Who said it WAS finished? I haven't heard anything about it. All I see is somebody buys the engine, then HJ info that was once flowing easily from the tongues of Melissa and various other GMs and product designers stops dead in it's tracks.
What that says to me is you weren't ready for somebody to purchase your engine, so work on HJ stops dead and everybody works on the engine (except the volunteer staff that may not have the ability to work on it - they probably kept adding areas and quests using the work in progress engine).
We, the consumer, aren't as dumb as you might think. We notice things. We see when the offical data just stops flowing, and everybodies anus seems to snap shut. We didn't get a notice when you stopped (or slowed) production on the game.
We didn't get a memo 8 months later reading: "Ok guys, the engine is ready for sale... Here is our new business plan - we currently have 20 people on the engine side of things, keeping it up to date, giving extra features, etc and they will stay until the end of time. The rest of our 120 person staff, plus all the 300 volunteers are working on world building, quest/story building, character modeling, spell modeling, etc. All the teams are in place and we're back working full steam on the game you all want to enjoy"
We don't get staff meetings, we aren't called into the conference calls. All we know is what you tell us, and if you tell us nothing we will assume the worst every single time. All we see is the screenshots stopped, the weekly faq sessions stopped at every web site... Honestly, what would appease this populous is a REALISTIC timeframe, and a weekly screenshot. That's all we want.
Who said it WAS finished? I haven't heard anything about it. All I see is somebody buys the engine, then HJ info that was once flowing easily from the tongues of Melissa and various other GMs and product designers stops dead in it's tracks.
...
We don't get staff meetings, we aren't called into the conference calls. All we know is what you tell us, and if you tell us nothing we will assume the worst every single time. All we see is the screenshots stopped, the weekly faq sessions stopped at every web site... Honestly, what would appease this populous is a REALISTIC timeframe, and a weekly screenshot. That's all we want.
Well, like all things of this nature, nothing is ever truly "finished," right? Finished in the sense you could, right now, produce a full-fledged and fully supported game with it, I guess maybe. But stuff is still regularly updated or added to it, so work continues.
I empathize with fans, you have no idea. I've spent a good deal of my young life following games, posting on forums, doing the things people anticipate games do. I frequently hope someday we'll get the go ahead to release daily bits of info or content to the fans, but that day has not come. If it were up to me, I'd have made everyone several movies and compilations now, but it is not up to me.
There's nothing I can say to offer you solace. All I can do is reinforce that the game continues to be built. My presence here and my posting is all the proof of that I can offer.
Originally posted by Amathe Originally posted by HJ-Diviana First off, who said the engine isn't finished? It's kinda like our games, they work (and could be considered complete), but they're constantly being updated with new content.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.
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?
Amathe,
Is it your belief that the game engine writes the story line of the game? Why is it that you think you know what and where the bottle necks are in their development process?
Lets apply a little logic here. Currently on the HJ site they have a post requesting applications for WRITERS, not world builders. So what does this possible point to? I think it's quite plausible that the authoring of content for HJ can't seem to keep up with the builders implementing said content. If this is true, it does indeed validate Simus claims about the HJ Engine being a rapid development environment.
Further, perhaps not in response to your post, Amathe, I have to ask the basic question. Why in the world would they be trying to hire content authors if the game implementation is simply a demo to sell the HJ engine? You simply don't need to put that much into demos to sell products. In fact, trying to sell products based on feature demos is a poor sales tactic.
Vaporware, not vaporware ... who cares! Either will have no bearing on my life. I just don't understand how anyone with any sort of business sense would come to the conclusions that some of you have reached. Trying to hire writers just doesn't jive with your claims. Unless of course, the posting for writers is simply some sort of trick. But that in it self just seems dumb.
And before someone else runs off the deep end about Simu NOT hiring, you might want to actually take a look at their website. http://www.play.net/corporate/job-desc.asp
Originally posted by Amathe 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?
When Simu started their online gaming, they had a text based game which was a conversion of the rolemaster games rules and gameworld. It was incredibly detailed with history and had a better depth than any other game out there. They lost the license to rolemaster and redid the game, without paying as much attention to the histories and fabric of the game itself, and for quite a long time the game world suffered because of that. When they 'De-Iced' there was an alarming lack of good historical stories, and the players complained for quite a while.
Then they went on the web, and the players there never knew what they had missed. In the course of maybe three months the user base went from what would be considered a small town to a large city, and the players for various reasons weren't all that interested at first in the stories. They just wanted to understand how to play.
It took literally years to create that history that they lost, and help the players understand that it was in fact something to lean on when roleplaying in the system. When I stopped playing etc.. They had finished up what was a very fine job of detailing the past histories, and creating stories, some by running huge world changing quests and including the players.
I am hoping the following:
1) The engine is in fact easy to create instances, where GMs can get creative and run their own mini quests.
2) The land histories and storyllines will be deep and colorful, like reading a good novel versus a comic strip.
3) The player classes will be unique, and each have their own plusses and minuses to deal with.
I believe your wish will be granted .... Just beware a lot of the GM's are psycopaths So you will have to check your sanity or leave it outside the door before entering hehe
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Jonny Amathe just wants a Beta slot and is using a bit of trashing anti-phsycology. "If I slag them off enough they will offer me a slot to shut me up". I just hope it never happens some people don't deserve to play what is a wonderful game.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Jonny Amathe just wants a Beta slot and is using a bit of trashing anti-phsycology. "If I slag them off enough they will offer me a slot to shut me up". I just hope it never happens some people don't deserve to play what is a wonderful game.
