Any Case News?

[VRAndy]

Since they can't trust the forum-going community with negative or inactive progress updates, we don't get any.
That's the worst excuse I've heard here so far! You make them sound like over-emotional teenagers, raging against human nature.

Some people in the world are jerks and morons, and life is not always fair. It is never acceptable to use either of those facts as an excuse not to do something.

Next you'll be telling us that Craigix didn't ask to be born.

If you (Dauric) are right about their logic, I lose a lot of respect for OpenPandora. I'm far happier believing that like a over-dedicated engineer they'd rather be making stuff than talking about it. It can be tough to pull yourself away from an exciting project, even just to talk about that same project. Or maybe they're just really busy; that'd be OK too. If they're just sulking because people called them names on the Internet I'll be disappointed.

Remember: "Open" is part of the name of the project.

 

[Dauric]

Since they can't trust the forum-going community with negative or inactive progress updates, we don't get any.
That's the worst excuse I've heard here so far! You make them sound like over-emotional teenagers, raging against human nature.

Some people in the world are jerks and morons, and life is not always fair. It is never acceptable to use either of those facts as an excuse not to do something.

Next you'll be telling us that Craigix didn't ask to be born.

If you (Dauric"] are right about their logic, I lose a lot of respect for OpenPandora. I'm far happier believing that like a over-dedicated engineer they'd rather be making stuff than talking about it. It can be tough to pull yourself away from an exciting project, even just to talk about that same project. Or maybe they're just really busy; that'd be OK too. If they're just sulking because people called them names on the Internet I'll be disappointed.

Remember: "Open" is part of the name of the project.[/quote]And you're missing the point entirely:

A) they're busy, busy enough that they need to prioritize.

B ) Negative updates make bigger news than positive updates, and reduce the customer base. They do want to sell these things. The bad reputation adds more PR work, crfap that engineers don't want to deal with. OPLtd. is a corporation, not a glee club.

C) If updating creates more work, Ie: needing to make press releases to counter negative BS accusing OPLtd. of fradulent behavior, and it threatens Pandora's reputation amongst potential customers, then it may be best to not update on negative events.

It's sad but true that they still have to be concerned with the Image of Pandora for marketing reasons. We all who frequent these forums know all about the Pandora, we've read about it, we've researched it, we've already spent our money on it. However for every one of us there's at least a thousand other people, if not tens of thousands, who have never heard of the Pandora, but for whom a pocket-sized UMPC would be an ideal device for their work or recreation. Those articles aren't just "people calling them names on the Internet", those articles shape the reputation of the Pandora in the eyes of potential customers. Industry news articles carry more weight and authority than simple forum trolls, but they often get their information from those self-same trolls. Most of the regular media is accustomed to writing about projects that are kept under tight wraps and only provide positive press, so obviously any negative press is the result of leaked anonymous sources and is worse than the company projects.

The power of "Tabloid Journalism" to shape customer opinions is, sadly, reality and "Business 101" to any company looking to survive and grow.

Does it suck municipal sewer-pipe? Absolutely. That doesn't make it any less true when you have to deal with it.

 

[lingenfr]

If I parsed all your posts I could note the circular logic. First they are waiting with nothing to tell, then they are two busy. Trolls will take any news and plaster it all over the Internet. Come on. Google Pandora. Where is all the troll fodder? They either will or won't provide updates. Regardless, at this point in the process, asking for regular, informative updates IS NOT unreasonable. The mostly outdated webpage and these PUBLIC forums with a significant amount of posts from PAYING customers complaining about a lack of information, have to be worse than the alternative. A company keeping their PAYING customers informed has to beat keeping them in the dim light.

 

[SNESFAN]

we got from the horse's mouth that when there are updates to be had we get them... and what we're waiting on is other people for further progress

"We give updates whenever there is anything to say. If only it was as simple as you make it sound, alas it isn't as for the most part lately we have to rely on other people." - craigx

so this must mean that there really isn't anything going on, that's why we aren't hearing anything, the parts of the project we're waiting on is in other people's hands that might not be so "open" as it were.

also the devs that work on the software portion of this work on this stuff in their free time seem to think (in my observation anyway) that whatever small progress that is being made isn't worth making note about regardless of how we feel as if we want the information or not.

