Before you read this acknowledge that this is a personal opinion that is mutually shared by much of the forum users and is the subject of much controversy but of valid discussion.
Apologies for the spacing problems, I can't seem to fix them.
Napoleonic Wars is a great game, has (although some will argue it had) a great community, and continues to thrive with steam sales and youtube attention. Yet, when we actually look at this game and it's community, what's really happened? Is this game really what it used to be? Will we ever see Battle Cry of Freedom, the return of many of the users who helped build this community? That's the question I have.
Let's look at something. Donations are no doubt needed for a game and there is a lot of validity as to why you need them. Yet, even with the funding it seems like the game we've been promised has barely seen the light of day in terms of released alpha
material. Now if there really is more made, why haven't we seen it? Why let the community continue to move away instead of actually trying to keep them interested. It's at a point of where many of the people who donated to get BCOF will probably have moved on by the time it may be released. Now notice what I said there, may be released. This game has been in development for a LONG time. Now I know that games take time, especially with a small development team such as FSE, but then you have this. There are games out there that were made with smaller budgets, smaller teams, and even less of a community. So why hasn't FSE released much on BCOF besides some alpha screenshots of a few units and then some sliders we can use to edit the faces of the characters. Now, looking at a similar game made by members of the NW community, we can see that they appear to have accomplished far more, with even less. This game has received only a fraction of the donations/funding yet appears to be even stronger then BCOF. This simply doesn't add up. How can a smaller group have more material presentable with less time to work with and with less money. The facts are just not adding up FSE. The dev blogs that we see are just teasers of scraps that are the equivalent of showing us one piece to a 2000 piece puzzle. It's interesting, but when do we get to see it together, or at least marginally completed so we can have an idea as to where this money is going. Now as of right now,
the latest Developer Blog, Number 25 on Face Customization, was released on August 12th of 2014. Prior to this, Developer Blog 24, the 2nd South Carolina String Band, was released on May 24th of 2014, and even further then that, on April 3rd of 2014, Sounds was released. Now, am I going to calculate that FSE is Illuminati with their dev blog releases? No. However, I will look at the mean average of releases and what we're seeing in terms of change. So from Blog 23 to 24 is 51 days. So for 51 days we essentially saw sounds, and then advanced sounds with music added. Then, with the help of DannyEle, we saw FSE release their face customization blog which came 80 days later. So in that time span we saw sounds go to some sliders. I suppose that this could be seen as progress, but when we look at the actual scale of BCOF devlopment times we're
greeted with the sad reality that this is actually very little. See, looking at the 1st Dev Blog (released on the 17th of November, 2012) we can see the basic planning of FSE in terms of the smaller things like networking. However, the span from Dev Blog 1 to 25 is 553 days. Five Fifty Three. That's a massive number, nearly two years and yet we've only seen a fraction of a game. It really makes you wonder about where this is really going and as to whether we will actually see the light of day for a project that so many have simply abandoned. I've seen friends come and go because FSE's timescale is worse then Valve. I would almost confidently say that FSE is using Valve time on an audience that is only a fraction of the size and that's being forced to play a game that hasn't seen an update in years. Seriously FSE, why do this to your users and fans? Can you at least make a cordial post explaining development? Can we see some sort of implementation of a timeline that's updated weekly or monthly. Example, "This week we've implemented sounds into the muskets and have made the appropriate files and folders to house them". Even the smallest light to keep your community out of the dark. This is not what the community deserves FSE, it really isn't.
Now before you say, but Will, you are just a filthy scrub who has said he's going to leave this community so many times, or that you're just a scrub that is a thing of the past, well you're wrong. There's a reason why I'm still here, and that's hope. Hope that one day this community will go back to the way it used to be, the way it was with dozens of huge regiments, a community that cared about one another and just wanted to help others, a place that helped breed one of the greatest communities I've ever know. It was just a different time back then and I really wish we could see that return with BCOF but it just seems like with the timeline that FSE is taking, there won't be anyone left to play BCOF.
FSE, NW has really changed my life, whether it be good or bad, I've met some of my best friends here, but there comes a time when even someone like me gives up hope on something they've advocated for so long. I hope you read this and can appreciate that I've at least put thought into this and just want to see better for this community. Hear me out FSE, hear me out and deliver.
Regards,
William
