Comment I made on Mathas' latest video :)

[lemmy101]

I think it's important to say really re: MP vs NPCs:

 

 

 

Yo Math Just wanted to add to what you say, which is pretty fair for the most part and on the mark, but as we say on blog - dev burnout is a serious factor to consider, and as anyone who follows me on Twitter will know I can get rather frustrated and stressed with stuff when its not behaving. The reality of the situation is that a dev cannot spend 100% of their time on a single thing without going crazy. You hit a problem and may get stuck on that problem for days, weeks sometime.

The longer you spend on it you get too close and can't see the wood for the trees, get more frustrated and less productive, and it becomes in many respects more harmful to keep sticking with it. Is how the code gets in a mess since you start jabbing and poking at it and do more harm than good, coding while stressed and frustrated and progress starts to crawl.
 

On the other hand, if you drop it and do something else for a while, the enthusiasm and spark is back, and I can make a CRAP TON of progress in a single day. These are the moments all the biggest leaps in PZ have been made, not with dedicated weeks of development, but a spark of ambition and enthusiasm for something new or that I've not worked on in a while. This is just how I work, and I can only imagine I'm not the only one.

So while NPC has been in development for ages, that development is focused on MASSIVE leaps forward separated by periods of working on other things. After a few weeks of working on it you hit a bit of a wall, a particular problem that eludes you, and it becomes counter productive and unhealthy after a point to just persist with it. You've got to consider if there was such a thing I'm a clinical workaholic, and spend a ridiculous amount of time working on the game. I try and take a step back and take more time off but find it quite impossible. So outside spending some time with my girlfriend, making jumps to something I've not worked on in some time is my 'time off' if you like. The progress is huge, but then after a few weeks weariness sets in, I hit issues and it becomes difficult, at which point I can switch onto something else and hit a new stride and enjoy my job for that little bit of time again
 

So this is the cycle, and it is required for me to work at full capacity for longer and get some enjoyment out of my work. At one point, stressed and frustrated at working on NPCs and jumping into optimization and other vital tasks, I decided to give MP a big push, and found it exhilerating and liberating and all that good stuff. This progressed for a while until I hit a problem where the connections between client/server was so unreliable that data was getting clogged up and bombing it all out. I worked on this problem for a couple of weeks and made little progress, on the verge of tears on many occasions, and so fuck it. Suddenly the warm embrace of NPCs became ever so inviting, and inspiration hit me once again. Had a good long chat with RingoD and got enthused about it, and so as soon as I jumped back on them I made massive progress with the new meta-game zombie spawning and meta events, and again huge progress toward NPCs. The cycle repeats, and after the last couple of weeks which were almost exclusively NPC dev, I jumped back on multiplayer and refreshed and being able to look at it from the outside again, and filled with new motivation, investigated a new networking library and braved the prospect of porting the entire multiplayer code to it, and did this in one evening. Once done, the game could cope with the network traffic flawlessly, and a few days later those videos were recorded and the testing of MP began.

This is the cycle, and its hard to understand how it works from the outside but when something probably constitutes some 80-90% of your entire waking life you gotta work in a way that allows you to do so as happily and productively as possible.
 

NPCs have made huge progress, but the difference is we are no longer making videos to show anything since we learned a lesson about making videos of stuff that's not imminent. That rush of NPC videos we did were ill advised, as the NPCs weren't close enough to release and all they did was taunt people, but the fact of the matter is unless we get lucky and one of these phases of development (like this MP one) lead to something we can actually release before they wind down, then for the sake of speed of development of the game I need to use my time in the way it'll be most productive, and although I obviously try at all times to prioritize things that are the most important or most desired, to an extent have to account for where the ruts and peaks are, and persevering with something that's currently making my head explode is just meaning I'm progressing at a much slower speed of development.

Think of it as akin to writers block. G R R Martin for e.g. under great pressure to release the next Ice and Fire book, but making him sit there and do NOTHING ELSE but Ice and Fire books will just put him in an early grave at worst, or result in a really bad next Ice and Fire book at best. You gotta work how you work best, and if you need a distraction or a new task where the words flow and you're not just looking at a blank page, then that's the way it's got to be. Of course people get angry when they find out G R R Martin releases a book that's not Ice and Fire, and get frustrated and confused at why he would do such a thing to them, but I TOTALLY sympathise and get it. It just has to be that way and its the only way he can truly work and stay sane. This is 100% parallel to the situation with MP and NPCs. The advantage for PZ players tho unlike Ice and Fire fans, is whatever my 'other book' is it's still improving PZ, helping PZ's development, and helping fund the same game.

So no lie whatsoever, it's the complete truth. If I'd worked on nothing but NPCs since the first announce of them I'd be in a padded cell by now. When we wrote the 'Tales from the Meta-verse' did we know we'd still not have NPCs now? No, it's impossible to tell. Completely impossible, because a roadblock isn't just a few days of puzzling, it's potentially a month or two of battery recharging required to hit full stride where massive massive progress can be made in a matter of days, instead of limping along on something that's tired, frustrated and stressed the crap outta you.

