You've worked on multiple games. Is reworking a feature something normal that happens in any game development, or is this something unique because we're running a live environment in the middle of our development?
TL;DRReworking features is normal in game development, usually after alpha, but Star Citizen's live environment, shifting priorities between S42 and PU, and constant must-fix work make it more stop-and-start.
It depends on different things. So usually with normal game development, you really kind of get one shot at it and you're working through it, and a lot of times once you get to alpha and you get the game all together, then you have those malarkey-just-hit-the-fan moments, and you look at it and go, oh, this thing really needs to be cleaned up, or this thing needs to be rebuilt. Let's rebuild it as fast as we possibly can, or we duct-tape it. Now, for us, we're in a very unique situation. There are certain things that were done a long time ago, and now that we've got a bigger universe, it's being updated. For example, the QT HUD and other things like that; that to me is just switching it over to a different HUD and fixing that, and that will fix a lot of the QT issues that we have. So from there, there's other things where teams have other higher priorities that are needed for S42 or needed for PU that kind of get in the way of this stuff a lot of times. So, just because we are dealing with the live environment, and when we are doing feature work... Before it was, we've got six weeks on and then kind of six weeks of bug fixing and trying to solidify things, and you're doing work, but at the same time, you've got live must-fixes or Evocati must-fixes or PTU must-fixes that are coming in, plus quality of life. So it's just a mixture of... You're working on the feature, but then it's a little bit of stutter-stepping that's happening. So versus traditional game development, it's just you plow on, you work, and then you really get to alpha. And a lot of times that's when you take a breath.
You just kind of hope it all works.
Yeah, exactly. And then from there, between Alpha and Beta and Final, a lot of times that's when you're seeing a lot of what I would consider crunch, because a lot of times it's not in a state that you want it to be in, so therefore you have to go in and fix it in a very, very short time period. And that to me is the hard part.