[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Pelican

I don't take the pre-release hype too seriously in any year. Of course OOTP has to promote the updates and changes, but I suspect most of it is too dense to easily explain without descending [ascending? - no judging!] into code. I know little about programming except that it is hard to translate into rhetoric.

Programming can be weird. I just had a planning session today where there was a lot of this...

Product: "This should be pretty easy."
Us: "Yeah, that's going to take most of the sprint for one person to complete because of X, Y, and Z."

Product: "I know this is a big ask, but..."
Us: "Yeah, that'll take us like a day."

That's nothing against non-programmers; it's just very hard to estimate how long a task might take unless you are experienced enough in writing code to have at least a general idea of how you'll write it (and knowledge of the system you're in is pretty huge too - some very simple cosmetic thing might take 10 minutes to do in a well-written, streamlined system but could take a lot longer in something that's got styling interfering with styling).

I mean, that's kind of the point. For me, the price point is so low, and combined with my FOMO, I have pre-ordered and can't wait to just play with 23. I understand that could make me something of a beta tester, to the extent there are bugs; but I doubt anything could happen that couldn't be quickly corrected with a patch or update. I don't mind maybe helping to sort that out.

Here TBH, say whatever else you'll say about OOTP, they tend not to have particularly buggy releases, even in beta. There will probably be a thing or two someone will find in the open beta because by definition more eyes = more chances to find bugs, but it hasn't been crazy and bug-ridden for a while and I'm guessing that's because they have a fairly robust QA system built in.

Of course, this could always be the year it's buggy. They usually don't have to push back the release date either and sometimes "we need another two months" turns into "we'll make do with another month" but who knows?

And personally, I love finding out about improvements when they crop up during game play. For example, I'll be looking to see "new ratings balances for historical players" in my sim seasons past. Strikes me as the kind of thing you appreciate (if at all) in retrospect. Kind of nod your head and think "they got that right".

I'm really interested in seeing how Movement as well as pitch framing is handled. Also the pitch-by-pitch mode, although I'll only be seeing that by proxy, as I tend not to dive deep into individual strategies when I'm playing out games.