Developer Blog

Where to discuss the official sequel. Developers blog, kickstarter, your experience with pre-alpha demo, ideas etc.
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puttz
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by puttz »

I agree with Areen to some extent. Wanting to see at least a one or two sentence post shouldn't be too much to ask. If they ever come out with an alpha, I hope they won't ask for money for people to participate in alpha testing, because frankly with the amount of updates/publicity they've been giving, you'd have to be a little bit of a fool to give money unless they start showing improvements in the publicity department. Now I'm not saying that the final product needs to be free, but either it should be a closed alpha or free open alpha unless they start getting out regular updates.
It would also be considerate if them if they have stopped working on GR2 to let us know instead of keeping us in the dark. A couple sentences about what is going on is all most of us would ask. We don't need them to make a giant blog post about it.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by Rendy »

If only I could be on the dev team, I would like to take over the social media part, judging by my social media activity. :(
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by puttz »

Yeah, seems like they could use one person that focuses mainly on publicity. If they are still working on the project, they might want to consider finding someone that could do that. I know I've been pretty critical about them, but really I think that would be a big help if they tried it.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by bduddy »

Here's my opinion. Do we have some legal or moral right to demand a finished game from James & co.? No, of course not. But if they ever want us to give them money again for anything other than such a finished game, they need to do a lot better in a variety of ways. And even if they're not going the crowdfunding route, considering how long most of us have waited for a GR2 or at least a GR update and the fact that they were specifically entrusted by the Rabinas to make such a game, I think that semi-regular updates - progress reports or otherwise - are fair to expect.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by duck »

You can say we don't deserve any updates but the team want this game to be successful and updates would contribute towards that
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by TuomoH »

In case you haven't noticed, there's a new post at the blog. :)
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by bduddy »

I'm not sure why they seem to feel that less posts is better. All it takes is a couple simple Twitter and Facebook posts...

"Unfortunately I've been feeling sick the last couple days, progress will be delayed a little bit. -James"
"Haven't had much time to work on GR2 lately due to PhD studies. Will have more time at [time]. -Markku"

Happy to hear that they are still working on it, and I understand that that's not easy without funding.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by kuba »

It's nice to see an update, but... on the other side it would be even nicer to have some sneak-peak (in-game screenshot or even photo of James/Markku eating lunch next to display with some GR2 stuff on it - might be 3 months old, we won't notice) just to let us now you are fine and haven't forgotten about project and us.

Also, it's great to hear that you prefer quality over quick profit, as developer I know how rare nowadays it is.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by Trigger Happy »

bduddy wrote:I'm not sure why they seem to feel that less posts is better. All it takes is a couple simple Twitter and Facebook posts...

"Unfortunately I've been feeling sick the last couple days, progress will be delayed a little bit. -James"
"Haven't had much time to work on GR2 lately due to PhD studies. Will have more time at [time]. -Markku"
I absolutely second that, pretty surprising somebody is crying about how people dare to say they are pissed off by his attitude, when he did not bother to write at least these two short sentences (which certainly ARE "something to say") here/on twitter/fb/g+. Because just saying these with no more added word would spare him of most of those "disheartening" comments.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by puttz »

I third that. All most of us here have been asking for is a simple post saying "yes we are still working on it, no we have not quit." I'm not trying to make any personal attacks on the developers (sorry if any of my posts have come off that way), but most of us do not think silence is golden in this situation, especially after one of the devs was lost and we didn't actually know if work was going to proceed/was proceeding or not. Not to mention the last tweet was several months ago. I thought the purpose of the dev team having a Twitter was to give us brief updates? They could have saved themselves a bit of grief from the community by doing something simple like that to let us know work is ongoing. On the flip side, it is nice to know that work is still proceeding, albeit at a slower pace.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by James »

I'm going to try and respond to a few of the comments in here - hopefully it can clarify a few things... but as some folks seem to think we're not even bothered/trying, maybe it won't make much of a difference. Some of the responses will be contained in my 'wall of text' below, but a few I've picked out at the bottom to respond to a little more specifically :) It turned out so long, I've broken it in to sections!

The Wall of Text
I'd like to take a brief moment to say "thank you" to the folks who have remained in support of us - some in this thread, but others via email or PM here - those comments are truly motivating :)

Disclaimer: this post will contain my opinions, and you may well not like them: so be it. At this point in the day, I'm just really sick of reading criticism of mine and Markku's motivations, personal lives, commitment and trustworthiness. On the other hand, the comments that have been critical, but constructively so, are hugely valuable to us.

