Imperial Winter - where things stand, and how you can help.

[linuxboy]

Hi,

I am new to the Spring forums (just joined today). For years now I have been following your work. The last few months I have been checking almost twice a week to see if you guys are any closer to completing the game.

First of all, I would like to say how much I don't understand the negative comments on this forum. Why all the sarcasm and bad language? These guys are working very hard on this project, and don't need us to heckle them.

Second of all, I would like to chime in with my encouragement. Please keep up the good work, and finish the game so people like me can play it!

Thanks!

[Warlord Zsinj]

Thanks linuxboy.

phas, I'm not going to take IW to the grave with me. I'm just looking see if I can ideally find time in the next couple of weeks to get a laptop and do some work, but failing that, a suitable way to release it.

IW was always planned to be released with it's code as open but the art/design with some sort of license similar to what forboding linked earlier.

[PicassoCT]

Its sort of tradition in Open Source heavily frequented with users, throwing around "great ideas" without beeing willing to dedicate themselves to the OS Idea by making there stuff. With there bare hands. From nothing and electricity.

So to discourage the idiot parade, we hired some ParaTrolls that storm every thread if someone request moar then tutorial links or threaten us with "MyGreatIdeaPosts" allover the board. Sometimes they get a little carried away.

But for real, somebody wants to see a idea made reality, which will cost him countless hours, thirst for good documentation and tutorials (until knorke and some others had mercy) and is scared away by the S.arC.aS.M.- the reject orientated language this board comunity was written in? Dont make me laugh, or wait, do it, do it!

[knorke]

I don't get why players want to push them to release something unfinished.
Spring does not really need another "50% game."
So just let them do their work or help, if you can?

In the meantime there are enough released games that are looking for player feedback but largely are ignored.

[Wombat]

Spring does not really need another "50% game."

i noticed that its one of the main issues for WZ. as i could see (according to pics and opinions of ppl who actually played it) IW is fully playable but its not working with current version of the engine. i dont know why the code is not shared to proper person, to fix it. if the content is the problem, hell, nobody expects u to put all star wars universe there. u could always add one unit after another. there is a lot of ppl waiting for this game and im pretty sure current content wont disapoint them.

but ok, lets cut the crap, if he doesnt want to release the game, its his choice and got right to do so.

[Warlord Zsinj]

I actually would love to release the game. This thread was all about getting the beta to a releasable state as a 'demo' - designed specifically to encourage people to try the game, see what had been done and help to finish the final 20%. By releasable state, I mean more or less as it was of the last playable build. It became quickly clear to me that I would still have to do the majority of the required work, which became difficult when my laptop died. I gave IW to anyone who offered to help out (as long as they didn't distribute it) and finally set up an SVN to assist with this collaboration. A number of people very kindly gave up their time to help - but really it comes down to either someone stepping forward and saying 'yes, I will join the IW team as your coder/scripter/etc' or me getting my shit together and pulling things together myself (I'd still have to beg/borrow coders for plenty of jobs though).

In terms of content, the art is basically all finished. There's a lot of detail things like sound, wrecks, etc. The design of the final tiers is done and just needs to be implemented and hammered out. It kills me that we've got this beautiful art, especially some of the walkers that Lynx has done, that we wouldn't be able to include in any demo just because I've got noone to script and animate the buggers.

The main areas that need work are scripting, animating and general mod organisation (seeing as I've forgotten more or less how to do this).

(As an aside, the eye-raping Star Wars Spring 1.0 was downloaded over 10,000 times and was featured in 3 different publications. IW has since had page spreads two different major gaming magazines. If you're looking for a shoe-in into the gaming industry, it would look pretty slick on your resume if you joined our team and helped to polish it off. Just sayin'

[Forboding Angel]

The reason people are hard on IW is that it has remained essentially vaporware for the past several years. Don't even get me started on swta.

Thing is, IW has had a TEAM whereas many of us it's a single person doing most of the spring related stuff like getting units into game, scripting blah blah blah, and in some cases a single guy doing ALL of the work (Like Gundam RTS), and warlord and co. have had an endless supply of excuses for not accomplishing anything (sorry warlord, but it's true), so the rest of us "go - getters" tend to be a lot harder on IW as a result.

Also, IW hasn't ever asked any of the rest of us for help until warlord asked me for help a few months back and then posted on the forums in which a lot of us pitched in to get IW in a working state and even adding new features, etc...

All in all we have a lot of reason to be skeptical and the negative attention IW has drawn upon itself, the blame rests solely on the shoulders of the IW team for letting IW stagnate.

Sorry warlord, that was harsh, but don't take it as animosity. It's simply the truth from my perspective. If you had simply asked for help years ago things would be much less bumpy. *shrug*

[Warlord Zsinj]

I'm not too bothered about accusations of vapourware and other naysaying because I don't really care what people think, I know the quality of what we've got and how much we've completed. The only thing that really frustrates me is knowing how much is needed to be done compared to how much has been done already (a tiny fraction).

