Development Info Dead State Design Update

[Wunderpurps]

They asked for a shitton of help basically for free.

It's not so much asking for help but if they don't have that stuff sorted out several years in then they are in and one year before they are supposed to be done they are in bad shape. If you are doing each scripting task including dialogs by hand then it's going to take like 50 years to make an RPG.

The drop dead date for finishing was the end of next year. That's going to blow right past, but then I guess that's typical.

Project sounds awesome and all that and I'm looking forward to it more than AoD but yeah, its current development process (or how much of it is being reflected on us) is far from reassuring and has every reason to be called a vapourware at this point,

I don't know why people get angry at this. Everything is vaporware until it gets released. Even billion dollar companies cancel projects or have vast overruns.

So, let's drop some sand before posting the next time, mmmkay?

I never see why people don't realize it's an embarassment to make contentless updates. Pictures of cats was a joke, but the one where he complains about people being unprofessional in requests for interviews?

If you are not ready to waste time with that stuff why post updates at all.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Too bad that the setting sucks arse. Fucking zombies yet again...what a waste.

This, why the world needs yet another zombie movie?

How about actually reading about the game a little bit more before making useless comments like that? It's not the IGN or GameFaqs over here, you know.

Look at me, acting like I know what I'm talking about!

The number of professional game developers with experience of managing projects who still have the time and energy to come to Codex to criticize indies under aliases never ceases to astound me.

 

[Davaris]

Look at me, acting like I know what I'm talking about!

The number of professional game developers with experience of managing projects who still have the time and energy to come to Codex to criticize indies under aliases never ceases to astound me.

Prosper is a pro?

 

[Wunderpurps]

People with any level of knowledge or insight on any subject make me feel inadequate, no matter how obvious their comments are.

Sorry to hear that, bro.

 

[Jaesun]

Look at me, acting like I know what I'm talking about!

The number of professional game developers with experience of managing projects who still have the time and energy to come to Codex to criticize indies under aliases never ceases to astound me.

Indeed. Bryce, Bryce never changes...

 

[Wunderpurps]

Sherlock Homo, hot on the case.

 

[villain of the story]

Too bad that the setting sucks arse. Fucking zombies yet again...what a waste.

This, why the world needs yet another zombie movie?

Because there hasn't been a proper one, one that gets down to what really matters in zombie genre: collapse of society and getting along with other people ie. not a game about running and shooting zombies.

 

[villain of the story]

Look at me, acting like I know what I'm talking about!

The number of professional game developers with experience of managing projects who still have the time and energy to come to Codex to criticize indies under aliases never ceases to astound me.

Congrats, GarfunkeL. You just used a version of "you can't criticise until you make you own" argument. Sad to see old timers succumbing to the intellectual "depths" of ESF.

 

[villain of the story]

...regardless of how many snarky comments VD fancies to make instead of explaining shit...

Explain what? The obvious? That a few people working part-time is far from the optimal number of people? That they can't pay for help?

Exactly my point. Exactly why Mortmal has a valid point.

He doesn't. Needing help doesn't mean or imply in any way that Brian & Co are unable to put together a game with what they have at the moment.

Then why do they need the help? To speed up the development, ok. Why do they need to speed up the development?

Now excuse me while I go through 5432327 shitty mod and indie projects which I ridiculed in the past and try to redeem myself by telling them how wrong I was about them.

Replace Brian and Annie with random nobodies and there would hardly be a few people who wouldn't cry vapourware. Case in point: Cyclopian and look how it turned out

Cyclopean got good press and was fairly well received. Scott ran into some unrelated life issues and had to put the project on hold. It can happen to anyone and has nothing to do with the size of the team.

Guess what: that is the exact thing that happens to 999 indie and mod project out of every 1000. "I got Real Life (tm) so i quitz lololz". And mind you, a good number of those projects which were never going anywhere from the beginning, got some real good team members producing industry-grade professional looking game assets and create its own hayfire of press. Not an argument.

You've been saying more or less the same thing regarding "testing" and "polishing" for the last couple of years and it's already been two years since the combat demo

Testing and tweaking internally isn't the same as a proper beta test with other people.

