Hi guys. I understand and appreciate the debate that's going on. I really do "get" why some people are frustrated.. at the lack of visible progress, at the seeming stagnancy of the game, and at the lack of certainty of when things will change. I know the frustrations that people vent in my direction are only stemming from their affection for our product and company. I definitely do get that people just want to make themselves heard, make sure we know the problems exist. You don't see us playing, the way some of you used to (I used to be on quite a bit, back in the alpha and beta), and other than a lot of vague proclamations of progress, you really don't see much happening at all. And that is frustrating.. for both of us.

But your words are not falling on deaf ears. Some of you may have noticed my own frustrations surfacing in posts of past weeks, but those were not truly directed at you. My own frustrations stem from the knowledge that there is nothing left for me to say, to do, or to explain. Nothing that will really show you what great stuff we're creating, not until you can SEE it. And actually *showing* it to you, putting it in your hands, has been the one thing I could not do.. nor could I even put a certain date on. *I* know what we're doing, because I can see it every day, because my background and involvement lets me understand it. I try to.. translate that for the outside world, for our users and players, but after a certain point of all words and nothing to show.. it starts to fall short. Michael recently posted something like "I think if you could see the quality and quantity of our code, you would understand how hard we're working." Maybe it would for some, but I think for the majority.. faith starts to fall short when you don't really understand what's happening, or why. And it's that, that.. lack of explanation, that I apologize for. And it's that inability to.. show you, to make REAL for you, the great things that we're building.. it's that feeling of helplessness in the face of understandable and caring concern that frustrates me.

There was a Plan to make this communications process better, to show you more so you could better understand. I think it was even a pretty decent plan. But, like many best laid plans, it was knocked out of whack by an unexpected storm. It's my responsibility to try and guide this frail boat through storms, even when they happen to me personally, and I have done everything I could. But even with that knowledge, that certainty that I could have done little better with the circumstances.. I still regret very much that it has brought us to this place of apparent frustration and angst.

And so, I ask that we all take a breather, and a step back, and try to hold out for another week or so. I appreciate both the people who steadfastly fight for our game by vocalizing their criticisms, and those who steadfastly fight for our time by asking everyone else to leave us alone. I understand where you're both coming from. But right now, I'm missing our usually-friendly and optimistic community. Come hell or high water, we're going to get you a Test version of the new client as soon as humanly possible. Once we get that out of testing and into production.. then we'll really be able to start changing things. Some people might even be a little shocked at the rate of change.. I think you might want to be prepared for a bit of a floodgate.

So, please, relax a little. We're all fighting the good fight, we all have the common dream of seeing VO become the amazing.. experience that we all hope for. Every one of us, from all the developers to the newest paying user, we all are here for the potential of what we see. Our imaginations show us what this could be.. and It Will Be.

Where else do we see Devs staying up until, literally, the crack of dawn to debug missions?

Where else do we see a user-base like ours?

Where else do we see a post like the one above this one?

The only place I have ever seen (and may very well ever see on a similar project) a post like incarnate's is VO.

I certainly hope that the dissent with in the ranks has been quelled, because in the world of online games things don't get any more personal than this.

Nice Inc, I'm with you man... Go for it guys I know you can do it; actually I won't ever complain (but you gotta give me a tester BADGE, my char ingame is "GRAIGDaOne" feel free to give me some xp, credits and a tester badge and you 'll have your peace ) <-- totally kidding.

Really we all know its very hard but what we see and play is difficult to accept, may be it's your fault, for telling us that something is coming and the reality is different. But if you didn't lot's of player should leave, cause the dev team wouldn't be the friendly one we all know...

Keep it up guys, do your best, everything's gonna OK, just believe...
GL for all your future stuffs

I'll settle down when I get my damn UFO! (hehe, kidding)

Ok, i do get your point Inc., and I know you would love to do nothing more but sit around playing Vendetta, telling of yer great vision on channel and stuffs, but if you were doing that, then who would be hitting a1k0n, whipping momerath, telling ray he still sucks at PVP, and polishing up reno's artwork ? I guess my personal biggest issue is I cant find anyother project on the Internet that can hold my attention for more than a few weeks, so errm, yeah, i'd take a break at times instead of rant, BUT I CANT, sad eh? hehehe

Keep on rocking guild! And I will try to keep my posts more *constructive*.

*Claps*

Incarnate, Im completely with you.

Just one suggestion maybe: do not announce new stuff until its actually out. People go nuts waiting, staying up nights for updates that don't come as projected, so better surprise everyone, boom here it is, than keep people waiting. So many people get anxious about an update that they stay up all night, check the news several times per day etc etc. I think that is a part of why they are frustrated.

A round of applause for your statement above.

AKA Ecka Estenk

Well, as a relative noob I'm really quite impressed by what has already been done by a relatively small development team . Industrial and military experience has taught me that getting a project upgrade right is far more important than meeting a deadline and delivering an unsatisfactory system . Lets give the Devs some elbow room : they will release an upgrade when they are satisfied with it .

Despite what I said in another thread about not having a choice when it comes to space based MMOs, things like this very honest and communicative post by the dev team sets this game and it's community apart from the others and insures I will continue to play VO.

