I have to say, after all the money that's been donated to this project, and the number of years that have passed, this progress is... pretty astounding.
By 'progress', of course, I mean the lack thereof. It's been three and a half years. In that stretch of time we've had three demos, the first two of which were practically identical, and all of which feel more like a copy-paste of the old game rather than what we were promised, which was a remake.
I'm fairly certain that as a community, we expected something more. 'Better graphics' is the first thing that springs to mind for me - the textures in the newest demo are... bad, to say the least. Is it the saturation? The weird sharpness? The fact that this doesn't look remotely like 'TEF 2.0' so much as 'TEF 1.0, But Sharper(TM)'?
And the thing is, those would be forgivable, if it weren't for the awful business practices and blatant cash-grabs too. The blatant disorganisation, the lack of transparency as to what the remake actually was until people had already donated tons to it (expecting, you know, a new game, instead of a reskin of the old one); the fact that the Kickstarter perks are awful and for some reason you seem to think it's acceptable to charge hundreds of euros for pelts that have existed within the game for years, but were restricted to the Twin Gods. Of course, if people want to toss that kind of money around, that's fine in itself - but frankly, the fact that they aren't even able to pay for new content is just... ridiculous.
There's been so much money put into this project. In the meantime, the community accepted that the original game wouldn't receive any updates (hardly a difficult thing to accept, given that the game had historically received maybe one small update every few years anyway) with the understanding that the payoff would be worth it.
And now here we are, nearly four years in, with nothing to show for it except a copy-paste of the old game and absolutely no timeframe for when the final product will be completed. It's remarkable that the community continues to tolerate this- any other gaming community would have, rightfully, raised absolute hell if they'd donated 40,000 euros and had this little to show for it this far along. And yes, game development is costly and difficult - but frankly, that isn't an excuse, at this point. Countless indie devs make far more progress with less time and far less money.
I know for a fact there's a lot of private discontent on this subject. I wish the community felt like they could be more open about it without being attacked by people still inexplicably willing to defend M&A even though we've all been being screwed over for years. On the other hand, maybe they do want to be open about it, but can't, because the community site is still horrendously broken and makes posting on here something of a nightmare. Who knows? Maybe it'll be fixed in another four years, if we spend enough money on [checks notes] unlocking old pelts to hit the 58k 'perk'.
Hilariously, I almost lost this post because the community site gave an error once I hit send, and I haven't even gone into the whole uh... 'anyone with a little knowledge can grab your TEF password because this site uses http instead of https' thing. We love some lax internet security, don't we.
It's been four years and more than 40,000 euros. Do better.
I brought up the security issues. The response was impressively incompetent. The users of this website with years worth of replies on biographies and memories could have it all deleted or taken from them in a matter of minutes, if someone really wanted to.
But what can you do when the creators do not care about their users? I can almost see them saying "Go make a new account" since they refuse to acknowledge let alone fix anything here, as though that addresses the problem.
Not to stir the pot more, but the owners do not care to correct it. Ignoring it and giving a false sense of security is not okay either, so here is some more confirmation, and a warning: Do not get comfortable on this website.
By 'progress', of course, I mean the lack thereof. It's been three and a half years. In that stretch of time we've had three demos, the first two of which were practically identical, and all of which feel more like a copy-paste of the old game rather than what we were promised, which was a remake.
I'm fairly certain that as a community, we expected something more. 'Better graphics' is the first thing that springs to mind for me - the textures in the newest demo are... bad, to say the least. Is it the saturation? The weird sharpness? The fact that this doesn't look remotely like 'TEF 2.0' so much as 'TEF 1.0, But Sharper(TM)'?
And the thing is, those would be forgivable, if it weren't for the awful business practices and blatant cash-grabs too. The blatant disorganisation, the lack of transparency as to what the remake actually was until people had already donated tons to it (expecting, you know, a new game, instead of a reskin of the old one)
M&A have always been transparent about their intentions of using old assets for the remake. They've stated time and time again that they wanted the remake to be as close to the original as possible, hence why it looks like a 'copy and paste.' They've also had to completely recode the game in a new, unfamiliar engine, so it's not surprising that they underestimated the amount of time needed to complete the project. It happens to game developers all the time.
I'm sure they know the game looks aesthetically funky in some areas. It's a work in progress, this won't be the final look of the game.
I agree that it's a great pity that the remake isn't done yet. I want to do be over too so we can start expanding the forest again (which wasn't possible anymore in the old engine). I'm really looking forward to that! We're doing the best we can, I assure you. And we're grateful for the donations. They are necessary! The Endless Forest is a free game. But the server costs money and we eat food.
We're sorry we cannot offer the service that a big studio can. But we're not sorry that we are a small studio. This is a different kind of game.
I admit that we do not work as hard anymore as we did 15 years ago when we started making The Endless Forest. We are older now. We do not have the energy. And our interests are more diverse. So progress is much slower than back then. I'm frustrated by that but I know I need to be patient and stubborn.
While I refuse to be discouraged by criticism that does not acknowledge the context in which The Endless Forest is created, I feel immensely encouraged by the continued show of support from the community. The friendly words, the expressions of appreciation, the stories about life in the Forest and the donations too, all give me energy to continue. And I am grateful for all of it.
We will continue working on this project. Not for money or for fame. But for love and faith. I can only hope that the inconveniences caused by our amateurish attitude are compensated by the beauty of our work.
