Author Topic: Where did everybody go?!  (Read 31863 times)

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Offline Mongoose

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Yeah, MT took that step because the remnants of the team collectively decided that they weren't going to be able to finish the project themselves.  By all accounts, BWO has been in an essentially-finished state for some time now, minus some model upgrades.

 

Offline Goober5000

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Perhaps the thing to do is to establish a release date on which the campaign will be released in its as is state no matter what  -- say 31st Jan 2012.

Well...

The release date I'm setting right now is Summer of 2010. More specifically, June 15th. Providing there are any extenuating circumstances at that time, that can be prolonged through the month of July with the final date resting on the 31st of July. 31st of July, is the final date, and we release whatever it is that we've got by that time. If it's a finished product, fantastic, if it's not, really, if the community feels like they can contribute (and want to) they really should.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
One suggestion: Follow in MT's footsteps and release your assets.

R

Don't listen to this guy. Please. Especially if the campaign itself is 99% done.

That would be a practical solution to BWO's problems if anyone were interested in implementing a practical solution to BWO's problems.

Is it possible for you to put aside your attitude? Like, seriously?


The release date I'm setting right now is Summer of 2010. More specifically, June 15th. Providing there are any extenuating circumstances at that time, that can be prolonged through the month of July with the final date resting on the 31st of July. 31st of July, is the final date, and we release whatever it is that we've got by that time. If it's a finished product, fantastic, if it's not, really, if the community feels like they can contribute (and want to) they really should.

If at first you don't succeed . . . try again.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2011, 10:32:52 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
One suggestion: Follow in MT's footsteps and release your assets.

R

Don't listen to this guy. Please. Especially if the campaign itself is 99% done.

The assets aren't actually important to the campaign's success - releasing them early won't harm anything.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
One suggestion: Follow in MT's footsteps and release your assets.

R

Don't listen to this guy. Please. Especially if the campaign itself is 99% done.

The assets aren't actually important to the campaign's success - releasing them early won't harm anything.

I disagree.
If a person wants to invest character into a ship, whether it be a ship class or a specific-ship within a class, then giving it a proper introduction within the context of a campaign can go a long way towards a first impression. Having a first impression of a ship being it coming out of subspace, or whatnot, and having your first impression being looking at in PCS2 are . . a little different.

I mean at the core, everyone plays this game in part because they like seeing space ships and watching ships blow each other apart, etcetera. So having a mission where a ship is showcased in a specific way can be a positive thing in my opinion. A opportunity which will be lost entirely in the event of a model dump.


EDIT - As an example, think of the Sathanas. The first time we see it full on, outside of the nebula is in bearbaiting, from what I remember. One of the most pivotal and memorable missions of the entire campaign. Did it appear in the techroom before that? Maybe. But, the point is that bearbeating is really the big reveal in terms of the campaign. And for someone like myself who never looked at the tech room entry until well after that mission, that opening shot is the most memorable impression of the ship because it's showcase that way. If I was shown a bunch of screenshots or whatever of the ship before that, it would not have had that same effect.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2011, 11:57:45 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline Droid803

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
One suggestion: Follow in MT's footsteps and release your assets.

R

Don't listen to this guy. Please. Especially if the campaign itself is 99% done.

The assets aren't actually important to the campaign's success - releasing them early won't harm anything.

I still don't understand why the assets would be released first if they're the thing that's not complete...
It just makes no sense to me logically.

Yeah sure, let's release unfinished/half-finished stuff and keep what's actually been done for several years, and could have been released several years ago unreleased. I don't quite follow.
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Offline Dragon

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
If you release incomplete assets, chances are somebody picks the up and finishes them.
Heck, it isn't unlikely you would do that yourself, considering how many models from dumps you converted.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
One suggestion: Follow in MT's footsteps and release your assets.

R

Don't listen to this guy. Please. Especially if the campaign itself is 99% done.

