this game, WC Saga, and the truth

Unregistered said:
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.
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You'll have to excuse me if I don't understand how not posting at the CIC forum does not qualify as writing off the community. There's two major community hubs for WC - there's the CIC where nearly everyone meets, and then there's the much smaller, German-speaking WingCenter. Not posting at the CIC forum, therefore, means ignoring the overwhelming majority of the population. I visit the WingCenter every once in a while to see whether they're still alive, but since I don't speak German, I can't understand the information Saga posts in their forum over there... all I can see is that there's a lot more of it there than here, and I find that pretty irritating.
 
Quarto said:
You'll have to excuse me if I don't understand how not posting at the CIC forum does not qualify as writing off the community.
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Perhaps we have a different understanding of "writing off".
For me writing off means don't care what the fan community think/want at all. I think that's quite different from not posting to a forum because of a group that simply is very hostile towards yourself and/or your project but still posting to other forums an still hearing what the community says.

BTW: There is the english speaking Saga forum at HLP which is still active.
 
Unregistered said:
Perhaps we have a different understanding of "writing off".
For me writing off means don't care what the fan community think/want at all. I think that's quite different from not posting to a forum because of a group that simply is very hostile towards yourself and/or your project but still posting to other forums an still hearing what the community says.
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Not posting to this forum means essentially not talking to this community - at all. Heck, look at their website - you go to the "community" section on the Saga website, you click on the "forum" link, and where do you go? No, not here - you go to some other forum, which on top of it all doesn't even exist. The impression we're given is that Saga prefers to have a dead link on their website than to link to this forum. I'd like to think this is just a case of them overlooking something... but they sure haven't tried too hard to explain it.

So, all in all, I really don't need meisdavidp to tell me that Saga has written off this community. Their actions make that clear enough - and that's a mistake. Such actions greatly contribute to the conflict between Saga and this community. Heck, look at me - I'm probably the most sympathetic observer Saga could find at this forum. I'm the guy who's hoping against all hope that Saga will finally come out, and that it will be better than everything Standoff's done so far - that it will provide us with a great big kick to force us to do everything twice as well as we've done so far. I have huge respect for each and every member of the Saga staff - I personally feel bad every time I see an argument here end with a ban for one of them. But in spite of all this, I'm still incredibly bitter about how Saga treats us here. The knowledge that there's news about Saga available from some forum elsewhere, and I just need to discover how to get to that forum... that doesn't help, that just makes me feel more bitter. It makes it personal - it's as though Saga was specifically saying that they don't want me to know about their progress.

BTW: There is the english speaking Saga forum at HLP which is still active.
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No, there isn't. As far as I know, HLP doesn't even exist. Why? Because when I click on the "HLP" link on the Saga website, I get taken nowhere. The link is dead. Oh, I'm sure the HLP has merely relocated somewhere else, and I'm sure if I did a google search or something, I could find them... but what the hell is this? Am I a labrat, that I need to run through this damned maze to get a scrap of news about Saga? I'm not going to move a finger to find the HLP forum, and neither will just about anybody else here - if Saga is interested in keeping us updated, they're gonna have to make sure that all such information is available from their website. And yeah, they're gonna have to post such information in this forum, too.

You don't put up a sign in the middle of the desert and assume that the people from the city will go out there to find out what you wrote - that's simply not how it's done.
 
Hello everybody,

sorry that I drop in that late, but let me express my feelings about the points that have been discussed here within the last few days.

First, and certainly most important, we haven’t left this community. I mean, why should we ? We are building a WC-Mod and therefore the opinion of the peoples gathering at this place are important for our work and for our success (or even failure). That we have been so quiet lately was bad, but more about this below. The truth is, this entire thread (and a few others before) and the hostility raised at some points have irritated us a lot and gave us the feelings that we aren't welcome here any longer, which is why we kept silence in order not to make it even worse (unfortunately not always with success on both sides). Heck, I wasn't posting here much myself because I thought it would be better not to show my face here again, but I really want to find a solution here and so I am writing this post. It's also obvious, that some of these issues are of personal nature, which makes it very hard to participate in them (which I actually don’t want to).

