Thanks for the welcome back messages. lol I remember when nearly everyone here hated me on this site.
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Show posts MenuQuote from: rtil on November 11, 2012 11:51 PMthe second i see a fedora i automatically assume the person is a brony
Quote from: SHADOWFOX2 on November 12, 2012 04:07 AMQuote from: cipher on November 12, 2012 03:29 AMw.a.c. is back
Quote from: Canned KarmaAll right, one of the questions that's come up is why we didn't release the game sooner if, for all intents and purposes, the game itself was pretty much ready to go as of January 15th, 2011? Short answer, we had assets but no playable game. The long answer goes back almost a year and a half.
Rewind to late 2010. People were desperate to see what we actually had worked on since the teaser preview we'd put out March of that year. We really wanted to have a playable release for people to see, but the answer we kept on getting throughout that year was that the engine was coming along soon, and that we'd be able to play the game once a couple more things were taken care of (We quickly got used to that response, and that's another topic of conversation entirely...). Needless to say, by the holiday season we were really wondering exactly when we'd be able to even play the game ourselves. Vincent and LOst set a deadline of January 15th to light a fire under the team and really get things moving. And that certainly happened -- with scanline and CN. When it became frighteningly clear that we would not even have an internal build of the game to play in early 2011, and no solid idea on when that would really be (most of us lost count of just how many "internal programming deadlines" came and passed without result), scanline and CN put an insane amount of work into creating a trailer from scratch to show the world what the game would eventually look like. If this wasn't a testament to their skills as artists, I don't know what is.
At this point, not a single person on our team had actually played the game. There was no working game code. It would not be until July of 2011 that we had our first internal staff build of S2HD, and that was limited to basic movement with Sonic on non-animated tiles. The next three months saw more visible (and playable) progress on the game than the last two years combined. And even this was fraught with arguments on why certain assets that had been sitting completed for well over a year were not implemented when there was no reason for them not to have been. It's equally notable that only one person was doing any real work during this period of time, since the artists were tired of working on assets that had no guarantee of ever being seen (Hill Top's assets are the chief example of this, unfortunately). The last 'deadline' that was posted internally was for the end of October. By that time, we more or less had a build that could be released. It just would have been a very, very, very quiet build.
All the work had been done on the player interaction and game coding. The sound coding had not even been touched. Given that audio programming was not one of LOst's strong suits, and we'd already worked with Saxman in the past on object editors for level layouts, we contacted him again to see if he would be interested in helping out with audio. Soon after the start of 2012, we had a sound engine for S2HD thanks to his efforts, and a truly impressive one at that. The problem was getting his sound engine integrated with LOst's game engine. If the writing wasn't on the wall before, this is when it became crystal clear. After numerous messages questioning what the progress had been made on the integration were met by silence, we were notified that LOst was working on his own sound engine, but that it would probably 'take another three months before it will be ready'. Despite the fact that we had an excellent sound driver ready and waiting, it was not going to be included in S2HD.
This was when we first banned LOst from the staff forums.
A week later, after a frenzied series of emails between himself and Vincent notifying him of 'rapid progress' made on the sound driver, LOst was unbanned, if only so he could post up his latest build of S2HD with audio. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, especially not compared with what Saxman labored to create, but at least we had something resembling a completed demo build that could be released.
As some have pointed out at length, giving one person all the keys to the kingdom in a project like this and being made totally reliant on them to produce is a very bad idea. Without LOst to compile builds that were in code only he knew in formats only he used, all stored only on his computer, we could not release S2HD to the public. At the very least, I will thank LOst for not deciding to disappear before the demo was released, otherwise no one would have ever gotten to play the game at all. The final build that was released represents a number of compromises made at the very end when things were coming completely unglued for us. It ultimately wasn't worth it for us to continue fighting over things we doubted we'd ever see a resolution for, or weren't willing to wait additional weeks/months/years for them to come about.
Let me be very clear that the team members were by no means all at each other's throats. All of us on staff leadership continue to be very good friends beyond the project, and have been for a long time now. All our frustrations were directed at one person.
Regarding assets: we're leaving that up to the artists. If they want to release what they worked on, it's their call as we feel they should have the final say over the work they spent so many hours on. Should someone still have a working link to the community database where art was submitted during the project's infancy and wants to start another project based on that, by all means go for it. We don't have those assets, as none of them were used in the demo.