With that in mind, and before I get to the posts themselves, let me say something: I really, really, really, really, really wish we'd never announced GeneRally 2. Why? Because this was fun at the start of the project, when Markku and I were working away at the project 'in secret' and enjoying each and every moment spent developing and improving what we had. The progress may not have been quick, but it was enjoyable - no-one had any expectations, because no-one knew anything about it... and every new feature brought us both a great amount of joy. It would have been great to, in a few years' time, pitch up with a product and a donation page and say "hey, here's a sequel... if you like it, please donate!" - but we wanted to share our excitement with you, and that's where things started to go pear-shaped.

Within days of announcing GeneRally 2 - the slow but steady stream of unnecessary comments, messages and emails started coming our way via email and PM (if you think that that's somehow far-fetched, this article is tangentially interesting). Somehow, from releasing v1.10 to v1.2 we'd gone from 'the good guys' who 'saved GR' after years, to some evil dictators who planned to kill freedom and steal money from little kids. Neither of those statements, I feel, is particularly true. As far as the first one goes, if anyone is to be credited with the ongoing success of GR in the years after Hannu & Jukka abandoned the project, it'd be the team at RSC (most notably Rich, Dan B and Tuomo) and then, additionally, Ivo, Herbal and Crono following on from that. Markku & I just threw a few tens of hours into the game, and added some new life to it... job done. We were happy, we'd maintained an awesome game, and were looking forward to the future.

Our biggest mistake was Kickstarter. But not for the reasons that seem to be held as opinions around here. We didn't really have a problem with the protesting against it being paid-for (we asked you guys twice for feedback, and twice over 80% of you said you had no problem with it... a very good ratio, in our books); we didn't really have a 'problem' with failing it (well, we did, but we understood why and didn't feel somehow 'cheated' by it at all) - no, the real mistake was letting it set an expectation within the community.

From our perspective, we set a goal that we felt was reasonable to achieve what we set out, in the timeframe we set out, and left it up to the democracy of crowd-funding to decide whether we'd go down that road or not. We contacted press, we wrote articles, we tweeted, we blogged, we churned out hundreds of lines of code on a daily basis almost every day the campaign was live - and it wasn't enough (for reasons known and unknown, I'm sure). But somehow, despite the failure, and despite the fact that we'd clearly said beforehand that this was the option for a quality game in the short-term, the expectations have remained.

The past few pages in this thread have been fairly critical of Markku and myself for not giving updates - some even suggesting we don't deserve any funding of any kind in future because we didn't post an update on the almost zero progress of the past month-and-a-half. I think that's pretty unfair - though I do understand why the criticism is coming at us.

The Posts
So, without further ado - I'll move on to some of the posts I wanted to more specifically address:
bduddy wrote:I'm not sure why they seem to feel that less posts is better. All it takes is a couple simple Twitter and Facebook posts...

"Unfortunately I've been feeling sick the last couple days, progress will be delayed a little bit. -James"
"Haven't had much time to work on GR2 lately due to PhD studies. Will have more time at [time]. -Markku"
This is a tricky one - the thing is, we don't feel that fewer posts is better... in fact, quite the opposite. The problem is, if we've genuinely made no progress, what do we say? You've noted above that all it takes is for us to make a quick post about what's delayed us - but neither of us think our personal lives should need to be posted publicly to 'justify' a delay in a project with no timeframe, that isn't currently available to the public, and doesn't currently have a donation or store page of any kind.

We're both rather private people, and even making small allusions about our personal lives in the blogs recently has been a matter of discussion for us both. Maybe there are people here who don't feel that way - and that's great for them - but as two rather private people, we don't really want to be 'forced' to air our personal lives to prevent backlash. As such, in absence of progress, we simply have nothing to say.
kuba wrote:It's nice to see an update, but... on the other side it would be even nicer to have some sneak-peak (in-game screenshot or even photo of James/Markku eating lunch next to display with some GR2 stuff on it - might be 3 months old, we won't notice) just to let us now you are fine and haven't forgotten about project and us.
That's definitely a good idea. As mentioned above, we're not ones big on having our photos taken, but I take your point about trying to broaden the sort of thing we post about... it would definitely give us something more to post about when progress on the game itself is slow. Thanks :bg:
Trigger Happy wrote:I absolutely second that, pretty surprising somebody is crying about how people dare to say they are pissed off by his attitude, when he did not bother to write at least these two short sentences (which certainly ARE "something to say") here/on twitter/fb/g+. Because just saying these with no more added word would spare him of most of those "disheartening" comments.
A bit disappointed this comment came from you, Ivo - but I respect you too much to elaborate in the thread, so please check your PMs :)
puttz wrote:I third that. All most of us here have been asking for is a simple post saying "yes we are still working on it, no we have not quit." I'm not trying to make any personal attacks on the developers (sorry if any of my posts have come off that way), but most of us do not think silence is golden in this situation, especially after one of the devs was lost and we didn't actually know if work was going to proceed/was proceeding or not. Not to mention the last tweet was several months ago. I thought the purpose of the dev team having a Twitter was to give us brief updates? They could have saved themselves a bit of grief from the community by doing something simple like that to let us know work is ongoing. On the flip side, it is nice to know that work is still proceeding, albeit at a slower pace.
This is one that does, honestly, puzzle me - I've never really understood why the default stance is always to assumed we're constantly threatening to quit. Don't get me wrong, I get where you're coming from (going from losing Kimmo to silence was probably not the smartest move), but the first part of the developer blog wasn't meant as a snub, it was meant quite genuinely (in parallel with the phrase "no news is good news"). We were developing GR2 before Kimmo came on board, and we continued when he left: for us, whilst his departure was a loss to the team, it doesn't stop Markku and I working ;)

