Forums are open again!
Tab
After a small hiatus for maintenance, the forums are back.
The maintenance was necessary to adapt some new tools to aid us in development.
Don't worry, nothing big have changed ;)
The maintenance was necessary to adapt some new tools to aid us in development.
Don't worry, nothing big have changed ;)
Tab
Remaining Bugs
Tab
Remaining Bugs
The following bugs are taken directly from our tracker and are the only bugs still needing a fix before the final 1.9.4 test.
[code] [feedback] Freeze blocking
Current Status: Open, awaiting feedback on how it behaves
Detailed Description: This problem arises usually when a player is trying to unfreeze a block from outside the base, and the person inside wants to stop them from unfreezing. The person inside the base can begin to freeze the same block as the person outside the base. This "blocks" the freezing of the person outside, meaning they cannot unfreeze that block until the person inside stops. This becomes a huge problem in pugs/scrims when one team is trying to get through the wall and the other team can just sit behind the wall and keep blocking the other team from unfreezing the block.
[code] [re-opened] Nade Time
Current Status: Semi-fixed, needs further tweaking
Detailed Description: This problem has to do with grenades and grav nading. Currently (unless this has already been fixed, but I 'm 99% sure it hasn't) in v1.9.4 when you drop the nade and pick it up with your gravity gun, the counter on the grenade continues to go. This means that, with the current timer which is at 4 seconds, you only have four seconds to grab the nade and fire it before it detonates. Instead, when you pick up a grenade with your grav gun the timer should reset back to its original value (4 seconds IIRC). This is done mostly for ease-of-use, meaning that players have more time to fire the grenade from their grav gun thus making gravnading easier. The timer has reset in the past versions of SF, so it really should not be changed for v1.9.4.
[code/animation] [open] RPG Reload Animation
Current Status: Not fixed, low priority
Detailed Description: After the rocketeer fires a rocket, there is no reload animation. After firing there should be the old "lower the RPG, raise the RPG" that denoted the reload.
The following bugs are taken directly from our tracker and are the only bugs still needing a fix before the final 1.9.4 test.
[code] [feedback] Freeze blocking
Current Status: Open, awaiting feedback on how it behaves
Detailed Description: This problem arises usually when a player is trying to unfreeze a block from outside the base, and the person inside wants to stop them from unfreezing. The person inside the base can begin to freeze the same block as the person outside the base. This "blocks" the freezing of the person outside, meaning they cannot unfreeze that block until the person inside stops. This becomes a huge problem in pugs/scrims when one team is trying to get through the wall and the other team can just sit behind the wall and keep blocking the other team from unfreezing the block.
[code] [re-opened] Nade Time
Current Status: Semi-fixed, needs further tweaking
Detailed Description: This problem has to do with grenades and grav nading. Currently (unless this has already been fixed, but I 'm 99% sure it hasn't) in v1.9.4 when you drop the nade and pick it up with your gravity gun, the counter on the grenade continues to go. This means that, with the current timer which is at 4 seconds, you only have four seconds to grab the nade and fire it before it detonates. Instead, when you pick up a grenade with your grav gun the timer should reset back to its original value (4 seconds IIRC). This is done mostly for ease-of-use, meaning that players have more time to fire the grenade from their grav gun thus making gravnading easier. The timer has reset in the past versions of SF, so it really should not be changed for v1.9.4.
[code/animation] [open] RPG Reload Animation
Current Status: Not fixed, low priority
Detailed Description: After the rocketeer fires a rocket, there is no reload animation. After firing there should be the old "lower the RPG, raise the RPG" that denoted the reload.
Tab
The thing about mods is...
Tab
You never understand how painstakingly long something so simple can take to finish until you actually work on one. That basically sums up everything wrong with every mod. Take a look at SourceForts. Version 1.9.3 was supposed to be the end all be all of the 1.9.x series. Unfortunately, this did not work out... at all.
Move on to v1.9.4 and... oh you're still waiting for that. Release date, whenever we say it's done. When will we say it's done? When we learn from our mistakes and have a more extensive beta testing session. Nobody is perfect, and we're far from it.
