Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

CrazyEddie · 2019-02-17 04:13:23

Jason, please only release updates on days and times when you can commit to monitoring the results in both the immediate aftermath and the short-run aftermath.

If you intend to have evenings and weekends to yourself, please consider only ever releasing on Thursday afternoons or Friday mornings, so that (for example) when a bug makes the game literally unplayable you are still on the clock, monitoring the situation, and able to discover and fix the issue rather than being occupied with your family.

If for whatever reason the release gets delayed until Friday afternoon, please arrange your work schedule so that you can monitor the game for several hours later into the evening and again for some time on Saturday.

In the enterprise IT world, the one thing that everyone dreads is a Friday afternoon release. It very often results in many people's weekends being ruined, as they go home but then get emergency pages and calls later that evening or the next day. Please don't do that to yourself (unless that's what you choose), and please don't leave your players hanging by being unavailable at the one time that they need you the most.

fragilityh14 · 2019-02-17 04:55:55

he emailed me back at 11:45 on Friday night.

just saying.

Stylingirl · 2019-02-17 05:05:29

Jason does usually spend time fixing bugs and doesn't just shut his inbox off once it's Friday evening. More than once he's worked the whole weekend and past midnight to ship updates and fix bugs. I don't think it's fair to expect him to push updates even further back because of isolated and rare incidents.

I also think he shouldn't have to set aside multiple hours of his day to wait and see if anything goes wrong with the update, especially since he usually talks with us about updates before they're pushed or comes onto the discord almost immediately after. He isn't an enterprise, he's one man who tries his hardest and works within his available schedule and I think it's a little much for you to ask him to change his work routine to suit your personal desires.

Tarr · 2019-02-17 05:15:45

I mean if Jason gives us an update on Thursday I can generally find whatever he fucked up. Within an hour I was abusing the current temperature shock system but I'm sure that could have been found anyways. I'm not upset if he launches something Friday as regardless something /might/ be wrong anyways. As long as Jason is doing his best to avoid random bugs I'm okay with trying to fix them.

Jason does his best to fix stuff in a reasonable amount of time and some of us make sure to try to do the same.

fragilityh14 · 2019-02-17 05:27:51

also none of this is that broken. I did get a temperature shock kill that was moderately annoying, but I was running around in the wilds with no home camp. chasing some stray evidence of life, I did die suddenly, but had also basically ran into an unknown desert with no real plan carrying only a carrot, so i shouldn't necessarily survive easily in that situation.

CrazyEddie · 2019-02-17 05:37:05

Stylingirl wrote:

I don't think it's fair to expect him to push updates even further back because of isolated and rare incidents. I also think he shouldn't have to set aside multiple hours of his day to wait and see if anything goes wrong with the update, especially since he usually talks with us about updates before they're pushed or comes onto the discord almost immediately after.

"Things rarely go wrong, therefore there's no reason to stick around to see if something went wrong." This is a terrible approach, and Jason would be ill-advised to continue to follow it.

He isn't an enterprise, he's one man

All the more reason for him to plan his update schedule so that there is support time built in immediately following the update. Because he is only one person, he doesn't have the staff that an enterprise does sitting ready to provide that support during off-hours. So he should make sure that his support isn't needed during off-hours, by scheduling his releases so that the post-release support will coincide with his desired working hours.

I think it's a little much for you to ask him to change his work routine to suit your personal desires

I'm not asking him to change his work schedule. I'm suggesting that if he changes his release schedule he'll be able to accommodate his own preferred work schedule, while simultaneously not leaving his players hanging out to dry when, inevitably, something goes wrong with a release.

ruanna · 2019-02-17 09:21:42

Exactly. And then if nothing breaks he can fix small bugs in that work time or work on the next week's update, or just take an early half day off. Just don't release something big and go to sleep is what we're saying.

golmock · 2019-02-17 09:41:47

I agree with this opinion.
It doesn't mean he has to work on the weekend m.
I think it's better to update on a day other than Friday.
An error just occurred in the forum and I was really embarrassed.

Penthus · 2019-02-17 09:46:52

The problem is you think that the temp update is unintended and if it happened early in the week he would have "Fixed it". From all he has said this is how he intends the game to be played now with some possible balance tweaks. I agree that the disconnecting was an issue but he worked and fixed that outside his normal work schedule so that's not a valid argument either. I am loving the meta shift.