To those looking to begin their own project, community based or otherwise -- insist on a high degree of communication and accountability from those you work with from the very beginning with regular, peer review of the work being done. Above all else, there should be no I in team. This has been our most painful lesson.
Quote from: VincentLast month we proudly showed off a demo of what we've accomplished with S2HD.
Needless to say, more work has been done on the game; unfortunately, the odds of this work every seeing the light of day is slim to none. We gave the project's Lead Programmer, LOst, a week to provide us with a DRM free build of S2HD.
We've heard as much from him as you have, so it's safe to assume that's not going to happen. Given his complete lack of communication and cooperation, it falls upon to LOst to assume full responsibility for his actions as, up until the demo was released, the project's leadership was unaware of both the DRM and the now infamous DirectInput bug. This was the last straw for us. He had ignored direct requests for the past two years, effectively holding the project ransom by refusing additional help or review on his private engine. If he didn't think a piece of artwork matched his vision for the game, it was not included, or worse, was replaced by assets of his own creation. The same thing happened with the excellent multi-format sound engine our Tools Programmer Saxman created. Ultimately, LOst is no longer a part of the project.
That's the good news. The bad news for the project far outweighs it unfortunately. We cannot replace our lead programmer as LOst kept the source code for himself, making it impossible to the coded source material to be updated or used as a base for newer builds.
Additionally, two key staff members, scanline99 and Cerulean Nights (both of whom were chiefly responsible for the many animations, spritework, and overall polish seen in the demo) have resigned from the project to concentrate on independent works and careers. While we wish them the best in their endeavours, what this means to the project is that they will no longer be producing any artwork for it. Without them we are not able to guarantee the same level of quality seen in the alpha. At the moment, with ongoing careers and kids to look after, both myself and Canned Karma don't anticipate that we'll have a great deal of time to devote to S2HD either, which means we're forced to announce that
Sonic 2 HD is officially discontinued.
Certainly the DirectInput bug and the blogosphere fallout over it didn't help matters, but by the time that had taken place we had already made the decision to discontinue the project almost two months ago, well ahead of the demo's release. Internal conflicts between the project leadership and its main programmer which reached critical mass, and the only thing holding it together was the collective determination to put our frustrations aside and get a playable build into the hands of everyone who waited years for it.
Hopefully, another group in the Sonic community will pick up the torch and go forward with the vision we had over a year ago -- not just creating a Sonic 2 remake, but creating entirely original content.
Thanks to everyone who supported the project, especially to the passionate classic Sonic fanbase.
The appreciation thousands of fans expressed to S2HD as a game made "by fans for fans", represents a landmark where SEGA has to look at for a profitable use of the -highly demanded and beloved Classic franchise.
-Vincent
Team S2HD
Project Leader
Quote from: Cerulean NightsScarred Sun, I won't speak for the whole team, but the reason I left the team is almost completely directly to LOst. I went from putting my all into the project every single day in the beginning to practically not caring about it in the slightest after it didn't release last Jan 15th. Why would I put so much of my effort into something I honestly was beginning to believe would never come out? Once I had that realization, I knew it was time to move on with life. We could have found another programmer, sure (and don't think for a second we didn't talk to many other people about it, including Taxman about using the Retro Engine), but I was so burnt out with the whole ordeal I just didn't care anymore. I know I'm not alone in feeling that way.
S2HD was a great experience for me, it taught me a good deal about game design (both what to do and not to do) and I met some extremely talented people who have become close friends. Even though it didn't turn it to the dream project I felt it could have, it actually helped put me in a position where I was able to follow a different dream! That said, had LOst not been the lead programmer, you can bet that S2HD would have flourished as something truly amazing. There was some more minor drama going with another artist a few years back, but after that got sorted out we as a team were working in perfect sync. All except for one person that is.
So Scarred Sun, I ask you to think very hard about what you post, because chances are anything you've learnt was through hearsay or the odd message from Vince or Canned Karma. I'd hate to see a second rumor about our project stated as fact and posted to Retro's frontpage, the first one stung bad enough.
Quote from: Scarred SunI fucked up. This is totally my fault and I take full responsibility for that. The article has been redacted and there will be another one going up shortly that explains the situation.
Quote from: rtil on March 30, 2012 11:39 AMis sonic fan remix still being made
Page created in 0.052 seconds with 18 queries.