Sonic 2 HD

I come back and find this out.

Well, I can't say we didn't see this coming. I mean, I remember LOst acting weird 2 years before when others asked to help with the coding, and I did ask the staff then if they could reason with him to get his stubborn self to let others help.

Turns out that things got crazier than I thought possible. I only worry that we find even more shenanigans LOst has put inside the Alpha that'll throw us all up for a loop.

Anywho, I have three things I wish to say:

1.) To the other dev members: Any ideas on what do for the engine and how to fix the mess so as to get things moving along again?

2.) To you other guys: Things have been crazy, but I assume that when its over, we can hopefully look forwards to awesome stuff again.

3.) To LOst: Dude, I know you're there, and as such I only ask one thing: Ya could've saved face before this, and could have explained everything. I'm likely the only one here who still thinks you can at least fess up and still salvage whatever positive rep. you still have left, if any. I wanna give ya one last chance to see if you can be awesome and at least apologize for this mess......or at least explain all these shenanigans.

If ya can't though.......well, then I feel pity for you, dude........pity that such a dude doing such work could have made things awesome, but fell from grace and did what he did.

After all, the higher you place yourself and your work, the harder your fall from grace is when it happens.

And for you, you basically fell from the Empire State Building.

 

I don't know about you guys, but I think it should go on the front page that L0st has been removed from the S2HD team, and that the game will continue onward with a new programmer. Also post that they didn't like L0st's DRM tactics, and that they don't approve of his actions in anyway.

It would be best to say this NOW to dampen the fire on the public's reaction to this issue, and try to minimalize any further damage to the S2HD name.

On note of L0st being removed, it is about time. Now the game can truly move forward.

 

You haven't read the past posts have you? Most of this is blown out of proportion.

 

ancara's posts are all like that, I don't know why you bother.

edit: LOst come out man you have a chance to redeem yourself and become a party member instead of a mid-boss villain all you have to do is believe I know you're reading this man (p.s. I'm the main character)

 

Thank you. The article doesn't prove shit to begin with. All I got from it was a base assumption or claim. But of course, everyone here's gonna go bandwagon without even knowing what they're bitching about.

 

well, I laffed.

 

Sorry long time lurker, I just wanted to check up on what the current stance on Sonic 2 HD is. The project itself was beautiful and it would be a shame to see it burn to ashes over this recent controversy (which I'm quite sure this project can be recover from). If Sonic 2 HD is to carry on, I would love to see the DRM removed, I honestly dislike the idea for a fan game to get that kind of treatment.

Please don't let this discourage you from keeping up your awesome fan game. It still has alot of potential, even for people that are distant from Sonic like me.

 

Why are some of you guys acting like posting a just-in-case warning was the worst mistake ever? The possibility of a keylogger was reported, people looked into it and found that, yeah, what looked like it could possibly be a keylogger was there. Posting a warning that it could potentially be an issue for people (while also pointing out it hasn't actually done anything yet) is a pretty reasonable thing to do. Sure, the article probably isn't needed anymore, but posting it in the first place wasn't a bad thing, since at the time it still looked like it could have been a keylogger.

 

You're seeing the airing of 14 year old grudges playing out right now. It's forgivable if you don't understand the frustration apparent in many posts on the subject.

EDIT: As in, grudges that have been festering for over a decade, not the grudges of teenagers.

 

I'm gonna have to agree with Tylinos here. There's nothing wrong with being a little cautious, especially considering there has been some discontentment with LOst's programming choices (the DRM, mostly) already. Posting the warning was the right choice, it brought the possibility to our attention, and allowed us to take action to try to prevent potential hacking and data loss.

What was wrong was everyone freaking out over it and wishing death and so forth on LOst, particularly before something concrete had been discovered or announced.

This is why I haven't said anything until now. Which leads to my question: What EXACTLY do we know about this situation? I can't tell what's fact and what's rumor/speculation/freakout.

 

*misunderstood SS as TSS*
>derp<

Anyway, here's to hoping the project won't end up being terminated...

 

I'm more interested in the next stage.

I.e. the bit where the entire engine has to be re-written from scratch. I want to see who takes up the challenge. Doesn't sound like you're going to get any of LOst's stuff (and it doesn't seem like anyone wants it)

Perhaps we can start to see some new zone art in the mean time.

 

Well guys, last night when all this drama started brewing I didn't understand why Guess Who was getting his panties in a twist on IRC over the use of the word "key logger" for this game. The exe was acting shady outside of the obfuscation, which was enough to warrant a general warning I thought.