Good to know.

Nobody's trying to discredit you, to underestimate the time it takes to go through all these things or to criticise your decision to revamp several things in the game but to show that some healthy scepticism is... healthy.

Healthy skepticism is healthy, I agree. I don't expect anyone to blindly believe "hey guys, I'm making a game!" posts, but it's kinda silly when people start interpreting "help wanted!" posts as "please make a game for me".

Why not? That is *precisely* how it sounds. Anyway let me retrace back: they get away with asking for help because they are Brian and Annie. If anybody else asks for the same things, it's pretty much "please make a game for me". And if you don't care about the duo's past experience, which at this point is only a matter of good faith, there's virtually no difference.

Here's a more relevant question to you: can you put ZRPG on a stage of progress when you think of the development history of AoD, the amount of progress so far achieved on both games and compare the two?

It's not my place to make comments about Brian's game. All I can tell you is that he has a lot more than just ideas on paper.

And you wonder how people can draw the above parallels...

 

[Mortmal]

Villain , its pointless , everyone want to stay in this dream that just make you unpopular cause they have to hang onto something, they despair to play a new rpg , although they will end up playing mainstream titles like everyone else.
The biggest taboo on the codex is asking about the development stage of age of decadence and dead state.Dare to say the slightest criticism, you'll get as answer they are indies everything is forgivable, although i ve seen that KOTC team releasing it in a reasonable amount of time and that working in their spare time, altough i see the breath taking legend of grimrock close to release and that by begginers in a very short amount of time.
In 4 years ill bump the thread again and it will be still relevant i fear.

 

[SerratedBiz]

At least it didn't end with "they're banging on the door, oh my god they're almost here!! ARRGGGGHHHH!!".

 

[Wunderpurps]

Should have ended with hopw roew urne

 

[DwarvenFood]

Maybe is it a good thing that VD is NOT Brian, gives one of the games a better chance of getting released. Also, thumbs up for Mortman for stirring the holy water.

Whose alt is Wunderpups, is it Prosper on strong medication ?

 

[Wunderpurps]

I'm not an alt or troll, just a bastard. The difference is I get the girls. Sometimes.

 

[Jaesun]

I'm not an alt or troll...

How to make a Drog or Bryce alt 101:

1. Wait for news post about AoD or Dead State.
2. Create new Alt.
3. Make posts that consist of :blah: "AoD sucks!" "Dead State Sucks!" "The Torque Engine Sucks"!
4. GOTO 1

 

[villain of the story]

I had the weirdest dream last night. There was a zombie apocalypse but the zombies were all naked males. And instead of trying to bite or eat you, they tried to rub their penis on you and get off on you and then you'd become one of them. One by one, everyone I know became a zombie. It was very disturbing.

 

[Wunderpurps]

I'm not an alt or troll...

1. Wait for news post about AoD or Dead State.
2. Create new Alt.
3. Make posts that consist of :blah: "AoD sucks!" "Dead State Sucks!" "The Torque Engine Sucks"!
4. GOTO 1

Off your meds again? I never said any games suck. Just like the so called discussion in the kotc thread and garfunkle in this thread the problem is the discussion is over your head, not that I am trolling.

If anyone is a bot it's you.

1. wait for new person to register.
2. Accuse them of being prosper.
3. accuse them of being bryce.
4. accuse them of being drog.
5. poster leaves
6. add poster to accusation list.
7. goto 1.

Between each step are important posts stating the current time and telling us you are posting, or talking about the cum in your pants.

 

[DwarvenFood]

you forget the cum stalagtites on the monitor.

but jaesun is a bro so i'm fine with his cum.

 

[Oriebam]

btw do you guys still think this account is an alt?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Look at me, acting like I know what I'm talking about!

The number of professional game developers with experience of managing projects who still have the time and energy to come to Codex to criticize indies under aliases never ceases to astound me.

Congrats, GarfunkeL. You just used a version of "you can't criticise until you make you own" argument. Sad to see old timers succumbing to the intellectual "depths" of ESF.

