this game, WC Saga, and the truth

Ouch, Quarto, ouch. Sad but very true. While we're loooking up Howie's failed projects, how about a link to this one:
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/5712
Or that I originally did a lot of the artwork for the VS engine. If anyone cares - the last two-three projects of mine failed for a very simple reason: I had no programming support. See the list of names there on the Black Widow page? Zero and Daniel Horn? The last time I heard from them was when they signed up. Nothing else came of that. So there I was - lots of nice artwork, and no way to make it into a game. Utterly infuriating. That's what killed the project. The random VS project was killed for almost the same reason - the VS engine, while familiar to me after all the art I made for it, was simply not robust enough for one guy to make a full game from scratch in less than a decade. I would have gone completely bonkers in the first 2 years.
Anyhow - the only reason to believe that Pioneer would go farther than any of these embarassing failures is fairly simple - I have a programmer working directly with me. We talk almost every day, we've got a working engine, an almost complete editor, and a hell of a lot of artwork to put in. Even that said - I'll be surprised if you see the tech demo within the next month, and even more surprised if a playable demo is less than a year away.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Quarto said:
Three screenshots, is that all? Tried looking at the website? (yes, it's offline, but you can see it through the internet archive). The Black Widows, before going mysteriously silent, had just as much to show for itself as Pioneer does now.

Anyway, my point isn't to suggest that Pioneer shouldn't be trusted (though given the ambition and limited resources of the project, it would be a reasonable assumption). I just find it remarkable how anybody could seriously have more faith in Pioneer getting released than in Saga. Whatever you may believe about the quality of these two projects or about the people running them, there simply is not even a shadow of a doubt that Saga will be finished long before Pioneer. Certainly Howard and the other Pioneer folks have never suggested otherwise - so why on earth would uninformed bystanders do so?
Click to expand...

I see.

there simply is not even a shadow of a doubt that Saga will be finished long before Pioneer.
Click to expand...

I've re-read this sentence a couple of times, are you suggesting that Saga will not be finished before Pioneer or that it will? Or are you suggesting that we just don't know whether it will be finished at all?
 
Howard Day said:
See the list of names there on the Black Widow page? Zero and Daniel Horn? The last time I heard from them was when they signed up. Nothing else came of that. So there I was - lots of nice artwork, and no way to make it into a game. Utterly infuriating.
Click to expand...
Hehe, don't feel too bad - that guy who was supposed to program your engine for Black Widows, he was also originally supposed to program the engine for Standoff. Eder had no more luck with him than you did, that's why he ultimately switched to SO ( that guy was a textbook case of "hey, look, I'm a great programmer making a new engine, get on your knees and worship me!"... and in his case, I mean that just about literally).

Anyhow - the only reason to believe that Pioneer would go farther than any of these embarassing failures is fairly simple - I have a programmer working directly with me. We talk almost every day, we've got a working engine, an almost complete editor, and a hell of a lot of artwork to put in. Even that said - I'll be surprised if you see the tech demo within the next month, and even more surprised if a playable demo is less than a year away.
Click to expand...
...And that's why I'm willing to take you seriously, in spite of it all - because you're not telling us you'll have the game finished in five months :). I mean, I'll admit to some scepticism... all right, a lot of scepticism... but as long as you guys are reporting realistic progress instead of announcing crazy release dates, I'm very much hoping that all my scepticism will prove unfounded. Heck, the main reason why I even mention my scepticism in public is because I believe that kind of thing encourages fan project staff to work even harder to prove themselves... so when I say all this, I actually do it hoping that it will help your project :p.

Maj.Striker said:
I've re-read this sentence a couple of times, are you suggesting that Saga will not be finished before Pioneer or that it will? Or are you suggesting that we just don't know whether it will be finished at all?
Click to expand...
That it will - hence the italicised "will" :). I'm saying that, from the point of view of probability, we can expect Saga to be finished long before Pioneer, especially since Howard's never even tried to tell anyone anything different. That's why I'm so amazed to see other people suddenly talking about Pioneer as though it was a done deal, compared to Saga - it's a really weird case of fans seeming to believe they know more than the people making the game itself.


