General Project Thread & Feedback

Alright guys. Back to field more concerns. Let's start with the simplest stuff first.

The animated title screen will be in the alpha. It's our goal to have the trees animated as well so long as the engine can be optimized to allow for it outside of our tests. We've had some issues with the various animations all going on at the same time, so I won't promise they'll be there.

There are nine people on the S2HD staff: Vincent, myself, LOst, scanline99, Cerulean NiGHTS, Gambit, CornetTheory, scubaSteve, and Tee Lopes.

I haven't put anyone on ignore, and I don't believe anyone else on staff has. Even negative feedback still serves its puropse.

Concerning multiplayer: right now we don't even have a code-base to work with on that. Nothing has changed since I said we were looking for programming assistance in that area. Real work won't be started on that until we're churning out zones. Playable zones.

Concerning why it's taking so long to get an alpha out after nearly three years: Programming delays aside, we basically scrapped everything that we had prior to a year ago and rebuilt things utilizing a new method that CN and scanline came up with. In essence, the S2HD video you saw represents one year's work. We've applied their technique to Sonic, the Badniks, everything. It's a much more efficient art production method for us, and we believe it's yield fantastic artwork as a result. I don't expect 100% of people viewing the trailer to be thrilled with the changes made, but that's not our goal. We want the majority of people who love Sonic 2 to have a fun, beautiful experience in HD. Yes, it's a remake, so why does that surprise some people? That's been a given from the start. We are going to be adding extra content like Hidden Palace Zone, but that will come once the core of the game is set and playable. Realistic, I'd say.
Bigger question:

For the first year and a half of the project's existence, we did just that. The result was arguments that lead to the now meme level 'originalpixelfags' tag, not to mention countless clashing art pieces. When we overhauled the subforum last year, we put out very specific methods that were standardized to create art, and time and time again those were not followed even when Vincent and CN stepped in to guide people. When the art direction is ignored repeatedly, we have a hard time when people complain about the bar being set too high—especially when we've made an active effort to help those out who are truly interested. Over the course of the summer, most of those looking to contribute dropped off completely, so we once again changed gears and went to an expressed concept statement. That the staff would be making all the art, but that ideas on how things could appear in future zones were welcome and would be commented on. And we have.

It was, and at least a handful of people know this judging by this response.

I'm in the process of discussing this with the admins.

Bottom line: people are angry that they're not being able to contribute, but there is a set way that things must be made, and very, VERY few people have wanted to step up to learn how to do things according to the workflows we've laid out. None of this is new. But every time there's an announcement that people aren't pleased with, then 70 people all hop on here at once to complain. If you're that concerned with our project's well-being, we'd appreciate it if you'd all show up more often. I'm not even upset that you're all railing on us right now, feedback like this helps us out a ton.

I'm not blaming you for being upset. I've made that clear already. Changes to how the project is going to communicate are in the works as we speak. Tweaker touched on that briefly. I'll be holding weekly meetings with at least one of Retro's admins to talk about where we are and what announcements we're considering before they go live to take their advice into account.

 

The team painted a target on themselves before Tweaker said anything. You didn't need a drama bandwagon because I saw that reaction coming from people a mile way. The reason he decided to throw the issue into the public is because they've been trying to find out what's been going on privately for months and they were met with no response. All I've been hearing is "the S2HD team won't anybody into their forum" and "nobody knows what's going on." The administration isn't "complaining." Green eyes is "complaining." There is a legitimate problem here. This issue wouldn't have come to a head if the game staff responded to the admins before today or, at the very least, pumped the breaks on the hype campaign.

I mean, hell, it took a few pages of questions in public before an explanation was given.

Whatever on the lack of follow-through. Fan-gamers do that all the time. We all get so excited about whatever we're making, say shit, get busy and fuck up. Real life things obviously take priority over non-paid, hobbyist projects and, hey, hyping is fun. It's embarrassingly easy to get caught up in what you create. It's not a big deal, as it happens regularly and people would understand. Not clueing the admins on the project while using their hosting and front page for promotion is an issue, though, and to brush it off as "whining" is ridiculous.

I think the overall lesson learned here is... don't make a countdown clock unless you've got finished content. That shouldn't be your development deadline AND your release date. It should simply be a time where you release it. Also, don't leave your superiors in the dark. It's obvious that the team has now learned those lessons.

 

Pretty much this. Countdowns are usually set for sure-things. The clock goes up, hype builds, and then there's a big reveal. In this case, we were informed of an alpha, but got something else. I'm glad people across the web love it and want more (meaning the end-goal was still met), but the issue was with internal communication.

Well, here's hoping this sticks and things go more smoothly from here on out. I know both staffs would love not to deal with such an explosion of anger again.

Unless... you like this sort of thing.

 

Well that was a really pretty trailer to watch. Especially the footage of game-play. I haven't kept track of S2HD, how much is done level wise?

 

Monster Energy ?

 

I wonder if they will tell you. If they don't, it's obvious you can never match their style guide.

 

Thank you Canned Karma for your polite answer to my prime concerns, the thing that still bugs me is why the need to rehawl everything, did this not add work to your heavy work load. I mean the stuff wasn't bad, and I understand relying on members to constantly submit work didn't work but you did get usuable artwork that seems to be just redone in a modified style.

 

I saw the video and I liked it, and I was bored of it at the same time.

The problem I have is expressing my criticism because it involves going against the idea of the project to begin with, so feel free (That I know you will) to ignore me and move on.

This project lacks uniqueness, and it doesn't help when everyone's trying to point out the differences between the original Sonic 2 title and the HD version and saying "It needs to be like this" (not exactly what was said, but that's the vibe I got), I would love to see something new put in, maybe a layout change or perhaps extra acts with these changes if you do not wish for the original acts to be changed beyond the original title, maybe make that act somehow different by giving it a slightly different design and a day change. Adding a little bit extra to make it unique in some respect.

I have no comment on the whole video clip being only 11 seconds worth of info, or about this so called counter I wasn't aware of anyway.

 

Ack! It seems the whole colour set and crispness where much altered within the video encoding, especially Sonic shades.
Worry not, however. From today the curtains are open (finaly, might I add!) to the world, so please just give us the time to breath and sleep for one night, we are preparing up new stuff to be released, that will accompany us together up until the actual Alpha Release!

Love to all,

-Vincent

 

They made a boo boo. They're going to release more stuff. They're sorry. What's done is done. There's really no need to carry this argument about the collapse of the Sonic Community over announcements of announcements.

 

On http://www.s2hd.sonicretro.org/, the 1024×768 version of the second wallpaper at the very bottom of the page links to the wrong one: the higher def version, S2HDSonic_1920.png, when it should link to S2HDSonic_1024.png.

Wasn't sure where to put this, but I thought I'd say so.

Also, to comment on the project itself - I'm excited for it, and I have a simple question. Will users require a bad-to-the-bone computer to run it, or will this thing suffice?

 

I still have a bunch of old assets sitting around from two years ago (before vanishing into the mists, never to be seen or heard from again). The current level of quality is plainly better than what it was at the time, and more importantly there's a cohesive look that wasn't there before. It's also easier when you have preexisting examples of what to shoot for or what mistakes not to make again.

 

[LINK]

And of course, Joystiq couldn't help but insult Sonic fans while promoting S2HD. Also, some dumbass on a foreign website labeled it as an Xbox 360/PS3 game. [LINK]

Edit-

Good god, the comments are horrible.

This comment in particular made me want to rage. >_>

 

?kcuf eht...

Well, his comment did get a fair rating.

 

>>Use HD buzzword like it means something