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Banned from ITS Forum

Bluegrazz

Novice
Joined
Jul 4, 2008
Messages
54
Location
Kentucky
obediah said:
Bluegrazz said:
PlanHex said:
Let's see the quotes then.

1 of them was (from memory) "Thanks man I appreciate your interest- AOD should be released this fall."- From March 08

1 of them was a compilation of him saying "Things take time to make these games, this is very complex stuff and I only have 4 people working part time" This one has been the same basic quote from 4 years ago until today- Mix that in with "Almost ready", "almost done" etc. etc.- BTW this is hard to do from memory, pls go to the ITS forum and read the whole thread about "Whats delaying the demo" and (hopefully) you will see the quotes I used.

Wow, you should go into investigative reporting! Without your hard work no one ever would have known that VD's estimates on AoD aren't worth much. I'm curious - how many Thursdays in a row, did you jump out of bed to check the ITS site for a download link before you started working to uncover this scandal?

Dude, I cant give you the exact quotes because I cant get on the ITS board- Maybe you should be a detective with those powers of reasoning.

The best I can do is give you what I remember which (evidently) will be paraphrased... He said probably fall of 08- okay. That is for sure. So probably was 1/6 off as of now (thats a really bad estimate then)- It was also "nearly done" many times before that. Then it was 'finished' (basically) until the Graphics got redone.

I would give you a timeline of how long this game has been almost done and what excuses are given but if you search around the ITS Forum you can see for yourself.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Bluegrazz said:
Now we are here but sinse I cant look at the ITS board,, I cant find other fun Vince quotes and its not so fun...
You aren't IP banned.
 

Snall Trippin

Novice
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
12
Bluegrazz said:
obediah said:
Bluegrazz said:
PlanHex said:
Let's see the quotes then.

1 of them was (from memory) "Thanks man I appreciate your interest- AOD should be released this fall."- From March 08

1 of them was a compilation of him saying "Things take time to make these games, this is very complex stuff and I only have 4 people working part time" This one has been the same basic quote from 4 years ago until today- Mix that in with "Almost ready", "almost done" etc. etc.- BTW this is hard to do from memory, pls go to the ITS forum and read the whole thread about "Whats delaying the demo" and (hopefully) you will see the quotes I used.

Wow, you should go into investigative reporting! Without your hard work no one ever would have known that VD's estimates on AoD aren't worth much. I'm curious - how many Thursdays in a row, did you jump out of bed to check the ITS site for a download link before you started working to uncover this scandal?

Dude, I cant give you the exact quotes because I cant get on the ITS board- Maybe you should be a detective with those powers of reasoning.

The best I can do is give you what I remember which (evidently) will be paraphrased... He said probably fall of 08- okay. That is for sure. So probably was 1/6 off as of now (thats a really bad estimate then)- It was also "nearly done" many times before that. Then it was 'finished' (basically) until the Graphics got redone.

I would give you a timeline of how long this game has been almost done and what excuses are given but if you search around the ITS Forum you can see for yourself.

I think you might have missed the point of his post...also I really am gonna stop posting in this thread this time. Really. I feel badly.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,376
Location
Djibouti
VD, please stop exporting dumbfucks from your forum to this, we already have enough, and I think this is the second one in the last few months, kthx.
 

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
35,205
Location
Merida, again
The AoD forums seem to be full of retards. Maybe that's why the game never comes out. By the way, is it true the release date got pushed back to Friday?
 

Bluegrazz

Novice
Joined
Jul 4, 2008
Messages
54
Location
Kentucky
Snall Trippin said:
Bluegrazz said:
obediah said:
Bluegrazz said:
PlanHex said:
Let's see the quotes then.

1 of them was (from memory) "Thanks man I appreciate your interest- AOD should be released this fall."- From March 08

1 of them was a compilation of him saying "Things take time to make these games, this is very complex stuff and I only have 4 people working part time" This one has been the same basic quote from 4 years ago until today- Mix that in with "Almost ready", "almost done" etc. etc.- BTW this is hard to do from memory, pls go to the ITS forum and read the whole thread about "Whats delaying the demo" and (hopefully) you will see the quotes I used.

Wow, you should go into investigative reporting! Without your hard work no one ever would have known that VD's estimates on AoD aren't worth much. I'm curious - how many Thursdays in a row, did you jump out of bed to check the ITS site for a download link before you started working to uncover this scandal?