No, not really. Healthy scepticism is one thing ("Well, we'll see if this goes anywhere"), posting excessively in every thread related to the vapourware in question and basically telling the guys actually doing the game how someone with no merits knows much better what they should do is a different thing. Every AoD or Dead State thread seems to attract couple of posters who either ridicule the engine being used or the methods of the developer/team. AoD has had a fully functioning combat demo out for a while, it's definitely not vapourware, yet still there are posters whose only gimmick is to pee on VD. Dead State, having been started much later, is obviously farther behind but is apparently coming along, based on what Brian and VD have wrote about it.

It's one thing when Shinonage critiques someone's engine/programming choices and a completely different thing when someone just claims "oh yes, I'm a programming guru with dozens of projects under my belt".

You at least had some sense in your posts, unlike Wunderpups who probably is yet another alt trying to shit on any indie - possibly because his own project never got anywhere and he's terribly frustrated.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Then why do they need the help? To speed up the development, ok. Why do they need to speed up the development?

Um, to release the game sooner? I'm not sure if you've noticed, but it's taken us a long time to get to the beta-testing stage. Perhaps, we should have asked for help too.

Guess what: that is the exact thing that happens to 999 indie and mod project out of every 1000. "I got Real Life (tm) so i quitz lololz". And mind you, a good number of those projects which were never going anywhere from the beginning, got some real good team members producing industry-grade professional looking game assets and create its own hayfire of press. Not an argument.

Um, no.

The main reasons why most projects never see the light of day are:

- you underestimate the amount of work (guilty of that myself)
- you fail to find people who are both skilled and dedicated
- you know what you want to make (an awesome game!) but have no idea how to get there
- you run out a steam after a year or two and/or stop believing

When it happens, people use various excuses, because excuses sound better than "I give up" or "I don't have the patience to do boring shit for years".

Why not? That is *precisely* how it sounds. Anyway let me retrace back: they get away with asking for help because they are Brian and Annie. If anybody else asks for the same things, it's pretty much "please make a game for me".

I disagree. They "got away" with it because people believe them. Sure, maybe the fact that Brian is a well known developer helps, but in the end it's the belief that drives it and anyone can achieve it. Hell, people believed me and I'm not a well known developer dude. I've got my entire team and everyone else who helped simply because these people believed me and wanted to help/be a part of it. That's all it takes.

And you wonder how people can draw the above parallels...

I do wonder. Just because I don't want to speak for Brian (we disagree on a number of issues) doesn't mean that something fishy is going on.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The biggest taboo on the codex is asking about the development stage of age of decadence and dead state.

Taboo? People constantly bitch about AoD still being in development.

Dare to say the slightest criticism, you'll get as answer they are indies everything is forgivable... vaporware

Fixed it for you.

... although i ve seen that KOTC team releasing it in a reasonable amount of time and that working in their spare time, altough i see the breath taking legend of grimrock close to release and that by begginers in a very short amount of time.

KOTC:
RPG Watch: Before beginning on Knights of the Chalice, did you have any previous games development experience? Did you bring any specific skills to the task?

Pierre: Yes, if you count non-professional game development. A long time ago, I designed a turn-based fantasy wargame on a programmable calculator. I made a few other small games...

It took him 3 years to make the game, but he was working with the existing material. AoD has a lot more text and options, which is the main reason why it took so long. Apples and oranges, in other words.

Legend of Grimrock:
Who are you?
We are a four member team of game industry veterans with combined experience of more than 30 years in creating commercial games. We have worked on Max Payne 2, Alan Wake, Shattered Horizon and various versions of 3DMark Gamer’s Benchmark.

 

[Mortmal]

The biggest taboo on the codex is asking about the development stage of age of decadence and dead state.

Taboo? People constantly bitch about AoD still being in development.

Dare to say the slightest criticism, you'll get as answer they are indies everything is forgivable... vaporware

Fixed it for you.

... although i ve seen that KOTC team releasing it in a reasonable amount of time and that working in their spare time, altough i see the breath taking legend of grimrock close to release and that by begginers in a very short amount of time.

