General Project Thread & Feedback

2 years and all you have to show for it are a bunch of silhouettes, some disappointing stats and the status of the project now switching to close. If we were kept in the dark before then we've just had our eyes gouged out and the remaining gaping holes sealed with cement.

I'm sorry if I don't share the same enthusiasm as everyone else but this group announcement is more of a disappointing one than it is exciting.

 

That answers that then. I had a feeling that this had become a closed project when Cerulean Nights came on the scene, did two amazing badniks, got promoted to Sonic HD staff and then didn't see anything posted after that.

I guess it's going to be pretty dead in here now until after Sonic 4.


Oh and I forgot to say. Don't turn this into something like SSF2THD Remix. That game feels tacky.

 

Actually, It became that way muuuuch earlier. Like, about...3 o 4 months ago I think, however when CN got promoted, lot of things happent, like one staff member leaving because of work and other one forced to leave because he didnt like people to steal his job on the team.

 

Honest opinion? Tail fin aside, everything is a step back IMO. The teeth have absolutely no depth, the belly plate is ridiculously dull (that simple black line is a terrible way to separate the jaw), the fin screws are hardly visible and the bright spot is too bright.

Maybe this wasn't the best example you could have used to show the new art direction, but if it is and the other badniks received similar treatment, I should say I'm a bit disappointed.

 

My chime on that is that two heads are better than one. Sometimes you have to just go with the flow. Once this project is complete. All the fuss would be over and done with.

 

Quit being a suck up. Scoring Tweaker points only nets you yiff.

Anyway, yea, this isn't a community project anymore. I don't think it ought to be either as a contained group with the right chemistry and a fixed goal seems to work better than, say, the clusterfuck we had back when this was first proposed. Certainly, the project is in the name of Sonic Retro, but it's not 'Sonic Retro.' (Reminds me of megamix to an extent honestly...)

 

I agree with you, but it wasnt just like that...Lets say that you worked on something for loooooooooong time and finished the piece of work, and in one week, everyone decides that your works suck and that other guy is gonna do your job because he knows how to do glossy over metal things.

That's just not cool. That's why this guy was forced to leave...you know. He doesnt care to much right now, he just feels dissapointed.

About the time... "once this project is complete"... 2 years, and havent finished EHZ. I think Im gonna die of age first lol =P

 

My question is, how much of what the community (outside of the "elitist group") has contributed with, is going to go into the Alpha Release? I ask this partly because of just how radically different the chopper is to the previous one - depending on if it's the same person who did both chopper versions.

Speaking of which (the chopper), I've noticed a big lack of in-between shades in the chopper - which I found surprising considering the amount of effort gone in to stressing just how much we need these in-between shades.

 

You are distorting the story

You posted your monkey, we didn't like it because it was fat, you didn't like what we said, Cerulean Nights replied, you offended him and posted your concepts without authorization, now you are here. =P

Now it's time for an official announcement.

As you can see on the left side of this post, I asked GerbilSoft to update the achievements list of mine (and of some other people too :v, so I'm not a Staff member anymore. First off, I left the staff for entering college and I thought it was the better decision, for both the S2HD Staff and myself, being a nice contributor is better than being a lazy Staffer, isn't it? I enjoyed my experience there and if I have time free I would happily ask to re-enter the project because it was very rich in every aspect and will help me in the future, because as a designer, being able to work on it is a privilege in fact.

Anyway, from the Alpha demo, what can you expect? Of course I won't ruin the surprise they have been prepairing for you all this time, but, I can say, S2HD is now a gem on every aspect, it looks awesome, sounds awesome and runs awesome! If it took 10 years to be ready, if the art quality is the same of what I saw at Emerald Hill, It would be really worth the wait. + - See? I can use italics too :D  

Also, don't be worried, you won't be left in the dark while the Alpha is being prepared. That was a discussion point, as it was wrong to leave the community alone, being an open or closed project. So, don't worry, they'll will keep you... "entretained" until then .

 

The monkey was just a random concept I didnt even tried with that one, Yeah sure...Like they say: Let the river flow. By the way, who said that I was the guy?...I never said that.

Also...posted your concepts without authorization? W00t?
Lolwut?

Anyways...Im not gonna discuss something about the past my little friend. Like we say here: "El pasado, pisado."

 

This just doesn't compute for me. Why would showing people stuff reduce quality? Isn't that a logical fallacy? We're talking about letting people know what's going on with the project, while the leaders could still do whatever the hell they want with the project to bring "quality" - but they don't even let people do that.

 

Agreed.

Canned Karma, you let us down after all.

 

Promising a 'big announcement' after keeping things secret only to release more than half of it as silhouettes only (how exactly is this different from keeping it secret?) is not cool.

Open this up again, else it's not a community project.

Then again in lieu of recent awesomeness, I can't help but think to myself "too little, too late".

 

Dear Sonic 2 HD Staff,

For the past twelve hours you've been browsing this thread without making a reply, especially in the face of an administrator telling you that one of your policies "is not how this forum's community project system works." While ignoring me a few weeks ago in the programming thread may be understandable, I see no reason why you should be ignoring Tweaker at all; he, as well as all the other administrators, have the power to pull the plug on this project. I don't want to see that happening, especially with the new art direction. It's really so much better than before.

