Sarah moved from current project, update no longer coming?

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Some people appreciate the fact that she, as one of the devs, was actually posting, not like most of the other devs that seem to ignore the forums 95%(99.9%) of the time, especially the Suggestion forum, which they avoid like the plague.

That's totally unfair. It has been said many times that most of devs don't feel like posting. However, most of them read forums - a lot. Especially guys like Zac, Sandro, Edwards, Mike - they read posts as part of their job description, they read most of active threads, they even try to digest very toxic threads, especially Sandro in last weeks.

Sarah? Sarah was fun and human, but her position was not controversial, there's no though decisions to make for her. Sandro, for example, have to defend their decisions, good or bad, every day. That's a bit challenge don't you think.

Yes, Sarah moving on is a bit sad, but let's stop making this vendetta against FD or other developers.

 

[Roybe]

MoM™...sorry to see you have moved.

Please enjoy your new postiion.

 

[FuzzySpider]

No, it isn't. They are both forms of entertainment. Entertainment is absolutely the last thing in this world to get upset about.

Try a week without any form of entertainment or "fun" at all.

You know that's how they used to keep animals in zoos, until psychology and behavioural studies showed how absolutely necessary fun, play, and entertainment is to maintain health and wellbeing.

 

[Tarman]

Well, yes. I've deleted my post with the capture, since it's really only drama-inducing. Who knows. *shrug*

Not that anyone cares, but I wasn't a fan of Mrs. Avory's forum posts, nor the weird fanboy crush a lot of people seemed to exhibit. Her docking computer AI makes me very happy, though - I was looking forward to that update!

I wouldn't have cared if she was really Robert Maynard's fuzzyblob avatar from Alpha Centauri, The Overlord was the dev that talked to us enthusiastically about her work. That kind of interactivity was refreshing in an age of sooperseekrit gamedev stuff that turns out to be not worth any of the secrecy covering it. A whole team of such devs would be far more understood and understanding, and the hype and doom that infests the forums would be restricted mostly to actual crazy people. Instead we get the barn-door-closing-after-the-horses-escaped method of community interaction.

I suddenly feel bad for Zac now too. His job has got to feel like getting handed the reins of a burning chariot halfway through the race with Spartacus gaining two horse-lengths behind. I'm not gonna claim MWO-levels of community interaction disaster, but only because that stuff was weapons-grade enough to take out an entire solar system.

 

[Lobstris]

Spent months creating code for AI improvements, and testing that code against the main trunk.
Then pulled off that to work of something considered more pressing, before the AI code could be merged into the main trunk.
The AI code doesn't disappear, but by the time she gets back to it, the main trunk will have evolved, so lots of extra work retesting and tweaking the AI code, or simply start again from scratch.
This makes her feel like a lot of time has been wasted.

TBH Let's just say I have a 'friend'. This 'friend' was pulled off a coding project he got a bit too involved with last week, in order to finish some documentation on another project, that might have been, oh, I don't know, about a month overdue (who likes documenting things right?). At the time the 'friend' was livid, and sounded off to a passing director about it. Guess what? The friend really regretted it the next day and had to eat a whole load of humble pie. Stuff happens. Moving on...

 

[Parmo]

That made me think... has anything good ever came out of twitter?

Employing coders?
And lesser beings?

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

Id advise Sara to not take career advice from you.

I happen to agree with what AnnuverScotinExile is saying.

Well - I'm not in the games industry, but if someone did anything remotely similar to me at my job, I'd immediately leave, knowing I'd get a selection of similar jobs with better payment at the same time.

No idea about the labour market for AI programmers, but talent usually finds its way.

 

[Canoe]

I'd like to congratulate Frontier. They seem to have a unique skill in misappropriating talent.

Elite: Dangerous is an incredible framework, I hope in time they can learn from mistakes that perhaps stem from having to be reactive to decisions made by higher-level management. Someone wasting months of work, potentially having to re-factor code is incredibly frustrating professionally, and to say the least, soul-destroying personally. No one should have to endure that.

 

[Parmo]

So, the real question is:
When will Sarah be the subject of a Meet the Team interview?
Like
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=168773
[===]
FD?

 

[GluttonyFang]

I'd like to congratulate Frontier. They seem to have a unique skill in misappropriating talent.

Elite: Dangerous is an incredible framework, I hope in time they can learn from mistakes that perhaps stem from having to be reactive to decisions made by higher-level management. Someone wasting months of work, potentially having to re-factor code is incredibly frustrating professionally, and to say the least, soul-destroying personally. No one should have to endure that.

Who knows what more they're doing in the background that we don't know.

You're fixing instancing?! You're fired!

You're trying to catch combat loggers?! Fired!

You're trying to balance PP and faction weapons?! Get the hell out of my office!

 

[Carro]

Who knows what more they're doing in the background that we don't know.

You're fixing instancing?! You're fired!

You're trying to catch combat loggers?! Fired!

You're trying to balance PP and faction weapons?! Get the hell out of my office!

Wel, fixing things doesn't print new money. Xbox does.

 

[Monk]

This is exactly the kind of thing that Zac needs to at least give us some corporate jargon about.

So much fail, at least I like the game.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

I liked the AI improvements from Sarah, they gave a great deal of replayability to a game that is (let's face it) very repetitive. Had I the choice, I'd axe all of powerplay for more AI improvements.

Sad that she won't be posting on the forums anymore either.

 

[Haleks]

I see people saying that she's been moved to something else, it's no big deal etc...
But looking at her twitter is not reassuring at all :

@drewwagar Mistress of the Minions has been retired, so she won't be posting on the forums. It hurts me a lot because I need social contact.
@drewwagar I'm off combat AI so my update won't happen, the one I've been talking about, especially at Lavecon.

What the "f-word-stupid-censorship" is going on?

 

[Archvillain]

Someone wasting months of work, potentially having to re-factor code is incredibly frustrating professionally, and to say the least, soul-destroying personally. No one should have to endure that.

True, but that's part of being in the game industry. Especially (in my experience) at the higher-end / household-name studios. It would be nice for there to be less frustration, and everyone aims for that, but when the mission is to do something that has never been done before, and invent whatever you learn you'll need for that, then there are no reliable road-maps showing how to get there.

 

[Monk]

So, this means I can still pretty much own AI combat by continuing to fly backwards...totally legit tactic, right....right?

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Well, fixing things doesn't print new money. Xbox does.

I fixed your spelling.

You are basically correct, of course.

 

[LeetNoob]

She is employed as AI coder. Her relationship with employer is her own private matter. She is not getting paid for being nice to us in forums. No one is. Seriously, blaming FD for planning their own stuff and reshuffling their stuff is a bit too much. It's a bummer, and big one if her code isn't used relatively soon, however without any other information we can only say "thank you" and let her move on to new stuff.

<stay on topic please - discuss the ideas, not the posters>

Back on topic. Not sure what has happened behind the scenes but as long as Sarah is working on something in the game that's good. Maybe she'll bring all the good she brought to combat AI to some other part of the game that badly needs it.

 

[Tarman]

So, this means I can still pretty much own AI combat by continuing to fly backwards...totally legit tactic, right....right?

We could get very lucrative careers as reverse-thruster maintenance people. See, blaze your own trail!

>____>

 

[Muetdhiver]

Yeah indeed, tweet sound actually like very bad news.

Was really looking forward to improved AI in the next update. Silly me I guess.

All we can hope is that the project passes to somebody else so that it reaches completion
and that SJA will get to work on something as nice as combat AI. Like general NPC AI