Build 14 Beta 4.0 has just been publicly released, after a long and rocky development process.
Of course development has immediately continued and already we've got some nice stuff being prepared for Beta 4.1!
Now the big question is: How are we going to handle future releases?
There are a fair few things to consider here and I'd welcome your feedback!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Frequency of Internal Releases
For starters, @Hylie Pistof has mentioned several times that during Beta 4 development, new updates were posted TOO OFTEN.
What happened is that myself and @Levis tried to sort out issues and make the fixes available as quickly as we could.
This has the advantage that everything is available to everyone who wants it.
But it has a disadvantage as well, which is that it becomes quite hard for players and testers to remain up-to-date.
Stuff changes all the time, so people may lose track of what is new. Plus often a "new game" is required, which also doesn't help.
So knowing how we have done this the past 1.5 year, what do you think about it?
What was good? What could have been done better? How would you like to see it?
If updates less frequently would be better, then that could save a lot of development time!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Deciding the Content to be Added
The release of Beta 4.0 has been prone to MASSIVE delays. It was originally meant to come out shortly after the Summer 2015 holidays.
That became Christmas 2015 and that turned into Easter 2016 when it finally happened.
Main reason for this is that rather huge changes were added to the intermediate updates that weren't stable enough.
Unfortunately we did not know this at the time and we only found out when bugs started showing up.
This was the begin of a very long-winded process that took well over half a year and still hasn't 100% been completed.
But by the time we started to think it was taking stupidly long,
the changes had become so huge that reverting back to an earlier state was also no longer feasible.
In other words: Not the best situation.
This has made it clear that some sort of quality control is required BEFORE stuff is added to the main mod.
Normally this is me and I decide it by looking critically at all the code changes.
But for hugely complicated changes, such as the ones we have recently seen,
I cannot possibly foresee the impact of every line of changed code in advance.
This is not a reliable way of handling this. So how ARE we going to handle it?
And who will decide what goes in or not? And how is that to be decided?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Frequency of Public Releases
Depending on how things go with development, we have had a release within 6 months of the last.
Or, as was the case with Beta 4.0, it took a year and a half.
Normally it is me who decides when it is good to go.
And I have a tendency to want all concerning issues to be sorted before the release.
But being rather a perfectionist, it could very well be that I am too critical, causing extra delays.
On the other hand, we don't want the public releases too frequently either.
Refer to point #1 above.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Responsibility of Making the Releases
Reading between the lines of the above texts, you may notice that a lot of what does and doesn't happen and how everything is handled relies on me.
I unofficially took over from the great Nathan Kell around the time that Build 13 was released.
At the time I knew virtually nothing of programming nor software development as I was 17 years old.
And it has stayed like that for more than 10 years now.
A lot has happened since then and my life has taken more than a few twists and turns.
But no matter what, I have stuck around here to continue nudging, pushing and pulling things along.
Relying on merely one single person is not a very healthy situation though.
If for whatever reason I won't be around anymore to support this community,
it would be good if there were somebody else to step in and continue.
Because we have just released the biggest new update in years, this is a perfect time for other people to become involved as well.
I would be very happy to show you all the tricks of the trade.
And if someone else could join in the business of compiling and releasing updates, then eventually I may be able to start focusing on other things.
This process is always quite straightforward and I dare say many people here are more than able to do this as well as I do.
I am thinking, for example, of @Grey Roger, @pedrwyth and @Jack Rackham.
So do you guys agree with me that this would be a good idea?
And if so, who would be up for the challenge?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As has always been the case, I really want the progress here to continue.
As long as there are still people who have fun doing this and playing with the results, New Horizons should have a bright future!
Of course development has immediately continued and already we've got some nice stuff being prepared for Beta 4.1!
Now the big question is: How are we going to handle future releases?
There are a fair few things to consider here and I'd welcome your feedback!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Frequency of Internal Releases
For starters, @Hylie Pistof has mentioned several times that during Beta 4 development, new updates were posted TOO OFTEN.
What happened is that myself and @Levis tried to sort out issues and make the fixes available as quickly as we could.
This has the advantage that everything is available to everyone who wants it.
But it has a disadvantage as well, which is that it becomes quite hard for players and testers to remain up-to-date.
Stuff changes all the time, so people may lose track of what is new. Plus often a "new game" is required, which also doesn't help.
So knowing how we have done this the past 1.5 year, what do you think about it?
What was good? What could have been done better? How would you like to see it?
If updates less frequently would be better, then that could save a lot of development time!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Deciding the Content to be Added
The release of Beta 4.0 has been prone to MASSIVE delays. It was originally meant to come out shortly after the Summer 2015 holidays.
That became Christmas 2015 and that turned into Easter 2016 when it finally happened.
Main reason for this is that rather huge changes were added to the intermediate updates that weren't stable enough.
Unfortunately we did not know this at the time and we only found out when bugs started showing up.
This was the begin of a very long-winded process that took well over half a year and still hasn't 100% been completed.
But by the time we started to think it was taking stupidly long,
the changes had become so huge that reverting back to an earlier state was also no longer feasible.
In other words: Not the best situation.
This has made it clear that some sort of quality control is required BEFORE stuff is added to the main mod.
Normally this is me and I decide it by looking critically at all the code changes.
But for hugely complicated changes, such as the ones we have recently seen,
I cannot possibly foresee the impact of every line of changed code in advance.
This is not a reliable way of handling this. So how ARE we going to handle it?
And who will decide what goes in or not? And how is that to be decided?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Frequency of Public Releases
Depending on how things go with development, we have had a release within 6 months of the last.
Or, as was the case with Beta 4.0, it took a year and a half.
Normally it is me who decides when it is good to go.
And I have a tendency to want all concerning issues to be sorted before the release.
But being rather a perfectionist, it could very well be that I am too critical, causing extra delays.
On the other hand, we don't want the public releases too frequently either.
Refer to point #1 above.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Responsibility of Making the Releases
Reading between the lines of the above texts, you may notice that a lot of what does and doesn't happen and how everything is handled relies on me.
I unofficially took over from the great Nathan Kell around the time that Build 13 was released.
At the time I knew virtually nothing of programming nor software development as I was 17 years old.
And it has stayed like that for more than 10 years now.
A lot has happened since then and my life has taken more than a few twists and turns.
But no matter what, I have stuck around here to continue nudging, pushing and pulling things along.
Relying on merely one single person is not a very healthy situation though.
If for whatever reason I won't be around anymore to support this community,
it would be good if there were somebody else to step in and continue.
Because we have just released the biggest new update in years, this is a perfect time for other people to become involved as well.
I would be very happy to show you all the tricks of the trade.
And if someone else could join in the business of compiling and releasing updates, then eventually I may be able to start focusing on other things.
This process is always quite straightforward and I dare say many people here are more than able to do this as well as I do.
I am thinking, for example, of @Grey Roger, @pedrwyth and @Jack Rackham.
So do you guys agree with me that this would be a good idea?
And if so, who would be up for the challenge?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As has always been the case, I really want the progress here to continue.
As long as there are still people who have fun doing this and playing with the results, New Horizons should have a bright future!
) doesn't fill me with encouragement (that and having recently started a new career myself, I should probably focus on learning that stuff first :/), therefore I think it's safe to say you can write me off from many of the roles you mention above ...it's not for a lack of wanting to, but more a realistic lack of time and patience to learn this stuff from scratch, which is what it'd be for me. Sorry but I'd rather be honest. 
I ended up doing the roles of about 30 people on the last voluntary project I worked on (hence it being my last...).
