Project Blue (new breeding game concept) [Update 2016-07-26]

[Jlokison]

The ability for other to add content can be very nice but the core team once they have a functioning core engine, need to create a core background and story line, with a beginning middle and end, not necessarily immediately but sooner rather than later.

Why:
because a good story becomes a good basis for world and game building.
because that core background and story line should be the frame work in which all added content needs to fit or build upon.
because added content that conflicts with and worse contradicts this will more like detract from the game than expand it.

That said their are always exceptions.

[Dead2112man]

Wait, shouldn't this be in the discusion area?

[brontanius]

The game is in production as we speak, the framework should be done soon, hopefully by the start of next week but a build of the game may take awhile to come out. On other news, a blog for the game has been set up for the game here: http://pj-blue.net/ . As there is no first build for the game out yet, the blog is still bare bones post wise but it is there if people wish to know.

[evildumdum]

Not heard anything in quite a while. Hows things progressing?

[brontanius]

To be completely honest with you, I couldn't tell you. Even though I am the community manager for the project voluntarily, I sent him a message asking for an update on the projects status and have yet to receive a reply. Before this, I last had contact with him in August where he told me the core framework was done and the first build was in production and that his computer was having a few issues so he did also mention he needed it repaired. I did make a status update post on the blog about the core framework was done but I think that was just over a month ago now.

Hopefully he will get into contact with me over skype in the next few days, preferably earlier at which point I could give you a detailed progress report.

[ValturNaa]

Ouch, man. I've had that happen on projects before (in my case the guy came back months later to say he'd been working around the clock and didn't have the time, but we're back to it now). Hope he gets back to you soon, it's tough hanging on all by yourself.

[evildumdum]

To be completely honest with you, I couldn't tell you. Even though I am the community manager for the project voluntarily, I sent him a message asking for an update on the projects status and have yet to receive a reply. Before this, I last had contact with him in August where he told me the core framework was done and the first build was in production and that his computer was having a few issues so he did also mention he needed it repaired. I did make a status update post on the blog about the core framework was done but I think that was just over a month ago now.

Hopefully he will get into contact with me over skype in the next few days, preferably earlier at which point I could give you a detailed progress report.

Cobalt, if you read this i want you to know this is exactly why i refused to work with you.

You were ambitious, overbearing, bad at allowing others to display thier talents and terrible at communication. I will happily eat my words and publicly issue a grovelling apology if you produce a game worth playing and keep your team together, but i do not think that will happen. If you have kept your team together and you are still working on the game then damn well communicate with your PR guy. It worries me that you would go for over a month and a half without contacting a member of your team, especially one as crucial as PR. Need i remind you that H-Bomb went dark all the time?

In conclusion, if you are serious about your project then damn well show it by communicating.

[brontanius]

MASSIVE EDIT: I have gotten cobalts status update about the game and will give everyone the information about the current status of the project in a short while. My new harddrive arrived and I have to install it and redo the operating system. Currently running off a backup. Once that is done, first thing is get skype to view the info and then post it here. Then I will update the blog for anybody whom is bothering to check that out. I will say this. THERE IS ALOT OF INFO. It could easily take up multiple posts.I planned on updating you guys today but due to the harddrive turning up, i will have the update up by tomorrow. ON TOP OF THAT, I have confirmation that I can receive the work in progress demo to see personally the current status of the game. However I will not be releasing it to the public due to the teams wishes. I will however give you guys info on its current state after I see it.

[brontanius]

ALRIGHT, my pc is fixed up with my new harddrive and now for the status update. My a key isn't really working tho atm so if i miss one here and there dont mind it. Also note that I am pretty bad at explaining most things so if you don't understand the summary too well, check out the word for word.

First post will be a summary of the whole update and I'll double post with a full word for word update from the skype logs if people aren't interested in the summary. I will post a third time when I have checked out the WIP demo to give you guys a short amount of info on what it's current state is.