The assets aren't actually important to the campaign's success - releasing them early won't harm anything.

I disagree.
If a person wants to invest character into a ship, whether it be a ship class or a specific-ship within a class, then giving it a proper introduction within the context of a campaign can go a long way towards a first impression. Having a first impression of a ship being it coming out of subspace, or whatnot, and having your first impression being looking at in PCS2 are . . a little different.

I agree with this, but it simply doesn't require the ship never having been seen before by the player. For instance Transcend was able to invest a huge amount of character in the Pegasus and Deimos corvette.

 

Offline Gloriano

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
I think the blackwater operation team should release it now that people still cares a bit and i highly believe that once people see how awesome (and it is awesome) the campaign is they would finish the unfinished htl models and maybe even voice acting
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Re: Where did everybody go?!
I think the blackwater operation team should release it now that people still cares a bit and i highly believe that once people see how awesome (and it is awesome) the campaign is they would finish the unfinished htl models and maybe even voice acting

I'm in agreement with this line of thinking.  I've always been a fan of the cold element series and BWO was supposed to be the last campaign in that series.

Presuming for a second that all the missions are complete, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't release what they have.  It certainly can't hurt and it might generate interest in the project.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
I disagree.
If a person wants to invest character into a ship, whether it be a ship class or a specific-ship within a class, then giving it a proper introduction within the context of a campaign can go a long way towards a first impression. Having a first impression of a ship being it coming out of subspace, or whatnot, and having your first impression being looking at in PCS2 are . . a little different.

I agree with this, but it simply doesn't require the ship never having been seen before by the player. For instance Transcend was able to invest a huge amount of character in the Pegasus and Deimos corvette.

It's not a requirement no, but it is one more thing that can enrich the player's experience and when the surprise and revelation is gone the player's experience is arguably the less for it.


And besides that I don't think a model dump will be a positive thing in any way.


If you release incomplete assets, chances are somebody picks the up and finishes them.
Heck, it isn't unlikely you would do that yourself, considering how many models from dumps you converted.

Is there proof of this sort of thing actually happening? I know there have been more than  few model dumps and I know that once in a while someone will pick up a ship and finish it but I seriously doubt that enough work will be done on the BWO models to achieve the same results as doing them internally would be. I mean we don't even have HTL models for the entire cast of FS2 retail ships yet.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Considering what results doing the models internally had so far, I'd say that BWO might as well give "unassociated" modelers a chance.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
It's not a requirement no, but it is one more thing that can enrich the player's experience and when the surprise and revelation is gone the player's experience is arguably the less for it.

I dunno, campaigns like JAD prove pretty decisively that a well-done mission or gameplay element is a lot more important than one more bunch of polygons that blends in with all the rest we've seen over the past ten years.

I don't think a modeldump is necessary but I do think the campaign should just release as is.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Agreed that an asset dump would be a bad move. It was the right choice for MT (albeit a disheartening one), but BWO is a complete mod and MT was maybe half way there.

Is there proof of this sort of thing actually happening? I know there have been more than  few model dumps and I know that once in a while someone will pick up a ship and finish it

The Karuna, Narayana, and Sanctus have all been re-done or are being re-done post WiH release.  Voice acting is being coordinated by someone who is not a member of the BP team. To the best of my knowledge, the BP team has never actively recruited new members--they're simply as open with their development process as they can be without giving away important plot points, and people come to them with anything they think might help. The team then takes the stuff that actually does help.

but I seriously doubt that enough work will be done on the BWO models to achieve the same results as doing them internally would be.

I agree completely that the results of the BWO models being worked on by the community after the mod has been released will be different from the results of keeping the work internal.


I mean we don't even have HTL models for the entire cast of FS2 retail ships yet.

And yet that first view of the low-poly Sathanas in bearbaiting made it

One of the most pivotal and memorable missions of the entire campaign.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2011, 12:31:11 am by LordPomposity »

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
It's not a requirement no, but it is one more thing that can enrich the player's experience and when the surprise and revelation is gone the player's experience is arguably the less for it.

