What happend ?

[-Jc-]

||NOTE: These are just facts put together and no intention to cause harm is meant||||

A few years ago zombie panic was the type of mod ud expect to hear on going news and on going releases a number of times during the month ... it was brilliant!!! ..... zp 0.92 ... next thing 0.93.... 0.94 would be out a couple of weeks later etc ......... chuck load of patches ......
This was differant from every mod out there ... Great idea!, Great stuff! ... none of this waiting crap ..... just played what was done.... it might of been buggy but it was hell load of fun and much better then waiting with nothing at all....... Bugs would be reported and fixed as the game got closer to a beta... Great community involvment and the list goes on ....................... Well done to twilight

Now we have this ...
News updates are now in 3 month periods
pre-beta game playing no longer exists
Only play testers can have fun with whats done
Only people who post this much times can view unreleased media
Media releases are very restricted
Poor community involvment
"wouldnt you rather play a finished mod"
"when its done"
"keep asking for a release date and we will push it back" **haha*** 2020 now *hahah*

What happend ?

[Hastings]

/sigh

Zombie Panic for Half Life was never supposed to be considered a full fledged game, it was created to test the theory that the game play would be enjoyed and was remotely doable. For this reason it was release in its early stages to the populace, it was an open beta project not very long after its first inception. With the Idea tested, planning and development for source began. Because of waiting for the SDK, this took much time to really truly begin in full force. A rough form was hashed out. Unfortuneatly life intervened and it would be some time before progress on ZPS would really begin again. Responsibility would be handed over to the current dev team, whom had to deal with their own real life issues, as well as issues of the team.

Sometimes work just does not get done when we want it to. Many of us are in college or have families. This mod is free, and he team is small. This means we are not testing all day everyday, nor are we developing content for it during all of our spare time. No that is spent at work, or school, or with family hoping we have some time left over to get some work done on the mod. Such is life.

The builds we have are not released to the public because they were never planned to be. The idea was that ZPHL was the beta for the masses and we would roll out a source version to be tested and somewhere along the lines it woudl be released to the community as a full product. Content in our builds is often rough, in complete, or totally broken. Hence why we have playtesters, to test. And let me tell you, it is not very fun at times. We are testing for bugs, not palying a round of ZP and calling it qutis. We are actively making the game break, and thats something the community does not need to see or go through. This way the public does not get the idea we will release poor quality programming or other aspects of the mod.

Our news has been stagnant of late, but that does not mean we are not getting progress done. Sometimes the work we have just isnt polished to our specifications to release. Some of our work may not even be in the final product, and it does not pay to show things that will never be ingame. This is why our rleleases are so restricted. Call us paranoid I suppose. For a time we tried to get monthly releases, but that really burned out people as they had to juggle their real life dead lines along with the mods deadlines. Stressfull for the team, and not healthy for it. You may notice some names no longer around? This is due to some quitting some on good terms and some on bad terms. This makes it even harder to get work done when we want it done.

As for our veterans and privilidged forums, they are given small perks for having been here for so long, and for having been active in the community. At present there is very very little media given to them. Ocasionally a dev will post a screenshot of something he wants feedback on, or ask a question concerning something, but largely thay are no different than the rest of you.

As for community involvement, what would you have us do? We have a suggestions board, and we routinely post snippits ere and there and get in volved in conversation. We also have an IRC chat for peopel to come and talk to us. You also may have noticed the upcoming chat session with the dev team. If not, I encourage you to check out the stickies for it and post a question or two that you wish to have answered. It is our answer, and an apology of sorts, for not having any tangible media for the past few months. You will be able to find out stuff that we have not released nor talked about, and stuff you couldn gleam from screenshots.

Our responces regarding when the game is out and other questions are stale and old, but still hold truth. We can only release the game when we are ready. No ammount of asking or begging or bad mouthing will get us to release it any earlier. Its sad really, the older community and the even older pre ZP half life community were very supportive when problems happened, and were a much closer knit group. Todays community is much too spitefull and selfish. Its a much different atmospher than when I first came to the HL scene, and a much different atmosphere than what the old ZP forums were. Keep that in mind when you see our answers. Sarcastic they may sometimes be, but you only see part of the story. We have to deal with many kinds of rudeness on any given day, from spammers to forum trolls, to doom sayers which got tired of waiting so they come to post about how badly they think zp source will be, etc.

