Kickstarter Thread - The Kickstarter is being fulfilled

[sethaniel]

The reason I finally decided to sign up in these forums is due to the lack of updates on the main page, and I echo the sentiment that this reflects badly on the entire premise.

Still, I’ve always appreciated Whales and the subsequent devs’ desire to put in so much effort into a game that gives no profit to them whatsoever(save the Kickstarter funds, which are pitifully small for such an amazing project anyway). So I’m not going to sully these boards with dickish comments to the devs such as those found directly above this post. (EDIT: which has since been removed)

A word of advice for the devs though: it would probably be best to prioritize getting the dev diaries part of the website up-and-running, instead of leaving a lot of people(mostly the non-backers) in the dark. Some of the recent news posts in the main page were quite misleading, and being the self-entitled pricks that human beings are, you can expect many of us to be wailing about broken promises and shattered dreams, etc. More information and clarification would be nice. It’s a bit odd to post “expect a more substantial update later this week” which was visible to everyone, then when the week came to pass without an update, only the backers were given an explanation as to why. No doubt the antsiness started from that point on.

Sometimes though, there’s just no pleasing everyone. Personally, I have high hopes for the game. Good luck guys!

[CIB]

GalenEvil actually uploaded part of his progress to his branch, whoo! https://github.com/GalenEvil/Cataclysm-DDA-1/compare/Tile_Support

[vcntmnd]

I’m very excited Deons involved again, Hi Deon! I’ve used lots of your toys in various games over the years.

Tileset support is huge and I’m very excited to see it coming.

I realize nobody knows who I am, I hang out in forums like I hang out in public restrooms; which is to say - I don’t. I’ve had a few contributions here over the years. For example the species based mutations system was my concept, completely fleshed out and coded by whales ofc.

Devs, you guys are doing fine, try not let the crazy forums get under your skin, forums are always crazy.

For Galen with much respect, I’m happy to have somebody committed to programming for this game, which I’ve always thought had amazing potential. Resist the pressure to cut short deadlines, give yourself all the time you could need and then beat it. These things are going to take as long as they take, and as long as you’re working on it, you’re keeping your end of the bargain in good faith. People are always going to complain, ignore it.

On the flip side of the coin, this is a community driven project, there are valuable people here, corresponding with other resources within the community is a good thing, we’re all on the same team, let co-creators know where things are headed or if things aren’t working.

A kickstarter is not a binding contract, as much as people want to use 10 dollars to badger a developer into burn out phase.

Enjoy tinkering with cata for pay, the more fun you have, the better product all of us are going to end up with.

[Ratha]

Yikes. After reading the last few days worth of posts i can positively say that there are a few folks here who could use a time out. Spewing all this venom surely isnt going to get anyone to move more quickly toward any goal. However it very well might serve as a turn off for the unpaid part time devs who have been holding this project together and making it leaps and bounds better both in terms of content as well as usability. We all want the same thing here… lets try to be civil to each other with respect towards that end?

I think one of the main issues here is that there has been a failure in the communication lines. The infrequent updates to the main DDA page as well as the lack of public access to the paid developer’s dev logs seem to be the culprit in generating much animosity. Personally, i would love to see atleast a paragraph post on the website every week just to give an update and summary of the progress DDA is making overall, as well as detailing the progress that GalenEvil is making. The kickstarter generated a lot of hype, and i suspect that folks just want to be kept in the loop a bit better.

While i realize that access to GalenEvil’s devlogs was billed an exclusive and paid kickstarter reward, i think that the community as a whole might benefit from access to it. A few of the tileset developers seem to have expressed that they are at a standstill, needing feedback from GalenEvil about what features his tileset code will have before they can progress. I dont know how deeply tileset implementation was discussed with GalenEvil before he started coding, but if our tileset makers dont know what capabilities the system will have when its finished, then thats probably not ideal. Its possible that with slightly better communication, or access to those logs that those tileset makers could continue work on improvements and additions. Granted they -could- wait till its released but what if their input or feature requests cause the system to be built in a much more robust manner, he might not have to go back and rewrite bits of it if he considered some of those suggestions during its creation. (And maybe he already has?)

