to leverage the power of fortress..

[o_ivaqual]

i'm guessing people have too many RL issues as exams and christmas time, i hope january will see enough members coming back to finish the job
if it's the only way to release something somewhat polished then delay it

[o_uber]

Lol it's been public for some time now. You just have to read the dev journals. It's quite clear there's no momentum at the current time. Just reading those, you can sense their desperation and utter lack of progress on the mod.

[Jiggles]

Yeah, it's pretty frustrating b/c there's really not all that much that needs to get done b/f 1st release, but stuff's just been moving at a snail's pace.

[o_frenchtoast]

That's pretty upsetting to hear. I was probably one of the strongest supporters of this mod, and one of the most optimistic about its progress, but after waiting 4 months, it's hard not to feel annoyed at a lack of anything to show for it. I know the team has been working, but by almost ignoring the community, it's really hard to keep excited.

So yeah, come get me when the mod is released. 'Till then I'm gonna get a job and do something useful. Cheers for now!

[Jiggles]

Wow, that's all we had to do to get you to...? (kidding!)

[o_vampiricus]

hard to accept that news, especially after watching the dustbowel video and re scanning over the images/media.

Its hard for me to accept that there isnt a playable version that you can let us toy with.

a lot of us have been pretty patient. knowing that if we went nuts, or complained that we would either get banned, or simply wouldnt help.

But the fact that there were hardly any media updates, or news of all these people going awol is unsettling. I bet if you guy would have accepted donations, those people would have stayed. I would have been the first person to toss into that bucket. why? because its for a good cause, but now we will be lucky to even see this mod. Im old skool, I could care less about lousey excuse for a fortress mod right now.

anyway, thats my 2 shillings. putting it lightly..

[Jiggles]

I doubt donations would make much of a difference -- I think some of the dev team were burned out, and others simply have other life commitments ATM (especially over the holidays), so unless those donations could equal a full time salary (fat chance -- and it would be wrong to accept money for a mod anyway)...

So yeah, things are coming very slow, which sucks, but the actual amount of work left to do isn't a ton -- we just need someone to do it

Basically, if anyone knows any great coders, send 'em our way

[o_tyrus]

Its the final stretch of the race! Don't give up! Give me all their e-mails, I'll give them encouragement!

How bout an update to the main page headlining:

We need a few skilled programmers / coders

That might attract a little more attention.

[o_swampthing]

Disappointing to say the least.

After all this time I thought FF would at least finish the race even if Q4F sorta hasn't.

Anyway, hopefully this game will come out eventually? Who knows...

[o_tyrus]

brainfart....



You aren't [Ac3]Swampthing are you?

[o_gunslinger]

The complete lack of updates by the mod team is doing a better job of making people lose interest in FF than the slow pace of development is.

How many times do people need to say it. Most people couldn't give a monkey's if it didn't come out for 6 months (well, before the team said it would hopefully be out before end of year), as long as every two weeks or so, an update was made. Even if there's nothing to update people on, posting some new screenshots or SOMETHING would keep people mildly interested. As it is, the loss of interest could kill this mod before it even gets released.

TBH IMO ETC

[Lost]

I agree that we need some sort of progress update. The dev journals are the peephole into the darkside, giving a glimps of what needs to be fixed, what has been fixed, and some funny shit that makes it worth while.

[MrBeefy]

well. look at it this way:

we use the front page for showing off what we've done lately that we're proud of.

the dev journals are a little less widely read, but anything written there becomes official.

the forums are a place where we can communicate with you guys... the hardcore fans.

So... if we haven't done shit in 2 months worth showing off... we're certainly not going to put that on the front page for all the world to read--there's no point. We may put that admission in a dev journal, but even then... it has a little too much formality to it than maybe we're comfortable with. However, here in the forums, we try to get you guys in on the secrets cuz we love you. I'll personally apologize for FF that we haven't had an update or release up to this point. All the work lately has been under the hood type tweaks--nothing you can really show. The mod is not ready enough for beta, so it just can't happen. No maps are finished... so that's a pretty major reason for delay. The animations for player models are being worked on, but I haven't seen them yet. We wouldn't hold off a beta for things like animation tweaks, so don't get antsy thinking we're just being overly perfectionist. Decs is finishing up a very tough-looking sniper rifle over the holiday, so I think that will finish up all of our weapons models... no, wait, there's still the IC to do. I think I told you before that sound is all taken care of. We're really still hurtin' for an effects guy. Really close, but... yeah, i don't know if it's people feeling burnt out or what. Mulch and mirv are internetless from a move, but... they should be back by now? I dunno. That's pretty much all I can think of to dish. Hang in there dudes.

