Message for Early Access Users

Discussion in 'Buildbox General Discussion' started by Buildbox, Mar 31, 2016.

  1. Buildbox

    Buildbox Administrator

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    (Copy of email going out to all early access users)

    Hey Guys,

    Thanks so much for your patience during this Early Access period of Buildbox 2.0. We're happy to announce we have finalized a release date. In this message we will discuss release dates for the final version as well as the last beta, why we were delayed and how we plan on improving our communication with you.

    Final Release Dates

    Last week we added the final new features to Buildbox 2.0. We finalized some unforeseen features revolving around the new lock buttons and unlock logic piece. This was the last additions and we're ready to announce official dates.

    • We will be releasing the final beta (Beta5) on Wednesday, April 6th. This will have all features and the most critical and requested bugs fixed. We will release an official changelog on Wednesday with it's release.

    • We will be releasing the final gold version of Buildbox 2.0 on Wednesday, April 27th. This will be exactly 3 weeks later and we will be working nights and weekends to finalize bugs.
    As always, your support is instrumental in finding bugs. Our team will be working nights and weekends to finalize Buildbox 2.0, but it will be impossible to test every computer setup internally. We truly appreciate what you guys do and any bbdocs or specific examples of errors you might encounter should be sent to support@buildbox.com so we can effectively track and fix the issue.

    Why The Delays?

    In short, there were many various reasons for delays, but they all revolve around the same core reason: we kept adding new features because we want this software to be nothing short of amazing. Some of the feature request came from customers, some came from us internally and many were byproducts from other features.

    What are byproduct features? For example, let's take Multiple Worlds. Many savvy users requested an unlock feature. We agreed this was needed, and while it seems simple, the byproduct of unlock was insanely deep. We had to create lock buttons, scene editor unlock logic pieces, menu editor unlock logic pieces, rewrite save system to store unlock data, and more. After we finished, we realized to truly take advantage of unlocking, we also needed options for taking a user to a specific scene within a world. That spawned a bigger host of new features. In short, this one idea of adding unlock to multiple worlds created over 20 new features in Buildbox 2.0.

    Because of these reasons, we added more features post event than we did pre event. Even though the majority of our staff is developers, this caused many delays. The entire Buildbox 2.0 source repository is well over 1,000,000 lines, and as you can imagine each change needs to be carefully crafted or it will cause more problems than it fixes.

    As founder of this company, these delays lie squarely on my shoulders. Maybe it was not the best move to delay the product in order to squeeze in more features, but I can promise you it was only because we wanted to create something great. We did not want to add in any feature that was half baked or release a product that would not allow you to build what you wanted.

    Regardless, I know it was very trying for many of you, and I believe that was mainly due to our communication.

    Improving Our Communication

    Now, we want to formally apologize to our community. All of this should have been said before now. Instead of communicating about our delays, we attempted to put our heads down and finish the software as fast as possible. That was absolutely not the correct decision and I want to personally apologize.

    To improve our communication with you, we've created a new section of the forum called "Announcements". This is where we will be posting official Buildbox updates, starting with these release dates. You will find all new releases, beta releases and major company updates listed here, and we will be doing this on a regular basis. We will also be emailing out major announcements to customers as well, including new version releases of both betas and official releases.

    This project means the world to us. It is something we are all deeply attached to. We are working extremely hard to make software that will empower our users and we believe Buildbox 2.0 is a true game changer. That is because of you guys - the early access users - and we do not forget that.

    This is just the very beginning of the Buildbox history and we have huge plans for its future. We are also still learning every day and I will personally oversee that we make a better effort in communicating about our product, especially during a beta phase like this. I appreciate your patience and amazing support for Buildbox.

    Sincerely,

    Trey Smith
    Founder
    Buildbox
     
    Shawh, zeus, edwin_simonds and 11 others like this.
  2. dougsavage1

    dougsavage1 Boxer

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    Awesome! Thank you for listening to us. This definitely eases my mind and I'm sure many others in the community.
     
  3. andreas_kviby

    andreas_kviby Avid Boxer

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