Summary:
The games first build was supposed to come out a bit earlier than now believe it or not but due to troubles, it got delayed. Massively.
1. One of the programmers on the team left and he was in charge of the low level development. Although a new programmer has joined into the team, his speciality was not low level development and so the team had to spend extra time working on the engine and redesigning parts of it. They were not proficient at this and this has led to mistakes and redesigns. This was also the reasoning behind cobalt's vague message to me earlier about smaller private dev sessions.
2. Due to this change as well as other changes that are being made to the game at an almost daily pattern, the game has been delayed and while they do want to go public, there are a few reasons behind why they cannot.
3. Features: Most of the features that were discussed earlier in the forum have been sketched out, worked upon and implemented into the game, these should also be available in the first build of the game as well. These features include but are not limited to: The breeding of monsters, the buying and selling of monsters, items, travelling between different regions, npcs and interacting with them, turn based combat, alchemy, missions and basic functions that are expected such as saving and loading and of course, the animation system.
4.They are missing some things though:
4a. Extensibility: While the basic concept of the game works and they are able to release a public build right now, they want to refine and fix a lot of the issues that cropped up before release. It works with manifest files and a lot of things can be inserted into the game to enhance/alter it but currently they change almost at a daily basis and if they want to release a build, it needs to be more stable. The team doesn't want to make the public update the manifest files every few days if they wish to create in game content.
4b. Tooling: They have been working on an editor that lets people generate the manifest files to test their content, like how textures work well with selected animations, also, the game engine currently relies on compiled content and even the textures have to be compiled in a different format. The team wants to do 2 things with the tooling before a build can even think of going live, these are: 1. we want the engine to work with other file types like png/jpeg etc and 2. the editor isn't complete so it wont be of use even as people can't compile their resources. It needs more work and they want the option for using the other formats stable in one of the starter builds.
4c. Detailing: While the functions are working, many still need to be enhanced and again refined. E.g. the stats of monsters are currently very basic and only affect combat at the moment. These details will come out in time and will be discussed with the public, most likely after the first build is released.
4d. The website for the game: It has been sketched out but isn't finished. The team has implemented some of the apis for the game and tooling. E.g. The game will be able to display all online available content and offer a simple download through the options menu. These are currently on a test server and can be made public when the website is done.
4e. Art: Cobalt has admitted that this has been neglected due to the ups and downs in the dev process and is currently simple black and white sketches. The art provided isn't up to standard for what the team wants as the official in game art and more artists have been contacted but there aren't serious results at this moment in time.

and finally: Cobalt personally apologised, to me at least, for the lack of communication with the community. He has also stated that the communication with the public and the art aspect of the game will be more intense addressed as the first build comes out. Right now, he will provide updates to me to give to you guys but most of the community communication will have to either wait till the first build or go through me, which will go to him via skype.

[brontanius]

First post will be a summary of the whole update and I'll double post with a full word for word update from the skype logs if people aren't interested in the summary. I will post a third time when I have checked out the WIP demo to give you guys a short amount of info on what it's current state is.

Second post and full word by word via skype. Now do note that I do not like sharing private conversations like this but due to the overall obscurity of the project, I felt that you guys kind of deserved to know. I will not be doing this again in the future unless I am told that I am allowed to. Also I dunno why the time stamp of the conversation shows up in some of the messages but not all of them. Probably my fault by not copying them in the correct way or something. Meh.

"hey, i promised to give you an update today. but i actually have to make it short again:
- one of the (three) devs has left the Team pretty early, the one responsible for the low Level development (graphics engine related). he left by not responding back for a while so we were forced to remove him to make further Progress.
- an other dev has joined the Team (we are three again), sadly no low Level developer.
- since all this low Level stuff has to be done to make Progress, i stepped Forward to fill up the gap. even though i am an experienced programmer, i never did something like this, game related before. so i made a few conceptual mistakes which led to a couple of redesigns of the very base of the engine. it took me a while to figure out a good concept.
- as said, the current development is done in a small and private session. this was because some Things changed rapidly (like the leaving developer that opened a gap) and i did not take the time to spread out updates to a wider audience as i was very busy and disappointed with the Little constructive feedback from the public. the last Point may be because we had nothing visually to share and People always want to look at something.
- i really want to go more public again soon. but first we Need to finish some work here so we have something to Show.
- we have sketched out many of the Features to a degree we could implement them. and most of them are implemented, some in a Basic Version. so many of the games function do already work. These are breeding, buying and selling monsters and items, traveling between regions, placing npcs in the regions and talking to them, turn based combat, alchemy, missions, and of corse Basic functionality like the extensibility, loading/saving games and the Animation system." (cobalt)

