Can you explain more about this and what the different is between these two methodologies?
Way too complicated and I'm not in the industry. However let me try.
I swear I tried my hardest but my Google Fo failed me and couldn't find the image they held up during one of the 10 For The episodes which showed all of the internal builds and live build and how they interacted. It looked like an insane spider web. Basically list all the builds (I think there was like 15 builds) vertically and horizontally and draw lines from one to the other to as many builds as you can which interacted (not all did). It looked like a tangled mess of crossed wires and from a project management point of view I have no clue how they kept that shit up for this long. Most of those builds are now one build via the Great Code Merge of 2015 which set them back a couple of months and effectively killed Star Marine. Yeah shit happens...
So keeping all that in mind...
The previous ways of development was actually quite similar to how traditional development milestones work for other studios. X feature sets/content must be completed by Y timeframe. The difference being there is a live side that must be supported which complicates things to a whole other level I don't think anyone has really done or at least not many. It basically requires MMO level project management and back end support which explains why they hired some of the Producers from Blizzard. But I digress. So what they would do is set a number of hard feature sets. Lets say: All animations for FPS including EVA, a half dozen weapons, several grenades, a number of gadgets, FPS healing mechanic and on and on and on the list went. So one "Module" lets call it Star Marine would be nearly a dozen different major game features. While a major patch might be the entire Code Merge for 2015.
So the above would have half the features complete and the rest would slip or one or two major features would slip and the rest is history just like Star Marine.
The first time we see them stepping away from this is the Social Module. While it had some major features like the ability to meet other players for the first time on the very first landing zone a lot of other features were left out so they could ship it or the iteration wasn't feature complete. For example we know that it's getting revamped already to take advantage of the module asset sets they created from making ArcCorp in the first place and other landing zones. Nyx being the very first complete landing zone that is created entirely from modular asset sets.
So one is a set of hard coded features that has likely gone through a number of iterations and polish the other is release what you got now which might be the very first iteration. This does mean something people don't realize. Features we get as a first iteration is more likely to change and will no longer exist the way we first got it. Those changes might be more severe compared to a "Module" that has gone through a lot more of such changes internally. It also means the feedback from players may be equally severe where you get a first pass and don't realize they are already on the next pass internally but in such a partial state that it makes no sense to release it.
An example of this would be the paint system. They eventually want us to paint ships. So a part of that already works and they could just release it as is. However that system requires persistence and UI assets/time that currently doesn't exist. A first iteration of faking persistence will arrive in 2.1 or 2.2 and full persistence is easily 9-12 months out and rightly so. UI's are in late stages of iteration and closer to what we will see at release but until the standardized feature of UI is up and running for ships they can't make the other stuff even though the tech is complete and they could do it if they wanted to.
Now why do I say this? Why not just let it happen now? Persistence is insanely expensive as that dev who commented on Star Citizen posted a few weeks back and adds an insane amount of complexity. Why would you implement such a system early on when development on so many features like the item port system is incomplete. Until that system is up and running and generating unique IDs for everything in the game from paint to unique grenades and clips for your guns to modules in your ship it makes no sense to push out a feature even if it technically works right now. UI priority is with SQ42 ships/assets so they might be farther ahead but we might only see the tail end of the dragon because SQ42 is kept sealed up tight until mid/late next year.
So that paint system that might have ended up as a "hard feature set" in a later Module or major Patch will simply get rolled out when the item port system and UI is rolled out that supports it and likely only a few major patches later as its own thing even though the tech was working 6-12 months earlier.
This is basically iterative feature/content development at it's core that you only ever experience with released Online games. It's definitely not SOP for the industry as far as I know. Maybe someone with more knowledge can correct me.
Will they stick to it? I don't think they have a choice at this point. It's make it or break it time. It's definitely to their advantage to push out features/content as it's ready but the complaints won't die. If you watched the 10 for the Producers video I linked above you will understand why but basically until you complete an entire feature set even through iteration you can't measure how much effort/time/money it takes to do it. Lets not forget Chris was hoping to leave 2015 with at least 3 full star systems up and running. We don't even have one. A lot of tools and assets are still being built. I can only point to Shubin. They spent over a year making it and now they can spit out space stations every few hours if they want with some variation due to the modular nature of the asset sets they created.
Sorry for going on for so long.
