To The Developers

[fuzzy]

.

Would you mind trying out actual grammar and correct punctuation? With it, someone might even read your posts!

 

[Specht]

(...)i don't know a release date, no one on the team knows, but for me, christmass 2012 is possible : )

Layne! It's dangerous to make such estimates, now everyone is gonna DEMAND a release on christmas, and if it's not met, they will come down on you like it was their right to have the game.

Well, maybe that won't happen, but I've seen that before in other forums... xD

 

[Lexis]

actualy, we constantly do our portion of work, it could be faster, but we reached a point where we don't add new stuff, and concentrate on the final release. The point where we stoped adding new stuff and concentrated on the more important stuff was reached long ago, right now i can load the game, choose from a variety of finished maps, choose from a variety of finished/polished models, with houndreds of individual animations ( all hail DT ) and play for several hours
using finished meele , beams, transformations etc, and have all of that rendered with a a stunning new lighting/texture/audio/composition and fx quality which we upgraded soooo much, and puted sooo much work on. it's just, the main "core" element behind the whole game works, we just don't have all the content, and we don't wanna do like 2 or 3 releases, with new models and maps, we wanna prepare a solid release. We could release the game with a few fine maps and models of quality you won't even find in the actual ps3 games, all that works, we show that in a few videos. It's just a matter of content, which we want to gather as much as possible for 1 big release, i don't know a release date, no one on the team knows, but for me, christmass 2012 is possible : )

Does that mean the team decided to release in one big full release instead of 2 phases?

Also he said FOR HIM Christmas 2012 is POSSIBLE....if anyone would hold him to that then those are idiots.

 

[Grega]

Does that mean the team decided to release in one big full release instead of 2 phases?

Also he said FOR HIM Christmas 2012 is POSSIBLE....if anyone would hold him to that then those are idiots.

People believed some random guy on Facebook that ESF would be released November 2011 and actually came to the forums complaining about the missed release.

Youd be surprised.

 

[Lexis]

And regarding to the one release / two phases thing? Layne said it will be a single full release , I assume that is the team's decision?

 

[Sting]

It will be released when its done!!!
I think its told over 9000!!!!! times.

 

[Shonnie]

Well, my guess would be 1 release as well.
Just saying. Because, as a matter of fact, the poll ended there.
(Not sure if the poll did anything but it's closed now.)

 

[Sting]

The poll has nothing to do with this. It was only a survey to see what the forum people will think about.
Still the decision is on the inteam its hands.
And for your record if it was for the poll then fase release won the polls choice.
But again poll has nothing to do what Layne said.
And look good at his words "i don't know a release date, no one on the team knows, but for me, christmass 2012 is possible".
For him its possible, maybe he finish his part by arround then doesnt mean the coders are ready, that the animations are all done and maybe more.
But good to see that he can do it before christmas and for all the others well we will have to see about that.

 

[StephanG]

Also he said FOR HIM Christmas 2012 is POSSIBLE....if anyone would hold him to that then those are idiots.

So, anyone wanting to hold a group responsible for missing their own deadline is an idiot? Granted, programming projects often miss their deadlines due to the unpredictability of the work. But, as a member of the group, his words should at least carry a little weight.

I don't mean to say that we should all accept it as gospel. But, as an internal member of the group, I think it's very irresponsible to throw words and promises (because that's what people are going to hear) around, and then claim innocence if there's a backlash. Again, I'm not saying that the backlash is right, but if you wear a shirt that says "All chinese are morons" in Beijing, you'd be stupid if you didn't accept the possiblity of some hostility.

 

[Lexis]

.......That ISNT the project's deadline. Layne simply said his own opinion regarding this as in ...... IT IS POSSIBLE TO FINISH BY CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR.

This isn't in any way a official release date or anything. This should rather be interpreted as a date around which the project would quite possibly be near completion and at best a estimate for a release, not be treated like a OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE given by the team.

Its because of guys like you that they barely give these estimated dates around...

EDIT: Also I'm not sure we could even talk of a DEADLINE here. See, company's give employees deadlines on they're work.

We need to remember that these guys aren't being paid for what they do so talking of a deadline would not feel right.

 

[StephanG]

.......That ISNT the project's deadline. Layne simply said his own opinion regarding this as in ...... IT IS POSSIBLE TO FINISH BY CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR.

I understand that it isn't an official deadline. That it was simply his own estimation. And I accept that they're not being paid to work on it, which makes estimations difficult.

The thing I took up issue with, is not the developer who has every right to share his opinion. What I took up issue with is your comment which automatically branded ANYONE a moron, for accepting the expert opinion, of someone inside the group. This is about a basic principle: When you are a part of a group, every thing you say and do will reflect on the group, therefore we all have a responsibility to be careful what we say, and to eat our words and apologize if we're wrong.

So basically, what I took up issue with, is the fact that you seemed to think it's okay for someone to fling around words, and then simply gun down anyone who misunderstood with insulting labels like "moron".

 

[harSens]

To the People who are developing this mod,

This is an honest criticism which I believe most of the people who like this game and DBZ share.

I see that there are some fanboys in the forum who will immediately flame and "Devs have better things to you" , "ah here comes another one who wants a release date" and all sorts of meaningless comments like that, SAVE YOUR BREATH and leave.