Lol. Of course, this is all part of my master plan to get a beta slot in a game with no beta.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Comments
Who said it WAS finished? I haven't heard anything about it. All I see is somebody buys the engine, then HJ info that was once flowing easily from the tongues of Melissa and various other GMs and product designers stops dead in it's tracks.
What that says to me is you weren't ready for somebody to purchase your engine, so work on HJ stops dead and everybody works on the engine (except the volunteer staff that may not have the ability to work on it - they probably kept adding areas and quests using the work in progress engine).
We, the consumer, aren't as dumb as you might think. We notice things. We see when the offical data just stops flowing, and everybodies anus seems to snap shut. We didn't get a notice when you stopped (or slowed) production on the game.
We didn't get a memo 8 months later reading: "Ok guys, the engine is ready for sale... Here is our new business plan - we currently have 20 people on the engine side of things, keeping it up to date, giving extra features, etc and they will stay until the end of time. The rest of our 120 person staff, plus all the 300 volunteers are working on world building, quest/story building, character modeling, spell modeling, etc. All the teams are in place and we're back working full steam on the game you all want to enjoy"
We don't get staff meetings, we aren't called into the conference calls. All we know is what you tell us, and if you tell us nothing we will assume the worst every single time. All we see is the screenshots stopped, the weekly faq sessions stopped at every web site... Honestly, what would appease this populous is a REALISTIC timeframe, and a weekly screenshot. That's all we want.
Who said it WAS finished? I haven't heard anything about it. All I see is somebody buys the engine, then HJ info that was once flowing easily from the tongues of Melissa and various other GMs and product designers stops dead in it's tracks.
...We don't get staff meetings, we aren't called into the conference calls. All we know is what you tell us, and if you tell us nothing we will assume the worst every single time. All we see is the screenshots stopped, the weekly faq sessions stopped at every web site... Honestly, what would appease this populous is a REALISTIC timeframe, and a weekly screenshot. That's all we want.
Well, like all things of this nature, nothing is ever truly "finished," right? Finished in the sense you could, right now, produce a full-fledged and fully supported game with it, I guess maybe. But stuff is still regularly updated or added to it, so work continues.
I empathize with fans, you have no idea. I've spent a good deal of my young life following games, posting on forums, doing the things people anticipate games do. I frequently hope someday we'll get the go ahead to release daily bits of info or content to the fans, but that day has not come. If it were up to me, I'd have made everyone several movies and compilations now, but it is not up to me.
There's nothing I can say to offer you solace. All I can do is reinforce that the game continues to be built. My presence here and my posting is all the proof of that I can offer.
Best,
Dezorin
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?
Amathe,
Is it your belief that the game engine writes the story line of the game? Why is it that you think you know what and where the bottle necks are in their development process?
Lets apply a little logic here. Currently on the HJ site they have a post requesting applications for WRITERS, not world builders. So what does this possible point to? I think it's quite plausible that the authoring of content for HJ can't seem to keep up with the builders implementing said content. If this is true, it does indeed validate Simus claims about the HJ Engine being a rapid development environment.
Further, perhaps not in response to your post, Amathe, I have to ask the basic question. Why in the world would they be trying to hire content authors if the game implementation is simply a demo to sell the HJ engine? You simply don't need to put that much into demos to sell products. In fact, trying to sell products based on feature demos is a poor sales tactic.
Vaporware, not vaporware ... who cares! Either will have no bearing on my life. I just don't understand how anyone with any sort of business sense would come to the conclusions that some of you have reached. Trying to hire writers just doesn't jive with your claims. Unless of course, the posting for writers is simply some sort of trick. But that in it self just seems dumb.
And before someone else runs off the deep end about Simu NOT hiring, you might want to actually take a look at their website. http://www.play.net/corporate/job-desc.asp
Jonny.
I made a new character in GS today just to mess around and found this pretty interesting... Coming Soon! Savant (Coming in 2004)
__________________________
Reality is for people who lack imagination
When Simu started their online gaming, they had a text based game which was a conversion of the rolemaster games rules and gameworld. It was incredibly detailed with history and had a better depth than any other game out there. They lost the license to rolemaster and redid the game, without paying as much attention to the histories and fabric of the game itself, and for quite a long time the game world suffered because of that. When they 'De-Iced' there was an alarming lack of good historical stories, and the players complained for quite a while.
Then they went on the web, and the players there never knew what they had missed. In the course of maybe three months the user base went from what would be considered a small town to a large city, and the players for various reasons weren't all that interested at first in the stories. They just wanted to understand how to play.
It took literally years to create that history that they lost, and help the players understand that it was in fact something to lean on when roleplaying in the system. When I stopped playing etc.. They had finished up what was a very fine job of detailing the past histories, and creating stories, some by running huge world changing quests and including the players.
I am hoping the following:
1) The engine is in fact easy to create instances, where GMs can get creative and run their own mini quests.
2) The land histories and storyllines will be deep and colorful, like reading a good novel versus a comic strip.
3) The player classes will be unique, and each have their own plusses and minuses to deal with.
Take care,
PinTBC
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel