Topic

Is TS having a funding problem?

I read that TS is letting staff go.  I wonder if that means they are having a funding problem.  Why else would they let staff go?

Posted 10 months ago by Peachesan Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • ok ok...Onion rings?

    really hungry....
    Posted 10 months ago by ☣ elf ☣ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What Polo Reede said.
    Posted 10 months ago by Mollie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If I was stoot I'd track IP of these people complaining all the time, go to their houses and poison their trees and dogs.
    Posted 10 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • lol. 
    Posted 10 months ago by Rook Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What? You have dogs in game, and I dont??  I DEMAND A DOG, too!
    Posted 10 months ago by Innie✿, Obviously Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In game? Hell no, real dogs! Poison them, save them from their complaining owners! If I was a dog I'd rather have stoot poison me then listen to these people talking and talking and talking about stuff that has already been said a hundred times and complain about it every time. It's OK to have a suggestion but give these people a little break, they're trying to work! (can i has sb-1 now?)
    Posted 10 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Can I has a dog? (no complaints here)..  I really wish I could.. as in rl.. (nts.. Glitch pet request) ..if my lease didn't say I can't :(.  Another donut please :P..
    Posted 10 months ago by Joni Mitchell Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Bender I think that's really uncalled for.
    Posted 10 months ago by ♪♥~ Auren ~♥♪ Subscriber! | Permalink
  •  they're building something massive. something that's going to fundamentally alter every aspect of the game.   So I'm not distressed by the fact that things are quiet,  they need to get this as right as they can.  
    Posted 10 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Polo Reade: that first tier of testing (seeing if designs really make sense, squashing obvious bugs, etc.) is done on development servers rather than production because it is at least 10x faster to get done (usually more like 100x): if I completely ruin my character on the dev server I can reset it in a few keystrokes: if you ruin your character on the production server and we have to figure out the problem and restore it, it might take many people many hours to fix.

    On top of that, I know what the team is doing now (because I'm in the meetings and have read the docs), I know what we're testing in this cycle (and which known bugs to ignore), I also know what the expected behavior is, what edge cases to look out for and have a wide variety of tools to use to test, retest, reset, check the actual state of objects on the game server and see how that differs from what I'm seeing on the screen, etc. In short, again, it's much faster.

    We're getting ready to do the first release of the new stuff and there are huge piles of work already done. For example, the client-server communication and rendering changes necessary to change location geometry in real time and broadcast the results, so that I can customize my house while others are in it; the design of furniture and decorations; the new server code to allow growth and modification of locations by players;  little UI touches like the way the furniture bag allows sorting of items by category or the way the drag targets on the walls behave so I can easily cover the whole floor with the same wallpaper or change it segment by segment ...  this list could go on for days.

    HOWEVER, even with that work done, since (1) everything is connected and (2) not everything is done yet, we need to sink a lot of time into work-arounds so you'll be able to use it at all. Here are but a few (of hundreds) of examples: 

    • new houses and old houses will have to work in parallel for the time being, with things like the house keys system retrofitted to continue to work with old houses;

    • the imagination menu is not part of this initial release so you won't be able to use that to get to your home or back to the world and we need to have some other temporary way;

    • yard expansion and cultivation are not part of this release so you'll have to evaluate the house part by itself rather than in combination with an expandable parcel of land on which you can create the resource nodes you want, but we'll still have to add decide on and actually add some resources to the templates which we'll later remove; 

    • we want to test the furniture upgrades without worrying about taking real money for now so: we'll have to unhook the real code which has already been written and temporarily rig it up to not work properly, then add notices to the "change styles" dialog to tell people that though prices are displayed, we won't actually charge them, etc.

    • … this list could also go on for days, and it doesn't even include briefing the help team, fielding incoming support tickets and trying to make sense of the reports, keeping up with the forums, or any of the other stuff that is required to actually get helpful results from testing.

