make Fortress Forever's development more transparent

[Crazycarl]

About the lack of news:

This is our hobby, not our job. When I find time and the motivation to do FF stuff, I will do FF stuff, rather than write an essay about it. If I stay up until 3 am trying to tweak some run animation I've ported to a player model from HL2DM, I'd rather get it done and go to bed than try to find a way to make that sound interesting. Writing for a public audience is not as easy as you think.

Not only do I have to make it interesting, I have to make it sound positive and avoid confusion. I got a request to make a simple-ugly shield model to replace a melee weapon. We're not even sure how it's going to work yet. Can you attack people with it, or is it just defense? Can you keep it up indefinitely, or will it break? Unless I give out all these details, it raises more questions than it answers. This is for something that hasn't even been tested and won't be released any time soon. I really don't care what details are known to the public, but I'm not going to go out of my way to give out information that may prove to be bad or misleading.

Releasing is a pain in the ass which is why we haven't done many of them. Ironically, most delays are caused by work getting done. If someone is working on a map or feature that's almost ready, we'll hold the release for them.

Contest: guess which class is getting the shield weapon, and win an exclusive beta leak vid featuring a WIP map and model animations. You have three guesses, and only non-betas may guess, of course.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by AfterShock

Openly criticising FF development constantly, in an attempt to steer FF offcourse as much as possible, whilst wasting the developers time and generally demotivating anyone who even thought about doing any work on it, voluntarily, giving up their spare time so you can play a game for free then whine how after 4 years of work it's not good enough for you.

Criticism is not inherently bad. I can’t steer off course a game that the developers themselves have admitted to having no direction. I can’t waste the time of people who consent and voluntary their time to reading and reacting to my messages as well as developing a game. Last, just because the game was in development for four years does not mean it’s perfect.

It’s really pathetic how every time I voluntary my time to “criticize” this game, I get called a troll or a whiner, yet I am doing it out of the respect that you guys assume I do not have. I don’t write trademark novel-sized posts to troll or for no good reason. I do so because I enjoy the game like any other fan and don’t want to see it die. If the development is, in my opinion, the reason why this game is dying, then I am going to point it out.

So, I do. So do many other people. Instead of taking that to heart and into consideration, and perhaps modifying the development process a bit to be a little more transparent, which would have benefits both for the development of this modification as well as the popularity and appeal of this modification, you guys do what you do well: continue with inefficiency and ignore the people criticizing you as if they were evil people.

You guys have no drive to improve this game. Again, any time someone doesn’t agree with your level of thinking, your defenses flare up, you call them a troll or ignore, and continue your inefficient ‘blind’ development standards, which limit your releases to about one patch per year because you have no clue where to best focus your efforts. You create a product for consumers with no regard for consumer opinion. It makes no sense at all. It’s a recipe for failure.

So, spare me the sympathy story and stop trying to say I vilify people. This is so cliche, but here’s a quote. Apply it to context. “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

[Crazycarl]

Originally Posted by AfterShock

Openly criticising FF development constantly

Constantly is the operant word there. You've had some good input in the beta. I value your opinion. It may be frustrating, but the best you can do is to give your opinion, show your reasoning, and debate the points to the people in charge. If things don't go your way, the reasonable thing to do is not to badmouth the people in charge in an attempt to bully them into following you. It will never get you what you want.

I dont have control over gameplay decisions that are made in this game, and I don't always agree on what gets done. However, I know when to accept the decision that has been made.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

Not only do I have to make it interesting, I have to make it sound positive and avoid confusion. I got a request to make a simple-ugly shield model to replace a melee weapon.

Well, there you go. Why do you have to make it sound positive? Just discuss it and see if the people think it's positive. Let people create their own opinions. Now, you don't have to consider their collective opinion to be the end-all be-all. I don't want to imply the majority is right by default, but it's something to consider.

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

We're not even sure how it's going to work yet. Can you attack people with it, or is it just defense? Can you keep it up indefinitely, or will it break? Unless I give out all these details, it raises more questions than it answers.

You're assuming questions are bad. If you have these questions yourself and find them difficult to answer, then what's the harm in allowing others to reflect on them? Can you attack people with it? Is it just defensive? Is it infinite or finite in durability? People will create discussions around these questions. This generates some activity, some hype, and provides you guys with some feedback, even if it's not 'absolute' and just 'speculative'. Revealing the development process isn't "dictative". It's supposed to be an invitation for cooperation.

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

This is for something that hasn't even been tested and won't be released any time soon. I really don't care what details are known to the public, but I'm not going to go out of my way to give out information that may prove to be bad or misleading.

