Vapourware That Which Sleeps - Vaporware Strategy RP

[Space Satan]

Any new lulz from beta forums?

 

[Lightsinthesky]

Apparently dinosaurs mated using turkey basters and there's this bizarre glitch with That Which Sleeps that causes it so that when you try to run it it doesn't load and doesn't even appear to exist.

 

[Lightsinthesky]

We didn't meet this weekend - I had a wedding and was mostly MIA.

Orv I'll take any suggestions that don't involve me breaking the law. But let me create an analogy that may help you understand my position.

Pretend I invested a lot (to me) money and a fair amount of time into giving some up and coming scientist the tools, lab equipment, oven mitts, whatever to work on curing gout or whatever inoffensive ailment makes the most sense here. The scientist works on it for 2 years. I assume that he's chugging along and making great strides at curing this terrible ailment and some day soon all of our shoes will fit again.

Then I find out that perhaps the scientist isn't as close to the cure as we all thought he was. I guess I could cause a fuss and try to TAKE OVER THE LAB. Or at least the PETRI DISH that has all the amazing wonderful cells in it. Or maybe the RESEARCH NOTES that tell us all the important stuff we learned about gout.

So maybe I could get my hands on 1 2 or 3 of those things (yeah right I doubt there are notes) - but I am just a regular dude and I don't have the skills or the proficiency needed to do anything with them. I also don't have the ability or resources to take them over and then hire someone else to "fix" it - because I can't dig into it and see if it's working in the first place, or if there is even anything workable here. I am not going to alienate the only person with the skills and ability to work on the project by strong arming.

Fun little vignette over - I am not walking away - I just have to wait til Josh decides he is 'done' before I try to get the pieces and figure out what I can do with them. Every time I talk with him he assures me he's still working on it - so I take that at face value.

I ain't no science majigger but I'm pretty sure R&D doesn't work like this

 

[Ludovic]

Well, he also forget the part where they told investors they already had a cure for gout, they just needed money for the pill production pipeline. They have wonderful stories about test subjects being cured of gout and even other totally unexpected illnesses. The once they get the money, they add a stretch goal to also cure cancer and the common cold. The nothing happens for a couple of years, and when investors start asking for the gout cure, since the cure for cancer apparently isn't happening, it turns out they didn't actually have a cure for anything and there never was any test subjects. But they're working really hard on a new pill that may one day cure gout and the common cold. They hope to start testing it soon.

Some investors don't mind since medical research is very hard, and a cure for gout and the common cold is pretty awesome. Other investors are a bit upset they were misled, and the marketing guy/early investor who played a big part in the campaign to get investors, defends himself by saying "I don't know anything about medicine, and I never actually met any of the test subjects. I really thought the lab guy had his act together, but he ran off to Texas and won't talk to me anymore.".

Suddenly the lab guy returns, and apologizes profusely for being unable to cure cancer. Most investors seem to have forgotten about the whole "we have a cure for gout" thing, and focus on how nice it is they may one day have a cure for the common cold and gout. The world is a strange place.

 

[Johannes]

We didn't meet this weekend - I had a wedding and was mostly MIA.

Orv I'll take any suggestions that don't involve me breaking the law. But let me create an analogy that may help you understand my position.

Pretend I invested a lot (to me) money and a fair amount of time into giving some up and coming scientist the tools, lab equipment, oven mitts, whatever to work on curing gout or whatever inoffensive ailment makes the most sense here. The scientist works on it for 2 years. I assume that he's chugging along and making great strides at curing this terrible ailment and some day soon all of our shoes will fit again.

Then I find out that perhaps the scientist isn't as close to the cure as we all thought he was. I guess I could cause a fuss and try to TAKE OVER THE LAB. Or at least the PETRI DISH that has all the amazing wonderful cells in it. Or maybe the RESEARCH NOTES that tell us all the important stuff we learned about gout.

So maybe I could get my hands on 1 2 or 3 of those things (yeah right I doubt there are notes) - but I am just a regular dude and I don't have the skills or the proficiency needed to do anything with them. I also don't have the ability or resources to take them over and then hire someone else to "fix" it - because I can't dig into it and see if it's working in the first place, or if there is even anything workable here. I am not going to alienate the only person with the skills and ability to work on the project by strong arming.

Fun little vignette over - I am not walking away - I just have to wait til Josh decides he is 'done' before I try to get the pieces and figure out what I can do with them. Every time I talk with him he assures me he's still working on it - so I take that at face value.