I know you all want the next version to come out. Hell, I'm embarassed when I think about how many times we've said it's close. Sure it seemed close at the time, but close is relative. We have to work through all that fun crap life throws at us, and then find time to deal with the crazy drama pandas on our forums. On top of that we (Read: Zoc) have to find time to work on this sloth of a project.
So please people, cut us some slack. We're working, I swear.
Move on to v1.9.4 and... oh you're still waiting for that. Release date, whenever we say it's done. When will we say it's done? When we learn from our mistakes and have a more extensive beta testing session. Nobody is perfect, and we're far from it.
I know you all want the next version to come out. Hell, I'm embarassed when I think about how many times we've said it's close. Sure it seemed close at the time, but close is relative. We have to work through all that fun crap life throws at us, and then find time to deal with the crazy drama pandas on our forums. On top of that we (Read: Zoc) have to find time to work on this sloth of a project.
So please people, cut us some slack. We're working, I swear.
Tab
And they did it again
Tab
THE FAUCET CONSPIRACY already exposed the CRIMES of the evil transglobal coroperation VALVE
Now ONCE AGAIN they strive to DESTROY everything this modification stands for!
And therefore they updated thy holy SOURCE ENGINE and, as what happened over THREE YEARS AGO they have DESTROYED EVERYTHING THAT IS SOURCEFORTS
So yeah. Damn you Valve.
Guess this means we better hurry up and release 194, eh?
Now ONCE AGAIN they strive to DESTROY everything this modification stands for!
FREEDOM!
HOPE!
LIBERTY!
HOPE!
LIBERTY!
And therefore they updated thy holy SOURCE ENGINE and, as what happened over THREE YEARS AGO they have DESTROYED EVERYTHING THAT IS SOURCEFORTS
So yeah. Damn you Valve.
Guess this means we better hurry up and release 194, eh?
Tab
More News?
Tab
Just another quick announcement.
We would like to welcome our new concept artist, GCool, to the SourceForts development team. He proved to be of great worth to the team prior to joining through his modification of o_nobody_o's flechette concept, and will therefore be taking upon the duty of conceptualsing the remaining weapons for the phase 1 release, as well as any other 3D visual assets that are deemed a requirment as development progresses.
On a less positive note, HisChild has had to take an indefinite absence from the team due to matters of greater priority arising in his day to day life (the details of which will not be disclosed). Zoc will be finishing up the absolute, final fixes for 194 before returning to work on Haven with Xyal (who should be back with us shortly).
That's all for now, but we'll be doing what we can to keep you up to date on progress.
Another edit to save a news post:
Construct mod have just registered their website, www.constructmod.com - It's just a place holder for now, but keep an eye on it!
We would like to welcome our new concept artist, GCool, to the SourceForts development team. He proved to be of great worth to the team prior to joining through his modification of o_nobody_o's flechette concept, and will therefore be taking upon the duty of conceptualsing the remaining weapons for the phase 1 release, as well as any other 3D visual assets that are deemed a requirment as development progresses.
On a less positive note, HisChild has had to take an indefinite absence from the team due to matters of greater priority arising in his day to day life (the details of which will not be disclosed). Zoc will be finishing up the absolute, final fixes for 194 before returning to work on Haven with Xyal (who should be back with us shortly).
That's all for now, but we'll be doing what we can to keep you up to date on progress.
Another edit to save a news post:
Construct mod have just registered their website, www.constructmod.com - It's just a place holder for now, but keep an eye on it!
Tab
Another small update.
Tab
Firstly, as covered in yesterdays news post, 1.9.4 release is more or less imminent, however we don't want to set a solid release date because something always comes up. Big servers hosts will shortly be contacted with information on the server version followed by a general public release.
We're hoping 194 will be the last solid version of the 19x series. We know it was just meant to be a bug fix, but a lot has been changed behind the scenes. I'm sure you're going to appreciate the aesthetic updates to a few popular maps, the quelling of bugs from the previous version and a few touches here and there. That said, it still took us far longer than we anticipated and we can do nothing but apologise for the delays.