Dude, I cant give you the exact quotes because I cant get on the ITS board- Maybe you should be a detective with those powers of reasoning.

The best I can do is give you what I remember which (evidently) will be paraphrased... He said probably fall of 08- okay. That is for sure. So probably was 1/6 off as of now (thats a really bad estimate then)- It was also "nearly done" many times before that. Then it was 'finished' (basically) until the Graphics got redone.

I would give you a timeline of how long this game has been almost done and what excuses are given but if you search around the ITS Forum you can see for yourself.

I think you might have missed the point of his post...also I really am gonna stop posting in this thread this time. Really. I feel badly.

Yes, I missed the blatant sarcasm (my apologies)- :oops:

-But I am trying (unsuccessfully) to explain what my post was about and what I was attempting to convey... And why I got negative- I wasnt looking for humor or sarcasm as I do not seem to have a ally present-

Its all good though- Feel free to laugh at my expense. Dont feel bad for laughing at my stupidity on that (I am chuckling at myself as well)- You dont havta go.

I still stand by what I say- A lame excuse used too many times. Too many "its close" (not the Thursday thing) followed by silence about whats being done... Apparently I didnt get my point across, but it was still fun.
 

Gold

Augur
Patron
Joined
May 18, 2007
Messages
504
Dead State Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
Melcar said:
The AoD forums seem to be full of retards. Maybe that's why the game never comes out. By the way, is it true the release date got pushed back to Friday?
No not Friday.... :cry:
 

serch

Magister
Joined
Mar 13, 2006
Messages
1,391
Location
Behind mistary, in front of conspirancy
Darth Roxor said:
VD, please stop exporting dumbfucks from your forum to this, we already have enough, and I think this is the second one in the last few months, kthx.

VD is working hard on Codex decline. It's part of his plan for making us claim for his return with fullest power, a la Versailles treaty and Hitler.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
6,207
Location
The island of misfit mascots
The OP is being a butthurt crybaby, but I having read the thread, I can see what motivated him to start trolling. His first couple of posts were reasonable enough, and then there were a bunch of the AoD equivalent of Bethtards and Bio-fanboys. There are some serious double-standards both here and at the ITS forums between the criticisms we make regarding other developers, and the leeway we give to AoD and ITS, and the responses can get more than a tad fanboyish (really, the 'it's only an indie project that VD is being kind enough to do in his spare time' is only marginally above the 'well, if you think Oblivion is so crap, why don't YOU try making a game' that the Beth-tards throw out.

Mind you, I'm talking about the forum posters here, not the developers - one exception to much of the double-standards is VD, and the same goes for most of the other indie developers that post occasionally. VD and Naked Ninja have repeatedly defended views of Bioware/Bethesda/Oblivion games that are far more moderate than most of the Codex trashtalking, and have been flamed for doing so - I suspect that their own work brings a bit of perspective to thing. In particular, VD made a point of noting the ways in which FO3 improved upon Oblivion, called MoTB a classic, rated SoZ as an excellent game, gave a moderately positive review of Bioshock (good shooter in the Bioshock universe, great level design, pity it didn't try for something more) and to my recollection has resisted much of the Skyway-ism regarding Alpha Protocol and the Gothic series. So whilst I share the concerns that some have raised regarding some of the dialogues shown, and some inconsistent logic when deciding which game plot/characterisation decisions you do and don't get a choice in, VD isn't the one calling moderate AP dialogue awful while calling similarly mixed-quality dialogue in AoD the rpg industry's next last great hope.

So I'm not criticising VD in this - but I can understand why the OP felt like trolling the place. OP really should get a life, or if that's out of the question due to facial deformity or repugnance of character, then at least do what the other 70% of the Codex do and use a trolling-alt so people don't mistake it for genuine posting. Come to think of it....are YOU Blobert?
 

Bluegrazz

Novice
Joined
Jul 4, 2008
Messages
54
Location
Kentucky
No. Not Bloburt- But your right about a Troll alt- I just wasnt intending on Trolling at first. I seriously wasnt- And I was pretty satisfied that a dev (not even from AOD) came on and gave me a better answer than anyone from AOD has ever given... It just kinda went downhill from there.

And please dont mention my facial deformity- Thats just cruel. :(
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
I can understand why people are complaining.

