Chapter Four: Bitter Nominations' Year Thread - Star Wars Conquest mod for Mount & Blade

Chapter Four: Bitter Nominations' Year
Where the Sweat is Rewarded with Desillusion...

Surely as you may know, Star Wars Conquest it's one of the invisible projects in this Mod Of The Year. While a few are positioned in the top positions, often gaining more than 2 nominations. The rest which make the 'padding' are buried. As us.

I'm pretty disappointed with the result. Also it was a shock for me. After the months of unstoppable work I've dedicated to this project (at cost of neglecting my studies). After the joy that caused the top100 to the team. A simple note somewhere in the bottom referencing us could have made me happy making all the latest months worthy.

But no.

The only relief; we're in the top100. But isn't enough. So I'm going to distressing with a little of blame:

1. TaleWorlds. Armagan and his lack of support for copyrighted worlds have discriminated us and another bunch of incredible projects since... ever. The modules are the ONLY reason why Mount&Blade has gained some renown. A mediocre game (both from the gameplay and the graphic angle) continuously innovating by a bunch of uncredited, unpaid developers. They fear of being sued by another companies of literally "illegal franchise profit". And frankly, it's the truth.

They're sitting fat while the community enlarges his fortune. They're losing the Indy spirit in favor of the comfort. They don't even accept suggestions and their bug tracker it's slow and incompetent. Their support it's nonexistent (yes, the community again)

We've reached a point we're us the modders have more knowing of the engine than the own developers. It could be a joke, but isn't.
They're some untalented peoples exploiting us. We're filling their game's holes for free... for free? Wait a moment... Every single modder have disbursed ~30 bucks at least. We're in front of the perfect business!

So now you know how to make money in gaming kids. Sit down, give them the tools, and get the cash.
And remember the basic point. If you can, pick the ideas from them and make a standalone expansion with stolen content to maximize the earnings.

2. Weight of Generations. The time it's an enemy with direct consequences. The most part of the time I'm removing old mistakes. Basically I'm trying to convert this in this. And isn't easy. We've an entire collection of outdated models (2007-2008) you can imagine. So I'm implanting a quality before quantity policy.

But the march it's slow, I'm only one person to manage, code, model, fix and texture. Revan Shan it's disappeared. And everything it's in heavy WIP (very ugly), so that's the reason of the invisible x-mas update. The only good news in the horizon is that Vector is helping me more and more everyday and Yiyang send us periodically HQ stuff.

Hope you can understand my feelings. And sorry for this kind of bitter update :-(
Swyter.

Edited by: Swyter

Disilusioned news are the only truthful ones.

Ouch! Well, you have a large community that appreciates your work whether or not Taleworlds will acknowledge your presence. I was really hoping that this mod would make it to the Top 5 at least. It is, by far, the best M&B/M&B: Warband mod to date. We love the work and effort you guys have put into this mod and encourage you to continue developing my addiction.

BTW, I hope Revan isn't dead!!

Edited by: braydog92

The reason this mod isn't in the top 10 is because it's in the Mount and Blade category.

Compare M&B to HL2, which one has the largest fan-base? How much larger is that fan-base?

People didn't vote for SWC because they have absolutely no idea what it is, not because it's a bad mod.

M&B has very bad graphics compared to the top-games today, this might scare people off when considering SWC. If someone declines SWC its rightful download, it would be because of the M&B's graphics, physics, gameplay or w/e. This mod being poorly acknowledged is because of the fan-base, not because of the quality of the mod.

I understand that it must be hard doing so much work, and sacrificing studies for it as well. But look at this mod, it has great opportunity. If you keep working on it, it's destined to be noticed eventually.

An example of this would be Third Age: Total war. People had no idea this mod existed, until the Mordor and Gondor models came along, along with the LOTR map.

Then again, it's not like we can force you to continue on this map if it's ruining your studies, you have to prioritise. But I'm sure you can see as well as us, it'd be sad to let this mod die, and never let it get the rating that is so well deserves.

Revan isn't dead. I saw him on taleworlds yesterday and talked to him last week about Hiridia.

