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...cause this might be the day that eventually lead to the complete collapse and death of the S.E.E. mod.
We might have reached that stage in modding that I swore would NEVER happen to SEE, mostly due to the enormous community project it did become, quite fast, through all them joint efforts to pile up loads of quality assets for this production. Quitting would mean I fail EVERYONE who contributed with hard work in hopes to see this production through. I think most of the prominent modders at T3A - especially modelers - has, more or less, and at one time or another, been involved in SEE. That's why this is a very sad day indeed, as I've just been told by my current team of coders (Ridder Geel and Ridder Blauw) that SEE might be in such bad shape, coding wise, that it suffers from irreversable bugs... I've struggled for years with Worldbuilder and getting SEE assets in there, for me, for coders, for mappers and most of all, to set up AI bases and gameplay just like I did for all other factions in SEE - meticiously. But I never reached a fully workable solution for WB regarding new stuff, not already in game or modified from vanila game stuff, which is the main reason I got stuck when adding "EvilMen" (Rhûn & Harad combined) as the 7th faction.
As a possible solution to this, the unbeleiably helpful Ridder Geel offered to help, by converting SEE to follow in the RC mod's footsteps, mening we'd get the aweome RC Starter with full blown WB access to ALL of the mod's assets - by simply pressing a button! I found this to be the coolest tool I've ever seen in modding, as fiddling with WB is extremely tedious and booring, so I'd be a fool not to take the offer. The only "downside" was that it would mean we'd have to port to run under RotWK (Rise of the Witch-king) expansion. But when RG told me he could revert back to BFME2's or even BFME1's GUI (Guided User Interface) aka menus, I felt that it wouldnt matter, as we'd replace the dreadful Angmar faction anyways, and thus gain access to all useful RotWK assets and not having to see the ugly ones (which are a lot) =p
So, work begun to acheive this, last night. Today I got the news that despite RG doing this flawlessly for RC mod, he ran into a halt for SEE. This is due to (currently) a crash in WB caused by the FxParticleSystem.INI. So... as I would have guesses, RG tried reverting back to vanilla game settings for the FXPS... but WB still crashes, with the same vague report... Noone knows how to locate this bug, and as long as we can't find it - we can't go on. There's simply no point as we can't access WB. Also, there is the risc of running into more problems like this, due to the fact that the person who coded 90% of SEE since Beta 4.5, is no longer here/around. Sûlherokhh is simply AWOL so to speak, and without him, the chance of finding bugs caused by his coding, is very small. This is a real blow towards motivation :(
The hybris of SEE
Ever since I started SEE, it has been my vision to do two things most of all...
1) Reskin all models into better looking textures and with higher movie resemblance.
2) Rebalance the game into more "realistic" gameplay.
This is what I did - THOROUGHLY - with:
- Beta I
- Beta II
- Beta III
Then Sûl came along, offered help with what he found to be a mod of his likeing. Together we coded:
- Beta IV
Then Sûl and I decided on pretty much a full partnership in this mod, and he wanted to try more and more complex stuff and add more and more cool things for SEE via coding, such as advanced AI most of all. But also new powers, new Fx, etc... And I let him - in return he said he'd truly stay for the long run. Along came the next release which was entirely coded by Sûl:
- Beta 4.5 (The current release)
With this release I lost control of the mod's fate. From hence forth and in progress towards Beta 4.6, I was dependant on Sûl's coding, as I could never reach his level of skills. In this period I also lost my girlfriend since 3 years back (to another man), and that took a MAJOR toll on my psyche which made me take a long break. During this time I guess Sûl lost interest and started to leave the forums for longer and longer periods of time. Eventually I came back, tried to wake the production to life in hopes to gain Sûl's interest again. He did come back, but after a short period of time, he vanished again and haven't been seen since feb 2010. I did what I could - I even added the new EvilMen faction, up until the missing AI and base. I made some kind of half way solution in WB by faking the WB to use some of the new assets, but I never could complete it.
During these 2 years or so, several coders have popped up, offering help. None of them lasted though, as most gave up when they saw Sûl's coding. Very complex, advanced and cool indeed, but also somewhat messy and unorganized - most likely due do him stepping in where I begun. Two coders code in different ways, ending up with a weird mixture of logic only we comprehend ourselves, thus making it very hard for a new coder to grasp the logic behind the setups. All gave up, except Ridder Geel that are still with us. RG's own mod and school hinders him from working full time with SEE though. Recently his brother, Ridder Blauw, stepped in, and showed unexpected skills for his age. He's a VERY good (and fast) coder indeed and a LOT of minor and medium things was done pretty fast in the old ToDo List. All up until this point of no return, when RG's conversion to the RC Starter dug up a problem we can't seem to solve - the GOD FORSAKEN WB problems!!!
No wonder I could never get it to work myself, when one of T3A's imo best coders can't either, nor his skillful little brother. The force is strong in that family - but you can't save what is already doomed, I guess...SO - this means that atm we are 100% stuck! And our options are these:
1) Cancel the mod, which I do NOT want to do... but... yeah?
2) Revert back to the very start of the vanilla game, perhaps this time base SEE on RotWK from the start? But... omg... not very appealing as it would mean 1-2 years to even get where we are now! It would also be VEEERY hard to replicate all of Sûl's awesome trimmin of the AI, which is sorta the pinnacle of Beta 4.5! *sighs*
3) Scrap all new factions (Rhûn, Harad and Rohan) since we cant get WB to work, and leave Rohan as a part of Gondor and a fragment of Rhûn and harad as a subfaction to Mordor. I bet most of you would vote for this... but I can't really say I would go into that with very much enthusiasm - at all =/
I fear this might be the bitter end to a project that has been going on for 4-5 years.
I will contemplate with "The Fellowship of the Mod" to SEE what we will do... It's sunday, the 21:st of november, 3:23 pm, central Europeen time, and SEE is down, maybe for good. But hey, its just a game. Life goes on, I guess...
*sobs*