    All those work-arounds are ultimately thrown in the garbage — they don't move Glitch forward in any way, other than allowing us to release things to you a bit earlier and get feedback or find bugs … which is, of course, does also move us forward. It just does not move us forward in the same way as actually designing, coding, illustrating, animating, world building, writing, composing and co-ordinating all of the above :)

    So, we have to find the right balance of internal development vs testing-in-production. This is a very complex project: work is usually parallelized so that game engineering, illustration, animation, ui design, client engineering, and level design are all going on simultaneously. Each of those teams are usually working on several projects in parallel as well. We need all of them, along with the server engineering, operations and the help teams, both to develop new features/content AND to do testing. In order to make the kinds of changes we are making to the game, some long periods of stasis on the production server were inevitable (good news though: by far the longest such period of stasis is about to be over).

    We heard the (very loud!) feedback from the original un-launching which, if you take away the "please, don't reset us!!" contained a lot of fear and confusion of the form "how will this one particular bit of UI/game mechanic/price/function work afterwards??". 

    The general dislike of the unknown and the anxiety provoked by all changes are parts of what we have to factor in to when and what to test, as well as the general approach to development: we could have got to our present point much faster if we didn't have to worry about resetting players or showing interim designs or testing with bugs that cause real damage (like losing items or data) … indeed, that is why we test first on development servers, rather than production servers. 

    I agree that we should have been writing more small updates along the way (though many of them would have been along the lines "still working!" and "not any single large change of note since the last update, but a huge list of small changes which are not interesting enough to explain" at least they'd be funny enough to tweet).
     
    Finally: you might think I could just describe the game to you and then you'd understand it and could give a reasoned opinion … but I assure you I am not nearly good enough at explaining it. To know what you think about the game itself — the actual game, not the game concepts or theories about the game — you have to play it. Otherwise, your mind has to fill in the 98% of details I didn't mention in the explanation and your idea just doesn't correspond to very well to the game.

    So we have to make the best decisions we can in order to make as much progress as possible on the most important things we could be doing in a relatively small number of months.

    Thinking about that is all I do (literally: I don't really have hobbies, spend most weekends in the office "catching up" on work I couldn't get done during the week, and when I am awake in the middle of the night, it is because I am thinking about Glitch). I feel responsible for how well we do in the lives of our players, the employees, my partners, for how well Tiny Speck does as a business, and for how fully Glitch accomplishes the bizarro mission it was created to accomplish. In short, I think very deeply and very earnestly about what is best, all things considered (that's no guarantee of actually being right, but it's all I got). 

    In this case I'm quite sure we are better off to make the biggest, chunkiest, stickiest changes before asking anyone to make heads or tails of it. The whole process will take a few months, but there will still be plenty of time for input and tweaks and additions … if we make the core work, we'll have many years to improve and expand it.

    I understand that things will seem stagnant or boring in the meantime, but it is a temporary condition (and one which we are working hard every day to remedy). Some of you will not have the patience to stay and that's part of the cost of un-launching and going back to beta. But the end result will be something which is much deeper, more fun, more generative and creative and just more imaginative that what we launched with in the fall … and that's better for everyone.
    Posted 10 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok I really swore I wouldnt get drawn into this......but....

    I dont think any of us, even subscribers, have the right to demand constant new features and we do need patience as this is obviously a huge evolving experience that is being built. 

    However, one of the things that i really always respected was the updating we had on what was going on - small bits of communication from the team developing this made it feel like you were part of something.  I've noticed that the communication over the past few months has really dried up and I know im not alone when i say that.  There are a lot of players who have completed all the quests or hit level 60 and are starting to say ....."errrrr now what?" and are seriously considering leaving.  I think personally that this can be mitigated by a little more updating from the team even if its just a quick "Hi, all going ok" to us - thats what always worked in the past and kept the faith.
    Posted 10 months ago by Loupin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Stoot,
    Dont normally post much on the forums but just want to say a huge thank you for taking the time to post here.
    I cannot even begin to comprehend half of what you typed (:D) but am really grateful for you letting us know that behind the scenes, everyone is VERY busy working on new updates.
    Best of luck with all the testing :)
    Posted 10 months ago by Milly21 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ya  ya, stoot. Working very hard, I see, I see

    I bet all you lot are doing really is playing the first year of the Glitch Ball League
    :)
    Posted 10 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wow, that was one hell of a post by Stoot.   : )