Swyter, if you need coding just PM me.

braydog92 wrote: Ouch! Well, you have a large community that appreciates your work whether or not Taleworlds will acknowledge your presence. I was really hoping that this mod would make it to the Top 5 at least. It is, by far, the best M&B/M&B: Warband mod to date. We love the work and effort you guys have put into this mod and encourage you to continue developing my addiction.

BTW, I hope Revan isn't dead!!

Yeah, Ouch! I know.

TaleWorlds knows about us. I asked them for a sub-forum link. Janus (the TW Forum Admin and MBrepository proprietary) replied me with the story above.

And no, Revan isn't death, yet. But almost, his computer got wiped and the entire Hiridia's Saga went to the trash. At least he trusted in me enough to use a SVN (Subversion) So the data of the Hiridia's Mod remains in the "Cloud".

Basically he isn't in his best moment.

Ccx55 wrote: The reason this mod isn't in the top 10 is because it's in the Mount and Blade category.

Compare M&B to HL2, which one has the largest fan-base? How much larger is that fan-base?

People didn't vote for SWC because they have absolutely no idea what it is, not because it's a bad mod.

M&B has very bad graphics compared to the top-games today, this might scare people off when considering SWC. If someone declines SWC its rightful download, it would be because of the M&B's graphics, physics, gameplay or w/e. This mod being poorly acknowledged is because of the fan-base, not because of the quality of the mod.

I understand that it must be hard doing so much work, and sacrificing studies for it as well. But look at this mod, it has great opportunity. If you keep working on it, it's destined to be noticed eventually.

An example of this would be Third Age: Total war. People had no idea this mod existed, until the Mordor and Gondor models came along, along with the LOTR map.

Then again, it's not like we can force you to continue on this map if it's ruining your studies, you have to prioritise. But I'm sure you can see as well as us, it'd be sad to let this mod die, and never let it get the rating that is so well deserves.

Great words. Definitely this is helping me, you're right.
But idiot of me, thought in first instance that we had enough projection in the modding scene to get some nominations. To many days in the Top 60 makes you silly.

My perspective was wrong. No doubt. I have to organize more to com-paginate my daily routines with the hobbies.

Thank you for your encouragement. You'll get some small preview soon.

As Ccx55 said, it is by no means your fault that this mod didn't achieve as highly as it should. The work and love that's been poured into this mod far surpasses that of most of the other modders who reached a higher position. The issue is with Mount and Blade's lack of publicity, its not really that well known. Despite this being one of the best mods I've ever played I think that it lacks the wider audience of some other games. As you're focussing on quality over quantity I think you should pay attention to your fans. The fans of this mod are not as numerous as for some other mods, but we are diehard fans. We want to be involved and be kept up to date and although this forum isn't as active as it could be, I for one check this forum every single day. I think that the fans of this mod are of a much higher quality than many other mods that "better" than this one. Keep up the great work Swyter. I appreciate things may look bad at times, but you're doing an amazing job and if you ever need encouragement, motivation or advice we're here for you.

Adraz Rhua

Maybe this mod would get some popularity if you made some previews in taleworlds forums, similiar to those of TLD?

Also, you could use a guy that would make weekly or so previews on factions and new stuff, so that the mod wouldn't seem dead, because these forums are a little, how to put it, well dead, and the mod seems too. It needs articles on itself, so that people would get info and could discuss it. It's just my opinion ofcourse .

Edited by: nDomenique

nDomenique wrote: Maybe this mod would get some popularity if you made some previews in taleworlds forums, similiar to those of TLD?

Also, you could use a guy that would make weekly or so previews on factions and new stuff, so that the mod wouldn't seem dead, because these forums are a little, how to put it, well dead, and the mod seems too. It needs articles on itself, so that people would get info and could discuss it. It's just my opinion ofcourse .

This... forum... dead? Mod... dead?
...
Are you sure?

I post here everyday. I don't know of any other mod team that gives 24/7 professional support.
There are lots of people swarming here, slowly this place is filling with more cool boys. Hi.

And about the updates, in the team we have a policy of "only post stuff if there's something HQ to show"
You probably won't find a lot of mediocre screenshots here. Nor diary 'news' talking about nothing.

From now expect more info while we put stuff in presentable stage.

Swyter wrote:

nDomenique wrote: Maybe this mod would get some popularity if you made some previews in taleworlds forums, similiar to those of TLD?

