I've said this before. But I do not expect dead pool, ever. It would be nice to have but I don't see it happening. Sure hope I'm wrong as an xmen owner.

Dead pool was in the menus so people assumed and speculated something will happen with it. I think they'll just end up removing it from the menus. The game could be considered complete with a slightly more polish on the wizard mode and a couple bug fixes. I don't see them going all out for more. And there's really a lot to do in the game without dead pool so while it would be neat, it's not required to complete the game.

Well considering there are lots of Bally / Williams / Stern and even WOZ that are not code "complete" its nice to hear something is being worked on. If it happens great and if not enjoy your game/games and play something else.

With the interest from the Williams copyright holder to fix some bugs any positive software updates are a good thing.
A great game design is only made better with equally great coding. Poor code only hurts great games.

And if we get 9 women, we can have a baby in a month!

That seems to be a popular refrain ... until details of a new pin are revealed. Then it seems all the nay sayers fall all over themselves to get in the LE line if they have any interest in the theme/game and rationalize that Stern must have finally decided to get serious about finishing code.

It isn't a baby, it is code. Coding is done by large teams every day. That statement says that it is impossible to split the actual work between multiple people, and that is wrong. No, you can't part out a baby, but you don't gestate it for years either. Time to induce labor.

not as much as some here would like to think

I'd say 20%

Pinsiders be like...

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Classic, Ed.

I think we are saying the same thing.

You must work for stern. My 25 years of software development coding and project management of large highly complex systems ranging Cad/cam, production line monitoring and PDM thinks your out of your depth.

Last game was ACDC luci and before that STLE.....

Acdc luci doesnt have new different code than other premium/le models right? So im not sure that counts

As a software engineer, having owned a software company, and been on massive design/engineering/development teams, you sir clearly haven't a clue. A collaborative project, done with version control, project management, and specific tasks, can absolutely be done in a fraction of the time (and likely better and with significantly fewer bugs) than via a single expert.

Do you think one person writes MAME? Google's Apps? Amazon's website? iTunes store?

Thank you for opening 2014 with the most misguided post I've seen yet.

Made me laugh

Nope, 16 years of IT and this is the typical mindset I've experienced in many shops. Usually means we're onto the project death march

How does not anyone get "And if we get 9 women, we can have a baby in a month!" is clearly sarcasm? Especially a phrase that is repeated in many IT shops every day? Jesssh.

My point is that "throwing bodies" or "Simple, hire more coders" (as previously mentioned) is not always the solution, yet it's what most people immediately jump to when software development falls behind schedule.

I'm going slightly out on a limb here, but I expect it, and soon. So I guess we'll see.

And obviously Stern needed more coders, they were just hiring in that position. But this idea that any one game's code can be solved by throwing bodies at it is ridiculous. We can all trot out our "I've been in the industry X years" game, plenty of IT and tech people here, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on it.

There's a reason that 9 women 1 month baby thing is a trope though.

I think you and the others bragging about your experience have missed the point.

Is the point that Stern cannot keep up with writing code for the number of games they ship?

It's all your faults. If you stop buying and preordering NIB pins without finished code then maybe their decline in sales will make them finish games so people will start buying again.

What point would that be?

So your saying that having a pre planned set of rules say created by Lyman can't be implemented quicker with more people that he manages? 2 people working on may not decrease the amount of time it takes to implement but may increase by 50% the amount of rules implemented. Isn't that the point? Completeness on-time?

It seems you guys miss the point it's more about being 100% complete at initial release with bug fixes after. Not sure why your fixated on time I'm not.

Maybe when the new operating system gets finished,they will do this!

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't think you really understand how making pinball rules works. Lyman doesn't sit down for a week, write out all the games rules, and then struggle for 6 months to actually code them, wishing he had a couple of people do it for him.

There are probably sound reasons why Stern is vague on naming which pins will get additional coding.