It could occasionally prove to be a hassle, but is it any worse than the rumor-inspiring hype-killing secretive nature of the current development process? Are the rumors going to be worse when the development process is plain to see for anyone coming to visit? Is the game going to be plunged into darkness when the entire community can help you guys use your time wisely and roll out more than one patch a year? Is the community going to 'dry up' when they constantly have the ability to contribute to the game without having to jump through hoops or be hand-selected by the development team? Will people feel more useless if the development team pledges a commitment to satisfying them and valuing their opinions considering they're the people whom this product is mainly being built for?

LOL? It might have its faults, but I'd argue there are less of them than what you have now.

[Crazycarl]

If I tell you something and it confuses you, is that any better than if I told you nothing at all? If I give out information and it's negatively received--or misunderstood, it makes me not want to give out any more info. I don't really care whether there are rumors or not. This development is something I do for my own enjoyment. I don't really enjoy placating Angry Internet Men.

There's nothing stopping anyone from contributing ideas or discussing hypothetical design changes. However, ideas in game design are a dime-a-dozen. They really mean nothing until they are implemented. In a volunteer system, the one who does the implementation is the one who gets to decide how to do it. He may take suggestions at his discretion, or not. Trying to please everyone is a recipe for disaster. I also believe that what people say they want is not necessarily what they really would like.

[WiFiDi]

i think fortress forever's biggest problem is simple no one not even the developers knows who's in charge. there needs to be someone in charge who can lead the development because as of now it seems from my standpoint its chaos.

[Ricey]

Originally Posted by WiFiDi

i think fortress forever's biggest problem is simple no one not even the developers knows who's in charge. there needs to be someone in charge who can lead the development because as of now it seems from my standpoint its chaos.

They call him Squeek, but yeah, he's useless.

Also, for the love of drunken raging faggit ass ducks, will you learn to use commas?

[NeonLight]

I blame squeek for everything. Seems to fix a lot of stuffz ;D

[Ricey]

Originally Posted by NeoNL

I blame squeek for everything. Seems to fix a lot of stuffz ;D

I love Lamp.

[KubeDawg]

Everyone has their own opinion on how the game should be developed. The only problem is, we're not developing it. The developers are. It looks like Bridget has a very personal investment in this and if that is the case, why not go make a source game the way you would like? If you can't, looks like you're going to have to deal with the so-called 'shortcomings' of the developers which only you seem to be the one pointing out.

I prefer a more practical approach. If there is a problem, there is a way to solve it. First and foremost, imo FF needs to be on Steamworks as soon as humanly possible. Now that we know this mod doesn't require the orange box to be on Steamworks, what are we waiting for?

That would allow the developers to not feel so rushed by fuggers like Bridget constantly on their case about releasing new updates or taking this mod in the 'correct' direction.

Face it, all games are never 100% finished. I have a feeling as long as people are willing to develop for this game, there will always be new updates making it more and more better.

But I stand firmly behind my opinion that this mod NEEDS Steamworks.

Automatic updates - allows the devs to release updates on the fly, and revert back to previous versions of FF if needed if something screws up. Automatic updates also remove the annoyance users have from having to find a download link to the latest update of FF or even new users wanting to download FF for the first time. And even though it has been simplified by using executables, a lot of people are simply too lazy or don't care enough to go get those new updates. If someone is bored and decides to load up FF, it would auto download the update and whallah! They're playing the most up-to-date version of FF. Simple, efficient and effective.

And while releasing FF on Steamworks would not be the end all to the issues in this mod, it would certainly lower stress levels of having to follow deadlines based on how bitchy the community is for an update.

Frequent small updates to FF even maybe once every month or every 2 months is a lot better than having to wait 6 months to a year for a single update. Also, trying to keep track of small updates rather than large ones is probably a lot more of a simple task. And while patience is certainly a good thing to have, we all want to see where this mod can go and to hopefully see it succeed so if we seem a bit hasty, it's because we care. At least I do. I would love if this mod had millions of users. You know how happy that shit would make me?

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by AfterShock

I tell you whats really good for the development process:

Openly criticising FF development constantly, in an attempt to steer FF offcourse as much as possible, whilst wasting the developers time and generally demotivating anyone who even thought about doing any work on it, voluntarily, giving up their spare time so you can play a game for free then whine how after 4 years of work it's not good enough for you.

Another thing that's great for the dev process is to make big changes to the game that clearly weren't thought through, then undermine the gameplay patch after patch for years, so many people can actually point to how much better and fun the original version was and how NO new development would have been better overall than what's been done.

You talk about steering FF off course, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING. I want FF to get back ON COURSE. The direction FF has taken over the past TWO years, NOT four, is precisely the reason there's so much criticism. If I were to lie to you and praise change after change I consider awful, how would that help anything?

