Author Topic: Where did everybody go?!  (Read 31859 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: Where did everybody go?!
That being said I do hope BWO gets out the door eventually in whatever form the creators choose to release it
All the creators have apparently left.

Unless anyone has heard from Dynamo, Agatheron, Kellan, IceFire, Ace, or BlackDove recently.  Raven2001 still counts as senior staff, but he's a voice in the wilderness at this point.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
(WiH for example  (yeah, I'm a heretic. I'm fine with that)).

Ha, I'm totally fine with this, but believe me, once you play the alpha...

It wasn't a matter of a change of creative direction regarding the original vision (the original vision stayed the same), the alpha was just disappointing and bad and everyone thought so.

Well I only base that opinion on the fact that I enjoyed AoA whereas I was put off abit by WiH. Though to be fair I probably was a bit heavy handed in my feedback of the discussion thread. That being said I am in the definitive minority on that front, and a tragic story is hard to fairly hard to pull off and even if you do, different stories appeal to different sensibilities. Gears of War 2 for example had a moment which a lot of people either thought was heartbreakening, and cried, or thought was stupid. So obviously one story can appeal to different people.

For me as I said WiH just piled on the tragedy too much far past the point of believability.
That being said it was obviously a lot of work so I try hard to resist raining people's parades these days.

That being said I do hope BWO gets out the door eventually in whatever form the creators choose to release it
All the creators have apparently left.

Unless anyone has heard from Dynamo, Agatheron, Kellan, IceFire, Ace, or BlackDove recently.  Raven2001 still counts as senior staff, but he's a voice in the wilderness at this point.

Well either way. I'm a unknown quantity on this board as it is so if anything I'm out of the loop as to what is and what is not going on. Been playing Xbox mostly these days, not so much Freespace or PC in general.

 

Offline Mongoose

  • Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
  • Global Moderator
  • 212
  • This brain for rent.
    • Minecraft
    • Steam
    • Something
Re: Where did everybody go?!
BlackDove has been on the boards in the past month or two, and IceFire actually just posted today.  Not that the latter is active on the project as far as I know, but still.

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Well I only base that opinion on the fact that I enjoyed AoA whereas I was put off abit by WiH. Though to be fair I probably was a bit heavy handed in my feedback of the discussion thread. That being said I am in the definitive minority on that front, and a tragic story is hard to fairly hard to pull off and even if you do, different stories appeal to different sensibilities. Gears of War 2 for example had a moment which a lot of people either thought was heartbreakening, and cried, or thought was stupid. So obviously one story can appeal to different people.

For me as I said WiH just piled on the tragedy too much far past the point of believability.
That being said it was obviously a lot of work so I try hard to resist raining people's parades these days.

These are totally legitimate and valid criticisms. I just don't think you would've enjoyed the WiH alpha any more than the final product, and probably considerably less - it was nowhere near as good as AoA.

But if we can ever find the damn thing that can always be put to the test.

 

Offline Water

  • 210
Re: Where did everybody go?!
This is an older topic but personally I'm not sure how much "showing off artwork" factors into an artist's decision to do a project. Yes it may be true for some people, but some people just want to accomplish a common goal. Some artists also just create stuff for the sake of creating not out of a need for public recognition.  Maybe the typical artist does so here, I don't know.
For me, it's not worth doing work if there is no expectation that anyone will ever get to see, or use what I work on.

A mod that shows off stuff every so often is still regarded as active and due to that can attract other people and hopefully retain them. Just out of curiosity, what's the last wip or completed image you can find in the BWO forum? Your impression of the mod would be different if you saw the things that have been worked on.

But at the end of the day it's a management problem. When the heavy lifters ran out of gas, inertia kept the mindset going even though the landscape had radically changed around them. Until change happens this mod stays where it is.

