Author Topic: Where did everybody go?!  (Read 31871 times)

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Where did everybody go?!
There hasn't been any activety here for over a month!

 

Offline Snail

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
There hasn't been any activity here that you can see. There might be fifty gnomes making missions on the internal forum and you couldn't tell.

 

Offline MatthTheGeek

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Why gnomes ? Snails do the job just as well. And they're much tastier.

But yeah, just what he said. BWO might be one of the oldest WIP mod, not seeing any progress doesn't imply that there is no progress made. Wait and see, as they say.
People are stupid, therefore anything popular is at best suspicious.

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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
There hasn't been any activity here that you can see. There might be fifty gnomes making missions on the internal forum and you couldn't tell.

IIRC they need models, not missions.
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Re: Where did everybody go?!
you most make an update

EDIT: by which I mean that, yes, it's been a very long development cycle, but I fully expect it will be worth the wait. The bar for what constitutes a good campaign has been raised at least a couple times while BWO has been in development, and I'm sure their people are working hard to make sure that their campaign lives up to the community's contemporary standards before they release it. I'm more than willing to wait for that. Especially since I can now play Duke Nukem Forever while I wait.

Unless, of course, I'm completely wrong and you guys already have an awesome, perfectly releasable campaign that you've been sitting on for a decade because you're waiting to HTL a couple ships that are already implemented and perfectly 100% functional in-game.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2011, 05:45:01 pm by LordPomposity »

 

Offline Raven2001

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
We're still here :)

Lack of showed progress (although we are secret sobs) is mainly my fault: most of the new members we got last year went AWOL pretty fast. And I couldn't get anything done due to having had a really really crap year... so yeah

But we're not dead... far from it. At least now we can't be compared to Duke Nukem Forever... 12 years in the making for a poor game. BWO will take 20 more years to make it really worth the wait :P
Yeah, I know you were waiting for a very nice sig, in which I was quoting some very famous scientist or philosopher... guess what?!? I wont indulge you...

Why, you ask? What, do I look like a Shivan to you?!?


Raven is a god.

 

Offline Goober5000

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Unless, of course, I'm completely wrong and you guys already have an awesome, perfectly releasable campaign that you've been sitting on for a decade because you're waiting to HTL a couple ships that are already implemented and perfectly 100% functional in-game.
This is actually almost exactly the truth. :nervous:  BWO has been FRED-complete since 2006.

 

Offline Water

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
The Duke Nukem Forever parallel may be accurate. They got stuck.

BWO had a really, really unfortunate case of bad timing and got caught out by the high poly wave.  They had the talent, and at the time it probably seemed like a great idea to remodel everything and then re-texture. Sadly they underestimated the manpower to achieve it.

Momentum is always key. Secrecy, one of BWO's great strengths actually counts against them here, smothering momentum rather than pushing it forward.

Once you get past the high poly fixation, options open up. Otherwise you'll stay stuck, just like 3D Realms.

3D Realms never did ship Duke Nukem Forever.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Unless, of course, I'm completely wrong and you guys already have an awesome, perfectly releasable campaign that you've been sitting on for a decade because you're waiting to HTL a couple ships that are already implemented and perfectly 100% functional in-game.
This is actually almost exactly the truth. :nervous:  BWO has been FRED-complete since 2006.

 :o

 

Offline Deadly in a Shadow

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Unless, of course, I'm completely wrong and you guys already have an awesome, perfectly releasable campaign that you've been sitting on for a decade because you're waiting to HTL a couple ships that are already implemented and perfectly 100% functional in-game.
This is actually almost exactly the truth. :nervous:  BWO has been FRED-complete since 2006.

 :o
Must be tons of ships and other stuff to retexture....
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Offline Raven2001

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Re: Where did everybody go?!

Must be tons of ships and other stuff to retexture....

Its not tons per se, but its only one person taking care of modeling, mapping and texturing them (me)....
Yeah, I know you were waiting for a very nice sig, in which I was quoting some very famous scientist or philosopher... guess what?!? I wont indulge you...

Why, you ask? What, do I look like a Shivan to you?!?