On another note, Ex-SF staff members FicWill, KGtheway2B and Louti accompanied by Steam Podcast staff member Bob (and a number of others) have started up their own SourceForts inspired modification, Construct. They're on the lookout for new staff, at the moment concept artists in particular, so if you're up for it, get in contact!
They don't seem to have their own full website yet, but when they do, we'll provide a link.
Snuffyedit: Little update on this update: Construct has already found a concept artist, so they are requesting no more applications be sent in.
We're hoping 194 will be the last solid version of the 19x series. We know it was just meant to be a bug fix, but a lot has been changed behind the scenes. I'm sure you're going to appreciate the aesthetic updates to a few popular maps, the quelling of bugs from the previous version and a few touches here and there. That said, it still took us far longer than we anticipated and we can do nothing but apologise for the delays.
On another note, Ex-SF staff members FicWill, KGtheway2B and Louti accompanied by Steam Podcast staff member Bob (and a number of others) have started up their own SourceForts inspired modification, Construct. They're on the lookout for new staff, at the moment concept artists in particular, so if you're up for it, get in contact!
They don't seem to have their own full website yet, but when they do, we'll provide a link.
Snuffyedit: Little update on this update: Construct has already found a concept artist, so they are requesting no more applications be sent in.
Tab
Small update on v1.9.4
Tab
As you may or may not know, today was hoped to be the day that SourceForts v1.9.4 would undergo its final beta test. However, during testing some issues cropped up that have resulted in the need for further minor (yet very necessary) code fixes to be performed. We do not expect these fixes to take very long, but they will cause disappointment for those who expected a release to follow today's test. In the meantime, here are some screenshots of one of the maps Commander has updated for v1.9.4, sf_astrodome (Click to expand).
We will keep you guys updated as we finish up the last few fixes for v1.9.4.
We will keep you guys updated as we finish up the last few fixes for v1.9.4.
Tab
Happy Birthday Tony
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Don't get too hammered tonight, mate.
Tab
Man, why did we hire that plumber...
Tab
Several hours later the Devs walk to the mic, dragging that damn plumber behind them...
Ok guys, a lot has happened over the last 24-ish hours. Hopefully this post will clear up everything. We decided it would be easy to make this more of a “FAQ” in style, since there were a lot of questions asked and a lot of answers given. So without further ado:
NB: Anyone that posts “tl;dr” will receive a one-day ban to start with. This is your only warning. If you cannot be bothered to read this thread, do not post about it.
WTF is the SF Design Team doing?
The SourceForts Design Team is a group of players who are essentially developers, without any specific technical skills or technical tasks to work on. Instead, they contribute ideas, participate in discussions, and assist in making decisions regarding v2.0. Currently, the design team consists of snuffy, entRo, Scatman, Master Dana, Kas, NocturnO, Monty, Fail, and RedXIII. Yes, they are all members of Suverin and/or were part of the old SF 2.0 leak. They were not chosen simply because they were in Suverin or because they were involved with the leak. They were chosen because they were part of the original “Haven” development team, and have experience with the concept behind v2.0.
How did we get here anyway?
A while back, when the "old devs" still were running SF, there was a group of people that didn't really like the way SF was heading. They initially started developing their own mod, called Haven, and even had a working alpha. However, their lead coder dropped off the face of the planet, taking Haven’s source code with him. They decided to keep working on the mod as much as they could, although they knew they would eventually need a coder and more resources. Sometime in the summer of '07, some of the SF Devs got involved with Haven, really liking the concept behind it. Long story short, the team decided that SF was pretty much dead-in-the-water development wise, and the best option would be to merge the two mods, with "Haven" becoming 2.0 and being remade from the ground up.
