[LordPomposity]

Blaise Russel used existing models, with a few retextures. Spoon used models of a detail level practical for a one-man project.

And as far as I can tell, WoD and Blaise Russel's work are generally regarded as being pretty damn good in spite of all this.

Yeah thanks but you're deliberatly skewing my point. We're not talking about how a campaign with low poly models is regarded upon release, we're talking about whether one person can make a difference. In the past one person has made a difference, they've made the whole sum of the experience. So saying one person cannot make a difference to BWO is erraneous because it's not about the number of contributors it's about the depth of those contributions.

Oh, you're welcome.

You stated that the addition of one person could bring about the completion of a campaign currently stalled on the creation, uvmapping, and texturing of a large number of hi-poly models. You "proved" your point by citing one person who made a campaign with several new low-poly models, and one person who made a number of campaigns with no new models and a couple tilemapped reskins.

I'll concede that the number of ships left to complete may be fewer than I'm making it out to be. However, nobody outside the project has any idea how much work needs to be done because you apparently have to do a couple months of



to so much as be told how many models exist, and what their status is. Shockingly, not a lot of people seem to feel like taking the plunge.

My point about perception of the Spoon's and Blaise Russel's campaigns was incidental to my point, but thanks for acting as if it somehow undermined it.

Edit:

No one cares enough to try.

 

Fake edit: i suspect that when this campaign goes to voice acting, anyone who wants to audition will have to go through an FBI background check before being mailed their lines in a special envelope that will auto-incinerate ten seconds after the lines have been read.

Real edit: Okay, I'll also concede that one person who models, uvmaps, and textures like it's his job could probably save BWO.  However, people want to either do their own thing or be part of an active team. Nobody wants to single-handedly salvage someone else's project while enjoying zilch in terms of creative expression. That is why the fact that nothing is (to the knowledge of the public) getting done strongly discourages people from coming in and getting it done.

[BrotherBryon]

All right this is totally uncalled for, yes the mod has stalled on several occasions and things don't look to be too terribly different now but it is not unredeemable. Oh and for your information one man can inspire others to join in a collective effort should they choose to do so.

[Water]

And this is a bit harsh, and I say it as someone who when given a task for BWO didn't accomplish it myself, but it's one thing to say that "I've done all this work, but still nothign to show for it" and an entirely other thing to say that "I don't think this is going to pan out, so I'm not even going to TRY". Because really, both you and I are I think in the latter category and no amount of 'the developers should do this instead' is going to change that.

Because you know what. At one point, they were driving to finish it. There WAS progress. They were saying "hey, we need people! Who wants to help" and both you and I stepped up and both you and I did nothing. So . . .  I think the fault clearly lies with the contributors, not the developers because at that point the developers DID do their jobs and DID get 9 people trying out and only 8 people did nothing so is that the developers fault? I don't think so.

Well you may have done nothing and that's ok. Some of the things I completed don't really fit in the screenshot category like unwrapping ships but two others did. Same with FSKing's texturing work. And that's the point, any potential modeler/texturer who looks in the BWO forum won't see any progress over a three to four year period. Their choice between a mod that looks dead and one of the more vibrant mods is rather easy. They vote with their feet.

It's interesting that you think it's the contributors to this project who are at fault. Each mod has to attract people from a limited pool of people and at the end of the day not all mods make it. It's not the communities fault if a mod refuses to adapt. It is however sad to see so much quality work suffering from digital bit-rot.

[Raven2001]

Folks, want to let you know that I'm keeping tabs on this topic.

I'm really not going to add into the discussion... Its really irrelevant whose "fault" it is, and to be honest I don't think the "fault" can be pinpointed to one single side (devs or community).

But please carry on

[LordPomposity]

Oh and for your information one man can inspire others to join in a collective effort should they choose to do so.

Thank you for the information. Yeah, it's theoretically possible. However, someone of sufficient reputation and personal charisma to get others to follow him has to take that first step, and that hasn't happened and doesn't seem likely to happen for the reasons that myself and others have discussed.

If you ask people to jump without giving them any idea what they'd be getting themselves into, don't be surprised when they walk away instead.

[Goober5000]

However, someone of sufficient reputation and personal charisma to get others to follow him has to take that first step

This.  A leader is not someone who says, "Here's what needs to be done; here's how I want you to do it; I'll check up on you later; kthxbai."  A leader is someone who says, "Follow me while I do this cool thing.  If you'd like to help, do X."

[Droid803]

However, someone of sufficient reputation and personal charisma to get others to follow him has to take that first step

This.  A leader is not someone who says, "Here's what needs to be done; here's how I want you to do it; I'll check up on you later; kthxbai."  A leader is someone who says, "Follow me while I do this cool thing.  If you'd like to help, do X."

I do believe the issue here is the lack of even the former. I think we'd actually get more done if someone could consistently go "Here's what needs to be done; here's how I want you to do it; I'll check up on you later; kthxbai." rather than absolute silence.

Thing is it seems like everyone up top is super busy with Real Life.

[mjn.mixael]

Then perhaps it's time for a change in who's up top? Here's some food for though.

• I've noticed with BtA that the level of activity of the team members is directly correspondent to my own level of activity. When I took a BtA break to texture all those Shivan craft for FSU, BtA activity just about died. Now I'm trying to work on BtA at the same time and the activity has increased similarly.
• Scroll is another example. It was basically just sitting there. Occassionally I'd see Goober or Sesq post something but not much.. and not much happened. However, at some point Goober did a lot of work for it and almost immediately the mod activity increased to match.
• Next, FSU. The activity level is almost constant. I'm willing to bet that is because Zacam is always active, thinking and working on FSU related projects.
• There's also TVWP, another mod I was getting involved... but I left because it seemed no one was working, so I didn't feel like working either. An interesting note is that the leader wasn't really doing anything either.

These are just examples from my own experience, but there definitely seems to be a correlation between leadership activity and team progress.

[Mongoose]

I do think it might be a good idea for the team to lay out in specific terms how many/which models were still in need of the high-poly/UV/texturing/LOD'ing/whatever treatment, similar to how the FSU and Port teams handle things.  If the remaining necessary work is all listed in one place, it might give the members of the community who are talented in those fields the impetus to pick a model or two and contribute a bit.  If you can spread the work around instead of having people feel like they have to be a full gung-ho team member to work on it, it might do some good.

[Akalabeth Angel]

You stated that the addition of one person could bring about the completion of a campaign currently stalled on the creation, uvmapping, and texturing of a large number of hi-poly models. You "proved" your point by citing one person who made a campaign with several new low-poly models, and one person who made a number of campaigns with no new models and a couple tilemapped reskins.

Oh I'm sorry that my example was not specific to the letter, howabout Scooby Doo? A guy who apparently likes to create, UVMap and texture dozens and dozens of Wing Commander models for fun. Are they HTL? I don't know. The point my example was meant to illustrate was that one person can contribute a lot of work. Whether they're fredding, modelling, texturing, or whatever it doesn't matter. That's what I'm saying it's not their skill set that matters it's the amount of work they do that matters. If someone does a lot of work, stuff gets finished doesn't matter what sort of work that is.

I'll concede that the number of ships left to complete may be fewer than I'm making it out to be. However, nobody outside the project has any idea how much work needs to be done because you apparently have to do a couple months of

That's uneccesary and a little childish.
 

to so much as be told how many models exist, and what their status is. Shockingly, not a lot of people seem to feel like taking the plunge.

How is that relevant? Personally if I were contributing to a campaign, I would like to know the least amount of information possible. You know why? Because I discovered something when making my own campaign, playing a campaign you've made isn't fun. There's no experiencing it for the first time, as a creator you don't really get to enjoy the end result you only get to enjoy the work that goes into it and hope the end result appeals to people. So in that respect, if BWO for example were a campaign I wanted to enjoy but also one I wanted to get finished I'd want to be kept in the dark so I could both help finish it and play with unspoiled eyes.

And if I'm not mistaken, Raven did in fact mention to me about how many models were needed to be finished. And that was before I'd even done anything.

Real edit: Okay, I'll also concede that one person who models, uvmaps, and textures like it's his job could probably save BWO.  However, people want to either do their own thing or be part of an active team. Nobody wants to single-handedly salvage someone else's project while enjoying zilch in terms of creative expression. That is why the fact that nothing is (to the knowledge of the public) getting done strongly discourages people from coming in and getting it done.

Some people like mundane work. Some people like creative work. Some people like both. And there is some creative latitude when updating a model, if the HTL fs2 models aren't proof of that I don't know what is. Point is people like different things, just because something doesn't appeal to you doesn't mean it wont appeal to someone else.

[LordPomposity]

At the end of the day, BWO has failed to generate interest levels sufficient to attract the required modeler(s), UVmapper(s), and texture artist(s) and extract the required amount of work from (him/her/them/it).

I'm offering my take as to why that is. You're explaining why it theoretically shouldn't be that way, even though it is.

[General Battuta]

Almost everything that gets done on HLP is the result of one or two very passionate people working hard and a group of others accreting around them and helping out.

BWO needs someone who can get in, get access to everything they need, and go all the way. If a requirement can't be fulfilled by the actions of this one person or the talent they attract -- for example, if the project attracts no UV mapper who can move quickly enough - that requirement should be discarded. If you can't get a ship done, swap it out for a finished public asset.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm going to go back and comment on something Batts said earlier in the thread about how BWO was essentially done xty years ago.

This is more or less true. That's why I tested missions for them. Of all the campaign missions I went through there were a couple towards the end that were never hammered into shape and one where we were unable to decide on what to replace the random destroyer from nowhere with.

I don't think the decision to wait for HTL models was necessarily bad as some of the ships were downright fugly by modern standards, but even as we were hammering the missions into a playable form people were talking about adding further classes to the lineup too and didn't have any idea where to slot them into the existing mission framework. It was simply an article of faith that these ships must be in BWO; nobody, even me, commented on the fact were currently proving the opposite, nobody thought to. (I even naively reinforced this madness by suggesting a place where one would be useful.)

And the modeler for these classes burned out and disappeared from the project and it all sort of stagnated on assets nobody was quite sure what to do with. I quit all the projects I was part of several months later due to burnout, so I have no idea what happened since, but let this serve as a salutary lesson in project management.

BWO really could have been done that many years ago. It was within maybe a month of releasable form and could have held it's head high when compared to the works of Blaise Russel or Derelict. BP was still but a twinkle in Darius' eye (if that much), I don't think we even had Ransom's Transcend to compare it to yet then when BlackDove and Ace effectively called off hammering the missions playable and condemned the project to its current state.

[Raven2001]

people were talking about adding further classes to the lineup too and didn't have any idea where to slot them into the existing mission framework. It was simply an article of faith that these ships must be in BWO; nobody, even me, commented on the fact were currently proving the opposite, nobody thought to. (I even naively reinforced this madness by suggesting a place where one would be useful.)

And the modeler for these classes burned out and disappeared from the project and it all sort of stagnated on assets nobody was quite sure what to do with. I quit all the projects I was part of several months later due to burnout, so I have no idea what happened since, but let this serve as a salutary lesson in project management.

Those ships were ultimately cut out.

[Admiral Nelson]

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.  Replace only the models which can get an HTL in that time, otherwise keep either the low poly version or choose a substitute from those available in the community.  Unused models will be released freely to the community and not jammed into missions.  Give a trusted mod not part of BWO access to the BWO SVN who has permission to release whatever is there on that fixed date if for some reason it looks like the team will not be done.  This step will safeguard the artists who will know for sure that their work will not be wasted and will absolutely be seen.  It will also allow hype to be built appropriately since the "when its done" idea is out the window -- no need for cynicism since the community will know for sure when it will be seeing something.  I haven't heard in this thread of anything that is essential to get done that couldn't be done in three months.  If the mission quality is as good as it has always been claimed to be, I doubt that there would be a problem getting the rest of the models done post release since the artist is guaranteed to see his work in public the minute it is done.

[starlord]

I quite agree with that statement!

Out of curiosity, what were those suggested ships? which classes?

[Arthur_the_great]

I agree aswell

[LordPomposity]

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.  Replace only the models which can get an HTL in that time, otherwise keep either the low poly version or choose a substitute from those available in the community.  Unused models will be released freely to the community and not jammed into missions.  Give a trusted mod not part of BWO access to the BWO SVN who has permission to release whatever is there on that fixed date if for some reason it looks like the team will not be done.  This step will safeguard the artists who will know for sure that their work will not be wasted and will absolutely be seen.  It will also allow hype to be built appropriately since the "when its done" idea is out the window -- no need for cynicism since the community will know for sure when it will be seeing something.  I haven't heard in this thread of anything that is essential to get done that couldn't be done in three months.  If the mission quality is as good as it has always been claimed to be, I doubt that there would be a problem getting the rest of the models done post release since the artist is guaranteed to see his work in public the minute it is done.

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

[Rampage]

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

R

[Droid803]

That seems kind of silly when the missions are done, thus BWO could simply release in its current half-HTL'd state.
Why modeldump.