I ain't no science majigger but I'm pretty sure R&D doesn't work like this

relevant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

 

[Lightsinthesky]

As expected Josh didn't even manage to live up to the meager expectations set up for him. Not surprising since in his kickstarter address he didn't breath a word about this tech demo Fenicks was gabbling on about and appears to have only agreed to it to make Fenick's mild prodding go away.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

As expected Josh didn't even manage to live up to the meager expectations set up for him. Not surprising since in his kickstarter address he didn't breath a word about this tech demo Fenicks was gabbling on about and appears to have only agreed to it to make Fenick's mild prodding go away.

Any juicy quotes, mate?

 

[Lightsinthesky]

Nothing that juicy except the former mod who blew a thousand dollars on this throwing a fit that people don't respect him:

I will grant that my access to Josh is not "fair" to other backers. But it's one of the two channels we have left to reach the only person who currently has control over the development process. I'm not getting rid of it because it offends yours or anyone else's sense of justice. Rather than drowning yourself in envy, you would be much better off hoping/praying Josh does as much communication with Fenicks and me as possible if he's not going to follow through on the regular updates, in the hopes that one/both of us can eventually cajole/coerce/seduce Josh into sending us the tech demo, a nonplayable (but viewable) current build, anything at all that would let us demonstrate to a skeptical world that the damned game exists.

Apparently Josh is going to make a kickstarter post this weeked(ish) and that'll get the drama flowing again since it'll draw the casual backers back to wonder at what the hell happened to their money.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Lovely, more drama is always healthy and in no way is an excuse to avoid communicating with community.

 

[anus_pounder]

So. Does the game actually exist or not?

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

So. Does the game actually exist or not?

Less tangible than Grimoire at this point.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

So. Does the game actually exist or not?

It's practically a Grimoire of lies.

 

[Lightsinthesky]

I have no idea how someone could look at the stories of gameplay by alpha testers who don't exist, the clumsily assembled mockups screenshots and the persistent inability to put out something that actually does anything and wonder if this game really exists.

 

[Space Satan]

Still hard at work

 

[almondblight]

Nothing that juicy except the former mod who blew a thousand dollars on this throwing a fit that people don't respect him:

I like his post about how everyone's too stupid to realize how amazingly complex Josh's code is:

My apologies, I was unaware you were a mathematics and/or computer science major. Please tell me, how would you best approach the solution of 1000 - 3000 simultaneous linear constraint equations subject to maximization of multiple objective functions, given consumer-grade hardware resource limitations and a 10-second soft real time calculation window?

It's also kind of impressive how most of the posters over there seem to think Fenicks has no responsibility. "You gave all the KS cash to some guy and told him to make the game. What more could you possibly have done?"

 

[MRY]

That truly is a triumph of technobabble. I wonder if he can do it in 12 parsecs.

 

[Destroid]

Dwarf Fortress is real time, this is turn based.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

I like his post about how everyone's too stupid to realize how amazingly complex Josh's code is:

Is this quote from a mod, Fenicks or Josh himself?

 

[Space Satan]

Ask Paradox how they gandle 10000 provinces in the world real-time without mych problem.

 

[Destroid]

Not sure what your point is. Regardless of "real time", the nature of the underlying simulation would be similar to what was quoted

If the simulation speed in DF tanks it's a real pain in the ass. It can be almost as bad in turn based if you are trying to breeze through the turns but generally you have a lot more CPU time to get all your shit done.

 

[Space Satan]

Not sure what your point is. Regardless of "real time", the nature of the underlying simulation would be similar to what was quoted

If the simulation speed in DF tanks it's a real pain in the ass. It can be almost as bad in turn based if you are trying to breeze through the turns but generally you have a lot more CPU time to get all your shit done.

It got better with new 64bit version

 

[Raghar]

Ask Paradox how they gandle 10000 provinces in the world real-time without mych problem.

Badly.

 

[thesheeep]

There's no denying getting lots of AI to work at once is not the most easy of tasks. But it has been done many times already, and with far more active actors than this "game" was ever thought to have.
Sure, if you program it in a naive way (single-threaded, to begin with, but there are far worse offenders here) you can still screw it up, but how much worse than Civ5 could it possibly get?

Also, how comes we are talking about simulation time when there isn't even a simulation yet?

 

[Lightsinthesky]

Because saying that you tried to do something impressive and failed doesn't make you seem as stupid as saying that you tried to do something mundane and failed. That Which Sleeps was marketed on completeness and exceptionality and the project will sooner collapse into burning wreckage than for Josh to admit the game's no where near completion or even a stable foundation.

 

[Space Satan]

Ask Paradox how they gandle 10000 provinces in the world real-time without mych problem.

Badly.

Name a strategy game with better AI