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So things have gotten pretty barren around here...
http://forums.datarealms.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=45245
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Author:  CaveCricket48 [ Thu Aug 22, 2013 5:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

xenoargh wrote:
Add to that developers who don't bother talking to the public, moderators who yell at primary modders when the engine breaks their stuff, instead of communicating with the developers, bugs that never ever seem to get fixed, etc., etc.

<------------

xenoargh wrote:
For me personally, I only like participating in Indie game modding scenes when I can get technical support and the developers are willing to be active in their communities. My mistake was thinking that since guys like Lizard were around, that meant real communication was happening. I didn't really get the "we'll try to talk to Data..." stuff until it was too late.

There's only so much we content devs can do. Not cool blaming us for engine-side things.

xenoargh wrote:
I get the sense that they didn't even know what they'd done or what they lost, because they got our money and weren't even bothering to test their code against mods at all.

Same as above. Also we content devs don't get paid. What we do is our own time spent because we like this game, and the lot of us sincerely want this to reach full completion, but that's well out of our power.



Yeah, I know you're upset about the progress of CC. So am I. And I'm a content dev. We don't have anyone making art assets, and without any art assets we can't flesh out all the content we'd like, and we don't have any power over the engine-side of things. Lumping all of us "devs" together honestly pisses me off because the lot the content dev team gets dumped into the generalization of "lazy dev" and we don't even have that much control over the speed of build releases.

Author:  Major [ Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

To put this subtly, the Devs don't actually owe you ♥♥♥♥ for making a mod, doesn't bother me very much and I don't see why it should bother you.
You did have fun making the mod, testing it and playing with it, yeah? That's the point of it all, not recognition.

Author:  Duh102 [ Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

It can be frustrating to see a game update break your mod, even if you knew it was bound to happen.

Author:  Cat_Fuzz [ Tue Aug 27, 2013 11:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

This game is just such a shame. It had such potential, but i'm afraid CC has joined my "probably won't play for a long while" pile of games - it was fun don't get me wrong, but when it eventually was released, I did think "is this REALLY it?" and like most people expected that Data would've spent a month or two post-release polishing it up.

I'm not saying that I demanded this, but I just anticipated that there would have been more of an effort to finish (as in *FINISH* finish by most people's standards) the game. Instead, once the reviews came out, and everyone had that last bitching thread aimed at Data for why the game was pretty broken on release, it's been quiet since then and I bet Data is seeing CC as something he'd rather forget about.

Author:  TheLastBanana [ Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

For what it's worth, Data is still working on CC. He's just doing it at the same rate he always has, which he has admitted plenty of times is painfully slow. Unfortunately, I think it's a bit too late for CC to attract many new users. Don't feel like the project has left behind, though, because it hasn't (unless you count slow development as "left behind," in which case it's been left behind for about 10 years :lol:).

Author:  Contrary [ Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

OH MY LORD WE'VE BEEN LEFT BEHIND FOR 10 YEARS

Author:  Foa [ Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

Contrary wrote:
OH MY LORD WE'VE BEEN LEFT BEHIND FOR 10 YEARS

lol, Contrary, no.

Author:  xenoargh [ Wed Aug 28, 2013 3:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

1. I wasn't referring to Content Devs in my little rant. The whole bit about "if we can talk to Data" was about that; at first, I was very excited, because I presumed he'd done what he should have done years ago- throw more people at the job, even if unpaid fans.

I am upset with myself for not writing clearly enough about this issue; I wasn't aware you'd been entirely un-compensated for all your hard work, but I'm not mad at any of you people, you've clearly done your best.

2. If the pace is now at whatever rate Data can manage when not at his Real Job (which is slow by definition) then why not hand off the source to new developers? The reasoning behind this seems non-existent:

A. If it's about Money... well, it's not going to make much more, especially without active development, releases on a regular basis and participation by the core people in the creation cycle. So make a deal or find a willing fan with the necessary skills. It can't be that hard to pack up the source and explain how to get it compiling in (insert IDE here).

B. There's nothing in the engine that's so revolutionary / proprietary that it's worth keeping secret at this point, and lack of more eyes on the source is preventing a lot of basic things from getting done.




...or just declare it dead and release the source GPL or something. Get closure and stuff.

Author:  HunterZ [ Wed Aug 28, 2013 5:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

TheLastBanana wrote:
For what it's worth, Data is still working on CC. He's just doing it at the same rate he always has, which he has admitted plenty of times is painfully slow. Unfortunately, I think it's a bit too late for CC to attract many new users. Don't feel like the project has left behind, though, because it hasn't (unless you count slow development as "left behind," in which case it's been left behind for about 10 years :lol:).