As for this thread here, started with the little rough first post of an obviously dissapointed fan, I have to say that regarding the PR-Stuff we got a massive kick in the ass, and I’m also saying that we have deserved that. We also discussed this within the team, and we are currently preparing a few things to show off, and most important work on a new and hopefully better PR-Campaign, which will then bring you (even if sometimes small) regular informations regarding this mod. I haven’t all the posts here in my mind, but just regarding the last ones, Chris and Quarto are absolutly right, a mod (or even a game) can’t live without a PR, or it will loose the connection to the people the work is actually done for.

I must also say, that we are sorry for some of the posts from the past, that often got the content “we are close” or “nearly finished”. Unfortunately these post grow out of the enthusiasm of some team members, which aren’t deep enough within in the work to see the puzzle part as a whole thing, or in Tolwyn’s and my case misjudged by some unexpected events that delay everything, I also asked my team-members to be a little more careful what to post regarding the content or the status, to avoid anymore misunderstandings.

But I also think, that we should try to continue (or even restart) on a professionell way, and that’s certainly possible in my opinion. Also it is just natural, that not everybody can like what we do, taste may be different, and we can’t press anyone to like it or even play it. To a certain point I can even understand peoples emotions about FS2 (though I liked it for being the space-shooter with impressive capitalship battles it was designed for).

But I want everyone to think about what we are doing. We are building a WC-Game, that takes advantage of the technical specification of a 3D-Space engine. We are not trying to bring the FS-Gameplay into the WC-Universe. In fact, I think that we have made a good attempt of bringing the WC-Feeling to the FS-Engine (of course this is only a subjective meaning, since I know the content of the mod and you can’t neither deny or approve it yet unfortunately). Also the FS-Engine has been the central point of other Scifi-games like the B5-Mod and the BSG Mod, both are really impressive IMO, so it can’t be that bad. Of course, I understand it’s difficult to correct you peoples opinion in this matter, since we can’t deliver anything yet to prove it, which is part of the problem. But I think it is really important to distinguish between FS2 the game, and FS2 the engine.


Therefore, I want to take the advantage to give you people a more detailed information of whats going on. Within the last year (where we remained rather silent, sorry again for that) we were mostly focussing in transfering the FS-Engine into a WC-Game, it wasn’t easy (and the AI make me nearly cry sometimes), but I can say I’m really pleased with the final product. Biggest effort in this was certainly the new interface, which consists of several hundreds of single files. While I build up the campaign-missions Towlyn and the other guys are working on technical stuff like movies, music, Installer-system, voice-lines and so on. We already had several beta-tests, which lead to the elimination of the most bugs. This brings me to the “ we are nearly finished” stuff. We may be 98% done, and the game (the prologue) is already complete playable, but unfortunately the last 2 % are the problem that hold off the release. We are not happy about that, but we can’t change it either at this time. And of course, there was also a little lack of movation for certain reasons noticable too, I’m afraid.

These 2% contain the finalization-process of the movies, some very nasty bugs and of course the missing code-pieces, mostly the mentioned fiction-viewer. I’m already at the opinion, that if we don’t get it within the time the rest is finished, then we might need to look for a substitue and release the fiction otherwise (online ? I don’t know yet. It worked for WCPSO though. But we really want to wait for the ingame viewer as long as possible).

Also, since this issue has been brought up a few times, I prepared a small picture-row, that should demonstrate the missionflow of one of our mission, to give you people a little more insight of what you can expect from the gameplay-feeling. I believe that many people still think towards the FS2-Playing (Dropping into mission-area, shoot at everything, warp out), but this isn’t the case in our game. I will post the mentioned thing by the middle of the week. I really think it will give you people a good imagination of what to expect.