1) It acknowledges that they understand the code is incomplete for certain games. As soon as they communicate which pins are getting the treatment, they will be bombarded by people asking for an update on their other pins not listed. This is human nature and is probably best handled by keeping the masses at bay and appearing aloof.

2) They will be bombared by people asking whether this or that change is being included. Then if they answer those questions they will get bombarded by people wanting to know why some feature or rule change won't be included. It is a no-win situation.

The best solutions are to either add new programmers or to relax the production schedules of existing programmers to allow them to finish game to desired level of completeness. I agree with comment that they should use program management approach to software development and to outline and produce software with teams of people. The project manager can make sure everything is cohesive and is being developed on a timeline. Heck, if Lyman had to do it all himself, we would need to clone him (think of movie Multiplicity).

Their just trying to pacify a few. It wouldn't surprise me if Lyman hasn't even started additional code on Met.

I really doubt this. I'm guessing approval is only needed if something significant is added (DMD animations, sound clips, ect...). I'm pretty sure bug fixes, rule changes, ect wouldn't need approval.

Ding Ding we have a winner. This seems to be the mindset of business managers that think they can run a software team....lets bring more people (usually temp contractors) and we can get done in no time. However who is going to train these people, who's going to look after them, assign work, manage their code/checkins, etc. My current company threw more bodies at our current application and its taking longer than the original group estimated.

Why don't you explain it versus having a non answer with a smiley face.

I have the mindset of a customer that expects a complete product at delivery. At least use logic. Maybe you weren't a good estimator in the first place which would explain a lot of your answers. Like I said and others have said poor project management - poor estimation, poor resource allocation, poor personnel development, lack of resources all lead to poor product implementation and lack of completeness. How would you solve this problem?

Maybe Stern could create an operating system that would allow end users to create their own rules and scoring. Then these homemade rule could be traded freely and create constant interest in new rules and ideas. This would keep all of their releases fresh and default code could always be a fall back.

In the computer flight sim community there are tons of add ons that are shared freely and the game became bigger than it ever could have if it was only coded by microsoft. People began to do lots of really innovative things with it.
Just look at what has been done with virtual pinball. If Stern opened this up to home users imagine the possibilities.

i hate to say this but... he's right!

Not by thinking more bodies will solve it. That is not the solution for everything, and can be harmful to a good working development team.

Wow, what a non answer... You sure your in IT? Or just used to giving excuses.... Or how you would not do it.... That's a leader! That's a problem solver!

Stern has the man power to make great games and complete code.

They just don't
1) communicate
2) spend enough time post launch to complete software

I think 2014 will be the year they lighten their release schedule to 2 new releases and focus more time on the software.

I HOPE they communicate better in 2014.

Allow me to elaborate on what you're being told. Adding coders to a project that is behind in an effort to speed things up often has the exact opposite effect. New coders need time to come up to speed on the code, their proprietary tooling and processes/procedures. If what currently exists in terms of code/tooling isn't particularly well-documented, they often flounder and distract other team members with questions. The resulting losses in productivity due to communication overhead trump any gains you may realize in the short-term. If you were hiring them with an eye toward them working on new titles, that's worth considering. The problem firms like Stern have is that they have large-ish legacy codebases with (I'm assuming) sparsely documented tooling supported by a small cadre of people with essentially irreplaceable skills. I can't hire a Lyman or a Keefer off the street today. Guys with that type of experience are not the dime-a-dozen commodity that guys with freshly-minted PMP certs are.

You can crap on Stern all you want but the reality is that growing their engineering team to be able to support fully-implemented code on FCS for four (4) titles a year would likely take them years. Not saying they shouldn't do it but simply that it's nowhere near as simple as people would like it to be.

Cheers..

<blockquote cite="#1356401"
I think 2014 will be the year they lighten their release schedule to 2 new releases and focus more time on the software.
I HOPE they communicate better in 2014.

Doubt it, fewer releases means less profit. Coding earns them nothing, though it could help improve goodwill.

Does this mean that WOF is being worked on as well?

