Releasing the next version of infiltration

[Beretta_Abuser]

Infiltration for good old unreal tournament is "over" the new engine will be half life 2, everything will re-made from scratch and I'm sure it will be great.

But im really concerned about release dates here, 2.9 took ages to complete, the end product was awesome, but how long did it take? 3 years almost? to long to remember.

When searching for something completly diffrent on google the other day I happend to stumble upon an old infiltration news post, i think it was from 2002(long time ago anyway) stating that "2.87 is nearly complete, just fixing some bugs and then it'll be done"
then why wasnt it released?
Did everyuthing have to be perfect? or did you keep implementing more features(just one more thing).

Those of you who are familair with linux and open-source undoubtebly know debian, one of the major things that stop new potential debian users is the fact is that it's updated so infrequently.

What this is all getting to, why dont you guys release more open "unfinished" beta's instead of waiting forever to release one major update, while 10 minor could have been released in the meantime.

My fear is, that Infiltration 3.0(to give it a name here) will take just as long as 2.9 took, by then only old-style computer geeks remember unreal tournament, wich is by then long dead and decapriated, and with it, so is infiltration.
All infiltration players have switched to other games and mod for UT2k7, half life 3, and quake 4.

And ofcourse, seeing the lack of intrest for the project, most of the developers will go off and make something that will actually be played/used by people.

I know this is all volunteer work, and i apreciate it alot, and this is more of a suggestion then critism, but i really fear that infiltration will be dead before you know it if the current rate of releases are kept up.

 

[Crowze]

2.87 was abandoned when the team realised they just couldn't do aome things they wanted to with the current inf codebase. Hence, 2.9 has a lot of the code completely rewritten from scratch, so it took a fair bit longer than anticipated.

How they release things is entirely down to them, there's no 'right' way of doing it. However, I'm assuming that they already have some sort of roadmap layed out so they know what they want to put in each release. I hope they aren't striving to put too much content into the first release, but I'd be happy waiting another few months so that what they do release is of excellent quality.

A lot of people have already moved away from Infiltration onto newer games and mods, but there's nothing to say that they won't come back ever. You'd be a fool not to try other things in the meantime.

Developers... well, it's the old question of what they want out of it. I personally (note I'm not part of SS) like writing mutators and such because of the challenges they give and the programming experience I get from it, and from the enjoyment I get out of it at the end. I'm not striving to win any popularity contests here, and I hope Inf isn't too or it'll turn into CS.

Inf's community has always been small, and I hope it stays that way. It's nice to know at least a little about the people you play alongside, especially in a tactical and team-based game.

 

[Nukeproof]

I remember between 2.70 and 2.86 updates have been quite frequent. I hope the team will return to this release strategy although there were lot of complaints as well....

 

[randomas]

As for debian you have a stable release (mainly for mission critical server use), a testing release (more stable than most bullet proof commercial efforts) for desktop/server normal use, and an unstable release for bleeding edge chaos feeding nuters,which is what I use and only switched off before the xmass holidays after 3 months abuse and uptime.

Oh and I still happily play inf 2.9.

But them I'm an odd one ...

 

[AlmostAlive]

First of all, no one can answer your fears about things potentially taking a long time to develop, simply because no one knows. Lot of new things to learn and explore with the new engine. Trying to give an estimate on development time and eventual releasedate is hopeless and, at best, pure guesswork at this stage.

As for the 2.9 version, I think we all can agree that it took a long time. One year before the release we thought we were finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. It turned out to be the train coming at us at 120 miles per hour. One small issue that needed fixing generated two more, those two generated four more and things decended into what seemed an endless spiral to doomsday. Had it not been for the team's ability to stay focused, Infiltration's bloodline could easily have ended during the last year of 2.9's development. Sights were set on making the game as bug free as possible. One can't justify a release knowing that there are serious issues with the game while maintaining that goal. And that was the main reason for the delayed release. Feature creep was not one of them.

You can't make something like Infiltration by being sloppy. Perfectionism and pride makes damn sure you do your damndest to make the game as perfect as it can be. I'd be very disappointed and extremely surprised if this had changed since 2.9 was released. How things will be released is a totally different matter and remains to be seen. It is not my place to discuss that here. However, if you are going to release several minor updates you'll need a playable base to release them on.