KOTC:
RPG Watch: Before beginning on Knights of the Chalice, did you have any previous games development experience? Did you bring any specific skills to the task?

Pierre: Yes, if you count non-professional game development. A long time ago, I designed a turn-based fantasy wargame on a programmable calculator. I made a few other small games...

It took him 3 years to make the game, but he was working with the existing material. AoD has a lot more text and options, which is the main reason why it took so long. Apples and oranges, in other words.

Legend of Grimrock:
Who are you?
We are a four member team of game industry veterans with combined experience of more than 30 years in creating commercial games. We have worked on Max Payne 2, Alan Wake, Shattered Horizon and various versions of 3DMark Gamer’s Benchmark.

Ok the grimrock team isnt made of complete begginers, but still they seemed to did this really fast , from the initial preview and few screenshots to what we are seeing today, fully fledged gameplay videos, theres really a big improvment in a year maybe less.Cant say kotc team experience seems huge, maybe there's not as many options and text but the IA is definitively top notch, this was serious work.Aple and orange certainly but that game rival easily a gold box game, 3 years during spare time, not too bad.

Well i still wont have an answer about this, how far in development ? how much % done? How many quests hubs finished out of how many ?.

I think ive heard of aod in development since 2006 maybe less , about time we know how much of the game is completed. Like villain pointed before you were supposed to just iron some bugs after the combat demo!

 

[Davaris]

The main reasons why most projects never see the light of day are:

- you underestimate the amount of work (guilty of that myself)
- you fail to find people who are both skilled and dedicated
- you know what you want to make (an awesome game!) but have no idea how to get there
- you run out a steam after a year or two and/or stop believing

Underestimating the amount of work in programming anything of complexity is normal. When you think you are 90% done, you are 50% there.

He doesn't. Needing help doesn't mean or imply in any way that Brian & Co are unable to put together a game with what they have at the moment.

Something I've never been able to figure out: People will work on fan projects for no pay and add to the coffers of AAA companies, but when it comes to creating anything original, suddenly its no pay, no work.


Here are some points for people considering volunteering:

Most people who can only script, would never get a job in the industry as competition is fierce.

Even if you land a job in the industry, your chance of working with people who's work you admire, is next to zero. I can tell you now, you are far more likely to be working on something you have no interest in.

If this project doesn't work out, you can put it on your resume. This is the kind of experience that will set you apart from thousands of job applicants. If the project does work out and you are of value, then you have landed your dream job.

So IMO, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. If you can script or do anything they need and are disciplined to finish what you start, go for it. You won't get a another chance like this.

 

[Wunderpurps]

Something I've never been able to figure out: People will work on fan projects for no pay and add to the coffers of AAA companies, but when it comes to creating anything original, suddenly its no pay, no work.

They get paid in ego stroking. It's also much easier to polish someone else's turd than to make something starting from scratch.

The list of work they ask for may as well say do everything needed to make a game. Especially the boring but time consuming gruntwork like making tools, which no programmer enjoys.

You won't get any pay or much credit. It's going to take years of work, decades if you don't put lots of time into it. You have zero opportunity to be a creative part of the team. Prefer people who have experience with obscure languages and tools. Must have a good attitude and be a hard working, preferably salsa dancer.

If this project doesn't work out, you can put it on your resume.

So IMO, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. If you can script or do anything they need and are disciplined to finish what you start, go for it. You won't get a another chance like this.

No one goes into games to make a game for someone else. Anyone who has that much energy and expertise is already going to be making a game or working in the game industry.

For the better places I've interviewed they don't care at all about past experience it's more like an IQ and logic test. For the typical places they are very concerned about whether you've worked with the exact version of tech tools that they use so having a bunch of experience on some obscure engine tools is going to be no use to you in getting a job, unless you are looking for yet another indie rpg using the same engine that has no money to pay you and won't let you have a say in the game itself.

So like people said "make me a game". It's even worse than many ads that I see. Most of the ads allow you to have a little say in what gets made, and many of them have several top notch artists on board from the getgo. I'd take one good artist over 100 good idea men.