I can recall back when 1.7 was fresh off the press, and everyone shared the same attitude that is expressed here. It didn't turn out bad at all, did it? Once you can get used to something, regardless of flaws or impracticalities, it ain't bad at all.
Everything is imperfect - 1.8, MCG, etcetera. While I can surrender that there are several bugs floating around that do limit 'full' gameplay, it's certainly not a reason to abandon ship so soon. As several people have already pointed out, change is inevitable, and in this particular case, it should be welcomed - 1.8 brings a truckload of neat, nifty features that can be efficiently utilised to exact gameplay quality to a level that represents the quality MCG promises. As
David | xRevalize mentioned earlier:
The second point is important. By further delaying 1.8, it'll be impossible to not only pro-actively update these new games, but it will also prove impossible to satisfy the majority: survival games players. The community screams for updates, fixes, additions, and removals, yet it's not that easy to do it when you're working on an outdated system, is it?
The gamemodes did, indeed, bring on a slew of bugs, glitches, and misfortunes, but to say that these gamemode additions are "useless" and "take up space and time" is an egotistical, asinine statement. Nobody plays these gamemodes right now because either nobody wants to bother trying it because of all the negative things they hear about it, or they have tried it first-hand and just prefer plain ol' SG, which isn't wrong.
While some of these new games may not amount to much, there are benefits to continuing their developement. It'll bring in new players, for one. The redundancy of SG servers is becoming ludicrous, and it's just one big battle between a hundred and one different SG servers. To meet the competition head on, you have to find ways to direct and attract new players - because of the already massive and immersive SG community, the need to focus on a different personnel is crucial. The merge with AVN was, in itself, crucial. There's so many benefits to developing these gamemodes, but most people choose to focus on the negatives. Give it time, and it'll grow. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Finally, due dates. Ahh... we all get mad when they aren't kept. I'm guilty as charged, and I'm quite certain many other people are, too. As
Col_StaR said:
The development team is, admittedly, short-handed, and tasked with meeting the (childish?) demands of a large community -
due dates will not always be kept!
What Col said was completely correct and accurate, but I feel that due dates also server another function; with how much the community whines and complains about "omg, when is this gonna be ready?", or "when will this bug be fixed?", it is extremely necessary to introduce due dates. If they don't, the community complains and gets the idea that the development team is lazy and doesn't amount to anything. On the other end of the spectrum, when they do insert a due date into the calender and involuntarily fail to meet it, the community still complains.
What all players alike have to realize is that things come up, and not everything can be met. Even in the business world will due dates be failed, however, this is particularly evident in the coding business. It's an enormous field, and there is much to study, analyse, and test. One wrong keystroke will practically render your project unusable. There isn't such a thing as a 'perfect developer/development team' who can expertly and efficiently handle and meet demands, due dates, and correctly deal with plugin malfunctions and failures in a timely fashion; it simply isn't possible. Things do come up, and testing plugins, and diagnosing and quarantining glitches isn't so easy as most think.
I was a bit shaken, too, when I heard the news about 1.8; it's safe to say most of us were. However, they scheduled an update time several weeks into the future, which should've given the majority of players the time to study 1.8 and get a feel for it. It doesn't take a large amount of time to get used to something, and when you do get used to it, you'll barely notice a difference because of the repetitiveness of the tasks you are doing in the game. If you don't like 1.8, nobody is forcing you to play on MCG. I'm positive you could find a suitable alternative elsewhere.
