I guess since they keep missing their dates, this was in their best interest, but, man, it's wild to me that they have so many resources and still can't get this thing together.
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Epic removed expected feature delivery dates from their Trello board
- Thread starter DailyCalmSpirit
- Start date
I guess since they keep missing their dates, this was in their best interest, but, man, it's wild to me that they have so many resources and still can't get this thing together.
I don't blame them. All of the development work I've ever been apart/done (all of it non videogame) never hits an expected delivery date unless two things happen (typically in tandem):
Context switching can be a hell of a thing.
- You allow your developers to focus on one project at a time.
- Developers crunch to hit the timelines.
Context switching can be a hell of a thing.
Internet: You're not hitting any of your timelines at all
Epic: What timelines?
Internet: Wait they were right there
Epic: What timelines?
Internet: Wait they were right there
How to spot a person who has never worked in software development, lol.
Project management and agile development isn't quite as straight-forward as it might seem on the outside.
Of course they do. The Trello board is only for external purposes, for fans. Internally they no doubt use a proper system like Jira or TFS with precise notes, test cases, time logging features, et al.
Not familiar with Trello although Ive heard people reference Trello boards once in a while. Is it significantly different to jira and confluence?
I think this is a reasonable statement.........but then again it was Epic who set the dates and made them public. So criticism in this case would be fair game.
They forgot the cardinal rule, better to overestimate than underestimate.Sprint review meetings are always a nightmare if you dont follow this.
Still waiting on my Unreal Games to hit EGS. Legitimately the only thing i'm really holding against them in terms of the launcher as something I fully believe should've been there day 1.
Welp I see automated refunds are still way in the future and was now changed to "Future Development". Meh.
Try to refund something from Epic nowadays, I swear to god the amount of stuff they ask you by email to even consider you for one is crazy. I just gave up trying to refund one game because I was tired of waiting for their responses asking for more stuff.
Try to refund something from Epic nowadays, I swear to god the amount of stuff they ask you by email to even consider you for one is crazy. I just gave up trying to refund one game because I was tired of waiting for their responses asking for more stuff.
i'm fine with delays as long as they're transparent about them, which they haven't really been at all. i still have faith they'll get there but it's already getting to the point where the storefront is getting pretty unwieldy
It's taking a back seat for other games. They seem to realize it should be there but they seem limited in what they can do, or are willing to put on the store.
I wish they put money towards a game built in the Paragon universe, or bring back Paragon at the least. Expand the studio Epic, hire more people with that money. Something.
Doesn't inspire faith that the client will be robust any time soon.
Could you share the questions that they have in the email?
Really? They have said those refunds are supposed to be "no questions asked", and scaled back the amount of information they were requesting a while back.
Could you share the questions that they have in the email?
User Banned (1 week): Disingenuous trolling and prior related infractions
Oh no now how will we get threads from people that don't give a shit complaining that they didn't have a cart on the store they won't ever use.
Yeah, a playtime stat for games was supposed to hit like two months ago or something, then last month, then this month. That seems like such a basic feature.
...
It's basically a kanban board. There's of course more to it than that, but that's the gist.
I know most digital distribution clients use CEF, but it's implementation here feels pretty bad going off how sluggish the Epic client runs.
You also can't default to library view on launch and there's no indication of plans for that on Trello, there's a bloody long way to go.
You also can't default to library view on launch and there's no indication of plans for that on Trello, there's a bloody long way to go.
critics: epic client doesn't have these basic features
epic: actually, here's an explicit timeline of feature rollout, we're definitely not putting it out to undercut critics
"take that, critics"
*months later*
critics: epic have not met their stated goals and it makes me question their original intent in putting out their roadmap
epic: *quietly pares down their roadmap*
"take that, critics"
That's good to hear, it was months ago so it might have changed. First they asked for the Receipt ID to proceed with the refund request which is cool, then they sent another e-mail saying thanks for the info and letting me know an agent would contact me because of my request, later I got another mail asking me what they can help me with... I told them again that I wanted a refund and then they asked for:
1. Mail address asociated with my Epic Account.
2. Name on screen that appears in the Epic App.
3. Full name of the owner of said account.
4. Every external account linked with my Epic account (Google, Facebook, Twitch, PSN, Xbox and Switch) and my user name in every one of those platforms. They said I needed to clarify every one of these platforms and the public name I see when I logged into them.
There was also another mail between those where they changed the agent for some reason, having to wait for the next mail between every one of these interactions is what really sucked. Anyway, apparently it's better now (I'm seeing some news where it says they updated they refund policy) so I'm really glad.
I wish they'd put money towards making the store an actual store. Nonexclusive games, a cart, and a wishlist should be basic things. They make it sound slow and a pain to add games.