I mean, we don't know what kind of stage of development AoD is in, and the amount of hype that ITS are generating over it is making the whole thing look like TSLRP all over again.

But still, that doesn't excuse all the butthurt and whining.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Azrael the cat said:
The OP is being a butthurt crybaby, but I having read the thread, I can see what motivated him to start trolling. His first couple of posts were reasonable enough, and then there were a bunch of the AoD equivalent of Bethtards and Bio-fanboys.
Examples?

Here is the post-by-post overview:

Blue: what's taking so long? I'm losing hope here.

- one of the developers said it's about a month away, be patient.
- come on, after spending so much time on it, surely they will finish it.
- Vince should show something new, people are losing hope

Blue: still losing hope, beginning to think the game is vaporware

- they do it in spare time, shit happens. Relax and play other games.
- making RPGs isn't an easy, shit takes time (that's from Shelter developer, btw, who is a Codex member and who made some impressive progresss, but what does he know?)

Blue: the readme is a slap in the face!

- you think the combat demo is done, the developers, who actually played it, don't think so.

Blue: this game is never coming out. NEVAR!

So, where is the Beth / Bio style?

There are some serious double-standards both here and at the ITS forums between the criticisms we make regarding other developers, and the leeway we give to AoD and ITS
Examples?

and the responses can get more than a tad fanboyish (really, the 'it's only an indie project that VD is being kind enough to do in his spare time' is only marginally above the 'well, if you think Oblivion is so crap, why don't YOU try making a game' that the Beth-tards throw out.
You added "kind enough". The actual post was:

"The answer is simple: this is being done in their spare time. Unforeseen shit crops up. Nick probably got struck by lightning or something, who the fuck knows. It's damn close, so sit tight and wait. In the meantime, play other video games."

Spare time as in "leftover hours, less reliable time".
 

Silellak

Cipher
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
3,198
Location
Tucson, AZ
Matt7895 said:
I can understand why people are complaining.

I mean, we don't know what kind of stage of development AoD is in, and the amount of hype that ITS are generating over it is making the whole thing look like TSLRP all over again.

But still, that doesn't excuse all the butthurt and whining.

Okay, honest question, because I haven't seen any - what hype has ITS been generating outside of these forums, the ITS forums, and a few news articles here and there?

AoD is in the post-production polishing phase. Unfortunately, as a non-ITS developer pointed out in that thread - the last 20% of a software engineering project is what takes 80% of the time, especially if you want a great end-product. For instance, they spent at least a couple of weeks implementing a certain feature, but after it was implemented and they played with it, they realized it wouldn't work and took it out. That's two more weeks added to the development process just to find out a single feature wasn't going to pan-out. That sort of shit happens all the time when you're developing software. You can't plan for every conceivable place a certain change will touch without actually implementing that change and seeing what happens.

If you want more details as to what aspects they are polishing, feel free to browse the ITS forums because there's a decent amount of info hidden in there. They are far more open about their development process than most other studios I've seen.
 

Lysiander

Novice
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
Messages
24
Im too lazy to quote all your crap, so I'll make this simple:

You don't have a leg to stand on. You are entitled to nothing, VD owes you nothing and you have no right whatsoever to make any demands whatsoever. It's their project, the can make and break deadlines at their leisure and there is nothing you can do about it safe: not buying the game.

Thats all you can do, all the power you have. If you are not happy with the way things are going, keep your money to yourself and buy yourself a blowjob or whatever. If you feel your potential spending of money on a product in the future entitles you to make demands of people about anything relating to the product in the present you are way way wrong.

Always remember, the creators speaking to the community of any product is a courtesy, not an obligation.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Silellak said:
Okay, honest question, because I haven't seen any - what hype has ITS been generating outside of these forums, the ITS forums, and a few news articles here and there?
None. I've even stopped doing interviews because I didn't want to talk about the game until the demo is released.

Matt7895 said:
I mean, we don't know what kind of stage of development AoD is in...
It's in the state where Brian Mitsoda decided to work with us and in the state where a playable combat demo was given to several people. Draw your own conclusions.

The third beta round will start later on today. If everything works fine, the demo will be released in 2-3 weeks. It's been a long wait, but it was a lot harder on us than it was on you.