For what it's worth, on the cosmetic end of things, I think you guys have been doing a great job, but I consider that almost irrelevant against the deeper gameplay problems that have been added. I honestly feel bad for the devs who have poured their heart and soul developing this game and given it a lot of polish in things like models, textures, animation, mapping, etc. only to have absolutely horrid gameplay decisions ruin the mod, and thus they receive waves of negative feedback overall, even though it's not fault of their own personally. I believe people like Elmo might be in this category.

And don't misunderstand. I'm not whining that the game's not good enough after so many years of work. I realize how difficult some of this is. What I'm saying is on release it WAS "good enough", and gameplay-wise it has gotten WORSE and WORSE. I'm not opposed to change, I think FF could be even better than 1.0, but that's not what's happened and the direction the gameplay has gone since then has been awful. I'm attacking the judgment and decision making behind this mod, not the effort of the people that's gone into it.

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

However, ideas in game design are a dime-a-dozen. They really mean nothing until they are implemented. In a volunteer system, the one who does the implementation is the one who gets to decide how to do it.

This kind of reinforces my point. Most of the changes I'm talking about HAVE been implemented in the past and WORKED and were only changed after the fact to what's broken now. And it's not just a simple matter of who implements things, otherwise parts of old codebase could be submitted and many gameplay problems could get fixed. It's more of a weird oligarchy in action that approves things haphazardly. I'm almost positive a rollback of old values for several classes would not be approved, even if I re-did the coding myself.

[JackBauer]

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

About the lack of news:

...

I spose that's a big issue for people that are new to this game. some mates have downloaded FF, started it and only found one server with like 2 people on. when they went to check the main page, they had to read news that date back a few months. they assumed the mod is dead and no one will consider playing a "dead" mod.

Personally I think FF is the best mod I have ever played and even better than many fullprice titles. it really deserves a bigger community.

I was kinda scared didn't know if there were even any devs around. thanks to this thread I see you guys are still working on FF.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's your hobby and we all appreciate your hard work. I just hate to see the hard work you have done doesn't pay off (handful of active players). May be with a few small differences, as in an active FF blog or entries on the FF main page, you would at least show that the game ain't dead yet to outsiders and potential new players.

[reaper18]

What the devs dont seem to be grasping is the impact the community can really have on their mod.
I can agree with Carl, that more work can be done working on the mod rather than posting essays about it, but what you don't realize, is that posting updates and transparency is PART of the development process.
If you'd put some effort into your community, who have been loyally supporting and keeping this mod alive for all its worth, you'd find that we would would put effort into the development in return, by means of community maps, and other custom content that expand the playground that is FF.
All were asking for is an update here and there; not that Elmo hasn't been doing his part in that respect, but wed just like to know whats going on, or at least have a little bit of input, and not every year, just to find out you've only moved the game .9 versions.
I can see where the Dev team is coming from, being on multiple Dev teams myself for a few mods. But these mods all came to an epic fail, and it was always apparent why. One of the biggest reasons mods fail is lack of leadership or direction. If you don't know where your mods going or how to get it there, how the hell can you steer it there??
Im not trying to hate on the dev team, i think its great that ff represents the spirit that TFC had/has, and helps it live on, but i do think it would be nice if you could just take some time and show your supporters some support
Thanks for a great mod thus far, i cant wait for 2.5

[Elmo]

Maybe we should give up - start all over again from day 0.. lets go back to 2000!

I'm crying inside.

[reaper18]

Originally Posted by Elmo

Maybe we should give up - start all over again from day 0.. lets go back to 2000!

I'm crying inside.

nonono

We just want some news

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by Elmo

Maybe we should give up - start all over again from day 0.. lets go back to 2000!

Finally, a use for this dumb time machine I invented.

[KubeDawg]

Nah I don't even want news unless there is news to be given. I just want it on steamworks so the devs dont have to feel so rushed.

[Crazycarl]

I should stress that I'm not saying the lack of news updates is a good thing--far from it. I'm just giving reasons/excuses for why it is the way it is. We aren't trying to hide a lack of progress, and we're not ashamed of what we're doing. We are just weak in the department of community outreach. It is not as easy as it seems.

Kube: With Steamworks we are waiting for UI features and enhancements that will make the game more accessible to all players. We want to make a good first impression and not scare people off.

Chilled: I don't know why you don't apply for the beta. You have strong opinions about the current release that you've written about extensively, so I'd like to know what you'd think about some of the changes we have now. I'm inclined to think you wouldn't like most of them. However, rolling back to what we had previously isn't going to happen.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

Chilled: I don't know why you don't apply for the beta. You have strong opinions about the current release that you've written about extensively, so I'd like to know what you'd think about some of the changes we have now. I'm inclined to think you wouldn't like most of them. However, rolling back to what we had previously isn't going to happen.

