My mega huge rant on "Custom Versions"

[lel]

This is a lot to read, I suggest if you don't want to read it all just go to the last paragraph….. And.... If you couldn't figure it out, its about people who start custom versions/engines.....

I have seen a lot of topics in the "Custom Versions" area, that start with something like this, " You know….... I have seen a lot of Custom Versions, that are just a whole mess of crap tutorials (that most creators won't even use!) put together, and they lack any originality." After that, we get to read on as they brag about how great their programming is, and even worse if we read on we get to be "promised" something. Anyone else notice this?

Now hear me out...... Listen to me for a second guys/girls, because I haven't even really started to complain yet. At this point, if you are already thinking of ways you are going to defend yourself ( as sorry as that is,) or attack me (HA!) You are most likely at fault about what I'm going to say here, or love broke things, or just love being a troll, which in case I could care less.....

In these so mentioned topics, the programmer/'s never even finish with their work bug free, or exactly as they said. I mean there are a lot of things I would like to go more on (first) I like tutorials put together when they are done right! AND ALLOT OF OTHER PEOPLE DO TOO! ; and like, how it lacks "originality" because its not original. OMG! I can see morons saying "That doesn't make sense" If that's you hit the spoiler for one simple example.

>! How about you be the first to make "this" and "that" work 100% bug free. "This" and "That" doesn't have to be new but both of them working perfectly together; could, very well be new. For example, how long have people been trying to make Pets and Quests work together? 100% bug free? I mean I know some people have done it, but how long did that take? Who really should get credit for the first working version of it? I don't even know…

But not to lose focus here, we get someone that does all this talking, and never even finishes their working. I get it! Life is real! People have lives! AND! THINGS! COME! UP! But why does everyone start with telling us all these "plans," "future updates," and "PROMISES" ; when, all they do is fall short? You went and did all this bragging, ranting, complaining, and long,boring explanation of your project AND DIDN'T EVEN FINISH! That's just as bad as making something super buggy! How about starting off smaller first! Release it in parts!

I hate to praise anyone here honestly, but…. I think its DeathBeam? doing the advanced versions of EO? (I hate this version personally) but I can't say a solid bad thing about it.... He just keeps going, and I think he is smart enough to stop sooner or later and make a new project once a big enough idea pops up. He also tries very hard to think of stability during progress. Do I really have to mention JC's hard work and effort? You know during his event project I don't think I heard him insult a single person or project. I actually can't recall him ever insulting anyone's projects. He just did "work son."

No people.... I'm not saying every project should be bug free ( which reminds me....... I think some people started a bug free/ fix version of normal eclipse or something like that???? I think they should get some notice too...... Just saying....) but the end result should be pretty close to bug free, or at least workable or work around able or easy to work with.... Or you might have just left someone with a huge empty feeling because you promised some other huge factor/add-on and never got around to it. "factor/add-on? Hold on..... What?!" If that's what you're thinking ;then lets say, say you make "JC events 3.1" + "Pets" + "Guilds" + "Random Stats on Items on pick up" + "Party/Guild chats" That's a pretty engine there.... But you mentioned 8 directional movment at one point and players and NPCS get 8 directional projectails too. But never got around to it. You just left a huge empty hole in someone, someone was ready to make a game with that they had it all planned out in their head and you never got to it. You should probably not even mention something like that if you are not going to finish it! Then! What bugs (ME!) the most is I notice someone will go a make an engine (after so named) with the other part like 8 dir. movement or projectails. but leave out one, more, or all of the other features a person liked from the previous mentioned project.

I really wish people would just start something (by first) not bluntly insulting others efforts, bragging about theirselves and their accomplishments (especially for a whole paragraph or more), and then starting some huge project no one see's the end to. You know what guys, action speaks louder than words. Do what you wanted, post it, fix it, complete it, THEN STOP! but if you can for sure keep going then, add one thing/change to it, repeat. DON'T!----> tell us about your stupid great idea you have no intension of actually doing, then do it half-ass, never fix it, add crap to it, never fix that, tell us about some other stupid great idea you plan on doing, then have something happen in life that no one can all you out of because you have a "life" as you probably just got caught up in World or Warcrafts new explansion pack or got boerd. Who here agrees with me?!

