Project Reality Forums

Greetings,

I've decided to check up on this thread randomly out of curiosity. I've been off playing some old-school FPS shooters of mine with teamwork and tactics otherwise. I figured you'd want to know as people appear to be asking.

But yes, for the time being I've put Project Reality down. This is not because of how the gameplay is evolving to a new perspective, which is not the case. But more along the lines on how Project Reality is not being properly maintained and it's general quality.

It's also becoming clearer that to some degree that a number of developers have thier own opinions on certain aspects of gameplay over others. Essentially, it's not always along the lines of "reality" so to say, but more of the fact that it's about favoritism over other aspects of gameplay. To put it bluntly, the one that is appreciated most gets the attention, proceeding to leave the "under dog" to waste away.

From my own opinion, I've played with every single kit and/or vehicle enough to appreciate it's usefulness in it's own right. Regardless if it's fun or not, it's more about what the team needs at the right moment. This even includes sitting around in a Mobile Anti-Aicraft vehicle for 2 hours with targets appearing every 20 minutes. To spending the 15 minutes to properly deploy a minefield off of inadequate resupply vehicles.

Sadly, It appears I had went the extent to create this list under my own intrest over a span of about 48 hours for naught. Seeing that even after all that, it seems to be dumped back into my lap to be taken care of. To say the least, I'm not particularly amused. I was under the impression that if this was brought to the attention of proper officials that these details would atleast be directed to the associated person(s). I've even came across about 5 new items that should be added to this list, but it looks like that it would be in vain.

So for now, I hope you enjoy Project Reality as it is. Because in all honesty I feel that it's meerly a shred of it's true potential. Maybe we'll see some more serious approaches on Project Reality by the v0.85 release. I send my sympathy to our devoted PR followers as it seems you'll be waiting for fixes and improvements in 3 to 4 month intervals.

Oh, and another thing. I remember reading a comment someone said about PR. It was along the lines of:

Project Reality v0.8 is a hit for all the new comers. It's also changing, and thats why a number of veteran players may no longer feel the same as they used to about PR.

The fact of the matter is; the veterans remember how it used to be sometime ago. Including how enjoyable the gameplay and teamwork was. As for the new comers... It's not suprising why they love everything about Project Reality as it is now; they simply don't know what they're missing.

Maybe we'll see a more heroic introduction of PR in the future. I'll be waiting.

I wouldnt be that mean warren. I mean hes telling you how to get in contact with the proper authorites. I think its more of a if he passes it on and is asked questions about it, he won't know how to answer, where as if you do the contacting, you can explain it further if necessary and have it done faster.

The issue or non issue is its a team of people in there free time, as in unpaid. So we dont get to have board and office meetings. So ideas come and go. And without a paid tester team, tests get done when the testers have time. So waiting 3-4 months for fixes is quite good. Unless you all enjoy 300mb untested fixes every month.

So sorry to see you go for now but its an ever evolving mod, unlike a game, things come and go. And until the final version comes out it will continue to evolve and just like evolution somethings work some dont.

And always you can help us make the mod we all want. But dont be too mad if we blow some ideas off. You guys only see a 1/2 of the forums (The rest devoted to different PR team areas). The number of debates going on at any one time is allot.

Well done to Fuzzhead for taking the time to go through that and post individual answers. Im afraid I find much of what Warren mentions totally trivial, yet feel he has missed the few really critical things that need attention for 0.85


Sorry....

M.Warren wrote:
The fact of the matter is; the veterans remember how it used to be sometime ago. Including how enjoyable the gameplay and teamwork was. As for the new comers... It's not suprising why they love everything about Project Reality as it is now; they simply don't know what they're missing.

Maybe we'll see a more heroic introduction of PR in the future. I'll be waiting.

I agree with this, I am not exactly a veteran, starting at the very beginning of 0.6 but the gameplay did feel alot better and more fun.

Teamwork happened because people wanted then, not because it was forced upon you and if not then your stuffed. It was more fun to play with people then, and I remember I could just hop on and have a great game.

Lots of clan members stopped playing at 0.7, some new ones joined and filled up the "PR" side of things, and now more have stopped playing at 0.8.

I sort of see where everyone wants PR to go, but I know a lot of people not having anything near as much fun and these aren´t "lone wolf head shot prone dive run and gun is all we want people" either, as everyone who doesn´t agree is portrayed...

But as things move on time shall tell.

