Stronghold v1.0 released

[Craigs]

Fisk said:

http://stronghold.drdteam.org/screenshots/str07.jpg

Trust me, that isn't the problem

There are so many things wrong with this, but I have to ask: why is there carpet on the ceiling

I got a better question. How much time and effort did Tormentor actually put into his maps?

Perhaps you could make a 40 level invasion-style DOOM mod that's less buggy, then I'd shut my mouth?

Or how about going for quality over quantity instead? A lot of the maps are complete shit, especially maps like the one I just linked to and probably should have been cut out altogether. I'll be honest, I never even finished the wad. I played through to about STR25 before I got fed up with playing the same dead stop shit over and over again in maps that boiled down to nothing more than a long ass corridor.

Your example of a plumber who does bad work and then says, "I'd like to see you do better" when you call him on it doesn't equate, because in that case (1.) Your profession is not plumbing, and (2.) You are paying the plumber to do good work. In the case of Stronghold, it is well-known that (1.) A large percentage of people who post in this forum are themselves level-designers, and (2.) No one is paying to obtain Stronghold.

Oh gee that looks familiar let me think hmmmm...

That's real cute kid. Taking a review from the idgames archive and twisting it into a really shitty and flawed argument.

[Tib]

i honestly am not a big fan of stronghold for it's repetetive concept and the majority of levels which aren't that good, in my opinion... i must be a troll who is envious of this extremely perfect project which has no flaws :(

[infurnus1]

I've developed a bit of a love/hate relationship with Stronghold.
I like it for the aspects of it that are good, yet dislike the (blatant, to some) flaws that bring down the experience.

I'm not going to say what exactly the problems I have with it are as this post would just be reudundant. Instead I'm going to address a more recent issue that I've seen cropping up.

Some of (read: a lot of) the criticism and critique on Stronghold is, believe it or not, actually legitimate. The reason that it seems to be strongly worded, is because of the general attitude of Tormentor, as seen in this post for example: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=531583#p531583

Tormentor667 said:

cq75:

Is this how you see Stronghold? Some thing you made, and no longer want to think about? It seems like you see criticism and feedback as a waste of time

Absolutely not, that's why we had 2 releasde candidates before the final release. There was enough time to pick up all the problems and bugs, but don't expect everything to be changed. We had a team of about 15 people incl. beta testers and that was actually the first opinion that counted. It's still "our" project, not a community effort. People have to live with some decisions, even though we always have been open for criticism.

Tormentor then goes on to say:

Tormentor667 said:

Post your criticism, your feedback, we are eager to read that so we can improve on further upcoming projects. But don't demand a v1.1, we really want to move on now after 7 years of working on Stronghold. If you want to improve something, feel free to start working on your own addon for Stronghold, the script libraries are open source and you are free to create your own mod with that kinda stuff :) You can even change the original Stronghold by just releasing a patch with adjusted par times and stuff, it's all in the library and can be simply added ;)

So, within the same post, he contradicts himself about why the changes/fixes aren't made, and basically says "You're free to make Stronghold DIY Edition". What.

Shortly after Tormentor's post in the ZDoom thread, the thread ended up getting locked.
I think it would be wise for Torm to concede here.

There are people who don't like Stronghold, and not just because of the lack of effort put into an alleged "7 years of work" project, the copy/paste hallways, the linear and repetitive mediocre gameplay. They don't want to hate the latest big thing and be "hip" and "in". They also don't like it because of the attitude in response to the actual criticism and critique.

[Tormentor667]

esselfortium said:
Wait, are you implying that the GothicDM series is any good? :-\

Absolutely! Gothic I & II was awesome, both in terms of visuals and gameplay, I still play this from time to time on lan parties with my friends!

StupidBunny said:
The fact is that people are going to give it 0/5 if they don't like it because people like spamming 0s at things they don't like. I recognize the effort and time that went into Stronghold, and for that I'd give it some credit as well

Very fair!

Vordakk said:
Your example of a plumber who does bad work and then says, "I'd like to see you do better" when you call him on it doesn't equate, because in that case (1.) Your profession is not plumbing, and (2.) You are paying the plumber to do good work. In the case of Stronghold, it is well-known that (1.) A large percentage of people who post in this forum are themselves level-designers, and (2.) No one is paying to obtain Stronghold.

Quoted for great truth.

Vordakk said:
I feel like some people auto 0/5 this because they pigeon-hole Tormentor667 as a detail nut who can't create engaging gameplay. They just assume that Stronghold is no exception without giving it a fair shake. But I could be wrong.

Some people simply forget that several different people have been involved in this project, people that have already names in the community (just to name Vader & Carnevil as a small example)

Fisk said:
There are so many things wrong with this, but I have to ask: why is there carpet on the ceiling?

