this game, WC Saga, and the truth

FleeBalls

Spaceman
The hard, cold truth is that you guys don't even care about your own project enough to update your site, let alone RELEASE something. So why should we? Well, from now on I don't. WC saga seemed to be an ambitious project that could have been amazing. It was an anticipated game to say the least. Those of us who actually love WC and would give any to have new games to play were very excited...but the fact is that you guys don't work hard enough, or are simply not capable of actually making this game. Maybe in several years you might actually finish, but I doubt it. But in the meantime you should never have touted this game, or told people that you were making it for them if you werent going to finish it or at least make a minimal effort to get it out in a somewhat reasonable time. You certainly shouldnt have accepted any fan awards that were given to you knowing that this game wouldnt even have a prologue available after three years of development...I understand that you guys have lives and that you dont get paid for making this game, but in respect for other wingnuts who shit themselves when they found out you were making WC Saga you shouldnt have announced it if you werent going to work on it? I thought that prologue was almost done? NO, not yet...big surprise...Its amazing that real fans like Reid and LOAF have jobs and lives and yet find time to update this site, take a leadership role in all the forums and keep up with everything else. And the standoff team puts out episode after episode, finished one game and is halfway through the other, and they all have jobs. Yeah, OK maybe you just dont care about WC that much. Well, the truth is you shouldnt have said you were gonna make this game.
 
OK, I didn't read the whole Post. (Dude! Paragraphs!)

But I have to agree partially.
IMHO there could be more little updates on the (hopefully) progressing work but that goes for pretty much all the projects.

But besides that I really love what I've seen so far and it's great that some people spend their (FREE!) time on projects like this.

I'm definately looking forward to the day when it'll be released.
A few regular updates would still be great though.
 
FleeBalls said:
you shouldnt have announced it if you werent going to work on it?
We ARE working on it. You may not get as many updates like Standoff or Pioneer but behnd the scenes the prologue really IS nearly done. Since Saga is a FS mod its a lot harder to mod.

I tell you now we could have released the prologue months ago, but would it have been great? No, it would have been fun, but not great. It would have been half an exprience. We realised it could be so much better if we did certain things. We have/are adding some cutscenes and the new Wing Commander type interphase.

I thought that prologue was almost done? NO,
Yes.

And the standoff team puts out episode after episode, finished one game and is halfway through the other, and they all have jobs.
The Wing Commander engine makes it easier to mod Standoff, and we are still working on adding that Wing Commander feeling to ours. Thats what takes most of the time. Once thats done things will move relatively quickly, and due to our idea of how we want it released we dont want it to be episodic but released all at once.

Yeah, OK maybe you just dont care about WC that much.
Yea, thats right, none of us really care about WC we are just messing with you all. For all the years since Saga was started Tolwyn, Lars, Lynx and Starman and others have just been sitting on their hands laughing at all of you.

Well, the truth is you shouldnt have said you were gonna make this game.
Please, Saga might take a while to finish, and you dont like that. Well sorry, we do all have lives and although Ive only been on the team for less than a year if I recall, Ive seen a lot of work being done and none of you guys realise it. No we dont do things the same way other mods have done them, we do keep lots of stuff private. And yes, I think the website should be kept more up to date too but I dont think its the be all end all. Things are not standing still.

At the end of the day, mod creators are giving up their time to give you a FREE game. Stop complaining just because you're impatient, and tell them they shouldnt even have started. Not only this, but when this mod is done, all you guys will be able to make your own mods using everything that SAGA team have made for you! So if it annoys you so much how long its taking just go away and wait for the announment on the CIC that the prologues out then come back.



Ed
 
Buddy, do you know how long it takes to make a decent game? Not a few months but many months. So give them some slack since they are doing this on their free time.
 
