DLC Release Date

[Richard B]

someone else will pick it up. pinball games have been and always will be. why should no one else make a pinball game? even the vp community gets better and better every day altough they aren't professionals.

No, FS is the first company to do this since MS's ill-fated Williams Pinball Classics over a decade ago. Even VP releases have slowed to a trickle. The time between releases gets longer and longer, right now it's about six weeks. If FS can't make it work, it's doubtful anyone else will try.

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

And that's why they shouldn't try to release two rushed tables every month.

 

[Franky]

And that's why they shouldn't try to release two rushed tables every month.

exactly, that's one point.

And why should farsight stop developing pinball games in first place? obviously the farsight crew aren't the most gifted developers out there since their games are mediocre at best but they really have a big potential in developing pinball tables, almost a monopoly, so WHY should they stop making it?

Once everything is running and they focus more on thoroughness there won't be no problems.

 

[Mungoholly]

..i've been away for a long weekend and comeback and find this thread is still the most entertaining.....

im XBox specific myself and have been hankering for this dlc for months,i'll wait, the way i see it i havent paid farsight anymore than my initially outlay and no i didnt chip in to the kickstarter campaign.if they dont want my hard earned cash..no problem,but listen here FARSIGHT don't expect no christmas/hannukah cards from this user!

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

What do you think - the guys from microsoft are sitting there an playing through all the games and xbla titles writing down game bugs and sending them to the developers - some kind of free beta-testers for the different companies???

Just to clarify it's not free, it's actually quite expensive to submit to Microsoft.

And while the TCRs may seem straight forward, sometimes they are up for interpretation, and we end up failing a submission because they intepret it differently.

Between the functional, compliance and tcr documents there are over 370 pages of issues. It's quiet easy to miss one.

Hi Mike. Thanks for taking the time to come in here and level with us and give us the news, even if it's bad news.

Not sure how much more you can say about the approval process, but what channels are there for you to ask them about waiving the issue? Do you have an assigned representative for the approval process? In these situations do you usually expect an answer (good or bad) within a short period of time, like a day or two?

We have an account manager that we work with to resolve issues like this. I imagine we'll know before the end of this week if they will allow us to waive the issue.

 

[Mungoholly]

is it bad news then mike?? no dlc till august?

 

[bavelb]

is it bad news then mike?? no dlc till august?

Unless they waive the issue, probably.

 

[Mungoholly]

Unless they waive the issue, probably.

*sulks* bollock$

 

[Franky]

Just to clarify it's not free, it's actually quite expensive to submit to Microsoft.

two different pair of shoes - of course it is expensive, but you don't pay them for beta-testing your games and that's what i was talking about.

we end up failing a submission because they intepret it differently.

so what was it then exactly what you interpreted differently? i would really love to read these requirement myself - thank you in advance.

 

[aangel]

Maybe we can try to contact someone to see if they can help us out. Maybe?

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/forums/

 

[Mungoholly]

...oh i thought you were suggesting the A-Team,what a disappointment

 

[Rafie]

...oh i thought you were suggesting the A-Team,what a disappointment

That was a good one!

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

is it bad news then mike?? no dlc till august?

We don't know yet, there will be some back and forth with Microsoft over the next few days. We should know by the end of the week if they will allow us to fix this in the next title update.

two different pair of shoes - of course it is expensive, but you don't pay them for beta-testing your games and that's what i was talking about.
so what was it then exactly what you interpreted differently? i would really love to read these requirement myself - thank you in advance.

In this case, there wasn't an iterpreting issue, but we have had that in the past. Unfortunatly do to confidentiality I'm not allowed to share those documents with the public.

 

[Ark Malmeida]

Thanks for the info Mike. I code for a living too, so I know how requirements that seem straight forward up front can end up being interpreted differently by the person who generates the requirements and the coders.

 

[Mungoholly]

That was a good one!

keeping my pecker up,one day at a time

 

[Richard B]

Thanks Mike - glad he is clarifying things.

 

[Ozzpot]

Unless they waive the issue, probably.

Everyone seems so sure that re-submitting for certification means another 5-6 weeks. I'm not sure where this info comes from. Pinball FX2 failed certification but was only delayed by 2 weeks.

Now, if I remember correctly, it may have been fast-tracked due to being promoted as part of the "Game Feast" promotion of October 2010. Since it needed to hit the four week window, they got it sorted out in only 2 weeks so it could still hit the tail end of the promotion.

But it does at least show that it can be done in such a short space of time. Microsoft are not gaining anything by this stuff not being released, contrary to what people would like to think. I have hopes that, even if FarSight can't convince MS to overlook the small, easily avoidable bug in the latest submission, then we still may only have to wait until early August.

Here's the probabilities as I see it of getting our updates and DLC on specific dates:

July 24th: 5%
July 31st: 10%
August 7th: 20%
August 14th: 25%
August 21st: 30%
August 28th or later: 10%

 

[infernogott]

would be pleasently surprised if they are here before september.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Everyone seems so sure that re-submitting for certification means another 5-6 weeks. I'm not sure where this info comes from.

Each time the update has been resubmitted so far, it has contained additional code for one more DLC pack (menu assets and other supporting code, not the tables themselves) than the previous submission. Since this new code was not tested as part of the previous submission, the whole clock starts over again.

I do not know whether FarSight could shorten the time for the next submission by not including the code for DLC #4 or making any other alterations (other than those needed to fix the memory card issue).

 

[infernogott]

yeah i guess it would be better at this point to not include dlc 4 to shorten the wait time if that is how it works