Delay or dead?

[Poison-Violet]

Hello. I have been watching this for quite a long time and well i havent seen much for a realy long time so i was wondering is this actualy moving or has there been a delay :confused: .....

[Senshi]

Its moving. (as far as I can tell)

[Zorbon]

i'll quote what i said before

Why hasn't there been news? because sykoi is holding back
Why is sykoi holding it back?
Simple, PR

We have almost a year worth of work coming up in the next update. It should be big enough to land TLAW on the headlines of most major MMO sites.

Why is this important you ask? Well the more headlines tlaw gets the more people that will come, the more people that come the better our chances of making a kick ass game.
If we do minor news updates here and there, major sites won't pay mind, who cares if we make one new model? And if we aren’t exposed on major sites, no one will come to our game. if no one comes, then the chance of a good game is slim.

Unfortunately it makes us look slow, but trust us, you'll enjoy what you will be seeing a few weeks

btw welcome to the fourms

[Ronin]

woo hooray for the devs

[Yukie]

I'm getting old.. (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2610)
Alpha (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2515)
More people with your sentiments (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2447)
Lack of updates? (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2335)
Light at the end of the tunnel? (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2449)
Preorder - Ninjitsu Masters are privvy to more information than us common folk after all... (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=1585&highlight=tatsumaki+dead)
Naked Advertisement (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2497)

I think they should answer most questions.

[Zorbon]

i'm to unorganized for all that searching ^^

[selmo]

i'm to unorganized for all that searching ^^

i just dont care enough :-P

[Masamune]

I'm getting old.. (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2610)
Alpha (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2515)
More people with your sentiments (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2447)
Lack of updates? (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2335)
Light at the end of the tunnel? (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2449)
Preorder - Ninjitsu Masters are privvy to more information than us common folk after all... (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=1585&highlight=tatsumaki+dead)
Naked Advertisement (http://www.eoeforums.com/showthread.php?t=2497)

I think they should answer most questions.

Yeah, you would think that if people are following enough to complain and/or ask about development that they would at least find one of these posts. :P

Good job Yukie.

[Raku]

Woo Yukie! *cheers*

But you know i do forgive some of the people who ask these questions, when they are asked nicely and not like "hey d00d wtf iz goin on yo? this game iz teh sh** no updates man, wat a ghey dev teem..."

Haha sorry im bored... playing 9d in 15 mins :D

[selmo]

you know 5 bucks says if i did somthing like that no one would care they would be like 'god damnit selmo stop ****ing posting so much' (cursing provoked by dropping cell phone on foot)

[Raku]

you know 5 bucks says if i did somthing like that no one would care they would be like 'god damnit selmo stop ****ing posting so much' (cursing provoked by dropping cell phone on foot)

*nods*

[SunWuKong]

Please remember - EoE is not an established company with large funding.
They are a group of people in school/university with some having jobs as well. They are putting in time when able.
Try to encourage them. Possitive attitudes will make them want to work more. :D

[Zorbon]

They are a group of people in school/university with some having jobs as well.

and some like my self have a job and go to school ^^

[Masamune]

They are a group of people in school/university with some having jobs as well.

I think he already meant you, that's why he said "some having jobs as well". But, SunWuKong, you forgot to mention the hot single mothers working on the team also while holding down a part-time job at Hooters... even though I don't think they exist in our group, it's fun to think about it. At least, that's what Robert Coffey said he was pretending to be when he wrote his article about Star Wars Galaxies.

[Zorbon]

sorry i just got off a work shift when i typed that, just as i did now =X

[Mokurei]

This is something that's worth the wait, for sure.

[SunWuKong]

Oops. My mistake.
Thanks Masa!

[uzshka]

Since I am the bad guy here anyway I won't hesitate to remind you that its well over 2 months since sykoi said we will have major updates in the next few weeks. I would quote him but the post no longer exists.

Not very impressive regardless of the reasons.