[o_luminous]

even just the odd picture of a part of a map in the journals would be something to keep interest up, like another view of openfire for example (if any more progress has been made on that which i would hope it has..)

the power which even a couple of pictures have is immense. if someone comes to the site, and sees that there has been no updates for 4 months, or dev journals for a month, then theyll most likely assume that the mod isnt going to be out for ages and not even bother to stick around. heck, even just a dev journal saying what someone has been tinkering with under the hood would be enough to hold some interest..

[MrBeefy]

well... while we ultimately like you guys hanging out... the game won't be out until it's out, and not much actually matters until then. if people are angrily waiting, or patiently waiting... it's still waiting.

that's how I see it anyway.

[o_psycnet]

Do what needs to be done, and let the rest of us fester

[o_dr zoidberg]

Originally Posted by MrBeefy

well... while we ultimately like you guys hanging out... the game won't be out until it's out, and not much actually matters until then. if people are angrily waiting, or patiently waiting... it's still waiting.

that's how I see it anyway.

Halleeeluuujaaaaah....

HAAle...luuuuujaaaah.... HaaalleluuuuUUUuuuULJAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!

[o_vampiricus]

Originally Posted by MrBeefy

well. look at it this way:


I'll personally apologize for FF that we haven't had an update or release up to this point. All the work lately has been under the hood type tweaks--nothing you can really show. The mod is not ready enough for beta, so it just can't happen. No maps are finished... so that's a pretty major reason for delay. The animations for player models are being worked on, but I haven't seen them yet. We wouldn't hold off a beta for things like animation tweaks, so don't get antsy thinking we're just being overly perfectionist. Decs is finishing up a very tough-looking sniper rifle over the holiday, so I think that will finish up all of our weapons models... no, wait, there's still the IC to do. I think I told you before that sound is all taken care of. We're really still hurtin' for an effects guy. Really close, but... yeah, i don't know if it's people feeling burnt out or what. Mulch and mirv are internetless from a move, but... they should be back by now? I dunno. That's pretty much all I can think of to dish. Hang in there dudes.

I dont know about the rest of you, but this makes for a good long awaited status updae on the front page

[o_skanky butterpuss]

not really. he just said in there why they arent making fron page progress updates... the average joe hl2 player isnt gonna give a shit to hear that development is delayed and that all they have been doing is tweaks and yadda yadda. basically, they forget about the mod as soon as they are done looking at the pretty screenshots and go back to jerking around on planethl or something of the sort. for instance, black mesa: source. BEAUTIFUL looking mod, im excited for it to out, but once im done looking at the pics and listening to the awesome music, thats it. ive forgotten about it until someone on here posts a thread saying OMG BMS UPDAETZ! the people that are really excited for this mod sign up, like us, and follow the forums, like us. we have faith in this mod and a lot of us have invested a lot of time into it (community mappers logging hours on maps, posting all types of suggestions in that area of the forum, resizing devil smileys, etc.), and we deserve to know the little inside shit. that said, sure it would be nice for them to post some little screenies for us hxc fans here and there, but as much as i love eye candy, posts with substance, like this, are much more satisfying.

and that semi concludes that.

mr beefy, again i would like to thank you for your honesty and communication. and for having a sexy voice

edit: oh, and apology accepted!:P

[PHISH]

In the past month there have been many changes...fixes to model related bugs that have been there for at least a year. I had to do that shit by text editing. Pink and black checkerboards on gibs? Fixed. Updating models with the new player skeletons and fixing duplicate player skeletons? Fixed.

Hitboxes on all of our player models, something that have been fucked up for 2 years, I've fixed those (engy still pending). For a little idea of the improvement, sniping guys concing in midair has proved to be as consistent and good as the hitscan on the best tfc servers, better than a lot of them. Everybody can notice an improvement in that area...I think there are still some lag comp issues but the hitboxes are all good.

Rocket speed and reloading has been tweaked to match the speed..we think we got a really ideal balance for bhop in the last playtest. Hwguy head, thanks to a cameo by rebo is in and he's our first model that has been phonged to sexyness. At this point player model issues are basically mesh issues, LOD and DK getting his animations in. Material LOD's can be done in the interim, all you need is a text editor and reading up on the valve wiki. I am planning to do these in between the holidays. As for DK's animations, I've been working with him on issues so I know he is making progress.

Cz2's cap point 3 got finished. So basically everything but the command center is good to go.

Before this, I created an entire goddamn Fortress Forever font and fleshed out the UI to give it a more customized look. I've never made a font before in my life, but I learned how to do it. First by making hud elements in .ttf, then death message and item glyphs..and I think it's actually quite good.

Sure there has been downtime (coding, basically), but to say nothing has been done is ignorant of anything that's been going on. But more importantly, why are you seperating yourself from it? You can help, so be proactive.