"You really don't want to hear about all that stuff; suffice to know it is coming along nicely, but you can imagine.. 'try something, takes a couple hours, night is done; work all day, try something else.." -skeezix


So I don't think it's a matter of them being too busy or what bad rep they will get, but rather them thinking it's enough progress to make any kind of official "update". Stuff like "staying the course" or "unsuccessful attempt to fix said bug" probally would get old even though in my opinion it's better than silence. Because hearing nothing imo is worse of a forward progression mood than hearing about attempts, but ya know, I'm not the one programming or debugging the son of a bitch in the first place, all I did was give them money for a final product. How they want to treat us or make assumptions on what we want is on them.

 

[danielliu88888]

we got from the horse's mouth that when there are updates to be had we get them... and what we're waiting on is other people for further progress

"We give updates whenever there is anything to say. If only it was as simple as you make it sound, alas it isn't as for the most part lately we have to rely on other people." - craigx

so this must mean that there really isn't anything going on, that's why we aren't hearing anything, the parts of the project we're waiting on is in other people's hands that might not be so "open" as it were.

if they don't have anything to say, does that mean they aren't doing anything? granted, ED and a few members of the team can't really do anything right now because it's most hardware issues that need to be tweaked now, but the people working on it right now are spending a great deal of their free time on this. if they were to make constant updates, they wouldn't have time to work on the project!

that whatever small progress that is being made isn't worth making note about regardless of how we feel as if we want the information or not.

"You really don't want to hear about all that stuff; suffice to know it is coming along nicely, but you can imagine.. 'try something, takes a couple hours, night is done; work all day, try something else.." -skeezix

So I don't think it's a matter of them being too busy or what bad rep they will get, but rather them thinking it's enough progress to make any kind of official "update". Stuff like "staying the course" or "unsuccessful attempt to fix said bug" probally would get old even though in my opinion it's better than silence. Because hearing nothing imo is worse of a forward progression mood than hearing about attempts, but ya know, I'm not the one programming or debugging the son of a bitch in the first place, all I did was give them money for a final product. How they want to treat us or make assumptions on what we want is on them.


stuff like "staying on course" or "unsuccessful attempt to fix said bug" is all they can say, if people keep on clamoring for news. that's why sounds old, the team gives us constant updates compared to other companies. it's not entirely "on them". there are unforeseen circumstances and all that, they want to make the product as good as possible.

 

[Dauric]

If I parsed all your posts I could note the circular logic. First they are waiting with nothing to tell, then they are two busy. Trolls will take any news and plaster it all over the Internet.

It could be any or none of the above. Most likely is exactly as jb0yxx states, take them at their word, that they update when they have something to update. My point in any and all is that there are reasons not to give certain updates. Any and all of it on our end is varying degrees of speculation.


QUOTE
Regardless, at this point in the process, asking for regular, informative updates IS NOT unreasonable. The mostly outdated webpage and these PUBLIC forums with a significant amount of posts from PAYING customers complaining about a lack of information, have to be worse than the alternative. A company keeping their PAYING customers informed has to beat keeping them in the dim light.


When you paid for your preorder, were you not aware of how often they updated? I watched their progress for three months before I preordered to see if they were progressing with the project and updating in a manner I'd find satisfactory. A Preorder as an investment is not "Voting Stock", OPLtd. is not a publicly traded company and you're not on the board of directors. Just because you're a "PAYING" customer doesn't mean that you get to dictate internal company policies. If you didn't like the way they did things, you shouldn't have gotten financially involved in the first place until you were comfortable that they were.

 

[hedwards]

Since they can't trust the forum-going community with negative or inactive progress updates, we don't get any.
That's the worst excuse I've heard here so far! You make them sound like over-emotional teenagers, raging against human nature.
Not really, when people were being given more frequent updates they reactive with cynicism and paranoia. Giving no updates isn't likely to be any worse than that. And takes less time.

If you like I could post a new topic every day saying that it hasn't been finished and that more information will be coming down the pipes eventually. At least that would save craig the time of posting that it hasn't been finished and that more information will be coming down the pipes eventually.