    Information is good for anxious Glitchen. They gobble it up like awesome stews and sparkly rocks.
    Posted 10 months ago by Melting Sky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Come on God, answer me. For years I'm asking you why, why are the innocent dead and the guilty alive? Where is justice? Where is punishment? Or have you already answered, have you already said to the world here is justice, here is punishment, here, in stoot. And his huge post.
    Posted 10 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks Stoot!  What you have said is pretty much what I have been "imagining" but it is good to have it here to read.  While waiting I have made my own Goals and Quests and am not nearly ready yet for anything more.  Yes, I am a bit bored but not completely and I am glad to say that I still have plenty of things to do.
    Posted 10 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • propose that a ton of donuts be sent to Stoot and his team. 

    ETA: Also. a couple of gallons of double espressos.
    Posted 10 months ago by natsumi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you for the update stoot! I appreciate you taking the time to craft such a lengthy post and posting it at 2am :)
    Posted 10 months ago by Dinnaga Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks so much for posting, stoot. I am excited and can't wait to see what awesome things are coming up!
    It would be awesome if you would copy that message and make it a sticky, to help make sure everyone sees it. 
    Posted 10 months ago by Zany Serendipity Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ouch.

    Edit: Also, I think you pissed Stoot off!
    Posted 10 months ago by Serra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks Stoot ~ it really does mean a lot for you to take as much time as that post took to compose to try to help us Glitchen to understand some of the things you staff are dealing with.
    Posted 10 months ago by Firestone1960 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "I dont think any of us, even subscribers, have the right to demand constant new features and we do need patience as this is obviously a huge evolving experience that is being built. "
    No one has the right to demand some sort of service out of their money.
    Right.
    Posted 10 months ago by Volkov Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot - I have to echo many others and say Thanks so much for the update; I think that really helps to keep us from getting frustrated. We do know that staff is busy and people don't always have time to read the forums, but updates like this are greatly appreciated.
    Posted 10 months ago by StrawberryShake Subscriber! | Permalink
  • wow stoot that was a bad ass post.

    now about those onion rings....
    Posted 10 months ago by ☣ elf ☣ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot, each time I read your posts, I am assured about your love for the TS team and us as players. Thanks for the response. Time well invested.
    Posted 10 months ago by Dr007 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This whole thread makes me sad.

    A few days ago, I was trying to explain the upcoming changes to The Boyfriend. He played Glitch for a short time, but since he can't seem to stick to any MMO, he doesn't anymore (and there's really no reason other than that -- aside from being really into Skyderp now). With excited glee, I relayed all I knew about the Imagination system, the ability to fully customize the houses and land under our feet (and tied it in with the myth of the Tuatha de Danann, being the mythology lover that I am), the fact that it's somehow connected to the houses of our friends -- we spent a good forty-five minutes trying to figure out exactly how all of this would work. Eventually, I said "Well, it's supposed to roll out sometime very soon, and I hope it's actually on schedule. I just can't wait to see what happens -- just for the sake of seeing it! If it's been this top secret, it has to be huge!"

    I love this game. I love this community. We have the best people in the world here. The fact that staff members had to be let go hurts; they were the core to this amazing place. That bothers me, and I'm sure it bothers the rest of you, too. I realize that sometimes these things have to happen, and it's beyond anybody's control. After all, we were the ones asking for a richer, more sustainable game experience, and that's what TS is working to give us. That's why were back in Beta. Overall, it's a sucky situation. Then again, duty now for the future. If we keep moving forward, maybe we can get these people back someday.

    And yeah, maybe TS could've kept us better informed this entire time. Then again, I would've rather them kept their nose to the grindstone than given us vague status updates on something out of context and therefore incomprehensible. Personally, I like the element of surprise.

    tl;dr This probably sums it up better than I ever could: (There were never any good old days/They are today, they are tomorrow/It's a stupid thing we say/Cursing tomorrow with sorrow)

    Everyone keep on being awesome. Hugs and RK to each one of you.