Fast forward a bit, new SF development team gets some coders, a modeler, and a new mapper or two, and rushes the release of v1.9.3. Realizing how poor 1.9.3 was, the team decides to develop 1.9.4 before putting its full resources into 2.0 (this would be December '07). HisChild continued to work on 1.9.4, with the mappers fixing some bugs in maps for 1.9.4. The concept artist (o_nobody_o) works on some stuff, Slice works on some stuff, flow of progress is pretty good.
Exactly where are we right now?
Since HisChild had more experience with the Source SDK, we decided that he would be the Lead Programmer for v1.9.4; Black, Commander, Khuskan, and Sayyan worked on the various bugs in the official maps. Right now, v1.9.4 of SourceForts is being wrapped up. We think we’ve finally gotten rid of all, or at least the majority of, the bugs in v1.9.3. Before we release v1.9.4, however, we will be conducting much more extensive testing than what was done for v1.9.3.
But what about v2.0? Well, since Zoc didn’t have much experience with the Source SDK at the time, we decided that he would start coding v2.0 from the ground up. We felt this would be a good learning experience for him, and we were right. He has picked up the Source SDK very quickly and has been making great progress. Right now, he has managed to get some of the basic SF features in, such as flags and capturezones, the beginnings of the scoreboard, and has even gotten blocks into the game. His next tasks include finishing the scoreboard, a block-spawning mechanism (most likely a gun of some sort at this point), and a block-freezing system.
Besides Zoc, our concept artist o_nobody_o and our modeler Slice began working on some of the weapons for Phase 1 of SourceForts 2.0. So far, Slice has finished the model for the SF 2.0 minigun (originally posted here, final here and here), and is currently working on the “flechette gun” for SF 2.0. He just posted a Dev Diary with some images of the gun, and everyone should check it out.
Now, a question from concerned community member Disturber:
Why are we still months away from an alpha (my analysis of the comments made here) when we are almost eleven months out from the leak and over ten months out from the major exits from the old dev team? I'm a little hazy on the time line, but it seems to me (again from posts made here) that the separate Haven project was active at least by early April of last year, if not earlier. The dismissive and vague responses are hurting you more than any argument that I (or nip, or Bobert, or TommieV) could possibly advance. You really need to explain this, and that was the original point of the thread, as staff shortages and source code loss still don't seem to fully account for the shortfall at a conceptual level -- classes not even roughly determined, etc. The lack of confidence has nothing to do with aptitude or experience; I think our concern is with your collective ability to execute.
So, why has progress on v2.0 been so slow? The short answer is that we haven’t been working on it for that long now.
The current Dev team only took over on October 6th, 2007. For the first two months we worked on v1.9.3. Zoc began working on v2.0 on December 1st, 2007 (or within a few days of the release of v1.9.3), and has made good progress so far. The code for v2.0 is much cleaner than the old SF code, and the clean code will make it much easier for our coders to add onto later. What Zoc is working on now is probably the most time-consuming part of the project: creating the basic game rules. Still, it is important to remember that Zoc, like the other Devs and everyone on this forum, has a life outside of SF and cannot spend all of his free time working on the project.
As to the “conceptual shortfall”, I’m not entirely sure where you’re getting that from. We already have the basic plans for the classes laid out, and as soon as we have them in a more understandable format we can share them with you. For those that missed it the first time, you can also check out our public design document, which contains a description of the gameplay in Haven.
Anyway, why haven’t we been keeping you guys more up-to-date?
Well, part of the answer is that we didn’t feel there was much to tell you guys about. To us, lots of posts saying “Hey guys, HisChild just fixed this bug that you guys have never seen before because it in v1.9.3” or “Hey, HisChild just fixed another bug!” doesn’t really mean much. There was the possibility of doing a “bug tracker” in HisChild’s user title like we did with v1.9.3, but for v1.9.4 we didn’t really have a clear number of the bugs, what with the constant fixing of bugs and discovery of bugs.