FleeBalls said:
The hard, cold truth is that you guys don't even care about your own project enough to update your site, let alone RELEASE something. So why should we? Well, from now on I don't. WC saga seemed to be an ambitious project that could have been amazing. It was an anticipated game to say the least. Those of us who actually love WC and would give any to have new games to play were very excited...but the fact is that you guys don't work hard enough, or are simply not capable of actually making this game. Maybe in several years you might actually finish, but I doubt it. But in the meantime you should never have touted this game, or told people that you were making it for them if you werent going to finish it or at least make a minimal effort to get it out in a somewhat reasonable time. You certainly shouldnt have accepted any fan awards that were given to you knowing that this game wouldnt even have a prologue available after three years of development...I understand that you guys have lives and that you dont get paid for making this game, but in respect for other wingnuts who shit themselves when they found out you were making WC Saga you shouldnt have announced it if you werent going to work on it? I thought that prologue was almost done? NO, not yet...big surprise...Its amazing that real fans like Reid and LOAF have jobs and lives and yet find time to update this site, take a leadership role in all the forums and keep up with everything else. And the standoff team puts out episode after episode, finished one game and is halfway through the other, and they all have jobs. Yeah, OK maybe you just dont care about WC that much. Well, the truth is you shouldnt have said you were gonna make this game.

You know, you're actually kinda annoying. When SAGA is delayed because of real life, it's usually stuff like exams, personal problems or simply lots of stuff which is a helluva lot more important then a computer game, even a fan made WC.

I'm a SAGA betatester, and I admire the work of these people alot, there's really alot of progress, and apart from a few bugs, the prologue is mostly complete, but these bugs need to be dealt with. I am also doing some sim missions for SAGA, which have been delayed a lot because of real life stuff(and i feel awful about it), can you really claim this makes me a horrible person that doesnt give a damn about the Wing Commander community? I think not.
 
FleeBalls said:
The hard, cold truth is that you guys don't even care about your own project enough to update your site, let alone RELEASE something. So why should we? Well, from now on I don't. WC saga seemed to be an ambitious project that could have been amazing. It was an anticipated game to say the least. Those of us who actually love WC and would give any to have new games to play were very excited...but the fact is that you guys don't work hard enough, or are simply not capable of actually making this game. Maybe in several years you might actually finish, but I doubt it. But in the meantime you should never have touted this game, or told people that you were making it for them if you werent going to finish it or at least make a minimal effort to get it out in a somewhat reasonable time. You certainly shouldnt have accepted any fan awards that were given to you knowing that this game wouldnt even have a prologue available after three years of development...I understand that you guys have lives and that you dont get paid for making this game, but in respect for other wingnuts who shit themselves when they found out you were making WC Saga you shouldnt have announced it if you werent going to work on it? I thought that prologue was almost done? NO, not yet...big surprise...Its amazing that real fans like Reid and LOAF have jobs and lives and yet find time to update this site, take a leadership role in all the forums and keep up with everything else. And the standoff team puts out episode after episode, finished one game and is halfway through the other, and they all have jobs. Yeah, OK maybe you just dont care about WC that much. Well, the truth is you shouldnt have said you were gonna make this game.
None of your reasons are any good and attacking the people making a mod is likely to get you banned.
 
Lt.Death100 said:
None of your reasons are any good and attacking the people making a mod is likely to get you banned.

Thats not to say there aren't any reasons to dislike Saga - he just didn't mention any reasonable ones.
 
I am studying video game design in school and had to make a game idea and a level from scratch. It took me the better part of 3-4 months of class time and my own FREE time to complete the project. And it was just ONE level. It takes alot of patience to do this kind of work. Both from the developers side AND the player. When I saw the first few screens and videos of the game, I thought it was the guys from EA doing the game. I was blown away at how great it looked. In my opinion the guys working on WC Saga deserve to work for one of those companies because they have the patience and skill required to do the work right. I myself can only hope to get as good as those guys so I can get into the game industry as a designer, and make games instead of just playing them. So everyone else is right, back off the development team and be patient!
 
Please believe us when we say that we are just as eager to get WC Saga to you as you are to play it.

Honestly, we are.

But, we aren't going to settle for shoddy work. We didn't want it to feel like FS2 with a scent of WC. We wanted it to feel like WC. Period. So, we had to change a LOT of things in the FS2 engine. We even changed the whole interface (a remarkably time-consuming project, I might add), which no one has ever done before.

We have lobbied for various changes in the Source Code Project build of FS2 to allow us to add things like autopilot and a third set of primary weapons (crucial for the Thunderbolt), which we felt were necessary in order to create the true pathos of WC. We have labored over issues of canon (since our storyline is so big and encompasses so much, we have had to be very careful to make sure we get our ducks all in a row, and this community has been very helpful in providing information that has allowed us to do that).

Our missions are complex. Our models are beautifully rendered and fully functional. Our game is balanced so that the combat feels like WC. You will fly everything from a patrol involving a single wing of fighters to an all out, fully rendered fleet action battle with entire strike fleets of capital ships duking it out with authentic WC strategies. It is a sight to behold, and you are going to love it.

