[Dilmah G]

Wow, this is just uncalled for and cruel. TopAce, you're better than this. The man is (redacted for The_E's privacy?) and all you can do is talk about what a **** person he is?

I agree.

Please man, resolving whatever beef you have with him is something I think that should A) be done privately and B) be done with the intention of reaching a compromise, at least for the meantime. I don't want to try and get involved either and become part of some kind of 'dogpile', but to do this kind of stuff in public is just as bad for your reputation as it is for his, in my opinion.

[TopAce]

Yes. Because I sort of expect any release to be reasonably tested and warning- and error-free. Because, as you may recall, I am a developer and one of the troubleshooters here. Less errors in released campaigns means less work trying to figure out why users have problems.

No one called for you to point out how many mistakes there were in the tables. No one. No one asked you to bother with the campaign. It is only YOUR mania. Your conviction. The thread went downhill right on launch because YOU DECIDED your debug build mania is superior to anyone else's desire to PLAY, not find errors in, the campaign.

You don't? I would have thought that, in your self-appointed job of raging on behalf of those wronged by me, you surely would have noticed this.

I have better things to do than follow your HLP "career." I've never had any doubt that you crossed the line more often than I saw.

Is this some kind of vendetta because he did something to you?

I am a concerned contributor to the community. If any of my further releases - and I have some plans - is threatened by an individual, I will raise my voice.

[General Battuta]

Relentless was bad. It was bad. The_E's debugging had nothing to do with that. The entire IRC channel - 50+ people - was abuzz with how bad it was. Axem was there, Spoon was there, AndrewofDoom, we were all there, and we all agreed that something had gone very wrong in the development process. You could press Alt-J on every mission and win the entire campaign.

You can't blame The_E for that.

He has every right to point out to people the errors that are inevitably going to cause dozens of 'help me' threads, so they can be fixed. The entire SCP threatened to drop support for The Babylon Project because they hadn't fixed their debug errors. If you're worried about threats to your future releases, why aren't you worried about that?

[General Battuta]

post updated

[TopAce]

Relentless was bad. It was bad. The_E's debugging had nothing to do with that. The entire IRC channel - 50+ people - was abuzz with how bad it was. Axem was there, Spoon was there, AndrewofDoom, we were all there, and we all agreed that something had gone very wrong in the development process. You could press Alt-J on every mission and win the entire campaign.

That's mission design-related, I'm talking about stability. It either runs with standard installation procedures, or it doesn't. Unless you mean that before The E's post, there were technical- (not mission-design quality) related discussion on IRC. I don't know what's going on on IRC. I only saw the release thread.

If that's the case, then I admit that my assessment of the Relentless thread was wrong. And I apologize for it. However, I still think that his handling of Mika's writing and his general behavior towards other members is out-of-place and offensive.

[The E]

Yes. Because I sort of expect any release to be reasonably tested and warning- and error-free. Because, as you may recall, I am a developer and one of the troubleshooters here. Less errors in released campaigns means less work trying to figure out why users have problems.

No one called for you to point out how many mistakes there were in the tables. No one. No one asked you to bother with the campaign. It is only YOUR mania. Your conviction. The thread went downhill right on launch because YOU DECIDED your debug build mania is superior to anyone else's desire to PLAY, not find errors in, the campaign.

wat.

Excuse me.

WHAT?

Let me check my eyesight here.

Did you just say that mods should not be tested for technical issues and bugs? Did you just honestly express the belief that mods should only be judged on the quality of their gameplay and storytelling, with potentially gamebreaking technical issues not factoring into it?

You don't? I would have thought that, in your self-appointed job of raging on behalf of those wronged by me, you surely would have noticed this.

I have better things to do than follow your HLP "career." I've never had any doubt that you crossed the line more often than I saw.

You do seem to be more than willing to hold grudges that even the people directly involved in seem to have abandoned, just for the sake of holding grudges.

Is this some kind of vendetta because he did something to you?

I am a concerned contributor to the community. If any of my further releases - and I have some plans - is threatened by an individual, I will raise my voice.

Good luck with them. Seriously.

But consider this: If you really think that any criticism levelled against a release is destroying/ruining said release, how in hell do you ever expect to get any honest reviews? Release threads are, I believe, not only a place to post praise, but also a place to criticize. How else are creators able to improve their work, if all they get is constant praise? Why should I soften the blow of my criticisms, if said softening only serves to make the message unclear?

As was said somewhere upthread, we're all adults (or close to it, anyway). If you are so thin-skinned that a bit of direct, blunt criticism is completely shattering your ego, you maybe should reconsider your involvement in internet fora.

That's mission design-related, I'm talking about stability. It either runs with standard installation procedures, or it doesn't. Unless you mean that before The E's post, there were technical- (not mission-design quality) related discussion on IRC. I don't know what's going on on IRC. I only saw the release thread.

The release thread explicitly stated that the campaign was supposed to work on 3.6.10+. So, being the responsible developer that I am, I ran it through the .12 RC that was public at the time. Because I figured that, hey, it's tested, it's been in development for a long time, I won't see anything critical. But then, I did. I even went back to .10 debug, and ran into many of the same issues, which to me was a clear indicator that testing was not as comprehensive as it could (and should) have been.

[TopAce]

You do seem to be more than willing to hold grudges that even the people directly involved in seem to have abandoned, just for the sake of holding grudges.

Yes, Deka left. Ragequit.

But consider this: If you really think that any criticism levelled against a release is destroying/ruining said release, how in hell do you ever expect to get any honest reviews? Release threads are, I believe, not only a place to post praise, but also a place to criticize. How else are creators able to improve their work, if all they get is constant praise? Why should I soften the blow of my criticisms, if said softening only serves to make the message unclear?

As was said somewhere upthread, we're all adults (or close to it, anyway). If you are so thin-skinned that a bit of direct, blunt criticism is completely shattering your ego, you maybe should reconsider your involvement in internet fora.

There's a difference between criticizing something and talking EXCLUSIVELY about its faults. The difference is huge. Your style isn't "a bit of direct critcisim." You aren't talking to animals. You can express flaws without offending anyone, but you just don't bother.

[General Battuta]

No, TopAce, Deka came back, PMed us to said he understood what had happened and he was grateful for our attempts to help, and everything worked out. He's even posted since.

[TopAce]

No, TopAce, Deka came back, PMed us to said he understood what had happened and he was grateful for our attempts to help, and everything worked out. He's even posted since.

And where's the improved Relentless? Nowhere, because he became discouraged. He did post that he had plans to fix the bugs, but nothing came out of it. Loss of motivation, perhaps?

[General Battuta]

Response to his campaign was overwhelmingly negative. Overwhelmingly. You can't blame The_E for him becoming discouraged, if that's what happened; if he lost motivation it's because nobody seemed to enjoy his campaign.

Deka was previously KappaWing; he's battled depression and at one point nearly killed himself. Can you really blame him for not wanting to work on a FreeSpace campaign that didn't turn out very well?

[TopAce]

I too almost killed myself once, but I am still working on simultaneously two of my projects, plus Scroll of Atankharzim and in the near future, Fate of the Galaxy too. Plus testing for Casualties of War. I too would have ragequit after Descendants of Sol, but I didn't. Maybe because I had THREE successful campaigns before it. In those times, people COULD enjoy campaigns. KappaWing was unfortunate to have finished his campaign and release it to a declining, burned out community. Nowadays, it's all about mistakes. A release apparently must be outstanding, to whatever standards, to be well received. If it has ONE flaw, it gets blown out of proportion.

I read through some older release threads, and people were enthusiastic about EVERY release. Some mistakes were pointed out, which is all right, but the general audience COULD enjoy campaigns. But it's not the case anymore.

I know what it means to work on something, then see its flaws (one flaw?) be blown out of proportion. You BP guys have NO IDEA what it feels like.

[General Battuta]

Maybe standards have increased because we've had so many good campaigns, but clearly, single people - like you, like Kappa/Deka - can succeed. Look at Wings of Dawn. Look at Ridiculous. Look at Blue Planet, which was buggy as **** when it first came out. Look at Uncharted Territory or Crossing the Styx. Look at Vassago's Dirge. These are all fairly recent and highly praised, and they were all done alone.

In fact the campaigns that get blown out of the water are in the minority.

I know what it means to work on something, then see its flaws (one flaw?) be blown out of proportion. You BP guys have NO IDEA what it feels like.

'you BP guys'? Is this seriously going to go that way again? Come on, you're better than that.

I'm sorry about Descendants of Sol. You saw that I was excited for it and you saw me work to get the community excited. But in spite of my hopes, the campaign was not good enough for people to like it. This is not because any one single person had a grudge against it. People felt awful about it. Axem spent a long time struggling over whether he should even post his review because he felt bad about it.

If this is all about your bitterness over that issue I don't know what to tell you.

[TopAce]

If this is all about your bitterness over that issue I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you should take a break.

There are a bunch of parallels between Relentless and DoS. It's all about the critical first post. If it's negative, the entire thread goes bad. Incidentally along the lines of the first post. People nowadays enjoy bandwagoning. IT WASN'T LIKE THAT BEFORE. Before that, people could remain civil. It's not the case anymore.

[General Battuta]

TopAce, I really like you, I think you're a great guy. So I just want to say that I don't want to turn this into a personal fight.

But just as with Relentless...I don't think it was the release thread that sunk the campaign. I watched people liveblogging their playthroughs on IRC. They went in happy and hopeful and excited. It did not last. It was painful and upsetting for them, and for me, because I wanted to enjoy the campaign.

I don't think you can blame the thread for what happened. And I don't think you should blame The_E.

[General Battuta]

When you made this post, here:

What's up, people? Is everyone still playing it?

people were trying to decide how to respond. There was discussion about how to handle it politely or whether people should just keep their mouths shut. People were sympathetic, they were concerned for how you'd feel.

DarthGeek tried to be delicate about it. Axem finally decided it was time to say something. NGTM1R was...well, he was NGTM1R, that's never changed.

But most of the rest of the thread was spent with people trying to encourage you and explain that things weren't as bad as you thought. That seems civil and it doesn't seem like bandwagoning, except in the best way.

[TopAce]

All right.

Then I acknowledge that I was wrong about The E's role in Relentless's fall. For that, I apologize to him. However, as I said above, I still maintain that he really should be a lot friendlier to people.

[General Battuta]

Well I think I agree with that, and I think he agrees with it too.

But it's hard to be friendly when things are bad in your life; if you've gotten close to suicide you should be able to empathize. I have no idea how much The_E wants to share so I'll leave it up to him.

[TopAce]

Fine. Then the issue is settled as far as I'm concerned.

[General Battuta]

Hooray. That actually went rather well. Thank you for a good discussion, TopAce.

[Solatar]

Maybe this thread should turn into the official "Peace Conference" thread.  People being able to vent their issues in this thread knowing the mods probably won't lock it seems to be getting results, at least from where I'm sitting and reading a bit.  HLP Summit Thread ftw.

*retreats back into the lurking darkness*