We were planning on doing at least two Dev Diaries, one with Slice’s new weapon and one with Khuskan and Commander’s first v2.0 map. However, we first showed some images of the map to our beta team, and someone leaked those images. The leak worried us a bit and we were reconsidering our media release policy. We initially decided that we would wait until v1.9.4 was out before we showed anything more from v2.0. The community, however, began to question what was going on behind the scenes with SourceForts; this of course erupted in the “wtf is the ‘sourceforts design team’ doin?” thread, which is viewable here. So we decided to have Slice post his Dev Diary early. To make it more clear: yes, we posted the Flechette Diary now because the community was asking us to.
Closing thoughts…
We've structured our entire development process around allowing feedback. We are 100% insistent that the only way to judge a game is by playing it, and that's why we settled with a far less glamorous two phased release - so everyone could get their hands on it and provide feedback before we spent too much time and effort prettying everything up for a final release.
It's like… we know everyone wants to have their say, and we want everyone to have their say, but when people have their say we think they should be given the opportunity to speak from a justified ground. If we were to just post a load of ideas we were having, the community wouldn't be able to pass any more judgment on them than we can at the moment. We aren’t saying we're better than the community, we’re just saying that if you haven't tried an idea you can't judge it - it's like saying a style of music sucks when it's only been described to you. There is no plausible way that the entire community can test out every feature as we do, and it just the way things played out that resulted in the design team being purely Suverin/leakers.
Well, this has been quite a bit of text, and we’d like to thank everyone for making it this far. There may have been some things we missed along the way, and it’s ok for you to remind us of them. We just ask that everyone discusses and asks questions in a reasonable, mature manner (and uses periods and proper capitalization. Please, for the love of god, don’t give us huge blocks of text with no breaks.) Once again, thank you for reading this all the way through, and we look forward to working with the community in the future.
Ok guys, a lot has happened over the last 24-ish hours. Hopefully this post will clear up everything. We decided it would be easy to make this more of a “FAQ” in style, since there were a lot of questions asked and a lot of answers given. So without further ado:
NB: Anyone that posts “tl;dr” will receive a one-day ban to start with. This is your only warning. If you cannot be bothered to read this thread, do not post about it.
WTF is the SF Design Team doing?
The SourceForts Design Team is a group of players who are essentially developers, without any specific technical skills or technical tasks to work on. Instead, they contribute ideas, participate in discussions, and assist in making decisions regarding v2.0. Currently, the design team consists of snuffy, entRo, Scatman, Master Dana, Kas, NocturnO, Monty, Fail, and RedXIII. Yes, they are all members of Suverin and/or were part of the old SF 2.0 leak. They were not chosen simply because they were in Suverin or because they were involved with the leak. They were chosen because they were part of the original “Haven” development team, and have experience with the concept behind v2.0.
How did we get here anyway?
A while back, when the "old devs" still were running SF, there was a group of people that didn't really like the way SF was heading. They initially started developing their own mod, called Haven, and even had a working alpha. However, their lead coder dropped off the face of the planet, taking Haven’s source code with him. They decided to keep working on the mod as much as they could, although they knew they would eventually need a coder and more resources. Sometime in the summer of '07, some of the SF Devs got involved with Haven, really liking the concept behind it. Long story short, the team decided that SF was pretty much dead-in-the-water development wise, and the best option would be to merge the two mods, with "Haven" becoming 2.0 and being remade from the ground up.
Fast forward a bit, new SF development team gets some coders, a modeler, and a new mapper or two, and rushes the release of v1.9.3. Realizing how poor 1.9.3 was, the team decides to develop 1.9.4 before putting its full resources into 2.0 (this would be December '07). HisChild continued to work on 1.9.4, with the mappers fixing some bugs in maps for 1.9.4. The concept artist (o_nobody_o) works on some stuff, Slice works on some stuff, flow of progress is pretty good.
Exactly where are we right now?
Since HisChild had more experience with the Source SDK, we decided that he would be the Lead Programmer for v1.9.4; Black, Commander, Khuskan, and Sayyan worked on the various bugs in the official maps. Right now, v1.9.4 of SourceForts is being wrapped up. We think we’ve finally gotten rid of all, or at least the majority of, the bugs in v1.9.3. Before we release v1.9.4, however, we will be conducting much more extensive testing than what was done for v1.9.3.
