OpenMW 0.46.0 Video Complaining Thread

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MortimerMcMire
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OpenMW 0.46.0 Video Complaining Thread

Post by MortimerMcMire »

a release video should never hold up a release lol

wasn't this an issue before where everyone sat on their hands waiting for the last guy to release his vids
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akortunov
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by akortunov »

MortimerMcMire wrote: 27 May 2020, 03:38 wasn't this an issue before where everyone sat on their hands waiting for the last guy to release his vids
It was an issue with 0.45, where RC phase took about half of year because of missing videos.
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Atahualpa
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by Atahualpa »

MortimerMcMire wrote: 27 May 2020, 03:38 a release video should never hold up a release lol
Since the release videos raise a lot of attention amongst users outside of our forum bubble (and sometimes even magazines and other sites), I beg to differ. Also keep in mind that video production is really time-consuming - even more so for a single person - and can only start after the release phase has begun. Delays happen and, depending on the amount of solved issues, are to be expected. In the meantime, our developers continue to work on OpenMW regardless of pending releases.

I guess you have to use the current RC builds or switch to the nightlies if you cannot wait for 0.46.0 any longer.
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akortunov
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by akortunov »

Atahualpa wrote: 27 May 2020, 08:53 and can only start after the release phase has begun.
I disagree with that. The list of most important changes in the new release is more-or-less complete already in early development stages (because we avoid to merge invasive things just before we start RC phase). For example, 0.46 release has about 280 closed tickets more than for two months, and our late efforts for 0.46 were regression fixes. So once we start an RC phase, a draft of release videos already should be present, so these videos can be finished without large additional efforts. Otherwise we can get a situation when a person who is supposed to make videos just has no time to make them in a couple of weeks (especially if a new release is large, as 0.45 or 0.46). And in this case we have two bad choices - either delay release for unknown amount of time (for a half of year, for example) or release new version without videos at all. Both options are quite bad for PR.

And a delay can be worse for PR than no video at all:
1. If a person "outside of forum bubble" is not aware about release delay due to lack of video, he may consider project to be dead.
2. If he is aware about it, he can still consider it dead because the whole team can not make a video for 1.5 years, which any streamer from YouTube can make for a couple of weeks.
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Atahualpa
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by Atahualpa »

I get the feeling that we had that discussion before. Once or twice or thrice...

@akortunov:
Spoiler: Show
Anyway, could we please stop that discussion here? It is in no way constructive and has no relevance for the current release.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by AnyOldName3 »

It's not common to see videos made to the standard of an OpenMW release video come from the same person within a couple of weeks, and it's always from YouTube-as-a-day-job channels. It's not a fair comparison at all.
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akortunov
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by akortunov »

Atahualpa wrote: 27 May 2020, 12:21 Anyway, could we please stop that discussion here? It is in no way constructive and has no relevance for the current release.
Well, you started this discussion by your "Also keep in mind that video production is really time-consuming - even more so for a single person - and can only start after the release phase has begun." sentence. I just pointed out that there is a flaw in such logic - the video production either is really time consuming, so videos should be more-or-less ready when we start an RC (since there is no enough time to produce it during RC, at least without pressure for producer), or it does not require much efforts and can be started and finished during RC phase.
Vixizen
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by Vixizen »

Maybe it is time to change the format of these videos? As was stated earlier -times of big features added in a single release are long gone. Do we need every bug fix shown? I think these videos could be a more visually pleasing change log or only very significant features/fixes could be presented. This way the video should not hinder the actual release.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by AnyOldName3 »

akortunov wrote: 27 May 2020, 12:56
Atahualpa wrote: 27 May 2020, 12:21 Anyway, could we please stop that discussion here? It is in no way constructive and has no relevance for the current release.
Well, you started this discussion by your "Also keep in mind that video production is really time-consuming - even more so for a single person - and can only start after the release phase has begun." sentence. I just pointed out that there is a flaw in such logic - the video production either is really time consuming, so videos should be more-or-less ready when we start an RC (since there is no enough time to produce it during RC, at least without pressure for producer), or it does not require much efforts and can be started and finished during RC phase.
But neither of those things are true. It does take long time, and does require a lot of work that can't be shifted pre-RC. There's no logical flaw. It was a statement of fact.
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Atahualpa
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Re: OpenMW 0.46.0

Post by Atahualpa »

akortunov wrote: 27 May 2020, 12:56 Well, you started this discussion by your "Also keep in mind that video production is really time-consuming - even more so for a single person - and can only start after the release phase has begun." sentence.
My initial post was directed at MortimerMcMire. Whether he was serious or just trolling, I don't know.
However, my wording was unclear: The vague term "video production" referred to the full-on production block necessary to create these videos in a reasonable time frame. My bad.
akortunov wrote: 27 May 2020, 12:56 I just pointed out that there is a flaw in such logic - the video production either is really time consuming, so videos should be more-or-less ready when we start an RC (since there is no enough time to produce it during RC, at least without pressure for producer), or it does not require much efforts and can be started and finished during RC phase.
As I mentioned above, the production block is necessary (at least for me), so there's always pressure for the video producer. That's why we usually time our releases in such a way that the video producer can plan their work schedule accordingly and has a little head start. But that comes down to good communication between team members which, admittedly, sometimes is lacking. There are also other actions we can take, e.g., providing an easy-to-understand change log alongside the usual technical one.

If you insist, we can discuss this (again?) as a team in a seperate topic.
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