Also, please remember that this project was being worked on even before it came alive in the FS2 engine. Each step of the way, Tolwyn and Starman, together with the other originators, have made hard yet necessary decisions to make Saga a phenomenal project.

I have played the beta of the prologue, and it is incredible. Right now, everything is done except for a little polish on a few cutscenes. You will have the Prologue before you know it, and all of the painstaking work we have put into making alterations for the Prologue will allow us to release the full game much, much more quickly than if we had put together a half-baked Prologue just to get something out so people could play.

It is a hard, hard balance, but I think once you play Saga you will value what we have decided to do. Also, if you could compare what we have now to what we had even 6 months ago, I am sure you would say it was worth every extra day in development.

There have been terrible trials in some of our lives, not just busy work schedules. We have respected each other's RL issues as a team. We work hard, we plan hard, and we don't settle for mediocrity. That is what has taken us more time. But it will be worth it, and you will have the Prologue very soon.

Keep the faith. We won't let you down.
 
meisdavidp said:
psych, that's unnecesarry. I thought we were above that here.

Its funny becuase I read psychs reply and looked up the page to see if he had actually replied saying that, HAHAHAHA.
 
None of your reasons are any good and attacking the people making a mod is likely to get you banned.

We're not going to ban him. He makes a legitimate point, however offensive it might seem: we haven't heard anything from Saga. The news archive has updates about Saga going all the way back to 2001 -- that's more development time than all of the Kilrathi war games.

Now, I don't agree with the original poster's supposition that this in any way suggests that Saga doesn't care about their project or about WC... but it is possible that they bit off more than they could chew, or that they promised more than they could deliver too soon -- and that seems like it is something that could be discussed.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
or that they promised more than they could deliver too soon.

Well I think all of us would admit that, right? We dont want to do that anymore so thats why we no longer tell people a date. :D

Ed
 
Dyret said:
You know, you're actually kinda annoying. When SAGA is delayed because of real life, it's usually stuff like exams, personal problems or simply lots of stuff which is a helluva lot more important then a computer game, even a fan made WC.

Funny that this came up today. Just last night LOAF and I were talking about this. It's really easy to cite personal problems, because everyone is constantly having them. The CIC staff winds up in the hospital, has their hard drives crash, suffers deaths in the family, has to turn in multiple term papers at exam time and a million other real life pressures too. Everyone will be taken out of action at one point or another. Once you start claiming them as reasons why you've gotten behind though, there's going to always be something new that gets in the way. It's a matter of commitment and priorities.
 
ChrisReid said:
Once you start claiming them as reasons why you've gotten behind though, there's going to always be something new that gets in the way. It's a matter of commitment and priorities.

Only if thats the only reason given.
 
I have two big papers due on monday, but I'm still probably going to spend most of my time glossing a copy of Freedom Flight.

Seriously, though, there was certainly a lengthy perception of arrogance on the part of the Saga team -- whenever Standoff would do announced impressive Saga would try to outshine them... and I think Saga is paying for that in a long run: you don't hear people talking about 'Saga and Standoff' as being *the* WC mods anymore.
 
I think their is no point in debating what has happend. We had taken the road we had taken and we can only go on from that point.
I can only say we will finish what we started.
 
Personal problems are not the only reasons we have cited. However, when it comes to RL, problems with family and health ARE our first priority and our highest committment, as they should be. I would be ashamed of us if they were not.

Really, though, RL problems have not been the major time-consuming factor. As I mentioned, we have wanted to do this right. We felt that WC deserves that much. In order to do that, we have had to lobby for changes in the FS2 SCP Engine (something which none of us could do ourselves). How soon those things could be done was entirely out of our hands, but we felt it was best to wait for them before a release.

While we were waiting on those points, we were eagerly and actively engaged in getting other work done. We have never been idle.

We have also made sure that what we are creating will be easily modable, so that once we have a release, many, many more fan projects can be done in a short amount of time (including a much quicker release of the full campaign), and all of the minutae which we have been dealing with will not slow things down.

You are right. This is a BIG project (and once you play it, you will really understand what we mean). It has taken us more time than anticipated. However, we are unwilling to sacrifice quality for a more proximate release date.

We feel that in the long run, you will agree that we have made the right decision.
 
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