Good software knows when to stop • Hacker News Board

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#251

Post by sidewndr46 » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

HauntingPin wrote: post #143

sidewndr46 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they didn't actually build WoW classic. They just built another version of the game. Gameplay wise it is drastically different. Economics & business wise it is very simple while it is popular: monetization.

Explain. Classic is nigh identical to the old version in all the ways that matter, primarily gameplay, with fairly minor improvements. Drastically? What are you talking about?

You can start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKF9OcncX54

According to Blizzard, they don't even have access to the original source code. Instead starting from some version they happened to be able to recover.

When you say "nigh identical to the old version in all the ways that matter", what you are saying is that the game is identical in the ways that matter to you. Some of us actually value the original 1.0 experience. Just for example, the original WoW never had server transfers or "layers" in the game.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#252

Post by john_strinlai » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

intelVISA wrote: post #244

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…

Sure but games are entertainment, not software, if we're being pedantic. You can't really map b2b enterprise software tropes onto b2c entertainment products, as ActiBlizz would discover.

>Sure but games are entertainment, not software, if we're being pedantic.

>You can't really map b2b enterprise software tropes onto b2c entertainment products, as ActiBlizz would discover.

you appear to be another person who decided to stop reading my comment before reaching the last paragraph.

its only 3 sentences long, so i cant really condense it much more, but here is a copy/paste from another comment i made that is formatted extremely clearly for my two points:

"[...] sometimes users want something. that something might be a feature request, or it might be a feature removal. [...]

a) ignoring your users requests can sometimes be a bad choice.

b) you might not necessarily understand every underlying problem that every user has. worse, you might think you understand the problem when you dont."

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#253

Post by john_strinlai » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

catlifeonmars wrote: post #222

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…

Well to me it sounded like they followed the first part (ignore feature requests) and failed at the second part. Just build the feature is the wrong lesson to learn. The right lesson is to expend more effort to understand; and yes, part of that _could_ involve shipping the feature in order to get data/feedback.

>Just build the feature is the wrong lesson to learn.

good thing i didnt say anything remotely similar to this

in fact, i very specifically say almost the complete opposite! "while your default mode might be (and perhaps should be) to ignore feature requests".

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#254

Post by john_strinlai » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 1:48 PM UTC

oreally wrote: post #226

john_strinlai wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have the experience to know, but my guess is that classic WoW was more of a shallow want, where people were very happy to get it, but the deeper want was more about a style and feel of gameplay. The players would be happier with new stuff that kept the magic of the classic game, [...] > In a perfect world, some designer would come along and incorporate carefully selected bits and pieces of the new version,…

> but players actually, really, 100% truthfully, no exaggeration, wanted classic WoW. not retail WoW with some classic-feeling bits. they wanted (basically) bug-for-bug classic. You're speaking in the same manner of absolutes like most gamers tend to speak on discussion forums. It makes you unbelievable tbh. Get this: The playerbase for retail is still larger than classic. And those who advocate world PVP have their…

>Get this: The playerbase for retail is still larger than classic.

get this: this is completely irrelevant to the point of my comment.

>It doesn't mean the vocal minority are right for all instances.

good thing i didnt say anything close to this!

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#255

Post by john_strinlai » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

vova_hn2 wrote: post #220

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…

But in your example the version with less features that "knew when to stop" actually turned out to be more desirable, so...

>But in your example the version with less features that "knew when to stop" actually turned out to be more desirable, so...

if you read my comment and came away with this, you have completely misunderstood what i said. my comment is not about whether having more features or less features is better.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#256

Post by john_strinlai » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #228

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…

I got out of my WoW addiction, but I think in this case "Classic" was people asking specifically for LESS features in their game And the people owning the product were convinced players wanted more features.

>people asking specifically for LESS features in their game

my comment isnt really about number of features.

the main point of my comment isnt even about WoW.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#257

Post by antonyh » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

xarope wrote: post #213

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still on "vi"

wow that's two people, including me! (jokes aside, if I had a choice I'd use vim/neovim, but when I ssh into a remote system that has minimal installs, vi it is)

It's named vi because when it was made in ancient Rome there were only 6 users.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#258

Post by antonyh » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #182

criddell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to Obsidian after Evernote increased their subscription prices beyond the point I could justify and I think Obsidian is heading down the same path Evernote did. They keep adding more and more features to it when I wish they would call it complete and move it into maintenance mode. For me, the turning point for Obsidian was their Canvas feature. That was a big move beyond the initial design of it being an exce…

> beyond the point I could justify Your accountant was calling you at late hours asking you what the hell was going on with your note taking expenses?

My accountant, being myself, insists that I justify subscriptions. Prices rise, value drops, and I hate paying for unused feature bloat.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#259

Post by antonyh » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 2:21 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #39

grishka wrote: post #28

Definitely that, a finite scope is good and finished software is beautiful. But also, most of the modern software is in what I call "eternal beta". The assumption that your users always have an internet connection creates a perverse incentive structure where "you can always ship an update", and in most cases there's one singular stream of updates so new features (that no one asked for btw) and bug fixes can't be deco…

I moved to Obsidian after Evernote increased their subscription prices beyond the point I could justify and I think Obsidian is heading down the same path Evernote did. They keep adding more and more features to it when I wish they would call it complete and move it into maintenance mode. For me, the turning point for Obsidian was their Canvas feature. That was a big move beyond the initial design of it being an exce…

Joplin is open source but isn't half of Obsidian, it's slow and grouchy, a fairly poor Electron app, but at least I can turn off the plugin that does freehand drawing. It's also has self-hosted sync for free. If Obsidian was open source, I'd have switched already even if it needed a subscription to sync, especially if I could toggle off unwanted features.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#260

Post by john_strinlai » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #235

josephg wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 & d…

> And the LFG system. The LFG system basically killed most social interaction in WoW. So if you played for that, you got excluded. They also sort of killed build diversity, but there was no build diversity in classic either, at least if you wanted to raid. The grinding... I don't miss it. That could have used toning down.

>The LFG system basically killed most social interaction in WoW.

as someone who has played since 2004 with only a handful of month-long breaks, this is simply not true.