The Conclusion
All-in-all - the only reason GR v1.10, GR v1.2 and the GR2 project even exist is because Markku & I love the game and want to see it get bigger and better, and see the community grow back to its former glory (and beyond). We understand why folks might be disappointed at a lack of updates - we're just as disappointed by the lack of progress that causes the lack of updates - and it's something we'll certainly try to do better at.

We have no plans to give up on GR2 - but progress will be slower now, much slower, as we both are consigned once again to developing in our spare time. We're still not 100% sure what to post when there's nothing to post about, but we'll try and keep something in reserve from the 'busy times' to whet your appetites in the 'quiet times'. I can't promise the updates will be as often as you'd ideally want... but we will try to do better on the communication front. The constant demand for updates is one of the reasons Hannu & Jukka abandoned GR1, we don't want the same fate for GR2.

Hopefully that at least, on balance, improves the situation around here - at least, I did my best :)
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by tonyyeb »

James wrote:Hopefully that at least, on balance, improves the situation around here - at least, I did my best :)
Well said James, keep up the good work and hopefully a bit of patience will prevail.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by puttz »

Thanks for taking the time to reply to us all James. I think most of us will be okay now that we know there will be gradual development going on behind the scenes. I think perhaps part of the update issue is that I (and some others) had come to expect regular updates with what was going on. After the Kickstarter failure I thought that because of the way the project had been marketed as a sort of semi-commercial project perhaps you had given up due to the lack of updates and PR stuff, an unfair presumption on my part as I should have thought of you all going into a closet to work on it instead of in public. Now that I know that it's gone back to a hobbyist style project I can't logically expect you all to make much progress rapidly. Now that you've updated us on the status of the project and how you intend to proceed, I'll be happy with whatever you can get out to us in terms of updates and be satisfied in knowing that indeed work continues. :bg:
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by TuomoH »

Great post, James, thanks for clarifying things! :up:

With regard to the recent discussion, first of all, I understand why people have been disappointed on the lack of information. In fact, even though I have full trust in James and Markku, even I have thought at times that it'd be nice to hear anything at all. However, at the same time I've understood that we don't know what's going on behind the scenes and that we will hear something at some point. :cool2:

I think people have jumped into conclusions too fast. Of course everyone's entitled to their opinions but what we've seen here has been even considering people's opinions facts, and some of the posts have been bordering on vicious. As James said, he and Markku have started as heroes and become villains. Why's that? :shake:

I've understood that some of the most bashful comments have come from this very community. Instead of the positive people have concentrated on the negative. Taken words out of context and even created a context of their own. I think it's a shame since I'd think this community should be a sanctuary - the place where developers get the most support. Don't get me wrong, I fully support criticism but it should be constructive criticism, not bashing. And after all those years since GR1.05, I think this community should have enough patience. ;)

Finally, it's good to hear things are getting back on track. Keep up the good work, guys! :bg:
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by Buka »

I think that making a game with no fun = not funny game. So if James and Markku want to keep silence, but keep working on the game and ENJOING it, I'm ok with it.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by Rendy »

I'm really glad that you, James, have explained everything. Hopefully that you and the development team enjoy continuing GR2. :)

And somehow my heart said "A screenshot/showcase a day keeps an AWOL away." Well, doesn't have to be every day, probably once per two weeks or so. Maybe showcasing how an object mix-match would work in GR2, the new looks of terrains, etc.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by RacerBG »

Two months silence... Too much?
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by kuba »

Silence is Golden...
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by duck »

No news is bad news in this case I feel...
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by puttz »

They will tell us when there is something to report, remember that they are doing this as a hobby project now and not a commercial style project :)
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by Lukeno94 »

It's dead, guys. Otherwise, there'd have been a "we are still working on this, we promise, it's just going slowly" blog post a month ago.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by RobertRacer »

''Silence is Golden'' :shhh:
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by Areen »

It's dead. Developer project without news are dead. It's its nature.
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by RobertRacer »

Like at the Räbinäs 2003/2004? :?
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Re: Developer Blog

Post by FRUKIScze »

It's really sad, but what can we do, right? :ashamed:
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