[Zorbon]

if you want it faster uzsnka, i suggest you grab a C book, learn it, Grab a C++ book, learn it, then grab some open gl books and learn them, and then if your good enough you can join the team in 3 years...

we ran into model format problems, (if you read teh dev journals i've talked about it before) currently jay is the only programmer working on graphics(that i know of, i haven't talked to programmers in a bit), he had to fix that format, thus slowing us down a bit, from what i know we still lack world editing tools, so we have to add everything into the game by hand, which would take insane amount of time to do. That's why we're hunting down programmers (good ones) there has been progress, tons of it, but we're waiting to put in models quickly (so we can have some nice eye candy) before we release another beta...

personally I think sykoi should not tell non-preorders anything, we miss deadlines just like every other non-paid indie game developer. We have lives, jobs exams uzsnka. Pay my rent, and pay for everyone else’s before you complain about my personal life =P

oh yea, and to tell you the truth, we’re making good time, it takes roughly 5 years for big companies to make an mmo from the ground up. We’re in our 3rd year (maybe 2nd year as a 3d game) and we’re about half way done (once we get world editing tools its all downhill baby)

[yuir]

Since I am the bad guy here anyway I won't hesitate to remind you that its well over 2 months since sykoi said we will have major updates in the next few weeks. I would quote him but the post no longer exists.

Not very impressive regardless of the reasons.

i think he may have been talking about the beta 0 client, which us pre-order's got

(ohhhhh you got zorbon mad:-P )

[Zorbon]

Not very impressive regardless of the reasons.

i forgot to add, its impressive that we have so many people working for FREE, no matter what delays we have... point me to any group that is doing something this large for free, and tell me they meet their deadlines (if they have any)


(ohhhhh you got zorbon mad:-P )

naw i'm not mad ^^ just have to be agressive when things like this come around =D

when i'm mad you' won't see it, all my post will be deleted =D

[Masamune]

Since I am the bad guy here anyway I won't hesitate to remind you that its well over 2 months since sykoi said we will have major updates in the next few weeks. I would quote him but the post no longer exists.

Not very impressive regardless of the reasons.

why dig up an old thread just to complain? that kind of an attitude is not very impressive either.

[uzshka]

why dig up an old thread just to complain? that kind of an attitude is not very impressive either.

You are indeed right, However I did not wish to start a new thread.

[ojwk]

oh yea, and to tell you the truth, we’re making good time, it takes roughly 5 years for big companies to make an mmo from the ground up. We’re in our 3rd year (maybe 2nd year as a 3d game) and we’re about half way done (once we get world editing tools its all downhill baby)

I was under the impression that the engine was 95% completed.

In a side note, may I also ask what your strategy for marketing the game is if, in your opinion, non-preorderers should not be allowed any game updates? How to you plan to encourage us folk who have not pre-ordered to do so when the updates are slow to churn out and progress reports are not regularly relayed.

[Senshi]

I was under the impression that the engine was 95% completed.

In a side note, may I also ask what your strategy for marketing the game is if, in your opinion, non-preorderers should not be allowed any game updates? How to you plan to encourage us folk who have not pre-ordered to do so when the updates are slow to churn out and progress reports are not regularly relayed.

Ah, but game updates are released to the non-preorderers. (some anyways) Only 3-5 months later than us who did pre-order.

See: Eyes Out Entertainment Site (http://www.eyesoute.com/) for some of those latest updates.

[Zorbon]

The engine is practically done only very small stuff remain (shader 1 support fixing bugs for video cards etc)
World editing tools are not a part of the engine, those are add-ons that allow content to be made fast. Using half life as an example, counter strike’s map de_dust was written by hand in notepad, cs_assault was modeled in worldcraft. Tools do not define engines.

The modeling format was finished when beta0 came out, its just jay made it for maya because the old team mostly used maya, but the newer team mostly uses 3dsm, which handles files totally different. So what we were having issues with was getting 3dsm’s .max files into .dae then into our format. We’ve since solved this issue.


Oh and i'm not incharge of marketing, nor will i ever be, what i simply said was my own opinion. Right now most of our cost go to keeping this site afloat. And granted it does host things for us employees to use, but we could run these things on a much smaller server... we'd probably save a few hundred a year if we left yall out of the loop like other mmos do. The negative side would be recruitment of new staff.