So if I weren't working on MP, then it would HAVE to be something else and wouldn't be NPCs at all. I simply cannot just work on NPCs the whole time because there is always that one problem that COMPLETELY blocks any further progress, and to just bang your head off that until its fixed is not the best way, when that time could be spent progressing the game in other ways, and then that same problem be solved within an hour when you've had time to peculate it, the solution will just pop into your head while you're thinking of other things. If I'd constantly worked on NPCs, then NPCs still wouldn't be out, or they would be and would be awfully broken, but either way the game would be poorer as a whole as I'd have lost weeks, maybe months, to getting jammed up on issues and not having the sense to take a step back and use my time in that jam more productively.

Just a bit of insight hopefully 

[MashPotato]

Tweeted

 

Off topic, but the mention of GRR Martin and frustration over the slowness of his next book reminded me of this spiffy blog by Gaiman, which all impatient SOIAF fans should read http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html

[Mathas]

Awesome explanation! Note that I was just off the cuff airing some of my thoughts and provoking conversation at the same time. Looking in from the outside is a different beast altogether so my opinions are of course a bit ill informed! But I did think it was worth chatting about! And as always a lengthy explanation will make people happy (or at least me).

[lemmy101]

No offense or anything, as I say everything you said was fair, I just wanted to give an insight to how it works on the inside to perhaps explain better than the Mondoid did about exactly how it works and how it's really impossible for me to with certainty ever say NPCS WILL BE DONE BEFORE MULTIPLAYER or NPCS WILL BE OUT NEXT MONTH. It's all just too fluid with so many factors, its impossible to predict where we'll be in six months as moments of frustration or inspiration can completely sideline any plans.

 

Of course, we have to take a stab at the most likely scenarios because we need to say SOMETHING, but we can't help being wrong sometimes, so it comes down to managing what we say and saying only those things we're most confident about. We were sure NPCs would hit before MP due to the complexities involved, but NPCs over time became much much more ambitious to the point of becoming the true meat of the planned game, but the 'NPCs first' idea kinda stuck due to community tradition and inertia.

 

But if something's done, or nearly done, we gotta go with the flow. The alternative would be just to sit on multiplayer and not release it, which isn't fair on us or those excited for MP. It's Will and RingoD I harbour a huge amount of guilt about on a daily basis, since it's their (substantial) work that hasn't seen the light of day yet on account of the same things I mention in the above post.

[Gammlernoob]

Every point you make is valid. The problem I see with multiplayer is just that it will lead to new bugs ( once it gets released ) and will take a huge part of your developing time...But  I think everyone understands your feelings towards working on only one thing, this things can really make one crazy ^^

[Batsphinx]

Yeah, but I get to work with the FUCKING ALIEN in the mean-time - so I'm not overly upset

[lemmy101]

Every point you make is valid. The problem I see with multiplayer is just that it will lead to new bugs ( once it gets released ) and will take a huge part of your developing time...But  I think everyone understands your feelings towards working on only one thing, this things can really make one crazy ^^

 

Maybe so! But just maybe we'll sell 10x as many copies and have funds to expand the team further? Black and white of it is that having online MP in PZ is unquestionably a massively good thing for the long term health of the game, whether the feature in itself interests you or not. Its massively clear to us that there's only a net gain here, even if it sets up a few complications along the way.

 

Will: EXCITE!

[CaptainBinky]

When I want to have a break from brain-crushingly tedious model skin fixes, I get to do brain-crushingly tedious map stuff. Though, to be fair, I did recently have a break from all of that to do some brain-crushingly frustrating OpenGL programming. Thankfully, though, there are always highly motivating games news reports when I finish some of oh wait

[MashPotato]

CRUSH CRUSH CRUSH

[Batsphinx]

Andy you forget that you EMERGED VICTORIOUS from your OpenGL battle and are now ready for the next... brain crushing... battle...

 

I'll shut up now, and maybe buy you a drink on Saturday.

[Jatta Pake]

These comments are why Indie Stone is hands down my favorite game company.

[insanechef]

What IS with all the multi vs npc hate? Surely MP is a good thing too? 

[Gammlernoob]

What IS with all the multi vs npc hate? Surely MP is a good thing too? 

Sure MP is a great addition too ! But MP will probably take a lot of developing time --> NPCs probably get more delayed ( but Lemmys points are understandable !!! )

[CaptainBinky]

Sure MP is a great addition too ! But MP will take a lot of developing time --> NPCs probably get more delayed ( but Lemmys points are understandable !!! )

 

Gammlernoob, you've sort of missed the point. Development is like this:

 

A = NPCs

B = Multiplayer

C = Miscellaneous bug fixes

D = Other features

 

Time ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

ABADCCABBABDDCDCACAACBBDCDDCBB(oh hey, mutiplayer is ready)ACAAAADCCCDACDAAetc

 

In other words, those 'B's were dotted in through development anyway - always have been. NPCs are no more or less delayed than any feature is delayed by the fact that PZ has more than one feature.

[lemmy101]

Yep as Binky says, there's just as many A's in every scenario, those A's are sacrosanct. But the gaps between the A's are mandatory and will exist MP or no MP, they need to be there for my own sanity, and are filled up with 'whatever else there is'.