I think you are making assuptions with no base in reality when you say that most of the developers will "of course" lose interest becausee there are not enough people playing the game. I'm going to make an assumption too, which I believe reflect reality a bit better : For 95% of the team it won't matter much if the game is played by 200 or 200 000. Yes, it would be damn nice to have such a large playerbase, and I will be the first one to cheer if it ever gets there. But it is not the main driving force. If it had been, Infiltration would have lost all developers to other and larger games and mods a long time ago. The main driving force is the process itself, the creation. As long as THAT is interesting and challenging, people will stay. Then again, I could be dead wrong. That's what making assumptions will sometimes do to you. Allthough I'm just a measly guy doing the dirtywork way down in the foodchain, I know what keeps me going. Being part of the process and seeing it evolve. I don't need 20 000 servers to have a good game of Infiltration. All I need is one.

Now, before I drive the last person still reading to suicide with my endless ramblings, let me just say that I am confident that we, the community, have a real treat in store for us with the new engine. We have yet to see what can be truly accomplished with it, but I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

 

[Vega-don]

almost, i think all the community prefer the next release of infiltration for HL2 to be as minimal as possible, with like 6maps, 5 guns, and movement.
it will fix a fanbase, even if the game has some flaws.
(see project managements concepts .. life expectancy of a product and success depends of the date of launch )

for inf 3.0 the realism must be a step further. we see that here most of the mutators are made to make the game more realist. because 2.9 had some balance. and balance is always bad.for exemple when you balance the scopes, they become too hard to use compared to irons.
i suggest for 3.0 to but NO BALANCE at all between the weapon. stricly realism. it will automaticly balance the game perfectly, and will be easier to create.

last, we have some real talent here that is not part of SS and in my opinion are as much talented as SS, work with them

 

[{GD}Ghost]

To address the "no balancing/strictly realism" statement, it does no good for the weapons to be completely realistic when we are still playing on horridly small maps with unrealistic freatures, lack of proper cover/concealment and atrocious design flaws. I'd also like to see balance go out the window completely and have true realism...or as close to it as possible, but must be applied to ALL areas of the game, from movement to ballistics, to map design.

But to bring this back on topic, I think I speak for alot of INF players when I say that we love INFiltration and our fear is that this next version will take so long that we ourselves will drift away and by the time we see a release, there will be other games that we prefer to play. There are quite a few clans that started out with INF, but have drifted away to other games because it is not possible to hold a clan together for a gaming community that is dormat. A clan needs activity to thrive otherwise it will go where there IS activity or die. In a small community like INF's clans are a large part of what keep the community alive. S.S. please don't forget or neglect us please. Take us into consideration when you are planning your development strategy. While popularity may not be your main goal, we (clans) are your best advertisement. The best part of a project like this is seeing other people enjoy it, but there has to be players around to enjoy the next release.

I also want to thank the INF Mod Team for its work and efforts. I dare say that this community would have died off months ago if not for their creative efforts. Please encourage them to continue and keep your criticism to a minimum, unless it is constructive. They are a major part of what is keeping us playing INF while S.S. works on the development of the next version of INF.

 

[geogob]

Ghost brings up a good point. Very realistic weapons are nice, but world where maps are not, where damage infliction is not, etc. I will be a pain.

That being said, I don't expect the new weapons to be toned down and balanced to follow the realism (or lack of) of the maps and hit detection systems, but rather to see all of it pushed to the limit of realism. Not the other way around.

 

[yurch]

for inf 3.0 the realism must be a step further. we see that here most of the mutators are made to make the game more realist. because 2.9 had some balance. and balance is always bad.for exemple when you balance the scopes, they become too hard to use compared to irons.
i suggest for 3.0 to but NO BALANCE at all between the weapon. stricly realism. it will automaticly balance the game perfectly, and will be easier to create.

It won't balance the game perfectly, because there are no real world numbers somehow defined somewhere that emulate the usage of a firearm. The difficulty and usage of the weapons are based entirely opon judgment calls by the implementers.

 

[Crowze]

Ghost, read my post, it applies as much to clans as to individuals. Not trying different things would be stupid, with the kind of timescale involved. There's nothing to say that many clans won't come back to Inf when the new version is released.

I don't understand what you mean about advertisement at all.