[kibbelz]

I must agree here. There are by far way too many custom versions that are practically all the same. They are all useless and just string a bunch of tutorials together which are not the best code in the first place, hence why they are released as tutorials. I am glad someone finally had the balls to post this.

~Kibbelz

[Rob Janes]

Without examples; it's hard to agree with you. People making custom version's seem to be continuing to work on them as needed. That being said, I don't believe a 'custom version' should be a clusterfuck of other people's tutorials. It should be 'custom'.

[iSnow]

There has been a surge of custom versions mainly thanks to Advanced being such a large choice on eclipse projects and because of the new developer contest. I will say Custom versions should NOT be a huge mess of tutorials without proper optimization and a reason to use it. Eclipse Dawn was popular before it was removed despite being very similar to 2.3 because it had new GUI and optimizations, and the GUI part really got to people next to multiple characters.

Also, you can't rely on everyone else to add X factor. We waited a long time to see Projectiles and Guilds become publicly available as source tutorials and only now is Eclipse having a Renaissance of new features, developers and systems.

[lel]

@Kibz lol PM'd ya. ^.-

@ Rob I respect your opion and understand your veiw point; however, I do not really want to give an example in the open and insult someones work infront of thousonds of people who deserve to judge said works themselves. Probably the most adult thing I'll ever say in my life, someone screen shot that for me please lol…. I wouldn't mind PMing you thou, if you really must have some that badly... You might not be happy with what you read from there thou.....

@Snow Shinobi- So Dawn was doing well? I have not really looked into it at all. I'd like to hear more about it, but maybe via PM or something as I don't want to focus on an exact project only on this topic.

[Exception]

I have the odd feeling that I'm a part of the (Seemingly small) group that this is aimed at.

Anyway, to the point, Advanced is popular because of commonly wanted systems. The majority of the community for the most part are quite oblivious, admittedly and unfortunately. They don't care if an engine runs however it runs for whoever else, they just want something that's done for them, and allows them to just make content without the need to bother learning to program.

Eclipse Dawn was popular because it -perfectly- managed and maintained the balance between optimism, and features, while managing to educate members at the same time. I haven't seen another custom version do this, since. Every other one has either tipped too heavily on features, or optimising.

Currently, the closest that I think that comes to that is Rob's custom version, but because it is closed-source (For now, with reason), you can't really say it's stance on educating members in game development. EA is too heavily balanced towards features to make it ultimately usable on the majorities of peoples systems, and Eclopti is generally extremely bare-bones, however it runs, requiring effort on the end user to actually make a game.

Sad reality, that effort plays such a huge part on the used custom version, but hey. Whatever floats the end-users boat.

[Rob Janes]

@ Lel, sure, if you want you can PM me with some names. I won't be insulted if you want to put my name on the list, I did start a custom version long ago using CS:DE that got dropped, picked it up recently and built on jcsniders official base. I just have no intentions of releasing the source until a later time, but any changes I make are available for download on my forum posts. So far, I've kept true to what I've promised heh.

But overall, I agree with your comments slightly, I'm not a fan of someone rebranding work as their own. It's just unprofessional.

[iSnow]

Speaking of that Rob, I want it that custom version I helped you test a while back :[

[Rob Janes]

Don't bother Snow  Everything I threw into that old version will make it's way into this one, without the Dx8 issues that CS:DE suffered from.

[Agoraphobic]

I'm not going to lie, it was hard to finish reading your post and take it serious with all the spelling/grammatical errors, in addition to the condescending attitude.

Just some food for thought.

[lel]

@ Iris don't feel targeted ( but yes this is targeted at you and only you JUST KIDDING! LOL) its more towards the ones that left people with nothing. Even A LOT of the tutorial blends that I like are kind of targeted (that kibz was not too far off about.) But mostly people that started something and never finsished. I think you are just starting something, right?

@Rob I'll PM you. Tell me what you think of the yellow speedo, then the pink. ^.-

@Ago oh…. good thing you didn't lie? Because if you did (lie) you might not of helped move the topic foward.

@Voices in my head, please stop I don't want pancakes in my ear holes.....

[Rob Janes]

I don't want to open your PM if you're warning me of speedo's….

[iSnow]

@Rob Janes

Quest log better be as cool it used to be.

[Jumpahead]

100% agree lel. I hate it when people do not attempt to add some originality to there custom versions and then they don't even finish them.

