FF alive or dead?

[Elmo]

Originally Posted by Rutabeggar

a community who regards unskilled players as unworthy and unfit to play the game

bullshit comment.

[Sh4x]

Originally Posted by PartialSchism

If they wanna go some drastic direction with FF, IMO they should start a new game, not fuck this one up.

Apparently you didn't read what's been said and repeated in this thread before posting this ignorant comment.

It's been said numerous times that FF would be left intact for people like you if a new direction with drastic changes was to be taken.

I didn't really like your disrespectul post earlier too (the violon), just so you know.

[Rutabeggar]

Originally Posted by Elmo

bullshit comment.

Is it? Admittedly there are a handful of those quite willing to help new players. But the general perception in pubs and otherwise is "GTFO you unskilled n00blet, there's no place for you here"

I would love to see new players helped, but that can't come solely from the people in pubs, it has to come in development too. Without training mode new players are supposed to get in to a pub server and contend with the veteran laden community of players who have no desire to further FF's development if only to win another League Championship? Right.

[Elmo]

Originally Posted by Rutabeggar

it has to come in development too.

I agree, which is why your comment is still bullshit. I'm not elaborating (I'm at work, don't have time).

[Rutabeggar]

Originally Posted by Elmo

I agree, which is why your comment is still bullshit. I'm not elaborating.

If you aren't going to elaborate than can you take your flames elsewhere and actually contribute to the discussion?

[Elmo]

Short elaboration for your lovely self: We're working on it. Don't blame us for past dev's mistakes

[Rutabeggar]

Originally Posted by Elmo

Short elaboration for your lovely self: We're working on it. Don't blame us for past dev's mistakes

Fair enough. You're working on it. Kudos for working on it. Truly. This dev team has done far more than the initial team. I'll give credit where it's due. But that doesn't really change the current state of the game does it?

[zE]

Blame islam !

[Elmo]

that was almost funny zE...

I'm home from work.

What can we do about the current state of the game except work on it?

We (the dev team) have our goals. We're sticking to them until we see a reason not to.

You HAVE suggested something, to which, other devs have replied "we're not drastically changing FF"

As a dev team I'd say we have listened and we are fully aware of your points and that we have our reasons for sticking this out AS IS. To work on what makes it easier for newbs to play THIS game.

So, what is the aim of your discussion now that we will be mostly repeating ourselves? What are you now expecting to produce or help by continuing this discussion?

[Lost]

Originally Posted by Rutabeggar

Is it? Admittedly there are a handful of those quite willing to help new players. But the general perception in pubs and otherwise is "GTFO you unskilled n00blet, there's no place for you here"

I only play in pub servers, a shitload when the mod was first released, even more a little while after that. From what I've seen, the elitist assholes are the exception, not the rule. So that's an inaccurate observation to say the least.

For the record, FF didn't fail on its own, it got pooched by devs ditching the mod when it needed modified the most. I can't kick them in the balls for having a life but there were several peeps who could have passed the reins over earlier and saved the new guys a lot of strife. Whatever the cause, that's done and done.

The most static reason for FF's decline is that we cannot present our game to the public as efficient as is required for lazy bastards to get it. When we all played TFC, it was the shit. How many choices did you have in high action shooter games at that time? Not very fucking many, so you would search far and wide for shit to download and play. Now? If it's not on Steam or a quick grab and install from a favorite site, they don't bother. So once our guys are finally able to put FF on the Orange Box, I know we'll see a massive surge of players and maybe some will stay.

What most people don't seem to want to acknowledge is that the heyday of TFC style gameplay has moved on. We're a dying breed, raised and fed the constant action of fast paced violence and awesomeness. TF and its offspring were unique then and new gamers with their 56k modems couldn't get enough. Now our ADD gaming trends force better graphics to be melded with achievement based gaming, either with attainable weapons, personal upgrades, unlockable classes, what have you.

Personally, I wish we could stick 10 guys on FF duty full time, programming and modelling and mapping and just polishing the shit out of it. We could iron out the bugs, put the mod on Steam and rock some ass. But shit changes and there aren't many skilled people willing to put that much time into something that may not pan out for them. At least the guys who made the mod initially can stick it on a resume.

[Rutabeggar]

Originally Posted by Elmo

You HAVE suggested something, to which, other devs have replied "we're not drastically changing FF"

As a dev team I'd say we have listened and we are fully aware of your points and that we have our reasons for sticking this out AS IS. To work on what makes it easier for newbs to play THIS game.

So, what is the aim of your discussion now that we will be mostly repeating ourselves? What are you now expecting to produce or help by continuing this discussion?

I don't expect the Dev's to respond to me. Alone, my opinion is moot. But clearly there are others who feel somewhat the same about how FF is, how it was handled, and where it could go next to make it a more quality product. God only knows the current state of FF as there is scarcely a news update or even a page update informing the community of even the smallest progress.

I agree with Lost, and that is mainly the point I think many of us have been trying to say. TFC's gameplay is a thing of the past. FF is stuck with the title of being the well deserved sequel of TFC. That can't be changed. There is no amount of developing, PR stunts, innovative gameplay types that can fix it now. What do most people remember Pete Rose for? Gambling on the game of baseball, not that he was one of the most prolific hitters in the history of the game. It's the things you do wrong that stick, not the new shiny things that go right.

