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Vapor....
Fugnudz
Member Posts: 480
Where???? Vapor..... Where????? Vapor......Where????
Comments
Because Jon Wood is gulliable?
I wonder how well a "small company" can produce and maintain a MMORPG of substance? I was excited about HJ for a while until I started worrying about the "v" word too. I do hope something substantial materializes.
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Past MMOs- Planetside, WoW.
Current MMO:
Current Games: L4D, Skyrim
Tried- ATITD, EQ2, SoR, Vanguard,SL,LOTRO,SotNW,SWTOR.
Anticipating- GW2, Planetside2
Good point.
Blargh, I wonder what that makes me?
Ah well, guess I should get back to condensing some of that vapor out there.
Seeyas!
HJ-Altiron
Simutronics Staff (GM)
http://play.net/hj/
This is good stuff. I think they may just be taking their time, because they are more caring about quality code. It takes time to go through all that stuff, and they strike me like they are more sensitive about that than others.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
This is good stuff. I think they may just be taking their time, because they are more caring about quality code. It takes time to go through all that stuff, and they strike me like they are more sensitive about that than others.
I think every MMORPG yet to be produced is still just taking their time.
By staying somewhat "under the radar", they can hopefully avoid a Vanguard-style set of expectations and hype. I wish them well!
Here's a nice little tdbit too, just shown this year.
http://www.heroshall.com/gdc20071.php
Oh, I like that. From what one can see, the city looks alive! (coming from Vanguard, I know what I' writing about. Beautiful Cities - no life, no soul). I do so hope, that they have not put this together just for this event! Heroe's Journey is still the one future MMO, I'm looking forward to the most.
*crosses finger and whispers: "no vaporware, no vaporware"*
Oh don't worry, that one's real, although some of the NPC's may change. (names, travel patterns, quests, etc.)
STO lost most of their supporters when they canceled starship interiors, the game will be a flop at best.
This is good stuff. I think they may just be taking their time, because they are more caring about quality code. It takes time to go through all that stuff, and they strike me like they are more sensitive about that than others.
Every company whose product is behind schedule (or worse, has no schedule) claims the reason for the delay is that they are taking their time and doing a good job. Sometimes that is true. Most of the time it is unsupported hype and mere water treading while they wait on more money and/or time to finish the game.
In this case, I think it is both true and untrue that HJ is trying to do a particularly good job. Because HJ, for manyof the volunteer developers on this team, is a labor of love, they probably are doing their best. But good intentions aside, all they really have at this point after a very long time is an engine and a glorified demo to use at trade shows. This is literally years away, if ever, from being a game.
Some people may be ok with that. Either they have high expectations and don't want to get a sloppy product, or they have other games or interests and are simply in no hurry for this one - whatever the reason, they are comfortable with HJ taking its time, and comfortable believing the reason for the delay is that Santa's elves are making a superior toy.
I would be comfortable thinking that to, were it not for recognizing that this game, pure and simple, is a demo for a proprietary engine and I don't like being misled or seeing other people misled.
Stangely, many people *glaces at a recent thread* don't seem to treat Simu like a company and hold them to any business standard like an NCSoft or Blizzard or SOE. For many people, Simu is like their poor, defenseless aunt or uncle and they have to be protected from meanies like me who step up and say the Emperor has no clothes. The fact that Simu seems not only to need, but depend on, that kind of loyalty and paternalism tells me that they simply aren't ready to enter the highly competitive, if not outright cut throat, arena of mmo competition. Whether you agree or disagree with me, and whether my views are expressed or are suppressed, the market stands ready to pass judgment on this game, and the market is much less tolerant or forgiving than I am.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
[/URL]
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
I will assume that since you asked me these questions, you wish for me to respond.
I did not start this thread. So some of your questions perhaps should be directed to the original poster? I responded here to a point made by yet another poster - the notion that delay in a game's production equates to some hightened degree of care in that game's creation. I voiced my opinion on that in general, and particularly as to HJ. If you feel this thread is duplicative of others, just lock it. I don't care. I didn't create it. But since it has been here for weeks ostensibly with your blessing I felt it was ok to add my voice to the others. Why only now, when I post, is this thread that I did not start an issue?
