Open Stress Test Information

[Kiwi 513]

2 hours ago, Chibiterasu said:

Tbh I can understand why some people think this is a scam.

1. This game is in development since 2015 and as far as I remember the first thing you showed us back then was already the forge. So the visually game itself pretty much worked again. So it's unbelivable that the "small" issue to make this game capable to play online took 3 years. (I know it's not a "small" issue but because the issue of a program is hidden behind the graphic of the game it's not that obvious.)

2. You delayed the release of this game from Dec 2017 to Jan 2018 to Mar 2018 to unknown. And all of the delays were pretty much last minute. So when you thought you could stick to the dates till the very end, why does it still take months to do the remaining small work you originally thought you could have done in less than a week?

3. You already get money from this project. And considering that this is true for about 3 years, the amount should be quite big by now. Sure you said you don't use it for personal matters but for one thing there is no reason for us to believe you and for another thing we don't know what happens to the remaining amount. You wouldn't burn it or something?

4. A person who doesn't believe in this project wouldn't read any line of text in this forum, would they? So they would miss some informations like streams or updates.

While I still believe in this project, I also can't deny that at least some question marks about 2 and 3 never came up to me. I absolutely don't write this because I want to drag this project down. Quite the opposite I write this because I want to eliminate those question marks so I can fullly be hyped about a soon release again.

1. It's been underdevelopment for so long because we do this in our spare time not 24-7. We had to reverse engineer everything before we even started working on anything else, then we had to re-code from C# to C++ which took more time than we thought, we tried hosting the server on windows and that made too many problems do had to go back to Linux, there is more than just the simple "coding" that everyone seems to think is being needed. The code that EA left behind is a mess, as in it basically shouldn't even work but it does and the developers have to work it all out and change it into something they understand. If you see streams now you can see game play (Both PvE, PvP and rPvE games, Auction House, Mail, Direct Trade and Forge) so no, it's not just the Forge still. The only main issue is freezes, crashes and 12 player maps not being playable due to as I mentioned already the coding being such a huge mess.

2. Mistakes where made and the developers thought they could get it out in time but in the end couldn't because problems got in the way like they do in game development all the time, we apologized and that is why we no longer give set dates or times regarding Open Beta.

3. We get money from the project in a sense yes but it all goes towards server upkeep which we barely manage to reach (good servers aren't cheap) and we literally have barely any spare left over (the spare is being saved up for other things that we might need in the future like more servers etc). We also do not force people to donate nor do we expect people to donate. Considering all the staff have jobs I am not sure what we'd spend it on plus the amount we have left over wouldn't even buy a pizza. Keep in mind, some staff have even donated their money into this project themselves (Not that anyone seems to care of course). Finally I'd like to add we LEGALLY can't make any money from this game if we do we risk it being closed down and we don't want to risk that so why would we "spend" the money left over? It would mean a waste of these 3 years of blood, sweat and tears. I can tell you I have not been paid $0.01 since I became Moderator for this project, that's why I have two jobs just to get by.

4. Most people who think we're a scam have been around usually a month or even less and just assume that because they've been here 30 days or so and it hasn't been released that we're a scam. That or the fact when we do giveaways and they don't get access to Closed Beta they throw little tantrums and call us all names under the sun. They don't need to be here to see the streams or updates, it's all on our discord we have a stream channel and a channel for development updates (which is easy to see and have access to). If they don't read stuff before speaking not much we can do about that sadly.

I get why people are losing hope I truly do and I don't blame them, but if they where true fans would they give up? Take the World Cup for example, you want your team to do the best they can and sometimes they don't get to the finals but they at least tried right? and regardless of the outcome you're always there. Well we're trying our asses off, how do you think it makes the staff feel to see people dragging this project in the mud while we're here for free doing this for everyone asking for nothing in return. I can tell you it's pretty shit, we made mistakes I get that but we all do, we're human it's what we do right?

Anyway sorry about this huge wall of text, I hope I responded to all of your questions. If you want to ask anything else please send me a pm and I'll happily take the time to reply to you. So we can keep this thread on topic. Thanks.

[MrXLink 1193]

The aforementioned questions are important to have answered, and Kiwi has explained well how everyone in the team would answer them.
I would like to add to your second point that alongside the programming department having issues with setting up realistic deadlines for the work they are doing (taking personal time into account), this is not your average game development process you're looking at. What we are doing is reviving a pre-existing game through the same game files and code. Now, normally programming is already an unpredictable task, in which bugs are like hydras; one gets fixed, 2 more appear. In this project, it's like fighting an army of hydras while having no idea where they come from. We did not write the code that our server code needs to interact with, and we do not know the game's code or files inside-out, no matter how much we figure out ourselves. Not only does this make coding highly difficult, but also extremely unpredictable. Where you may be able to expose patterns in your own code's flaws, BattleForge is a labyrinth, and bugs may take minutes to fix, or may take days, weeks or months to fix. That is the margin of error we work with here, and it's not pretty.

Combine this with the fact that people have other duties, jobs, and lives to maintain, and there we get a massive uncertainty level for this project's level of progress. We do progress, but the speeds at which we do so varies depending on all these circumstances; it all adds up. You can't expect the team to work steadily and come across as little bugs as possible, you can't expect us to spend all the time we have on this project either. We're never getting paid for this, we don't always have time, and we're all not capable of working constantly. And as much as we all hate the wait, there is no other option than to progress in the way we currently do. If we were doing a complete remake of the game (which would definitely get the project killed), or if we would know every detail about the way the game was originally programmed, we would have a higher probability to make realistic deadlines, but the fact of the matter is that we don't. And with this absurdly high level of uncertainty, we stopped making deadlines, because we would only hurt the community by doing so for no good reason, and we do not want to disappoint you with yet another wrong prediction.

[MysticEntity 3]

I just have to say you guys make a great job...im a Software engineer myselve and i know what coding is like...keep up the great work and I am sure we can enjoy this grear game soon !

[Tyroki 17]

I still wonder about something though.

Ragnarok Online's private servers were made possible, despite legal issues, because all of the code that interacts with the otherwise free files was custom made and thus the property of those designing the emulation system. Isn't that basically what you guys are doing?

Battleforge was a free to play, so it's files were easily accessible.

When the guys who made the emulation software for Ragnarok Online were taken to court over it, the emulation guys won because the only code they were using was their own, which then talked to free files made by the original devs (Gravity). This is why when you emulate games (such as with Ragnarok Online), you have to download the original games files first.

This is what we're doing, right? If so, you never really had to ask permission anyway. There is precedence from Gravity vs... whoever the emulation people were, for emulated games to survive (so long as they make no money off it, hence why they live off donations). It really does baffle me that so many emulation groups get scared when threatened with legal issues, when there is precedence saying it's fine so long as the emulation software is entirely your own code :\

Unless there's something I'm missing.

(Either way, it was thanks to all of this that private servers for RO could happily make their own content without giving a rats ass about Gravity, whenever we get to that point.)

Edited July 19, 2018 by Tyroki

[fiki574 285]

16 minutes ago, Tyroki said:

<snip>

The problem here is, we openly admitted to reverse engineering the game, which already by itself breaks a law about copyright and intellectual property. Needless to say, every company in it's ToS or EULA has reverse engineering and other forms of game manipulation prohibited, so that again is not on our side. Yes, the game was free and so were the files (if we can even call them free files), however since EA still exists, they are still the valid owners of BattleForge Intellectual Property and all of it's content. Meaning, whenever they feel someone is violating or devaluing their IP they can take legal actions and in most cases end up as winners. I don't know how RO developers made it, but congratulations - seems like they had good preparation or lawyers or whatever (since I haven't heard about this until your post).

[kikispas 1]

11 hours ago, Kiwi said:

I can tell you it's pretty shit, we made mistakes I get that but we all do, we're human it's what we do right?

"Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum"

Everybody makes mistakes. Some shouldn't (surgeons, pilots etc.), but fail and fail again that's why people actually lost interest for this game (just my opinion ofc).

If the OB was delayed by 2 or 3 weeks, I'm sure people wouldn't matter. But we're 4 months after the announced date, still no OB, and dev post are shorter and shorter, and quite the same every weeks: ''we're working on it".

[MysticEntity 3]

Hasnt ea given the permission to this projekt...?

[samsim100 12]

No one lost interest in this game at all. So many friends of mine are waiting and no one is disapointet at all. This game died a long time ago and EA don´t cares wich means without this project there is no chance of it`s revival so the best thing is just to wait. 

Did you every wrote a programm? Sometimes it`s realy tricky and a problem occur then you have to re-code lot´s of things because you can´t get arround. No one can predict some of this thing. Skylords devs had to re-code to an other language to our advantage in terms of speed, reliability and supported players. So yeah the delay is huge but who cares, only people wich don`t get the work behind this and don`t care about it.

Dev post getting short is nothing bad at all. They are informative as allways just not us much details as before but for some good reason so who cares?