Well, I’m finished, and the post got (once again) longer than I actually wanted (sorry for that too :) ), but I do hope that I was able to adress the critical points that have been cooking up here. Also I would like everyone to consider, that we are all fans of the same thing, namely the WC-Universe, so there should be no need to fight against each other.

Also thanks for the sympathy that has been expressed in here (and the PM’s we received) and that showed us, that people do care about this project, even though we let you down the last 12 months. On the contrary, we promise not to leave you people in the dark from now on. And just to make that clear too, constructive critic is always welcome, and will be taken into consideration if possible by any means.

Thanks + Best regards

Starman


(edit) P.S. I wasn't aware that the forum links are dead. HLP maybe, since they moved, but CIC ? I'll check on that matter
 
ChrisReid said:
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.
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That's the crucial point here I believe. Sorry to everyone else but I'm playing devils advocate more than anything else and won't be responding point for point.

This point however I will address. I'm all for updates of information and so on. But it's hard to do that in the face of negativity. Either through your own mistakes or the negative approach of others - it's hard to be positive and keep working / telling people about your work when you're faced with demotivational comments at every other turn.

No, I'm not saying that everyone should hug eachother and pretend everything is OK - but it would be far more useful to constructively criticise rather than post negative comments about one person, a group or their actions. Looking over this thread - I've seen some people resort to insults who really should have known better, should have been the bigger person and risen above it but chose to get down and gritty instead.

That won't get anyone anywhere. It seems mistakes were made on both sides and that a constructive effort would be better at this stage than further flaming from anyone. Of course - you could all chose to go for eachothers throats and forget that making a mod is supposed to be something fun for everyone involved.

That's my 2 cents - you can take it or leave it as you wish :)
 
Starman© said:
As for this thread here, started with the little rough first post of an obviously dissapointed fan, I have to say that regarding the PR-Stuff we got a massive kick in the ass, and I’m also saying that we have deserved that. We also discussed this within the team, and we are currently preparing a few things to show off, and most important work on a new and hopefully better PR-Campaign, which will then bring you (even if sometimes small) regular informations regarding this mod.
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Great - might I suggest that you start off by posting an English-language news update that translates what Lars recently posted at the WingCenter forum? I don't speak German, but it sure seems like he mentioned more than just the new wallpaper in his report. That's the kind of stuff that should be posted here - and certainly "not wanting to make things worse" would be better achieved by posting such updates than by not saying anything at all :p.

(edit) P.S. I wasn't aware that the forum links are dead. HLP maybe, since they moved, but CIC ? I'll check on that matter
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The link to the CIC itself is very much alive - but the link to this forum doesn't exist at all, there is only a (dead) link to some other forum. That kind of thing sends a very bad signal to this community, especially since it clearly is not an oversight.
 
Unregistered said:
This point however I will address. I'm all for updates of information and so on. But it's hard to do that in the face of negativity. Either through your own mistakes or the negative approach of others - it's hard to be positive and keep working / telling people about your work when you're faced with demotivational comments at every other turn.

No, I'm not saying that everyone should hug eachother and pretend everything is OK - but it would be far more useful to constructively criticise rather than post negative comments about one person, a group or their actions. Looking over this thread - I've seen some people resort to insults who really should have known better, should have been the bigger person and risen above it but chose to get down and gritty instead.
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It's the other way around. Lack of updates made fans grow negative (exacerbated by PR blunders prior to that). This thread is the culmination of a year and a half of virtually no material information on the progress of this project. Not only do team members not post here, but the site's official webpage, which was just recently relaunched, also critically lacks updates. Apparently there's updates being posted for small private forums elsewhere on the internet though, which as Quarto send, makes it doubly irritating. That's great that Starman posted something today, but what people really want is consistent progress reports.

