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Old 04-28-2006, 06:46 PM   #1
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A Publicity Rant With Results!

Now, some may think that this needs to be in the 'Bitch about updates' thread, but I think this is too important to be read in a thread that has no worth.

I'm seriously concerned about the publicity of this MOD. All the devs keep on hinting at a release not being too far off, but yet the media for this MOD doesn't match this suggested progress. Where are the concept drawings? Where are the screen shots of maps? Where are the screen shots of skinned player models? Are we ever going to see any of this? It seems like the answer is no, since the only type of media that they dev team wants to release is "polished" stuff. I think I can speak for many when I say that I am interested in the design for this mod almost as much as actually being able to play it.

I want to ask the dev team, what is the point of showing only "polished" things if you're so far in the development process? What about showing off the development process itself more? If you're so close to a release, why not show some not-so-perfectly polished things, and then explain in a post or whatever what changes has been made since then?

If you took a poll, I seriously doubt most people would only care about seeing in-game shots or an avi. It seems that this method only caters to one type of player that takes a look at this mod. As for the rest of us, it just seems that interest are waivering a little bit because the media for thos mod is so stagnant. I'm tired of reading posts about ideas that probably won't be implemented in the release of the game because you're way too far in the process to even begin code/alter stuff. I want more conversation on things that are actually in the game (concept art, player models, etc.).

In the end, I think the dev team focuses their media release too much on catching the attention of a potential base and keeps on forgetting to keep the attention of their actual base.
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Old 04-28-2006, 07:12 PM   #2
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i agree, it seems that at the moment a lot of bugs are being fixed. this surely means an advanced stage of competion for the mod, and thus a lot of media that we haven't seen yet including concept art. the dev team remind us how much work goes into a media release, but really it doesn't need to be a huge event...a couple of screenshots and a few concept sketches would suffice. it need not be broadcast to every hl2 related site too like with bigger media releases.
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Old 04-28-2006, 07:12 PM   #3
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http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...ead.php?t=2109

I guess that just means you've been worried about this for quite some time.
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Old 04-28-2006, 07:14 PM   #4
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pwnd.
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Old 04-28-2006, 07:20 PM   #5
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we need video footage !!!

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Old 04-28-2006, 07:55 PM   #6
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I'm sure it wouldn't be a big deal for them to release some pics from inside Visual Studio or 3dsmax to get you hot and heavy.
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Old 04-28-2006, 07:59 PM   #7
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Well, I was worried back then too, Tennovan, but then with some of the talks on this bored, my worry was lessened. This has changed recently, with the onset of a release in the somewhat near future. I'm just trying to figure out why all media from this point forward seems to carry the stigma of "its got to be perfectly polished and must be an in-game screen shot" or something of that sort. Like I said, I'm just as much concerned about the development of the things for this mod as I am about the mod itself (because its the development of this mod that got me interested and keeps with interested - given the fact the mod isn't released).
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:11 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sensai
and must be an in-game screen shot
most people complain about the rendered stuff now, and the mod has been in development for too long now really to still be putting those out

also the concept artist guy seems to have died

edit: and i'd be quite happy to release various ingame screenshots on the board (where you'd have thought there'd be less need to make everything perfect compared to a frontpage update) but i dont know what the other guys would say
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:22 PM   #9
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leak some shit mang! we won't tell shtoofa
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:25 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mirvin_monkey
most people complain about the rendered stuff now, and the mod has been in development for too long now really to still be putting those out
Well people on other boards complain (I've read through what people say at sites like PHL and HL2.net), but I still don't understand why you'd only listen to those people. You don't have to make a huge, dramatic news posting, you could just update the media page and tell people its there, but still focus your news on the more flashy things. Or just post links to those pictures in a thread in the forums...I'm really confused why its constituted as 'too late' when you could find a whole wealth of people interested in it (including myself).
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:39 PM   #11
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Yeah mirvin just release them on the board. No one on the forums would be put off if they aren't polished because we are obviously interested in FF enough to join the forums, and won't be upset if the quality isn't amazing. We just want to see what's going on, skinned or unskinned. No fear of putting the casual viewer off because they'll see the main site.

And when you say Dr.Nick is dead what do you mean? Did you give up on him/ you didn't need him anymore or did he stop producing concepts?
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:42 PM   #12
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If a release is in the near future, why haven't we seen any shots or concepts of the spy or heavy weapons guy? I'm very interested in seeing what the hw will look like.
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:43 PM   #13
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Yes. Board-only media releases would rock. Save the super-polished stuff for the media updates, but give us a little something.

Also I'd guess dr_nick just stopped showing up. I haven't seen him on in a long while. Did he finish all the classes?
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:43 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Don
..
And when you say Dr.Nick is dead what do you mean? Did you give up on him/ you didn't need him anymore or did he stop producing concepts?
what difference does it make? fact is they don't have a concept art dude anymore (or atleast a dedicated one?)
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:56 PM   #15
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Just want to know because I really liked Dr. Nick's work.
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Old 04-28-2006, 08:58 PM   #16
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Me too. I demand to see more concept art, as a tribute to Nick's memory.
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Old 04-28-2006, 09:00 PM   #17
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yeah could be tough to work without concept art. it's like a reference point.
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Old 04-28-2006, 09:05 PM   #18
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Ah found this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Defrag
dr_nick has basically finished all of his concept work for us now, though he's still around . I'll try and see about getting some of his stuff coloured (or just as-is, actually) and posted on the site or in dev journals soon. As always, his work inspires us
Edit: Maybe its a bit naughty of me but just typing in a few combinations of words into dr_nick's gallery gives me some more pics. I've found four so far, nothing to do with FF. I won't post any in case its naughty, but if given the ok I'll go ahead.

