Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Azrile]

We are getting way too technical and serious for ToA. We all know they are screwed and just continue to compile excuses.

Meanwhile Brax is at his computer trying to figure out the difference between Save and Save As.

But the point you guys are going all tech over and missing is that they were using the basic Unity character controller before. There was nothing special about what they were doing, nothing that needs anything custom written for it. They don´t have swimming, stealth, double-jumping... nothing.. All you could do in the game was basic WASD movement.

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I took 15 mins to resolve them, including fixing 3rd party library bugs, issues and porting them to Unity 5.

Still have no idea. but this morning I was doing some work and came upon that SetActive issue we talked about a few pages ago. It is indeed just a yellow error, so the old code still runs fine, they just are letting us know that probably in 6.0 it will not. I used it in our streaming system where I am throttling the activation of items based on current FPS. It is a pretty neat system that I would sell on the asset store except I don´t want to provide customer support LOL.

[Bodoh]

Still have no idea. but this morning I was doing some work and came upon that SetActive issue we talked about a few pages ago. It is indeed just a yellow error, so the old code still runs fine, they just are letting us know that probably in 6.0 it will not. I used it in our streaming system where I am throttling the activation of items based on current FPS. It is a pretty neat system that I would sell on the asset store except I don´t want to provide customer support LOL.

If it don't earn US$2,000 a month in sales, don't bother.

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Meanwhile Brax is at his computer trying to figure out the difference between Save and Save As.

But the point you guys are going all tech over and missing is that they were using the basic Unity character controller before. There was nothing special about what they were doing, nothing that needs anything custom written for it. They don´t have swimming, stealth, double-jumping... nothing.. All you could do in the game was basic WASD movement.

Swimming - Raycast up and down. Check for water as layer. If water, turn character 180 degrees.

Stealth - Check Input.GetKey(CTRL) for Stealth. Input.GetKey(SHIFT) for run.

Double Jump - Check Input.GetKey(ALT) and += 0.5.

Attack - Check Input.GetKey(Space) and check what's on hand.

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When in water, make sure to raycast and check for ground.

Otherwise, the person will be swimming on ground. Hilarious.

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We are getting way too technical and serious for ToA. We all know they are screwed and just continue to compile excuses.

That's what happens when an artist comes on this forum.

BTW, I'm not a developer. I'm an artist.


It's funny cos you Photoshop all day long and troll the developers who know nothing about code.

[Deleted]

Hey bro. Don't help Brax out too much by posting all dem codez!

[Bodoh]

Hey bro. Don't help Brax out too much by posting all dem codez!

It's not complete code. It gives them hints and points but not enough to help them.

At least Brax and his team will be referencing this page for months to come. .

[ThePotato]

Careful now Bodoh they might contact you and try to hire you. Dont worry you'll be paid once the product is complete and selling on steam, until then we can only pay you in compliments and raddishes.

[Scyclone]

How long did it take you to learn how to use Unity, Bodoh?

The reason I ask is I have been wanting to create an RPG, but have been suffering from a mixture of different issues.

1) My programming experience is limited to a solid amount of object oriented web application development (VB.NET, Javascript, C# here and there, and PHP/Laravel) - How easy would it be to learn and adapt to something like Unity? (I know in the past, I tried to look at Ruby and it confused the hell out of me)

2) While I have fully fleshed out (numerous documents/storyboarding/etc) my entire storyline, character development, game mechanics (Was aiming for one of two different systems, either something tactics based ala Final Fantasy Tactics, or Kingdom Hearts/Action RPG oriented mechanically), the statistic balances between items/abilities/etc - I still cannot mentally wrap my head around 'how a video game stores data' over how web applications do (by use of things like a SQL Server back end)

3) Lastly, while I am decent at graphic design (and audio development as well), what is the best way to piece together the visual components of what unity uses. I heard Maya is a good thing to use for it. Is it easy to transfer things from Photoshop into Maya and then work towards converting a 2D into 3D type of skeleton design? Or am I better off learning from something like Maya and build it solely there from scratch?

