Ask-the-Devs Revisited

[frvge]

It's time to Ask-the-Devs!

Because of college/work stuff for many of the current devs, I'll try to answer as much as possible.

I can probably give you some answers for which you've been waiting, but I prefer if you ask the question first  ;D.

Please target an individual dev, like:
@lennard: what about huba huba huba hop hop hop ?

and then I'll answer for them, unless they are faster. Ha. Ha. Anyway, bring it on!

[monterto]

I suppose that I shall break the ice here.

Q1: When do you normally work on the mod? (weekend, after work, etc.)

Q2: Can there be a game mode that makes the spies and mercs shirtless? That would be sexy.

[Wh1tE_Dw4rF]

Q: Will there be a hidden disco-party in one of the maps, like Factory?

[frvge]

I suppose that I shall break the ice here.

Q1: When do you normally work on the mod? (weekend, after work, etc.)

Q2: Can there be a game mode that makes the spies and mercs shirtless? That would be sexy.

A1: Most devs do after work, or when they have time. PS is still a hobby project, so obviously education and work and family come first.

A2: Possible? Yes. Will we make it? Nope.

[frvge]

Q: Will there be a hidden disco-party in one of the maps, like Factory?

A: The disco-party easter egg was lame. And you gotta explore the maps for yourself to see if we have easter eggs. Muhaha.

[frvge]

Moar questionz!

[Farley4Fan]

Q:  How playable is the game at the moment?  Are there enough animations (or even just placeholders) to play a game to an extent?

Q2:  How far off would you say you are from releasing a beta to the public?

[frvge]

Q:  How playable is the game at the moment?  Are there enough animations (or even just placeholders) to play a game to an extent?

Q2:  How far off would you say you are from releasing a beta to the public?

A: As you might have seen from the updated Milestones list, we're working on recoding Project Stealth. This is probably the third or fourth (partial) rewrite. Each iteration gives the programmers more insight into the workings of the engine. Most of the Spy animations are done and we can bring them over for the Merc. First person Merc anims are the things we need most at the moment.

A2: We focus on quality (that's why it's taking longer with all the rewrites) so I can't really say a date because the dev members can always be in a hard/busy time with work/college and that affects their time spent on PS. I'm hoping for a public version in 2009, but I'm not sure we'll make that.

[MR.Mic]

.
Q1: When do you normally work on the mod? (weekend, after work, etc.)

When I feel like it, and mostly not even then.

[frvge]

As you can see, it's hard to really give estimates. Some members have sudden boosts in activity, others are mostly inactive, but the times they do things, it's high-quality and original.

The best way to speed-up development is by educating yourself on a topic and then joining. I'm currently reading through the Mastering Unreal series of books (which is mostly about level design) when I feel like it.

[LennardF1989]

Please let me clarify the rewrites of the code: With this we mean we backup all code and simply start over by ONLY copying the relevant pieces of code in a certain order (like, the milestones) and rewrite the pieces where necessary (also referred to as refactoring). We then make sure with each milestone, code still does what it has to do.

Our main focus at the moment is getting it all (as in: Everything we did before) to work over a network, which wasn't that much of a priority earlier. By eventually having mixed all rewrites together, PS should be the outcome.

Each rewrite also comes with certain performance boosts and ways to make it more manageable for us. If we would compare older code to the current code, we would have absolutely no idea where to look in case of bugs. For example: If the Story-mode would put you in an other team than you selected in the Lobby, we can now say with 100% certainty that the bug is in the Lobby code (which is only 1 class with 2 functions).

All in all this means we can provide bug-fixes WAY faster and make our (read: especially my) lifes easier. Note that we also take good care of the editor, so mapping would be as painless as possible :)

[Farley4Fan]

Q:  How playable is the game at the moment?  Are there enough animations (or even just placeholders) to play a game to an extent?

Q2:  How far off would you say you are from releasing a beta to the public?

A: As you might have seen from the updated Milestones list, we're working on recoding Project Stealth. This is probably the third or fourth (partial) rewrite. Each iteration gives the programmers more insight into the workings of the engine. Most of the Spy animations are done and we can bring them over for the Merc. First person Merc anims are the things we need most at the moment.

A2: We focus on quality (that's why it's taking longer with all the rewrites) so I can't really say a date because the dev members can always be in a hard/busy time with work/college and that affects their time spent on PS. I'm hoping for a public version in 2009, but I'm not sure we'll make that.

Good to know.  Keep it up guys.

[Sunshine]

All I've read so faar looks good. Way to go guys :) Maybe soon I can return to be a game-freak again as I was with CT  :o

[Zedblade]

Q1: When do you normally work on the mod? (weekend, after work, etc.)

Q2: Can there be a game mode that makes the spies and mercs shirtless? That would be sexy.

1. For me, there was never a really set time I worked on the Mod. When I felt like It, I would. There were times I didn't touch Lakehouse for months, and other times I worked on it for two weeks straight, 10 hours a day. It all depends. Like frvge said, this is only a hobby and something we do in our spare time when we want to, not a job.

2. We are making a stealth action game, for your sweaty man on man fantasies, you will need to go somewhere else.

Q: Will there be a hidden disco-party in one of the maps, like Factory?

No, but we are hoping to have one easter egg in each map. Nothing too fancy however. I can tell you the scrapped easter egg that was planned for Lakehouse, but would turn out to be way too much work. The plan was to have all the animal trophies appear in the theater as a group, singing the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (with the lion head as the lead singer.) However, to really sell it, it would require lip syncing and other animation, not to mention the song is copyrighted. So expect another easter-egg, one much less complicated and subtle.

[frvge]

Yup, the licensing of that song is a bitch. I checked it out myself. Zed thought it was in the public domain at first :(.