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Messages - MATT VORN

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General Discussion / An open letter to Badspot: Blockland 2.0
« on: April 09, 2023, 05:13:19 AM »
Badspot,

You created a game where many of us generated unwavering childhood memories. Whether it was resorting to Blockland in bad times for escapism or simply playing with a sibling/friend and having the time of your life. Blockland was THAT game where you could build anything. I'd go as far to say that it was better than both Roblox and Minecraft at its time.

It seems clear that you are now focused on other things - which happens in life. I started playing Blockland when I was like 8 years old - I'm now 23 and going to be 24 in May. But with that clarity of abandonment, it seems as though former fellow Blockland gamers and joined up to create 'Brickadia' - a spiritual successor to Blockland - which was your very own idea in its instance.

The concept of a game where you can build lego is simplistic and in of itself not extremely enjoyable. What made Blockland iconic wasn't only the 'realistic' maps such as Bedroom, but also the fact you could make bricks 'do stuff'. For example, I used to be great friends with a Blocklander known as 'Allun Pentax' or 'APX', we used to make a lot of 'concerts' using events to program light shows whilst streaming music. We used to do this in the theme of 'deadmau5', 'Skrillex', all the popular artists at the time - I was known as Grief3r with BLID 13371. A BLID I used to be praised for as a result of leetspeak.

Furthermore, I used to frequently play this game as a demo with my brother at my nans house (my nan sadly passed in 2015) - this was a highlight of my childhood. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for the memories I was able to make playing this game.

As you can see, whilst realising I'm shedding a tear writing this 'open letter' - this game is very special and rare; seldom seen as they say.

But as its original creator, I wholeheartedly believe you, and only you hold the secrets as to what makes this game such a special and unique product. This is why I write this letter in protest, as I'm sure many others would agree, despite Brickadia's inevitable success, you would always be able to make a better game.

This is why it makes sense for Blockland to get a facelift, in UE5 or similar - incorporate some of the most iconic addons by default whilst extending all features, add true raytracing etc... and ultimately re-launch.

Maybe this will or will not happen, but I won't be satisfied leaving this forum for eternity without writing this letter to simply express my thanks and just a coulple very small reasons as to why you, Badspot should continue to create and allow this game to flourish and generate some more memories for generations to come.

Thank you Badspot, for making my childhood,

Mathew

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General Discussion / Re: the stagnation of blockland
« on: February 16, 2022, 01:25:22 PM »
Re-develop game from the ground up. Huge market for games like this particularly with Brickadia becoming a huge thing with a massive following already.

Blockland needs more depth, modern game engine with modern graphics. Proper ray-tracing textures and in general more depth to the base game would enable this game to succeed.

Unfortunately this is simply what happens when developers stop caring.

It is sad, considered re-downloading recently but am no longer interested in this game. My BLID is 13371 and so joined this game very early on and it at times (particularly in 2012) was the best game of my life. I miss having software hosting siblings and then using the Nuke launcher to obliterate them. The point is, this game was fun, it is not now.

The take-home is that Badspot/whoever are developing are missing out on what could be a phenomenon. Particularly with PS5/XBOX X|S versions of the game.

I mean just look at the success of Roblox. All because they decided to expand and not give up on their game. Time bad spot does the same thing.

I can literally remember when block land was so popular people would prefer to play over Roblox or even Minecraft. How times have changed.

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Development / Re: 2020/05/29 - Blockland r2033
« on: June 06, 2020, 01:10:05 PM »
When's 64-bit coming? Mac no longer supports 32-Bit and I doubt windows will support 32-Bit for much longer...

I want my money back otherwise ;) JK.

Look forward to jumping back into this game when you support 64-Bit.

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General Discussion / Re: What has happened to this game?!
« on: April 17, 2020, 04:25:16 AM »
Sorry excuse. It is ridiculous that people are still whining for Badspot to update the game, give the guy a break. A lot of the time, the people complaining haven't even played the game regularly in years and likely would find something to complain about even if an update did roll out. They aren't helping anything. Meanwhile, there are people working on a spiritual successor for Blockland with a game engine with more flexibility, that will improve upon the original concept. It seems natural that the people actually interested in the game will get their fix, it is only a matter of time. If you want Blockland, loving play it. It is done.

I personally would play it, except it hasn't been supported for the latest macOS. So therefore meaning that the game literally can not be installed on Mac anymore.