Seeing that the DEVs weren't even striving for popularity when they developed PR up to 0.8, it's remarkable that there are enough players to quit at all without sinking the mod.

That's a testament to the quality of PR that cannot be counteracted with blind nostalgia.

0.8 is the BEST version of PR ever, but it is different from 0.6, and you're certainly right that many people have quit because of the changes with every release. However, consider yourself lucky to be a part of a mod that almost accidentally has a net player gain high enough to fill the FH2, PoE, and BGF communities combined - three times over.

Everyone has their opinion on how the game should be. And M.Warren wrote out a long and thought out response. He may not agree with the way the MOD is now but he was also respectful and took his time to let us know his opinion. Its more that I can say for a large amount of the community. (not pointing fingers)

Sorry to see you go M.Warren, hope PR will be something more to you liking in the future.

[R-DEV]CodeRedFox wrote:Everyone has their opinion on how the game should be. And M.Warren wrote out a long and thought out response. He may not agree with the way the MOD is now but he was also respectful and took his time to let us know his opinion. Its more that I can say for a large amount of the community. (not pointing fingers)

Sorry to see you go M.Warren, hope PR will be something more to you liking in the future.

I agree about this. Usually you see alot of this sucks or this needs to be changed. This man has set the bar for suggestions in the amount of time he took to prepare his statements

Updated as of 11/18/08 to Project Reality v0.8 Improvement Compilation v1.5 revision.

Additions and/or alterations are highlighted in BOLD lettering in the main page. These are seen easily by scrolling through.

Added 3 new improvements:

(III. Vehicles - Armored)
1 Major Feedback. (Chinese PGZ-95 AAV)

(VII. Soldier - Tools)
1 Minor Suggestion. (Binoculars)

(VIII. Team Communication)
1 Minor Suggestion. ("Cover Me" Voice Command)

might want to be more specific

dang lol lots of reading too do.

Hey warren...

well just like you man, all the PR devs have lives too.... back when I replied to that post I had very little or no time to work on PR, but I saw your post and saw you poured alot of time in it, so I figured I would write a detailed response with a clear opinion and gave you the chance to help PR out like all the other people who are highly motivated and dedicated to the mod (the other devs and cons and community leaders). You took that as an insult, saying that because you made a list, THE DEV TEAM should be the ones to implement it as quickly as possible because we owe it to you. I think with that attitude, PR would be like most other mods with no playerbase and no direction. Its because people STEPPED UP, TOOK RESPONSIBILITY and GOT TO WORK that this mod is where its at today. If you dont have the time or desire to do that its completely understandable, but the thing that pisses me off is players thinking that the dev team is OBLIGATED to work on all their suggestions and nitpicks quickly.

I just saw your response now in october (like I said Ive been prety inactive) so maybe your no longer feeling the same way, but I sense some anger and frustration in your reply. The thing with PR is that if you want changes to the game, you got to do them yourself or at least contact the right people to help these changes along. Prety much every developer of PR were players FIRST, and the main reason they started developing was because they saw something lacking and had the courage / ambition to start modding it themselves.

Anyways, since I'm more active now and been working on v0.85, most of the comments that I wrote in my response with blue text has been addressed. We dont agree on some points, and I agree with mescaldrav that the majority of that list is prety trivial and NOT something that affects gameplay in a major way. I didnt see anything in that list that hampers gameplay to the point of not playing any more, but obviously we each have our own priorities.

Just remember that this is not a paid team, no one gets any money for doing anything, so your complaint that it takes us 3-4 months to get a release out the door just makes all the devs sigh a bit and go "well theres another guy who thinks we OWE it to them to work faster". Were trying our best and will continue to do so, putting teamwork and realism on the #1 priority for the mods gameplay.

Warren wrote:C. The PGZ-95 AAV has a SEVERE loss in missle detection range. The missles only begin to detect and track enemy air units if they are less than 450 meters away. This is not the detection range AAV's were to intended to have, as they are all supposed to have a baseline detection radius of 1500 meters.

D. The PGZ-95 AAV also has an unusually weak 25mm cannon velocity. The trejectory of rounds appear to "lob" themselves over to targets rather than shooting directly at it similar to almost all other AAV's.

Both issues addressed for 0.85.

fuzzhead.

he made a list whit bugs and gameplay that needs to be adressed. (i am replieng to the first post.) adress it or not. his points stand still. and his list is far more constructive as most other things on this forums.