What it all comes down to, is that this thread started as a very legitimate criticism of Saga's lousy PR effort, but it's gone way too far. They hadn't updated their website for something like half a year, and they deserved a kick for that. But if the most recent posts in this thread (and the other one) were anything to judge by, you'd be tempted to assume that Saga has done nothing at all for five years, and people are angry because they keep lying to them. This is obviously not true, though - Saga hasn't finished, and they haven't even been able to provide a decent explanation as to what's holding them up... but you only have to look through the CIC news archives to appreciate the incredible amount of work they'd already done. I firmly believe that it's a fan project's responsibility to maintain good communication with the community, and not vice versa - but I also believe that a project that's shown consistent progress for five years deserves the benefit of the doubt, even if it's more than a year overdue.

Remember, no matter what's happened, the Saga staff are working for this community, not against it. It would be stupid of them to demand that we build statues to praise them... but I can't help thinking that Saga's done and shown enough to get at least a little bit of respect. And it sure is worth it, if it encourages the Saga team to continue their efforts - I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm incredibly eager to see whether the FS2 engine could actually be used for a real game. It's also great for another reason - because what LOAF said was absolutely true: there was indeed some very heated competition between Standoff and Saga at one point. When we thought Saga's demo release was just around the corner, we put a lot of effort into getting our episode one released before they did. Saga may not have released anything yet, but they helped cut Standoff's development time by at least two or three months - and there is nothing I'd love more than to see a return to those days, to such competitiveness.
 
Quarto said:
What it all comes down to, is that this thread started as a very legitimate criticism of Saga's lousy PR effort, but it's gone way too far. They hadn't updated their website for something like half a year, and they deserved a kick for that.
Click to expand...

If younger projects like Pioneer or Gemini Gold with only very few people working on it can bring up news every now and then why is it so difficult for Saga to show us their progress? I have heard they want to implement cockpits why don't we see any results? Why don't they record a little movie with fraps, it is so damn easy to do that. Nobody cares about dead links on their website, the team seems to be very lazy and ignorant.
 
Unregistered said:
If younger projects like Pioneer or Gemini Gold with only very few people working on it can bring up news every now and then why is it so difficult for Saga to show us their progress?
Click to expand...

Well, if you'll remember (I don't know how long you've been a frequenter of the forums), Saga initially did show lots and lots of progress here and there early in their life cycle. That was mostly because what they showed was artwork: ships and graphics. This is the same thing Pioneer has done they've showed artwork...fantastic artwork but just artwork, which is much easier to show off than some of the other aspects of the game. Saga has said they are waiting on engine enhancements and coding issues which is understandably hard to demonstrate.

I have heard they want to implement cockpits why don't we see any results?
Click to expand...

Wanting to do something and then actually being able to do it is quite a bit different. I've wanted Wing Commander 6 for several years now...yet I don't see results either.

Why don't they record a little movie with fraps, it is so damn easy to do that.
Click to expand...

That IS a good suggestion...maybe they will see your post and consider it. Even if they don't follow through it would be nice to know why not...

Nobody cares about dead links on their website, the team seems to be very lazy and ignorant.
Click to expand...

Has anyone informed them of the dead links on their site? Perhaps they just aren't aware...
 
Time for your puppeteer to cut your strings "Unregistered". If you're going to have beef with someone, have the gall to make or log into an account.
 
LeHah said:
Time for your puppeteer to cut your strings "Unregistered". If you're going to have beef with someone, have the gall to make or log into an account.
Click to expand...

Sorry i forgot to use a username. Only wanted to leave a few words here without a discussion for the Saga people.
 
Unregistered said:
Only wanted to leave a few words here without a discussion for the Saga people.
Click to expand...

As much as I dislike the Saga team, I have the respect to say what I have to say to them more or less directly. You've purposely not made or not logged into your account to avoid having stones thrown at you. If you can't take it, don't bother posting.
 
LeHah said:
I've had larger stones thrown at me by people better than you. :)
Click to expand...

You seem to carry a pretty large bias towards Saga. But on the other, having observed many of their antics myself amidst an incredible would-be product myself, I'm going to give you the proverbial doubt.

Let's just say that Saga hasn't been the best in PR relations.

(Can't login due to work browser settings)
 
As food for thought - modding teams shouldn't have to spend their time worrying about PR. They should spend it worrying about getting their mod done as they wanted it to. Remember that that's the main goal of a modding team - to produce a mod - not to be nice to people or win brownie points for good PR.

And with that in mind - it'd be an awful lot easier for any modding team to reach that end goal if they weren't sidetracked by people - especially people with a tendancy towards being annoying.

(Disclaimer: The suggestion that some people are annoying is a broad one and not aimed at any one person or persons in this thread. I only bothered to read the last day or so's comments and felt the above point was worth mentioning).
 
Here's a question for you Unregistered. Who do you make a mod for? Yourself? Yes, I suppose you can say you do but it wouldn't be as fun or rewarding because you already know all the ins and outs of it. So, it's a good idea to have good PR or else no one will appreciate your hard work and you give up and wasted your time.

And also, I know LeHah's already mentioned this but please, if you're going to keep replying can you please make a username. First, it does make it seem like you're trying to avoid people when you post with as an unregistered person. Second, if you are a Wing Commander fan (which I assume you are) then why not say so proudly by making a user name?
 
Unregistered said:
As food for thought - modding teams shouldn't have to spend their time worrying about PR. They should spend it worrying about getting their mod done as they wanted it to. Remember that that's the main goal of a modding team - to produce a mod - not to be nice to people or win brownie points for good PR.

And with that in mind - it'd be an awful lot easier for any modding team to reach that end goal if they weren't sidetracked by people - especially people with a tendancy towards being annoying.
Click to expand...

You don't spend the hundreds or thousands of hours necessary to complete a project like this for yourself. You do it because you hope hundreds or thousands of people will be able to experience the product of your labor. People don't sidetrack a project by wanting information at every step along the way. Their involvement and thirst for updates should be a motivator for the team and an opportunity to engage the fan base over a much greater range than simply when the game launches.
 
Unregistered said:
As food for thought - modding teams shouldn't have to spend their time worrying about PR. They should spend it worrying about getting their mod done as they wanted it to. Remember that that's the main goal of a modding team - to produce a mod - not to be nice to people or win brownie points for good PR.

And with that in mind - it'd be an awful lot easier for any modding team to reach that end goal if they weren't sidetracked by people - especially people with a tendancy towards being annoying.
Click to expand...
You're absolutely wrong. Whether you like it or not, a mod team doesn't just appear out of the blue, nor does it exist separate from the rest of the community. PR is hugely important to modding teams - more so, in fact, than to ordinary paid developers (and I speak from experience on both counts, as a member of the Standoff team and as a paid games developer). When you're making a mod, you start off with nothing - no team, no resources, just your own skills, energy and an idea. To make the mod, you have to build up a team, and then you have to keep it together long enough to make it to release. And you have to do this without the most basic motivating tool that professional game developers use - money.

At every stage of the way, it's PR that helps determine the success of a mod. It's not the only factor (the tenacity and determination of the team leader are also hugely important, obviously), but it certainly is the most important factor for any project involving more than one person. PR is what you use to attract new members. PR is then what you use to get the community excited about the project - and community excitement is what motivates your members. Without PR, your members won't have any reason to keep working on the mod - no matter how much you love something, it's incredibly difficult to find the energy to keep working on it when you think nobody actually cares.

Additionally, you're wrong for another reason - the "annoying people" are who you're working for. A mod is, partially, something you do just for fun - I sure wouldn't be working on Standoff if I didn't love Wing Commander. But there's more to it than that. Apart from being fun, a mod is something you do specifically for the community. Without the community, your mod is has no purpose. This doesn't mean, of course, that the community should decide what happens in a mod (the community doesn't even know what it wants)... but it certainly does mean that you have to care about what those "annoying people" have to say.