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General Discussion / Re: What has happened to this game?!
« on: April 17, 2020, 04:23:03 AM »
i think the statement "this game is clearly extremely successful" is highly disputable considering the fact badspot has explicitly stated sales of the game + ads barely pay for running this forum or something

My bad in 2013 block land released pre-steam sales stats which amounted to 40,000+ players, at the current cost of the game, users pay $9.99, and let's be honest if it was regularly updated, the game could be valued at $20 EASILY.

Since the 2013 release of Steam, from preliminary research, the game has made only around 5-10,000 sales.

Non-steam sales may likely amount to a similar amount. So let's say the current sales is 50,000. 50,000 x 9.99 is circa $500,000 in gross sales, and this is being pessimistic with the numbers. This is enough money to employ and get a small dev and marketing team together.

I'm just disappointed as the game has so much potential but it's just ignored.

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General Discussion / Re: What has happened to this game?!
« on: April 17, 2020, 04:10:35 AM »
Sorry excuse. It is ridiculous that people are still whining for Badspot to update the game, give the guy a break. A lot of the time, the people complaining haven't even played the game regularly in years and likely would find something to complain about even if an update did roll out. They aren't helping anything. Meanwhile, there are people working on a spiritual successor for Blockland with a game engine with more flexibility, that will improve upon the original concept. It seems natural that the people actually interested in the game will get their fix, it is only a matter of time. If you want Blockland, loving play it. It is done.

I haven't played in years because a) there's not been a single update to introduce a new feature since the shaders update b) the community has been drying up and not ageing well c) there's newer games

The fact is, is that why is bad spot letting this concept go to other devs who let's be honest, can't pull off a game as good as Blockland. Bet they won't have events like in this game etc... There will honestly be a way for bad spot to get this game back on its feet and I mean the game's on bloody steam. This game has more sales than any of his others, not to mention with a modern update, or even an entirely re-developed game, this would attract newer players in the masses with the correct marketing strategy.

The marketing of block land has always been botty and made the game look really basic. When this game is pretty complex and in actual fact is highly educational as it teaches many some fundamentals of coding via the events feature.

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General Discussion / Re: What has happened to this game?!
« on: April 17, 2020, 04:05:37 AM »
i think the statement "this game is clearly extremely successful" is highly disputable considering the fact badspot has explicitly stated sales of the game + ads barely pay for running this forum or something

But the game has over 20k sales so it's made over 200k before tax and expenses.

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General Discussion / What has happened to this game?!
« on: April 15, 2020, 07:02:28 PM »
Hey there,

I've been a long time user of Blockland, in fact, I started playing back around 2008, then bought the game in 2010. Been curious as to what is going on these days with this game. I'm just shocked as to why the game is being poorly supported, and as a result the community is now hanging by its last thread before falling into extinction.

So wanna call out Badspot and ask. What is going on? You've made a game that clearly was extremely successful and you just suddenly stop giving it updates? Here's the thing, this game might potentially be the greatest thing in your game development career, so why bin it off? Why just leave it to rot and die?

With that said, I think I speak for many that Blockland needs the following:
 • A huge revamp update.

Yep, that's all this game needs.

So in this update we'll get:
 • New graphical user interface inspired by the old interfaces.
 • Better rendering.
 • Slightly improved character models.
 • Better support for add-ons, and for add on creators.
 • New real-time ray-tracing support (RTX for example)
 • Overall, the game could make use of the power of modern hardware to improve in all areas.
 • A ton of enhancements to the user experience with an integrated friends list etc...

Now please Badspot, or any devs reading this. Don't let this game go. It's been a childhood game for many, and it would be amazing if it could just simply continue and heck maybe if I have kids, they'll be able to call this a childhood favourite as well.

Also P.S. the Mac version is no longer supported, so the game officially died with macOS Catalina for me. This is not how I wished to see this game die.

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Modification Help / Re: First time modding - add on not showing.
« on: February 13, 2018, 02:29:53 PM »
basic checklist if addon doesnt show up in the addon list to be enabled
1) does your mod have a description.txt? it doesnt have to contain anything
2) does your mod have a namecheck.txt? its not required, but if its there and the folder/zip name isnt the same, it wont show up
3) does your mod have a server.cs? make sure its actually of the .cs file type, not just named "server.cs" while being a different filetype!

checklist if addon can be enabled but doesnt show up ingame
1) check console log and see if executing the addon failed due to syntax errors or the like. note that ANY .cs files with syntax errors in that folder/zip will stop the addon's execution, even if the addon only executes valid .cs files!
2) if its an item/vehicle/playertype/projectile, make sure you have given the datablock a valid UI name, and that it isnt the same as another item/vehicle/playertype/projectile. if it is, both will show up in the list with the same name.
3) make sure its not using the same datablock name as another addon, it could be getting overwritten on startup.

