DOM Release Date

GrizzoMtGPQ

One of the members of Extinction sleuthed out a likely date of the DOM release: Thursday, May 24th. There is a little notch in this week's event schedule after TS ends and AWR begins. It also lines up with the end of the two existing purchase offers.

ZW2007-

Wouldn't it be crazy if they just announced an anticipated release date? Like "Hey everyone, we hope to have the 2.7 update in the app stores on X/X/18. We'll keep you posted if there are any delays. Thanks for being loyal fans of our game! We appreciate you!"

GrizzoMtGPQ

Yeah, you'd think. 

Laeuftbeidir

ZW2007- said:

Wouldn't it be crazy if they just announced an anticipated release date? Like "Hey everyone, we hope to have the 2.7 update in the app stores on X/X/18. We'll keep you posted if there are any delays. Thanks for being loyal fans of our game! We appreciate you!"

That'd be totally..

Great.

Mburn7

ZW2007- said:

Wouldn't it be crazy if they just announced an anticipated release date? Like "Hey everyone, we hope to have the 2.7 update in the app stores on X/X/18. We'll keep you posted if there are any delays. Thanks for being loyal fans of our game! We appreciate you!"

Hibernium used to do that, and even included an estimated downtime before the update was complete!

Sadly, they were almost always wrong, and got a lot of grief for it on the forums (and usually had to/were asked to give some compensation for the mistake)

I don't blame Oktagon one bit for using a "we'll get there when we get there" attitude, it insulates them from a lot of the possible problems.  Knowing its sometime this week is enough for me

Rhasget

Terror in the Shadows end tomorrow midday (Europe) so could be after that also.

As much time as possible before the new event would be good to find the card related bugs before it starts.

NinjaE

ZW2007- said:

Wouldn't it be crazy if they just announced an anticipated release date? Like "Hey everyone, we hope to have the 2.7 update in the app stores on X/X/18. We'll keep you posted if there are any delays. Thanks for being loyal fans of our game! We appreciate you!"

Hahaha! That was a good one!

babar3355

Mburn7 said:

ZW2007- said:

Wouldn't it be crazy if they just announced an anticipated release date? Like "Hey everyone, we hope to have the 2.7 update in the app stores on X/X/18. We'll keep you posted if there are any delays. Thanks for being loyal fans of our game! We appreciate you!"

Hibernium used to do that, and even included an estimated downtime before the update was complete!

Sadly, they were almost always wrong, and got a lot of grief for it on the forums (and usually had to/were asked to give some compensation for the mistake)

I don't blame Oktagon one bit for using a "we'll get there when we get there" attitude, it insulates them from a lot of the possible problems.  Knowing its sometime this week is enough for me

So they took a lot of grief, so they just took there ball and went home?  How about getting better and more consistent with your releases.  And honestly, if they are waiting on **** or the Karn package, then they have pretty good precision.  Why not just tell us the date?

I honestly can't think of any other game with an active community that is this bad at signaling upcoming content.

Grixis197

I thought it was delayed till next week as you see in the inbox coming next week, but that was there last week I think lol

Laeuftbeidir

Mburn7 said:

ZW2007- said:

Wouldn't it be crazy if they just announced an anticipated release date? Like "Hey everyone, we hope to have the 2.7 update in the app stores on X/X/18. We'll keep you posted if there are any delays. Thanks for being loyal fans of our game! We appreciate you!"

Hibernium used to do that, and even included an estimated downtime before the update was complete!

Sadly, they were almost always wrong, and got a lot of grief for it on the forums (and usually had to/were asked to give some compensation for the mistake)

I don't blame Oktagon one bit for using a "we'll get there when we get there" attitude, it insulates them from a lot of the possible problems.  Knowing its sometime this week is enough for me

They were not only wrong, they were really far off.. And still the releases were a buggy mess. I remember they needed two weeks longer than expected, I think for KLD (not totally sure about the set) and when they finally released it made the game nearly unplayable.

On the other hand.. There will always be negative feedback, magic just a game with too enthusiastic fans. And I totally agree with your last statement, but a "we'll get there when we get there" doesn't mean that they couldn't tell us a bit about their ideas, the closer it gets, the more precise they can be.

Plus, as we saw in the last sets : they were great to deliver in the time they gave themselves, as you can see when you compare the time-frames of the set offers on the vault with the actual (RIX) and potential (dom) release (if it comes this week)

jtwood

Laeuftbeidir said:

There will always be negative feedback, magic just a game with too enthusiastic fans.

That is the most polite and tactful way I have ever heard that described.

Myself, I prefer the infamous "Wizards could put $100 in packs and people would still find a way to complain" observation. Masterpieces were printed right after this, and, yes, people complained.

Tilwin90

The fact that people were complaining about belated releases indicates an issue... that is true. If delays happen repeatedly and frequently, this usually indicates that the development cycle is not properly defined or implemented. Coherency and consistency in estimations helps here, but also the decision making process here is important. Do you delay the release by a week for a minor bug that would take a few days to implement and test, therefore postponing the release? It also matters how big the time-span between the code freeze and release is. 

Smaller iterations can also help a lot, as right now it feels like the team is concerned with developing huge chunks (new cards, sets and events) with no other functional improvements. Find a way to make this process more efficient so you have less work in this direction in the future and can focus your efforts on other things!
It would seem like smaller iterations and more releases lead to a big overhead, but in fact help you address very important feedback much faster. Also, if you take smaller pieces, it's much easier to estimate and plan things short-term. Which leads to an overall better track medium and long term. There is a reason why Agile methodologies are so popular nowadays.

Finally, bugs are of course squeezed and sporadic and don't seem to be picked based no priority but more on a "what can fit" approach. They are not treated as first class citizens in the prioritization process, which leads to a clutter. I don't even want to think how much of a quanta of an iteration technical improvements actually get or how big of a priority they actually get.


But there is nothing wrong with planned releases and informing the end users about them. Of course, ideally, releases should become so predictable that users don't even have to ask themselves "when will be the next release". Instead announce only exceptional situations.

The fact that the current approach is "we are not going to say anything, and when it's done it's done" shows a lack of commitment, transparency and internal organization. And of course as soon this approach works "so well" when it comes to releases, it also becomes easy to do the same with other important decisions - rotations, price changes, offers, etc.

A counter-example to this approach is Brigby's effort to keep the events thread up. Of course this is another "patch covering the real culprit", where players should have an in-game calendar rather than have to be dependent on the forum for this information. But it shows transparency and organization skills, so once again I salute this effort and implication from his part and everyone else involved in this activity!


Nevertheless, it's easy to choose to "keep quiet" to "keep the masses from rebelling". Easy doesn't mean it's the correct way. My professional experience so far has shown me again and again that the more I communicate with my end users, truly incorporate their feedback (of course filtered and digested) and make things as predictable as possible for them, has lead me to being a much happier professional with much better results! My end user needs to know what to expect from an upcoming release. Whether I can take the extra mile to give them a little more 


And I'm going to end all this mumble rumble with a simple parallel. We all like surprises. But if I have to wonder day by day if "Santa is coming today or not" I'm not going to be very happy. There's a reason why Santa has such a predictable pattern. You know when he's coming, you don't always know what he's gonna bring you.