"we are missing a few Things though. These are:
- extensibility. while the Basic concept works, we need to refine this before going public with this. it works with manifest files and MANY Things can be inserted into the game to enhance and alter it. but currently, the definitions the game use for those manifests Change almost on a daily Basis. and if we want to release it to the public, we want this to be a Little more stable. we dont want to let People create Content when they have to update the manifests every few days to make them work with an updated Version. we want this to be more stable first.
- tooling. we have been working on an Editor that lets People generate These manifest files and test their Content (like easily check if their textures work well with the selected animations). also, the game engine currently relies on compiled Content, even textures have to be compiled to a different file Format . this is to enhance Performance. and the Editor can compile These ressources to our required Format. 1) we want to enable the game engine to work with other filetypes (like JPG) aswell, 2) the Editor is not yet complete. so currently, even if we would publish all the current modding capabilities, it would be of no use as the People can not compile their ressources. i think the Editor will Need a Little more work. the Option for the engine to use .JPG files will come soon.
- details. while all the functions are working, many will have to be enhanced. for example stats for monsters is currently very Basic and only affects the combat. its a Basic stat set with strength, agility, etc.. but These Details will come in time and will all be discussed in public." (cobalt)

"[14/09/2016 19:43:17] Cobalt: some more missing…
- the Website. this has been sketched out but is not finished. we have implemented some APIs for the game and the tooling. for example the game will be able to Display all online available Contents and offer a simple download through the Options menu. These Features are running on a test Server and can be made public as soon as the rest of the Website is finished.
- art. I really negleted this part so far. internally, we have been working with simple black and White Sketches, nothing fancy to look at. the art our current Artist has provided is not getting near anything we want to make official art for the game. i've contacted a few artists that i found suitable but i don't have any serious results so far.
[14/09/2016 19:45:19] Cobalt: but as said, the art part was negleted by me. just like the public communication. both have to be adressed more intense"

"does this all make sense?" (cobalt)

"Well it is a lot to take in and I can wrap my head around most of it after a quick read. Ill read all of it again in a little while to fully understand it though. You caught me literally as I was about to shut off my pc to install a new harddrive." (ME)

"[14/09/2016 19:58:43] Cobalt: no Problem. i will send you more Details soon (for example how the Things are implemented so far, etc.). i will try to wrap this all in better-to-understand-information. and provide some graphics to illustrate Things.
[14/09/2016 19:59:52] Cobalt: oh and i can send you a WIP demo of what we have so far. but this will not be for public release. just for you to maybe better understand what we are doing and what we are thinking
[14/09/2016 20:02:31] Cobalt: oh, we may not have the art up to standard yet, but we may have someone making us a Soundtrack: https://soundcloud.com/zeriphon"

"Right well I will check out the sound cloud before I head offline but hold off on sending me the WIP demo till probably tomorrow. My hardware issue(hard drive) will probably take a few hours as I have to install the OS as well get all the necessaries to make it work. When that is done, feel free to send me all the info/graphics/wip demo because I will be free to look over everything." (ME)

"rgr" (cobalt)

[ANooB]

69 votes, bro . Honor the 69 and build for PC

[brontanius]

69 votes, bro . Honor the 69 and build for PC

To be honest ANooB, the game was most likely going to come out for pc on windows regardless of the poll. It was mainly there to see what the interest was in having it on other platforms and to see if the team could make the game for those platforms if there was enough interest.

Edit: Looks like I won't be able to post details on the games current state after viewing the demo due to personal reasons. Most likely I will be gone for a few days by the time that cobalt gets round to sending it to me.

Edit2: I worded that pretty horribly, so for those that I confused sorry. I am back now, still waiting on the demo from cobalt and what I meant was that while i was away(at a funeral) and if cobalt sent me the demo during that period of time, I wouldn't send out info till i got back and got over the event.

[evildumdum]

Did you get to play the demo in the end?

[brontanius]

Did you get to play the demo in the end?