 

[Logan6]

almost, i think all the community prefer the next release of infiltration for HL2 to be as minimal as possible, with like 6maps, 5 guns, and movement.
it will fix a fanbase, even if the game has some flaws.
(see project managements concepts .. life expectancy of a product and success depends of the date of launch )

for inf 3.0 the realism must be a step further. we see that here most of the mutators are made to make the game more realist. because 2.9 had some balance. and balance is always bad.for exemple when you balance the scopes, they become too hard to use compared to irons.
i suggest for 3.0 to but NO BALANCE at all between the weapon. stricly realism. it will automaticly balance the game perfectly, and will be easier to create.

last, we have some real talent here that is not part of SS and in my opinion are as much talented as SS, work with them

Ditto, trash the balancing act. Let the weapons be real. i.e. the M249. Kicks way too much. Tried the mut for the 249 from the Inf Mod team, but it doesn't seem to take any kick out of the 249. I was watching a soldier firing a 249 from the shoulder the other day on CNN. The gun seemed to have a tiny amount of vibration (which the soldier was easily controlling by holding the weapon tight ) but nothing like what we get in game.

Also, the scopes sway way to much.

On another point: barrel rotation. The barrel rotating around when your not holding your breath is one thing. But when you hold your breath and fire, the barrel rotation goes right back as if your not paying any attention to your weapon. Thats not right. Anybody holding a weapon while firing is concentrating hard on controlling it. And if your firing fast semi auto, your still concentration hard between shots. Don't know about scoped semi auto, as I've never fired a semi auto scoped rifle.

 

[geogob]

On another point: barrel rotation. The barrel rotating around when your not holding your breath is one thing. But when you hold your breath and fire, the barrel rotation goes right back as if your not paying any attention to your weapon. Thats not right. Anybody holding a weapon while firing is concentrating hard on controlling it. And if your firing fast semi auto, your still concentration hard between shots. Don't know about scoped semi auto, as I've never fired a semi auto scoped rifle.

well perhaps the problems starts with breath holding.... you are not supposed to hold your breath when you shoot.

 

[Nukeproof]

I actually like the hold breath feature a lot. It's unique (if I'm not mistaking) and useful to give a realistic advantage to somebody 'in position' over somebody moving around and if you just call it 'control breath' or 'aim thoroughly' I see absolutely no problem with realism.

 

[Taque]

With irons, I don't hold my breath to shoot, even at long ranges ... Guess I never saw it to be a problem.

 

[Psychomorph]

If you fire, holding breath should not affect you if you aim and even if you do not fire and have the gun shouldered.
Breathing comes in intervals (hope right word) and it affects you if you aim the sight, you hold breath if you see it, namely the sights not moving (caused by breathing).

To control the moment where you want to shoot if you aim is what 'holding breath' is for (not like the breath is controlling the moment where you can shoot like in AA:O, which is stupid).
But if you fire you even do not notice the breath, and holding it doesn´t give advantages. If you do not aim, it makes no sence to hold breath anyway, cuz you do not notice it and your rifle is inaccurate anyway.

So I think holding breath makes sence only if you aim the sight/scope exactly before you need to shoot (which gives you the control over the weapon, to shoot exactly at the moment you need to and not to wait untill the breath in, or out is done).
Using sniperrifles you need to hold breath longer to stabilize the weapon. Using normal rifles you hold breath quicker, only if yopu shoot on great distances you hold it longer.

 

[Blitzschlag]

Hey Psychomorph, finally a post with less words from u and i have to agree to the things u said

 

[geogob]

On thing I see is that the gun movement is continuous, like if the player was hyperventilating... Breading, like Psychomorph mentions it, comes in interval... so should the gun movement. Also the intervals of the movement should be shorter when the stemina lowers.

mutator anyone?

 

[Keganator]

Quick reminder: it's not supposed to be 'hold breath', merely 'controled'.

Anyway...The Inf team will take as long as it needs or deems needed to do what it wants to do. Let them.

 

[Dr_Strangelove]

On the weapon recoil, the idea is that if you do not compensate for it, that is what a real weapon will do. You need to learn to control it yourself using the mouse, not make the game control it for you. Just like in real life, it takes practice to control a weapon in full auto.

 

[DEFkon]

Personally i'm hoping that the team takes a path similar to how Infiltration did in the begining. Simple small changes over realtively small periods of time (every few months iirc) INF started as an extra weapon mod for Unreal, and i have very fond memories of just runing around in typical unreal DM using "real" weapons. Right now i'd just like to see something like that for HL2 (single & multiplayer). Just give us some "real" weapons ( man i'd take any AR over that combine rifle thingy anyday) and give us some ironsights. ( yurch's got a nice little experiemental mod going). That would be a perfect entry into the realm of HL2 mods. Give the HL2 community a chance to get used to the idea of using Iron Sights, and "realistic" weapons other than what passes for realism in CS:S.