But what about v2.0? Well, since Zoc didn’t have much experience with the Source SDK at the time, we decided that he would start coding v2.0 from the ground up. We felt this would be a good learning experience for him, and we were right. He has picked up the Source SDK very quickly and has been making great progress. Right now, he has managed to get some of the basic SF features in, such as flags and capturezones, the beginnings of the scoreboard, and has even gotten blocks into the game. His next tasks include finishing the scoreboard, a block-spawning mechanism (most likely a gun of some sort at this point), and a block-freezing system.
Besides Zoc, our concept artist o_nobody_o and our modeler Slice began working on some of the weapons for Phase 1 of SourceForts 2.0. So far, Slice has finished the model for the SF 2.0 minigun (originally posted here, final here and here), and is currently working on the “flechette gun” for SF 2.0. He just posted a Dev Diary with some images of the gun, and everyone should check it out.
Now, a question from concerned community member Disturber:
Why are we still months away from an alpha (my analysis of the comments made here) when we are almost eleven months out from the leak and over ten months out from the major exits from the old dev team? I'm a little hazy on the time line, but it seems to me (again from posts made here) that the separate Haven project was active at least by early April of last year, if not earlier. The dismissive and vague responses are hurting you more than any argument that I (or nip, or Bobert, or TommieV) could possibly advance. You really need to explain this, and that was the original point of the thread, as staff shortages and source code loss still don't seem to fully account for the shortfall at a conceptual level -- classes not even roughly determined, etc. The lack of confidence has nothing to do with aptitude or experience; I think our concern is with your collective ability to execute.
So, why has progress on v2.0 been so slow? The short answer is that we haven’t been working on it for that long now.
The current Dev team only took over on October 6th, 2007. For the first two months we worked on v1.9.3. Zoc began working on v2.0 on December 1st, 2007 (or within a few days of the release of v1.9.3), and has made good progress so far. The code for v2.0 is much cleaner than the old SF code, and the clean code will make it much easier for our coders to add onto later. What Zoc is working on now is probably the most time-consuming part of the project: creating the basic game rules. Still, it is important to remember that Zoc, like the other Devs and everyone on this forum, has a life outside of SF and cannot spend all of his free time working on the project.
As to the “conceptual shortfall”, I’m not entirely sure where you’re getting that from. We already have the basic plans for the classes laid out, and as soon as we have them in a more understandable format we can share them with you. For those that missed it the first time, you can also check out our public design document, which contains a description of the gameplay in Haven.
Anyway, why haven’t we been keeping you guys more up-to-date?
Well, part of the answer is that we didn’t feel there was much to tell you guys about. To us, lots of posts saying “Hey guys, HisChild just fixed this bug that you guys have never seen before because it in v1.9.3” or “Hey, HisChild just fixed another bug!” doesn’t really mean much. There was the possibility of doing a “bug tracker” in HisChild’s user title like we did with v1.9.3, but for v1.9.4 we didn’t really have a clear number of the bugs, what with the constant fixing of bugs and discovery of bugs.
We were planning on doing at least two Dev Diaries, one with Slice’s new weapon and one with Khuskan and Commander’s first v2.0 map. However, we first showed some images of the map to our beta team, and someone leaked those images. The leak worried us a bit and we were reconsidering our media release policy. We initially decided that we would wait until v1.9.4 was out before we showed anything more from v2.0. The community, however, began to question what was going on behind the scenes with SourceForts; this of course erupted in the “wtf is the ‘sourceforts design team’ doin?” thread, which is viewable here. So we decided to have Slice post his Dev Diary early. To make it more clear: yes, we posted the Flechette Diary now because the community was asking us to.
Closing thoughts…
We've structured our entire development process around allowing feedback. We are 100% insistent that the only way to judge a game is by playing it, and that's why we settled with a far less glamorous two phased release - so everyone could get their hands on it and provide feedback before we spent too much time and effort prettying everything up for a final release.
