Dear XpAdmin,

Like everyone here, I admire your perfectionism and ingenuity. We are all trying to be as undemanding as possible, and give you space to do your wonderful work. We're excited at the progress we've seen in the updates, and grateful to you for keeping us in the loop.

But everyone here has the same question. We don't need a date - we understand this isn't just filling in a spreadsheet or running up a web site. But are we looking at a week, a month, a quarter or another year before 2.2 hits?

Estimation is especially hard to do when it comes to work involving invention and design refinement. The only way I've ever been able to make reasonable estimates is the agile method - assess relative difficulty of the stories in the backlog in Fibonacci numbers, and then track throughput over time to make a projection.

* Layout fibonnaci numbers from 1 to 89 across a table top.
* Pick 3 stories you've already delivered - a little one, a middle sized one, and a big one.
* Place them respectively at (say) 3, 13 and 55.
* Now one after assess whether each remaining 2.2 story is harder or easier than the ones already on the table.
* Once you've laid them all down and done a bit more sorting, add up the total number of points there.
* Figure out how long each of the completed stories took you. Then do simple arithmetic to forecast how much time remains.

Or you might have a cleverer way to do it. You certainly are awfully clever. However you do it, it would be really good to know, roughly, so we can manage our expectations. Roughly, about how long do you think?

X Moon Productions is a small team (doing this during their off-hours I believe), and they are doing computer science. As someone who has dabbled in computer science for the sake of creating computer games himself, I can assure you, this process takes time.

Let's take compiling for example, when source code has to be converted into machine code. Depending on how much source code there is, this can take HOURS. And you pretty much have to stop everything you are doing until compiling is done, unless you have a secondary computer you can use to work on art assets or something.

Compiling has to be done every-time you want to play a new version of game. This includes minor bug fixes and that are inside of the game's source code.

@ cow i don't think you're entirely wrong, i think you have some sense, but there is no reason why it would be absolutely impossible to give some sort of estimate. We're all investors, at least most of us, all we want is a possible date, so we know what's being done.

As for being impatient, i've waited almost i think 7-8 months for an update, and i'll still wait patiently.

As for saying that it's neigh impossible to gain some sort of timeframe, i'll call you out on that. I've worked in both Comp SCI and other research fields, and even when work wasn't 24/7, i always had a ETA.

I do have faith in the team, but i can see both sides. We're just people who paid money for a good product is all, wanting to know when we can see the product be updated.

As someone who wants to use XSP to bang the anatomically correct SourceFilmMaker models of Felicia, Cammy, Juri Han and Mila, I understand your concern.

Now as for an ETA, XMP has stated that they are aiming for Q1 of this year or by the end of March. However, I want people to avoid pressing XMP into releasing a due date. As this may end up hurting to over all quality of the game. As Shiggy Mayomoto once said, "A polished game is forever good but a rushed game is forever crap." Or something along those lines.

That being said: I personally would like to know what's left to do on the production side of things. Coding, modeling, mapping, creating art assets, scripting etc etc...

@Pickled,

As I said in my original post here, I'm not asking for a date. Just a rough timeframe. You're suggesting end of March but I haven't seen XpAdmin say that. I have seen Q1, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear that was merely aspirational.

I suggested a method for projecting a timeframe based on throughput measurements and I've had good results from using that method on research projects of my own. But I was careful not to prescribe this as the only way to do it, and I shouldn't be surprised if the XMoon folks are clever enough to come up with something better.

Your thoughts on compiling, however, are a bit old fashioned. These days incremental compilation is available for most languages and environments. I'm aware XMoon is iterating its own 3D and AI engines, and you're right to think that doing that may suck up a lot of time. But compilation is probably insignificant compared to working on the math and using trial and error on the results.

Not to mention all the fits of masturbation that go hand in hand with this kind of work

So ... I stand by my question. I have had projects where I couldn't answer that question myself. But not because it wasn't possible.

I apologize. When I see this question "How long until the next update?", whether it be here or any other forum, my first move is to make a post that sounds intelligent, but only really serves to scare off noobs from making shallow or demanding posts.

Your first post alone would have done this, had it not been the original post of the thread.

Pickled cow => You're not always compiling the entire project. If this is divided in some parts you don't have to compile everything ...

Just as pickled cow has written, making new threads about when the next release-update will be out is not to be asked again and again. There has been reply from the dev when the next release will be out (apporximately) and whats the percentage of the progress so far. Many users as well as myself have been waiting for an update roughly over a year and the reason i am not asking about a release- info is because i have patience. The next release will be out when the dev's decide it is ready.

@boltness, same response I made to Pickled on this.

Current development of version 3.0 is at 55%.