So yeah, we are only human and can only get so much done. You will find a theme among most hl2 mods: They are either not out yet, or have stopped. Very few have been released, and those had very large, and very very dedicated teams behind them. We can only go so far. We know Source will be enjoyed when it is released. We are doing the hard part: the coding, the modeling, the mapping, the sounds, etc. You honestly get the easy part, waiting. As bad as that sounds, it truly is easiest. One can always go away and come back, but we have to keep with it to get something in return. Hopefully when we release this will be understood, but I wont hold my breath with how things are today.

And I do apologize about the above book, I hope your questions are answered in it somewhere. It is late here and I really should be asleep. Good Night.

[CaptainSnake]

/sigh

Zombie Panic for Half Life was never supposed to be considered a full fledged game, it was created to test the theory that the game play would be enjoyed and was remotely doable. For this reason it was release in its early stages to the populace, it was an open beta project not very long after its first inception. With the Idea tested, planning and development for source began. Because of waiting for the SDK, this took much time to really truly begin in full force. A rough form was hashed out. Unfortuneatly life intervened and it would be some time before progress on ZPS would really begin again. Responsibility would be handed over to the current dev team, whom had to deal with their own real life issues, as well as issues of the team.

It couls've been a full fledged game. We (the players) think it is a full fledge game too... just look at okeido that is like pklaying 24/7

sry typing wit 1 hand

[frikazoyd]

If you people keep this up, you are not going to have a mod to play. I'm sick of your demands, I'm trying to put out more information, but the more we say the more you demand.

We are mere mortals, we are NOT in high school. We have wives, some of us have children. We have jobs. Many of us also juggle that with classes. We have other things that we do outside. Some of us work out. Some of us go to church. Some of us work for other mods. Some of us work more than one job. Some of us don't have ANY free time, and have to MAKE it to work on this mod. This mod that YOU WILL JUST DOWNLOAD AND PLAY ONCE IS DONE. This mod that YOU DO NOT have to pay for. And that is costing the development team a GREAT deal of time, energy, and patience.

I definitely don't have any free time. I have to make it. And my patience with this community is wearing VERY thin. If you want to know what is going on with the mod, ask it in the questions thread and it will be answered in a week or two. Otherwise, get off my porch and go back to playing WoW, emo.

And for the record, your "facts" suck. Rhone took FOREVER to release ZP:HL 1.0.

[GDB]

Company made games that you pay for are often endlessly delayed, but you don't bust into the company's offices and complain. If you like the game, you buy it when it comes out. It was developed by a huge number of PAID specialists in game design and they don't need free time, it's their job. It was probably as long in development as ZP:S will be anyway.

Dev team, you are doing the best job that a team of human beings could ever be expected to do.

[frikazoyd]

Dev team, you are doing the best job that a team of human beings could ever be expected to do.

Hmm. I wonder if we could get more monkeys....

[cheese]

If you've ever done anything for public release, you know how much time and effort it requires. You also now that even if you do it as a hobby it can be taxing and stressful at times.

I've worked on a map for this mod for over 4 months straight and it's not even near finished. It's about the only thing I can do to contribute to this mod and it's a very time consuming process and like they have said, it's not like we don't have all of our time to just devote into this mod alone.

Games where people get paid to work 8 hrs a day to work on them usually get finished a lot earlier. This isn't something which is being pushed out as soon as possible, like commercial gaming material but is something which is a generous offering to the HL community. The team doesn't have to create a source version if they didn't want to, they could be selfish with their time and invest it into personal things instead.

Just because you liked the ZP:HL and played it prior to the 1.0 release doesn't give you any rights to hassle the dev team. I've been around for a long time and I've tried to get more involved in the community.

I'd rather do something to help the team and this mod even if it means a lot of work on my end. I wish more people in the community would feel that way.

And as for the 1.0 patch, it came out 8 months after .94 patch

[lordLoss]

If you want to help the mod come out faster get of your bloody arse and contribute you lazy git.

