The Roadmap

Discussion in 'Dungeons of Dredmor General' started by Nicholas, Sep 12, 2011.

  1. SamuelMarston

    SamuelMarston Member

    I just wanted to wish everyone at Gaslamp Games a very Merry Christmas!

    It will definitely be a great holiday for everyone on my list:
    [​IMG]
     
  2. Godwin

    Godwin Member

    Nice to see more people spreading the good news.. game!
     
  3. Daynab

    Daynab Community Moderator Staff Member

    Blast from the past there. There's gonna have to be a new one at some point since we're past the roadmap :p
     
  4. Nicholas

    Nicholas Technology Director Staff Member

    I will note that the "secret thing" I wanted to put in for 1.0.7 was, in fact, the Wizard Levels. The fact that we only just did it now indicates that I'm not exactly the fastest gun in the west when it comes to my pet features.

    Let me check with everybody else to make sure it's cool, and I'll do another Roadmap post early next week.
     
  5. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Do so. It's interesting to see where DoD will go, although I'm sure some of us wouldn't be adverse to Gaslamp focusing more on Odin for now rather than Dredmor.
     
  6. Nicholas

    Nicholas Technology Director Staff Member

    Well, that much is a given.
     
  7. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    We just want you guys focused when you put the deer in the squid, that's all.
     
    Doc Gelegentlich likes this.
  8. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    If anything, I dare say they should focus on making a version that is without any bugs, so that people would have something to fall back to.
    And then, they could do whatever is it that they are planning on doing.
     
  9. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Well, no bugs is obviously an impossibility, but I think I know what you're getting at. Stop work on features for now and instead focus on fixes and balance?
     
    Kazeto likes this.
  10. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    Yes, that.
    And I know getting into the state where there are no bugs is an (almost) impossibility - it would still be "acceptable" if something minor didn't work the way it was intended to. The point is, when you look at the few last versions (ignoring the fact that one can't exactly go back to an earlier version now if he wants to have the third expansion), every one of them had something working funky. Which is why, in my opinion, it would be good if people who just want to play got a stable version to play with.
     
  11. Createx

    Createx Member

    I don't think Steam supports 2 different versions of the same game, so these two versions would have to be inside Dredmor itself (Dredmorception!).
    For me, this sounds rather like the way most Linux distros handle their release - release a long-term support stable version every 2 years or such, and some cutting edge versions every 6 months.
    But I'm not sure GLG can handle 2 different versions of the game right now, with Odin and all that...
    Also, figuring out and abusing the bugs is the best part :D
     
  12. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    It's not like DoD requires Steam to play, either way. So they can make a copy.
     
  13. Nicholas

    Nicholas Technology Director Staff Member

    The last build, post YHTNTEP, was *very* stable and nobody really complained about it, save for the odd fuckery with a broken skill or something. Obviously the goal is to get back to this state which we'll be doing as soon as humanly possible - read, when I get back from this bloody conference.

    Since we have no future expansion packs planned, getting things into a stable state and *keeping* them that way would seem to be quite possible.
     
    Kazeto likes this.
  14. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    That's excellent to hear, Nicholas.

    Judging by David's posts yesterday, the work is already starting on getting back into a state where skills are more balanced, bugs and mistakes are fixed and so on.
     
  15. Isc4riot

    Isc4riot Member

    How about new features? What will happen with the game after all (or atleast most) bugs are fixed? I really love this game and I do realize that mod support is probably your answer for the future, and while the modders are often times quite ingenious with their mods, there is only so much that can be done with current features. While I'm not asking for a new expansion that adds 10 new spell effects 10 new rooms and a unique twist like the pocket dimensions or diggle gods every 3 months please dont let the game stagnate. Even if it was 1 new type of spell, rebalance of 1 vanilla skill (that probably doesnt compare to the quality of the new ones) or perhaps even a new unique skill line every 2-3 months, just dont make it sound like this is as far as the game gets. It somehow doesnt feel right with this being a roguelike game. Hopefully you'll answer these questions in the next roadmap.
     
  16. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    That they aren't planning on releasing more expansion packs right now doesn't mean they won't release any under any circumstances. It just means they don't want to rush into releasing another expansion with content that would be forced.

    If they concentrate on fixing bugs and giving us modding support, they will have slightly more time to work on whatever Odin is supposed to be compared to a situation where they would waste time trying to make another expansion pack straight out of the bat.
     
    TheJadedMieu likes this.
  17. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    That's also not to say new features won't arrive in the patches. We just won't have a structured release of features.
     
  18. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    With all the modding, there is room for the devs to sit back and do other things -- get on with Project Odin, for example -- after the major bugs are stomped out. I wouldn't be opposed to more DLC, paid or otherwise, when the devs have the time, and inclination and inspiration to do something different enough with the game to warrant it.

    Don't get me wrong -- I'd love to see an even better crafting interface, I'd love to see new directions for the game, etc. But I have more than enough to tide me over for a while (As good as Dredmor is, you need a change of scenery once in a while).
     
  19. Daniel

    Daniel CEO Staff Member

    We don't have any planned expansion packs, per se, but there is still work on the to-do list for Dredmor. Lots of general maintenance and clean-up of bugs and even some more minor content bits here and there. It is very possible that we could release another expansion pack in the future, but we would need to get to a point where we have a big enough backlog of great ideas that we feel that it would be worth the investment, and we're not there at the moment.

    We will be giving some more info soon (hopefully next week) about what we're working on and the direction we're moving as a studio, as there are nearly a half-dozen projects that we would love to be giving our full attention that we just don't have the manpower for. We decided back in December that we were going to start moving toward focusing on Project Odin and work toward giving you guys all the tools we could manage to help Dredmor to grow without it being our main focus. Most of that work is now done, and we now have enough of the work done with Odin that we can get into the nuts and bolts and start building the game (as for the last six months we've been building nuts and bolts). The reveal on what Odin is will likely be next month, and we have some fun stuff to show you guys.

    Lastly, I want to apologize again for the lack of communication on the blog. This is largely a symptom of working on Odin and not wanting to reveal too much too soon, so we don't have a whole lot to talk about. We got in the habit of posting to the blog on at least a weekly basis during Dredmor development, talking about game design decisions, what we were working on, and getting feedback. It was tremendously useful, inspiring, and cathartic, and we are really looking forward to having you guys involved if you are interested.
     
    Rhadamante, Stryke, jareddm and 7 others like this.
  20. venserpw

    venserpw Member

    If you're going to release more content but don't want to worry about coming up with the content, is it easier to release a community-made pack? Something collecting mods and putting them together? Or would the bugfixing be way harder than coming up with new content?