 

[VRAndy]

QUOTE
It's sad but true that they still have to be concerned with the Image of Pandora for marketing reasons.
What do you think that image is right now? A razor's edge away from pure vaporware. A month ago Duke Nukem Forever occupied that same precarious position in the Internet's awareness.


What's all this talk about "negative" updates? If you do constant regular updates, very, very few "negative" updates will exist. (Most of those will be rolled into release-date slips, which you've got to tell people about eventually anyway.)

What a proper development blog is filled with is WORK IN PROGRESS. The media responds to that sort of stuff just fine. Here is an example of the sort of post I would like to see :

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/articl...rticle_id=10004
http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/articl...rticle_id=10005
http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/articl...rticle_id=10011
http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/articl...rticle_id=10006
http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/articl...rticle_id=10007
http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/articl...rticle_id=10013

This is an entire week's worth of Developers' Blogs for "Pirates of the Burning Sea". Notice how in one post they mention that vertex lighting is completely broken. Did the forums go wild with "OMG! POTBS WON'T HAVE LIGHTING!!!!!"? I don't know, but I assume not.

I'll bet there's not more than an hour of man-power that went into this entire week's worth of posts, but the developer's blog built up a large amount of public interest in the game, and a lot of sympathy for the difficulties that the developers faced along the way.

Later posts on the blog hit on difficult gameplay balance issues, so I'm sure those encouraged lively forum discussions, but still, the blog HELPED THE PROJECT at every step. I would like Pandora to do something similar.

A Sony-style approach where everyone keeps their mouths sealed is not appropriate for this project, and is badly damaging it, if you ask me. (And you haven't. I realize that.)

(Incidentally, I recommend reading a larger chunk of those POTBS dev blogs. It's an interesting read if you're at all interested in game development.)

 

[SNESFAN]

What a proper development blog is filled with is WORK IN PROGRESS. The media responds to that sort of stuff just fine. Here is an example of the sort of post I would like to see :

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/articl...rticle_id=10004

That's what I was trying to portray when I wrote to craig, something exactly like this... but alas, my dreams was not fulfilled, I completely agree with 90% of what you're saying. I think if they presented some of the issues that were having maybe some feedback from the community might have them think in a way you haven't thought before. In the line of work I'm in (desktop support) I'm constantly throwing my ideas and shortcommings around my office as I seem to have brain stumpers every day... and ya know what? It useally helps me get the job done faster just because it's not just me thinking of what could possibly be wrong. Even if nobody but me does what I do at the level I do it, they get me thinking about what else could be the issue, technically savvy or not. Different points of view always help, even if you were to say to yourself... "no that's retarded, or it has to be...." That's when most of my best ideas come about.

We have some seriously brilliant minds in these forums, but I almost never see "issue: possible solutions anyone?" what I do see is "function: would you like this?" It doesn't always have to be a one man show as it were... we're here to help all flameing and noob bashing aside.

Even though it probably won't get them to be more vocal, I don't really see any flaws in whats being proposed

 

[hedwards]

QUOTE
It's sad but true that they still have to be concerned with the Image of Pandora for marketing reasons.
What do you think that image is right now? A razor's edge away from pure vaporware. A month ago Duke Nukem Forever occupied that same precarious position in the Internet's awareness.
Um, no. In the last say 10 years did you or anybody else outside of 3d realms see the internals of DNF? Did anybody outside the company provide the money to make the game? No not really.

If you're going to troll the forum, could you at least stick within the realm of reality, please? At very least we've seen 3 distinct sets of mainboards, machines capable of running games and that in and of itself even if there never is a release places it several orders of magnitude closer to a release than DNF ever was. This isn't a software project, sure that's a portion of it, but this is mainly a hardware development, craig and ED can't exactly sit at the keyboard for 8 hours and expect to have the hardware issues fixed. Sure it might work out that way at times, but most of the time they're having to wait for parts to be finished and we already have a twitter for that. http://twitter.com/themime if you're curious.

Last I saw of DNF was a bunch of clearly rendered footage, none of it looked like actual game play material.

As for the PR, who cares whether people think it's vaporware? It'll be released then people will be like "holy crap, that's not vaporware" then they'll either care or not. The last thing we need is more trolls coming in here and chasing away devs. It's not like anybody has the ability to buy one until the next batch is available for preorder anyways.