Bluegrazz said:
Isnt that a wee bit out of context Vince? Our "conversation" as you condensed it.
Unfortunately not.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
Joined
Oct 27, 2006
Messages
2,878
Location
San Isidro, Argentina
Bluegrazz said:
No. Not Bloburt- But your right about a Troll alt- I just wasnt intending on Trolling at first. I seriously wasnt- And I was pretty satisfied that a dev (not even from AOD) came on and gave me a better answer than anyone from AOD has ever given...

I think we gave lots of answers, and very specific ones, like the ones in this thread.

Just some quotes if you can't access the site:

I want to clear a misconception. Content is not the same as assets. It's not the same to have a working area where all NPC are males and most buildings are untextured or just placeholders than having an area fully modeled and textured, with males and female NPCs with the correct clothing, filler NPCs, banners moved by the wind, particles, flavor overhead text, etc.

That is the difference between a "working" game, and a full, polished game.

One year full time with 15-20+ people. We work part-time and there is only 4 of us. It's not an excuse but an explanation of why things take so long.

Anyway, let's use the demo as an example of the indie process. We promised the demo by March and we had a playable demo by March. That was easy. Now, "playable demo" meant that there was the arena district, that you can explore it and talk to the arena master, fight in the arena, loot, sell, buy stuff, get proper skill points, increase skills, etc. Almost everything. Just a few tweaks and we're done. Not quite.

First, tweaking the combat system took a very long time. Nick worked his ass off, "processing" changes and spitting out new builds every day. I posted some feedback earlier. Did we have a combat system before? Of course we did, but we never tested it extensively and played it for days and weeks until you hated the fucking thing and cursed the day you started working on the game. It took a long time, but now it's really fluid and enjoyable. Now, it's exactly what I wanted it to be. Trust me, I can't wait to share it with you guys. It's very hard to work on something for years, dying to show it fully, and not being able to because the game isn't ready yet.

According to Annie, "it's shaping up to be really awesome ... graphics solid and consistent and the scale of the city was really impressive", but maybe she's being nice.

Second, the little things. Everything and anything goes there. Sounds and music, which we are still working on, AI, which still requires tweaks (previously we were talking about combat mechanics, rules, and numbers), menu commands, camera control, running, animation tweaks, problems we didn't foresee, and all kinda bugs from visual to scripting to mechanics.

The mechanics are complex, so it's easy to tweak a few things and fuck a lot of things up. Here is a recent example. We changed aimed attacks: legs damage from normal to damage assigned to fast range of the equipped weapon. Well, crossbows don't have fast or power attacks for obvious reasons, so when an crossbowman tried to shoot you in the legs the game crashed. Why? No fast damage.

No we have Vista issues. We tested the game on 12 PCs, none of them had Vista. You can load the game, but when you start combat, it crashes because Vista replaces your character ID with something else.

CGC::_startCombat() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat central found: Yes
CombatTurn::start() - adding combat initiator to fight: 3000, 6089
CombatTurn::start() - combat turn #1 started successfully.
3000
-2013265920

When it should show this:

CGC::_startCombat() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat central found: Yes
CombatTurn::start() - adding combat initiator to fight: 3000, 6089
CombatTurn::start() - combat turn #1 started successfully.
3000
2001

For some reason, the ID of the PC is completely fucked up. Etc.

As Vince said, the road is not an easy one. We had a playable demo by March, but some shortcuts and rough around the edges. Then Nick had to work on his thesis and we lost him for a couple of months. We picked up the pace again, but there are a lot of small details that make a game truly polished, and those take time to do. Check, for example, the list from the updates I did in the past two weeks (this does not include Nick's updates):

- Virtual Collision Meshes for all buildings.
- Animated Doors.
- Animated trees and banners.
- Updated area map.
- 1600x1200 panels and buttons.
- Latest char and item databases.
- Latest Dialogues.
- Updated male face textures.
- Better collision for most buildings.
- Some texture changes for interiors, weapons and armors.
- Added some filler NPCs, will add more.
- Assigned new dialogue system to arena master and merchant.
- Assigned item list to merchant (check bug reports).
- Created item lists for the 3 tiers.
- Made some changes to the level mostly regarding passability.
- Greatly improved the quality of the lightmaps for the fort and assassins guild.
- Created passability for all floors of the level.
- Added moving signs to the inn.
- Completed all the lists for the merchant, including special weapons.
- Made some small changes to how THC is calculated for ranged weapons.
- Added scoped crossbows.
- Changed some blue steel icons that didn't look quite alright.
- Fixed flying spectators bones, textures and UVMs.
- Included latest item and character databases.