    Now I'll happily go back to ignoring the forums.
    Posted 10 months ago by girlthulhu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you so much stoot for explaining. Any sort of information is greatly appreciated.
    Posted 10 months ago by bored no more Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot, it is posts like that that make me lobe you, tons.  It is also why I am still a paying customer, and do not hesitate to spend money any time I get a few extra bucks. ;)  That is a status report, and WOW it is awesome!! Thank you so very very much for taking the time to write that.  Do you type super fast naturally, or did that take forever to write? 

    *hugs stoot* *cheesy grin*
    Posted 10 months ago by Innie✿, Obviously Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We have been playing Glitch for over a year now, I am sure some staff would only have had contracts for a year. Very sad to see them go, but time marches on. What concerns me at the moment, when the new features are rolled out is, are we going to be able to have Herb and Vegetables in the same plot of land? this is the quote [ yard expansion and cultivation are not part of this release so you'll have to evaluate the house part by itself rather than in combination with an expandable parcel of land on which you can create the resource nodes you want, but we'll still have to add decide on and actually add some resources to the templates which we'll later remove; ] Maybe I am not reading this right, not sure I understand. Sorry for those who have been laid off, I also know how they must feel, my partner has just lost his job, his firm is closing down. Maybe Stoot you could clarify this for me. I am a moly subcriber and I will contine to do so.
    please don't let us down like Faunasphere did.
    Posted 10 months ago by Miss Melody Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Innie, you are missing the point : onion rings (and a pony)
    Posted 10 months ago by ☣ elf ☣ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • onion rings? is someone going to get fast food?

    I'll have a milkshake. and keep the pony. I'll settle for a chinchilla.
    Posted 10 months ago by bored no more Subscriber! | Permalink
  • >> I dont think any of us, even subscribers, have the right to demand constant new features and we do need patience as this is obviously a huge evolving experience that is being built.
    > "No one has the right to demand some sort of service out of their money. Right" 

    Folks have the right to ask for whatever they want. It's unreasonable expectations that get things out of whack. TS set the expectation of "8 weeks", and recently reaffirmed that estimate. At the time stoot said he would not give any additional insight into what was coming beyond the information he passed along during the Q&A session. And now we know why -- he doesn't feel capable of describing it to us in a way that doesn't sent unreasonable expectations.

    As a professional software developer I really dug the behind-the-scenes look stoot gave us. No offense intended, but I doubt may folks have the background and experience to grasp the difficulty of switching a live system to a new architecture. They just want to play a game & have fun; a long-winded technical breakdown is just noise to most folks, and could even be perceived as TS whining about their problems.

    But what changes may or may not come is not the service. The service is the game itself, as it is at the moment, and one that is stamped "beta" -- meaning there is no guarantee about what will be in the game one day to the next.
    Posted 10 months ago by Sturminator 5 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the clarification and explanation, stoot :)
    Posted 10 months ago by Varaeth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • we need to hand out some anti anxiety pills ;) haha
    Posted 10 months ago by phelps.mike Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +eleventy billion. Appreciate this update so much, stoot. :) looking forward to it when it's ready.
    Posted 10 months ago by Lelu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What an awesome post Stoot.  Thanks. I can see why you warned us about the very tiny slight possibility of a complete reset.  Personally, if it got us all the customization of our land/houses faster, I'm all for resetting from 0.  But I also understand why most folks don't want that.

    Now, how about a pic of you sitting at the production server, fingers dancing over the keyboard as you work your digital magic. :>
    Posted 10 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Tibbi- I imagine it's something like this
    Posted 10 months ago by bored no more Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wow stoot! That's a lot of info! I wish I could write an essay like that for school! lol
    Posted 10 months ago by RJStormRider Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Tibbi: or like this: bit.ly/xqV0j6
    Posted 10 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Personally, I would rather wait a few more weeks for the reset, rather than having to start all over again.... I have too much stuff.....
    Posted 10 months ago by RJStormRider Subscriber! | Permalink
  • thanks very much for the LONG post Stoot !
    AS many others have said, I too, think that just keeping us informed (call it a "status update" if you want , or call it "the weekly smoke signal to the restless Glitchen masses " , or call it the "semi-weekly blog post of all that isn't news " ..or whatever. ) .
    Regular communcations to us , even if they are not a TON of info (like this massive post you just did!) , --- just a regular, timing-wise, communication would be helpful and make us feel like we are truly betas- that we are a part of the process ,and that we matter ,etc, etc , etc.
    Silence make me nervous-sorry. Especially , silence that is then only, sadly, broken by staff that are laid off.
    (To all staff who were laid off: I'm sorry and I wish you all the the best-and hope that you will stay around as a regular player if at all possible!hugs! )
    So -thanks again Stoot for this long, informative post !
    And please , please consider keeping us better informed ( I thought this "give the Glitchen some communiques sorta regularly" idea was already put forth to you the last time you gave us lots of posts at the Question and Answer time...??? ...) - even small bites on a fairly regular basis would do wonders for morale and nerves. :)