 

Offline Admiral Nelson

  • Resurrecter of Campaigns
  • 211
  • The GTA expects that every man will do his duty.
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Aren't models the reason for the big delay?  With all the many HTL Terran ships out there, has anyone considered just mapping the incomplete ships over to a nice equivalent from the community?  Consider that BP has two complete Terran fleets, two more fleets are coming with the new Inferno, more from INFA, more are out in the ED dump, and more made by individual contributors -- ships of every shape, size and capability.  It shouldn't be that hard to choose replacement vessels, possibly moving around capship turrets if needed.  This might not be the 100% ideal solution, but it should be good enough.
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
For me, it's not worth doing work if there is no expectation that anyone will ever get to see, or use what I work on.

A mod that shows off stuff every so often is still regarded as active and due to that can attract other people and hopefully retain them. Just out of curiosity, what's the last wip or completed image you can find in the BWO forum? Your impression of the mod would be different if you saw the things that have been worked on.

But at the end of the day it's a management problem. When the heavy lifters ran out of gas, inertia kept the mindset going even though the landscape had radically changed around them. Until change happens this mod stays where it is.

I'm sorry but there's some sort of logic flaw in there,
"I only work on mods that are going to get finished, so I don't want to help one get finished".
In other words not wanting to do work because you're afraid that your work won't get seen even though by doing that work your helping to accomplish that very goal.

And I'm not sure that showing off stuff will necessarily make people join, if anything I think a bigger contributor is popularity. "This campaign(or IP) is popular, so, I wanna be on the team and have a badge". And yes showing stuff can increase popularity, but when the intent of a campaign is to have some real reveals to the player then showing stuff tends to be a little self-defeating. And in addition it's been like 12 years or however long, well, not that long, but a few years anyway. How much stuff can they show? At some point you run out of content you're willing to do. Every designer I think has limits to what they're willing to reveal because at the end of the day they still want people to experience the campaign for the first time rather than have the whole thing be spoiled.

What it really needs is for one or two people to step up and really start contributing so yeah people can say there's progress being made.

Aren't models the reason for the big delay?  With all the many HTL Terran ships out there, has anyone considered just mapping the incomplete ships over to a nice equivalent from the community?  Consider that BP has two complete Terran fleets, two more fleets are coming with the new Inferno, more from INFA, more are out in the ED dump, and more made by individual contributors -- ships of every shape, size and capability.  It shouldn't be that hard to choose replacement vessels, possibly moving around capship turrets if needed.  This might not be the 100% ideal solution, but it should be good enough.

BWO has it's entirely own custom fleet from what I understand for the "terrans".
Considering that the fredding is supposed to be finished, abandoning those ships and replacing them would make the fredding most definitely not finished and thus be a little counterproductive if you ask me. Like if you built 50 missions with Orions, and decided to replace them with a Hecate, custom tables or no things would change right?
« Last Edit: October 21, 2011, 01:04:11 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: Where did everybody go?!
The campaign was done years ago. The models were, to my understanding, finished as well. The team made the (awful) decision to hold off for full voice acting and high-poly models.

Reverse that decision, release the campaign in its low-fi state, upgrade later. That's always been my advice.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
I'm sorry but there's some sort of logic flaw in there,
"I only work on mods that are going to get finished, so I don't want to help one get finished".
In other words not wanting to do work because you're afraid that your work won't get seen even though by doing that work your helping to accomplish that very goal.

In that case, let's dig up Paradigm Shift.

No logical flaw present. The issue is that the addition of any one person is not going to make BWO get finished in a timely fashion.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2011, 01:14:21 pm by LordPomposity »

  

Offline Admiral Nelson

  • Resurrecter of Campaigns
  • 211
  • The GTA expects that every man will do his duty.
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Aren't models the reason for the big delay?  With all the many HTL Terran ships out there, has anyone considered just mapping the incomplete ships over to a nice equivalent from the community?  Consider that BP has two complete Terran fleets, two more fleets are coming with the new Inferno, more from INFA, more are out in the ED dump, and more made by individual contributors -- ships of every shape, size and capability.  It shouldn't be that hard to choose replacement vessels, possibly moving around capship turrets if needed.  This might not be the 100% ideal solution, but it should be good enough.

