How much money would would Cryptic need to hire some programmers to rewrite the Neverwinter code?

roadkill · May 2020

I was thinking about my recent post a bit more about hiring a dedicated debugger but then I though about this:

The impression I've gotten from dev streams, and past and current issues, is that the original code for Neverwinter is hard to work with. I can't quote exact phrases or statements about it now, but if it's possible to start from scratch or almost from scratch, how many programmers might be required, and how much might that cost?

I mean the Foundry was removed, and many dungeons. When I found Neverwinter I was shocked that many storyline quests and achievements related to dungeons were unobtainable.

greywynd · May 2020

Well, they had this plan, see. For the dungeons. It was called "Tales of Old". In about 4 years expect the missing skirmishes to be returned in a similar format.

roadkill · May 2020

4 years is just a drop in the ocean I guess...

That's a bit pessimistic cavvy.

By rewriting the code I'm assuming they would keep what was good and restructure the weak stuff but whoever did work on it would need a comprehensive grasp of the code as is.

agonistes · May 2020

roadkill#6177 said:
I was thinking about my recent post a bit more about hiring a dedicated debugger but then I though about this:

The impression I've gotten from dev streams, and past and current issues, is that the original code for Neverwinter is hard to work with. I can't quote exact phrases or statements about it now, but if it's possible to start from scratch or almost from scratch, how many programmers might be required, and how much might that cost?

I mean the Foundry was removed, and many dungeons. When I found Neverwinter I was shocked that many storyline quests and achievements related to dungeons were unobtainable.

I mean in the last livestream they straight up said that the Strongholds code is spaghetti.

tikamage · May 2020

No matter Programmers NEED to Work, make the Game and Be left to the Ideas of the Ones playing the game, the ones that play the game are the ones that have or should have input, but then there are those that play that want to see a game fail, lots like life and well they need to be shut down. Don't Ruin our game cause you don't like it, if you don't like it don't play.

krumple01 · May 2020

tikamage#2445 said:
No matter Programmers NEED to Work, make the Game and Be left to the Ideas of the Ones playing the game, the ones that play the game are the ones that have or should have input, but then there are those that play that want to see a game fail, lots like life and well they need to be shut down. Don't Ruin our game cause you don't like it, if you don't like it don't play.

And then there are some who will defend against all the constructive criticism blindly even though it's well deserved. The mistake in determining who is complaining to complain and those who love NW and want it to succeed yet constantly see poor decisions being made. So yeah, I'm sure players are well aware if they don't like something, not to do it..

sandukutupu · May 2020

roadkill#6177 said:
I was thinking about my recent post a bit more about hiring a dedicated debugger but then I though about this:

The impression I've gotten from dev streams, and past and current issues, is that the original code for Neverwinter is hard to work with. I can't quote exact phrases or statements about it now, but if it's possible to start from scratch or almost from scratch, how many programmers might be required, and how much might that cost?

I mean the Foundry was removed, and many dungeons. When I found Neverwinter I was shocked that many storyline quests and achievements related to dungeons were unobtainable.

I would think they have old code on back up somewhere. However Thomas Foss firmly stated in a Live Stream, they will not back peddle on the changes made in module 16. Your question about a development cost is difficult to answer, assuming you are being serious and not facetious. My husband has his plumbers hat on in the bathroom, but (at great risk) I asked him. His answer was this;

Take the salary of the programmer depending on their experience and how much they get paid. Multiply that by the number of programmers hired in to do the task. Then multiply by the time to complete the contracted task. Salary x Number x Time = cost.

Let's assume you want this done in 6 months and you need 12 programmers on staff. Average wage for a programmer in California is $70K per year or $80K if you are in the area of San Jose, CA.

$70,000 x 12 x 0.5 = $420,000

Keep in mind, if you reduce the staff (fewer programmers) then you get increase in time for the project. Also you would need to have a long discussion with the individual programmers to get an estimated time to finish the project. If you wanted to reduce some cost, outsourcing to another state or country would work. However outsourcing will result in loss of security and code will be leaked.

Let's assume Cryptic only has 3 programmers on staff and they give a contractual dead line of 3 years. That would cost them $630,000. I think that should give you a rough answer to cost of reprogramming a game. This is just the cost of the programmers and not the database engineers, or other executives that work there.

katamaster81899 · May 2020

roadkill#6177 said:
I was thinking about my recent post a bit more about hiring a dedicated debugger but then I though about this:

The impression I've gotten from dev streams, and past and current issues, is that the original code for Neverwinter is hard to work with. I can't quote exact phrases or statements about it now, but if it's possible to start from scratch or almost from scratch, how many programmers might be required, and how much might that cost?

I mean the Foundry was removed, and many dungeons. When I found Neverwinter I was shocked that many storyline quests and achievements related to dungeons were unobtainable.

As a professional software engineer, I'm sad to say that re-writing the entire game "from scratch" is just straight up not possible.

What you would get it is somewhat similar looking version of the game with slightly different mechanics and variations all over the place, and it would end up feeling very different.

Additionally, you need to consider the cost of maintaining 2 codebases at the same time with feature parity. Development on the current version of the game would have to continue - 3 years with no new features would be a death sentence for the game. However, that means that those new features would also need to be implemented in the "new" version of the game - with identical behavior. This drastically increases the cost of rewriting the game.

Many large companies have tried to do a full re-write of large monolithic applications, and almost all have failed. The only tried and tested method for fixing old bad spaghetti code that consistently works is to chip away at it in a piecemeal manner - that way you can test your changes in isolation, and improve the code one file/feature at a time.

roadkill · May 2020

I assume it would be a monumental undertaking and yes am serious about the question. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for the company to admit/divulge that their game code is spaghetti (?) if they said that in a recent stream. Thanks for the link to wage/salary info, estimated costs and feedback to give some perspective how difficult it would be and why piecemeal efforts seems the only viable option.

How much money would would Cryptic need to hire some programmers to rewrite the Neverwinter code?

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