It's no carpet, it's grass, and it's growing there!

Craigs said:
I got a better question. How much time and effort did Tormentor actually put into his maps?

You do have too much time :P Just a few things: Teleporters needed to look the same for orientation reasons, tunnel parts have been copied and pasted to make the milestone mode easier to understand, I just changed some little things and settings so the player knows WHERE he is. Sure, I saved a lot of time with that, but it was done by intention.

Craigs said:
All you want is for everyone to get down on their knees and start sucking your dicks.

Depends on how some of them is looking. There is nothing wrong about sucking dicks ;) Anyway, we did take advice, and we wanted to improve Stronghold as long as it goes well within our own imagination and conception of the project. You know, we are not doing this to please everyone, the most important thing for us mappers and modders is to have fun and be pleased with the result. It's just a bonus if there are other people who like the project as well ;)

Infurnus said:
Shortly after Tormentor's post in the ZDoom thread, the thread ended up getting locked.
I think it would be wise for Torm to concede here.

Well, it's actually quite simple. We had a very long beta-testing phase, we had two public release candidates and we really changed, added and fixed countless things during these 3 phases before the final release. People who have played the Beta, RC1 and RC2 will notice the changes for the final release, hell, we even replaced 3 maps with better ones. So, saying that we haven't been opened for criticism isn't fair. But I agree that some things haven't been changed or "improved" that have been demanded by a few people, simply not because we are lazy or else, but because it is still our project. It's okay for us to add and change things that we also see worth of being added or changed, or things that we agree on because it can be arranged with the image of the project we have in mind. But honestly, do we really have to change fundamental settings and features of Stronghold because there are a handful of people who don't like it?

[infurnus1]

Tormentor667 said:

So, saying that we haven't been opened for criticism isn't fair.

I never said that. Don't put words in my mouth and baselessly accuse me of being unfair.
This is another reason why you are being criticised.
You were "open to criticism", but that is no excuse for why you have ignored feedback on RC1 and RC2.

You have recieved critique on many issues that needed to be fixed, yet you repeated the same set of excuses each time as to why you couldn't impliment any changes or fixes.
You would repeat yourself over and over like a broken record, and ignore the actual issues and concerns that various individuals had raised.

Tormentor667 said:

Well, it's actually quite simple.
[/b][a lot of explanation that is just the same thing that's been said many times before][b]
But honestly, do we really have to change fundamental settings and features of Stronghold because there are a handful of people who don't like it?

Broken record.
Did you ever think that the fundimentals were flawed?

[Craigs]

Tormentor667 said:

You do have too much time :P Just a few things: Teleporters needed to look the same for orientation reasons, tunnel parts have been copied and pasted to make the milestone mode easier to understand, I just changed some little things and settings so the player knows WHERE he is. Sure, I saved a lot of time with that, but it was done by intention.

I can understand the teleporters but copying and pasting entire sections of the map like with the tunnels is just lazy, and copying and pasting terrain is even more so.

Oh and the fact that you do it for pretty much all of your maps doesn't exactly help either.

[Tormentor667]

Infurnus said:
I never said that. Don't put words in my mouth and baselessly accuse me of being unfair.

Did I do that? Where did I refer to you?

Infurnus said:
This is another reason why you are being criticised.
You were "open to criticism", but that is no excuse for why you have ignored feedback on RC1 and RC2.

What has been ignored? I never saw you giving any feedback anywhere on Stronghold after RC1 and RC2, so what are you refering to?

Infurnus said:
You have recieved critique on many issues that needed to be fixed, yet you repeated the same set of excuses each time as to why you couldn't impliment any changes or fixes.

Which dramatic issue isn't fixed in v1.0 anyway? Which issue is critical? As far as I know - and this goes for ANYONE who has actually worked on Stronghold, so stop talking about my individual all the time - all the critical problems have been solved, so again, what are you talking about?

Craigs said:
Oh and the fact that you do it for pretty much all of your maps doesn't exactly help either.

I absolutely have no problem with copy'n'paste for exterior structures like little rocks, mountains, or whatever, as you actually do not recognize any of that while playing. Same goes to structures like in STR14, these floating tech-objects where supposed to look the same. Though I can understand where your criticism about the Tunnel comes from, but still, it's not that obvious after all and I had a reason why this was designed that way. Anyway, in regular circumstances I wouldn't justify my decisions of copy'n'paste design in STR11 but in this case I am simply annoyed by the word "lazyness". I have put so much effort in this project, you don't even have an idea.

[Tormentor667]

Moreover, where is the attitude coming from some of you have? I mean, I have never seen such a behaviour in other modding communites - e.g. for Half-Life or Unreal - and I simply can't understand that.