In short, while a modding team's goal is to make a mod, PR is a vital tool without which making a mod is near impossible.

This, by the way, is arguably Saga's biggest problem right now. It's not the about the delays, it's not about whatever issue that's holding them up... it's about the fact that they've lost their purpose. They're making a Wing Commander mod that the Wing Commander fan community doesn't seem to care about, and in fact is pretty darn hostile towards. If you're working on a mod in that situation, what could possibly motivate you to put the mod ahead of your personal life? If you think nobody's interested in your work, are you gonna spend the evening working on the mod for your own enjoyment... or will you go out with friends to see a movie? In most cases, the movie wins - it's just as enjoyable, and far easier.

Mind you, that's just my opinion - not knowing exactly what's going on with Saga, I obviously can only guess what their biggest problem is. All I know is that "personal life" is a very frequent explanation for their lack of progress... and that when UE was approaching release and everybody was talking about it, I completely gave up on having anything even remotely resembling a personal life just to get it done. I've always gotten the impression that Tolwyn and Lars are just as dedicated as I am, if not more so... which leads me to believe that Saga's problem is indeed motivational.

Anyway, this is where PR comes in - again. At this point (according to the other thread), the Saga staff have given up on this community. This is the exact opposite of what they should be doing. Right now, they should be doing everything they possibly can to persuade the community that Saga is worth caring about... or more specifically, to persuade the community to show that they do care about Saga (because they really do - no matter what happens, most people here are eagerly waiting to play Saga. And what's more, we all want to love it - we want to have another great mod to play, and we even want to be able to joke about how it took a bunch of WC fans to do something good with the FS2 engine). This wouldn't be at all difficult to do, and it would speed up the development to an incredible degree.

Saga team - Tolwyn, Lars, if you guys are reading this, please take my advice. I beg you, because I really want to see Saga finished (and because I want to see Saga giving us hard, stiff competition again - we need your competition to drive ourselves to do Standoff as well as we possibly can!), and I find it very frustrating to see its completion move away further and further because of such conflicts. I'm saying this without actually claiming that you (or the anybody from the community) are specifically the ones to be blamed for this entire thing. I have my opinions on that, too, of course - but that's all entirely irrelevant. It doesn't make any difference who's to blame, because in either way it's up to you guys to fix things. Don't ignore this forum. Post in it now, more than ever before. Inform us about progress. Inform us about website updates. If you post something in another forum, post it here, too - it's not like it's a huge effort to cut & paste a message from one forum into another. Keep doing this, no matter what happens - and soon enough, you'll find that people really do care about your project.
 
I too would like to see this project finished. When you guys launched that April Fool's demo, I was excited. I still think this project has hope. Just show some more things. Be as active as you guys used to be. I mean, if the April Fool's demo was that good and it was only using "old" models, then the finished product's going to blow me outta the water. Just please update more because I started to lose interest when you guys went quiet. So wake up from your hibernation and show us what you guys can really do.
 
Quarto said:
At this point (according to the other thread), the Saga staff have given up on this community.
Click to expand...
But that wasn't a direct info from a Saga team member. It was a interpretation from non team member meisdavidp of a pm from team member EDX. We don't know what this pm really said. And meisdavidp has already said that he didn't get his wording right. That Saga not really have written of the community but rather isn't posting anymore at the moment, because they don't feel welcome here at the CIC forum. Which is a quite different reason imo.

Quarto said:
They're making a Wing Commander mod that the Wing Commander fan community doesn't seem to care about, and in fact is pretty darn hostile towards.
Click to expand...
What I see at the CIC forum is not a whole community which doesn't seem to care about Saga and is beeing hostile towards it. Instead I see only a group which feel and think that about saga - a part but surely not the whole community. And while the CIC in fact is the biggest meeting place for the Wing Commander fan community it isn't the only place. I think as long as Saga updates their homepage in the future as promised and still answers questions at their forum you can't say that they have written of the Wing Commander fan community.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top