Peremptive · 2019-02-17 10:29:05

if you read the discord... I just don't think he ever plays his game, because he doesn't seem to realize what he has done.

ruanna · 2019-02-17 10:40:32

Penthus wrote:

The problem is you think that the temp update is unintended and if it happened early in the week he would have "Fixed it". From all he has said this is how he intends the game to be played now with some possible balance tweaks. I agree that the disconnecting was an issue but he worked and fixed that outside his normal work schedule so that's not a valid argument either. I am loving the meta shift.

??? No? I mean literally how the servers were down this time and from the big server update. And he popped into discord to talk to people a few times too. And the update happened but no actual update report.

CrazyEddie · 2019-02-17 14:34:31

This has nothing to do with the temperature changes.

BlueDiamondAvatar · 2019-02-17 15:51:56

Stylingirl wrote:

I don't think it's fair to expect him to push updates even further back because of isolated and rare incidents.

While I haven't been tracking that closely, I'd guess about a third of the updates have had a major playability issue that cropped up in the first hour or two of player access. That is far from isolated and rare.

And Jason is not the only person who releases software for a living. The software industry plans for problems after a rollout because it happens all the time! As a one man shop, he can't POSSIBLY do the in depth stress testing of his code that an enterprise does, so I'd expect him to have more bugs at rollout than the average software developer. Which I'm fine with... as long as he plans for it in a rational way.

I don't like feeling like I have to alert the mods because I know Jason isn't paying attention otherwise. I don't think it's fair to you either.

elemental_slim · 2019-02-17 15:59:25

I would LOOOOOOVE to have IN GAME announcements of impending server down time for maintenance. So that we would know to end our sessions on good terms, and not start projects.

Stylingirl · 2019-02-17 17:39:49

"Things rarely go wrong, therefore there's no reason to stick around to see if something went wrong." This is a terrible approach, and Jason would be ill-advised to continue to follow it.

Except he does stick around fix bugs. Just because he doesn't immediately fix him due to having a life and family doesn't mean he waits until the following Monday to bother checking if things are going smoothly.

All the more reason for him to plan his update schedule so that there is support time built in immediately following the update. Because he is only one person, he doesn't have the staff that an enterprise does sitting ready to provide that support during off-hours. So he should make sure that his support isn't needed during off-hours, by scheduling his releases so that the post-release support will coincide with his desired working hours.

He does have an update schedule? Its Thursdays and Fridays? If he had to wait to upload updates on days he could spare extra time monitoring, then he'd constantly miss the deadline, have to push his work back due to the update, which subsequently would have to push his updates back because you can't handle a few hours of buggy game play.

I'm not asking him to change his work schedule. I'm suggesting that if he changes his release schedule he'll be able to accommodate his own preferred work schedule, while simultaneously not leaving his players hanging out to dry when, inevitably, something goes wrong with a release.

His release schedule is based on his work schedule? This is obviously his preferred work schedule because no one is forcing him to follow it. He works for a week and then updates the game, and comes on to make sure everything is running smoothly, if not immediately then by the next morning. If he can't fit all of his efforts into a full time job's worth of time and has to put in extra hours to hotfix, answer emails, and fix the servers, why do you think it's a good idea for him to shove all those extra hours into the following week, which again, would put him even further behind in his work schedule?

I would LOOOOOOVE to have IN GAME announcements of impending server down time for maintenance. So that we would know to end our sessions on good terms, and not start projects.

Every update is displayed in the #live-dev-changes chat on the discord so you can see Jason adding changes and pushing updates. You can also visit http://onehouronelife.com/reflector/ser … ion=report which will label servers as "CLOSED" once they are completely emptied. Jason tries to keep his update schedule constant around Thursday or Friday evenings Central Time so you have an estimated guess as to when the servers will go down.

DestinyCall · 2019-02-17 17:53:31

I'm curious why updates are released on Thursday/Friday, rather than Monday/Tuesday. That would give Jason the rest of the work day (or week) to deal with bugs and fixes, instead of creating a stressful long weekend of extra work when things go awry.

He could still work on each update through the week and finalize things by Friday. But just delay the launch until Monday morning when he has plenty of time left to do tech support and adjust for unexpected problems like the disconnects and server madness that occasionally happen after a major change. I want Jason to be able to have a life outside of OHOL and he shouldn't have to worry about what's happening in this game when he's spending time with his family or on the weekends, if at all possible. It can be hard to find a good work/life balance as an independent game developer, especially with a multiplayer game that has an active and vocal community.

Some updates are unlikely to break the game - like the radio update. Even if radios were broken, it wouldn't effect most players and the game should still be playable. Unless something weird happened during coding .. which happens sometimes. But something like this temperature update that changes a core game-play mechanic in a major way is almost guaranteed to have some problems that need hot-fixes. Jason does do play-testing and I'm sure he did a lot of testing to make sure this update was working correctly before launch. But play-testing and full launch are not the same thing. You can't catch everything with limited testing and unexpected things can happen when the community interacts with a new mechanic for the first time.

