trolls.   They could be stopped, all it would take is some programming.   Isotropic had no where near the troll problem they do on here.  Not even close!   But they had some well designed features to stop the trolls.  That was a free service BTW unlike this one that we pay for and don't get the same level of service.  Oh well, complaining seems to do no good.