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Just curious as I toss around the idea of working on my RPG a bit more seriously beyond just the 'conceptual design' phase.

[dextersmith]

Hey bro. Don't help Brax out too much by posting all dem codez!

I hope nobody uses this code:

if (in_doubt) {delete_all_drives}

[Azrile]

How long did it take you to learn how to use Unity, Bodoh?

The reason I ask is I have been wanting to create an RPG, but have been suffering from a mixture of different issues.

1) My programming experience is limited to a solid amount of object oriented web application development (VB.NET, Javascript, C# here and there, and PHP/Laravel) - How easy would it be to learn and adapt to something like Unity? (I know in the past, I tried to look at Ruby and it confused the hell out of me)

2) While I have fully fleshed out (numerous documents/storyboarding/etc) my entire storyline, character development, game mechanics (Was aiming for one of two different systems, either something tactics based ala Final Fantasy Tactics, or Kingdom Hearts/Action RPG oriented mechanically), the statistic balances between items/abilities/etc - I still cannot mentally wrap my head around 'how a video game stores data' over how web applications do (by use of things like a SQL Server back end)

3) Lastly, while I am decent at graphic design (and audio development as well), what is the best way to piece together the visual components of what unity uses. I heard Maya is a good thing to use for it. Is it easy to transfer things from Photoshop into Maya and then work towards converting a 2D into 3D type of skeleton design? Or am I better off learning from something like Maya and build it solely there from scratch?

------

Just curious as I toss around the idea of working on my RPG a bit more seriously beyond just the 'conceptual design' phase.

1. Unity is free. Just download it and start. RPGs are a good place to start.. but I would say that you should make your game interesting with your rules and gameplay, not trying to do something that is technically challenging beyond what you see in many other games. People vastly underestimate how performance restrictive it is to make the game you want to make. Unless you have made a game before, it is very difficult to write development notes for a game and expect them to work... 60FPS is not as easy to get to as most people think. Watch the movie Apollo 13 where the astronaut is trying to start up the lunar module using 47 watts of power... that really is a huge chunk of game developing... trying to squeeze away every .1 ms to increase your fps.

2. If it is a single player game, you just write the saved data to a data file in binary code that is stored on the players computer. It is very easy to do and fairly secure unless your game becomes really popular and there is incentive for someone to spend a lot of time trying to hack it. If you are making any type of serious or competitive game, it is easy to encrypt the binary file. Here is a 1 hour lesson on how to do it
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/m...saving-loading

3. 3dsmax, Maya or blender for modeling (maya for animations), and photoshop.

[Bodoh]

The hard part is work for hire on commercial quality.


I get lots of customers who want their broken models repaired. Sometimes they cry when the whole model needs to be re-done again.

And the usual bad art and re-do whole artwork again.

And coding that needs to be wholly re-done.


So you can imagine what good business it is... good customers who prefer to pay a bit more for good artwork/models/code.

[Scyclone]

1. Unity is free. Just download it and start. RPGs are a good place to start.. but I would say that you should make your game interesting with your rules and gameplay, not trying to do something that is technically challenging beyond what you see in many other games. People vastly underestimate how performance restrictive it is to make the game you want to make. Unless you have made a game before, it is very difficult to write development notes for a game and expect them to work... 60FPS is not as easy to get to as most people think. Watch the movie Apollo 13 where the astronaut is trying to start up the lunar module using 47 watts of power... that really is a huge chunk of game developing... trying to squeeze away every .1 ms to increase your fps.

2. If it is a single player game, you just write the saved data to a data file in binary code that is stored on the players computer. It is very easy to do and fairly secure unless your game becomes really popular and there is incentive for someone to spend a lot of time trying to hack it. If you are making any type of serious or competitive game, it is easy to encrypt the binary file. Here is a 1 hour lesson on how to do it
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/m...saving-loading

3. 3dsmax, Maya or blender for modeling (maya for animations), and photoshop.

