Blockland - What's Changed, and My Thoughts

[Master Matthew²]

you're handicapped

FINE, I'll directly counter your damn argument so you can see what I'm saying.

it's not about outstanding graphics, it's about how outdated they were.
So what you're saying is its not about the game having bad graphics, its about the game having bad graphics? Okay then.

If maps had stayed, a majority of new players would constantly complain about how ugly and awful maps are and how they should be removed/upgraded to a new engine.
And these people would have been morons, this is like walking into a McDonalds and ordering a Whopper then bitching when they tell you they don't server that.

I would assume most people running Blockland nowadays can run shaders.it's not 2010, the standard graphics card today should be able to run Blockland's shadows.
Right, that's the default shaders, not the highly taxing beautiful ones that I get pointed to on a daily basis.

Maps were also a loving nightmare to build on. I'm not sure a lot of people remember, but more than half of maps were not flat for the most part and were impossible to build on.
Now, While this is a valid point, removing the feature of maps to force everyone to use slate and have equally as ugly shaders isn't really much of an improvement.

Maps were cool to explore and all, but the main point of Blockland is building. People who wanted to build would usually use Slate / Adjustable Slate, so it's not like maps were the backbone of the entire game.
So since people used slate to build, NO ONE should ever be allowed to use the other maps ever again? What kind of logic is that? Yes most maps didn't work well, but that could have been fixed with some proper quality control. And besides it gave you this feel that you were actually a lego-like character in a real environment.

badspot's argument was that he didn't want his game to look like a 2000 bargain bin game and the maps certainly made it look like one.

Well, bad news for Badspot, Blockland was made in 2007 on an early 2000's engine as an indie game. He may have aspired for something great, and good on ya, but this was certainly not the best route to take.

adding shaders that can look amazing if you know what you're doing was definitely the way to go for accomplishing that task.

And unfortunately he didn't do the best of a job at this. Infact we got duped, as I stated before, getting shown very fantastic shaders then getting the blocky monstrosities i showed earlier. And again, while you can fix this with 3rd party edits, this will tax your system, even high end ones!

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[Gytyyhgfffff]

Soon after the update a large chunk of the community jumped ship, including Ephialtes, along with his RTB service.

this is true, because a lot of mapmakers just didn't care about the game after the update, except elphialtes left because badspot didn't do steam well and because he had an actual job at that point. he didn't leave because of shaders.

[Freek]

what? outstanding =/= bad   You're taking what I said out of context.


Kinda like somebody walking into a McDonald's and asking for a removed item and then bitching when they tell you they don't serve it anymore.


Well are we talking about default shadows or soft shadows?? I don't know many people who play with soft shadows on anyway, they're mainly used for photography. If you're trying to play with fidgety soft shadows, expecting a flawless, smooth experience, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you can't run them, then that's your issue, not ours.


Completely dissing my point. You agree with me, then disagree about the same thing.


Badspot doesn't want to take the painstaking effort of converting and rewriting the whole loving engine to keep an optional aspect of the game alive. It was holding back any possible development. I honestly feel like you don't remember maps at all

[Master Matthew²]

this is true, because a lot of mapmakers just didn't care about the game after the update, except elphialtes left because badspot didn't do steam well and because he had an actual job at that point. he didn't leave because of shaders.

well the shaders were an indirect cause of the steam issue. People don't have issue with maps looking 'ugly' dear god just look at the people who still play Gmod/Tf2. Those aren't the most pretty maps ever. Gmod Especially.

Post this Quote is from.

I wasn't intending to explain much further but there's a bunch of stupid rumors going around so I may as well clarify things.

RTB's always been about furthering my own skills and knowledge and featured prominently on my resume when I applied for my first job (and it's probably why I got it). It got to the point a while ago that RTB no longer did that for me but I continued because I enjoyed the game/community and it provided a lot of useful services that were clearly needed - plus I saw an opportunity to have my work exposed to a much larger userbase via Steam.

However in my opinion the Steam launch was underwhelming, badly co-ordinated and still has a number of non-trivial problems that haven't been resolved a month and a half or so later. Honestly I expected game development to be taken a bit more seriously given the potential for a much wider audience but it's just not materialised and I got bored of putting more effort into the game than the guys who make it. I offered to develop community features and services for free as an official part of Blockland but there wasn't much interest or follow-up on that.

So with my free time running out due to a recent job promotion I'm having to pick what I want to spend it on more carefully and I really can't justify spending any more of it on modding Blockland. I'll continue to play and moderate because it's a great game but I'm done developing.

Ephialtes described the steam launch as

• Underwelming
• Badly coordinated
• including tons of unresolved trivial issues.

And then Ephialtes went on to describe the Blockland development as

• Not taken seriously
• The Developers putting less effort in then he was

But even after offering to do development for the developer for free, he was turned down.

This should point out some very big red flags.

[Freek]

well the shaders were an indirect cause of the steam issue. People don't have issue with maps looking 'ugly' dear god just look at the people who still play Gmod/Tf2. Those aren't the most pretty maps ever. Gmod Especially.

you're comparing blockland to two completely different games on a different engine.

[Hansome duded]

maps were fun to explore but stuffty to build on. when people got them to work, its honestly a lot of building experience lost because they could've made blocky terrain that ACTUALLY fits with what they're making. i dont know why you're so forgeted up overworked over maps when the point of the game was to build, not to explore pre-made maps. nothing died, v20 is floating somewhere on the internet, as well as many other old maps, go play those.

