ANN: About the technical development of the online interactive version
Preface: As is typical of all important stuff written when you are tired and busy with many sorts of work, this announcement also was erased when the browser crashed. The current text does not have half the intricate detail I already had written, also it gives the impression that I am dogmatic. Too bad 
The Beginning
- It was hoped for and considered realistic by multiple sources that the game could be playable online with no graphics in 3 weeks
- Sir Riccardo took it upon him to organize the development
- A 5-member professional team lead by sXpher was contracted, they had delivered work for Sir Riccardo in the past satisfactorily.
- After reading a 5-page feature spex, the rulebook, the thread, and the online databases, they promised to deliver a well-specified limited playable version in 4 weeks, and further that Versions 3 and 4 can be delivered on time also with the planned features.
- At this time the release date of V.2 was postponed by 3 weeks (to 1502) since 2 weeks had passed and the team needed 1 week more.
- Every time when I was in contact with the team, they told all is fine and no further input from me is needed.
Situation around the Confirmed Release Date of V.2: Ancients
- Even the testing time slot for a few hours before release had been given to me, but when the time came, I did not get the access. During the following 6 days (which end now to this announcement as things are now clear), the following things were found out.
- Backend components were well done and useful.
- The team had not understood how little functionality is spexed and needed, and the delay was partly because of doing wrong things, or right things too early, or too well.
- Version release management was totally blown - 1 day before everything is fine, even though there's nothing playable to show. This sudden finding was a great disappointment and stress for me.
- For this reason confidence of mine and Sir Riccardo to the project management of the team suffered greatly.
- Sir Riccardo took the lead in the project personally.
Our Decisions concerning the immediate future
- The development of V.2 will be finished. The current team is capable of doing it. The problems in communication and project management will be remedied as follows:
- Communication: sXpher will post to this thread 6 days a week. The posting need not be a technical development progress report every time, but they are also expected very frequently. Also he will immediately start to play the game actively and interact with players. In advance that some specification is needed from me, sXpher and Riccardo ask for it.
- Project Management: Sir Riccardo will take a more active role and is ultimately responsible of the release. No fixed date is given, since it is unclear how long exactly the finalizing takes, and the features are exactly the minimum ones already. Instead, Sir Riccardo will daily give the 25%-50%-75% confidence estimates for the release, which are much needed for me as the gamemaster.
- Much time and money has been wasted in failure to follow clear orders. It will not happen again.
Long-term considerations
- I am very positively surprised of the success of the game. Even though the number of players is far behind the target (target assumes 30 days online play already), the building activity and value of the gameworld are very robust. Price of gold is behind, but will surely rise when this birth pang is over.
- Game development will be modular, conducted by a small full-time developer team, so that each module is independent and can be released when it is ready, or saved for a later time. There will not be great versioning and preannounced release dates, which serve no purpose.
/ 130% / King's Park