In answer to fuzzheads statements.

I myself do not have the particular resources to do my own work for Project Reality. My biggest and only intrest would be to create and render new vehicle models. However, that would take 3D softwear and a more modern computer to properly render and perform the necessary operations.

To the best of my knowledge, the only thing Project Reality encourages the most is common users to build maps. Afterall, there is a forum dedicated specifically for map making and is open to be read by the public.

Personally, I feel there is enough maps being created by the other community modders. Reason why Project Reality most likely encourages people to make maps is the simple fact that it is open-ended. You can make any map you want, anywhere you want, with any vehicles or factions you want. As long as it makes logical sense and basically represents a true location in the world... With that said, it doesn't take as much know-how compared to some other things that need to be taken care of. Things like scripting, coding, bug detection, etc.

On another note, in referance to the Improvement Compilation list being "trivial", it was exactly designed with that in mind. Which is no suprise to me. Reason being is that I am fully aware of the larger issues that PR faces. However, the main issue here is that the PR Developers are firmly aware of these "larger" issues. As such, results in the PR Developers spending a hefty amount of time on objects that yield painfully slow results.

This list was made specifically to confront the simpler fixes that have apparently been overlooked in large numbers. So, if this list does infact appear "trivial" then it has suceeded in it's attempts to cover the smaller details in game.

Afterall, that's why I made the list to begin with. I figured it was better than spending 48 hours beating a dead-horse on how to create the perfect view on weapon deviation. Especially seeing that it still hasn't been solved for the past 2 or so years.

I am also aware that Project Reality is based upon volunteer work. But because it's volunteer work, does this mean that it must be subjected to lower standards or a generally laxxed approach on certain important topics?

As far as I am concerned, I feel volunteers should perform equal to or better than a paid organization. Reason being is that we put our heart, our time and our effort into something we enjoy. We do what we can to make ends meet, but hopefully our dilligence and devotion will succeed over our loss of expertise and resources. I have a job aswell and I get paid for it, and to be honest if it wasn't for the money I could care less. I'd rather be retired.

The same goes for almost any other human being. Think about it. If you pull up to a McDonalds drive-thru and you just paid for a BigMac you think you're going to get Napoleonic era wine and Foie Gras? Hell no. I consider Project Reality that quiet self-owned deli around the cornor that serves up the best damn Italian hero you've ever known.

Let it be known, there will always be a battle between the Developers and the Community. Remember that all decisions the developers make; both simple and difficult, are the burdens that the Community has to bear. Wise choices must be made over reckless ones. Any decision made effects both sides of the fence.

While Developers are thinking of a new approach of gameplay, the Community is under the boot screaming to get your foot off of our heads. Then, finally at the end of the 3-4 month wait for a new update; the foot finally stops dragging us through the mud. Or atleast hopefully stopped being dragged through the mud. Then people wonder why we're frustrated sometimes.

But then again, Project Reality has done some shady things in the past and quietly slipped us a change in gameplay without us knowing. Especially at times without the community's conscent or opinion.

Kinda like how 85% of the players thought v0.8 was going to be like v0.75 but with new maps, new vehicles and new animations. Not the fact that our weapons were going to have downsyndrome hardcoded into it, as a figure of speech... But, I haven't complained about it on the forums before this moment.

Oddly enough, here we are disputing large and small details between eachother. Heated arguements may ensue, but it's all a comedy. Why? Because both Developer and Community are devoted to the similar perspectives and intrests. Both sides are striving to accomplish the same goals --- an excellent Project Reality.

We're divided but unified in our cause.

[R-DEV]fuzzhead wrote:and I agree with mescaldrav that the majority of that list is prety trivial and NOT something that affects gameplay in a major way. I didnt see anything in that list that hampers gameplay to the point of not playing any more, but obviously we each have our own priorities.

"And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest- timbered oak"

Hey Warren, I had asked a while back if anyone knew of any good free modeling programs and this was the response. Perhaps it's what you need.

Cyrax-Sektor wrote:Turbo Squid -- gmax

I have it installed, with some BF2 related modeling tools: Filecloud - BF2 Editor Gmax Plug-ins 1.0b

It may not be needed, but I haven't noticed a difference in the Editor, unless it's slower and less responsive now.

M.Warren wrote:To the best of my knowledge, the only thing Project Reality encourages the most is common users to build maps. Afterall, there is a forum dedicated specifically for map making and is open to be read by the public.