[Master Matthew²]

-snip-
what? outstanding =/= bad   You're taking what I said out of context.
I could have worded that better, my point was that you're saying that it has nothing to do with the game not having good graphics, but then proceed to tell be about how the graphics aren't good.

-snip-
Kinda like somebody walking into a McDonald's and asking for a removed item and then bitching when they tell you they don't serve it anymore.
Well, ya know, bitching and complaining about a bad decision never works am i right.

-snip-
Well are we talking about default shadows or soft shadows?? I don't know many people who play with soft shadows on anyway, they're mainly used for photography. If you're trying to play with fidgety soft shadows, expecting a flawless, smooth experience, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you can't run them, then that's your issue, not ours.
My point is that I shouldn't have to download third party fixes to get the pitched experience from the original announcement thread. It should look how it was originally shown from the get go.

-snip-
Completely dissing my point. You agree with me, then disagree about the same thing.
Again bad wording, I was agreeing with the whole 'bricks not aligned' point, but with some quality control that could have been fixed.

-snip-
Badspot doesn't want to take the painstaking effort of converting and rewriting the whole loving engine to keep an optional aspect of the game alive. It was holding back any possible development. I honestly feel like you don't remember maps at all
An option that was a big selling point to a lot of people. But that aside my main point was that the shadows and shaders update was unnecessary I don't want both, i don't need both.

you're comparing blockland to two completely different games on a different engine.

The engines don't matter here, my point is that graphics don't make the game for everyone.
and I don't expect fantastic Shadows and Shaders from a game made in 2007, and if anyone does, they're loving mad.

[Master Matthew²]

maps were fun to explore but stuffty to build on. when people got them to work, its honestly a lot of building experience lost because they could've made blocky terrain that ACTUALLY fits with what they're making. i dont know why you're so forgeted up overworked over maps when the point of the game was to build, not to explore pre-made maps. nothing died, v20 is floating somewhere on the internet, as well as many other old maps, go play those.

I'm starting to see we got off track here, because whilst I don't agree with the v21 update, that isn't the main issue, (and ffs will someone read the damn OP this is NOT, I repeat NOT a Blockland is Dying thread. I'm off to go make that text as big as loving possible in the OP), I believe v21 drove away some of our most creative minds, but we can get new ones, but we aren't going out there and doing it. Badspot isn't going to advertise his game. I barely see this game on youtube or anything. On top of that, our creative process is very repetitive.
Restrictive minigame DM.


EDIT: Whoops, Double post.

[Hansome duded]

I'm starting to see we got off track here, because whilst I don't agree with the v21 update, that isn't the main issue, (and ffs will someone read the damn OP this is NOT, I repeat NOT a Blockland is Dying thread. I'm off to go make that text as big as loving possible in the OP), I believe v21 drove away some of our most creative minds, but we can get new ones, but we aren't going out there and doing it. Badspot isn't going to advertise his game. I barely see this game on youtube or anything. On top of that, our creative process is very repetitive.
Restrictive minigame DM.


EDIT: Whoops, Double post.

as time went on, people grew out of the game and has real life stuff (and probably got pissed because not much update happened.) if anything, the removal of maps are great at strengthening creative minds because now you are forced to have a clear slate and must make terrain rather than it be set there for you already.

[Freek]

i'm just going to ignore OP because his arguments are getting boring

[SetGaming]

Well, bad news for Badspot, Blockland was made in 2007 on an early 2000's engine as an indie game. He may have aspired for something great, and good on ya, but this wa

uh, no it wasn't. went retail on 2007, this forum has been around since 2005, and iirc, the game was in development since 2003. the game has held up pretty well, if you ask me.

[Abstath]

I've never played on maps, but they seemed to of offered an easy baseline for building and general grounds for gameplay with little to no issues. People aren't too bothered to make several edits (i.e. just building in the map), though having to make almost everything from scratch is a burden and why some resort to using something like Collab City or Kobble Island, especially if they wish to test out their gameplay ideas. Imagine if Minecraft or GMod were always based in a flat world, and you were forced to either use small pre-built structures or make your own from scratch. A lot of fun screwing around in sandbox is thanks to foundations already provided, whether it's a capable physics engine or random world generation.

It wasn't the best move for gameplay, though that doesn't mean we're powerless to develop and provide options equally as functional; creating mods like Static Maps or releasing your builds helps a lot (again, imagine if there were little to no community maps provided for Source games). Aesthetically, it pushed the game out of what looked to be a remnant of 90s RP/G games, easily attracting a larger crowd. The default shadows don't look amazing, but the overall image given to Blockland has significantly improved. To some, showing capability in some sense is important.
My thoughts on Blockland as a general sandbox game. Even so, it focuses on building specifically, which it's still great at.

[Conan]

put it this way: the only incentive badspot has to work on this is money, and old users demanding nostalgia points doesn't net him that compared to making the hame just look better and modern overall

[Toxicology]

MASTER MATTHEW GET Angrey

[Master Matthew²]

MASTER MATTHEW GET Angrey

Toxicology, get english.

put it this way: the only incentive badspot has to work on this is money, and old users demanding nostalgia points doesn't net him that compared to making the hame just look better and modern overall

Well, my point throughout this thread is, Badspot isn't going to do Jackstuff to help us, and the community is just laying around waiting for the hat update. The problem is that the Hat Update is like Half-Life 3, It's not happening, it's a meme.

If we're going to want to make blockland more creative, WE have to be the ones to do it, and I have thrown out some ideas on what we could do.