ascottk on 29/10/2009 at 20:07
As the title says, I'm tired and unmotivated!
Why?
Ever since I came back I've been opening doors that nobody goes through, I have posts that receive no responses, people say they'll do something and then don't do anything ("I'll write that tutorial soon!", "I'll give you feedback over the weekend!", .etc). We find out Unreal script works in T3Ed, this is a biggest discovery since the editor's been released, and people leave it to me to figure out how to get swimmable water working when I have limited scripting/coding abilities! And as far as my scripting/coding nobody freakin' gives feedback on the programs I wrote!!! so I have no clue if the programs work on their computer or not!
This is enough to get anyone cranky & I've been cranky since I had a brief comeback to the Dark Mod. Why? I find out a lot of my worked has been scrubbed from the mod: animators redo the animation rig after a ton of animations were already created with the one I worked on, there's been a total reversal of the NPCs I created when I first the mod (first praised and then replaced by worse versions), I created a new head rig to work with the new rig the animators put together but it's been unused as of yet (the new head rig is capable of integrating flawlessly with the main body rig, the head's neck mesh will distort properly when the body's neck turns etc.). Basically the work I did on my first stint at TDM was praised and then scrubbed during my absence. At least they kept the arrow models I put into the game . . . (see the cool water arrowhead? I'm responsible for that :) )
And what do I get when I come back to the T3Ed guild? "Look what I did!" "Where's the rope mesh?", "I'll look at your program over the weekend and then do nothing in the way of feedback", "You take people from their projects to work on your project" (which was never declared officially and was intended to be a community project), I find people who are incapable or unwilling to do a simple search in the forum which is not very long, and the freaking wiki is toast.
Meanwhile the Dark Mod's beta is released and some people are jumping on the bandwagon, with good reason I might add because T3 has been nothing but a pain in the ass. T3 is one of the reasons why TDM was born. Nothing short of a rewrite of T3 would make me happy and it seems to me the community is waiting for me to rewrite it. It's a daunting job and I need help, but nobody here is capable or willing to try.
Does this mean I'm done with T3/T3Ed for good? With the way things are going lately I'm really tempted to dump T3Ed entirely. People don't seem to care about T3, and the T3Ed community has been too fragmented (I'm not sure this qualifies as a community anymore). Will further work on T3 be worth it with T4 on the horizon and having TDM available? Probably not. Personally I would love to have a worthy successor to TMA but that would require more work (work that would receive no feedback based on the lack of responses the last few months). That tends to deflate the winds in my sails.
Does this mean I'll do some work with TDM (it's a helluva lot easier to work with)? Officially probably not since I ticked too many people off on the TDM team.
Honestly I don't know what I'm going to do. If I stick around it's going to be a solo project since I've been flying solo since I've been back anyway. If I work on the Dark Mod it'll be a solo project too. Maybe I'll learn dromed . . .
noisycricket on 30/10/2009 at 00:44
Cheer up dude, its the journey not the destination. Happy people focus on the positive. Grab your favorite Mexican or a pizza tonight and open up the Darkradiant wiki or dromed and start creating your favorite scenery.
jtr7 on 30/10/2009 at 01:18
This, here, is a very small community, and will remain so as long as the attitude is not conducive to having fun in the midst of hard work.
You are not the only one who receives no response or no useful response. It's another reason I don't bother most of the time. This community is too small and the participants are all taking on ambitious projects. I think there's a Napoleonic Complex of the small community, with little respect, wishing to prove not only themselves, but also the worth of TDS/Flesh Engine, and to disprove the fallacies.
Anyway, who here knows how to code according to your needs, and really help you out, that isn't just as invested, or more, in their own projects and lives?
Did you leave TDM under hostile circumstances, like I've seen demonstrated? Are you the only one whose hard work has been overwritten?
The crap you and Judith give Mass', instead of putting effort into understanding first, before you are sure he deserves the lash, doesn't help the fracturing. He's one of the few regulars that keeps working, with or without support. It's been said, and I'll repeat it: Many here, including myself, get so much personal fulfillment from the challenges and learning and just the act of creation, that it sustains us through the vacuum of apathy. Crapping on me almost from the start since your return was taken quite seriously by me--stunned me really. And when you crapped on someone who supports your endeavors from a programming and editing illiterate perspective, and crapped on one of the regulars, here, you should not be surprised you are on your own. I told ya so, eh?
Just as there are those who promise to do something for you and do not, there are those who create a significant portion of a well-received concept who do not finish. There are literally scores of dead projects that the community was looking forward to seeing finished. If you are here, and stick it out, you might be one of the few that actually finishes what was started.
Just like TDM with TTLG, it's not inviting to put anything in progress on hold to tackle the big task elsewhere, even if there is enthusiasm and support.
It's great to see you back, but your grumpiness and sensitivity settings are a bit much--justified as they are at the root.
Don't get me wrong. You are understandably hurt and I don't make light of it, nor dismiss it. If you look, you'll see several people on their own in this forum, with very different tasks before them, and not a lot of overlap. I appreciate your work, but your philosophy distances me. To have the work ignored or overwritten feels like shit, yet you need to know you are not the only one, and there are many whose work is getting only verbal attention, when it's getting any attention. I see the general points of your justified complaints repeated frequently. I see the lone coders getting asked--sometimes in consecutive days--"So, when's it going to be done? Hello? I was just wondering if this project is still alive..." to the point of pestering. I see hard work being ignored, questions not getting answered, and personal attacks--the roots of, not getting aired out.
I'd suggest you take care of yourself, do the work for yourself, share it or not, and let it be. It took awhile, but it's second nature for me, now.
