I see some things that does not match with one another.
First of all - almost all you say about them contains words like 'planning', 'working on', 'going to'. That is things that doesnt exists yet. I'm pretty sure, you can write a few pages with times new roman 12pt size with things you were planning, wanting, going to at some point of your life - but they never happened.
Modern game industry is full of that promises - they are forgotten that same moment player pays for them. Majority if those fuckers want us to pay them for nothing. Pre-alpha, over9000 microupdates, years in early access - aa-a-a-nd - bam - mission failed. Thank you for your money, we'll come back later to fuck you again, oh, we mean - to give you a new amazing experience. So - no, I am not negative. That's reality. Who's at fault - is another topic, but it is what it is.
Next - you say, you're a dev. But before that you're trying to defend changing engine midway. After that I just must to ask you - what is your field of expertise? Because from my coding experience, and some UE4 experience - when you trying to change and rebuild basement after making a roof - things always get fucked.
I mean, it wasn't just the false accusations of stolen assets. It was also burying the official (paid) links in searches with third party, free links when the project was just getting started. I do agree these devs are extreme about it, but this forum is in no way free of guilt on what could legitimately be described as a minor feud.
I am not sure I understand that part. Was assets stolen or not?
Will definitely need to poke at that one. While void form isn't required to proceed with the quests, it is a major ingame reward, as is the repeatable sex scene. If I can find a way to trigger the bug consistently it'll make it much easier to report and get fixed.
I can come up with one solution - exchange save files right before the void spirit dialog maybe.
I didn't know you had access to this game's source, to give accurate time estimates of work involved. More seriously though, adding a new header to the ingame menu is likely fairly simple but also a total non-priority compared to other things, like tracking down and fixing quest bugs.
I had access to UE4 tutorials. You have too. They are free. There is no problem when all there is - a misplaced setting header.
It became a problem only when it is a sign of "don't care" thing. There is no more meaning in it beside that.
You don't need the void form, nor the sex scene. The urn does contain the khopesh you need to progress, however. I did just run through the quest myself, and it worked normally. I have a save from just before - I'll poke at it to see what might be causing the issue because it does seem to be very conditional.
Well, still no urn=no progress).
Sure, if all you consider is the column itself. But they're not showing off the columns, they're showing off five detailed and notably different capstones made in the same timeframe as a single one for the UE4 example. I'd understand if you were complaining about the difference in detail work, since the column and capstone on the left do visually show a lot of finalization-level detail work not present in the five columns on the right. But this is not a simple copy and paste smoke and mirrors example.
Coloumn itself is not the case. It would looks fine in the "our current progress" type of article. But it is not fine as esxuse of changing engine midway. Too many consequenses.
I won't be uncharitable and assume you're complaining about the lack of prop details on their visual demo of a new, more detailed prop kit. In which case, is it safer to assume you're complaining about the lack of NPCs and loot? Those are both things the developers have been working on implementing the underlying systems for, and the game has already seen a lot of progress on those fronts. The developers do clearly have plans, including an entire magic system that we have yet to see heads or tails of.
That buildings have absolutely no connection with engine version, nor it have any versiou exclusive content. And while model changing itself is good to achieve diversity and avoid having streets full of clone houses, it cant be a reason to change engine.
But that's not all! Did you know, that with right approach new model can be made in a way to fit size and collision map of old model, so another devs don't have to rearrange old markers and scripts. But that is long forgoten thing from ancient times.
And there is even more! I can came up with few ideas to explain (without breaking story and lore) why there is old and ugly buildings in one area - and new and shiny houses(new models added after few patches) in other areas. Surely their writers can do that. If. They. Wanted. To. that is.
Anyway, that meansm better building models have nothing to do with changing engine.
It's worth remembering that the more filler content they implement now, the more work they make for themselves later when they want to put in the actual, planned content once underlying systems are built.
This is almost completely wrong.
1)NPC and quest markers can be reassigned to new coordinates or new landmarks. It may be time consuming, but can't be critical.
2) The have to populate current world at least for crash testing. I can remember some interviews from bethesda(or it was clowns from crytek?) coders, when they SUDDENLY discovered, that their vast locations cant be populated and filled with enough content coz it will crash the engine. Why don't test it while it is still relatively small?
3) Filling current wold give them precious experience - how much effort it takes to make for example, a temple full of NPC and some quests. After that they may discover, current world is more than enough. IMHO, it is indeed big enough for making super cool game. Adequately filling the big map you posted will be impossible task. Its overwhelming even for well-know teams with hundreds of people.
Though there is a way to avoid that selfdestroying - partial release. One region after another. Like old day Add-ons. And after seeing those megamap I hope they will do just that.
And there it is - the asset accusation. Is only one game developer in the world allowed to use real-world trees? Is that what people think these days?
I'm sure I was clear about what problem is. But I'll explain again - Vast. Empty. World. 2.5 pumas and 5 crocodiles. Few houses without any NPC. Lore says they have ongoing orgy with constant flow of new participants, some ongoing religious conflicts, few different temples - but no life on the map. No feeling of "this can be real". No immersion. That is bad, not the shape of trees.
You can assume, yes. It's very easy to assume. Honestly I've found the world to be a much more interesting place when I don't automatically assume the worst.
So now you're making assumptions based on internal team information we know nothing about? The devs actually do have a very consistent list of planned features and mechanics that show up both on their roadmaps and in polls. We're currently arguing about a game prototype that's missing vast portions of those.