BWO has it's entirely own custom fleet from what I understand for the "terrans".
Considering that the fredding is supposed to be finished, abandoning those ships and replacing them would make the fredding most definitely not finished and thus be a little counterproductive if you ask me. Like if you built 50 missions with Orions, and decided to replace them with a Hecate, custom tables or no things would change right?

Not really.  Map the models over to ships with similar fire points and / or similar configuration.  Change the turrets over in PCS2 to be in similar places.  Shouldn't be too bad, or too disruptive to balance.

Now, if it is true that BWO has an entire finished low poly fleet, then by all means it should be released that way.  I haven't heard that before, however.  IIRC even the low poly models had issues (1 LOD, no debris) etc...
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Not really.  Map the models over to ships with similar fire points and / or similar configuration.  Change the turrets over in PCS2 to be in similar places.  Shouldn't be too bad, or too disruptive to balance.

Got to disagree here, while I like the line of thought in my experience this is usually surprisingly disruptive to mission balance and flow.

 

Offline BrotherBryon

  • 29
  • Resident Lurker
Re: Where did everybody go?!
The way I understand it is that the majority of the assets already have HTL models (Though some may already be showing their age). The problem lies in UV mapping, texturing and LOD's, you know the stuff no buddy likes to do. The team has approached me and others about making a push to try to get all that done but I'm busy with Inferno at the moment. Once we push out the first release of the Inferno Upgrade then maybe I'll be in a position to get behind it.
Holy Crap. SHIVANS! Tours

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
The way I understand it is that the majority of the assets already have HTL models (Though some may already be showing their age).
Best update them to contemporary standards before release, then.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
That will probably delay everything by another four years though.
17:37:02   Quanto: I want to have sexual intercourse with every space elf in existence
17:37:11   SpardaSon21: even the males?
17:37:22   Quanto: its not gay if its an elf

[21:51] <@Droid803> I now realize
[21:51] <@Droid803> this will be SLIIIIIGHTLY awkward
[21:51] <@Droid803> as this rich psychic girl will now be tsundere for a loli.
[21:51] <@Droid803> OH WELLL.

See what you're missing in #WoD and #Fsquest?

[07:57:32] <Caiaphas> inspired by HerraTohtori i built a supermaneuverable plane in ksp
[07:57:43] <Caiaphas> i just killed my pilots with a high-g maneuver
[07:58:19] <Caiaphas> apparently people can't take 20 gees for 5 continuous seconds
[08:00:11] <Caiaphas> the plane however performed admirably, and only crashed because it no longer had any guidance systems

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
That will probably delay everything by another four years though.
Well, it's important that BWO make the best impression possible.

Assuming it takes four years to bring everything up to 2011 standards, by 2015 they'll be in a good position to start bringing their 2011 models up to 2015 standards.

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
I'm sorry but there's some sort of logic flaw in there,
"I only work on mods that are going to get finished, so I don't want to help one get finished".
In other words not wanting to do work because you're afraid that your work won't get seen even though by doing that work your helping to accomplish that very goal.

In that case, let's dig up Paradigm Shift.

No logical flaw present. The issue is that the addition of any one person is not going to make BWO get finished in a timely fashion.

A statement you're basing on what precisely? Spoon got WoD finished and started in a timely fashion, and he's just one man. Blaise Russel got 3-4 campaigns started and finished in a timely fashion, and he's just one man. It's not the number of people require it's the amount of work required and from what I understand, unlike a lot of campaigns the amount of work left on BWO is finite meaning there is an end in sight if people are willing to step up and contribute. This differs from other campaigns which are just getting off the ground and which have yet to nail down what exactly they want to do.

And on top of that, we don't even know how many models are left to HTL from what I know. I know what one of them is, because I was asked to do it, but beyond that . . .

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!
I'm sorry but there's some sort of logic flaw in there,
"I only work on mods that are going to get finished, so I don't want to help one get finished".
In other words not wanting to do work because you're afraid that your work won't get seen even though by doing that work your helping to accomplish that very goal.

In that case, let's dig up Paradigm Shift.

No logical flaw present. The issue is that the addition of any one person is not going to make BWO get finished in a timely fashion.