(I think that wraps up most of Hastings' and Frika's posts.)

And before you get all ''ohh well why dont YOU help out?''

Well I have no usefull skills, and havnt really got the money to donate.

[The Kinslayer]

Well, according to your summation of Hastings and Frikas posts, neither you nor me should be commentating on this any more then. Guess we should just sit down shut up and grow old waiting.

[xxxrobxxx]

The newer part of the community is indeed selfisher than the old. Most of the time they just register, ignore all the carefully placed stickiess to prevent this from happening, and start bluntly demanding the dev team for release dates. As cheese mentioned before, making a single map for the mod takes up a whole deal of time when effort is put into it. The devs are putting their hearts in this game because they want it to be perfect. They try their best, even when things tend to stand in their way, to keep us updated and get the game done as fast as possible. And all people do is complain about how long it is taking and how the devs hold back too much information. They're hosting a freaking talk with the dev team just to statisfy you now. If I was in the dev team, I wouldn't even grant you that pleasure. And I WOULD delay the game for every time a whiner comes in and demands the release date. They are taking all the punches, and you just keep dealing them.

As for priviliged members getting more info, we've been here for a while. We've been part of the community. And we've been supporting the dev team in any ways we can (If I could donate money, ???? straight I would. ???? parents holding me back). We get a TAD (NOTE: Tad: Noun ; Informal ; A very small amount of degree ; Bit) more info because they trust us and feel like they can get supportive criticism on their work, instead of : 'Omg smexy, we want more! Release date?'

Yeah I'm sorta ranting here and some things I said probably don't make much sense but this has been going on for too long.


... just look at frikazoyd man! He's tripping!

[cheese]

Well, according to your summation of Hastings and Frikas posts, neither you nor me should be commentating on this any more then. Guess we should just sit down shut up and grow old waiting.

Or you could find a hobby.

[Voodoo]

to zp team: Just remember that there's a part of the community that supports and understands you... but of course you already know that :D

[Kommando]

Yeah, many of us appreciate the work you guys put into the mod, so don't be deterred by some people complaining!

[CaptainSnake]

Friyka I'd tottaly donate anything (money) if I knew who to give it to...

[JK-]

Have you ever tried pushing the "PayPal" button on the zp homepage?
Zombie Panic (http://www.zombiepanic.org/site/index.php)
:P

Also I completely agree with Voodoo & Kommando.
I'm supporting you till the end:cool:

[frikazoyd]

Thanks guys. It's pretty easy to just look at all the negative commentary pointed at us and forget who we're making the game for.

As for donations, there is a paypal link on the main page. If you can't do that, I'm sure you could mail Tats on how to get him the money.

But to be frankly honest, the team needs more animators and modelers more than anything else at the moment. Despite what many around here think, there is more to making a mod than just releasing some code and letting the community make the maps. We've got a few quality models and animations in place for many key things, but there's a little bit of clean-up and some other things left to model/animate.

[Hastings]

Sending money to support the forums and the site is fine and dandy guys, but it wont get the game out faster, and in truth doesnt even help its progress.

[frikazoyd]

Sending money to support the forums and the site is fine and dandy guys, but it wont get the game out faster, and in truth doesnt even help its progress.

But it does reimburse Tats for the cost of the forums/webspace that we enjoy.

[JK-]

Thanks guys. It's pretty easy to just look at all the negative commentary pointed at us and forget who we're making the game for.

As for donations, there is a paypal link on the main page. If you can't do that, I'm sure you could mail Tats on how to get him the money.

But to be frankly honest, the team needs more animators and modelers more than anything else at the moment. Despite what many around here think, there is more to making a mod than just releasing some code and letting the community make the maps. We've got a few quality models and animations in place for many key things, but there's a little bit of clean-up and some other things left to model/animate.

Hehe. what a coincidence;)
On sunday I decided to go for learning to model:P

Maybe I can become a modeller after a while with practice:rolleyes:

[lordLoss]

Good luck with that.

