Istvan's Update:
In Conversation . . .

Q. So the long-awaited "military patch" is now out – at least the first part of it. Online numbers have jumped and there has been a lot of great feedback. Does it feel like you just aced your mid-term exams?

A. Not really; it feels like finals for all classes but one are done – and the one left is as bad as all the others together. There are two more major military features we still need, and they are intended for the next non-bugfix patch, hopefully 1.0111. A big patch may have been released, but the work isn’t done for me yet.

I’m pretty happy that online numbers are looking a little better, and I’m hoping that the new stuff that has gone Live will help keep folks interested until the rest is done. There’s also a lot of good stuff coming Jumpgate’s way, completely separate from the military features. In the last month, I’ve had to begin spending some time "playing Project Lead" and getting ducks in a row for the new efforts instead of only working directly on the code.

Q. This patch took a long time. Some people were recalling not-so-fond memories of the "Episode II" debacle. If you could turn back the clock six months, what would you have done differently?

A. I’m definitely also one of those people remembering EpII. That’s why I wasn’t advertising patch 1.0109 as a "major expansion", or trumpeting a release date.

Turning back the clock, I’d certainly have skipped the shield rebalance. It needed to be done, but it was a distraction during the time I should have been concentrating on the mission system. I should also have taken time early on to recruit more pilots for the Test Program. Manpower to get things checked thoroughly has been a problem for months, and it ended up burning me a bit. Aside from those two thoughts, there wasn’t much way to get patch 1.0109 done much more efficiently. This is the problem of solo development – there’s no parallel processing. All tasks have to get done one at a time, and any distractions halt all work.

Q. Are NetDevil and/or Themis using this patch as a "PR opportunity" to help
boost subscriptions?

A. The military system as a whole is being used as an excuse, yes, but that effort will not occur until the second half (with the "fun stuff") is released.

There’s going to be a whole lot more action along these lines after the military stuff goes live, as well. Some of our plans will be made public later this year.

Q. How do you think the military tag changes will affect the player who logs on
purely for PvP?

A. The intention is that it should make his experience rather less random and more focused. Assuming the player is paying any attention at all, he’ll know whom his faction is fighting and where to go for likely action. He should even be able to grab a mission that sends him into the thick of things. I think that beats cruising around looking for a fight, or broadcasting on F5 trying to scare up a partner for sim duels.

Q. Do you think military missions will encourage traditional non-PvPers to don military tags to take-on non-combat missions? Was this part of the intent in this design?

A. It is possible some non-PvPers may choose to get involved with military missions to help their faction, and it’s really neat that people will take their faction seriously like this, but having people change their play styles wasn’t the objective. The system was designed to offer some direction to the PvP subcommunity and make the game reward them directly for the things they were mainly doing themselves anyway.

Q. I know you’ll love this question. Given some of the issues, bugs and complaints that have come out of the first part of the Military Updates, how long do you expect it will take to release the second patch?

A. Well, to solve some of the urgent bugs and gameplay problems that came to light, as of this writing I’ve already done three serverside adjustments and a client patch. The second half of the military content isn’t really dependent on bug fixing, though certainly by working on cleaning up problems created in patch 1.0109, I’m delaying work on what I’m calling the "Factional Conflict II" patch – because I can’t assign a patch number to it yet if I do more bugfixes.

Q. Lastly, where have you been finding the best deals on diapers – Costco or Sam’s Club?

A. Actually, my wife and I have been making do with prices at either Target or at our local grocery store. Not the cheapest, I know, but with both of us working full-time, we’re usually in a huge hurry and unable to make any big Freighter-type runs to the discount places.

 
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