Raven is a god.

 

Offline Goober5000

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
:o
I had to do a double-take myself.  That's five full years!


Its not tons per se, but its only one person taking care of modeling, mapping and texturing them (me)....
Yeah, but... why?  Why not release it now and maybe make a "director's cut" later?

I mean, you guys even want to do voice acting, and you haven't even started that.  It took ST:R a year and a half to voice act eighteen missions, and that was with one guy working essentially full time on it.  How long is it going to take for fifty missions, with one person (not you, Raven) working lackadaisically?

EDIT: I refer you to this thread.  Everything I said in that first post is as true now as it was then, and now one more year has passed.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2011, 08:42:49 pm by Goober5000 »

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
:o
I had to do a double-take myself.  That's five full years!

Aye, now all we need to spur on this development cycle is a little bit of constructive criticism from a fan who is highly devoted to fs2, mayhaps even to a freakish extent; to the 88th degree, let us say.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2011, 10:17:57 pm by LordPomposity »

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Because your assertion it's FRED-done is false, Goob, and if you'd paid attention you'd know that. They were and still are waiting on new ships which require insertion into the missions, testing, balancing. If they don't have all their ships in it's not done.

Even if they went as-is, at least a couple of missions were never tested.
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Offline Droid803

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Actually...all the ships we're currently making are basically drop-in replacements for the low poly ones that are already done.
So yes, FRED-side work should be minimal.

I haven't actually looked at the missions yet though, so take that with a grain of salt :P
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Given the legendary status of BWO, I do have to wonder why you guys can't bribe/blackmail/kidnap another modeler from the community and get them to pitch in.  I mean, I know everyone has their own projects, but this is BWO here. :p

 

Offline Raven2001

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
Yeah, but... why?  Why not release it now and maybe make a "director's cut" later?

I mean, you guys even want to do voice acting, and you haven't even started that.  It took ST:R a year and a half to voice act eighteen missions, and that was with one guy working essentially full time on it.  How long is it going to take for fifty missions, with one person (not you, Raven) working lackadaisically?

EDIT: I refer you to this thread.  Everything I said in that first post is as true now as it was then, and now one more year has passed.

Well that's a decision it's not up to me to take, for starters. But if it were, I'd make the same decision I made years ago (continuewith the current plan).
And it wasn't a decision taken lightly: we wanted (and still want) the first impression\release to be the best it can be. Period. That's what will set us apart from all the other campaigns.

You made comparisons to other projects in the past (in that topic you just pointed me to). What I have to say about it is that those are unfair comparisons. The projects you mentioned, not only cut corners for a release, but they also have double (or more) of our staff.

Surely we are to blame for some questionable decisions in the past, but I also think the community in general is to blame. Because to be honest, it never showed a hint of real interest in supporting this project.
Remember last year's recruitment drive? You have access to internal. See the results: everyone except Droid and Oddgrim didn't even complete their first task... the very first.
Oddgrim then went lurker in HLP during his second task, which leaves us only with Droid, who I might say has proven to be quite an asset when it comes to convertion.

Yeah... from 9 "new members", only 1 stuck around longer than a month.

Given the legendary status of BWO, I do have to wonder why you guys can't bribe/blackmail/kidnap another modeler from the community and get them to pitch in.  I mean, I know everyone has their own projects, but this is BWO here. :p

We've tried that.
Yeah, I know you were waiting for a very nice sig, in which I was quoting some very famous scientist or philosopher... guess what?!? I wont indulge you...

Why, you ask? What, do I look like a Shivan to you?!?


Raven is a god.

 

Offline BlackDove

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
I think I've made it rather transparent that the main problem the project faces is the community talent's involvement. I do not mean this as any kind of condemnation, but the logical conclusion is very simple.

It's not as if I don't understand either. Most of BWO's model designs are pretty much set in stone. This makes any potential creative contributions (creativity being a driving force for doing the actual work) that much less of a factor when the people with talent would consider taking on the job. Unfortunately, the designs we have are very specific and need to remain in place, as opposed to just scrapping them and solving the problem by having new people come in to do whatever they want.

