I think TNT should preconced the entire plor before even launch it

[antiaircraft]

Where is all this "wait a year" stuff coming from? TNT obviously has an extensive staff of graphics people and writers to handle the continuous updates and events (advent calendar, pet days, GMC, DD, etc etc).

 

Why would the plot take an entire year to create if they did it ahead of time while taking considerably less time to do it on the fly? That makes no sense whatsoever. Obviously the site would not use ALL of its resources on a single plot, so we would not have zero activities for a year. Second, why would it take a year to create a plot that can be created week to week? If it takes X amount of time to finish the plot as it goes along, it would likely take X amount of time to finish it all at once. There is little reason to assume otherwise.

 

Not that I am arguing for full completion before the launch. I just do not find the "no activities for a year" or for 6 months to be a reasonable assumption.

I recall reading a recent editorial answer stating that TNT's staff numbers well under a hundred in total. Managing such an expansive site with a relatively small team is an impressive feat in itself - so yes, TNT does have an expansive staff of graphics people, writers, and *programmers* to handle their continuous updates and events, but the aforementioned expansive staff is likely occupied with the aforementioned continuous updates and events for the vast majority of the year.

 

The figure I cited earlier (upwards of half a year of preparation) was a very rough estimate, based on my limited programmer's and writer's understanding of the amount of work put into setting up the plot steps, which tells me that they probably already spend about half a year working on the plot beforehand: storyboarding the plot, profiling the characters, knocking code and framework systems into place, setting up databases, outlining steps and puzzles, coding first drafts and testing and recoding and testing and recoding and testing once again - you get the picture.

 

I believe that what TNT is doing *now*, on a week to week basis, is simply the finalisation work for the plot: ironing out compatibility glitches between browsers and operating systems, finalising artwork, zeroing in on and eliminating/working around the last few bugs, and testing the result thoroughly until they can be sure it will go out glitch-free.

 

So yes, based on those premises, I do believe that if TNT were asked to focus entirely on developing and completing a plot to the point where they could release its components in rapid succession with reasonable confidence that it will actually work, that would require a considerable reduction in effort on TNT's other projects for around six months. Development in advance is *hard*. You often lack the context you need to put everything in perspective. You need beta testers. And beta testing takes time. In a long-term project, there's also bit rot to worry about...

 

That's my argument, but of course I could be completely wrong. Somebody with more experience in full-scale software deployments can probably answer this better than I can.

[jesse_rocket]

Gosh, less than 100? That I didn't expect, given the size and popularity of Neopets. It's a wonder that they can get anything done and working!

 

That said, I would still like them to hurry this up a bit now! :P

[EchoEternal]

If they really do change things in response to our reactions, I think it's a very good things that they do finalize as they go along, rather than handing the steps out like candy on Halloween. It gives a sense of suspense and reality to the plot, I think. If I knew there would be a new step every Tuesday at 9 A.M., it wouldn't be as fun. As it is, I like knowing roughly how long each part will take without having precise answers, just as I like knowing the plot will come to an end, even though I don't know exactly how.

 

I very much agree that the waits are necessary to keep the massive population of Neopians who have things like finals and jobs to keep them busy irl from rebelling. As one of the many college students who seems to be hanging around, I know I couldn't keep up if the plot moved much faster. As it is, I missed the first battle altogether.

 

I'm sure they do have almost everything done ahead of time, or else they certainly couldn't crank this all out at such a rapid pace and with so few bugs.

 

Overall: I quite approve of how they are handling this plot, especially with such a small team.

[tempdisplay]

I hate the waiting, at times. The update a week thing is bad. It's not right, especially without any steps. I'd have preferred them to have done everything before publishing the plot or at least work a month or 2 weeks before publishing dates. I hope you understand the latter.

[adina]

I agree with most people here, the delays between updates are actually a good thing for people who are busy IRL with school and/or jobs. I couldn't get the 'Jack of All Stations' deed because of working on a university project which ate away at most of my free time those few days, and I see a lot of people missed/were about to miss a battle because of RL. Most people are busy, let's face it, Neopets isn't our number one priority, and it's good to see TNT are at least trying to give all of us a chance to participate and keep up as much as we can.

 

Additionally, I'm certain that TNT considers everything beforehand and plans it all, especially since the plot ran more or less smoothly. And I had no idea that there are less than 100 people on the team, that's a pretty nice achievement for them!

 

...Having said that, I'll admit that I check for updates as often as I can. Still, I won't complain.