Please don't make claims like that without offering something to back it up. It just adds to the frustration. It could just as easily be claimed from available evidence that he's abandoned it to work on "Cave Vehicle Engine" or whatever it's called.

Author:  Foa [ Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

xenoargh wrote:
A. If it's about Money... well, it's not going to make much more, especially without active development, releases on a regular basis and participation by the core people in the creation cycle. So make a deal or find a willing fan with the necessary skills. It can't be that hard to pack up the source and explain how to get it compiling in (insert IDE here).
Seems you keep forgetting the universal keys have been posted, and 1.0, and 1.01 are Free

B. There's nothing in the engine that's so revolutionary / proprietary that it's worth keeping secret at this point, and lack of more eyes on the source is preventing a lot of basic things from getting done.
This ♥♥♥♥ again?

HunterZ wrote:
TheLastBanana wrote:
For what it's worth, Data is still working on CC. He's just doing it at the same rate he always has, which he has admitted plenty of times is painfully slow. Unfortunately, I think it's a bit too late for CC to attract many new users. Don't feel like the project has left behind, though, because it hasn't (unless you count slow development as "left behind," in which case it's been left behind for about 10 years :lol:).

Please don't make claims like that without offering something to back it up. It just adds to the frustration. It could just as easily be claimed from available evidence that he's abandoned it to work on "Cave Vehicle Engine" or whatever it's called.
Actually, someone else is doing CVE, Cortex Command is still under Data's reigns. The one thing I must say, I never expected development go slower, but that's what you get with a skeleton panel for engine-side, and no asset/content generation, but no problems with the content devs, though. [You usually want it the other way around]

At the end of the day, you'd have to en masse a relevant, and vitriolic crowd, legal matters, or simply open-room reverse-engineer the damn thing to get anything done.
It's all on you.

Author:  TheLastBanana [ Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

HunterZ wrote:
Please don't make claims like that without offering something to back it up. It just adds to the frustration. It could just as easily be claimed from available evidence that he's abandoned it to work on "Cave Vehicle Engine" or whatever it's called.

I'm a content developer for the game, and I'm included in a Skype chat with the rest of the team. Data keeps us updated on what he's doing, and as of August 22nd, he's still working on the game. What more do you need from me to back it up? This is pretty much straight from the horse's mouth.

As far as the source code goes, keep in mind that the game has been in development for over a decade. As far as I'm aware, it's quite a mess, and I think there's a lot of cleaning Data would like to do before releasing it. I'm also not sure what Valve's policy is regarding making a Steam game open-source. Ultimately, though, I don't think Data is quite ready to let go of the project. After putting about half of his life into it (literally), you can probably imagine why he might want to hang onto it until he's well and truly ready to let others start taking it apart.

Author:  Cat_Fuzz [ Wed Sep 04, 2013 1:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

TheLastBanana wrote:
I'm a content developer for the game, and I'm included in a Skype chat with the rest of the team. Data keeps us updated on what he's doing, and as of August 22nd, he's still working on the game. What more do you need from me to back it up? This is pretty much straight from the horse's mouth.

As far as the source code goes, keep in mind that the game has been in development for over a decade. As far as I'm aware, it's quite a mess, and I think there's a lot of cleaning Data would like to do before releasing it. I'm also not sure what Valve's policy is regarding making a Steam game open-source. Ultimately, though, I don't think Data is quite ready to let go of the project. After putting about half of his life into it (literally), you can probably imagine why he might want to hang onto it until he's well and truly ready to let others start taking it apart.


That's really good to hear - I'm pleased it's not been abandoned. As I said, I'd had alot of fun with CC when I first purchased, but the bugs and general lack of polish did eventually cause me to put it down. If you guys and Data are still progressing, then that's great news.

But a question still lingers - why do we not hear more about this? To clarify, I'm in no way demanding new or regular updates because people who do annoy me, but out of curiosity I'm keen to know why this news can only really be received either by trawling the internet or through communication by another member of the team (with all due respect). The gaming industry (and most creative industries) are now so geared towards social platforms and keeping high levels of communication with customer and provider it's baffling that there has been such a lack of it, and that there are so many who believe this game has been dead for so long.

I'm just curious to know why a more public message every couple of months is such a hassle for a lead developer to handle?

But please don't take this the wrong way, I'm just trying to voice what I think alot of non-regulars to this forum feel...

Author:  TheLastBanana [ Wed Sep 04, 2013 3:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: So things have gotten pretty barren around here...

The bot we had that posted updates to Twitter stopped working, which was our main source of info. I think the main problem is that development is really slow — there's not usually a significant change for a long period of time, and when there is, that's when Data posts to the blog.

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