There's sort of a dearth of talent in the industry. At least talent that is able or willing to move to where X or Y studio is. A lot of companies, Epic included, would love to hire hundreds more people but it's not usually that easy especially senior roles. Companies like Ubisoft practically hoover up whole graduating classes because they're in perpetual expansion mode. Starting a satellite studio overseas is often easier than hiring an equivalent number of staff in a crowded hub.
From a purely mercenary perspective having all hands on deck for Fortnite and UE4 is probably "correct" because it makes them squintillions of dollars.
(They should never have attempted what they're doing with EGS until they had a respectable piece of software and even then I would strongly disapprove of the exclusives approach they took)
Depends whether or not you actually want the EGS to function as a functional launcher/storefront or you just want EGS to just exist because "lol fuck steam and its users"
In and of itself, no. If they're not confident about hitting expected times, then removing is good. However, the imp[implications are
1) They view the coming features as low priority (certainly lower than development of Fortnite)
2) It's a short step from removing times to actually removing them as "expected features"
3) It illustrates that the store was a half-baked idea that needed more time in the development oven. No store run by a multi-billion dollar company should go live without standard features (and, yes, they are standard features), with no time-frame of when they're expected, and then, when they do eventually release time-frames, later have those time-frames removed from the dev roadmap. That's bloody poor business acumen, no doubt.
Basically, it does nothing to help Epic, and everyone has good reason to say "See? Vacuous "competition" does nothing", since EGS hasn't helped Steam compete, and going live against Steam hasn't pushed EGS to improve quickly.
They can only add a couple games per week, and they do them manually?
I wonder how all that works?
I wonder how all that works?
I mean, this is how software dev works, kinda every time. It's dumb but it's also true. I get that everyone's horny to hate EGS but this is such a complete non issue.
Basically reading any ERA thread about development in a nutshell. Seldom do people have informed opinions on development, just hot takes.
This thread also serves to illustrate why more openness with your audience is a bad idea in development. Way too much nuance to convey and way too little understanding on the outside.
The PC market just wont stand for a store front with a overseer that constantly misses release dates and slow to roll out promised features!!!!
Honestly Epic was waaaay to specific with this roadmap. It was too detailed and too long term. By all means give a idea what big features are coming next and whats coming "soon" but dont get too specific with stuff coming 3+ months out.
Honestly Epic was waaaay to specific with this roadmap. It was too detailed and too long term. By all means give a idea what big features are coming next and whats coming "soon" but dont get too specific with stuff coming 3+ months out.
The original dates were so specific because the Trello board was a blatant attempt to make people complaining about EGS being barebones shut up.
what really needs to happen is valve needs to stop adding features to steam to allow epic some time to catch up.
I don't blame them for removing it. I work in web development and while usually we're on one main project at a time, sometimes we have to jump on other projects or other small stuff for existing clients and thus the timeline for the original project gets delayed out.
But what is the consequence? People posting about it in social media?
I think it was yesterday that I watched a developer's live stream as they worked on getting a patch out to PC players (Steve Sinclair at Warframe). It went from 18 minutes until the patch is pushed out, to hours as they kept discovering bugs, and tried to quickly find solutions. I didn't mind the delays, but as he mentioned, some people in different places around the globe were anticipating the patch and staying awake.
I think it was yesterday that I watched a developer's live stream as they worked on getting a patch out to PC players (Steve Sinclair at Warframe). It went from 18 minutes until the patch is pushed out, to hours as they kept discovering bugs, and tried to quickly find solutions. I didn't mind the delays, but as he mentioned, some people in different places around the globe were anticipating the patch and staying awake.
I think this is an area where conceptual openness might help, but they tried going with concrete openness instead. As much as I don't like the EGS, I'm fully in favor of them making this move. It manages expectations and, in exchange for a minor burst of laughter now, will divert more anger in the future. It's for the best if they focus on the best task at any given moment, which the people inside the development team are obviously the best suited to determine.
The kind of openness that helps usually involves making it clear that you understand where your product is lacking, why people are upset with X feature, why people want Y feature, and if possibly, letting them know that you want to/don't want to address those issues.
Giving this kind of broad audience a timetable will never be helpful, so I'm glad they've stopped. From my perspective, not having any kind of timetable is a more front-facing form of honesty, because it's less likely to fail to come true.
Yeah prettty much this.
Hyper-toxic Steam fanboys : lol EGS doesn't have "features"
Epic and co : lol look at our Trello, "features" are coming
Several articles has also made reference to this. If I remember correctly, Randy Pitchfork has said something about upcoming "features" too around BL3 announcement but I can't find his tweet.
Exactly like Steam used to be and you know what? developers hated it so they created greenlight and you know the rest of the story...
I'm really curious how Epic will deal with things like visibility and review process if they ever allow smaller indie studios to submit their games instead of relaying on hand-picking most wishlisted Steam games.
I get it, but not having any deadline seems bad for product management. Unless the trello board is a facade and they have a real board internally.
Something like an Internet-exposed Jira would be more applicable if this were an open source project. I'm sure they have Jira or the like internally.