But to tell you honestly, to be modeling a building for 6 hours then get on here and read "delay blah blah not impressed" doesn't make me want to throw you guys a bone, I’d rather let you broil in your hatred

and senshi is right, we do post a lot of crap on eyesoute, that i'm sure none of you look at =P

[Akitora]

I believe :)

Anyway - posting here, researching, writing on Meitochi.com, coming up with ideas and meeting other forums members and in short waiting for either a) release or b) figuring out how to send you guys a regular monthly payment (want to cancel Galaxies and just do a scheduled Visa payment per month to T:LaW) is so far even more fun than playing any of the MMO's out there atm IMHO.

Sooooo I guess my comment would have to be "Pull yer head in. If you don't preorder, then don't complain - just buy the final release when you eventually see it in the shops or available online and start playing."

^.^

[ojwk]

I believe :)

Sooooo I guess my comment would have to be "Pull yer head in. If you don't preorder, then don't complain - just buy the final release when you eventually see it in the shops or available online and start playing."

^.^

This age old attitude of "you don't have a right to complain" is really quite ridiculous and is simply an excuse to brush away any criticism.

It may be the case that some of the EOE staff can use the complaints to make the game more marketable and attract a greater audience instead of demanding or asking for more money from those who have already pre-ordered.

Maybe people shouldn't take up such a defensive stance when the slightest bit of criticism toward EOE is made;
it seems that people simply pass off any potentially useful criticism as "flaming" and non constructive.

I can understand how it must be very frustrating for EOE staff to have to deal with a torrent of people commenting on how "progress isn't being made" and "where are our updates?" however I cannot stress that a professional attitude should be maintained by any commercial organization at all times. The fact that you are working for nothing does not alter your status as a commercial organization; your aim is to make money from this project in the future, you should maintain a professional position from the start.

I can only sympathize with you Zorbon the amount of time that you and your colleagues must spend working on T:LaW whilst juggling full time jobs and the stress of life but I completely disagree with your comment that you do not feel inclined to "throw us a bone". Your plan for T:LaW is to, ultimately, offer a subscription based MMO. Therefore, it is completely in your interests to promote T:LaW as much as possible through the use of "throwing us bone[s]" as you so eloquently put it.

I can only hope that in the future, as a whole, EOE will improve the relationship with non-preorder customers who in effect are your primary audience to market to. Obviously you must maintain a good and stable relationship with those who have already pre-ordered but those who have an interest in the game but have not yet pre-ordered seem like an untapped reservoir for cash as it were.

You are an indie developer, you are strapped for cash, completely understandable given your status. I personally feel that you should try and build up a good and firm relationship with potential customers instead of, in some cases, verbally attacking them and disregarding their potentially constructive criticism. You may be a small indie developer but you are still a responsible company.


Please spare me the inevitable lecture of overused excuses and I hope that you will interpret this as a post to improve EOE instead of trying to tear it down; it certainly isn't designed to accomplish the latter.

[Senshi]

Its less of a "you don't have a right to complain" thing, and more of a "you get more if you pre-order" thing. You see, EOE has been releasing more updates to the general public now, more than what I've ever seen in my 2 years here. (see the Eyes Out Entertainment Site (http://www.eyesoute.com/), that was previously mentioned) As for using complaints to market Tatsu, I doubt it would work, unless you want them to think that the game is vapourware.

[Zorbon]

Speaking as a non-employee,

We’re too far from a release date to market the game in any forum, any pr we do suffers from lack of media worthy news. (As in untextured models, non-impressive screenshots, no grass sprites, clouds etc). Most mmos at this stage just have a site with the wiki.

Generally games wait for roughly a year or so before release before they throw "bones" at the customer base (why because they have the nice bones to throw)

It may be the case that some of the EOE staff can use the complaints to make the game more marketable and attract a greater audience instead of demanding or asking for more money from those who have already pre-ordered.

Complaints against us missing deadlines do not help EOE in anyway.
Complaints against the gameplay system are heard though (as see in game play debates)

To honestly tell you, if we waited until the game was marketable before we started PRing to non-paid customers we'd save about $1,900 a year, which is more than enough to hire some foreign programmers to finish what we need done.

Any case I just got off work and I have to finish an essay in 45minutes ta ta

[ojwk]

Its less of a "you don't have a right to complain" thing, and more of a "you get more if you pre-order" thing. You see, EOE has been releasing more updates to the general public now, more than what I've ever seen in my 2 years here. (see the Eyes Out Entertainment Site (http://www.eyesoute.com/), that was previously mentioned) As for using complaints to market Tatsu, I doubt it would work, unless you want them to think that the game is vapourware.

