Better Than Wolves Forum

Well that's great to hear. It had just been a while and I hadn't heard anything but you were still very active on BTSM (not that there's anything wrong with that) I just thought you had gone back to limbo on BTW. Anyway, we're all rooting for you.

Sarudak wrote:Well that's great to hear. It had just been a while and I hadn't heard anything but you were still very active on BTSM (not that there's anything wrong with that) I just thought you had gone back to limbo on BTW. Anyway, we're all rooting for you.

Yeah, I had honestly fallen into quite a funk for awhile due to my lack of forward progress. While I had been avoiding it to try and stay focused, I finally decided to spend a few days on BTSM to snap myself out of it and be more productive on *something* in the hopes that the forward momentum I could accumulate there would carry me over the last few things on BTW.

Appears to have worked :)

Writer's block is a hell of a thing to deal with, and is something I've encountered in the past with projects that have stretched on beyond the point where you're passionate about a creative endeavor.

Don't get me wrong, forward progress has been made on the final BTW release up until now, but obviously the rate at which it was occurring was becoming mighty depressing, especially for a guy like me that's used to being able to turn out updates at a breakneck pace.

FlowerChild wrote:

Sarudak wrote:Well that's great to hear. It had just been a while and I hadn't heard anything but you were still very active on BTSM (not that there's anything wrong with that) I just thought you had gone back to limbo on BTW. Anyway, we're all rooting for you.

Yeah, I had honestly fallen into quite a funk for awhile due to my lack of forward progress. While I had been avoiding it to try and stay focused, I finally decided to spend a few days on BTSM to snap myself out of it and be more productive on *something* in the hopes that the forward momentum I could accumulate there would carry me over the last few things on BTW.

Appears to have worked :)

Writer's block is a hell of a thing to deal with, and is something I've encountered in the past with projects that have stretched on beyond the point where you're passionate about a creative endeavor.

Don't get me wrong, forward progress has been made on the final BTW release up until now, but obviously the rate at which it was occurring was becoming mighty depressing, especially for a guy like me that's used to being able to turn out updates at a breakneck pace.

Breakneck pace yeah sounds about right, once had about 5 updates or so in one week. Just glad to hear you haven't given up all together. can't wait for final installment! Gl and gods speed.

turtlemuncher wrote:Breakneck pace yeah sounds about right, once had about 5 updates or so in one week. Just glad to hear you haven't given up all together. can't wait for final installment! Gl and gods speed.

Just a forewarning that it may wind up being two releases. I'm working on something right now that I think I'd like to get out there before the final final :)

FlowerChild wrote: Just a forewarning that it may wind up being two releases. I'm working on something right now that I think I'd like to get out there before the final final :)

You're the most inconsequent genius I ever witnessed.

LupusExMachina wrote: You're the most inconsequent genius I ever witnessed.

Errrr....thanks? :)

What can I say? Inspiration strikes and stuff happens...or it doesn't. I seem to have fallen totally off the grid as far as my best laid plans went.

LupusExMachina wrote: You're the most inconsequent genius I ever witnessed.

I'm not sure if you're using that word right, but I think I get what you mean :P My favorite youtuber's fans have a joke that he won't give up on a series until we're fully attached to it. Luckily, though, FC hasn't given up on us; in fact, just the opposite. He's so dedicated that he's not releasing an incomplete mod, and that's more than a lot of people I can vouch for. As long as it takes, it's worth it.

I'm just glad that you have the motivation to work again. I am look forward to completion but as far as I'm concerned the more you refine BTW the more refined RTH will be.

Magnas wrote:I feel like BTW is the single-player equivalent. I'm really going to miss the ability to build without the survival fear hanging over me. But I look forward to RTH for the fact that everything will have an intent. Your focus on interaction with the world has me legitimately hyped up. The fact that you focus so much on persistence and every new tool opening up the game world so much means it's already the game I've been looking for. But I've said that before, so now I'm just blowing smoke.

Conversations like this get me pumped up about it as well.

It's been a rough past few months for me and it's been doing a number on my spirit. The final release of BTW has obviously been dragging epicly which has been extremely discouraging, and beyond that I've been running into some vision problems I haven't mentioned before.