[cheese]

ive got a friend whose a really good modeller. Right now he does contract work for the navy making ship models for navy simulations. He also does a lot of other stuff as well and he's really skilled. Thing is that like most people he hardly has any time. He almost got a job with bethsoft working on the new fallout game. I haven't talked to him in awhile but heres the last thing he showed me he did, it's a blue tailed lizard.

http://www.coded-empathy.com/images/models/btlizard.jpg

He's pretty busy with his family and job so he might not be able to help out, but I'll ask him when I see him next.

[lordLoss]

That looks real, jesus!

[cheese]

well it was his major in college and its what he does for work now.

[frikazoyd]

He would be a welcome addition to the team. People like this tend to be very busy though, we've lost more than one really quality modeler due to the high demand for them, and the fact that we don't pay.

[Kommando]

Yeah, that lizard looks very realistic. It would be badass if he joined the dev team.

[xxxrobxxx]

Who, the lizard? :P

[Kommando]

Yeah, of course! Who else?

[lordLoss]

Lol, Lizard Panic!

[GDB]

Hmm. I wonder if we could get more monkeys....

Wow, sorry, if you don't want support I won't give it to you.

I meant the devs are real people who do something other than sit at computers.

They have my total support and I don't care how long I have to wait for ZP:S, I know it's going to be good and it's their job to decide what to release and when.

And on the subject of contributing, I'm working on a map for ZP:S as well, so please don't say I'm just talking.

[JK-]

GDB, I'm pretty sure Frika just joked there <_<

No wonder that he gets mad when he can't even say a joke, without anyone complaining a little bit:mellow:

[Hastings]

Joke or not, his patience is wearing thin. Everyone on the dev team is wearing thin.

[GDB]

True, and I can see why. Sorry if I overreacted.

[JK-]

Joke or not, his patience is wearing thin. Everyone on the dev team is wearing thin.

I understand that, I only told GDB that that was probably a joke.
I'd most likely lose my patience too, if everyone asked about release dates as they do here:unsure:

[cheese]

Everyone forgets that they are creating this as a courtesy for the community. The community should be grateful that we get to have a sequel to zp. It's not like an MMORPG where you pay every month and just wait for updates to add custom content. It's something you pay nothing for and get to play for free. No one gets paid, no one anything from this. Everyone just puts work into the product and gets nothing but satisfaction out of it.

The fact that the community demands the release is absurd. The community has no control over the dev team. They move at what pace they can, they don't get paid to program or model 8 hrs a day like software companies. This mod was founded on an idea and it seemed like a great idea. However when the community continually assualts and harasses the dev team, begging them for screens or information on release dates, then it makes the project less enticing to work on and results in a later release date and decreased quality.

So if you want a summary, the more you bug the dev team, the less they want to make the mod and that means the worse this mod will be. People have already left the dev team, how many more need to go before the community leaves the dev team alone?

[JK-]

Everyone forgets that they are creating this as a courtesy for the community. The community should be grateful that we get to have a sequel to zp. It's not like an MMORPG where you pay every month and just wait for updates to add custom content. It's something you pay nothing for and get to play for free. No one gets paid, no one anything from this. Everyone just puts work into the product and gets nothing but satisfaction out of it.

The fact that the community demands the release is absurd. The community has no control over the dev team. They move at what pace they can, they don't get paid to program or model 8 hrs a day like software companies. This mod was founded on an idea and it seemed like a great idea. However when the community continually assualts and harasses the dev team, begging them for screens or information on release dates, then it makes the project less enticing to work on and results in a later release date and decreased quality.

So if you want a summary, the more you bug the dev team, the less they want to make the mod and that means the worse this mod will be. People have already left the dev team, how many more need to go before the community leaves the dev team alone?

You said it Cheese.

It's extremely annoying to watch all the "when is it released?", and "more media!" threads & posts all the time.

So I can't imagine how it is for the dev team, who gotta continiuously deal with them, and also the fact that they're about themselves.

Think of all the spare time they use, dedicated for this mod, and still they're only getting asked for more.

The devs work better when they're supported, instead of being asked for release dates & media.
Why not just try that for a change?