If you look, you will see that I have only started three threads in this forum in the last year. One was about HJ being confused with another game with a similar title. One was the post where I argued this game is vaporware. And one was to ask if it had or should have a new release date. I would hardly call that spamming.
My more recent post which you locked was not about HJ being vaporware, and your suggestion to the contrary is untrue. That post was about the accuracy or inaccuracy of the published target for release on the HJ website, and whether that date has been changed or should be changed. That is a different issue because if, as I contended in a different thread, this game is vaporware, it will never have a release date. The reason I asked is because if as some people contend this game is legit, then perhaps it should have at least a new target release date? So I asked what it was. I never once referred to "vaporware" or anything of the sort in that thread.
Let's be honest here. You want warm fuzzy Simu friendly threads in this forum, for whatever reason, and mine are different. Your singling me out for name calling and thread locking is an abuse of your position. Nothing I can do about that. But just because you have a lock button doesn't make you right, and doesn't alter one iota the issues I raise or the points I make. Can you respond substantively? Do you have an opinion? If so, I would love to see you move away from criticisms of me and actually have something to add to the discussions beyond name calling and little cartoons?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I will assume that since you asked me these questions, you wish for me to respond.
I did not start this thread. So some of your questions perhaps should be directed to the original poster? I responded here to a point made by yet another poster - the notion that delay in a game's production equates to some hightened degree of care in that game's creation. I voiced my opinion on that in general, and particularly as to HJ. If you feel this thread is duplicative of others, just lock it. I don't care. I didn't create it. But since it has been here for weeks ostensibly with your blessing I felt it was ok to add my voice to the others. Why only now, when I post, is this thread that I did not start an issue?
If you look, you will see that I have only started three threads in this forum in the last year. One was about HJ being confused with another game with a similar title. One was the post where I argued this game is vaporware. And one was to ask if it had or should have a new release date. I would hardly call that spamming.
My more recent post which you locked was not about HJ being vaporware, and your suggestion to the contrary is untrue. That post was about the accuracy or inaccuracy of the published target for release on the HJ website, and whether that date has been changed or should be changed. That is a different issue because if, as I contended in a different thread, this game is vaporware, it will never have a release date. The reason I asked is because if as some people contend this game is legit, then perhaps it should have at least a new target release date? So I asked what it was. I never once referred to "vaporware" or anything of the sort in that thread.
Let's be honest here. You want warm fuzzy Simu friendly threads in this forum, for whatever reason, and mine are different. Your singling me out for name calling and thread locking is an abuse of your position. Nothing I can do about that. But just because you have a lock button doesn't make you right, and doesn't alter one iota the issues I raise or the points I make. Can you respond substantively? Do you have an opinion? If so, I would love to see you move away from criticisms of me and actually have something to add to the discussions beyond name calling and little cartoons?
Firstly, I am a writer here. I have no forum abilites beyond what you have. I did not lock that thread.
Secondly, your recent post reads like an attempt to call the game vaporware again. Let it go. I don't care if you want to spend all day here calling HJ vaporware, but it sure makes you sound like a troll rather than a constructive poster. I merely posted my opinion, apparently to the chagrin of our overzealous forum mods, who deleted my posts, sent me a warning, and locked the thread. I have read your threads, as I posted before, and they come across as thinly veiled attempts to get a reaction from fans of games you don't like. I'm sorry if my cartoon deeply offended you, but if it did, perhaps the internet is not the place for you to be hanging out. It's rarely so friendly.
Ah, I see, the old throw out a bone and beat the dog when he grabs it strategy. Very well, I am done playing your game. Have fun.
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
[/URL]
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
One of the things I try to do when I post (which the forum rules encourage) is to stay at least in the general vicinity of the thread topic. This thread (which I did not start) is about the vaporware issue. So yes, in this thread I included a discussion of that issue and related issues in my post. If you don't want to read about that topic, why not read some other thread? Or start a thread on some HJ issue of interest to you? I don't go around talking about the vaporware issue in threads that have nothing to do with that.