I'm not suggest using complaints to market T:LaW but what I am saying is use the complaints to improve the public relations that EOE has. It may be the case that EOE has been releasing updates to the general public for quite some time however it evident that many people do not feel that EOE has been communicating the progress made effectively.

In my opinion, EOE could listen to these somewhat overblown complaints and extract some precious jewels from them. People complain that updates aren't made well then obviously something is wrong in communicating the news to the potential customer.

In addition, I am in no way suggesting a massive PR campaign costing thousands of dollars, instead, frequent posts on the forums (what seems to be the hub of the community) stating major updates and progress that has been made.

Until you have made your progress known it is naive of you to think that people will be omnipotent and simply know it or even remember to check the EOE website, a bit of in your face progress reports are necessary perhaps even a bi-monthly newsletter.

I'm no PR expert but I know that when a significant amount of people think that T:LaW is dead or delayed something is wrong. New members are gone as soon as they arrive and mostly the forums seem to be haunted with friends of the devs and "disillusioned fan boys".

I would find it interesting to learn how many recent members (past 6 months) have joined the forums and decided to pre-order. I would be very much surprised if that figure was comprised of double figures.

When members of the EOE community that have been around a while are unable to point a new user into the direction of news and updates EOE should be worried. More should be done to promote and advertise the fact that substantial updates are and continue to be made and posted on the EOE site.

[Zorbon]

New members are gone as soon as they arrive and mostly the forums seem to be haunted with friends of the devs and "disillusioned fan boys".

isn't it like that with every mmo though?


Ojwk, that was good critism, and things can be learned from what you said. You see, employees see the updates as they unfold, if someone goes "is this game dead" a dev generally gets the feeling That these people are impatient, or expect massive content flow. My self coming from fps mods used to see lots of this. It was never constructive its just people bitching we’re too slow. So I apologize for my comments.

News is posted on EOE, its been stated in a number of annoucments in the forums. It is Sykoi's wish to try to move away from a forum based site to a real portal site as we grow with content and people. As the game nears release it will be harder and harder for us devs to keep up with this kracken. Judging by your comments i can see that n00bies and some of our vets are not getting the news off of eyesoute, therefore i shall bug sykoi about it (maybe even while he's away on personal issues) and resolve the problem.


*Edit* i'll be posting small bit of news on www.eyesoute.com tonight, and i've talked to sykoi about a feed to the forums (when we post news on the site it will post on the forums)

[Masamune]

This age old attitude of "you don't have a right to complain" is really quite ridiculous and is simply an excuse to brush away any criticism.

It may be the case that some of the EOE staff can use the complaints to make the game more marketable and attract a greater audience instead of demanding or asking for more money from those who have already pre-ordered.

Maybe people shouldn't take up such a defensive stance when the slightest bit of criticism toward EOE is made;
it seems that people simply pass off any potentially useful criticism as "flaming" and non constructive.

I can understand how it must be very frustrating for EOE staff to have to deal with a torrent of people commenting on how "progress isn't being made" and "where are our updates?" however I cannot stress that a professional attitude should be maintained by any commercial organization at all times. The fact that you are working for nothing does not alter your status as a commercial organization; your aim is to make money from this project in the future, you should maintain a professional position from the start.

I can only sympathize with you Zorbon the amount of time that you and your colleagues must spend working on T:LaW whilst juggling full time jobs and the stress of life but I completely disagree with your comment that you do not feel inclined to "throw us a bone". Your plan for T:LaW is to, ultimately, offer a subscription based MMO. Therefore, it is completely in your interests to promote T:LaW as much as possible through the use of "throwing us bone[s]" as you so eloquently put it.

I can only hope that in the future, as a whole, EOE will improve the relationship with non-preorder customers who in effect are your primary audience to market to. Obviously you must maintain a good and stable relationship with those who have already pre-ordered but those who have an interest in the game but have not yet pre-ordered seem like an untapped reservoir for cash as it were.

You are an indie developer, you are strapped for cash, completely understandable given your status. I personally feel that you should try and build up a good and firm relationship with potential customers instead of, in some cases, verbally attacking them and disregarding their potentially constructive criticism. You may be a small indie developer but you are still a responsible company.