Also, you could use a guy that would make weekly or so previews on factions and new stuff, so that the mod wouldn't seem dead, because these forums are a little, how to put it, well dead, and the mod seems too. It needs articles on itself, so that people would get info and could discuss it. It's just my opinion ofcourse .

This... forum... dead? Mod... dead?
...
Are you sure?

I post here everyday. I don't know of any other mod team that gives 24/7 professional support.
There are lots of people swarming here, slowly this place is filling with more cool boys. Hi.

And about the updates, in the team we have a policy of "only post stuff if there's something HQ to show"
You probably won't find a lot of mediocre screenshots here. Nor diary 'news' talking about nothing.

From now expect more info while we put stuff in presentable stage.

That clears up a lot . I just saw that comments were sometimes rare and thought so, well not completely dead, but like passive, now i see it just needs a little time. Keep up the great work, mate .

to be honest this is the only moddb forum I actually follow and of all the mods I watch this is one of those I know it isn't dead at all(although many are, which keeps my update page clean )

it really is sad that SCW could not score higher but, look at the top ten, two CoD mods, one BF 2 mod, three HL 2 mods, the alltime favorite of many: GTA, an oblivion mod(almost as mod friendly as mb but better known and with much better grafics), then the only two games i actually have M2TW and CnC Generals are somewhat old and extremely well known in the genre. I don#t actually see M&Bs place in this list and a mod is normally only as popular as the game itself true M&B actully is one of those games that some folks buy just because the mods, but these are a minority.

and on taleworlds and paradox: they may seem lazy as warbands is more of a stand alone expansion with some new features than an actuall part 2 but lets face it taleworlds is not microsoft, today you need to finish games in a somewhat steady rythm until you get those ultra popular genre leaders which enable you(the developers) to sit back again and start something from scratch that will take several years of developement while the fans are still plaing your last creation. some studios/companies manage to pump out entirely new games in quick succession taleworlds is afterall "just a small indie shop in Turkey"(i wonder why m&B , warband and FuS are not at all turkish themed) and cannot keep up with the big ones, so they have to rely on the modding community and just update their games instead of making new ones.
On the other hand I'm actually VERY happy with this attitude as it results in a lot of advantages for modders and does not make my buy a new PC(4 years now) hehe and I'm really looking forward to FuS

so don't let your self down, think of all the unfortunate gamers who do not know M&B and SWC and imagine what they miss which is an ample punishment for not voting for SWC

Ca_Putt wrote: to be honest this is the only moddb forum I actually follow and of all the mods I watch this is one of those I know it isn't dead at all(although many are, which keeps my update page clean )

it really is sad that SCW could not score higher but, look at the top ten, two CoD mods, one BF 2 mod, three HL 2 mods, the alltime favorite of many: GTA, an oblivion mod(almost as mod friendly as mb but better known and with much better grafics), then the only two games i actually have M2TW and CnC Generals are somewhat old and extremely well known in the genre. I don#t actually see M&Bs place in this list and a mod is normally only as popular as the game itself true M&B actully is one of those games that some folks buy just because the mods, but these are a minority.

and on taleworlds and paradox: they may seem lazy as warbands is more of a stand alone expansion with some new features than an actuall part 2 but lets face it taleworlds is not microsoft, today you need to finish games in a somewhat steady rythm until you get those ultra popular genre leaders which enable you(the developers) to sit back again and start something from scratch that will take several years of developement while the fans are still plaing your last creation. some studios/companies manage to pump out entirely new games in quick succession taleworlds is afterall "just a small indie shop in Turkey"(i wonder why m&B , warband and FuS are not at all turkish themed) and cannot keep up with the big ones, so they have to rely on the modding community and just update their games instead of making new ones.
On the other hand I'm actually VERY happy with this attitude as it results in a lot of advantages for modders and does not make my buy a new PC(4 years now) hehe and I'm really looking forward to FuS

so don't let your self down, think of all the unfortunate gamers who do not know M&B and SWC and imagine what they miss which is an ample punishment for not voting for SWC

Thx for your comments. I love to hear your opinions.

About the general classification in this MOTY, I asked to INtense some days ago. And he officially confirmed that we ended somewhere into the Top 50.
So that definitely helped me to to continue to strive a little more.