Sorry for the late reply, been busy with my course and part-time coding sessions with my mates. Usually konk out when i get home. As for the demo, I am going to be brutally blunt here. No. Haven't even had contact with him. Did have to send pc in for repairs again since graphics card went on it after i install the hard-drive but i got it back about 5 days ago. Been on skype every day, cobalt is online skype 24/7 yet doesn't bother making contact. Hasn't even responded to my last message on 26th before sending out my laptop.

So yeah. I think I regret asking to be his community manager. He probably doesn't mean to do it and could be truly busy but there are a few lies here and there which do piss me off. It makes it so I can't do my job without being at the forefront of the flames. .... Starting to feel like Sean Murray here.

[evildumdum]

Well, it's not like you're being paid. I'd just send him a message saying "Contact me when you are ready" and put it out of your mind until he bothers saying something. It's not worth you losing sleep over.

[ValturNaa]

Sad to say it but I agree with dumdum here. If Cobalt can't be bothered to keep his community manager updated, then you're justified in just ignoring the project until he actually talks again. He put such stock on having a community manager that he was willing to ignore key game elements such as art and writing, and yet he doesn't give you the material you need to actually manage the community? You don't need that BS. Just find some other stuff to do until P:Blue needs a community manager again.

[brontanius]

Sad to say it but I agree with dumdum here. If Cobalt can't be bothered to keep his community manager updated, then you're justified in just ignoring the project until he actually talks again. He put such stock on having a community manager that he was willing to ignore key game elements such as art and writing, and yet he doesn't give you the material you need to actually manage the community? You don't need that BS. Just find some other stuff to do until P:Blue needs a community manager again.

amen to that hah, I have just been playing csgo competitive with a group of mates, messing around with renpy with another and getting ready for a meeting on the 12th. So far gotten to LEM on csgo, we have got a basic understanding of renpy and python and I have a suit ready to go.

As for cobalt, got onto skype, found he finally messaged me yesterday but yeah. Another delay. Not going to say much but project was paused apparently for a bit of time due to "unexpected events". Although he has promised me an update(again..) when he gets back.

[ValturNaa]

Promising. It's starting to sound like the troubles the original breeding season had, that not only this project but breeding season revival started up to correct. That's very sad. I really had higher hopes of Cobalt than this. Not to plug my own team here but at least the BS Revival team is communicating, so we all know how much progress is being made. We have a Discord chat room and almost everyone on the team is on it for a while every day.

[brontanius]

Yo, just putting it out there, don't bother messaging me for info on the game anymore. Cobalt kept going dark, saying I will give you updates etc etc but they never came. Like i said on the previous post, on the 5th oct, cobalt said he would give me an update when he got back, he had stated in that message that he would hopefully be back by the weekend which would bring it to about the 9-10 maybe 12-13th at the latest for an update but he didn't bother messaging me at all until i just decided enough was enough. I had patience with him and I know i could keep it off my mind but checking skype everyday was getting tedious as I had a feeling that there was going to be no info.
I messaged him, I think around the 1st/2nd of nov stating that I was quitting as a com manager and I then removed him from my contacts. Two reasons why, the first was the anonymity of the team. While i respect people don't want to be named or what not on the project and I wouldn't have revealed their names till they wanted it, i had only contact with cobalt and only knew the name cobalt, that is all. Didn't have even alias names of any other members of the team. Can't be a com manager with no idea who to send community feedback to as I can't send all the feedback on artwork to the non artists can I?. Second reason was that I can't work with a guy that can't keep his word. After the first major update I gave you on 15th sept, myself and cobalt agreed on weekly updates, even if there was only a small amount of info just to allow people to have info or at max bi-weekly updates. Again, that didn't work out obviously as before I sent the quitting message, the last contact I had was 6th oct when he promised info on the day he got back.
So yeah.. that is a thing.

[evildumdum]

If you click on cobalt's profile you'll see this:

last visited Sat Jul 30, 2016 6:14 am

I don't think this comes as a huge surprise to anyone engaged with him at the beginning of this. He was an overly ambitious control freak and as such no-one wanted to work with him. I'd speculate that he never had a team and was simply milking as much praise and validation out of this as he could before abandoning it. I'd be very suprised to see him pop his head out of the woodwork after this, much less with a game.