So please actually reply to the abovementioned post and tell us whether or not you want this to continue to be a Sonic Retro Community Project.

Love,
Concerned Sonic Retro Staff Member

PS - to make it clear, I don't want to kiss up to Tweaker; it's that, as I said in the programming topic, I don't like to sit idly by and just let something like this happen >_>

 

Huh... it's looking really nice and all but what is this, Sonic 4? Just show the damn running animation : (
You're building up hype for no reason : P

 

They made the running animation hidden because they thought you wouldn't like the green eyes.

*runs*

Kidding =P.

 

To be honest I'm completely disappointed as well in terms of progress, development and updates. Now, not everything gets handed out on a silver platter, but this is just absurd. This isn't really a Community Project, rather a "Contributive Project" in which submissions are handed in and staff secretly work on stuff.

Silhouettes don't do much by the way, unless you're advertising teleport mode. =P

As for a release date, you don't know when Sonic 4 is going to be out thanks to its retarded episodic bullshit. Sonic 4 and Sonic 2 HD are completely different and it doesn't matter what gets released for, although I do appreciate that your game targets the PC as the other game outright ignores it in favour of the iPhone. 2 years have gone on and there barely has been progress in terms of a complete Sonic 2 HD. EHZ needs to be finished in order to work on the other zones.

 

So let's summarize. Nearly every person who has commented on the issue agrees that this is NOT a community project, including several Retro staffers. When is someone going to do something about it?

 

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's what we're after. Let me start addressing as many responses as I can:

We're glad to hear the positive feedback regarding the art style! It's been difficult for us not to show you what we've been working on, but there is something to be said for anticipation. At the same time, we realize that if we're going to ask for specific types of contributions, you guys need to see what we've been up to, thus the 'teasers' we posted. In the coming weeks, expect to see more.

I suspected there wouldn't be many people pleased with our saying this is a closed project. So here it is in a nutshell: you wanted us to put words on the project's status, and we did. In all honesty, myself and most of the staff members do not care if it's called 'open', 'closed', or whatever. I don't see why semantics should change the nature of people who want to contribute to this project. Loosely put, the project can be considered closed in that the staff has final say in all decisions. This is not new. By the same hand, the project is as open as it always has been in that posters who create high quality work will be asked for adjustments if needed for their art, music, etc., to be included in the project, and even if said artwork isn't what's sought after, it will provide the valuable concept work the project will not function without. Again, not new. Had we made an official statement along the lines of "This project is now staff only, we will not be accepting anything not made by staff artists, Retro as of this point forward is an advertising front, thank you all for giving us publicity", I would wholeheartedly agree with Tweaker's response. Our stance on the matter is anything but. We still have project goals, chief among them the creation of concepts to work off, and we're still asking for help with them. This has not, and will not change. I think our initial statement and its intent was misintrepreted, and I'll be glad to do anything I can to help clear things up for you guys.

Specifically around Tweaker's post:
We understand your concerns, and we want to make everyone understand that we don't want to shun the posters here. The consensus seems to be that by our wanting to surprise the community with the highest quality alpha build, this is instead creating resentment over our operating in the shadows and 'hiding' artwork. As I said, we still want community involvement. You want to see more of what's been going on. We're going to provide that. We released the teasers specifically to help people create assets based on the updated art style. More will be coming, and the project guidelines will soon be updated to reflect this.

On there not being any updates until after Sonic 4's release:
This is a gross assumption. There will be project updates, and they're no in way linked to Sonic 4's arrival. There will not be a final release of S2HD before Sonic 4 is out. Given how an alpha release of the project is still being ironed out, and Sonic 4 already has a set release, I can't see this being too big a concern. Considering our art style is well set now, progress should be faster than it ever has been. I believe CeruleanNights has a perspective on that to reinforce what I've just said.

Regarding 'permissions': as Compsense has already noticed, it was a courtesy request, not a legal one. Obviously, we can't put legal ramifications on an intellectual property that we don't own, but it's disappointing that assets created for the project have been tossed around elsewhere.

As more than a few of you have noticed, we didn't immediately post responses last night. We wanted to see the night and morning viewers get a chance to look at the thread and post as well; if their comments were aligned with those made immediately after the announcement, it would show agreement from more members of the community. And it has.

Again, I'd like to reaffirm that S2HD will not shrivel up and die; we have far too much invested in it in both time and passion.

You've all seen that we're pushing ourselves to give you a great game. Some may not agree with our direction, but you can see that we are getting tangible, even impressive, results. We're asking for your faith in the project until the alpha hits so you can see it in all its glory. That said, we're not asking for your blind faith. There will be more examples of EHZ coming your way. This in no way precludes working like quite a few of you have been to provide advice on things currently being worked on, or creating new assets.

Please continue to give us your feedback, positive or negative. I'll monitor the thread to provide direct responses where possible.

 

Is S2HD still going to be shrouded in pointless secrecy? Earlier, nineko was joking about (ab)using his mod powers to make the entire S2HD forum set to invisible. :v: