The Truth of the Matter - ViperEye - 16th Oct 2003
Okay, I'm going to come right out and say it. The truth. The honest-to-goodness truth:
Combining 8-hour work days with 12-hour schoolwork schedules is about as fun as pasting the graphite ends of pencils together after shoving them through either ear. Yeah, the payoff's great, but good golly, does it ever hurt.
The payoff's great, literally: I get a solid $150 a week for living inside a womb lined with movies. I get money. I get free movies. I get 89 cent Cokes in a city where they run $1.25. I'm loving it. And it isn't McDonald's.
Until I get home. Then I realize that my feet hurt, my calves ache (but my butt's just fine, because in eight hours, I never sit down ONCE), and I have 12 hours of schoolwork grinning at me from my bedroom (I'm homeschooled, in case you didn't know). Again, that's not such a big deal... until you realize that that leaves exactly four hours to eat, bathe, sleep, and be online.
I love to eat. Not in an "I'm bigger than my Aunt Jemima, and good golly, is she fat!" way, I just prefer not giving up eating. Bathing is important if you want to meet girls, and I'm a homeschooled schmuck. I'll take what I can get. Without sleep I can't work, and without work I can't get any money, so sleep's a must.
That leaves schoolwork. Naturally, my schoolwork has taken a backseat to everything else. I end up having to focus my time on one thing and making sure I do that one thing really well.
Am I starting to make sense yet? I hope so, because I hate being direct, and this is about as direct as I'll allow my vague references to get.
Anyways, the mod. Yes, the mod! That's why you're reading this, so I can't exactly let you go without talking a little bit about the mod. I'm going to answer for you all the single most pressing question that's on everyone's mind: Why has it taken SO DAMN LONG TO GET THE PATCH OUT!?!?!?!?!? (If that's not the foremost question in your mind, then screw you, I'm working towards the MASSES here.) The answer is this: we're perfectionists.
Doesn't that sound like an excuse? Yeah, I thought so too. The positive thing is that it's actually true; we refuse to release bad content. Now, You've all seen our initial Demo release, and so you've all seen the content that comes with it. Nothing's inherantly WRONG with it (except for that Yavin bug... ugh), it's just that the level of content was relatively low.
Well, we've worked for the last few months on three primary things: 1) patching bugs, 2) adding our new "Objective" gametype, and 3) fixing old content and adding new, PERFECTED content.
But WHY, you ask? Why have we not just released maps as we made them? Why not have a thousand patches to download? Okay, I'm getting a little sarcastic here, so I'll cut to the chase: we don't want to release a patch every two weeks. We want to get the content ready, bug-test the content, and bring it back to the drawing board. Here's a fine example: our Beta team has been through EIGHT SEPARATE BETA PATCHES since the Demo. Each has a lengthy changelog, which you'll actually be able to read once we release the Patch.
Basically, it's taking forever because we want to do it right.
Now, the MSU contest deadline's been pushed back a bit, and I have to tell you all, this is an absolute GODSEND. We've already finalized what we want in the Big Patch for the deadline, and these few extra days will allow us to perfect what's just being implimented. Yes, we are going to release a patch by the deadline; while I won't give out release dates, you can be pretty sure of that. Actually, we'll be doing a nifty open-beta test pretty soon, a bit before the release date, allowing us to get a couple hours' worth of gaming impressions from the community at large. Details forthcoming.
Okay, I'm sick and tired of trying to be coherant and giving you all information. I'm going to head off and warble in my sleep now. If you need to reach me, you can find me at 1 900 VE IS SEXY. Or just fire off an e-mail.
Have a good one, guys. I'll be back to ramble some other time. Until then, VE out.
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