[Ussr1943]

people have to remember how much time it takes to make a mod, and by mod I dont mean no half-??? thing you ate and crapped out, stuck in your floppy drive and uploaded it for other to DL. I'm sure there is some real good quality work going on with you guys using all this time. And you guys are doing this on-top of real life (which appearently many people don't have around here). And yes if you look at a mod listing some where you will notice that almost every HL2 mod that was in production was gone dead. I'm not joking i counted 30 HL2 mods involving zombies, and 3 are in progress with like 4 complete. As for that stuff about game companies, we have to realize that the only thing employees at game companies are working normally over 8 hour shifts, and when crunch time comes they work more than 12 hours! You guys are doing a great job, and its hard to deal with people who get impatient over something you are making them, not only that but for free! So all I have to say is keep on what your doin, you guys rock, and I hope that you take your modding far (ex. if your going to school to be a programmer and are doing this as a project you can show a game company when they are hiring.). I would be certainly glad to donate (but not break the bank), but I dont have anything I can do besides snail mail at this time, can I contact someone about that?

Keep up the awesome job, you guys rock:cool:
keep on killin Zombahs :zombo:

-Ussr1943-

[WatchMaker]

After reading the first post, I felt the need to post a classic "Ha! HA! I'm using the internet!" picture or something along those lines... but after see'ing frika and hastings posts.. Well, I think that is all that was needed.

:)

[Wizard]

When the time comes, you'll all be enjoying it, I garuntee it. But as everyone has said, people have lives, and lives take priority over the mod.

Waiting is the easiest thing.

Edit: Also, personally, when I miss a PT, it makes me feel bad a bit because I let a bunch of guys down, but as always, I have life as well, and it (more frequently lately for some bizzare reason) gets in the way. I wish I could help some more, but all I can do is suggest, report bugs/exploits and make fun of codefire. (Well, I could make sounds, but the guy on now completely OWNS me in terms of production values of how his music and sounds are)

[The Kinslayer]

When the time comes, you'll all be enjoying it, I garuntee it.

Edit: Also, personally, when I miss a PT, it makes me feel bad a bit because I let a bunch of guys down, but as always, I have life as well, and it (more frequently lately for some bizzare reason) gets in the way. I wish I could help some more, but all I can do is suggest, report bugs/exploits and make fun of codefire. (Well, I could make sounds, but the guy on now completely OWNS me in terms of production values of how his music and sounds are)

You just HAD to bring up the fact your a playtester didn't you.

[cheese]

You mean it wasn't obvious by the greenish hue to his name, the PT icon and "Playtester" written beside it?

Everyone with the http://zombiepanic.org/forums/images/zppt.gif is a playtester.

[frikazoyd]

You just HAD to bring up the fact your a playtester didn't you.

You would leave this community if you were a playtester. All of you people who think it would be awesome to be a playtester and play the game early would be sorely mistaken. It is a small perk in exchange for a LOT of free time necessary for a single playtest, and I expect THOROUGH details from the testers.

You would hate it.

[The Kinslayer]

Cheese: Well there was me thinking it meant 'Spandex Pirate Fancier'.

Frika: I know. I playtest for another mod. And, personally, I enjoy it. On the other hand, I don't feel the need to go round telling everyone else that it is awesome and the long long wait that doesn't to look to be ending soon (just a perception, nothing more) will all be worth the wait, because I know they already know that, or they wouldn't have been around for the last year or two.

[cheese]

playtesting is fun in the later stages.

in the earlier stages its searching for bugs. It's like find out why this happens and is usually methodical. Trying to actually get the game to crash can be fun...I guess. It's like in making maps when you try to find ways for people to exploit your map and then have to go through and fix it.

[The Kinslayer]

Yeah. It's been fun playing pass the parcel with a live grenade to check all the animations work properly lately!

[cheese]

this thread is just encouraging flame wars and flaming of the dev team and people in the community.

It ought to be closed.

[Wizard]

Hey, our goal is to crash the game, which I find great pleasure in. But yeah, it has it's perks, but frika hassles us for details on X bug cause X problem. It's no biggie, <3 frikamonster.

[Yokai]

Zombie Panic Source is not the only slow mod when it comes to media, Half life 2 mod community is kinda bankrupt with time or so it seems.

[CodeFire]

this thread is just encouraging flame wars and flaming of the dev team and people in the community.

It ought to be closed.

Yeah, I agree.

[Hastings]

What happen? Someone set up us the bomb.