I think they are very informative and straightforward answers. You ask "What is holding the demo up?". The demo is very much playable, but there are still some rough edges. Loading screens and options menus are still using a placeholder, I need to work with Nick to change that, but he is busy adding the functionality to the character creation screen. While it sounds easy on paper there are a lot of things that get in the way, like this one:

Appearance selection is a bit more tricky than it looks from a first sight, especially because of the map is not loaded, and 3d models too. I'm tweaking it, linking rendering control and character model to off-map renderer.

Then we have to implement the sounds and different screen resolutions. The game is completely playable, but god forbid we release it without sounds or with 800x600 as the only resolution. And then we have other stuff like one click object interaction and interaction distance. Right now we use a placeholder menu and you can interact with objects from any distance, which works great from a developer POV, but it's not good for gamer consumption. And several "small" things like that, that unfortunately take up a lot of time.

So, I think that your assessment of the situation is completely unfair, to say the least. We gave lots of in depth answers regarding the causes of the delays. Sure, our estimates were always off mark, but Vince is right when he says that 4 guys part time development takes time, much more than we wish for. We want to release the demo ASAP, but we won't release a crappy, half-assed one. Our future and our reputation depend on delivering a good product. If that means losing some sales due to the wait, so be it. We would lose much more if AoD is crap.
 

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
Elhoim:

I'll speak for everyone reasonable in saying that we're all impressed with what a group of rag-tag amateurs with a can-do attitude has put together. We don't doubt your effort or accomplishment.

But this is big boy serious internet business, and while a growing "done list" is great for morale, it doesn't get you any closer to release. The monotonically shrinking TODO list is what we're waiting for. Presumably the demo will blow up the TODO list like nobody's business ( or at least result in a few hundred developer hours spent debating suggestions ).

And the slow overall pace bites you in the ass with a steady trickle of items - the world doesn't slow down for hobbyist developers:

You're starting to address Vista issues, but we'll be 6+ months into Windows 7 by the time you release. How long will getting the game working on 7 set you back?

You're cleaning things up for 1600x1200, but 4:3 monitors are as out. The people that thought 2D AoD was too ugly to give a chance aren't going to roll with black bars. You can't even just add a few months to support 16:10, because all economy monitors are going to 16:9.

At least most new games suck donkey nuts, so you don't have to worry about some revolutionary game play change leaking out that immediately makes AoD feel ancient :)
 

Bluegrazz

Novice
Joined
Jul 4, 2008
Messages
54
Location
Kentucky
Lysiander said:
Im too lazy to quote all your crap, so I'll make this simple:

You don't have a leg to stand on. You are entitled to nothing, VD owes you nothing and you have no right whatsoever to make any demands whatsoever. It's their project, the can make and break deadlines at their leisure and there is nothing you can do about it safe: not buying the game.

Thats all you can do, all the power you have. If you are not happy with the way things are going, keep your money to yourself and buy yourself a blowjob or whatever. If you feel your potential spending of money on a product in the future entitles you to make demands of people about anything relating to the product in the present you are way way wrong.

Always remember, the creators speaking to the community of any product is a courtesy, not an obligation.

Well I will remind you of this post anytime I see you bitching about any game you havnt yet bought- They dont owe ya shit, quit bitching.

That truly would be the decline of the Codex- There would be like what , 4 posts... Thanks for reminding me though, I am just a potential consumer, I have no rights.
 

Pliskin

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
1,587
Location
Château d'If
Elhoim said:
No we have Vista issues. We tested the game on 12 PCs, none of them had Vista. You can load the game, but when you start combat, it crashes because Vista replaces your character ID with something else.

CGC::_startCombat() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat central found: Yes
CombatTurn::start() - adding combat initiator to fight: 3000, 6089
CombatTurn::start() - combat turn #1 started successfully.
3000
-2013265920

When it should show this:

CGC::_startCombat() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat initiator: 3000
CombatTurn::start() - combat central found: Yes
CombatTurn::start() - adding combat initiator to fight: 3000, 6089
CombatTurn::start() - combat turn #1 started successfully.
3000
2001

For some reason, the ID of the PC is completely fucked up. Etc.

So, with Windows 7 just around the corner, I assume we should expect further OS localization-related delays?
 

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