Not interested in the whole argument as we've already been through it before (although thanks for the patience, Michael and everyone else who has shown it), but here's a thing that I hope might be constructive:
I wonder what causes the Community site slowness that so many people have been pointing at. I think I faced the issue too several months ago, but since that time everything has been working fine for me. I'm using the Opera browser on a laptop with Windows 10 OS, and the only thing that takes some time to load (about 1,5 min) is the list of the blog posts I've tracked. Aside from that, pages load pretty quickly (in 2-3 seconds) and I don't get any errors or double posts when trying to post something. Posting a comment takes about 30 seconds which I think is no big deal.
Just saying this in case it can help to detect the problem.
Thank you for responding, Michael. It's appreciated. I think we'll all be relieved when the remake is done! A more stable and update-able forest will be great to have.
Love the way it looks, can't
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It is starting to look so
You guys have done a great
In case someone needs
How To Resize TEFII_pre-alpha Window
Awesome!!!
I have to say, after all the
By 'progress', of course, I mean the lack thereof. It's been three and a half years. In that stretch of time we've had three demos, the first two of which were practically identical, and all of which feel more like a copy-paste of the old game rather than what we were promised, which was a remake.
I'm fairly certain that as a community, we expected something more. 'Better graphics' is the first thing that springs to mind for me - the textures in the newest demo are... bad, to say the least. Is it the saturation? The weird sharpness? The fact that this doesn't look remotely like 'TEF 2.0' so much as 'TEF 1.0, But Sharper(TM)'?
And the thing is, those would be forgivable, if it weren't for the awful business practices and blatant cash-grabs too. The blatant disorganisation, the lack of transparency as to what the remake actually was until people had already donated tons to it (expecting, you know, a new game, instead of a reskin of the old one); the fact that the Kickstarter perks are awful and for some reason you seem to think it's acceptable to charge hundreds of euros for pelts that have existed within the game for years, but were restricted to the Twin Gods. Of course, if people want to toss that kind of money around, that's fine in itself - but frankly, the fact that they aren't even able to pay for new content is just... ridiculous.
There's been so much money put into this project. In the meantime, the community accepted that the original game wouldn't receive any updates (hardly a difficult thing to accept, given that the game had historically received maybe one small update every few years anyway) with the understanding that the payoff would be worth it.
And now here we are, nearly four years in, with nothing to show for it except a copy-paste of the old game and absolutely no timeframe for when the final product will be completed. It's remarkable that the community continues to tolerate this- any other gaming community would have, rightfully, raised absolute hell if they'd donated 40,000 euros and had this little to show for it this far along. And yes, game development is costly and difficult - but frankly, that isn't an excuse, at this point. Countless indie devs make far more progress with less time and far less money.
I know for a fact there's a lot of private discontent on this subject. I wish the community felt like they could be more open about it without being attacked by people still inexplicably willing to defend M&A even though we've all been being screwed over for years. On the other hand, maybe they do want to be open about it, but can't, because the community site is still horrendously broken and makes posting on here something of a nightmare. Who knows? Maybe it'll be fixed in another four years, if we spend enough money on [checks notes] unlocking old pelts to hit the 58k 'perk'.
Hilariously, I almost lost this post because the community site gave an error once I hit send, and I haven't even gone into the whole uh... 'anyone with a little knowledge can grab your TEF password because this site uses http instead of https' thing. We love some lax internet security, don't we.
It's been four years and more than 40,000 euros. Do better.
I brought up the security
But what can you do when the creators do not care about their users? I can almost see them saying "Go make a new account" since they refuse to acknowledge let alone fix anything here, as though that addresses the problem.
Not to stir the pot more, but the owners do not care to correct it. Ignoring it and giving a false sense of security is not okay either, so here is some more confirmation, and a warning: Do not get comfortable on this website.
(No subject)
By 'progress', of course, I
M&A have always been transparent about their intentions of using old assets for the remake. They've stated time and time again that they wanted the remake to be as close to the original as possible, hence why it looks like a 'copy and paste.' They've also had to completely recode the game in a new, unfamiliar engine, so it's not surprising that they underestimated the amount of time needed to complete the project. It happens to game developers all the time.
I'm sure they know the game looks aesthetically funky in some areas. It's a work in progress, this won't be the final look of the game.
^
I agree that it's a great
We're sorry we cannot offer the service that a big studio can. But we're not sorry that we are a small studio. This is a different kind of game.
I admit that we do not work as hard anymore as we did 15 years ago when we started making The Endless Forest. We are older now. We do not have the energy. And our interests are more diverse. So progress is much slower than back then. I'm frustrated by that but I know I need to be patient and stubborn.
While I refuse to be discouraged by criticism that does not acknowledge the context in which The Endless Forest is created, I feel immensely encouraged by the continued show of support from the community. The friendly words, the expressions of appreciation, the stories about life in the Forest and the donations too, all give me energy to continue. And I am grateful for all of it.
We will continue working on this project. Not for money or for fame. But for love and faith. I can only hope that the inconveniences caused by our amateurish attitude are compensated by the beauty of our work.
thanks for the reply,
Not interested in the whole
I wonder what causes the Community site slowness that so many people have been pointing at. I think I faced the issue too several months ago, but since that time everything has been working fine for me. I'm using the Opera browser on a laptop with Windows 10 OS, and the only thing that takes some time to load (about 1,5 min) is the list of the blog posts I've tracked. Aside from that, pages load pretty quickly (in 2-3 seconds) and I don't get any errors or double posts when trying to post something. Posting a comment takes about 30 seconds which I think is no big deal.
Just saying this in case it can help to detect the problem.
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_
I do think most of us are
Thanks for the update.
Thank you for responding,
Formerly ocean.