Fair enough , I probably am leaning more to the FFTactics design anyway. It is less resource intensive (and easier to balance in terms of game difficulty / gameplay experience). While going something more action RPG would be nice, it definitely is much harder to design, and probably not a good idea for a first game .

That said, what are some good resources to start building things in unity, should I start with things like Menus and what not before jumping into the gameplay itself?

Makes sense on the data file, I'll most likely just let it be for the time being, then later probably encrypt it some.

3dsmax and Blender, I have heard the names but haven't seen anything about them yet

[Azrile]

That said, what are some good resources to start building things in unity, should I start with things like Menus and what not before jumping into the gameplay itself?

3dsmax and Blender, I have heard the names but haven't seen anything about them yet

3dsmax and Blender are the two most used programs for 3d modeling. Blender is like the freebie community made version of 3dsmax ( max is very similar to Maya). All 3 do the same thing. If you are just starting, Blender is the way to go (free).

Unity is huge, and there are so many aspects to making a game it is hard to say where to start. Right now I am about 9 months into a game I am making with a couple other people. We started the project doing the stuff that was new to us, so we could see the performance cost and then we are adding stuff that we basically already know how to do.

Unity has a ton of learning tutorials on their site. One of the better section is where they have videos that walk you through making complete games. Right now they have 5 games you can make that increase in difficulty. You start out with a blank game, and at the end you have a complete game that you can play that are actually fairly fun.

http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules

And then below the 5 games, are just a ton of videos on very specific things such as making GUI (menus), world building, scripting, sound etc. There are probably a week or two worth of videos just on their site.. and then you can go to youtube and there are a few really good tutorials where they do the same thing as Unity, there are people who will do a video series that makes a game from scratch. I´ve linked to some of them in this thread because some of the stuff ToA has done and made sound like an accomplishment... these tutorials show you exactly how to do in 20 minutes.

Here are the 3 youtubers that I am subscribed to. I watch their stuff as soon as it comes out because even though most of it is basic, you always learn some new technique.

Brackeys - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYb...OrIZFBvU6CCMiA this guy also puts stuff on the asset store for free that you can learn with.

SpeedTutor - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwY...gjvDiZryUVtFGw this is guy did a series where you can build a complete survival game just by following along. His tutorials were used to create probably 20 clones on Steam right now.

BurgZerg - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOI...1MERedhOnew73A This guy does a lot of scripting and more tech videos, but he also did an Action RPG series, that again teaches you how to make a game from scratch.

As to where to begin.. up to you. but I think most people start out with a guy running across an empty world. Which is why I laugh that both ToA and Proctor show that as a major thing in their videos. Proctor´s zombie video was literally what you would do the first 15 minutes of making a game. For me personally, I like to deal with the scripting and gui stuff first before world-building or adding a ton of art. I am a delayed gratification type of person, so like having all the meat done before I get to play with dessert (the pretty stuff).

[Bodoh]

I checked their art portfolio and code portfolio.


It reminds me of this:


I'm a coder who has coded for the past 7 years. I have no resume or past games I worked on.


I'm a modeller who has worked on ZBrush Maya for the past 7 years. I have no portfolio! My rates are US$80/hour.


I'm an artist who has worked on Photoshop for the past 7 years. I have absolutely no portfolio! Trust me!


I'm an idea guy aka project manager who wants others to work for free! Slaves! I'll never pay them!


And they want to make a MMO...

[Kyanion]

Love to see how awful their 'devblogs' are lol. The only 2 people that matter are the 'coders' and they barely say shit or say things like "I’ve been working lots of overtime with work and am moving, so haven’t gotten much to report, unfortunately." Yeah man, you make up that report and then say "I’m working on defining the class hierarchy, particularly for mobs, and am working on defining the framework for unit testing in the code."

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Another cute tidbit: "New Community Members

We’ve grained four new community members this week. I hope everyone gives a warm welcome to Posthaste, MrWisest, Shaydey, and Vervanda StrongClaw! When you have the time, please take a moment to introduce yourselves in our Introduction Forum so the community can get to know you.

