Time gaps between stable patches
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,724
As discussed during the recent livestream, let us know about your desired time gaps between stable patches for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.
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We need a little time to sort things out between versions.
That said, owing to 'clean code and good planning' in large measure, the last update only broke about a dozen scripts total - so the sorting out went fairly quick.
We could maybe handle one stable build per month, maybe.
A very small and yet well-documented update once every two weeks would be ideal for our 3-5 person development team. In the case of the creature transform feature, it would look like one creature, one item, and one placeable in the ERF and the test module could be a single area that includes all three things.
GIve us an example of the feature with a sample Spell script, like Reduce Person. Then, help us identify the accompanying 2DAs to change to update class spell lists and ensure the new spell is able to be scribed, able to be learned from a scroll by wizards, and so on.
I highly suggest PW out there make a beta/development module (simple small world with just a few quests and there haks/ based off their world maybe some new stuff that was added to the development build that they can be test in game) for their players to test on with development builds, this will give us more eyes on catching errors. This is easy with steam as the player just switch to development build and back again. You could offer xp / other incentives to these players for helping you test things. Thank you to the pw world who do.
That might be a strategy to enable more timely PW playerbase+builderbase feedback cycles. I think those are the folks more likely to notice and report stuff, but it may be hard for some servers to test much in between stable builds in a meaningful way. Clustering the builds could potentially deliver smooth sailing between some rough patches, but it might mean those rough patches are truly rough on some builders, too.
The nwnx team only supports stable builds, and many PWs are tied to that, so that drives some of my thinking. I dunno how the nwnx folks would feel about clustered releases though.
So, I dunno what's best. Just an idea. Thougts/Reactions?
-Dave
If something is seriously broken and prevents play then a bug fix ASAP would be appreciated but I am in no hurry for big feature updates. Working is always better than soon.