A statement you're basing on what precisely? Spoon got WoD finished and started in a timely fashion, and he's just one man. Blaise Russel got 3-4 campaigns started and finished in a timely fashion, and he's just one man. It's not the number of people require it's the amount of work required and from what I understand, unlike a lot of campaigns the amount of work left on BWO is finite meaning there is an end in sight if people are willing to step up and contribute. This differs from other campaigns which are just getting off the ground and which have yet to nail down what exactly they want to do.

And on top of that, we don't even know how many models are left to HTL from what I know. I know what one of them is, because I was asked to do it, but beyond that . . .

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.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2011, 10:02:20 pm by LordPomposity »

 

Offline Water

  • 210
Re: Where did everybody go?!
I'm sorry but there's some sort of logic flaw in there,
"I only work on mods that are going to get finished, so I don't want to help one get finished".
In other words not wanting to do work because you're afraid that your work won't get seen even though by doing that work your helping to accomplish that very goal.
The key word was expectation. All mods are worked on in the belief that they'll be released some day.

What it really needs is for one or two people to step up and really start contributing so yeah people can say there's progress being made.
The problem with not revealing completed/wip stuff is that none of that progress is ever visible. In a multi year project the result is a net loss to BWO in terms of community and extra helpers. Do you really want to help a mod that looks multi-year dead or would you prefer to contribute to a mod where you can see others providing time and energy?  Perception matters.

Now, if it is true that BWO has an entire finished low poly fleet, then by all means it should be released that way.  I haven't heard that before, however.  IIRC even the low poly models had issues (1 LOD, no debris) etc...
The high poly cap ships are under 8k excluding turrets. Simple lods are enough for the low poly caps though. (lod1 no turrets)

 
Re: Where did everybody go?!

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.

The problem with not revealing completed/wip stuff is that none of that progress is ever visible. In a multi year project the result is a net loss to BWO in terms of community and extra helpers. Do you really want to help a mod that looks multi-year dead or would you prefer to contribute to a mod where you can see others providing time and energy?  Perception matters.

Different people are motivated by different things. For me it's less about the project's state rather than its subject matter and whether I think it's something worth exploring. A lot of stuff has a lot of work going into it on this board, but for a lot of it I wouldn't be in any way interested in contributing. I mean most of my energies have been directed towards a conversion here or there where it's very very very unlikely that anything will ever come of it simply because of the amount of work involved but for whatever reason I sunk a few hours into it.

That being said, when it comes to projects the only thing I've found that bothers me is an unequal distribution of the work. I won't name names but there are in the community "idea men", people who like to type words, but otherwise not lift fingers. They're the real ones who 'get my goat'. Mods need players not cheerleaders.

Personally I don't really get excited for the release of mods, I visit here only occasionally and sometimes if something is release I go and play it. It's like "oh ****, this came out two months ago, maybe I should play it". Obviously the perspective of someone who visits this site on a daily basis would differ considerably.

Either way the point is that yes, maybe some things would motivate some people to contribute, but they wouldn't motivate all people to contribute. I think some of it is just unbridled unenthusiasm, which, is often not backed up by results. Not speaking of Dragon but some people have like a half dozen badges, and if your work is split six ways then I mean progress is naturally going to be slower on all of those mods as whole. It's like buying stuff, it's fun to acquire stuff, it's fun to get started, but finishing is the real mountain to climb.

And ultimately, it's up to each artist to find their own motivation and if they've rationalized within themselves that the project is not worth their time then no amount of fan service by the developers is going to change that. 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.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

  • Cutscene Master
  • 212
  • Chopped liver
    • Steam
    • Twitter
Re: Where did everybody go?!
Look. You all could argue about this until you are blue in the teeth.

The point is this...

Either that until some people either put their money where their mouth is and actually try to help BWO...
Or
That some people take up active leadership and begin some sort of publicity push and/or motivation push..

Nothing is going to happen here. Since neither of those seems to be happening anyway, the cause of the stall seems clear. No one cares enough to try.
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.