 

[danielliu88888]

QUOTE
It's sad but true that they still have to be concerned with the Image of Pandora for marketing reasons.
What do you think that image is right now? A razor's edge away from pure vaporware. A month ago Duke Nukem Forever occupied that same precarious position in the Internet's awareness.
Um, no. In the last say 10 years did you or anybody else outside of 3d realms see the internals of DNF? Did anybody outside the company provide the money to make the game? No not really.

If you're going to troll the forum, could you at least stick within the realm of reality, please? At very least we've seen 3 distinct sets of mainboards, machines capable of running games and that in and of itself even if there never is a release places it several orders of magnitude closer to a release than DNF ever was. This isn't a software project, sure that's a portion of it, but this is mainly a hardware development, craig and ED can't exactly sit at the keyboard for 8 hours and expect to have the hardware issues fixed. Sure it might work out that way at times, but most of the time they're having to wait for parts to be finished and we already have a twitter for that. http://twitter.com/themime if you're curious.

Last I saw of DNF was a bunch of clearly rendered footage, none of it looked like actual game play material.

As for the PR, who cares whether people think it's vaporware? It'll be released then people will be like "holy crap, that's not vaporware" then they'll either care or not. The last thing we need is more trolls coming in here and chasing away devs. It's not like anybody has the ability to buy one until the next batch is available for preorder anyways.

yeah, when people realize it's not vaporware when it's released, the floodgates will open. no more talks of conspiracies, it'll be all "WHER DO I GETS ROOOMMZZZZZZZZ" like when the gp2x was released.

 

[VRAndy]

QUOTE (Hedwards)
Um, no. In the last say 10 years did you or anybody else outside of 3d realms see the internals of DNF? Did anybody outside the company provide the money to make the game? No not really.
You're preaching to the converted, buddy. I did not say that I believed that Pandora was vaporware. I personally am confident that progress is being made.

Allow me to clarify :

Dauric was claiming that OP's tight-lipped lack of development updates somehow saved Pandora's reputation. I was disputing that point. I think Pandora's reputation outside of this forum is terrible. When was the last time you saw an article about pandora that wasn't followed by five million posts screaming "VAPORWARE!!!!!"? Any of my friends that are aware of Pandora laugh when they learn I've paid for it. I don't care that they laugh, but this clearly illustrates that the word on the street is that Pandora is vaporware.

See, the main thrust of my post (which you completely ignored) was that a proper, real development blog could only help the project's reputation, and would sooth the frustration of us forum-goers at the same time.

 

[Bosbeetle]

It just doesnt work that way as with software. You've all seen it happen. The team presents a keymat layout, 60 forum pages later everybody still complaining that it isnt the keymat they want. And still the keymat layout is still a big discussion whenever some news about it is mentioned.

Somehow we arent the crowd that goes a well thats nice and theyll fix it. We are a crowd that goes : 'oh noes! it cant be like that. if it is like that i will cancel my order how could they. i will send jaquelin 60 emails with my own designed keymat and they have to change it into that. i can't live with this.'

I know its a small percentage that makes a fuss about these things but there is always a fuss. and that means more mails, pms etc for the team. And that means less work gets done or the community will be ignored and they also dont want that.

 

[younghifi]

It just doesnt work that way as with software. You've all seen it happen. The team presents a keymat layout, 60 forum pages later everybody still complaining that it isnt the keymat they want. And still the keymat layout is still a big discussion whenever some news about it is mentioned.

Somehow we arent the crowd that goes a well thats nice and theyll fix it. We are a crowd that goes : 'oh noes! it cant be like that. if it is like that i will cancel my order how could they. i will send jaquelin 60 emails with my own designed keymat and they have to change it into that. i can't live with this.'

QUOTE (Gruso)
Oh cosurgi.

I know its a small percentage that makes a fuss about these things but there is always a fuss. and that means more mails, pms etc for the team. And that means less work gets done or the community will be ignored and they also dont want that.

It's not really like that. Suffice to say that a weekly "progress report" style post on the blog would be a good compromise, even if it's just a few sentences long (or just a twitter message ). The "fuss" on our forums usually sorts it out itself (or rambles on for 10+ pages and stumbles to a lot of off-topic discussion)

Maybe we should do a "psychological profile" of the OpenPandora forum community, just for kicks?