[fiki574 285]

1 hour ago, MysticEntity said:

Hasnt ea given the permission to this projekt...?

Yes, but "permissions" can be "revoked". Also, permissions are nowhere near equal to having full copyright over a game or IP.

[samsim100 12]

30 minutes ago, fiki574 said:

Yes, but "permissions" can be "revoked". Also, permissions are nowhere near equal to having full copyright over a game or IP.

@fiki574 Don`t say can be "revoked" please. Just the idea of it is stuff of nightmares.

[MysticEntity 3]

2 hours ago, fiki574 said:

Yes, but "permissions" can be "revoked". Also, permissions are nowhere near equal to having full copyright over a game or IP.

But you have the permission to use tha games artworks and models ?

[fiki574 285]

15 hours ago, MysticEntity said:

But you have the permission to use tha games artworks and models ?

Not outside of the game itself.

[Tyroki 17]

On 7/19/2018 at 10:22 PM, fiki574 said:

The problem here is, we openly admitted to reverse engineering the game, which already by itself breaks a law about copyright and intellectual property. Needless to say, every company in it's ToS or EULA has reverse engineering and other forms of game manipulation prohibited, so that again is not on our side. Yes, the game was free and so were the files (if we can even call them free files), however since EA still exists, they are still the valid owners of BattleForge Intellectual Property and all of it's content. Meaning, whenever they feel someone is violating or devaluing their IP they can take legal actions and in most cases end up as winners. I don't know how RO developers made it, but congratulations - seems like they had good preparation or lawyers or whatever (since I haven't heard about this until your post).

Ooooh, so that's how you're doing the project.

Yeah, with Ragnarok Online, the emulation code was all written from scratch, which then made full use of the original files as written (as far as I remember things working).
The best part was, people weren't rewriting the original code or messing with it at all (at least as far as I remember). Instead they were screwing with the software that interacted with those files. For mob stats, the emulator used it's own files based on everything people knew about the original games. Then people made programs that let private server owners alter the emulation files with more ease (which is how I ended up making custom content, though others went the distance with completely new sprites and everything).

In the end, I just find all of the different approaches quite interesting. Shame we can't just interact with the original files in the old way.

Honestly, RO's private server stuff and the legal shenanigans that happened over it are worth looking in to, even if only for sheer curiosities sake.

Anyway, best of luck Fiki and team. Looking forward to playing someday soon

Edited July 21, 2018 by Tyroki

[wibryz 22]

Just dropping by to say I'm cheering for you all

[Fiction 0]

All my friends are waiting for this game and are real hyped up. I wish you the best guys ^^

[Tyroki 17]

22 hours ago, Fiction said:

All my friends are waiting for this game and are real hyped up. I wish you the best guys ^^

I'd temper the hype. Make it last longer. This could be a while

[superucer 1]

[Shraga 0]

Just wanted to say that i've been following from atleast feb 2016.

i've reall lost hope at around match 2018 and kinda forgot about this project cause of the major hype into major dissapointment. Honestly im not sure why after giving a deadline its delayed by 8months and counting but recently i actually had a dream im playing the game and i woke up so hyped.

Can't wait to play again and right now i can wait aslong as it takes.

[Macxy123 1]

I love you guys. When battleforge shut down I really didn't think anyone was gonna bring it back but now you guys came through and made my dream come true. Keep up the good work!!!!!

[Nerevar 32]

Despite the hate of some people, be happy about all the support that you get and remember that there are a lot more (want2be-)players who are spectating your progress quietly and are happy about what you do and what you invest into this project.

Am personally not posting much for example but I'm checking the status here pretty regularly since early 2016. By doing some Web-programming in my spare time I know how timeconsuming bug-searching can be.
Everytime I visit this forum or the devplatform I am happy to see that you're stil working on the game's development and hope that we all will be able to play together asap.

[DragMe 0]

what is the estimated time to finish the fix for open beta or may be closed beta?...just give me idea

[samsim100 12]

@DragMe Some dev said it could be this sommer

[Kiwi 513]

16 hours ago, DragMe said:

what is the estimated time to finish the fix for open beta or may be closed beta?...just give me idea

We're already in closed beta.

[DragMe 0]

Estimated time on playing the full ver. of the game?...just to have idea thanks a lot

[InsaneHawk 993]

3 hours ago, DragMe said:

Estimated time on playing the full ver. of the game?...just to have idea thanks a lot

As you can guess, we won't risk anymore to give any deadline or ETA until it's done on our side. Best thing to do, is wait for the upcoming announcements (especially the one for the official stream)