I won't start my sentence by saying "you guys are doing a great job" because I don't even know what you are doing. I know you have news and videos on updates but you have to realize that they don't make sense at all. For example you claim that your new update added/improved the gameplay? heck no one knows what it was like before so you can not expect people to appreciate it.

Where do we do that? I'd say most updates go into more depth than that. There's ingame videos and news with explanations of the new melee system. We did also put most of the design documents online (not sure where they are hosted now..).

1. Stop worrying about artwork. They do NOT make a game (many highschool students who are capable of working on 3d animations so you won't have difficuly on finding new people who will continue working on it while people are playing the game). Although the artwork is nice the overall graphich quality in terms of todays standarts is still below average. I know it is hl1 engine and you have actually rewritten lots of the code I appreciate the effort BUT I am sorry to say that implementing the already known methods is not a big achievement. If you work in the industry you know what I mean.

I agree.

2. Stop staying as a small closed community. Betaplay should have been open to much wider audiences not a selected bunch. Your popularity would have been quite high if you did that.

We tried. Didn't work. Apparently the wider audience doesn't like playing a game that's incomplete and bug-ridden.

3. Free to play ? I wish you would charge and have released the game a few years ago instead. Being free is meaningless for an unreleased game. Of course if you charge for the game you may have trouble with Funimation since you will be quite popular and they may not like it. Still being paid for your efforts is motivating and allows you to work on the project better.

License issues aside, I don't think the community would be willing and able to provide the team with enough cash to give up our (side)jobs. Last time we asked they couldn't even cough up enough money for the forum license.

4. Your popularity was because of DBZ franchise and after all these years its popularity is diminishing, new kids have new animes and you may find yourself to be a stuck with a forgotten mod when you decide to release it in 2032.

Not a whole lot we can do about that. What's your point exactly?

 

[Zeonix]

Where do we do that? I'd say most updates go into more depth than that. There's ingame videos and news with explanations of the new melee system. We did also put most of the design documents online (not sure where they are hosted now..).


I agree.


We tried. Didn't work. Apparently the wider audience doesn't like playing a game that's incomplete and bug-ridden.


License issues aside, I don't think the community would be willing and able to provide the team with enough cash to give up our (side)jobs. Last time we asked they couldn't even cough up enough money for the forum license.


Not a whole lot we can do about that. What's your point exactly?

How much cash are we talking and what do I get out of it? Skyrider bought his way onto the staff. What can I buy my way into?

 

[harSens]

Enix pants.

 

[Zeonix]

There's much money and joy for all to be had should you ever wish it.

Until such time, I'm going to kidnap Sky and control the forum license in his stead.

 

[Skyrider]

Harsens.. Can I borrow Phil? As for the forum license.. It wasn't really a "huge" issue, but the upgrade from vB3 to vB4 was at that time at a huge discount and I paid for the full price for the vBulletin 3 license. And there are quite a few people who believe that I bought my way in with the forum license, but I was already trusted back then seeing I was PR at that time. So it's more of taking the easier road. It was needed though as Greg wasn't around much to do anything on the forums when it was needed.

 

[sub]

I remember wanting to donate and then the next thing I know, you bought the whole thing...

 

[Zeonix]

Same. Additionally, it wasn't clear that outright buying the license was an option until it was already so, otherwise Sub and I would be joint forum admins.

 

[FalconFury]

To the People who are developing this mod

-reads- Blah blah blah blah blah
-stops reading-
okay.

Well regarding gameplay. Everyone knows how it was before. Just load up 1.2.3 ^^;

But yea i dont mind threads like this. Im afraid we have some community members who think otherwise though.

1.) Our problem with artwork is mostly that while we get people who apply, hardly anyone stays active or even finishes their trial task. And its not like they dont have the skill. Far from it. But still the most work ATM goes in to coding i suppose. Optimization of the engine and so forth.

2.) We had an open beta going. Didnt work well. Or rather didnt work at all. Just required us to waste more time on making sure the public releases were as stable as possible that we now use for fixing stuff.

3.) If we even charge as little as 1 cent for the game we are pretty much asking for a lawsuit. So thats a no go unless someone from Funimation comes up to us and says they want ESF to be an official DBZ game.

4.) Thats true and not true at the same time. For some reason or another the best players of this game were not really fans of the anime Though the majority of people were fans, most of them quit due to the high learning curve of ESF. Especially after 1.2.3 made the difference in skill skyrocket.

^ agreed

 

[Layne]

Well, uhm, as i said earlier, a huge portion of the game is done, i was playing today for like 1 h with lot's of characters and on a few maps, im not saying that to make your waiting suck even more, just to make a point that ESF 1.3 is realy done in a huge percentage. It's stable, fun to play, just how we aimed for it to be, there are few things which are missing, and that's what keeping as from a release, as i said eariler, from how i see things, it could be possible to release on christmas or even sooner. Maybe im wrong, couse i don't see the code behind the whole thing, but on second though , i can't be as that far off from my calculations, couse everytime i play the game, it seems mostly completed, stuff is missing, but we are definetly closer to the point where we can think about releasing. But i only clean here, so the release decision is not on me hah. Im just sharing my honest point about what i see when i play the current inteam version, i think you guys deserve that.