Ahahaha, this is a complete goddamn abomination and I love it. No project manager would ever sign off on this horseshit. What does a horizontal row mean? I mean in one row you've got weapons, "item 2.0", in-game chat use, and ship to ship refuel system. So a row can't possibly represent a single team or a series of deliverables that have to be done in sequence. It kind of looks like they just told everyone "In order to put out a minimum viable product, please list all of the work you'd have to have finished" and then crammed all of that end-to-end on a "Chart" with no regard for actual timelines or whether or not any piece of it was dependent on any other. Not only is it poorly designed and visually confusing, with bars apparently scattered randomly up and down the chart but it assumes massively parallel work flows that just aren't loving possible. Some highlights:
"Network/Backend" has as many as eight simultaneous priorities in May alone. And it's not small stuff! "Server Migration" and "Network Bind/Unbind" and "New Message Queue" and "Physics Serialization" are all going out at the same time. Well! I'm sure your database won't be a right clusterfuck after you do all of those simultaneously through different people in the span of a couple of weeks.
"Fist Combat" is on a different track from "Throwable Weapons" which is apparently happening in parallel with "Knife Melee." "Takedowns (Front, Side, Rear)" are happening simultaneous with "Knockdown/Knockback." So that's at least 5 separate takes on how players are going to do physical damage to each other, all in the space of a loving month, all scattered willy-nilly around the chart. No reason to put those back to back or maybe even combine them into one cohesive system! Nope!
It sure is a good thing that basically everything is going to be done by May! I was a little worried because we hadn't seen one bit of planetary tools, or solar system tools, or object container: load and unload, but it turns out they've just been working on them all at once, this whole time, for five years, and they'll all be finished in the next month! What a nice and satisfying unit of time- just far enough out to be a little vague, but close enough to feel like real progress is happening. It's definitely not a massively telling visual representation of your own project managers lying to you about when poo poo will get done. It's just that literally everything they've ever worked on is about four weeks from completion, right now. Whew!
They promised us a ship pipeline and boy are they set to loving deliver! Look at that, as many as 12 simultaneous ship projects at once! They're finishing an average of four a month, every month, for the next 8 months! Half of these ships are marked as finished before things like Ship To Ship Refuel or Cargo System or Player Manned Turrets are done! How the gently caress are you going to deliver rovers years before you have your planets?
Also, on ships: I'm really enjoying how individual variants are assigned different tracks with randomized completion lengths. See how many times you can find the words "Cutlass" and "Freelancer" on that chart, ships that have been in the game for 3+ years. It's weird, I don't see the Javelin that they just put out a 30 minute video about on there at all! Or the Idris! Or the Bengal carrier! In fact it looks like it's mostly
variants of existing small craft from here to 2018.
Also also on ships: glad to know that they're done selling ships forever, since apparently they have not made any time for new ship concepts or development on this chart.
I'm loving the loving time they assign to some of this stuff. Tell me more about how "Game Persistence" is apparently a two week project but your "Omnisky Laser Cannon" art or whatever the gently caress is going to take six goddamn months of work?!?
"Inventory System UI" apparently starts a full month before, and takes twice as long as, "Inventory System Gamecode." Okay!
"In-Game Chat To Use Spectrum" apparently starts months before, and takes longer than, "Spectrum Integration In Game." Sure am glad this schedule passed a rigorous review process!
Yes, this is definitely a fully realized diagram and not the last-minute throwing together of about 5 overwhelmingly untruthful department reports from completely buried project leads. Given the last 5 years of delivering 1 to 2 minor changes per month, I am completely unsurprised that they found yet another way to promise that literally everything is right around the loving corner. I look forward to the celebratory ship sale.