Another "When will this project be finished" questions

[Chris Calvert]

It is now 2006, and HERO6 has yet to be completed. Acknolwedged that this is a spare time project, but even The Silver Lining is coming together sooner than expected. Will you finish it THIS year, or will you continue to let it go. If I knew I had something to offer your team, I would gladly help, but as of now, I'm in search of a career, and I need Professional experience, not side projects. Please get this underway, we have been waiting for quite some time.

Error 52's Be Damned!

[Silverbolt]

Well, I'm not qualified to give a release term, but seeing how I seem to be the only one around at this point, let me just say this:

Trust me. Work is being done. The game is GOING to come out.

[Swift]

The Silver Lining Team is only releasing the first chapter of a game, not the full game. If Hero6 had chosen to release only chapter 1, it would have been released years ago. No one in this team has "continued to let it go", so I don't know where you got that impression from. Just ask any of the newer members, like Silverbolt and ReishVedaur, and they'll tell you that the team is working hard to get the game ready.

Giving out a release date at this stage is premature. While we do hope to release it as soon as possible, we do have other factors to contend with, like real-life issues and work. You yourself would rather get a career than bring a project to completion. What about us in the team? Please understand that this is a volunteer project, and our work will have to be attended to first before we can focus on the game's development.

As for your other point, that professional experience rather than side projects is preferred, that isn't always true. What recruiters want to see is what professional and transferrable skills (communication, co-operativeness, leadership qualities, organizational skills, creativity, etc) you have, and if you can demonstrate that such side projects have developed your transferrable skills, you would have a better chance of standing out over the next guy who doesn't appear to have much transferrable skills.

[PHattiE]

It is now 2006, and HERO6 has yet to be completed.

Of course it will be done this year!  2006 was the year we planned for hero6's release in the first place!  

Look for the sequel in '07.  Wait, on second thought, we might do a prequel.  Look for that one in 3005.
 

[Corsair5]

Patience, child. Be patient as we all have, and you'll get your wish. Be impatient, and the Hero6Fairy will leave an acidic tablet on your pillow to cause you much pain, as well as going bald before your time. Though I do not wish to bestow upon you the pain of such misfortune, know that I do posess the power to do so. Be patient.

Or be fearful. Ha ha ha ha ha ha haa...

[Silverbolt]

How can you not love this place?

[Raito]

Hmmm... we're not doing anything, righhhhhttt.

I don't think that's the case since I've been submitting more than 20 pages of bug reports for programming, art and other departments to fix. These include errors, crashes, suggestions on gameplay and game user interface.

Work is ongoing and fixes are being constantly released. The only problem is finding enough people to do the heavy work like programming, art and music. Well, we're lacking in staff but we'll get by.

Meanwhile, I doubt we owe anything much to our fans, apart from putting out a good quality game. Sure, we could be fast and release a game asap, but would you rather a game that crashes once every few minutes or something that delivers smooth gameplay?

[Ianfe]

... and, seriously, when you see the MASSIVE size of the game, you'll instantly understand why it took so long to make, considering it was made by a bunch of friends in their homes ontheir spare time.
 

[Raito]

... and, seriously, when you see the MASSIVE size of the game, you'll instantly understand why it took so long to make, considering it was made by a bunch of friends in their homes ontheir spare time.

Not to mention that now everyone is getting quite busy in their real life.  

[Silverbolt]

Friggin' 12th grade... <_<  

[Davide]

Im sure Hero 6 will be finished soon, I think some people just don't realise how much work it is to do something like this in your spare time, heck I applied for Hero 6 ages ago and I STILL havn't managed to send my sample pieces to Ianfe, which made me realise how much work it is to do this kind of thing in your spare time.

The Hero 6 team have done masses of work, and we admireres can hardely complain, after all we just have to sit back in our chair and wait while they do all the work, and to top that we get a free game out of it too!

I too am very interested to know the release date of Hero6, but I also understand that the longer it takes the better quality game we will get.

Can I also just point out that working on a freeware game is great experience, after all everyone needs to start somewhere.

Dav

P.S Sorry about the samples Ianfe, life is extremely busy right now with all the exams.

[Anonymous Visitor 449]

Members should keep in mind when things come up like this that Hero6 has been around for... 3 years now? 4? And status reports are few and far between. It's all fine and dandy to say 'work is being done,' but after a couple of years... one begins to wonder.

Now, this isn't a demand that work be done or a game be released or etc., nor is it a complaint (as several of you say, it's being done by people in their spare time on their own computers). But instead of getting defensive "We're working on it! Jeez!" etc, you should bear in mind that it has been multiple years since any real progress has been reported or status update given. With commercial software, that's called vaporware (or Duke Nukem Forever). Again, not criticism (well, slight criticism - there would be less 'when will this be finished' questions if status updates were given more regularly (say, once a month or so) or more often), just a possible insight into the minds of those who continually post 'when is this ever going to be finished?'

Cheers!

[Swift]

I understand what you mean, which is why I released the designer journal in December.  http://visitors.hero6.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=665

This is the status report on the progress, so you can rest assured that work is being done. If possible, it'll be updated bi-monthly.

[PHattiE]

Members should keep in mind when things come up like this that Hero6 has been around for... 3 years now? 4? And status reports are few and far between. It's all fine and dandy to say 'work is being done,' but after a couple of years... one begins to wonder.

We've been in development 7 years.

PHattiE fact: it takes 11,392 hours to create and finish an adventure game from scratch

Universal fact: When only spending 4 hours a day towards a 11,392-hour project, it will take 8 years to complete.


What I'm trying to say is that people can stop questioning whether or not we are vaporware.  The logic that "X amount of years have elapsed and it isn't finished, therefore it is vaporware" is completely flawed.

Hero6's release is dependant on how motivated and available our members are.  Think of it like downloading a really big file on an unreliable internet connection.  When your bandwidth drops from 450kb/s to 1kb/s, all of a sudden your expected download completion time jumps up a couple of hours or even days.  That doesn't mean that you won't get your file, it just means you got a lot of waiting to do.

Right now our resources are a little thin.  It will probably jump back up again sometime soon.  This type of "rollercoaster productivity" is the way hero6 has been developed over the past 4 years.

[lazygamer]

That phattie fact needs some further explaning. Adventure games can vary in size and complexity quite a bit. Is it 11,392 hours for a game like Hero6 or just a medium size VGA adventure game?

Oh and that is 11,392 hours for one person right(as opposed to a team)? Hero6 is by no means a solo team, although perhaps it's daily efforts have averaged out to 4 hours a day!

Since Hero6 started as an amateur project by amateur amateur game designers(), I'd think some of those early years might not have been spent too efficiently. IE: Art that is too low quality to be used today, indecisiveness about the plot etc. So either Hero6 still has a long way to go OR the team has been making up for lost time.