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
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