May have talked about it briefly about a year ago when this started happening (I got new glasses at the time that temporarily made it manageable), but I've got this weird condition going on that is making it more and more difficult for me to read, which is obviously a horrendous thing when you're coding. I can still do so, but it takes much more effort to focus on text than normal, and that both slows me way down and tires me out much quicker limiting the number of hours I can work.

Anyways, I'm going to be seeing a specialist within the next few weeks so hopefully there will be some form of resolution to this soon. For the time being I am just trying to get what I can manage done, and these kind of conversations go a long way in reminding me that I know what I'm talking about and am good at what I do ;)

If it's any consolation, everyone here understands entirely. We've all hit those roadblocks in our lives and probably can understand one hundred percent the stresses it takes on us when our plans are set back. It can be difficult to remember that you're a real person on the other end of the line when there are no updates and the only thing keeping us united is an admiration for your project. However, we're all psyched for your project and we're psyched because it's your project. We trust your work and we trust your vision. Make sure to take your time and don't have an aneurysm or anything like that. Take care of yourself first and foremost. Hopefully it'll work out in your favor and let you get back into your groove.

And as much as we all groan collectively at some of the vanilla updates, I think we all want the same thing. Cohesion and logic. I think there's a huge benefit in exploring the more creative side of the MC community that comes with the addition of new blocks and all, but I really hope that one day someone has an epiphany. I don't think Minecraft 2.0 will come from Mojang, but I'm glad that RTH isn't aiming to be Minecraft 2.0.

Magnas wrote:If it's any consolation, everyone here understands entirely. We've all hit those roadblocks in our lives and probably can understand one hundred percent the stresses it takes on us when our plans are set back.

Thanks man, I appreciate the understanding. It took me a long time to even clue into the fact that my vision was degenerating and that was part of what I was going through here. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally decided to see an optometrist about it which resulted in the referral to the specialist that I mentioned (and which I'm waiting on hearing back from). Originally I was largely thinking it was my distaste for MC and the resulting procrastination that was to blame, but then it started eating into my BTSM time as well, and when I finally realized I hadn't been reading books recreational in months (I'm normally a voracious reader) I clued into there being something definitely wrong here. Heck, I think I've even been making more typos and misinterpreting posts here more often.

Slowly losing my vision is something that particularly freaks me out given how much of my life and my interests are dependent on my ability to read.

Oh man. You have my sympathies. Losing my vision is only second on my list of fears next to losing my cognitive abilities. I really hope they can figure out what's wrong and fix it.

Sarudak wrote:Losing my vision is only second on my list of fears next to losing my cognitive abilities.

Yeah, you and me both man :)

We'll see. I'm trying to avoid panicking about it until the specialist has a look and can give me a better idea of what's going on. Guess that's part of why I've been reluctant to talk about it here.

FlowerChild wrote:

Sarudak wrote:Losing my vision is only second on my list of fears next to losing my cognitive abilities.

Yeah, you and me both man :)

We'll see. I'm trying to avoid panicking about it until the specialist has a look and can give me a better idea of what's going on. Guess that's part of why I've been reluctant to talk about it here.

as a wearer of glasses, i know the feeling man. So you have my sympathies.

Hey, FC. I was curious and I hope this isn't too off-topic or too meta.

When you switch over to RTH development, will you be doing regular dev diaries or do you feel they distract too much from the development itself? I ask because I always get really excited to read what you write about your development process and your philosophies on the direction you're taking. However, I know you're loathe to get too meta and don't like talking shop on the forum. I'm always curious but also realize that asking a question like, "What about [X] feature?" comes across as both a request for a feature and the time spent explaining why you don't want it is just time taken from development.

Plus, if there's one thing that has stuck with me from watching the development of BTW, it's your attitude towards feature requests. Not because of your dismissal of requests, but because of the philosophy behind them. I realize now how worthless it is to ask for lanterns, for example. It's more about the problems that need to be answered, not offering the solutions themselves. The dirt slabs are a beautifully efficient way of handling the jumping issue, for example.

Magnas wrote: When you switch over to RTH development, will you be doing regular dev diaries or do you feel they distract too much from the development itself? I ask because I always get really excited to read what you write about your development process and your philosophies on the direction you're taking. However, I know you're loathe to get too meta and don't like talking shop on the forum. I'm always curious but also realize that asking a question like, "What about [X] feature?" comes across as both a request for a feature and the time spent explaining why you don't want it is just time taken from development.

