Jim Sachs wrote:
Since several of these questions relate to creating new fish, I can answer that one fairly quickly. If a fish uses the same movement algorithm as all the others (except the Lionfish), then it takes me one day to create it.
Actually distributing that fish to the users is where the problem comes in. Gone are the days when I could just create a fish, bump up the version number of the Aquarium, and post it on my own website for the fans to test. Nowadays, even the tiniest change has to be incorporated into over 25 versions of the Aquarium (regular English, widescreen English, Crystal Ford, Crystal Intel, Japanese widescreen, Clock, Mac OSX, Mac OS9, etc.etc.etc). Then it has to undergo days of QA testing for each version, then Prolific has to change many things on the SereneScreen website to cover all the bases (News, Download instructions, Customer Support, Q&A, etc.). Then 100,000 emails have to be sent to inform everyone on the mailing list of the new version. Then the website has to be braced up for an onslaught of several million downloads as all the users running the free version of the Aquarium descend on us.
I think I can now reveal on the forum one of the things Reichart has told me that Prolific has been working on. Right now, each download of the Aquarium is a complete file. If you want to add a fish, you have to post a new version of the Aquarium and we're talking mass chaos as a million people download 1MB.
As part of the new foundation that the Freshwater Aquarium and eventually the Saltwater Aquarium will be moved over to, the roadblocks to adding fish to the Aquarium will be mostly demolished!
Right now, the number of files the Aquarium installs on your computer is 1, "Aquarium.scr". Under the new foundation, this will increase to 2 files. The second file being the ~21 fish package that we are all currently familiar with. What this means is that without an entire new download, if Jim or another artist creates a fish or a series of fish, gets it approved by Jim, Reichart, etc. and QA tested, then that fish pack will be made available for download at SereneScreen.com.
Hopefully the Aquarium will ask the user once a month if they want to check SereneScreen.com to see if there are new fish or creatures available for free and/or purchase. This would prevent any need for 100,000 e-mails. And tech support issues should be minimal since the Aquarium ITSELF would handle downloading the fish pack and putting the file in the right place on your hard drive.
Already, the foundation has been laid to install new fish packs *while the Aquarium is still running* and they immediately become available in the fish selection panel.
I'm sure some people have been wondering how keycodes are going to be handled if there are some really complex premium fish like Mandarin Gobies and then of course the creature packs that will be available for sale. These will be in self-installing packs (each pack can contain 1 or many creatures/fish) that each respond to a different keycode. Once the user enters the keycode, it is added to the list of keycodes that installed Aquarium uses to try to authorize any fish packs found in the fish pack folder.
So if Jim creates 3-4 fish and puts a fish pack online, my dream of how it would work is, every copy of the Aquarium out there would eventually get around to asking the user if they want to check SereneScreen.com for new fish/creature packs which might be free or cost a bit extra. They are presented with a list of new fish and/or updates available at SereneScreen.com. They click "Download" and without further intervention, the fish are immediately installed. If it's a pay pack, they are brought to a brief purchase screen.
Then the CD manufacturing process has to be halted, and a new master has to be cut with the latest version, and stickers have to be made for the boxes which still have the old version informing the customers that they can download the new one.
I'm confused. This didn't affect the copies sent to Fry's. Anyway, I don't see anyone getting up in arms about Microsoft XP not putting stickers on the box every time there is a service pack or a crucial windows update avaialble for download. by the logic you mention, Microsoft would be forced to throw away all the boxes of XP out there and replace them with "Windows XP w/ Service Pack 1". But so far, Microsoft has never bothered to bundle a service pack in any version of the software they've sold. Even when it would be exceedingly prudent. Windows NT 4 *really* should be shipping with an SP6 CD tucked in there.
Extra Customer-service people will have to be hired to handle the increased load of questions about the new version.
Send em to me.
I'll create an information page just for the fish packs.