But then the Kotaku articles started rolling out, and the general backlash and misinformation came through, and I can see why everyone's getting pissed over the way this was handled. ESPECIALLY that we didn't have all the facts before reporting (The fact that only DInput is affected is kind of a big deal)

What's done is done. The community overreacted. Nothing we can do can change that, the damage is done. This reflects poorly on us as a community but also on the project itself. And so now is as good of a time as any to initiate public relations mode.

This is an awesome first step. It makes LOst a bit of a scapegoat but I can't say he doesn't totally deserve it for other reasons. Now this needs to be publicized.

First off, when drafting your press release, be sure not to call out LOst by name. Do not mention his real name, do not mention his online alias. He's relevant, but only in terms of his impact on the project. It should be worded in such a way as to state "The lead programmer of the project, who is responsible for the problems, has been terminated." Simple and to the point.

Next I would run with the be wary of the alpha bit. In terms of the public image Sonic 2 HD = Keylogger, and so if you can assure a quality release NEXT TIME, there's no reason to latch onto this particular release.

Next, you need to assure the public that you have reordered the project's organization to have some checks and balances on the programming branch. Open source, while nice and something that most of us here love, isn't necessary for this. Just make sure that your new programmer has somebody else watching the code to make sure there aren't any little goodies put in there for the release. It will also be necessary because you're going to want a certain level of quality control on your next release. Sloppy coding simply isn't an option for you guys.

I would then include a bunch of work in progress art in vein of what you guys did to get people involved before the release with Emerald Hill Zone. Get your fans as involved as possible, it will take their minds off any worries about keyloggers. You also want as much good press as possible. Whenever you do something cool show it off to the media.

Once you have that press release done send it to as many news outlets as you can. You want to be able to guide the content of what the media is saying about you at this point so do as much of their work for them as possible. Anything you submit should be formatted in the AP style (Not that Kotaku gives a shit about that but) and it should generally look professional and presentable.

I feel like this project is far from over, you guys have time to save face, but you need to put some serious work in right now. Any time you're spending working on the game should be spent working with the press for the moment. Get the idea out there that Sonic 2 HD is a new product, different from the old one which had so many problems, and you'll be fine.

Good luck guys. I feel like you'll need it

 

Now that LOst is history, what I want to know is, was it his influence that turned the project so closed and secretive? Is it possible that this can be relaunched as an open-source, community project? I'm sure this could be released, in its finished form, to an exceptional quality if it was done by a dedicated and talented team (of which there are a huge number of talented developers at Sonic Retro), with the remaining members of the management team overseeing development, and having greater community input on matters from music to artwork. Even having a larger team of artists to create the artwork, based on the art style, would accelerate this project to no end!

 

What a shame this project has been hit with such shoddy programming choices. Losing LOst seems like a good first step, but what does this mean for the project? I assume they can't keep the engine because only LOst knew how to use that and kept most of the details to himself. That said, considering the year long delay was for DRM and not anything to do with the actual game, I assume a competent coder might be able to make a decent engine to replace this one maybe (if anyone is willing to pick up the mantle)

Think the threats are wholly unneeded, bad coding isn't really a valid reason to wish death and or unfortunate accidents on people. The guy's a dick, but likely has run for the hills and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. If anything, maybe he might learn something from this mess - maybe not, but at least it was nipped in the bud before he added anything WORSE to the game's code (which it sounds like he wanted to do, kudos to the team for at least getting it down to the simple modification warning)

I admit I haven't downloaded the demo, I saw the virus warnings and read this topic, and decided to hold off for another update. I guess now that update could be a long way away now :/

Possibly the team should consider releasing a public statement explaining WHY the game is logging this stuff (be it a bug or otherwise) and their plan going forward, though I'm sure that's already being discussed. I hope regardless of if this project goes forward or not, I think the rest of the S2HD team deserves a little love for at least getting it this far with such major issues, and the hope they can move onto bigger and better things. The rest can hold their heads up high, it's not their fault what's happened and it sucks their work is shown up by a rogue member of the team. I'm sure there's more to this story, it will be rather interesting to hear the rest whenever it does come out

 

Well I have to say I'm not angry just disappointed LOst has made little to no comment on this when he should be - defending, explaining or apologising. I mean I know there was no evil intent behind this whole ordeal - too much effort for it all - but the lack of response hardly makes it seem as innocent as he should be defending it to be.

 

What if he's on Easter vacation?

 

Ok I'd forgive him then if he was away but hasn't he been seen going about on some forums / chats, but not actually leaving responses?

 

Whether this indeed was a keylogger or just a bug, it could've been avoided in any way, which why I think removing LOst from the team was justified.

 

http://www.screwattack.com/news/sonic-2-hd-contains-virus-delete-asap
This project is getting a lot more attention than I realized. I'm worried about how the reaction from this release will affect the project's future. Don't give up, S2HD team!