And if people are going to engage in conversations, they should register a name. Letting unregistered users post is a small bonus to get people into things. If people are going to continue going on unregistered in a full discussion, we'll probably just turn that off. Unregistered people can even put in a temporary name, and most don't do that.
 
Sorry about not registering with a name - it probably makes things a tad confusing as I'm not the only "Unregistered" who has been posting here. I am in fact the second.

I would register - but don't anticipate being around long enough to require an account. I just wanted to point out what I have. That done - I'll be on my way.

In response to what you just said Chris, I can now see the point you're making. I still hold that it's hard to stay positive and extroverted in the face of some flaming that *seems* to have happened - but aside from that I do now agree.
 
You don't need to register, but please sign your posts. You clearly know that there's more than one "Unregistered" in this thread -- so just make up a handle so we can tell you apart without having to compare IPs.

Quarto is right. Saga has had terrible problems with PR which are only made worse by deciding to ignore the - and yes, it is *the* - community.

They need to come here and act like regular human beings.

Look at their terrible chain of spokespeople. The fact that it *exists* is the root of the problem - the project comes off as incredibly self important simply because they decided they'd have a spokesperson to begin with. Giant companies have spokespeople to explain why they aren't really losing money, fan projects should have *fans*.

(The fact that existing fans working with Saga turns them dumb is certainly a turnoff -- I couldn't have predicted Viper would become such an idiot by being let into your club... Sphynx, maybe...)

Saga comes off as a terribly exclusive club on every level -- from their secret forums to their preference for the hated, barely literate Freespace community to the fact that we hear the most about the game is obnoxious teenagers like Overmortal bragging about the time *they* were priveledged enough to play Saga. Look at their April Fools jokes... they're self centered to a crazy extent. Their post last year was about how hilarious it was that they might have 'fired' Psych. Why is that a joke to anyone other than people in your weird private community? It's just another "hah hah, we have our own special culture and you're not invited" dig.

(In the same vein, remember when they made a working Descent mod as a joke? That would have been hilarious... if they'd followed it with a real demo. It's several years later.)

But look at this thread -- Saga "wrote us off" the last time they screwed up big... and then they're back to yell at some poor kid for daring to criticise them? What the heck is that? Just come and be regular people, Saga. Your project does not put you above us, and any awe and wonder it may have inspired towards you has been spent in the last half a decade.
 
A name you shall have then, somewhat shortened from the original but it's better than nothing.

Regardless of the backstory or the politics which I really don't care to delve into at this late stage, there's something obvious to point out here:

...to their preference for the hated, barely literate Freespace community...
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Their mod is based on that engine. Therefore I'd imagine they're not trying to sell it to people who don't own a copy of the game at all - but to those that do. Find me a Half Life 2 mod team making a Medal of Honor mod that spend all their time on the Medal of Honor forums and none on the HL2 forums. You can't? That's because nobody would *ever* work that way around.

As for the rest of this - sort it out amongst yourselves. It's one can of worms I haven't the time for. Best of luck chaps, and remember to try and be nice to eachother. Computer games started out as entertainment y'know.
 
Kal said:
As for the rest of this - sort it out amongst yourselves. It's one can of worms I haven't the time for. Best of luck chaps, and remember to try and be nice to eachother. Computer games started out as entertainment y'know.
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I like the fact that when you lack the ability to come up with an answer - you just bail. That does nothing to endear yourself to the community, you know.
 
Or - and this might be a long shot for you - you could take me at my word. I really don't want to wade through whatever has happened here that I've obviously missed. It's entirely true that I have nothing to do with the Saga team or you guys here at CIC - I'm a third party. A third party who doesn't have the time for this arguement.

That's all there is to it - nothing more or less. If you want to make up some other reason that I'm not posting a vast essay with quotes and my opinion about everything that has been said then go ahead - but I promise you this - it'll be wrong.
 