It's like… we know everyone wants to have their say, and we want everyone to have their say, but when people have their say we think they should be given the opportunity to speak from a justified ground. If we were to just post a load of ideas we were having, the community wouldn't be able to pass any more judgment on them than we can at the moment. We aren’t saying we're better than the community, we’re just saying that if you haven't tried an idea you can't judge it - it's like saying a style of music sucks when it's only been described to you. There is no plausible way that the entire community can test out every feature as we do, and it just the way things played out that resulted in the design team being purely Suverin/leakers.
Well, this has been quite a bit of text, and we’d like to thank everyone for making it this far. There may have been some things we missed along the way, and it’s ok for you to remind us of them. We just ask that everyone discusses and asks questions in a reasonable, mature manner (and uses periods and proper capitalization. Please, for the love of god, don’t give us huge blocks of text with no breaks.) Once again, thank you for reading this all the way through, and we look forward to working with the community in the future.
Tab
Some words...
Tab
It's been a little over two months since v1.9.3 was released. It was a bit rushed; I think we can all agree on that. We gave you guys a date that we would release on and we held up to our end of the bargain. In hindsight we should have tested more. There were some pretty clear bugs that we didn't catch in our "testing" sessions. The blame can fall on more than a few people, and I suppose I could throw myself in the group. (I just make sharp looking models though.)
So where is v1.9.4? That's the question isn't it? Well it's on its way. Be assured. The problems have been the same that have plagued SourceForts ever since its inception. Delays were always common. In response to the criticism we received, we simply stopped giving out release dates. (May, 2006 anyone?) Version 1.9.4 was given the title "bugfix release”. It's catchy, sounds good, and sounds easy. Well nothing is easy. It's being worked on, but inevitable feature requests have crept into the release delaying it further.
There is also the problem of developer reliability. The human aspect if you will. I can depend on my computer. It's harder to depend on the staff though. How many coders have joined our ranks and simply disappeared? Not responding to emails, not getting on MSN, not coding for SourceForts. (HisChild and Zoc, thanks for staying on this long, and keep up the awesome work.)
The most important thing for you to think on is that this is a hobby. I get home from school, check the SourceForts message boards, hang around IRC, and then call it a night. It’s hard to get stuff done when the most you’ve done in the past month is install and skin a fresh Wiki. It’s not that much different from the other developers. Khuskan is a sound engineer working on a mod that has used one of his sounds. (The intro music if you’re curious.)
Here ends my explanation. It probably didn’t answer any of your questions. You already knew everything you just read. Version 1.9.4 is on the way, as it has always been, and we’re trying as lackadaisically as possible to get it out the door.
So where is v1.9.4? That's the question isn't it? Well it's on its way. Be assured. The problems have been the same that have plagued SourceForts ever since its inception. Delays were always common. In response to the criticism we received, we simply stopped giving out release dates. (May, 2006 anyone?) Version 1.9.4 was given the title "bugfix release”. It's catchy, sounds good, and sounds easy. Well nothing is easy. It's being worked on, but inevitable feature requests have crept into the release delaying it further.
There is also the problem of developer reliability. The human aspect if you will. I can depend on my computer. It's harder to depend on the staff though. How many coders have joined our ranks and simply disappeared? Not responding to emails, not getting on MSN, not coding for SourceForts. (HisChild and Zoc, thanks for staying on this long, and keep up the awesome work.)
The most important thing for you to think on is that this is a hobby. I get home from school, check the SourceForts message boards, hang around IRC, and then call it a night. It’s hard to get stuff done when the most you’ve done in the past month is install and skin a fresh Wiki. It’s not that much different from the other developers. Khuskan is a sound engineer working on a mod that has used one of his sounds. (The intro music if you’re curious.)
Here ends my explanation. It probably didn’t answer any of your questions. You already knew everything you just read. Version 1.9.4 is on the way, as it has always been, and we’re trying as lackadaisically as possible to get it out the door.