BZe/1.5

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Psychedelic Rhino
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BZe/1.5

Post by Psychedelic Rhino »

The fundamental different approach between BZE and BZ1.5 was obviously vast. BZE had. . .what. . . six builds for the players to try? BZ1.5 had around seventy.

I certainly don't know what went on behind the scenes, but the anecdotal history seemed to be that BZE was a mod with a solid vision, and 1.5 was the ol' "Let's throw something against the wall and if it sticks overnight it must be good to keep in the build."

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Re: Some sounds not playing

Post by Zax »

Psychedelic Rhino wrote:The fundamental different approach between BZE and BZ1.5 was obviously vast. BZE had. . .what. . . six builds for the players to try? BZ1.5 had around seventy.

I certainly don't know what went on behind the scenes, but the anecdotal history seemed to be that BZE was a mod with a solid vision, and 1.5 was the ol' "Let's throw something against the wall and if it sticks overnight it must be good to keep in the build."

A clear argument for not allowing a peanut gallery influence your work.
And bz2 1.3 has/had 100 or more builds. Likely more. The iterative process is like that, and unless you have never touched a computer in your life (I know you have) then you know this. <Thread split, this part irrelevant>

You used to be so cool :(
Last edited by Zax on Mon May 28, 2012 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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HitchcockGreen
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by HitchcockGreen »

Zax wrote:The iterative process is like that
True enough, but when you have a small group working in secret with the specific function to find a way to hack the game discussed in a hidden thread on one of the forums, then you're kind of asking for trouble.
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Re: Some sounds not playing

Post by Psychedelic Rhino »

Zax wrote:And bz2 1.3 has/had 100 or more builds. Likely more. The iterative process is like that, and unless you have never touched a computer in your life (I know you have) then you know this. <Thread split, this part irrelevant>

You used to be so cool :(
Iteration is a good thing, no argument there. Blind iteration, or iterations dependent on a group with an agenda other than the success of the game. . .not so much.

But if we go with your assertion that people need to know computers, having dozens of builds, filters those who know little about them from the never-ending builds piled on week after week. . .for. . .wait for it. . yes . . . years.

Believe me, I saw it with even the micro amount of builds with BZE. People on the edge of interest, or a busy life will roll their eyes after a certain threshold. So what you have left is a handful of people who would follow the mods, builds or patches regardless, and those few others who know someone who does. If there's no real interest in building a community and only a game tuned to two or three people's own specific agenda, no matter how many builds, you'll have what we have now, a dozen or so remaining.

The summer months make me grumpy and unproductive. **kisses** ;)
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Red Devil »

i'm thinking i would rather undo an iteration or 2 instead of undoing massive changes to fix 1 or 2 things, especially if i were doing it in my not-so-spare time.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Psychedelic Rhino »

Red Devil wrote:i'm thinking i would rather undo an iteration or 2 instead of undoing massive changes to fix 1 or 2 things, especially if i were doing it in my not-so-spare time.
I would have suggested the tradeoff of taking notes and having a library of iterations, instead of requiring the playing community to endure the disorganization. All I am saying is that would have had the community in mind.

Remember, this was not a mod like BZE where there is mountains of new content, new ships, new maps, new weapons, all with the original stock game ~fixed~ and included. BZ1.5 was supposedly going to "fix" the game and offer Dx9 support. Compared to the BZE timeline, that aspect would have been done in a week.

Many game producers now have the auto-update or auto patch, so it relieves the player of updating. Could you all imagine updating a multi-play game several dozen of times a year? Each version incompatible with the last!?

Opps, sorry, wrong forum, of course you do. ;)
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Red Devil »

yes, i would if the community was a sparse group of dedicated players who would appreciate a very skilled and professional programmer taking on the burden of fixing such a game in his not-so-spare time.

as always, there are some who do not appreciate it - but i do! 8-)
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Zax »

Psychedelic Rhino wrote:
Red Devil wrote:i'm thinking i would rather undo an iteration or 2 instead of undoing massive changes to fix 1 or 2 things, especially if i were doing it in my not-so-spare time.
I would have suggested the tradeoff of taking notes and having a library of iterations, instead of requiring the playing community to endure the disorganization. All I am saying is that would have had the community in mind.

Remember, this was not a mod like BZE where there is mountains of new content, new ships, new maps, new weapons, all with the original stock game ~fixed~ and included. BZ1.5 was supposedly going to "fix" the game and offer Dx9 support. Compared to the BZE timeline, that aspect would have been done in a week.

Many game producers now have the auto-update or auto patch, so it relieves the player of updating. Could you all imagine updating a multi-play game several dozen of times a year? Each version incompatible with the last!?

Opps, sorry, wrong forum, of course you do. ;)
We could be like COD and release 5gb mandatory map packs. No, you cannot have it both ways.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Psychedelic Rhino »

Are you saying if BZ1.5 builds had been released, oh say, every 8 weeks, the size of each release would have grown in relation to the waiting time? ;)

But seriously, let me make one thing clear. I do appreciate someone with inside knowledge of BZ attempting to revitalize it. That's never going to be a negative. . . unless of course. . . a couple of insiders that play the game, have the ability to access the code. And those 'insiders' are the quintessential hacks of days gone by. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking the object of the 2 year exercise was to help the community.

