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Yeah. So, someday I'll write something about what all happened between 2004 and late-2010. Maybe after all the NDAs have expired.
I'm not ashamed of being hopeful back before we released. Most gamedevs are, everyone wants to hit it big and have the resources to expand the game. I mean, we were screwed over even at launch, although I'm unable to say how or by whom. We were dead broke even as we shipped the gold master.. a friend of mine PayPal'd us the money to pay our office rent the very month we shipped. It went on from there. I couldn't pay him back for like five years. That's life. Things are better now, and it was a long road. All things being equal, while I'm embarrassed about not fixing the faction system or whatever, I'm not that embarrassed; we did what we could, and my prioritizing the company at the expense of the game is probably the biggest reason we're still here.
Exploration hasn't been forgotten either, but aside from possible small-scale stuff, it isn't going to factor into the next six months. My focus is on fixing and polishing, rather than big, grandiose new gameplay. I would rather make what we have 100x better with smaller changes, rather than add 100 new somewhat-broken things that represent some massive gameplay goal. This would have been my preferred trajectory long ago, but gaming sites don't write articles about improvements to faction systems and things, and that used to be a critical component of our month-to-month existence.
Anyway, I have to focus on the future, I don't have time for anything else.
I'm locking this as it doesn't seem super productive anymore.
I'm not ashamed of being hopeful back before we released. Most gamedevs are, everyone wants to hit it big and have the resources to expand the game. I mean, we were screwed over even at launch, although I'm unable to say how or by whom. We were dead broke even as we shipped the gold master.. a friend of mine PayPal'd us the money to pay our office rent the very month we shipped. It went on from there. I couldn't pay him back for like five years. That's life. Things are better now, and it was a long road. All things being equal, while I'm embarrassed about not fixing the faction system or whatever, I'm not that embarrassed; we did what we could, and my prioritizing the company at the expense of the game is probably the biggest reason we're still here.
Exploration hasn't been forgotten either, but aside from possible small-scale stuff, it isn't going to factor into the next six months. My focus is on fixing and polishing, rather than big, grandiose new gameplay. I would rather make what we have 100x better with smaller changes, rather than add 100 new somewhat-broken things that represent some massive gameplay goal. This would have been my preferred trajectory long ago, but gaming sites don't write articles about improvements to faction systems and things, and that used to be a critical component of our month-to-month existence.
Anyway, I have to focus on the future, I don't have time for anything else.
I'm locking this as it doesn't seem super productive anymore.
Bojan, I was putting you in Inc's place... Priorities change. Inc has to do what is best for Guild when oportunities arise.
Nobody looked forward to the expansion more than me... I still do, but I also realize what Guild needs to do to make things go their way so they can keep working and not have VO fold.
You, still, won't find a better sim/fps/mmo or a better game developer out there than VO or Guild.
(relay-relocked)
Nobody looked forward to the expansion more than me... I still do, but I also realize what Guild needs to do to make things go their way so they can keep working and not have VO fold.
You, still, won't find a better sim/fps/mmo or a better game developer out there than VO or Guild.
(relay-relocked)
I've been a consistent presence here since June 7th, 2002.
Over the years I have seen plans made and remade as the situation dictates. I have been a subscriber since the time when it was possible to pay. I have never felt misled. I am amazed that GSW has managed to stay alive in a hostile market - many larger space MMO's have lived and died over this span. Incarnate's flexibility of thought is directly responsible for the state of VO today: Alive, and still developing. I'm happy to be a small part of it.
Relayer: shame on you for leaving this thread open.
/edit: yes, joking!
Over the years I have seen plans made and remade as the situation dictates. I have been a subscriber since the time when it was possible to pay. I have never felt misled. I am amazed that GSW has managed to stay alive in a hostile market - many larger space MMO's have lived and died over this span. Incarnate's flexibility of thought is directly responsible for the state of VO today: Alive, and still developing. I'm happy to be a small part of it.
Relayer: shame on you for leaving this thread open.
/edit: yes, joking!
Relayer: shame on you for leaving this thread open.
I'm assuming Whistler is joking, but Guides could always reply to locked threads.
Anyway, thanks for the responses, guys. But in fairness I am still a bit embarrassed that the faction issues have hung around for so long, I'm not trying to shirk that responsibility. I wrote up a bunch of design to fix it all, long ago, but it got into IFF and solving other related issues and became this tangled mess of stuff that was complicated to implement piecemeal (it had a lot of cross-dependencies, technical chickens and eggs). As a result it grew into a long-cycle issue that we didn't have the development resources to address in our weird survival mode of "do something newsworthy every X unit time", and that I became a bit scared of attempting (since every little decision I made could kill the company, at the time). I kept putting it off in the hopes of building up a little capital, enough "breathing room" that the risk wouldn't be so high, and this obviously went on a long time.
So, yes, I could have handled it better (keeping it simple); but no, I don't get terribly worked up about it given the backdrop of chaos I was navigating at that point. It was a very challenging road; we have definitely outlived many other companies and games, the majority of whom were far better funded.
But most of all, I just don't see a lot of point in getting worked up about the history. It's a bummer that some people carry bitterness about this. But, that's theirs to carry; I have stuff to do. Our situation is much better now, I'd rather focus on doing something to advance the game than sit around writing these kinds of posts.
I'm assuming Whistler is joking, but Guides could always reply to locked threads.
Anyway, thanks for the responses, guys. But in fairness I am still a bit embarrassed that the faction issues have hung around for so long, I'm not trying to shirk that responsibility. I wrote up a bunch of design to fix it all, long ago, but it got into IFF and solving other related issues and became this tangled mess of stuff that was complicated to implement piecemeal (it had a lot of cross-dependencies, technical chickens and eggs). As a result it grew into a long-cycle issue that we didn't have the development resources to address in our weird survival mode of "do something newsworthy every X unit time", and that I became a bit scared of attempting (since every little decision I made could kill the company, at the time). I kept putting it off in the hopes of building up a little capital, enough "breathing room" that the risk wouldn't be so high, and this obviously went on a long time.
So, yes, I could have handled it better (keeping it simple); but no, I don't get terribly worked up about it given the backdrop of chaos I was navigating at that point. It was a very challenging road; we have definitely outlived many other companies and games, the majority of whom were far better funded.
But most of all, I just don't see a lot of point in getting worked up about the history. It's a bummer that some people carry bitterness about this. But, that's theirs to carry; I have stuff to do. Our situation is much better now, I'd rather focus on doing something to advance the game than sit around writing these kinds of posts.