Re: Swamp, zombie fps by Aprone
Hey Aprone,
So sorry to hear about all the trouble Swamp has become.
I definitely understand where you're coming from and don't blame you for any of it.
Honestly I don't think I could have dealt with near as much as you and still had motivation to continue working on the project.
One thing here that is more sad for me than the death of Swamp, is how such an awesome creation of yours has ultimately depressed you about working on it.
I've used you as a role model for where I want to be as an audio games developer.
Even though I don't play Swamp often anymore I watch your posts and the Swamp related posts to learn from the things you do right, the things you do wrong, and the way the community responds to what you do.
I have a lot of respect for what you've created and your willingness to do it for the pure joy of creation and bringing others enjoyment.
Though I don't have any games near as popular as Swam p, yet, smile, I still spend my time working on games and learning to be a better audio games developer for the enjoyment of creation and the hope that many people will get enjoyment from my games.
So it is especially disheartening to see where Swamp has ended because I currently have goals to make an online FPS and it's outcome is likely to be the same as Swamp's unless there is something here that I can learn from to make it different.
But most of the trouble points to people, those who want to intentionally ruin the game, and those who wine or threaten, and I don't believe I have the same thick skin or unfaultering motivation as you.
Even calmly reported bugs can become wearing in large amounts.
That's really a problem with how difficult bugs can be to track down and how easily they can be introduced.
I've experienced the same thing with Tactical Battle, though to a tremendously lesser degree than you experience with Swamp.
Maybe if you got the same number of reports about the game being awesome as you did about bugs it would feel different, lol.
Anyway, I don't see any clear answer to how this outcome could have been prevented.
Again, I don't blame you for the outcome, but it is an example of what will likely happen to other game developers who take the same path.
I have some hope that involving trusted community members will help, at least in the area of moderation and banning people for harrassment of the chat system.
It would seem that many people do want to help, but they lack the skills to help in the areas that are most time consuming, specifically coding and stopping hackers.
Programmers are a selfish lot, and maybe this is because programming is so challenging and time consuming.
I think that most anyone with enough skill to help in the coding would rather work on their own projects and in the language they are most comfortable in.
I know that is
the case for me.
It is also inefficient to bring new coders on to a project as it takes a very long time for people to get up to speed and become more of a benefit than a hinderence.
As you've said in previous posts there are also reasons for not sharing your code base with others.
And all these reasons make it difficult to get anyone to help with the coding.
People mentioned donating to pay for a coder, but to be realistic people don't donate enough to pay for your time and you are the most deserving and the one who could most efficiently solve the problems.
Another thing that may help me a little is to keep a higher level of separation between myself and the community, which is sad.
But again I'm not as thick skinned as you and we see how many people email / skype you with threats and anger.
I think this turned into somewhat of a ramble, sorry for that.
I'd be interested to hear if you have any thoughts about how this outcome could be prevented, either in this forum or via email at supp...@blindaudiogames.com.
Thanks for all you do, and I hope you can disconnect yourself from Swamp enough to regain some of the enjoyment and excitement you used to get from developing audio games.
Ian Reed
URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=155744#p155744
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