And yes. . .I know. . . that was never touted to be so. I do appreciate that bit of honesty.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Apollo »

Hmm what's all this, split off the sound help topic... is the summer heat releasing the inner grump. hehe

1.5 had 120 builds 1.5.1 had 9 or 10 so about 130 builds in 2.5 years.

As i see it, 1.5 was Spock and his followers concerted effort to replace Battlezone 1.4 with their mod, made their way, with their play style. You'll notice things obviously broke remained broke. ie: Gun Towers, walkers, turrets etc...

Sorry but the rest of us paid for Battlezone, not Spock's idea of how to replace it. A patch should strictly fix what is broken and no more. (If it isn't broke, don't fix it) The respect for the retail game went out the window and it turned into a control freak zone where if Spock or Spectre don't like you you will be banned from 1.5. Activision never banned anyone from the retail game.

BzE was always meant to be an expansion and not a direct mod of Bz, i wanted it to be a fair, secure and slightly harder strat with more options of game play and new single player missions. For the most part, those goals have been met but i'm not done yet. BzE has less releases because i do my own testing where as 1.5 is public testing.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Apollo »

Psychedelic Rhino wrote:If there's no real interest in building a community and only a game tuned to two or three people's own specific agenda, no matter how many builds, you'll have what we have now, a dozen or so remaining.
I understand and agree. As i stated many times before, marketing is up to the rest of the players, i'm not going to do it.

Personally i think Bz is competing with new games for players, we need Bz updated in order to have a chance at a large community, or perhaps Bz's time has past and it's on it's death bed being given morphine drops under the tongue to ease the pain as it fades away.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Psychedelic Rhino »

Apollo wrote:1.5 had 120 builds 1.5.1 had 9 or 10 so about 130 builds in 2.5 years.

As i see it, 1.5 was Spock and his followers concerted effort to replace Battlezone 1.4 with their mod, made their way, with their play style. You'll notice things obviously broke remained broke. ie: Gun Towers, walkers, turrets etc...

Sorry but the rest of us paid for Battlezone, not Spock's idea of how to replace it. A patch should strictly fix what is broken and no more. (If it isn't broke, don't fix it) The respect for the retail game went out the window and it turned into a control freak zone where if Spock or Spectre don't like you you will be banned from 1.5. Activision never banned anyone from the retail game.
Ok, I stand corrected on the build number. So it's way worse than I estimated. After around 30or 40 builds more than a year ago, I threw my hands up and basically gave up on it. I saw it was being commandeered by interests other than for the good of the BZ community. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the former BZ dev was in collusion to develop a custom BZ for the flock. I think he was corralled by incessant badgering.

Zax said I appeared to not be so 'cool' because I had a poor attitude about the whole affair. As I've said in the past, you have to know BZ's history, going back to around 2003 to understand why we/me might appear 'grumpy'. An absolute gold mine was squandered when BZ1.5 was set upon by the flock on someone who had no idea, and apparently could care less, who he was dealing with. So we can all these changes and many things left broken.

I remember one of the main points of so-called contention with BZE the flock had with BZE was was the so-called "changes to game-play". After I saw all the "changes to game-play" in BZ1.5, (i.e. the Walker convergence targeting... which I loved BTW) I saw the hypocrisy was again showing it's head, and the arguments against BZE was merely a sham because control was not in their hands.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Red Devil »

what i really don't understand is the attitude that this patch is a completed product and that everything is lost (but it might very well be a self-fulfilling prophecy thanks to the badgering).

i see this kind of complaining all the time from some bz2 players who aren't pleased with any patch or mod in progress that isn't absolutely perfect right out of the box. they really don't understand that any patch/mod (especially one being worked on in spare time) is always a WIP and that absolutely someone is always going to be displeased.

i think people are comparing apples and oranges, using the same expectations they have when they *buy* a game (okay, they're all betas now, really) as opposed to when they are *given* a patch to test and give feedback on.

it's very easy for those not doing the work to complain about something, but it's another thing entirely to stay up until 4 AM working on it while those same complainers are sleeping soundly in their beds.

as for the number of test builds, people should be happy about that (i know i am). we bz2 testers have seen ~1,000 builds in the private test area since 2004, not including iterations of utilities like DXTGEN, etc. since there is no private build area for BZ1, you see it all.


my advice is to develop a tester's mindset, as opposed to a player's mindset, and separate the two.

a player's mindset expects things to run perfectly so they can have a fun escapist gaming experience.

a tester's mindset expects things to be broken and goes looking for them and tries forcing things to break and then providing detailed - and constructive - feedback. friendly encouragement and appreciation is always appreciated, too.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Zax »

1. I've been around a lot longer than you think, I just changed my name recently is all. Remember bb1?

2. I know how hard you worked to get people back. I've received the mass emails. It is truly sad that it failed, but bz1 is dying or has died and is now undead through Spock. And that's terrible. But as with all things in life, it may be time to move on.

3. The main basis is that Ken releases builds for testing. The spockites play it and report on it the most, others do not. Cater to the audience that does the work. That is how GSH and Ken have always done it.
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Re: BZe/1.5

Post by Apollo »

Zax wrote:The spockites play it and report on it the most, others do not. Cater to the audience that does the work. That is how GSH and Ken have always done it.
This is by design, they don't want anyone involved that they can't control. Another thing is Ken said he would remain unbias then setup champ on Spocks clan forum where noone else can see or debate proposed changes. Also the patch wasn't to become a mod changing game play but that too went out the window early on.
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