What this thread is not about, and that only you have tried to hijack the thread and make it about, is your personal opinions of my posting habits or about me, which quite frankly I could give a damn about. But if you think that topic will bear scrutiny from the forum moderators, go ahead and start an "Amathe is a troll" thread and see how far that goes? In the meantime, I will continue posting my opinions on the issues raised in threads in this forum. If that is a problem for you, perhaps you should take your own suggestion and revisit whether internet posting boards are for you.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Well Vanguard sold 200,000 copies of a buggy unpolished game so obviously you can put whatever you like on the shelves and someone will still buy it.
And until they release a game - no-one is being hurt by it. So I for one dont see why you have such an issue with the fact that the game wont be out this year and there isnt much news about it.
Its not like they are asking people for money so they can develop the game. Or asking people to buy the game and pay a monthly subscription so they can finish the game.
Well thats your opinion. But on the other side of the fence we could argue that you are trying to mislead people into believing this is just a demo for a game engine.
Well whenever you see Simu at a developers conference, they have Hero's Engine editing a live version of Hero's Journey on the fly... Technically that would be a demo of Hero's Engine.
However, they came up with the idea of a new MMO-type game, and were long into development before they realized they needed to make thier own engine to do it with the scope of features they wanted.
Hero's Journey will release. It will not be simply a demo of their Engine. They are making enough money from selling the engine now to hire on enough people to work on both. It's good for everybody. Before they sold the engine I'm sure they would just change/add/remove the code they currently needed to complete the next phase of the game. However, now they are selling an eingine that is not finished - that's not very good.
Currently they need to sell the engine, this gives them the money to FINISH the engine. But it also gives them extra money to finish the game. Without the game, the engine won't sell, and without the engine the game can't exist. Lets call a spade a spade here. Hero's Journey has become a side project. But I wouldn't call it vaporware, and I wouldn't call it just a demo. The people working on this thing are passonate, and dedicated. They will complete it or making the engine was all for naught. I stick by my August 2008 prediction.
What would YOU do if you were simutronics?
What I would do travels on an assumption, and that assumption comes from some things Simu has said.
One of the things that is supposed to be great about the Hero Engine is how easy it makes it to add content to the game. So easy, in fact, that one thing HJ is supposed to offer, which almost no other company can do, is to allow game masters to create dynamic content or events rapidly, or even on the fly. Contrast that with the many weeks or months of laborious coding it takes other companies to get new content into their games.
So if I were Simu, possessed of such impressive new game making tools that streamline so many things, I would use them to finish the game on a reasonable timetable? Or any timetable?
What I do not understand, and perhaps someone can explain this to me, is if the Hero Engine is what it is held out to be, why, armed with it, is this game not progressing faster than game makers forced to rely on conventional engines?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
And secondly: Yes, we can add things to the game very quickly and easily. That doesn't mean we just -do- that. Before anything goes in, it has to fit with the world, it has to be designed properly, it has to meet standards.
We're not just throwing a half made game out there. That's been done before and we've seen the consequences. Hero's Journey will probably have very few bugs when it is released, all systems should work, and it will be ready as a fun work of art (that's really what it is, gorgeous I tell you!).
There are reasons we're taking our time.
Unfortunately Simutronics does not hire that many people and instead relies on volunteers, so unless they actually do invest money to hire workers, not volunteers, then the production will move right along.
In the end, I think HJ will be just another simu niche game for which people are willing to pay premium prices, making tons of money for simutronics ceo and maybe they will give a pizza party for the poor volunteers who did all the work..
I never said the engine isn't finished, and if someone else did, I missed it.
Yes, we have seen the results when a half finished product is released by other gamemakers.
We have also seen the results when gamemakers fail to manage expectations, make boastful promises, fail to set and meet benchmarks, fail to have a release date, spend too much time trying to make one aspect of the game perfect and then have to rush the remainder out of financial constraint, delay until the market passes them by or the competition becomes overwhelming, fail to adequately finance and staff the project, make statements about their game that they can't deliver on, conceal dubious business practices and management behind a smokescreen of being "artists" and "visionaries", trade on their reputation until that capital is spent and devalued, and dig themselves into a hole that ultimately causes the failure of the game or a firesale of it to another company. We have seen all that too (very recently, in fact), and we have seen each and every game on the mmorpg list whose product has been in production well past the industry standard claim it is because their game is special.
But I believe you missed my main point. If the Hero Engine is such a godsend, why isn't it enabling you to make better progress on the game?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests