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Good software knows when to stop

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#201

Post by tokioyoyo »

4k0hz wrote: post #181
socalgal2 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And people liked that model, see the huge backlash when Adobe went subscription for creative suite. That backlash was short lived. Adobe went from $4.4 billion in revenue in 2021 to $23.7 billion. It used to cost $2500 for the "master collection". Now it's $50 a month. I was one of those people that disliked switching to subscription. I stayed on CS6 for years. I'm also only a relatively casual user though. I once…

> That backlash was short lived. Adobe went from $4.4 billion in revenue in 2021 to $23.7 billion So? Anecdotally, the vast majority of Adobe product users are still upset about the subscription model (but not upset enough to switch to worse software) > It used to cost $2500 for the "master collection". Now it's $50 a month. Illustrator-filmmaker-animator-publisher-photographer-web-designers everywhere rejoice!

They're upset, yet they're paying for it. It sounds like the software was underpriced, because people are still using it. Honestly, blame the consumers, not the businesses in these scenarios.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#202

Post by triage8004 »

john_strinlai wrote: post #12

> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…

Warcraft III remake was bad

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#203

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

hollowonepl wrote: post #96

This is an article Microsoft Windows, Office, Outlook and MS Teams developers and product managers should read, they continually break the working software only to come back regularly to what they have invented already, in the meantime annoying many who had to experience the experiments in between…

What’s worse is they keep rewriting working products. Except, someone gets bored or misses a deadline, so they release a half baked replacement missing features.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#204

Post by al_borland »

_qib3 wrote: post #194
al_borland wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the hard part is understanding if “finished” software is still maintained. I’ll pick on AppZapper here. It doesn’t need to do much, it’s a Mac app that finds the files related to an application and deletes them, for a complete uninstall. It released in 2006, with v2 coming out in 2010. The website looks like it’s still from that era and the last update was in 2020, almost 6 years ago. To be fair, it’s a cool…

What exactly is wrong with installing an abandoned product? Just because it's abandoned doesn't mean you can't use it.

Apple tends to expect a lot from its developers. Changing processor architectures is a big one. Unlike other platforms, Apple cuts support and moves on. If an app is abandoned, it starts to show sooner on Apple platforms than anywhere else.

If it’s something that will become critical to a user’s workflow, that can be a big problem. Why invest in an app without a future?

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#205

Post by eviks »

wenbin wrote: post #47

We should normalize "finished" software products that stop feature creep and focus strictly on bug fixes and security updates. It takes real courage for a builder to say, "It’s good enough. It’s complete. It serves the core use cases well." If people want more features? Great, make it a separate product under a new brand. Evernote and Dropbox were perfect in 2012. Adding more features just to chase new user growth of…

Excellent self-owning example:

> Dropbox were perfect in 2012

You mean that dumb app that forced you to move files into a single folder instead of adapting to your workflow was prefect?

Yeah, no, we shouldn't normalize that, we should push for improvements

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#206

Post by cjonas »

asukachikaru wrote: post #164
john_strinlai wrote: post #12

> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…

Similar thing happened to Diablo II recently as well. Blizzard added a new class and couple of quality of life updates, after not touching it for over two decades other than the pretty authentic resurrected remake. Some of the QoL updates such as loot filter are very long overdue (integrated by competitors and have been asked by the community for years). Blizzard even sent surveys looking for player opinions about fu…

There an interesting series on the modernization of diablo[0] that dives deep into the game mechanics that makes d1 and d2 "better" games than d3 and d4. Basically it all comes down to creating tension, power variable spikes, and meaningful itemization.

https://youtu.be/bcdHPZzyCxQ?si=a8_mDLFTcMrKFV_s

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#207

Post by dang »

jackfranklyn wrote: post #169

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#208

Post by mcdeltat »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #201
4k0hz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That backlash was short lived. Adobe went from $4.4 billion in revenue in 2021 to $23.7 billion So? Anecdotally, the vast majority of Adobe product users are still upset about the subscription model (but not upset enough to switch to worse software) > It used to cost $2500 for the "master collection". Now it's $50 a month. Illustrator-filmmaker-animator-publisher-photographer-web-designers everywhere rejoice!

They're upset, yet they're paying for it. It sounds like the software was underpriced, because people are still using it. Honestly, blame the consumers, not the businesses in these scenarios.

For lightroom at least, no, because there are very few or even no good alternatives. It looks like there are a lot of photo editor apps out there, but most of them are crap or designed for different workflows. I can say because I evaluated various options before begrudging accepting lightroom was the only decent choice.

The subscription model irks me because it's a bit overpriced and they keep trying to shove subscription features on us. No, I don't, and will never care about ridiculously overpriced cloud storage nor generative AI tools. How about adobe fixes issues in the core product first? If given the choice, I would definitely choose a pay-once, no-upgrades licence. But adobe saw their opportunity and started squeezing us for more on a product that was fine.

The plus side of this is it's motivated me to consider building my own photo editing software.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#209

Post by josephg »

thewebguyd wrote: post #81
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are people who didn't play WoW back in the day who still love classic, so it can't just be nostalgia. Vanilla WoW really did have a different design ethos than the later expansions did, and some people prefer that experience.

> Vanilla WoW really did have a different design ethos than the later expansions did, and some people prefer that experience. Right, and that's my point. When you take away the nostalgia for the content, you reveal what players are asking for, which is a reversion to what is effectively a previous game as modern WoW lost all of what made it a good game, to those players, in the first place. So yeah, there was definit…

Yes. I've watched some videos on wow by Kevin Jordan, who was on the original team. He said the original game was built on 3 pillars:

1. Advancement over time.

2. Player interaction. Hard content should be hard in order to push players into working together to overcome challenges.

3. The world is a character in the game. Even when you eventually got mounts later in the game, they made it so mobs can knock you off & daze you. The world is big and full of wonder. Especially at earlier levels, just getting from point A to point B can be a journey in itself. Wanna play with your friends who started in a different zone? Fine, but just getting there will be an epic journey.

They abandoned those principles later on. Eg, by adding "sidekick" characters you can summon when you're playing on you own, to overcome hard content. The point of that content was to push you into making friends with other players. Flying mounts made the world small and safe. Just point in the vague direction you wanna go and go AFK for a few minutes. They also added more and more teleports, so you don't have to schlep overland yourself. And the LFG system.

It was a really different game back then. I didn't get that much out of classic wow. But I'd enjoy playing a new MMO built around those same principles.

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