things to check if addon is showing up but model isnt/isnt showing up right
1) check if your model is exporting correctly - use port's importer to import it
2) check if you have texture files in the folder with the dts
3) if its animated, make sure it has a root animation. it should be the first animation in the timeline

"Add-Ons/Weapon_Demo1/server.cs (0): Unable to instantiate non-conobject class DecalData.
Could not locate texture: Add-Ons/Weapon_Demo1/blank (download failed, using default texture)
Could not locate texture: Add-Ons/Weapon_Demo1/Skin (download failed, using default texture)"

These errors have come up in the console log when attempting to load the add-on, I can't seem to figure out what they mean?

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Modification Help / Re: First time modding - add on not showing.
« on: February 13, 2018, 02:17:47 PM »

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Modification Help / Re: First time modding - add on not showing.
« on: February 13, 2018, 12:47:32 PM »
Thanks a ton Conan!

So I made the add on by using the .dts and .dsq files and then modifying them by remodelling to make the add on I want to make and then adjusting the animations. I then exported those two to the Vehicle_>insertaddonnamehere< folder, I then done the namecheck, description, server.cs and white check.png files and put them into the folder, so now I have the description, namecheck, server, look.dsq and the root.dsq as well as the .dts model file and of course the white check file.

A dilemma I had was that I couldn't find the tank turret add on folder, it seems like it's coded so the game takes the turret from the tank folder and then puts it into its own extra add on thing. I tried using files from the tank folder instead such as the vehicle_tank.cs file and the player.cs file. I modified everything I had to modify regarding naming.

I feel like that this is where it went wrong.

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Modification Help / First time modding - add on not showing.
« on: February 13, 2018, 11:11:44 AM »
I've made an add on that uses pretty much the tank turret scripts except it doesn't shoot anything, and the model is completely different.

With that said, I've modelled everything properly, I'm pretty sure the scripts are all good as they follow the updated naming etc... I just don't know what the problem is.

Does anyone have some sort of check-list for making add ons?

Before you ask, Blockland does not crash, the add on shows up in the pregame menu, but it doesn't show up in the actual game.

Thanks for any support! :D

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General Discussion / Shadows not working... with a 4GB AMD GPU?
« on: November 14, 2017, 08:44:56 AM »
Blockland's shaders are working fine, it's when the settings are turned up so that there are shadows.

Yes it's a new MacBook Pro 15" 2017, the top spec model with 4GB AMD GPU and 1GB of Intel HD Graphics. But a game like Blockland isn't exactly Deus Ex: Mankind Divided so shaders AND shadows should work no problem even with just a couple of gigs of even intel HD Graphics.

I've played Blockland since 2007/8, bought it in 2010 and have played it since 2014, then got it again later in 2015 then stopped playing early 2017 but now I got a new machine with decent specs and graphics, I was excited to try out shaders and shadows on maximum. ...and it just bugged out.

So will there be a fix for this devs? Especially since the game is a also for macOS, it would be appropriate if it was fully compliant to the systems that the game is designed for.

Thanks devs for the awesome game that really is my late childhood favourite, I just really want to experience the highest settings on this amazing piece of work!

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General Discussion / Re: Eclipse Club [Opening Soon]
« on: June 04, 2017, 07:52:50 PM »
im not trying to dismiss the idea, i'd love to hop on a server like this. however, matt vorn has in the past tried this and either gone off the grid or given up, so i wanna know if it's actually happening this time.

i also still don't know what the build looks like, which doesnt help

As I said it's a WIP currently, stuff changes a lot during the build process, although everything's coming together. I'll do a follow up post that shows off the build a lot more and maybe a youtube video preview of what everything looks like!

I've only gone off the grid because of college work and real life stuff. Since college is finishing up, I have a bit more time on my hands :D

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General Discussion / Re: Eclipse Club [Opening Soon]
« on: June 04, 2017, 09:28:40 AM »
rock, hip hop, dance, eurobeat, trap, 80s. there's tons to pick from, all you need is like 3-5 well known songs per genre and then you have something that more people can enjoy

"EDM" is an umbrella term for dance, eurobeat, trap, and even some 80s stuff. Anything that's electronically produced and you can dance to is Electronic Dance Music hence the name. But yeah, hip-hop and rock, as well as 80s will also be a prominent feature!

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