Forboding, you have access to IW. 'we haven't accomplished anything'? I've personally put thousands of hours into IW. As has everyone else in the team. Especially gnomre, who handled the scripting side before RL lead him elsewhere. The difficulty with a team is that the knowledge is specialised in particular people. Which means you can produce a better quality product because everyone gets good at what they're doing, but when those people disappear you're stuck.

As mentioned before, no excuses have been made because we don't owe anyone anything. We have just offered explanations for the slow pace of work so that people would be understanding. I can understand that it is frustrating for people, but if they're that frustrated, why not learn how to animate walkers and come help us?

Also, we have asked for help a number of times before, just through more private channels, with mixed results.

[FLOZi]

IW is not a '50%' game, it is a '95%' game, which is considerably better than most other projects on Spring. That is why it is frustrating.

[Satirik]

all that because of Duke nukem forever, now people never stop hoping

[phas]

IW is not a '50%' game, it is a '95%' game, which is considerably better than most other projects on Spring. That is why it is frustrating.

* that's precisely the point.

[aGorm]

Also, IW hasn't ever asked any of the rest of us for help until warlord asked me for help a few months back and then posted on the forums in which a lot of us pitched in to get IW in a working state and even adding new features, etc...

Wow wow wow, thats not true, he's always been asking people for help. It's just he tends to aproch people directly, not putting out a global call.
Also, not everyone is smoth, and so not everyone can do everything.
Having a team is if anything more dificult, as your stuck rellying on others for things you can't do. Then when thoses people have RL things... boom, your stuck. Atleast for a one man band it's only one persons RL issues that can halt production. It's actully more amazing that it exists in such a near compleat state at all!

If it's still not ready enough for Warlord, then find out what he needs to be at a point of release and help him get there. (that bits not aimed at you Forb, as I know your already helping)

aGorm

[Forboding Angel]

@agorm, did any of the rest of us know that? I'd say prolly not. When he told me his original problem, I dropped everything and spent however long helping him get it sorted (basically getting it to actually load in spring again... they were using this uber confusing mess of mutators for updates... AA style), and I think that most anyone else around would have as well. Look at how many people dropped out of the woodwork to help as a result of this thread.

As far as my part in it, it's been really minor. Like 50 people did everything that I was going to do before I even had a clue that anyone was doing anything. I did however add some visuals related crap a little while back.

I also was in the process of doing some script / animation diagnosis (some of them are a little... off, and the planes have fairly big issues in places) but a lot of work I needed to do on evo got in the way. *shrug*

Understand that very few of us have the big picture on IW, so people's opinions are bound to vary widely.

[linuxboy]

Hi again!

I have a suggestion to make (whatever my suggestions are worth).

Warlord, you should post (on this thread or, even better, the IW website itself) what EXACTLY needs to be done (meaning not just general descriptions but specifics). Also, make it more clear how people can sign up to help. I have thought about helping, but I have no idea how to contact you or anyone else on the project.

I believe a lot of the frustrations is coming from the fact that people would like to help out but they don't know how. If people (like me) are interested in the project enough to complain on this thread (which takes some digging through the IW website to find), they probably would be willing to help. They just need the info.

Thus, all this to say that it seems like you need someone to coordinate help and document progress (and to-do lists).

Just a suggestion. Take it or leave it. I hope what I say here helps.

[smoth]

One man band is not accurate I cannot lua and model at the same time and switching between the two mental states is frustrating. Also when you fail there is no one to blame but yourself

[1v0ry_k1ng]

from what I understand, what is mostly needed atm is for some kind of LUA wizard to come in and fixer de gadgets

[bobthedinosaur]

Release it?! NO. It's only star wars.... let it eVaporate!

[Forboding Angel]

Star Whores. Set phasers to "stun".

[Warlord Zsinj]

It's hard to be more specific than what we've done without rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty - which needs me to first buy a laptop (working on it). Mainly a lot of lua gadgets etc are broken (as ivory said). That's to fix what's broke.

In terms of finishing the remaining 10% for the completed release:
- The GUI is a bit of a mess at the moment and needs to be coded (it has been fully designed, linked earlier in this thread)
- Walkers and a number of other factories/units need to be animated
- There's a bunch of general work loading things into spring, setting up new weapons etc
- Some of the missing units have special abilities, all of which have been implemented in Spring in some way or another already. These need to be coded to achieve what we need
- Various visual effects
- IP-free sounds
- Wreckages for numerous units
- implementation (new weapons, buildpics, balancing, etc) of new units

[smoth]

The gui doesn't NEED to be coded. you could strip that design down to necessities and not go so much for "OH HEY MAEK MY DREAM UI"