Try for yourself: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...oToad/xxxx.jpg
(where xxxx is a word of course!)

Last edited by o_don; 04-28-2006 at 09:22 PM.
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Old 04-28-2006, 10:03 PM   #19
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A lot of FF is "done," but not finished, so uhhh how about I just babble about some random shit...

All of the player models are modelled minus the hwguy, which is currently in the game as a fat version of the soldier.

All of the player models are skinned, or at least tentatively skinned, except for the HWGuy (due to it not being modeled), Engineer, and the Scout. By tentatively, I mean, it isn't finalized as far as dealin' with uhh... deformations in the model due from the animations, and I really dunno what I'm sayin', cause, I'm not a modeller, ahhh hah.

Also, as far as the skins, there's just a blue version. I actually think there's blue/red versions for all the models right now, but Blue is the only thing that shows up in-game. So, all the other teams are just the pink/black missing material shit. This isn't really a big issue, because it'll be quickly resolved when more shit is finalized. That way changin' some shit doesn't mean you have to change it on 4 skin colors on 9 potential models.

For me, the lack of a lot of the v_ and w_ is the biggest thing. We have v_ models of the: RPG, GL/PL, Super Shotgun, Medikit, Nailgun, Crowbar, Knife, Wrench, and the Railgun.

Those are the only v_ (v_ as in view, the model you see from your perspective as you're playin') that are currently modeled, and of those modeled, they're all in-game minus the medikit and railgun.

So, the people that model the weapons have been either FooleyCooley and Bile. Bile has kinda been missin' for awhile, and FC is very busy with his college shit, which... the shit he's doin' for FF is part of his coursework. Aside from that, decs has been the sole guy skinning all of the weapons so far, and he's been doin' a kick ass job, but for the last few weeks he's been taking a break so that he can focus on some History test or some shit, haha, and apparently in Norway they ain't care about America, cause he said there was like only a half-page of text about the Civil war, annnnnd that's it, baby, haha.

Anyway, so, that creates a bottleneck for the w_ (world) weapons because the v_ model has to be completed before the w_ can be made and put in-game.

There's, uhh, 3 w_ models done, I think, so, haha... there's a lot of w_ models that need to be made. These are the models you see other players carrying. Of the 3 w_ models done, 1 of them, the nailgun, isn't skinned, and the other is the regular shotgun, which is actually a version of the super shotgun without the upper handle shit, so, it's essentially not... useful for anything. As for why there's an unskinned w_ nailgun, but no in-game v_ for the nailgun, that's because FC is the guy that does his thing with getting v_ models ingame, and he's awesome at it, but... there's just not enough time to go around. Although, I dunno why the w_ nailgun isn't skinned, because the v_ nailgun is skinned, and has been for awhile.

As for grenades, all the grenades are done, and have been for awhile, but... they're just another one of those things where they aren't really completed. Like, we have a nail grenade, modelled and skinned, but it's not in-game, and we have the pyro grenade in-game, but I think we're gonna make the flame part some shader shit like how the the pockets on the detpack are, and uhh yeah. I guess the biggest thing with grenades right now is that there's no nail grenade ingame, even though it's "done." Oh, and there's not any effects for the grenades outside of the default explosion shit. I mean, there are effects, but not any like crazy custom shit. Well, the conc, ted_maul has been workin' on some conc effect that looks pretty cool.

All the animations are done as much as they can be, because... being that there's so few w_ models done, DarkKnight can't really animate a bunch of the shit properly without the models, but placeholder animations are there for the shit even though your player isn't holding a weapon, There still need to be animations for shit like dropping detpacks, and building shit as an engineer.

Lots of times, the issues with the models create problems with the code. Like rocket jumpin', you can't rocket jump properly in FF right now because uhh... somethin' about some traceline gets fucked up because the animation/model/some shit isn't there/correct/something so, you you can't boner it up, right. There's also no collision model for the level 2 sentry, haha, which.. I dunno why there isn't. There used to be, but... now there's not, and I think... that's causin' some other issue with the codin' shit. The point is that there's inter-dependencies, and if some shit gets changed somewhere, it's not always some isolated shit, annnnd boner, that's my explanation.

Oh yeah, speakin' of the sentries, the level 1 and 2 are done, but the level 3 isn't skinned, which is another thing that decs will get too later on. See, haha, decs... decs is a champ because we just give him a continuous stream of shit to skin, but he's got some personal shit to deal with, and as soon as he gets all those spots off his dick, he'll be able to bust that nut again.

I could babble for days, ok, haha, so I should just stop, oh and here's some FF leakage and I ain't even ask nobody, cause I'm fuckin' no limit 'round here.

It's... a death flower on dev_ctf baby:
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Old 04-28-2006, 10:16 PM   #20
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MMM, Yellow pipes
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