In my opinion, this kind of a major change would have greatly benefited from some kind of announcement so the community knew what to expect and could brace themselves for the new hardcore experience. It also helps to know what Jason is aiming for with a new update so that people don't report intentional changes as game-breaking bugs. I'm not convinced the temperature mechanic is working correctly right now, but without knowing how it is suppose to work, it is hard to be sure.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-02-17 17:58:37)

CrazyEddie · 2019-02-17 17:55:56

Stylingirl wrote:

He works for a week and then updates the game, and comes on to make sure everything is running smoothly, if not immediately then by the next morning.

But why not immediately? If he released during the day instead of at the end of the day, he'd spot the problems and fix them immediately instead of leaving his players with an unplayable game until the next morning.

You seem to be under the impression I'm demanding Jason do more work. That's not at all the case. I'm suggesting that he plan his release schedule with the expectation that he may need to fix something immediately post-release. In other words, schedule releases during the middle of his working day rather than at the end.

Stylingirl · 2019-02-17 19:26:07

CrazyEddie wrote:

Stylingirl wrote:
He works for a week and then updates the game, and comes on to make sure everything is running smoothly, if not immediately then by the next morning.
But why not immediately? If he released during the day instead of at the end of the day, he'd spot the problems and fix them immediately instead of leaving his players with an unplayable game until the next morning.
You seem to be under the impression I'm demanding Jason do more work. That's not at all the case. I'm suggesting that he plan his release schedule with the expectation that he may need to fix something immediately post-release. In other words, schedule releases during the middle of his working day rather than at the end.

Because he's working on it during the day? He doesn't just work Monday-Thursday and do nothing on Friday. He's still working on it up until it's released so when the game updates, it's the end of his work day. If he doesn't immediately check for bugs and stay for a few more hours to see if anything needs to be fixed, it's because he's probably relaxing with his family or eating dinner. Also, why would he update the game in the middle of his working day when he's not finished working on it? That would guarantee there would be content missing and game-breaking bugs.

CrazyEddie · 2019-02-17 20:33:05

Stylingirl wrote:

He's still working on it up until it's released so when the game updates, it's the end of his work day. If he doesn't immediately check for bugs and stay for a few more hours to see if anything needs to be fixed, it's because he's probably relaxing with his family or eating dinner.

This is bad planning. Instead of targeting a release at the end of the day, and planning his decisions about what will and will not be included in the update accordingly, he should target a release in the middle of the day, and plan his decisions about what will and will not be included in the update accordingly.

That will allow him the opportunity to discover post-release issues and address them before quitting for the day to relax with his family and eat dinner.

ryanb · 2019-02-18 04:16:50

What about having a beta server where updates are released on Thursday/Friday then published to the public on Monday. This way we can test everything and report bugs without breaking the main game.

Last edited by ryanb (2019-02-18 04:19:21)

Peremptive · 2019-02-18 12:09:05

ryanb wrote:

What about having a beta server where updates are released on Thursday/Friday then published to the public on Monday. This way we can test everything and report bugs without breaking the main game.

That would be way too respectful and reasonable, geez, how naive are you? The official reply to this is that we are hostages for the Creator to play with. The dev says you are unreasonable if you think anything you make in this game is supposed to last, or make any sense the next day. Just follow the Vision, it was entrusted to Him by angels in a dream.

Last edited by Peremptive (2019-02-18 14:23:58)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-02-17 04:13:23

Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#2 2019-02-17 04:55:55

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#3 2019-02-17 05:05:29

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#4 2019-02-17 05:15:45

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#5 2019-02-17 05:27:51

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#6 2019-02-17 05:37:05

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#7 2019-02-17 09:21:42

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#8 2019-02-17 09:41:47

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#9 2019-02-17 09:46:52

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#10 2019-02-17 10:29:05

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#11 2019-02-17 10:40:32

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#12 2019-02-17 14:34:31

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#13 2019-02-17 15:51:56

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#14 2019-02-17 15:59:25

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#15 2019-02-17 17:39:49

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#16 2019-02-17 17:53:31

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#17 2019-02-17 17:55:56

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#18 2019-02-17 19:26:07

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#19 2019-02-17 20:33:05

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#20 2019-02-18 04:16:50

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

#21 2019-02-18 12:09:05

Re: Jason: Update Releases Need Scheduled Support

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