Kal said:
Their mod is based on that engine. Therefore I'd imagine they're not trying to sell it to people who don't own a copy of the game at all - but to those that do. Find me a Half Life 2 mod team making a Medal of Honor mod that spend all their time on the Medal of Honor forums and none on the HL2 forums. You can't? That's because nobody would *ever* work that way around.
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I would normally agree except there's a slight problem with that. They're making this for Wing Commander fans and not Freespace fans. Yes, Freespace people can enjoy it as well if they like but this is mainly for WC fans. How do we know? It's not just a regular mod. A normal mod would require you to still own a copy of the original game to play. But Saga has stated earlier that they were using the Freespace Source engine and that this would be a stand-alone game. Meaning you can run Saga without ever touching Freespace 2.
 
plus they have their own forum here.

so makes sense to post in it.

Its been a long time comming has saga and they have fueled their own fires with arguments and saying a bad thing about the community and they have written us off.

i would love to see it out and ready - if theres one thing i learned from my project which failed with netkar. is that you cant keep trying too make everything amazing you need too set goals and stick to them not raise it up when you reach your goal, how many times have the models been redone and the voice acting? and i think its this which has delayed saga to a point where people arent eagerly awaiting its arrival, im not as eager as i was 2 years ago. its never going too be perfect, its going to have flaws.

you cant keep going back and start again once you finish a race, it gets boring for you and for us and we all get tired.

after 5 years i cannot believe we have still only seen static shots of saga. its time to get some videos done and not trailers or prerenders some in game footage if saga is as complete as you say. you need too back it up.

as long as the game is 98% complete once its 99% its time too release, no game is ever 100% thats why they need patches.

Vermin
 
Kal said:
It's entirely true that I have nothing to do with the Saga team or you guys here at CIC - I'm a third party
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Yet you try to convince me (us?) that we're wrong in thinking Saga has bad PR? Considering that the people here at the CZ have no want or need for a third party to say what we feel about the Saga Team or it's project - I can only surmise that you're actually brought in on behalf of Saga. No one that has a lack of interest in a topic posts about it.

Kal said:
A third party who doesn't have the time for this arguement.
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If that were true, you wouldn't be responding to my earlier statement. Get bent.
 
Their mod is based on that engine. Therefore I'd imagine they're not trying to sell it to people who don't own a copy of the game at all - but to those that do.
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Saga will not require you to own Freespace 2 - the engine has been 'open sourced'. The game will be a stand alone executable. I post to HTML forums when I need help with displaying some oddity on the front page of the CIC -- I certainly don't use them to talk about Wing Commander just because that's what the site is made of.
 
LeHah said:
Yet you try to convince me (us?) that we're wrong in thinking Saga has bad PR? Considering that the people here at the CZ have no want or need for a third party to say what we feel about the Saga Team or it's project - I can only surmise that you're actually brought in on behalf of Saga. No one that has a lack of interest in a topic posts about it.
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Don't be an idiot, LeHah. People can, and very frequently do express their opinions about things they're not directly involved in - hell, we haven't got any presidents or prime misters here, and look how many political threads have we had in the off-topic forum. It's certainly possible that he was brought in by Saga... but then again, judging from the unique intelligence of your comments in this thread, it's equally possible that you were brought in by Saga in a cunning attempt to win the argument by making us look stupid :p.
 
What tickled me most was when he resorted to telling me to get bent. Not exactly coherent debate at its finest :)

At any rate - no - I was not bought in by Saga. Or HLP or the FreeSpace community. From time to time I skim over these forums to see if anythings going on, typically regarding Saga because I'm quite looking forward to the mods completion. There is no grand conspiracy involving Saga having me come in on either side. Sorry!

LOAF, we might not see eye to eye about... anything. But you were right about one thing - I had forgotten that it was going to be standalone and therefore doesn't rely on you ever having owned FreeSpace. *That said* it's still built on that engine as a basis which makes the FreeSpace community every bit as much a target audience as the WC community is. That's no excuse for whatever PR mistakes have been made by Saga or anyone else though.
 
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