Question about development cycle

[Big_Russ]

At what point does the development team freeze new additions to code to a module/update? It seems like it would be easy to continuously add to code scope and thus push live dates back. You have to come to a point where you say enough is enough. How do you get to that point? Is it predetermined before patch coding begins? Is it floating until someone arbitrarily says "That's it. . . no more?" Really curious about this (and for no hidden reasons--this is not bait).

[tihocan]

I guess they stop adding new stuff when they are happy with the features they put in.
Then they still have to go fixing/tweaking this stuff in order to make sure it's ready for release, which is most likely what causes delays.

[barecm]

I am assuimng by "new additions", you are referring to new concepts or ideas. Fixes and debugging existing concepts is different than new ideas to add to the system.

Depending on which model of the SDLC you use, I would think you would have a lock on new development ideas somewhere before the end of the design phase; but most likely during the analysis phase. After that, all changes would be for the coding and debugging during the implementation phase. The testing phase also could bring on some patches through the maintenance phase.

[DSL]

I would guess that different people are constantly working on different things, and when any individual change is in a sufficient state of readiness to be implemented, they include it as part of the next update. Obviously, these updates revolve around certain major additions (usually new quests), and certain important fixes get priority, but this is probably how the assorted minor UI/rules changes are chosen for inclusion.

Pure speculation, but based upon the assorted statements by the Dev's.


But I am guessing your real question is: why don't they just get MOD 5 out already, and stop fussing with small fixes/changes? Assuming this is so, I really don't think the other MOD 5 items listed in the WDA are holding back the release date, but are being tacked on because they can.