Please spare me the inevitable lecture of overused excuses and I hope that you will interpret this as a post to improve EOE instead of trying to tear it down; it certainly isn't designed to accomplish the latter.

I agree with you on this, but I also differ slightly, the main reason being that much of the "complaints" are not constructive criticism, but rather just a complaint. It all has to do with the way you word something. Asking something like "I haven't seen an update for this game in a while, what's the status?" is perfectly fine, so is "I'm not very impressed with the progress of the game at the moment because of the lack of updates, is there anywhere I can find information?" But simply saying, like what uzshka said "..I won't hesitate to remind you that its well over 2 months since sykoi said we will have major updates in the next few weeks. I would quote him but the post no longer exists. Not very impressive regardless of the reasons." becomes just plain criticism because of the tone it conveys. It's demanding and that's what sets off the devs like Zorbon who have been working really hard on this. If you go straight to complaining without posting something asking on the development status (which will notify the devs that maybe we should give some more information because people are becoming unahppy), it doesn't help anyone.

If you're unhappy with the status of development then say it and don't be afraid, but simply critcizing and basically scolding someone for not doing something because you're unhappy is unfair. Don't expect a cheerful response when your comment was already sour.

Anyways, I hope I got my point across, I'm too tired to really worry about explaining it correctly.

[uzshka]

It seems that the failing component here is (in my opinion) poor public relations. It is imo irrelevant whether or not in the end you release a fantastic game and say "told you so" simply because you have managed to keep me unimpressed. I'm sure I sound terribly ungrateful when after all my previous complaining I say that it might be better to release no updates at all, than to release little dribs and drabs which might suggest a failing development process. The sun and moon cycle for example was a little underwhelming, I know you guys have done a lot of work, but something like that does little to capture my interest.

That is however, a thought I have not thought deeply about, and do not wish to launch into another debate. I have however offered what is in my opinion constructive criticism, and I hope nobody will contradict the demand for constructive criticism by saying that I have no right to tell the EOE team what to do. I hope what I said doesn't offend anyone to the extent of having to write a furious reply, as I have no energy for a fight.

I will probably keep an eye on this thread but I do not wish to cause any grief repeating my points from my past post.

[ojwk]

I agree with you on this, but I also differ slightly, the main reason being that much of the "complaints" are not constructive criticism, but rather just a complaint. It all has to do with the way you word something. Asking something like "I haven't seen an update for this game in a while, what's the status?" is perfectly fine, so is "I'm not very impressed with the progress of the game at the moment because of the lack of updates, is there anywhere I can find information?" But simply saying, like what uzshka said "..I won't hesitate to remind you that its well over 2 months since sykoi said we will have major updates in the next few weeks. I would quote him but the post no longer exists. Not very impressive regardless of the reasons." becomes just plain criticism because of the tone it conveys. It's demanding and that's what sets off the devs like Zorbon who have been working really hard on this. If you go straight to complaining without posting something asking on the development status (which will notify the devs that maybe we should give some more information because people are becoming unahppy), it doesn't help anyone.


Yes I have to agree that the way some people go about phrasing their complaints could be somewhat more polite however I believe that professionally it is important to address these complaints in a proper manner even when personally they anger and outrage you.

Not everyone who posts on these forums is going to be well mannered however in my opinion their questions must be treated just like any others, it's just a part of being professional.

I myself would find this very hard to do but thats part of the reason why I'm not a customer service representative or don't publicly represent a company. I can therefore only sympathise with the EOE staff but addressing the angry and annoying questions is really quite imperative.


I'm sure I sound terribly ungrateful when after all my previous complaining I say that it might be better to release no updates at all, than to release little dribs and drabs which might suggest a failing development process. The sun and moon cycle for example was a little underwhelming, I know you guys have done a lot of work, but something like that does little to capture my interest.


In a side note I must disagree with Uzshka on this one. In my opinion it is far better to release lots of "underwhelming" updates than none at all. At least it shows the the project is not dead, instead alive and thriving.

I have been very uplifted by the responses I have received from my post and it has certainly heightened my opinion of the EOE staff and community. - Thanks!