Posted By Hieronymus at 06:57 AM - Thu Jan 23 2020

...

Cons:

• The links they shared were to LinkedIn postings that are secured behind a login. That's great for LinkedIn maybe but I'm not sure about the wisdom of limiting yourself to candidates that have LinkedIn accounts. A venue focused exclusively on software development like StackOverflow might have been a better choice. The SBS website careers page does not list these openings, which neatly sums up their struggles in a nutshell.

...

Doesn't everyone have a LinkedIn account?

Also, if the SBS website code is so cranky that nobody on staff even wants to look at it (which seems to be the case, actually) it is no surprise that it has not been updated with recent positions.

;-)

Posted By Tulloch at 3:45 PM - Thu Jan 23 2020

I mean honestly, who cares about the website? most website complaints are based around them not updating info on the website, which surely shouldn't require a specialist. I guess if its for web based applications like the dss map I can see it, but that worked fine before they foolishly made the sale revolve around the map instead of just doing it for limited numbers of titles in the store. Even then it seemed like that could have been fixed if they actually tested the site properly before hand under stress by, I don't know, letting the community members who paid money to be able to test help them? The whole thing is a mess and this would ultimately just result in them hemorrhaging funds even faster.

I disagree with your assertions, and I will briefly say why rather than cheap-shot downvoting your post.

Right now I'm relying on what AshKain said about the D&SS software, which is that it has both bad architecture and bad design. If that is true, then additional testing would not have led to an effective quick fix, but only to a possible realization that it was DoA before we customers found out for and by ourselves.

I suspect that website improvements will be necessary for several of the roadmap phases. Certainly they will be needed for personas, which requires linking website actions with in-game domain actions if it is not to be totally trivial. I also suspect the website might be used in a major way to control access to alpha and beta test phases. Finally, a well-architected internet stack is an immense asset for game-time support, since it could be the basis for launch, versioning, and customer support services.

This thread is providing some good entertainment. Watching two sides just bitch and attack each other never gets old.

Posted By Gunnlang at 9:08 PM - Fri Jan 24 2020

This thread is providing some good entertainment. Watching two sides just bitch and attack each other never gets old.

Therefore I assert, SBS is giving us content 😁

Posted By Poldano at 03:43 AM - Fri Jan 24 2020

Posted By Tulloch at 3:45 PM - Thu Jan 23 2020

I mean honestly, who cares about the website? most website complaints are based around them not updating info on the website, which surely shouldn't require a specialist. I guess if its for web based applications like the dss map I can see it, but that worked fine before they foolishly made the sale revolve around the map instead of just doing it for limited numbers of titles in the store. Even then it seemed like that could have been fixed if they actually tested the site properly before hand under stress by, I don't know, letting the community members who paid money to be able to test help them? The whole thing is a mess and this would ultimately just result in them hemorrhaging funds even faster.

I disagree with your assertions, and I will briefly say why rather than cheap-shot downvoting your post.

Right now I'm relying on what AshKain said about the D&SS software, which is that it has both bad architecture and bad design. If that is true, then additional testing would not have led to an effective quick fix, but only to a possible realization that it was DoA before we customers found out for and by ourselves.

I suspect that website improvements will be necessary for several of the roadmap phases. Certainly they will be needed for personas, which requires linking website actions with in-game domain actions if it is not to be totally trivial. I also suspect the website might be used in a major way to control access to alpha and beta test phases. Finally, a well-architected internet stack is an immense asset for game-time support, since it could be the basis for launch, versioning, and customer support services.

When you’re running on only 8 million and most of your community is pissed burning the money on a website isn’t gonna save ya, putting out some of the game and showing what you actually have to encourage people to spend again could

Posted By Kyleran at 12:21 PM - Fri Jan 24 2020

Posted By Drudge at 12:46 AM - Fri Jan 24 2020

Wow. Lists as over $100k salary for the Sr. Web Application Developers. Since the post uses plurals for both positions that sounds like at least 4 hires. Add in AshKain and that guy who was from Revival and it seems like they have added or are adding close to $1,000,000 in salary/benefits.

They are going to have to sell an awful lot more to sustain the cash burn.

Facinating how this factual post can be so heavily downvoted, perhaps your final observation is a painful reality many don't want to face.

Might as well pile on.

Interesting you noted the positions were posted in the plural which could denote multiple hires.

I wonder though, are the advertising for just new hires or did they broom a few of the existing web staff after the COE fiasco?

Kain did say the issues were due to inherent architecture and design flaws, so perhaps some house cleaning was in order considering the web team has underperformed more than once.

Also, $100K sounds about right for talent in their location, so their burn rate is as high as I suspected, which means the $8M collected isn't going to last that long so more funding is definitely needed.

The math sucks, it doesn't care about sincerity, hope or desires, it just keeps pointing when the end might come unless one of the variables in the equation is changed.

Tell you what, I'll dislike myself just to get them ball rolling.

😁

That or an investor has been found and thus increasing the team size is possible

Posted By Ineluki at 12:54 PM - Thu Jan 23 2020

Can't wait to see how the salt lords spin this as a negative.

I'll tell ya how... hold my beer.