Volca on 30/10/2009 at 08:12
Do it for yourself, don't depend on the work and words of others too much. This is how I do it with openDarkEngine - and it's been nearly 4 years.
People come and go all the time, sometimes they commit to it actually, most of the time I think they realise it's not for them actually or lose interest for other reasons.
There is distrust to new projects in this community, I guess there is some bad experience behind this.
Beleg Cúthalion on 30/10/2009 at 08:19
Just for the record: My latest question wasn't the "You take people from their projects to work on your project" sort. I just don't have a clue about the inner structures of T3Ed, that's why I didn't contribute to the GameSys discoveries. My next question would have been - since it is apparently possible to re-create a GameSys with an extern program - if a whole map, pasted from the clipboard (which means it is a quite orderly text file) could be written into the GameSys to sort of shovel property slots out of the map and thus give us the possibility to work on bigger maps. That's one of the vague ideas I had about it.
For the T3G project I've been apparently the only one (except for Flux' attempt at the Castle map) working on the original missions and there are about 1/3 of them done. :p Besides that we're collecting photos so that someone experienced can start making photo-realistic TDS textures at some point. It's not that I want to discourage you, it's rather that I'd feel discouraged myself if I didn't buy much into motivation anyway. I would probably finish all the maps in time anyway and this alone would be something large parts of the community would appreciate (except that I would need someone else with a vanilla setup to do the re-texturing).
About the TDS/T3Ed reception in general: I slowly stop taking it seriously. There is just too much emotion, taste presented as fact, criticism of one feature transferred to others... and I think the things you can still do with T3Ed are great enough so that you can do it for your own and the few guys (actually it's not that few I think) who appreciate it. That's what I do. The Dark Mod doesn't convince me as a tool (not as team work etc.!), even when more people are open about it.
Edit: Volca beat me to it.
Judith on 30/10/2009 at 09:03
I totally understand how you feel, ascottk. I'm tired of T3ed too, and it looks like I cannot focus on any game design project I'd like to start right now. I wish I could carry on with you, but I merely grasp the concept of working with Unrealscript, I know nothing about programming. I can only be a spectator :(
When I was exploring the T3ed textures and shaders area, I was alone too. Actually, it's been so long since I wrote those tutorials about cubemapping and how you can use it to simulate the specularity (since the proper specular effect in T3ed is broken), and there wasn't a single project benefiting from this. I even made a tech demo, so people can see that it's not just a theory. No avail. But, I kinda got used to it.
Another thing, I don't boast of every single thing I do on the forums, I had a few FMs/design concepts that I never finished due to poor engine performance or my lack of development ideas (a forest mission, a castle in the forest, a cave mission, etc.). So lack of commotion in the forums doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing happening.
Also, I'm kinda tired of struggling with the engine. And building the whole mission by myself. Level design is one thing I love but putting scripts, AI, objectives - all that stuff is really making me sick. That's why making a nicely looking UT3 map instead is very, very tempting. Stable modern engine, lot of customizing options - after I build what I want, I can let people shoot each other with rocket launchers or something :cheeky:
Jtr7 - the crap Massi receives is because of his behavior, which is sometimes below any standard (like being bossy in the textures thread lately for no reason). I know there's the language barrier problem but I don't think it justifies the lack of respect for people he didn't hear about. Phrases like "and who is he", "and what the hell is that", etc. cause a certain type of reaction, it's repulsion. When I see such posts I actually feel embarrassed. That happened in Krypt's birthday thread, and in the texture thread too. Such behavior is surely beating people off. I've read many posts in Dromed guild, written by people from many countries, Italy included, and no one, I repeat, no one was as impolite as Massi is. So, who is going to learn from who, are we to become more tolerable of this, or he's going to adapt to the community? I guess I don't have to answer that, a logical answer is obvious. Anyway, this doesn't mean we don't appreciate Massi's work. I do. But I really wish he was more sensitive.
massimilianogoi on 30/10/2009 at 09:39
For what means myself, I can't do much, ascottk. My disease are getting worst, and I have no will, nor energies to get my head in complex things. Plust the doctors says that I have not to stay too much time in front of computer. So I focus only in relaxing things, like working on the second robot on 3DSMax. Please excuse me all, but I am seriously motivated and justified by my health conditions. The tutorial could not be a problem. Just give me the time of some day, I will surely feel better than these hard days.
jtr7 on 30/10/2009 at 10:23
Likewise, Judith. Likewise.
Beleg Cúthalion on 30/10/2009 at 11:57
Hey, I have a canal in my map and played around with the idea of making it reflect the environment, but I have to complete everything else first. :erg:
About being tired of T3Ed... well, it might be a question of what you want to do ("you" with the meaning of "anyone"). If you think you need cubemaps, swimmable water and all that not-really-supported stuff, you will surely bang your head against walls all the time. For me it was always about making "simple" Thief fan missions, telling stories etc. and that is what T3Ed can do without a doubt. If I can add some graphical/interactive gimmicks, so much the better, but it's hardly anything I would create a mission for.
About the forest and castle... I've been playing around with an idea myself, as mentioned several times, also based on Flux' huge village test map and involving Tiens's Landsknechte. If there is some interest for brainstorming, just give me a signal. :)
ascottk on 30/10/2009 at 18:17
It's not to say this guild has not produced some amazing work. The most outstanding works include Flux's pagan map, Judith's material work (awesome snow effects BTW), Tiens' NPC skins just to name a few, and the work on the Cabal. It's just a disjointed community that's quite different from a couple of years ago. Then when had some brilliant technical minds tackling some of the major problems that came with the editor. We had common goals and we experimented and explored and we shared. That sense of exploration has been lost along the way and it hurt the community.