I was going to actually, but around that time, I was told in no uncertain terms that if in testing (or in actual games) I was able to win 90-100% of the time on O in AvD games, that would have no real bearing on balance changes. So in other words, even if I presented as much evidence as any individual could that the balance was screwed for AvD (which until recently there's been a lot of denial about), it wouldn't matter.

This was kind of a surprise to me, since while I realize my opinions would have little bearing as a beta member, I thought the dev team would at least recognize that proof of winning almost all the time as offense is NOT BALANCED. The fact that this wasn't even a guarantee highly discouraged me from wanting to participate. It's like being tasked to test a fireproof suit that catches on fire almost every time and making no promise to make changes based on that data. Also I was told by multiple people that the beta team was basically dead, which didn't add a lot of incentive either.


As for changes, it's difficult to say, I am actually very open to change, I've just seen the current direction be so completely borked, that's the main reason I'm an advocate of a rollback. Frankly, it's the easiest solution given the problems present. If there are more radical changes in mind, an easy way to test whether I'll like it is if the game has been balanced. I considered 1.0 almost balanced. I thought D still needed a little help compared to TFC, but it was still decent. Defense has been absolutely crippled since then. There would need to be counters that work for the following additions before I'd probably like it:

-increased move speeds (skim capping and shot slowing have only met this halfway. It makes a big difference to skilled players, but unskilled ones aren't bunny hopping anyway, so thus their default run speed is still faster than it was in 1.0 or TFC. Pub AvD games always have unskilled players)

-Pyro jumping (this makes a huge difference in vertically inclined maps. I can finish avanti in 3 minutes in pubs as a pyro and demo at the end. That would never happen in TFC.)

-Spy total invisibility (This has basically destroyed hunted, pure and simple. For other modes it's not quite so bad, but it removes skill from the game. There is zero skill involved trying to flush out an enemy that you can't see that may or may not be there and it's simply not fun.)

-Jump pads (Some maps they don't matter, others it's basically game over. Also being able to destroy a jump pad is not a real counter to it. You're still giving O an advantage where there was none before, it would just be slightly less of one.)

-Weaker sentries, specifically push and damage absorption. (I've never been fully happy with the FF sentry guns, they've always felt weaker to TFC's. TFC's actually had less health, but they could block splash damage, so an engineer could use them as wall and keep them up for far longer than in FF. 1.0 sentries at least had more health to compensate for that, but then that got taken away, leaving them as vulnerable as cardboard. TFC had excellent tracking, but it also had slower speeds. FF's is a little wonky. Damage-wise, FF feels weaker than TFC, but that's not a huge deal.

The sg push however is the single most crippling change I think has been done to the game's defense. The 2.1 patch is what convinced me that the FF dev team did not give a flying SHIT about hardcore AvD players. It still hasn't recovered since then. This is what allows people to cap flags and get close enough to sg's to kill them. It's made an utter joke out of defense. I've gone over it again and again and my only conclusion is that you have some extremely O-biased dev members making the gameplay decisions.

-Weaker hwguy (The hwguy is basically weaker than he's ever been. In 1.0 he was a beast, just like TFC. In 2.0 he was relatively ineffective, but was stronger than ever at point blank range if the shot was primed. In 2.1 he had better long-range effectiveness than ever before. As he is now, he simply doesn't have the stopping power he used to, so with the ng nerfed as well, it leaves demomen and sollys as the only real defenders left.


So if the next patch isn't really addressing this stuff or is giving O even more goodies and D almost nothing (or better yet, removing MORE from them), then you're right, I probably won't like it. If 2.5 has been the patch I've been waiting for for two years and will restore D effectiveness to previous levels, I may love it. Again, I'm not against change, but I am against pissing all over AvD balance, that's the main reason I ever played TFC and FF.

I actually am curious now, because if I KNOW that the game is going to keep going in the same direction that it has been, then I'll just stop bothering you guys, because then it will be obvious you simply didn't enjoy the same things I did from TFC and want FF to be a different game than I would ever make.

[Crazycarl]

Seriously, apply. We've been getting good turnouts for tests every sunday, and we can put on an AvD map so you can show us what's wrong. Be warned, there are a lot of radical changes that may seem silly and probably won't make it in, but a rollback isn't going to happen.

SG is getting buffed(though I'm not sure in what way), and I think betas are calling for even more of a buff. Defensive classes are getting new abilities, but at the expense of old abilities that you may think are essential.