Why are you wasting time hiring web devs when you cant seem to product your main product? Sbs is obviously emphasizing profit over customer satisfaction cause all this is for is making it easier to throw fundraiser after fundraiser at you.

If you have the budget for more people on the team, I say fuck the website. It's barely gonna be used outside forums and less so after launch. Hire some more dev's for the game and stop dicking people around.

Produce something and stop selling pics with text. I dont give one more cent till I see proof of life. I refuse to have more of my hard earned dollars held as ransom.

I want this game, we paid to make it so. Show us you did anything the last 4+ years. No more broken promises and stupid attempts to gauge our pocketbooks yet again.

Posted By Count_Anatar at 12:17 PM - Fri Jan 24 2020

Posted By Ineluki at 12:54 PM - Thu Jan 23 2020

Can't wait to see how the salt lords spin this as a negative.

I'll tell ya how... hold my beer.

Why are you wasting time hiring web devs when you cant seem to product your main product? Sbs is obviously emphasizing profit over customer satisfaction cause all this is for is making it easier to throw fundraiser after fundraiser at you. a If you have the budget for more people on the team, I say fuck the website. It's barely gonna be used outside forums and less so after launch. Hire some more dev's for the game and stop dicking people around.

Produce something and stop selling pics with text. I dont give one more cent till I see proof of life. I refuse to have more of my hard earned dollars held as ransom.

I want this game, we paid to make it so. Show us you did anything the last 4+ years. No more broken promises and stupid attempts to gauge our pocketbooks yet again.

Buying a brace of otterbear now... dont worry, others will keep them afloat until your wallet sphincter unclenches. ;)

Posted By Kyleran at 10:20 AM - Fri Jan 24 2020

Revealing such info would very likely reduce backer enthusiasm to keep supporting the game with totally free, no strings attached funding.

If it were me, I wouldn't reveal it.

Not necessarily. Look at how much money AAA games make from pre-orders!

Gamers crowdfunded CoE because they wanted to play a game. With some exceptions, it's not like these are selfless donations for an "idea" with the understanding that this game may never see the light of day; they backed under the assumption that they would eventually have a final product. Unfortunately, they treated it like a pre-order for a game they wanted to play in two years, until the reality of MMORPG development set in and they realized that this was not going to happen for a while. Perhaps this was wrong of them and they should have known what they were getting into, but it's hard to fault them when the developers didn't exactly discourage that behavior and here we are now.

If anything, knowing that SBS has outside investors would increase consumer confidence and make future purchases seem more salient because the game has a better chance of seeing launch. If SBS announced they had a big investor, I believe people would come flocking to the community and spend more money on titles, early access, etc., not less.

Posted By Tulloch at 03:47 AM - Fri Jan 24 2020

Posted By Poldano at 03:43 AM - Fri Jan 24 2020

Posted By Tulloch at 3:45 PM - Thu Jan 23 2020

I mean honestly, who cares about the website? most website complaints are based around them not updating info on the website, which surely shouldn't require a specialist. I guess if its for web based applications like the dss map I can see it, but that worked fine before they foolishly made the sale revolve around the map instead of just doing it for limited numbers of titles in the store. Even then it seemed like that could have been fixed if they actually tested the site properly before hand under stress by, I don't know, letting the community members who paid money to be able to test help them? The whole thing is a mess and this would ultimately just result in them hemorrhaging funds even faster.

I disagree with your assertions, and I will briefly say why rather than cheap-shot downvoting your post.

Right now I'm relying on what AshKain said about the D&SS software, which is that it has both bad architecture and bad design. If that is true, then additional testing would not have led to an effective quick fix, but only to a possible realization that it was DoA before we customers found out for and by ourselves.

I suspect that website improvements will be necessary for several of the roadmap phases. Certainly they will be needed for personas, which requires linking website actions with in-game domain actions if it is not to be totally trivial. I also suspect the website might be used in a major way to control access to alpha and beta test phases. Finally, a well-architected internet stack is an immense asset for game-time support, since it could be the basis for launch, versioning, and customer support services.

When you’re running on only 8 million and most of your community is pissed burning the money on a website isn’t gonna save ya, putting out some of the game and showing what you actually have to encourage people to spend again could

I agree that putting money into the website instead of the game itself is risky. I don't know for sure that that is what's happening. The arguments I made hint that in order to even demonstrate playable content, the SBS web stack needs to improve. Even a great playable content demo of great back-end and graphics capabilities is going to faceplant if the stack supporting it crashes every few seconds.

I don't need all that much evidence of progress to pony up some more money. I pretty much need just tangible evidence of progress. D&SS was adequate evidence for me, and a functional Settlers will also be. If the majority of backers are like me, then I don't think there will be a huge financing problem.

Posted By Kyleran at 03:21 AM - Fri Jan 24 2020

...

I wonder though, are the advertising for just new hires or did they broom a few of the existing web staff after the COE fiasco?

Kain did say the issues were due to inherent architecture and design flaws, so perhaps some house cleaning was in order considering the web team has underperformed more than once.

...

I wonder the same thing, but I didn't want to be the first to bring it up.