Hello, Freeworlders, Sizer here. I come to you all with some news about recent developments with this project. As of last Thursday, I am now the Lead Developer of Freeworlds: Tides of War. After years of service to the project, Sushi's life has become far too hectic to fully commit the time required to finish this project. Personally, as one who worked under him for nearly 3 years, I thank him for his time, his titanic effort, and his guidance.
That being said, it is time for the team to press forward. I cannot, and will not make any promises to release dates. We've all seen how that goes, and frankly, it is too be expected. We will all make our best efforts to bring this project to a close in as short a time as possible, but I will say this: we will not sacrifice quality and completion for a release date. If we lose some fans along the way, so be it. We have a vision for what we'd like to accomplish, and it is within reach. I want to get that across - we are not attempting the impossible. Everything we are working on right now simply requires time to finish, nothing more, nothing less.
We are currently working on a restructuring of the universe layout to something more interesting, with gameplay dynamics in mind. I have, with the help of a few others, constructed star systems that I'm sure you will all find quite interesting to navigate, with plenty of room for pirate ambush tactics, military high strategy, and a few places for the average joe to call home. And don't you worry, in the true Freelancer fashion, there will be plenty of secrets to find.
We are also going through the steps of internally testing all the new meta-game features we've added, such as capital construction and the dynamic economy. These should be solid and robust within a few weeks. I may have some video to show you of that over the next month.
Finally, I'd like to, once again, ask for any help you may have to offer. I'm going to be honest, we've had almost no luck in this regard in the past. Almost everyone who has joined us has either flaked out, or have been less qualified than we'd have liked. If you think you can commit, and I mean commit, and have a skill level on par with the rest of the team, please contact me either through MDB or on our forum.
I hope to have something more substantial in the future to show you all, but at the moment, we're at the point in development where all I'd have to show you are screenshots of code. In any case, I thank all of you for your continued support and patience.
- Sizer
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If you like what you see, and have been playing, please don't forget to tell your friends, your communities you frequent and social sites like REDDIT/Twitter about this mod. Player word of mouth goes a long way and we'd appreciate any of the support we can get for this mod of ours! Thanks everyone!
Sizer is such a class act.
Hope everything's alright for Sushi,best of luck FWTOW team!
We'll be patient,so far this mod hasn't disappointed us one bit!
Everything is fine. Just really busy in real life and the mod needs an active leader. Sizer fits this bill :)
what are you most needing help with ? can i send you a skills demo to see if I'm qualified or not ?
good luck tofw team!you diserve it!
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I can wait. the world didn't end, so i have time. It's very interesting. yesterday i said to myself i should aak them if their have a break or something. And today i find this. no screenshots or nice videos but hey. news are good too. and they answered my question.
gl guys ik u can u do it
If this mod dies, I swear to you that I will sell off all of my wordly possessions to hire Boba Fett to hunt you all down, encase you in carbonite, haul you to Kessel and force you under threat of Wookie-rape to continue your work until your bodies give out and you shed forever your mortal coils. Have I made myself clear? Wookie-rape.
It won't die. The team will get this done.
Oh yeah, you say that now, under threat of Wookie-rape! Anyway, you're not in charge anymore fishy fingers ;)
I wonder, Sushi/Sizer, why you guys aren't just releasing the mod, and then... when you want to make changes, like updating ship models or reconstructing systems, just release them as game updates?
Like, I'm sure you remember me, I've been here from the beginning and even helped developing some parts. And to be frank, this mod is taking way too long.
I'm not sure if the changes that were recently decided (like the remodeling of some MC's, and then this reconstructing of the systems) are release dependent. Like, the game can't be release if this isn't done. But I've worked with you guys 2 years ago, and back then the mod was already really far into development. So yeah, I wonder why its taking this long to release anything bigger then the demo that was released last year...
Like, I know its all just a big project. The time available is limited and all, but we had a lot done already a year and a half ago. Shouldn't things be kinda finished by now?
It's never that easy. You should know that.
No, the mod's not ready for release. We're only going to get ONE shot at releasing, and if we mess up or release something underwhelming, we're as good as done. No, we can't afford to release something now and update it later. By the time it's good, people will be gone.
In the words of the great Shigeru Miyamoto:
"A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever."
Lol, see ppl giving my comment negative votes. Not that I care, I was just asking a question ofcoarse ^^
So yeah, thanks for answering my question.
I know, ofcoarse, perfectly well how things go when developing a game or mod. Not that I have ever experienced it, but I know about the basic lines of the direction to follow leading to the release of something. But Freeworlds was kinda straying, which is why I was wondering about how you guys were approaching certain things...
Incremental updates are fine as long as you're actually incrementally updating it.
Think you're both right, if you release something below par then people will walk away, but likewise if you take too long to release something, a hell of a lot of people will have either lost interest and moved on, or lost confidence in your ability to produce a finished mod.
It must have been 18 months ago now you were talking about release being just around the corner, Christmas 2011 or something like that. It's all the hype back then that had everyone stoked, and no offence, but ever since you missed that window people will have been slowly losing confidence and wondering if FW:TOW will be confined to the long list of mod projects with TBC forever next to their name.
I think for me, I hope you don't take too much longer, but at the same time, whatever happens I hope you make the mod you intended and can be proud of it, regardless of whether there's anyone around to play it.
What this guy said! I thought I was making the same point without too much disrespect?! ^^
But yeah, that was pretty much my point...
Lolz as an original Freeworlder i know that they will never release this game.....its been "in developmnet" by sushi for like the last what 3-4 years, long before it got a Moddb page. I can speak for myself and a few other originals that we have completly given up on this game being released in the near future. Thats no offense to you guys Sushi and Sizer i know you have been working hard especially in the last 18 months, we just know what its like from experience. We do know however that this is out of a love for the mod and that you would rather release full complete then buggy and incomplete, we understand and really thr prgress has been amazing. I still hope it comes out soon but i wont hold my breath.
PS sorry to hear your stepping down sushi, after all as i mentioned this has been your baby for a very long time. Hope all is good with you.
There is a vast difference between buggy, and incomplete. When it is frame complete, that's when we beta. The frame is not complete. I am personally working on the universe right now, at pretty decent rate. We're not going to hold on to something for knitpicky reasons. We've not released because its simply not ready for play.
PS sorry to hear your stepping down sushi, after all as i mentioned this has been your baby for a very long time. Hope all is good with you.
As always, take your time guys. I enjoy following the making of this mod almost as much as I look forward to playing it :)
Best of luck to the team and to sushi in real life :)
Well Sushi I wish you luck in your hectic life and hope this project keeps on chugging!