[Exception]

 Well, 'cause you know, we're all obviously qualified to complain and female dog about the voluntary work of othe–owait.

jk

[Rob Janes]

This was directly mainly towards me, and that's fine. I do admit I started a project a year or two ago, and ended up dropping it without releasing the source. It's not secret that I am not a fan of someone taking another person's source code, making a slightly changing it and calling it their own. Thus, the source was only handed over to a few individuals, but never ultimately given to the community. That won't happen this time around, regardless who wins the lead developer position, source code will be available the day after the new developer is selected!

[lel]

@Rob Come on guy, be honest. (which doesn't mean tell everyone what I said lol) I mentioned plenty of examples other then you. The ones I mentioned in this topic as being right, also don't point at just you, it points at all of the CV (Custom Versions) that don't come close to the ones I praise. Are you the only one that did that Rob? seriously…. EDIT: Also how dare you not even say anything about my speedos...... How rude!

I also wanted to give a hand to Project Vertigo? the side scrolling engine? For the longest time that guy worked on that thing, I think he still is, I am not sure, but no one can say anything bad about his work either, he worked so hard on it!......

[Synergy]

I might be wrong, Rob, I don't think this _actually_ was directed at you/your engine. Yours seems to be one of the select few that are custom and not just tutorial mash-ups.

EDIT: Didn't see post above. I've just reiterated that.

On the whole though, I agree. Except for that very recently there have been some engines which are going in the right direction; Rob's Engine, Eclopti and EA are all quite 'custom'.

Incidentally, it seems that Rob's Engine is a hybrid between the more feature packed engine of EA (although the coding I'm sure will be better, no offence to Deathbeam) and the complete bare-bones approach of Eclopti.

I'm quite excited to see how they all develop. 

[Vus]

> I might be wrong, Rob, I don't think this _actually_ was directed at you/your engine. Yours seems to be one of the select few that are custom and not just tutorial mash-ups.
>
> On the whole though, I agree. Except for that very recently there have been some engines which are going in the right direction; Rob's Engine, Eclopti and EA are all quite 'custom'.
>
> Incidentally, it seems that Rob's Engine is a hybrid between the more feature packed engine of EA (although the coding I'm sure will be better, no offence to Deathbeam) and the complete bare-bones approach of Eclopti.
>
> I'm quite excited to see how they all develop. 

Yeah.

It will all become even more interesting, thats for sure…

[lel]

@syn + vus

You guys are both correct ( for the most part. )

I just want everyone here on the same page. Whats the point if just one person or two people gets the point? I want to see everyone here do their best and NOT GIVE UP.

[Rob Janes]

Haha, I'd release my source now if I didn't think it would end up in Eclipse Advance or another competitor's release before the new developer competition has been completed.

[Likestodraw]

I agree with you 100% on everything you said. Sure nothing decent is going to come out of Eclipse any time soon, it helps to have a decent, bug-free engine to work with, even if that means sacrificing some features and not knowing EXACTLY what MAY be going into it.

[dimx]

I don't agree with this at all (Although I didnt read the whole rant so cant really say that). People can release whatever they please nobody is forcing you to use the custom versions. Something that doesnt help you might help someone else, if there is an engine with tutorials copyed pasted from the forum and released then thats fine some people might have a hard time implementing the feature from the tutorial not everyone is a VB6 wizard. So when they see the acctual feature in a engine they can play around with it untill they understand how it works. Best way to learn is to fiddle with something you dont understand.

Now the reason people abendon their projects is again all up to them you are not paying them are you? People do grow up and move on. This is a hobbie one minute you find it interesting and the next you get bored. Some people didn't abendon the project its perfectly normal to take a break 6 months or a year untill you get inspired again. Also if you are making a custom version and for the most part nobody is using it or doesnt have any interest in it. Why the hell would you continue it and waste your time? Look around you and do some research first a lot if not most of projects fail no matter what it is a car design or a clothing line for every 1000 different project maybe 1 is successfull. The key is to keep trying untill you get the perfect formula.

I could keep going but its a lot of reading anyway I think I got my point across.

[Guest]


You my good sir, you deserve a mother ducking OSCAR FOR THIS RANT!!!!

[Mal]

I honestly don't see why it matters if the source is complete or not, or if development is on-going or not. If people learned how to NOT necro threads, those projects would cease to exist and/or would be completely buried by new and more relevant projects that ARE in development or on-going.