The Mythical Man Month and Splinterlands

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The Mythical Man Month

Lately there have been quite a few thing I am not liking at Splinterlands. Mind you, I love the game, I play manually almost everyday when I am in town or not terribly busy. I think the game makers and the management can take some constructive criticism, especially in light of the coming Splinterfest, where I hope there will be some panel discussion regarding some of this. Honestly, Maverick's discord channel is NOT an effective place to have some of the serious discussions.

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First things first! You can be a great developer, an excellent salesman and an ex-academic; but you can still suck at project management. Simply because that is a different skill-set. Splinterlands is obviously an excellent game with a loyal core following (that includes me). But that group is still relatively small compared to any real life games. Yes, we are not in the same order of magnitude here compared to Pokemon :) But to thrive, late last year, with the 'mooning' of crypto as a head-wind Splinterlands made a massive leap. That created a lot of wealth and many people quite happy about the game and crypto in general. Basically people learned that they can make money out of thin air! Nothing wrong with that! But as a person, who have traded with many bear markets, I know that euphoria doesn't last long and reality sets in rather quick. That is exactly what happened to crypto and that's totally cool and cyclical. Trouble is Splinterlands hired a lot of people very quickly during that rapid growth and now things are not that easy.

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The Mythical Man-Month was published nearly 50 years (published in 1975) back, but it is still a mandatory reading is many business schools and software classes. It is a book about software project management. It is still highly relevant.

When a task cannot be partitioned because of sequential constraints, the application of more effort has no effect on the schedule.
The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.
Many software tasks have this characteristic because of the sequential nature of debugging.

Very famous section from the book! Also my absolute favorite!

Adding manpower to a late software project, makes it later

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Basically, if a task, say developing a particular module of Land deployement in SL, can be partitioned, between multiple developers, then it requires communication between developers. Also newly hired developers require 'soak time' and perhaps training. This requires communication and that requires time.

The group intercommunication formula? n(n-1)/2. So for 10 developers -> (10*9)/2 = 45 channels of communication!! I rest my case!

This is nothing new, as I said, this is 50 years old concept and widely taught! But somehow we still feel surprized when land is delivered!

Oh by the way! Q3 2022 has ended! Someone please update the damn Roadmap!!

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Also missing from that road map is Tower Defense, nor do I see SPS resources going to it. I think that the way the TD processes and especially the proposal has been handled, has been a pretty big negative for the Splinterlands community. It has effectively made a mockery of the proposal system in so many ways. It has made me far less bullish on the future of Splinterlands, especially since it has happened in the frame of core parts of the ecosystem left still unfinished.

TD is a different game, so does have a different roadmap. Also I am told multiple times that it is developed by a completely different team, for better or for worse.

Yes, I didn’t like the way Aggy pushed the TD proposal to pass. I expressed my disagreement and displeasure to him directly and in public. Funny thing is that heavy handed approach was completely unnecessary, as I don’t think it matter that much pass or fail of the proposal that is. But the way Aggy DM’ed every large stake holder to switch their vote, myself included was a terrible approach for the integrity of the SPS.DAO.

TD is a different game, so does have a different roadmap

Is it on the SPS roadmap? I don't remember seeing the inflation going to TD.

It left a very bad taste in my mouth and reminds me of early Steem.

Yeah I have seen the TD basic roadmap somewhere, don't remember where. Not really interested. The art doesn't suit my taste.

Yes, I don't want to remember steem. That was a dark episode.

Most of the team is still pretty new. Beyond the euphoria of the bull market or any new shiny thing-- most people working at splinterlands have been there less than a year. There is also euphoria and overblown expectations of what can be accomplished among every tier of leadership.

I agree the over-promising and under-delivering is getting very old-- I almost wish they'd wait till the product is ready to be shipped to announce a release date because the constant delays are demoralizing and erode faith in the team.

Making hundred new tokens and game and reaching out to the same group of people never worked in the long run.

Three presales in a month is a bit much. I don't know what is scarier: that we potentially left nothing for Christmas sales, or that we potentially will see three surprise presales a month as the new norm.

It gets to a point where if nobody can have everything, all the assets will compete with themselves and lose value compared to what they could have been worth. Further, each new feature or token in the game adds an additional layer of complexity that could potentially scare new players away-- the game was more than scary and complex enough when I joined over a year ago. It's only become more complex since.

I'm glad to see them focus on tech modernization, the non-card market, and making LP's more accessible with the gamified pools tab, but I do think the game is becoming less accessible to new players and a little too diluted in new shiny things to chase. This combination feeds into each other for some potentially worrying outcomes. I'm just glad we also didn't have the land reveal this month-- A lot of people will be salty when their one plot they bought and hodl'd for 400$ during the bull turns out to be a common and is potentially worthless.

I've given up on land. If it comes—and is actually good instead of a rush-job (à la Duke Forever)—I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I've removed it from my expectations.

I continue to play and enjoy Splinterlands, but yeah, some of their recent moves make me a bit less bullish than I used to be.

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I can't given up on them, they to too close to me unfortunately! That said, they need to wake up a bit from their slumber :)

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tbh I never really got the hype..

An interesting business perspective you've thrown out there; the comparison to the womnan's pregnancy cycle is rather interesting. I think the biggest problem with splinterlands is the amount of money any new player would need to continually be putting in the game to catch up. I am taking a break from the game at the moment; I reviewed just how much I was putting in every fortnight and it really made me think: SHIT! The RIFTWATCHERS had some solid cards which are needed in decks, but they really needed to be stronger so new players could build meta-decks. Of course, this diminishes value for older players. Imagine if a Yodin dropped to 10 bucks as a consequence of new fancy summoners? (Yodin wouldn't stay there for long, perhaps I'd buy them all). But in regards to roadmaps, I can only imagine player frustration is mirrored by the devs too.