 

[Monk]

imagine the forums when they do report every little problem they encounter, then the crowd will go mad. Even now when they mention only major news everybody goes all mental on speculations etc.
Consider that the reason we go all mad is because the updates are so few and far between, and the updates we do get, even major ones, are often written in rather terse, cryptic terms.
They also don't describe the process as much as many of us would enjoy, they only describe the positive progress. So when they don't have something new physically in their hands, or when something has gone wrong, we hear very very little as if they were doing nothing, which in most cases can't be true.

That's the current reason, yes, and has been for some time. I suspect, however, that we are a resourceful bunch and if OP actually WERE good enough to provide updates as often as I would like, "we" would manage to find other reasons to bitch and whine ad nausium. That doesn't mean they shouldn't provide more updates, but I don't think the reason for updates should be "to keep the customers happy" unless they omit all negative updates - which probably puts us right where we are with the current frequency of status.

 

[pelrun]

I keep seeing people spouting this "lack of updates" line, when we've been getting new info/pics/vids all the damn time. Stop saying it, IT ISN'T TRUE.

A *lot* of the hating went quiet when the Wiz finally arrived and those people finally had something else to occupy them; the remainder are just impatient.

 

[SNESFAN]

It just doesnt work that way as with software. You've all seen it happen. The team presents a keymat layout, 60 forum pages later everybody still complaining that it isnt the keymat they want. And still the keymat layout is still a big discussion whenever some news about it is mentioned.

Somehow we arent the crowd that goes a well thats nice and theyll fix it. We are a crowd that goes : 'oh noes! it cant be like that. if it is like that i will cancel my order how could they. i will send jaquelin 60 emails with my own designed keymat and they have to change it into that. i can't live with this.'

I know its a small percentage that makes a fuss about these things but there is always a fuss. and that means more mails, pms etc for the team. And that means less work gets done or the community will be ignored and they also dont want that.

I never said I do what my co-workers say... I take their input but ultimately I'm the one doing the work so I'm gonna do what I want in the end anyway, but the input on what people think is what I was trying to get at. In this regard, there is no open discussion on possible solutions to issues, just note that there is a sorta vague issue ie... what part is being worked on

 

[WizardStan]

I keep seeing people spouting this "lack of updates" line, when we've been getting new info/pics/vids all the damn time. Stop saying it, IT ISN'T TRUE.
We are currently in a tiny bit of a dry spell. There haven't been any pics or videos or real solid information in a couple weeks, just tiny tidbits that need to be stitched together. I can understand people talking about "lack of updates" right now. I don't agree, but I can understand.
What really bothered me were the ones complaining about lack of updates when ED had posted a new Blog update the day before.

 

[emil10001]

I keep seeing people spouting this "lack of updates" line, when we've been getting new info/pics/vids all the damn time. Stop saying it, IT ISN'T TRUE.
We are currently in a tiny bit of a dry spell. There haven't been any pics or videos or real solid information in a couple weeks, just tiny tidbits that need to be stitched together. I can understand people talking about "lack of updates" right now. I don't agree, but I can understand.
What really bothered me were the ones complaining about lack of updates when ED had posted a new Blog update the day before.

Sure, if by 'a couple weeks' you mean 3 days (wifi info"]:[/quote]http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...mp;#entry732610
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...mp;#entry732143
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...mp;#entry732466

EDIT: Make that two days for ED:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?act=S...ser&mid=205

 

[VRAndy]

I keep seeing people spouting this "lack of updates" line, when we've been getting new info/pics/vids all the damn time. Stop saying it, IT ISN'T TRUE.

Really? Well then let's bring this topic back to where it started. Perhaps you could tell us about the progress being made on the hinge?

QUOTE (bosbeetle)
And still the keymat layout is still a big discussion whenever some news about it is mentioned.
And the solution is to NOT talk about the keymat?
I propose that small incremental updates. (After all, they're very busy people, they must be busy with something.) Even if many of them are boring, will calm people down.

A single larger update every three weeks makes the forums go made. But imagine if we'd seen everything leading up to that update. It'd all go smoother.