    PS - Apparently at some point along the way , you knew that "long periods of stasis" for us the players would occur. I respectfully suggest that whenever another long period is upon us that you might want to communicate that to us . Even if you choose not to warn us that it is a stasis period (i can see economic drawbacks to warning us) -then perhaps you could/should consider a game plan for keeping the communications lines OPEN --especially and frequently OPEN -during a stasis period.
    ETA- I didn't mind the stasis so much - I just minded the silence.
    ( And yes ,I too would have a billion questions from this post you made - about this seemingly partial release to come -but I wont go off asking them now -maybe that'd be a different thread ...) .
    I hope you and the team continue to diligently march forward with the changes you all have planned -and that it all goes smoothly as possible ! ;)
    Posted 10 months ago by serenitycat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't know how stoot is able to walk after...all that.  We know.  You worship him.  yada yada yada
    Posted 10 months ago by lovintnt Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I was under the impression from the original Unlaunch communique that long periods of stasis would occur and personally was surprised at every little bit of content that was released.  I expected nothing for months.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that was the point of Unlaunching versus calling the game still live but making massive changes -- they wanted to give us an opportunity to get our money back and not be upset when they didn't focus on non-essential bug fixes or minor content updates.  
    Posted 10 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm glad for the update. Not so happy that it took something like questioning funding to bring it about, but at least we have been enlightened.

    I was hoping that we could rip straight into building a new home and the land around it as soon as the relaunch hits, but it's all good. I'll chomp at the bit a little while longer. I just hope those freakin' xp points and currants I've been grinding for come into play sooner than later.
    Posted 10 months ago by Spayem Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What saucelah said
    Posted 10 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't have much time to add to this post as I'm in a well-known cafe with wifi which is about to close but, just to say thanks to Stoot and Kevbob for the messages and updates contained within.

    Very sad to see some of the player support staff go and I wish them all the best but I believe that it wouldn't have been an easy choice. It has been frustrating not hearing anything for so long - even though I understood you were working on the new stuff and felt like I had no right to feel like that. So has been really great to get some detail now and, although I'm in my internet dry time during the week, I'm going to try hard to play a bit more after losing my glitchy mojo a week or so ago!
    Posted 10 months ago by Violet Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In the long run, no matter how awesome Glitch is...

    IT'S
    JUST
    A
    GAME!
    You guys worry too much.
    Posted 10 months ago by Lady Cailia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's a game, and it's also a large group of friends, some of whom are employed by Tiny Speck.  We'd be pretty bad friends if we weren't worried.
    Posted 10 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The "it's just a game" argument doesn't really do much for me.  I'm not one of those who is upset or impatient, so I know it's not directed at me, but it doesn't work for me anyway.  When I used to go out and do such things, I would have been equally upset if the bar or restaurant where I always met my friends closed.  I'd even be a little let down if something not-all-that-important closed like if the place in Albany where we stop to get dry ice on the way to our annual festival was just gone one year.  

    I guess what I'm getting at is that saying "it's just a game" doesn't actually address the reasons why the game is important to people.  
    Posted 10 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot there is a light at the end of this tunnel of no sleep and hours of stress over everyone,This is your destiny and no one was given this, as you do it better.Will there be a light at the end " Hell YES".and when you go up on that stage one day to accept your trophy, remenber all the sweat and tears was worth you receiving this sought after trophy.You have deserved it. Good on you and do try to sleep a bit,this is not good for your brain to fix body parts when you sleep.
    Posted 10 months ago by Jellybelly Baby Subscriber! | Permalink