I've heard about problems regarding communication between project leaders and other project members, ideas for new features which delay the release even further, lack of involvement from project leaders, and most notably - help offerings from various modders from outside of BWO team, who later got involved but left due to some unspecified decisions of BWO leaders.
I have no idea what was really happening in the past. I just encountered multiple opinions that BWO is a project that is doing nothing to help itself to get finished, and leaders are popping up with more and more very ambitious ideas over and over again instead of releasing anything at all.
About "problems regarding communication between project leaders and other project members", I'll be the first one to admit it: it did happen. Especially when it comes to Spoon. We wanted him to take on not only Fredding, but also to take a look at what we had mission wise and offer input\make decisions regarding the mission structure and design. Basically we wanted him to take the lead and have autonomy on that field, as long as he kept to the overall vision. I don't think he understood that, and the blame falls on me and Blackdove for not communicating it properly. He did do a great job at redesigning\rebuilding the Demo's missions in record time.
"ideas for new features which delay the release even further"; "and leaders are popping up with more and more very ambitious ideas over and over again" - Simply not true when it comes to the last 5 years (or more). When I got into a de facto leadership role, the first thing I did was to take a look at everything we had, and try to figure out ways to cut corners, or ways to motivate people to contribute. That's where the idea of modelers being able to release their assets as soon as they finished them came from, for example. Other things we wanted to pursue were: cut some missions out, have episodic releases.
Yes there were some "new features" on the table, but those wouldn't delay the release further. Features like using Fury's AI for the fighters, for example: the missions aren't in any way done from various angles, including balance. Adding Fury's AI or not would have no bearing on what it takes to complete them.
"lack of involvement from project leaders" - Half-true. And I won't say more about this one because I don't want to throw people under the bus. And from my part personally, I didn't always have the time I should have to dedicate to the project.
"help offerings from various modders from outside of BWO team, who later got involved but left due to some unspecified decisions of BWO leaders" - I know what situation, you're talking about specifically. And about this one all I will say is: it's very easy to blame others over "unspecified reasons" (mystery!!
). Those reasons will have to continue being "unspecified" because, again, I'm not in the business of shaming others. You can ask the gossipers to be brutally honest with you (and themselves, perhaps?).
I know for sure that I've seen people working on it, lots of cool assets, mission files etc. Now I see only lots of gossip, dead mod and people asking for future of BWO.
More official statement regarding present and future would be welcome instead. What's going on with BWO? Are there any plans to continue this? Can we count on something like dump release? Can other people take it, and finish it?
I will, in a couple of days
Well there seems to be some sort of communication issue in general. If Raven had (hopefully has not anymore) health issues, that's a terrible thing, but even though I've always checked BWO board, there was no info about it. I mean there's no need to detail anything, but I think if somebody said "current mod leader can't work on this due to heavy RL issues" everyone would've understood this, instead it seemed like BWO had just been abandoned by everybody and nobody cared about it anymore, the only post in nearly a year was the info that the website went down.
I'm sorry, but when you're in an hospital bed with a tube in your chest, go through surgery, can't even get up etc, informing your online modding community that you're not available is the last thing on your mind. And after that whole ordeal, there are all the other little things like focusing on putting your life back in order, recuperating physically (still ongoing), etc.
Not even Blackdove got to know about it. I simply vanished, and that's on me. It just didn't seem like the most important thing to care about in the last year. Sorry.
I am serious about this, by the way, but on one condition:
Like I said: if Spoon[`_`] finished it, he has my blessing to go ahead and release it if he wants. You can quote me on that.
In that case, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing the old Demo and give it a facelift. If it's consulting that you feel you need, I'll be around to answer your questions. Send me a PM if you wish.
As for the Cairo - the only asset that the Demo uses - it's finished and I'll release it soon.
But I do recommend talking with Spoon first. He did a really amazing job on the first 3 missions of the demo, at least. Would be a shame to not use that.
*Waves to Raven*
I think the best way to do this is the same thing, MT did and release everything to public as far as i know the missions are much better condition too. And then maybe someone can finish it if they want.
Heya Gloriano.
How did that work out for MT?
I'll write a separate post in a couple of days regarding the past, present and future of BWO. Stand by.
