When to Release Aberration II ?

[MattyG]

Incompetant gave me a serve in one of the other posts for suggesting that we are only one more beta away from releasing Aberration II. I was surprised, but it got me to realising that we have never actually discussed what Aberration II needs to be before it gets released. I don't think one single thread has ever brought the subject up. Interesting in itself.

I have always assumed that we would have a new version - the currently-called Aberration II - once we had rejigged the existing Aberration I. Meaning Europe, the near-east, North Africa and the New World. Nothing was done in Asia and Africa before. We have now done a major remodelling of the New World and begun the remoddelling of Europe. So I thought that the next beta would include the rest of Europe/the Med and we could - after bug fixxing and tweaking - release Aberration II.

I read from Incompetant's comments that he probably has assumed differently, that we would not be formerly releasing Aberration II until the whole world has been done.

Anyway, let's throw this one out there. Incompetant and I will certainly be making the final decision on when to release the official Aberration II 1.0, but I'd be intrigued to hear what others have to say. Vent! Comment! Air dirty laundry! (Just don't post any more bad album covers, nlilith ..... )

 

[yourworstnightm]

Bah, we can call the changes in europe Abe II and ROTW Abe III, since ROTW is far from done yet.

 

[Incompetent]

I read from Incompetant's comments that he probably has assumed differently, that we would not be formerly releasing Aberration II until the whole world has been done.

I think that if we announce Aberration 2.0, people will expect a basically complete package. This doesn't mean it'll be chock full of new content everywhere, and it doesn't stop us adding more material. But there are clearly many loose ends in Abe at the moment. For example, IIRC the Swabia/Milan events currently cut off abruptly with 'will trigger a new dynasty'. There are also a number of fundamental issues we need to resolve, such as the availability of cultures, and the consensus position has to be applied reasonably consistently.

However, writing up events and the like is not enough on its own. Users are going to want something that works in practice. On the new stuff, I can only comment on my own material, but I must admit it's been put together and checked in a perfunctory manner, and there are bound to be things I've missed.

It's obviously going to take a long time to produce a really polished product. But if you're eager to produce something reasonably quickly without annoying end users, I'd suggest the following:

1. We put in new event files and the like for European countries where we have lots of ideas, and make sure other countries' events tie in properly.

2. For countries where we don't yet know what we're doing, we tidy up what's there. No frills, just sorting out the worst of the problems, like Sicily getting Arabic culture, or a conquistador who serves for 25 years. In some cases, we'l have to fill out monarch files, but nothing fancy is needed - we just need to get rid of any glaring gaps.

3. We don't have to sort all of Asia out right away. But for some existing powers, particularly Ukraine and the Caliphate, Asia matters a lot, and we want to get an overall feel for the Abe world. So I suggest we lay the groundwork, ie we put in the countries that are going to be there, and we get national and province cultures and religions approximately how we want them. Only the most critical events, such as major inheritances, need to be included at this stage.

4. South America and Africa can stay as they are for now - players don't usually care much for them anyway. We'll return to them when we have more solid plans of action.

So, should we be going for an early release, or should we be working through country-by-country as we are now? The advantage of the latter is we hopefully get more things right first time, and it's a lot less chaotic having changes confined to one country at a time.

 

[MattyG]

See, I actually have no preference. I had simply 'assumed' without really thinking much about it.

Well, OK, I have a few preferences.

Preference 1 is that we don't release Aberration II until we have remade Europe and know that everything is working properly (or at least to 90%).

Preference 2 is that we don't wait as long as it takes to aberrate the whole world.

So, anything between those two points would be dingle-dangle-dandy for me.

The only problem with setting a physical edge as the point at which we are ready, is that it's all connected. So, east-asia is important to the Caliphate and Ukraine. But then, you can't do east-asia without doing central asia and so on. At least not properly. At some point we will have to draw a line in the sand and say. OK, it's good enough right now.

The mod will NEVER be finished. There will never be a point at which we are totally satisfied that nothing can be improved. AberrationII 1.0 will just be its first official iteration, not an end point, as with all other mods and the vanilla game.

 

[unmerged(16159)]

See, I actually have no preference. I had simply 'assumed' without really thinking much about it.

Well, OK, I have a few preferences.

Preference 1 is that we don't release Aberration II until we have remade Europe and know that everything is working properly (or at least to 90%).

Preference 2 is that we don't wait as long as it takes to aberrate the whole world.

So, anything between those two points would be dingle-dangle-dandy for me.

My assumption was that AbeII was the properly rectified Europe, (taken as far east as is practically possible), before disinterest sets in. I thought there would be a few more Betas, then getting the thing out on the shelves for Christmas.

Then a pause while we do Asia and perhaps Africa. This could take another year, and would form the reasoning for releasing AbeIII. During this time we have to resist the urge to go back and revise Europe again, unless it had to do with changes in Asia.

For what it's worth.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

I say the time to release 2.0 is when we've sorted out most of the current things we're discussing and unkinked most/all of the problems. Enhancements (like South America, for example, or perhaps an early Kingdom of Hawaii) could be in 2.1 or 2.2 if needs be....

Basically put, something you guys are comfy releasing without labelling it a beta.

 

[MattyG]

I don't see us doing an Aberration III. Aberration II is our direction for the mod, not just a particular set of revised areas. Aberration II 1.0 might be when Europe is 'done' then 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc would represent subsequent overhauls to major mistakes. Maybe when Africa was done it would be Aberration II 2.0 and so on.