Yep. I see things and think of them from perspective of what I know. Substitution of concepts not going to work on me, sorry.
I am judging what I can see. Whats planned, whats on roadmap, what is wanted to exist - is irrelevant today. I can remind you of Anthem by biowhore. They too has plans, roadmaps, ideas and "years of evolution and support". But their actions and game itself made it quite clear - they can't do anything.
Thats what I'm trying to explain. What matters - is what decisions is done. We can't say what devs are doing right now. But we can see effects of their actions and decisions.
If a bug never gets reported to developers, it won't get fixed unless they encounter it themselves. And you seem to be very proficient at running into unusual edge cases that most players never encounter.
Of course. But that is only if not to read steam discussions for example. And given the vulnerable nature of devs, I suppose it would be wrong to report bugs from filthy-pirate-stolen-copy, no?
The clothing system doesn't have racial flags because (apparently with the exception of the void form), all clothing seems to be planned to work with all races. Male forms are comparatively new and the devs are still working on adapting clothing types for them. Again, judging a work in progress system as though it's final is always going to give you a negative result.
Seems pretty odd, given the fact that they all have different asses - no tail/thin tail/thick tail. Well, I guess they have internal track of that.
At this point I'm assuming you're complaining about the missing sex scenes for the felian concubines, which is a valid complaint and one I've personally made before. Early on the developers had a habit of flagging planned content with inaccessible dialogue options, and they stopped doing it due to the number of complaints they got over it. The existing ones have mostly stuck around, however.
No, I mean situation with 9 different dialog options with inaccesible lower options due to their "slipping out". It was noted on steam too.
And even without it - there is [unspoken?] rule what says roughly "if you have more than 4-6 dialog options, you fucked up narration flow. If you need over 4-6 dialog options, or some options need to have long sentences, you fucked up the story."
Gamedesign is not two months old, there is plenty of important rules.
You're gonna need to run that one by me again - copypaste from what?
From one another obviously. Skyrim and oblivion have dozens of almost identical dungeons. Here we have less, but they are easy to get lost. And there will be more with identical parts.
Actually almost every skyrim dungeon is made with idea to not get lost. And many of them have shortcuts so players don't have to go all the way back.
Or are you referring to the large number of rooms that are just a single square chamber with a statue in the center? If it's that, there are plans for those. They're shrines to high-paying patrons, and will be customized (within a menu the devs have provided) to include decorations, statues, and NPCs + sex scenes.
No, those rooms is actually a good idea, They are icreasing immersive effect. When you see them, you think this is maybe some burial sites for nobles or priests who died during construction or something like that.
No, they did not say that. They tested the upgraded engine against their own production pipeline and found that they got better results with less work, and made the deliberate decision to begin developing the game in the new engine. They even explicitly state in the bit I copied that they will continue working on both versions alongside each other until the UE5 version is properly ready, rather than just throwing away all the work they've done thus far.
That's very much going to slow development, yes. But it shows a dedication to the players that you just don't see from the developers who opt to throw everything away and try again in a new engine.
Sadly, it shows either their poor planning or community level of "ready to pay for promises".
How many teams have done such transition effectively? And I'm saying about well-known teams with hundreds of employees and solid backup from publishers.
That is colossal amount of work. And here we are talking about indie game. Double the team and cut salary in half? Make devs to work for same salary, but twice tihe workload? Nope. That is not how it works. You dont have to believe me, and just try it for yourself, if you want.
Honestly, I'd hate to live in the world you're building for yourself. You seem to prefer to assume the worst, and that makes things bland, boring, and downright depressing.
Techically speaking - no. If you assume the worst, than better things happens allmost all the time. But I think I understand what are you trying to say. And - no, sorry, substitution of concepts not going to work on me. All of that plans, ideas and roadmaps always face the reality. All that promises are good on paper, but when deadline comes - thing are changing dramatically.
As a dev myself, if I saw this part of your post and it was in relation to one of my projects, I'd immediately discard everything you'd said.
Really? So if you have a hole in your pants, so your phone is going to fall trough, you're going to ignore it just because I was not polite enough when pointed that out?
Well, it is up to you, how you live your life, really.
This is not meant to offend, but community members offering to plan content and provide assets, unsolicited, are a poison pill just waiting to destroy a project from the inside. And I'm not even talking about relative skill level or quality of work - that's irrelevant.
If the devs took you up on your offer they'd be at significant legal risk of losing the entire project (or major chunks of it) in the event you decided you didn't want your content in the game anymore. That can be avoided to an extent with licensing rights (such as Fenoxo and crew do with CoC and TiTS) or getting you to sign a full legal contract. But It's very much a red flag that is easier avoided than handled.
Well, yeah, that was bad choise of words from me. I mean - if there is a community, there is point in listening to them. For example here is our superimportant discussion of game maybe-problems. Some of the dev read it - and see the part when I said about releasing game in parts. One region, then another, like add-ons. And they might think, this is a good idea. But I certainly don't have any rights to that idea.
Or maybe we decide to fantasize about why centaurs wear masks and how their females looks like. And there might be some good suggestions there, but it's not like it will by copied bit by bit, just giving the idea or two.
Or maybe someone can mention some asset creator, who sells his works in UE marketplace.
The story or quest is not so easy, yes.