Stern himself has said 6 pins in 18 months, which probably includes ST and maybe Luci…….

hard to add new people for the reasons posted above but the added labor/benefit costs are not there to bring in tons more revenue is my guess in this case with Stern.

LOL......are you sure you know anything? Have you ever once thought that maybe....just maybe......the delay is due to the business making requirment changes? Its not always poor this and that with the team. I'm sorry that my CE masters degree doesn't meet your needs. Again...throwing bodies at code does not solve the issue...either at Stern or anywhere in the software field.

Lets dumb this down a bit..... I want to dig a hole in my backyard....lets say 4'x4' and I hire four workers to do it. They work standard days with some OT (after all they are salaried and get Jack Schitt for overtime). Now I want the hole dug faster, so I hire four more people. However they don't fit in the hole, so they sit around not knowing what to do. Now a couple of those original four need to show them what to do and ramp them up.....they are super weak and need a month to get up to speed working out......now I have only two people working while the other two train them. Now after a month, eight people are in that same hole digging, getting in each others way (like developers checking out the same code and tripping over updates)...hmmmmmm did you ever think of that? Now lets make this more like the real world.....I want the hole a circle......but its already a 4x4 square....and I want the diameter 2 ft......now they need to fill much of it in and basically restart. Now its raining and the dirt is backfilling.....now I want the hole lined with bricks.....now I want a wall and could care less about the hole and I'm not going to give clear requirments, making the workers make the best educated guess, but I'll continue to change what they did.

This is what happens...its not cut and dry...bread and butter....0's and 1's......so simply saying throw more bodies is quite frankly....a bad answer

Is that enough for you bmunn1...or are you going to continue trolling with your witty responses?

Anyone have an idea what it costs Stern to just develop a game?

Take Metallica for instance, Six guys on the dev team John Borg (game designer), John Rotharmel & Mike Redoble (mech engineers) while on the software side Lyman (lead programmer), Mike Kryzivat (programmer) & Mark Galvez (dots).

Stern has to be saving a bit of money by cutting the software guys off the project early & it's the only reason I can think of as to why they hold out on complete game code early on.

I remember in one of the making of metallica videos Borg stated that he started the project on his own & designed some of the mech stuff himself so that tells me how "tight" Stern is being.

The only incentive I see for Stern to continue to working on the Metallica code (or any other unfinished game) is for it to be out before the next production run of the game.

Do you think Stern is using Agile methodology for developing their code?

I don't think they are using any sort of methodology

It may not be a bad idea to go that route....however, not to knock Stern, but I would be surprised if any of them know what that is (other than the developers)

I know agile and all upper management thinks it solves everything so full steam ahead. In reality it will double every project's timeline. They think that by giving non-technical people hourly statuses with excruciating details the customers will be better informed on why things are taking so long.

How about I answer it? 9 women CAN'T have a baby in a month. The rules are only partially planned. The road to completion of those rules changes as you implement items and realize they work/dont work as intended and are/not as fun as you originally imagined. That type of work and rework takes time and thats where having multiple people doesn't help. 2-3 folks on a pin is ok. More than that and quite frankly there just isn't enough tangible work for each individual to stay busy and not cause more headaches in code merges and QA.

Agile might not be the answer for Stern, but you have to agree that something needs to change...correct?

I read somewhere on Pinside that with licencing, employee's, parts, ect, it costs $1,000,000 to develop/produce a pinball game but who knows if that is true?

Agile/Scrum if implemented properly does not double a project timeline. Maybe add's 10 percent but what it adds is a level of predictability and visibility for management which if you aren't on that side of the house is very important.

If your "agile" folks are doing hourly updates they aren't doing it right. There is a quick 10 minute morning or afternoon standup meeting for status and that's it. At that point the devs should be left alone and its up to the PM's to properly communicate status based on burndown/waterfall charts.

Developers hate dev frameworks but they are a necessary evil on some projects as you either have poor project managers or even worse BA's who are trying to glue everything together with MS Project.