I haven't been very active or vocal recently mainly because I want to see the new client and I'm biding my time until that happens. I'm not the least bit worried or impatient because I know how hard you guys work at this, and when you say something takes time, that's because it really takes a lot of time. I've always had faith in you devs and I'll always be a fan of Vendetta.

VENDETTA RUUUUULEZ!

/me throws up the horns and headbangs in the front row

*claps* Most of us know the direction your going in Incarnate, and I personally cannot wait for the update, the excitment is bubbling under my surface and destorying my concentration when doing concept work. ;) Play vendetta or do 6 views of the same ship/ write out a history/backstory and layout it's Temporary stats for gameplay... I think there is an obvious decision between the two lol.

I totally agree with everything Phaserlight said.. except the horned headbanging and yelling.

Thanks, John.. I was moved.

Some of you all may remember me...kernel.panic.
Yup, I'm still around.
For some of the reasons Inc. stated, I've been out of this game. The fear of becoming bored with a game I so love has kept me from playing in quite a while. I've kept my account active so no one can steal my cool name...he he, and to support all the Devs hard work, of course!

I am anxiously awaiting some new stuff like all of the player base. I just thought I'd send over my $.02 worth of support, and hope all the devs are doing well. Happy Belated Holidays and so forth and somesuch to all of you.

Hope to see you all in-game soon (tm)...[i've never known how to do that tm thing...]

kernel.panic
the 22 million dollar n00b

I've not been on much since I started back, mostly due to work, but also because I play another MMO. (Not Eve, I kicked that bad habit finally.)

There is one thing I haven't understood though. Why no balance adjustments? It seems to me that these would be mostly changes to the data server side. The only content needed on the client would be to update info cards. These changes could be applied to both VO branches at the same time, then a very tiny client patch rolled out. This would have kept most of the current complaints quiet.

Also, with what GRAIG stated, I would like to see the current player base recieve "1.0" medal, like the alpha and beta players have, when 2.0 comes along.

Incarnate hello

I'm a new player to your game. And i must say that reading your post gives me hope for this game. I have never seen dev's write such heart felt post ever. You have my support. And i can't wait to see the update when you feel its ready. I for one always believe that an update should only go live when its ready. So i just would like to say thanks for the post. Also, you guys are doing one hell of a job with what you have so far.

No changes, even balance changes, can be made without editing the client, which is uneditable.

i've kept quiet on the subject til now...

incarnate: as always, it is nice to see a project where the devs are as passionate as the playerbase. we know your arms get sore from cracking the whip with one hand while coding with the other, or that your plan to interview shocky monkeys (illwillpress.com tech support 2 cartoon) to help ease your workload sometimes backfires. but i just wanted to say that all of us are behind you, or we would not be here. sometimes when all of you are burning the midnight oil for weeks at a time, we sometimes feel the need to crack our whips... sometimes we do it excessively.

playerbase: it would seem our passion for the game is as strong as ever. i for one would love to see nights with 100+ players on again and one way to do that is to get content.... or find people as geeky as us. in either case a working update is MUCH better than a borked one. anyone who has reinstalled WoW due to a crappy updater knows what i am talking about. so keep supporting the team, and lets find our own shocky monkey.

Hey Inc

Just wanna let you guys know, Vendetta has me hooked like no game ever had (except maybe Elite2 in the old days) aaand, I aint leaving untill I've walked around on stations or have landed on planets :p (and even then.... :) )

roguelazer: That's the same as saying you can't edit a webpage wihout rewriting the Apache source code. Learn the differnce between a program and data please. Also the notion of a code fork might be of use to you. The comment was aimed at Incarnate, since he actually works on this stuff.

Mecha: Rogue answered because he knew the answer, and he's correct. The objtable data which contains the game stats are currently stored in the client. We used to have it dynamically downloaded on game start, but it started to get so long that we figured we would speed up load times by just putting it in the client. Doing that was fine as long as we could produce new client builds, which was never a problem until we forked the client source a few months ago. Building new clients has now become somewhat.. difficult. Not impossible (nothing is?), but problematic and involved because of our spread of platforms and.. stuff. So, without new client updates, no balance changes.

Everyone else: thank you so much for your support and good wishes. It really goes a long way to helping us work on this game. You guys are.. why we're doing this. Without our userbase, even if we were financially independent, we probably would have quit long ago. Even with the ups and downs, having a base of people as involved and excited about your product as you are.. that's a tremendous boost.

Incarnate: Thanks for your heartfelt replies. From the discussions that I read here in the forums, it it obvious that there are many players who have a great deal of knowledge of programming. I do not have that knowledge, yet logic tells me that as Vendetta grows, the code must become increasingly complex. Increased complexity means that changes and additions become more difficult and time consuming. Perhaps my assumptions are incorrect. Yet with all the knowledge around here, I have been at times surprised by the apparent lack of understanding among some of our members. From time to time I have posted here to encourage patience. I want new content, features, ships, weapons, missions, yada yada yada. I really do. But having been around for about three years or so, I KNOW it is in the pipe. I also know that shit happens. It has before. I have never been bored. At times frustrated by the "leveling grind" but never bored. I wait (more or less silently) for what I know will come....