That's just the way it is unfortunately. One way of solving the problem that I've been toying with for a length of time now was to simply offer money out of my own pocket per model, and have someone potentially pick up a meager sum of some $300-$400 provided they choose to take up the work on the whole bunch. It solves the problem technically by providing incentive for the work, but there are other nasty side-effects with the approach, which I'm sure we could debate ad infinitum.

Goober makes a valid point in this thread, the same point he's been making for the past two or four years regarding the voice work, however that part isn't as big of a problem in the grand scheme as the big elephant in the room, which is the technical wrap up.

Putting it bluntly, if you want BWO to be released, the talented members of the community will have to be willing to contribute, otherwise BWO will remain to be what it has been for the longest time now.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Highly inadvisable dead horse post time.

You made comparisons to other projects in the past (in that topic you just pointed me to). What I have to say about it is that those are unfair comparisons. The projects you mentioned, not only cut corners for a release, but they also have double (or more) of our staff.

I obviously can't see your internal, so I don't know which mods were mentioned. But I seem to recall one released just a little bit under a year ago that, as you say, cut some corners to get out the door. There was no voice-acting. The majority of the missions featured at least one instance of an appallingly unoptimized capital ship that had 20 or so textures and no LODs or debris. Most appallingly corner-cutting of all, the release was chopped in half and the first part released before (afaik) any real work had even started on the second.

NOBODY GAVE A ****. AT ALL. Everybody except Trashie loved it.

If you have similarly good writing and gameplay and take it across fifty missions, BWO will win near-universal recognition as the best mod to ever be released for this game, just as WiH did. This will happen with or without HTL models and voice-acting.

It's not as if I don't understand either. Most of BWO's model designs are pretty much set in stone. This makes any potential creative contributions (creativity being a driving force for doing the actual work) that much less of a factor when the people with talent would consider taking on the job. Unfortunately, the designs we have are very specific and need to remain in place, as opposed to just scrapping them and solving the problem by having new people come in to do whatever they want.

No offense intended here, but I don't think that's the problem. A problem, yes. The problem, no.

The problem is that over the last half-decade, the community has stopped holding its breath and moved on with its life. BWO is no longer universally regarded as the elite of the elite when it comes to campaigns, like it was six or seven years ago. You could give the community's modelers and mappers all the creative control they could possibly ask for, and they'd still much rather devote their time and talent to a publicly active project with a resultantly active following and considerable existing acclaim than to a languishing albatross that has spent the better part of the last decade waiting for the rest of the community to drop what they're doing and ride to the rescue.

Do something to get people excited about this mod again, and that's prone to change. I'm not sure what the best way to go about that is, but publicly announcing that you're all but dead in the water barring a radical expansion of the team is probably a very bad start.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2011, 12:30:03 pm by LordPomposity »

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Where did everybody go?!
The problem is that over the last half-decade, the community has stopped holding its breath and moved on with its life. BWO is no longer universally regarded as the elite of the elite when it comes to campaigns, like it was six or seven years ago. You could give the community's modelers and mappers all the creative control they could possibly ask for, and they'd still much rather devote their time and talent to a publicly active project with a resultantly active following and considerable existing acclaim than to a languishing albatross that has spent the better part of the last decade waiting for the rest of the community to drop what they're doing and ride to the rescue.

Do something to get people excited about this mod again, and that's prone to change. I'm not sure what the best way to go about that is, but publicly announcing that you're all but dead in the water barring a radical expansion of the team is probably a very bad start.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head for me... I have every intention of doing what I said I would... but I have so little motivation for this one. It's been a slow progressing mod since forever... I've gone through high-school, college, gotten married, have a baby due any day and this mod STILL is just some board on HLP with a website. (And I next to never look at mod websites...) I haven't the slightest idea what this mod is about.. I know it's part of the CE series.. but most of those campaigns are broken with the latest mediaVPs...

The last thing I want to do is demotivate you guys.. but I think I kidna categorize BWO with MT in my mind... my advice would be to consider some publicity stuff... Get the community to visit the BWO board and start talking about it again..
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