Our social media presence is also growing, with over 300 new followers across all platforms since last week!"

Oh man look at all that hype, 300 new followers prolly only 1 or 2 of them real people! Glad to see the fake alt train is back in station.

[NotADevAlt]

Oh man look at all that hype, 300 new followers prolly only 1 or 2 of them real people! Glad to see the fake alt train is back in station.

Did all of them literally forget everything that happened pre-Kickstarter 2 when Elyssia said to 'pretend' that never happened?!

I bet Brax & Co. assume that every single follower automatically = a certain amount of $$$. That must be the only reason they are so hellbent on padding their numbers.

[Kyanion]

Did all of them literally forget everything that happened pre-Kickstarter 2 when Elyssia said to 'pretend' that never happened?!

I bet Brax & Co. assume that every single follower automatically = a certain amount of $$$. That must be the only reason they are so hellbent on padding their numbers.

Umm considering how much they edited their forums of course they forgot it!

[dextersmith]

Did all of them literally forget everything that happened pre-Kickstarter 2 when Elyssia said to 'pretend' that never happened?!

Double think from 1984 is real.

[Azrile]

Love to see how awful their 'devblogs' are lol. The only 2 people that matter are the 'coders' and they barely say shit or say things like "I’ve been working lots of overtime with work and am moving, so haven’t gotten much to report, unfortunately." Yeah man, you make up that report and then say "I’m working on defining the class hierarchy, particularly for mobs, and am working on defining the framework for unit testing in the code."
.

Calling October... as to when the 2 new programmers completely disappear. I know Brax is reading this, so it probably won´t happen this way.. but my guess is the breaking point will come when they stop showing up to his IRC chat meetings where they have to listen to the 3 stoogies talk about writing lore and other non-sense for hours every week. It would be interesting to see the contracts and how they were given a part of sales... and what happens if they just stop putting in any effort. Brax had to have put some minimum on the amount of work they need to do in order to keep their share... which if it is anything significant is just going to piss them off when they see the 3 stoogies not doing anything. "hey, here is the roadmap you need to keep up with every week in order to keep your piece of the profits... oh me? I´m going to spend a week doing a 5-minute logo and talking to my wife about dragons eating cows´"

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Oh man look at all that hype, 300 new followers prolly only 1 or 2 of them real people! Glad to see the fake alt train is back in station.

haha, that was one of the funniest things that Appleton did. During the GreedMonger kickstarter, Appleton actually paid $5 on fiverr for ´5000 facebook likes´.. he got busted doing it right away, but then facebook of course deleted the fake facebook accounts used to give the likes, and also the 5000 likes from Greedmongers fanpage.

[rasako]

been kind of watching this thread and poking in every so often over the past 6 months and honestly, if these guys are really doing all this shit and have been doing it for so many years, why haven't they been taken into custody yet? There's no way in hell this is legal.

[Kyanion]

been kind of watching this thread and poking in every so often over the past 6 months and honestly, if these guys are really doing all this shit and have been doing it for so many years, why haven't they been taken into custody yet? There's no way in hell this is legal.

I'm not sure if anything would be able to be done. They were 'donations' given to people who had no idea how to make a game. Wouldn't be worth the money to even pursue legal action I'd imagine.

[Azrile]

been kind of watching this thread and poking in every so often over the past 6 months and honestly, if these guys are really doing all this shit and have been doing it for so many years, why haven't they been taken into custody yet? There's no way in hell this is legal.

´ Your honor, I bought an eyepatch and a dance move for a character that did not exist, in a game that did not exist. Yes, I know the warning on their website clearly stated that it was a donation and the devs had no requirement to actually provide the eyepatch and dance move.... but still´.

These guys are idiots and scummy... but just like GreedMonger...anyone who gave them money has nobody to blame but themselves. It takes Blizzard 100´s of people and 2 years to make an expansion for WOW... how can anyone think that Brax can make a MMORPG when his greatest accomplishment to date is that he once played UO.