Well, I don't really view the discussions that have often resulted here about design as detracting anything away from development. If anything, I find they keep my mind active and focused on the project, so they wind up helping a great deal. Over the past few years it's become part of my work flow to be working on something, need to ponder it for a bit, pop over here and write a couple of messages while I consider the solution, then pop back into my coding environment to wrap things up based on what I decide. It's got a nice rhythm to it when I'm in full swing, and if anything I tend to post more while I'm actively working on the mod then when I'm not.

Obviously, there's a danger of that getting out of control and becoming a time-sink, and usually when I see the potential for that happening is where I draw the line on discussion. There's not really much to be gained from me repeatedly explaining why something is a bad idea when I am absolutely certain that it is from the get go for example. That kind of thing can definitely eat into development time and wind up hurting the game in the long run.

It's going to be a little trickier for RTH mind you as given I'm going to be developing it professionally and not just as a hobby I'm going to have to be careful about how much information I let out to reduce the likelihood of others beating me to the punch on fully developing my own ideas. There's a fair amount of "competition" out there with voxel games right now, and given a few of them are quite far along in their development, something I may put out as a prototype may be trivially easy for someone else to throw into their nigh-complete game.

It's something I've put a fair amount of thought into, as it touches on aspects like how early I should release the first version, and what should be in it, but one I don't have a clear answer to. For the most part I think I'll just be playing it by ear and judging such things on a case by case basis.

FlowerChild wrote:It's going to be a little trickier for RTH mind you as given I'm going to be developing it professionally and not just as a hobby I'm going to have to be careful about how much information I let out to reduce the likelihood of others beating me to the punch on fully developing my own ideas. There's a fair amount of "competition" out there with voxel games right now, and given a few of them are quite far along in their development, something I may put out as a prototype may be trivially easy for someone else to throw into their nigh-complete game.

I actually understand that exact feeling. I'm trying to work on an idea that will be public-facing and act as a resume for my favorite company. Considering that they hire from their community, I'm loathe to reveal too much in case it results in my ideas getting yoinked. The ideas are all based around "what can I do that the company would like to do but currently doesn't?" So that fear of someone with more groundwork established jacking my idea and getting the credit scares me. Luckily, I have several ideas that are all relatively unique that I really like.

I really look forward to it, though! I've always got questions about how you're gonna handle certain things but know the importance of letting the development speak for itself. So when it comes to actual discussion, I'm willing to throw in my two cents in the hopes that it offers an alternative viewpoint. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts as it comes to development.

But, again, more concerned with your own health. Good... luck? with the specialist, man.

They'll fix you. They fix everything.
Edit: -Robocop quote (the original, as I fear to see the new one)

Rawny wrote:They'll fix you. They fix everything.

FIX ALL THE THINGS

(edited on purpose)

devak wrote: Well the need for reading glasses is common with older people (and "older" is purposefully vague, it's not like there's a defined point in time for this). So it's probably nothing.

Errr...no, it's not a need for new glasses or progressives/bifocals, but thanks for being dismissive. As a general rule, optometrists don't need to send you to a specialist to determine you're far-sighted.

I've already been partially diagnosed, the specialist is to verify, determine extent, and treatment options. Anyways, considering trolls still occasionally try to use my dead cat against me, not too keen on discussing details beyond that :P

Hmm, kinda sounds like eye floaters. When I started noticing mine it definitely was very depressing.

I've got no idea what might be going on. I am not an optometrist. But, I will claim the title of 'Some Dude Out Here Who Respects Your Work and Hopes Everything Works Out'. Best wishes, man.

I myself have been wondering what has happened since I've been away for a few months. I'm terribly sorry to hear that, I had a problem with my eyes a few years ago, like a tick or something, and understand for frustrating it can be. As much as I wish RTH would come out soon, I'd rather have you take your time, so I send my condolences and hope the issue gets better.

As someone who has major problems with his eyes, I'm always worrying about you. I understand that you do not want to go into details publicly, I just want to wish you the best. I often get very dizzy when reading text, which affects me in so many ways it's depressing. So I get what you are going through, and I hope you can solve it without too much hassle. :]

FlowerChild wrote: Trolls still occasionally try to use my dead cat against me

Man, I just lost a cat of I've known for many, many, many years (since before I've been able to form memories) and even the thought of getting attacked that way makes me sad. I wish I had your spiky shell, FC.