Personally, I feel there is enough maps being created by the other community modders. Reason why Project Reality most likely encourages people to make maps is the simple fact that it is open-ended. You can make any map you want, anywhere you want, with any vehicles or factions you want. As long as it makes logical sense and basically represents a true location in the world... With that said, it doesn't take as much know-how compared to some other things that need to be taken care of. Things like scripting, coding, bug detection, etc.

Making maps is not something that is simple and that any one can do, just like any of these its hard to do these things well. the "community modding forum" is in fact to encourage all forums of modding, if you in fact take a look in there you will find models being made, things being exported and coded, textures being made with also the maps which are the most common in there, but take a note, none of them are by the devs, just some of the maps / models or w/e in there, the people making them get made devs for there good work, ie, coderedfox as a good recent example. The fact is why there is mainly maps in there is the learning curve for mapping is not as steep as it is for coding, modelling etc, this is mainly down to all the very detailed tuts we offer to the BF2 modding community, many made by myself. If it wasn't for any of these tuts and only the EA/DICE tuts then I can grantee you that there would be next to no maps being made in there, and PR would have much fewer maps than it has now. I can tell you, I started off mapping for BF2 when there was no tuts apart from the 2 tuts EA/DICE made that went into hardly any detail apart from the very basics, I and the other mappers/modders around back then had to basically work everything out for ourself, hence why the learning curve back then was much, much steeper and hardly any maps where getting made. Coding is really a matter of trial and error for the most part, you open a file with notepad, change a few numbers, see what happens, thou ye it gets more complicated than that but that is most of the basic coding. Modelling, you need to learn how to model which is not easy.

M.Warren wrote:I am also aware that Project Reality is based upon volunteer work. But because it's volunteer work, does this mean that it must be subjected to lower standards or a generally laxxed approach on certain important topics?

When your making a mod that is in the top 3 of MOTY you can then come back to me and tell me what low standards are.

M.Warren wrote:As far as I am concerned, I feel volunteers should perform equal to or better than a paid organization. Reason being is that we put our heart, our time and our effort into something we enjoy. We do what we can to make ends meet, but hopefully our dilligence and devotion will succeed over our loss of expertise and resources. I have a job aswell and I get paid for it, and to be honest if it wasn't for the money I could care less. I'd rather be retired.

we do put our harts, our time and our souls into it, that is not to mean that something may happen in some peoples lives, work or personal that makes them spend less time working on the mod or stop altogether. Like you said, you only work at your job for the money, we can't keep devs working on PR for money, we can't have that leash that keeps them working every day of the week, they work when they want to and that is it, pressure a guy to much and he will leave as he wants to do this for enjoyment, not to be nagged over and over for why his model is not done yet. We do set deadlines and most of the time we meet them, just so many things can happen that often mean that you can't and that is the way it is, we can't just go out and hire a guy to do more work if that area is missing since we have no money to hire a guy with, we only get team members from them wanting to work, like you, you dont want to work for PR due to your "time" that we are meant to have so much of for some reason according to you and you can't even be asked to even attempting coding or anything, its not that hard. I dunno what makes you think there is so much difference between our time and yours.

M.Warren wrote:The same goes for almost any other human being. Think about it. If you pull up to a McDonalds drive-thru and you just paid for a BigMac you think you're going to get Napoleonic era wine and Foie Gras? Hell no. I consider Project Reality that quiet self-owned deli around the cornor that serves up the best damn Italian hero you've ever known.

and they give you that for free? wow, tell me where this place is now I think I'll dine there every day!

M.Warren wrote:While Developers are thinking of a new approach of gameplay, the Community is under the boot screaming to get your foot off of our heads. Then, finally at the end of the 3-4 month wait for a new update; the foot finally stops dragging us through the mud. Or atleast hopefully stopped being dragged through the mud. Then people wonder why we're frustrated sometimes.

again, I would like to see you guys release as much as we do in the release cycles we do, you have obviously no idea how much work is required to do this stuff, god knows how many man hrs goes into each release. Really, we are at this time by far the top mod for short release cycles, find me anouther BF2 mod that has release cycles under 3 months, you wont, most take a year to get there next release out the door, that is 4x as long as us ffs!




if you are going to question how much effort and time we put into PR you can just go f*ck yourself as you have absolutely no idea what it takes to make a mod like PR. Really, dont come back saying this shit until you have made something worth while yourself!