Anyway, what can be said for certain is that all the people who have been working on DDA this year have done an amazing job. A ton of really old annoyances have been (nearly) eliminated from the game. The UI has seen vast improvements in usability, the zombie AI has changed in ways that make the game much more interesting, there have been significant content contributions, a couple of core gameplay mechanics were updated or even added, and we even have a few really useful animations now. You guys are on track towards making Cataclysm really stand out in the roguelike community. Its already a one-of-a-kind game, but its not been until this year that its really started to get the kind of polish it deserves. Whales did an amazing job, and it was sad to see him have to leave the project, but the guys who have picked it up in his place have gone leaps and bounds above anything most of us could have hoped for when we began playing so long ago.

Let us all hope that these guys continue to find CDDA a labor of love, and try not to be too hard on em when they dont get things exactly right the first time around.

[Pthalocy]

. For example the species based mutations system was my concept, completely fleshed out and coded by whales ofc.

You’re the reason I have tree antlers!!

[GalenEvil]

Cherry picking tiles from utunnels’ tileset, and adding some programmer art of my own. Not everything is tiled up but here is progress as it stands, in a hopefully visually appealing manner! Sorry for not having more screen shots to show off, the tileset is rather bare bones still >.<

[John_Candlebury]

Woohooo! Progress!!!

[jcannon98188]

Looks sweet GalenEvil. Any updated ETA when it goes live?

[GalenEvil]

@jcannon98188: not really sure, depends on how long it takes to get through review CIB helped me earlier today to get it workable on Linux, so hopefully by next week. I have to update it all to the mainline as well and resolve any conflicts

[CIB]

[quote=“GalenEvil, post:186, topic:1854”]Cherry picking tiles from utunnels’ tileset, and adding some programmer art of my own. Not everything is tiled up but here is progress as it stands, in a hopefully visually appealing manner! Sorry for not having more screen shots to show off, the tileset is rather bare bones still >.<
[/quote]

Yay smooth walls!

[Zireael]

Aye, these pics are very good news.

[xLemor]

I think the problem with the whining on the forums is that people think that since GE is getting paid to dev full time on the game makes him the donor’s bitch. They think they hold a whip and it makes him work faster like if they were his boss. Well it doesnt work like that, you cant yell at the dev team or crack a whip at them cause they did a kickstarter and you guys certainly have NO autorithy on GE or the rest of the team. GE will meet the deadlines and perharps earlier than due. He is working hard and fast on the tilesets for a few weeks now and from what talked about on irc back then he really got thru it fast and it only needed adjustements and reviewing the code.

Cheering and encouraging is a better motivation than pointing fingers at people and whining at them. You guys should reconize that cdda dev team is great and give us a lot with this game. show them some love instead of bitching lol

[kevin.granade]

Pertinent: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html

[Rivet]

I think the problem…

I agree one hundred percent.

If the people who are whining want to see things happen faster, then they should shut up and start contributing.

No amount of complaining or pointing fingers has ever accomplished anything productive.

[Otaku]

I think of organizing code as an investment. A little lost time now arranging it and making it neater will make additions and mods faster in the future. So there are no set deadlines.

[youtoo]

I thinkI asked this before. if it was answered, I cant find it. what is the forum name to the fulltime developer? can you make a post with his name?
I have a suggestion that on the forums, that contributors get special tags in their name (can this forum support it?)

such as

'full time dev’
core developer (kevin granade would be one. )
website owner

makes it easier for the rest of us to spot you. also gives you a little plug for all the hard work you are doing.

[GlyphGryph]

I thinkI asked this before. if it was answered, I cant find it. what is the forum name to the fulltime developer? can you make a post with his name?

Real name: Sean McLaughlin
Forum Name: GalenEvil

And yeah, as mentioned 4-star folk are core developers (although not all core developers are four-star folk, it’s on request/nomination, and some of developers barely visit the forum and just don’t care)

[youtoo]

got it. Kevin is the resident build bitch.

[kevin.granade]

Actually I’m the merge bitch, narc’s pet Jenkins instance is the build bitch
Although I do a lot of builds, holy crap do I do a lot of builds.

[Pthalocy]

Welp, I’ve finished and sent off a two-page comic to Granade and Glyph, so barring any terrible I overlooked, it’s ready to get added to the other goodies making up the art tier reward. Hooray!