 

NPCs have been my #1 priority for a LONG TIME now and fill up as much time as they can as per the explanation in the OP. If anything, extra MP bugs will more likely impact the speed other bugs are fixed (but then only mildly) since they will be fixed by the entire code team not just me, and extra bugs will make the list bigger. But that's assuming an MP bug always out prioritizes a single player bug which will not be the case always, or even most of the time, since as we've stated repeatedly, single player is always priority for us and a single player fix fixes a problem in both single player AND multi player.

 

NPCs will hardly be affected if at all.

[nasKo]

 

Sure MP is a great addition too ! But MP will take a lot of developing time --> NPCs probably get more delayed ( but Lemmys points are understandable !!! )

 

Gammlernoob, you've sort of missed the point. Development is like this:

 

A = NPCs

B = Multiplayer

C = Miscellaneous bug fixes

D = Other features

 

Time ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

ABADCCABBABDDCDCACAACBBDCDDCBB(oh hey, mutiplayer is ready)ACAAAADCCCDACDAAetc

 

In other words, those 'B's were dotted in through development anyway - always have been. NPCs are no more or less delayed than any feature is delayed by the fact that PZ has more than one feature.

 

I was hoping for someone showing off MSPaint skills but this'll have to do

[Dr_Krieg]

 

Sure MP is a great addition too ! But MP will take a lot of developing time --> NPCs probably get more delayed ( but Lemmys points are understandable !!! )

 

Gammlernoob, you've sort of missed the point. Development is like this:

 

A = NPCs

B = Multiplayer

C = Miscellaneous bug fixes

D = Other features

 

Time ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

ABADCCABBABDDCDCACAACBBDCDDCBB(oh hey, mutiplayer is ready)ACAAAADCCCDACDAAetc

 

In other words, those 'B's were dotted in through development anyway - always have been. NPCs are no more or less delayed than any feature is delayed by the fact that PZ has more than one feature.

 

This hits home with me very much.

 

Trying to build up my portfolio/make a game till I finish uni next year. I'm jumping from one area to the next constantly or I start to glaze over and then I lose a couple days to brain freeze.

 

I'm more excited for NPCs but I'm now massively excited to play Zomboid with a few mates, finally Zomboid won't be quite so lonely, this is a massive game changer for me.

[Matherodin]

The progress you describe Lemmy sounds awfuly familiar. Watch it though, its a potential burnout route to go. Relax once in a while, maybe even go soak in a hot bath. Some guy got some fundamentel world changing idea's whilst doing that. Who knows, maybe you get some universal idea's whilst soaking with spiffo .

[Roflrocket]

Dev knows best, although maybe you can get a computer into an insane asylum.

[Ontogenesis]

I believe what you're describing is the 'incubation' effect - leaving a problem and working on something else often brings fresh insight and motivation into the original problem.

[MashPotato]

Haha, that's exactly what I told Lemmy. I said, trust me, I have a psych degree

[harakka]

I believe what you're describing is the 'incubation' effect - leaving a problem and working on something else often brings fresh insight and motivation into the original problem.

Yeah, I think everyone who works with something that requires lots of planning and mental juggling to get right has this issue at some point. When you go deep enough your brain can no longer see the big picture, only all the little pictures it consists of. Only after spending brain time on something else does the big picture emerge again.

 

For programming I've found Lemmy's tactic to work great, if I hit a wall I go work on something else. The solution usually magically occurs next morning in the shower or something like that. The human brain is a mysterious apparatus.

 

And regarding time estimation, to shamelessly rip off someone whose name I've probably never heard: the first 90% of work takes 90% of the project time, and the remaining 10% of work takes the other 90%. Even though it easily sounds like a joke, it is very often true in practice. It is just impossible to correctly estimate how much time any nontrivial feature takes to implement, showstoppers can and do turn up from nowhere at any point.

[Kirrus]

I believe what you're describing is the 'incubation' effect - leaving a problem and working on something else often brings fresh insight and motivation into the original problem.

For programming I've found Lemmy's tactic to work great, if I hit a wall I go work on something else. The solution usually magically occurs next morning in the shower or something like that. The human brain is a mysterious apparatus.

 ...

For sysadmin problems.. on the loo. I can't say how many times I've been on the loo and a solution appears unasked in my head. Brains are weird man.

[Connall]

 

 

I believe what you're describing is the 'incubation' effect - leaving a problem and working on something else often brings fresh insight and motivation into the original problem.

For programming I've found Lemmy's tactic to work great, if I hit a wall I go work on something else. The solution usually magically occurs next morning in the shower or something like that. The human brain is a mysterious apparatus.

 ...

 

For sysadmin problems.. on the loo. I can't say how many times I've been on the loo and a solution appears unasked in my head. Brains are weird man.

 

 

I like it when the solution appears in your sleep and you scramble out of bed to write it down, only to forget and spend ten minutes slamming your head in a desk screaming "WHY!?"

 

WHY!?

[Shortbus]

This thrad has reaffirmed my choice to support this game.

 

 

Thanks for the honesty and the breakdown.