[Sh4x]

TFC's gameplay might be a thing of the past for you (and me for that matter) but I think this thread made it clear that it was still alive for some people.

What I get from this discussion is that the dev team is not ready to move on because they still like TFC's gameplay and that's cool for them.

I'm just a little sad not to be able to work on the next TF evolution, we had a good team at one point, we could have done great things on that level. But hey, I will find some other ways to pass time, I'm not worried about that! .

[mervaka]

i dont see the point in making FF something it was never designed to be. with hindsight, i can now hold the opinion that game evolution should take place in the form of "inspiring" future games, not making direct descendants.

so in a nutshell, +1 to PartialSchism.

[PartialSchism]

thank you merv.. and

[Crazycarl]

Originally Posted by Rutabeggar

God only knows the current state of FF as there is scarcely a news update or even a page update informing the community of even the smallest progress.

If you pay attention you'll pick up some stuff. And read the dev journals. Admittedly, we could do a better job at that. However, not much is going on right now except the OB port and mapping. As for the general direction of the mod going forward? As you can see we devs don't even all agree on that.

=========
If some of the past or currrent devs came to me with an exciting new solid concept for a game, I'd consider leaving FF and coming along. But if the idea was, "Lets make a TF game but with all the bad stuff fixed", I'd say forget it. That's what FF is supposed to be.

[squeek.]

I'll seriously try to get some dev journals on the progress of training going. Got to get some voiceover stuff done and then parts of it will be ready to show.

[Kidneythief]

As a complete outsider i'll add my opinions of this game to the mix.

I mearly started playing FF about 3 months ago. In fact I started playing PC games all together about 3 months ago. Ive always been a gamer but always consol. This was before Hoopajoo (a long time real life friend) finally convinced me that it was time to get into PC gaming. So needless to say I wasnt around for TFC/Quake.

This game for me isnt a re-boot of TFC because I never played TF games. FF is totally new to me, along with stuff like OvD, AvD, CTF (for the most part), bhopping, concing, ect. I absolutly love the play style in FF. Ive learned to Bhopp decently and have started to perfect my conc game, ive also gotten much better a soldier. Most of these skills Ive gotten through practicing and learning from Hoop. I also have TF2 that I play occasionally which i cant stand more than 20 minutes of.

To me it seems that the game play is fine...there may be a few minor tweaks to balance things out a bit. But the real issue is the lack players. It sucks to get on every night and have about 12 players in Talos and maybe a few 2v2's or pickups going. I think alot of newbie players see this coupled with the overall learning curve and never come back.

To me as a non biased, non TFC player I really think this game needs some type of PR campain to become successfull. It needs to shed the TFC stigma and remain as separate from TF2 as possible. Would it be possible to get a FF ad into a gaming magazine? Or a reveiw or something?

-Jake

[CHURCHMOUTH]

i think it was in PC gamer magazine like back before it was even out or something? anyone else remember that

[Ihmhi]

This thread will probably lead to nothing but trouble, and I won't hestitate to end it if it gets out of hand.. For those of you on either side of the argument, pay very close attention to what I am saying.

The devs signed up for FF for various reasons. I will not inject my personal feelings into this post; I have made them clear already elsewhere in this thread. What it comes down to is that we are all here to evolve FF beyond its predecessors into something that is fun, challenging, and accessible to new players. These are not mutually exclusive things, and if any of us believed that they were we would have closed up shop a long time ago.

When the current devs were effectively handed the reins, we didn't have a lot of the stuff we needed. Hell, we didn't even have FTP access to the forums. Now we are 100% in control of everything and are running the show. Everything's in place and there are redundancies in case any of us leave and pass things on to other people willing to take up the project, although I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

I don't blame the original devs for leaving. Frankly, I think that they just got fed up. They worked hard to make the game, and the very community that they made it for just let everything go tits up. All of the hardcore TFC players they expected to come back did come back and then proceeded to fuck things up for everybody else.

We are continually working to improve on the mod. Orange Box, for instance, has fucked a whole lotta shit up. It's taking a good bit of time to fix and just get everything working, much less get new features added. Our beta testers don't even have OB in their hands yet. But the next patch won't be Orange Box anyway. We have our next patch laid out and have been working on it with more than a few interruptions along the way, such as the forum DB corruption from a few weeks back.

There could be 0 people playing, and we will keep working. Why? We have our reasons. We are not on Steamworks for a reason, and that's all I will say about that at the moment.

FF is only dead if you let it die. I can only do so much as a P.R. guy. It ultimately falls to the community to go out there, play, and introduce other people to the game. And even then, only the pub community would be dead. We're gonna keep working towards our collective vision of what we want FF to be. You can make your case - and many of you have - and we will listen to it.

Many suggestions here stray from what we want FF to be, and that is not a compromise we are going to make. We don't think teleporters would be a good idea, and that's why FF doesn't have them. We want to keep bhop, and that's why its staying. We have our reasons and we are in no way obligated to explain them to anyone, especially since the reasons why we do anything have been said over and over many times in the forums and website.

In short, no matter what anyone thinks, we're going to keep working on FF and trying to make it better.

[hlstriker]

Originally Posted by CHURCHMOUTH

i think it was in PC gamer magazine like back before it was even out or something? anyone else remember that

Yeah it was in some magazine, not sure which.