I dunno, campaigns like JAD prove pretty decisively that a well-done mission or gameplay element is a lot more important than one more bunch of polygons that blends in with all the rest we've seen over the past ten years.

Again, it's not about how important something is. It's about whether something has value and whether the campaign as a whole would have less value without that element. So if revealing a ship within the framework of a campaign has value, then saving the reveal until the campaign itself would increase the value of that campaign.

As a parallel example. Take War in Heaven. For the final climatic mission, did you release a screenshot of the opening view prior to the release of the campaign? Or did you save that visual backdrop for players to experience within that framework. And if the composition of a mission has value, then why not would the composition of an individual ship as well? By the way, I really really hope your answer is "no, we did not release teaser screens of the final mission".


Agreed that an asset dump would be a bad move. It was the right choice for MT (albeit a disheartening one), but BWO is a complete mod and MT was maybe half way there.

Is there proof of this sort of thing actually happening? I know there have been more than  few model dumps and I know that once in a while someone will pick up a ship and finish it

The Karuna, Narayana, and Sanctus have all been re-done or are being re-done post WiH release.  Voice acting is being coordinated by someone who is not a member of the BP team. To the best of my knowledge, the BP team has never actively recruited new members--they're simply as open with their development process as they can be without giving away important plot points, and people come to them with anything they think might help. The team then takes the stuff that actually does help.

We're not talking about post release. The proposition was for BWO to release their assetts in hopes that someone would pick them up and improve upon them so they could be HTL for the release of BWO. Which, is not going to happen.  There's more chance of them being updated in a organized, internal matter rather than just releasing them and hoping something comes from it. And frankly I don't know why HTL BP ships are being redone after the mod has already been released. Either the original ship lags the computer, or someone really wants to put their thumb print on a popular product. Which, in my opinion is pretty sadly self-serving. While I have been vocal in some criticisms about WiH, none of those criticisms ever focused on the ships which were by and large fine and dandy.

But yes if BWO were to release the mod as is with retail models and if people after the mod release decided they really liked the campaign and wanted to make the models fancier then that would be cool. Though, as suggested above I hope that anyone who undertakes such an endeavour is doing so for the good of the players and not the good of their own ego.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
And frankly I don't know why HTL BP ships are being redone after the mod has already been released. Either the original ship lags the computer, or someone really wants to put their thumb print on a popular product. Which, in my opinion is pretty sadly self-serving. While I have been vocal in some criticisms about WiH, none of those criticisms ever focused on the ships which were by and large fine and dandy.

No, the ships were horribly broken and we knew it the whole time. They're incredible performance sinks with optimization problems that really dragged down the campaign for a lot of people.

We tried to get them optimized but couldn't do it in a reasonable timeframe - only the Uhlan and Kentauroi got finished before release. If we'd decided to pull a BWO and wait for optimized ships to be finished the campaign still wouldn't be out.

I think this debate is getting lost in roundabout point-by-point rebuttals. There's probably some common ground to be found here - I think most of us favor just releasing the campaign as is, as the team already decided to do once.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2011, 09:01:53 am by General Battuta »

 

Offline Admiral Nelson

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
The conversation seems a bit odd given what Rampage actually said, anyway:

One suggestion: Follow in MT's footsteps and release your assets.

R

MT did not model dump, it dumped all its assets, missions included.  Thus he seems to be saying the same thing as everyone else.
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Offline BlackDove

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Okay, after six pages I hope everyone got their say in.

I'm glad you all still care about the campaign, and I wish I could do the things you're suggesting (and perhaps I will, depending on the circumstances), but there are still a few things that we would like to try before we get to the measures you're suggesting.

I'll lock this now, as I doubt there's much more that can be said on the subject. If you're interested in helping us, please don't hesitate to contact me.