This project is absolutely free, it doesn't cost anything and there is no need to download it. Several people have worked hard on this, have considered many suggestions and ideas from the outside, have been involved on many improvements that also arised out of dicussions through the very early alpha phase, the internal beta and both release candidates and in our eyes (not only mine) the final product is more than pleasing, because it both is what we imagined it to be and also is filled with suggestions and improvements from the community - that's what it is all about.

Now people start being nitpicky, talking about flaws with copy'n'paste, flaws with "serious issues" that obviously haven't been mentioned yet and before the final release, yelling about me not being open to criticism (even though we had alphas, betas, rcs) and considering this whole project as a 0/5 bullshit without even respecting the work that has been put into.

I have no idea where some of you are coming from but the Stronghold team is no gaming company, we are no professional game designers and we do not get paid for this, neither have you payed for this project. Consider this!

And once, for all and for ever: It was and is our project, we gave us and people time to test the final product and made improvements based on their feedback and ideas. We are pleased how v1.0 turned out now and for us there is no reason for another v1.1 as the issues mentioned by now are not that serious, so they deserve another 160MB to download. If you do find anything serious, feel free to post that and we might consider incorporating this feedback and ideas, but don't expect a v1.1 just because you discovered a mountain on STR33 that has been copied and pasted.

[40oz]

Stronghold Bingo in a single post!

[zap610]

ITT people whining about anonymous reviews even though 1) all other wads in the archives deal with this too and 2) the authors of those wads aren't all bitching.

Attention +++

[Jimmy]

Craigs said:

Funny hearing this from someone who was pretty much demanding that people stop critiquing this on the zdoom forums. I'm sorry but it's pretty obvious just from looking at that discussion that you guys have no interest in advice on how to improve current and future projects. All you want is for everyone to get down on their knees and start sucking your dicks.

Er, not exactly. I merely asked for constructive criticism. (Although in that thread I was under the impression that there were going to be no further releases. To be honest I'm still really not sure if that's the case.)

---

Okay. A few things need clearing up.

Criticism and critique I can live with. But the following isn't either of those:

- Stronghold sucks
- It wasn't playtested at all
- No effort was spent on it
- It's ruining Doom

I admit Stronghold is not a perfect project. However, directly attacking the efforts of the team as being practically non-existent is not necessary. For example, there is no earthly way you can reliably gauge how much work the quality control team actually put in without being them, so you have no firm ground for arguing that any members of the team did no work at all or put in no effort. Everyone did some work, otherwise, there'd be no freakin' project. And I can say without fear of overstatement or contradiction that I worked painstakingly on the project for many, many months. So naturally, I take jibes such as "there was no playtesting or quality control whatsoever" as extremely offensive.

Maybe I didn't do what some would consider to be the best job. But I, like the rest of the team, am not a robot. I am not perfect. Nobody is. And no project is.

So to reiterate, I'm not hurt by the critique. I'm hurt by the shit-throwing attitude that seems to have appeared on pretty much every forum this project's been posted on. I worked on this project's quality control team for nearly 2.5 years and community-wide reaction it received was appalling. The Doom community has pretty obviously been separated into two sides regarding this project - the side who love every single bit about Stronghold and rave endlessly about how brilliant it is, attacking critics constantly, and the side who have "this project sucks" stuck on repeat and make no attempt towards being constructive.

I'm on neither of these sides, because they are both horrible mentalities to have towards this project. Or indeed any project.

My thoughts are: I don't think Stronghold is super-brilliant, but I also don't think it sucks giant monkey balls. And I'm trying to communicate that the issue of how awesome/sucky Stronghold is has been repeated many many times already, and it's gotten nowhere each time, so there's absolutely no need for it. The whole thing has depressed me immensely. I can't help thinking that I could've spent all that time I did on the project doing something smaller-scale that wouldn't have been treated nearly as harshly.

And to clarify, I do not condone immediately shooting down all the criticism it is receiving - although if Stronghold is to stand any chance of becoming a flawless, universally enjoyable project, criticism on specific things that we can fix will be much appreciated - Craigs, you have already provided examples of bad C&P, and we should be able to address those. But, if the community doesn't want to see endless re-releases due to people constantly complaining about things that are still wrong with the project, good criticism will have to be delivered, so that we can act on it.

However, I think it's up to Torm to decide whether or not the project's development is continued. I don't really blame him if he doesn't want to work on it any more - it certainly hasn't been received with any degree of respect.

Like I said, criticism is good. Things like "Stronghold sucks", or "there was no effort put into this", or even "Stronghold is great and is fantastic and awesome and anyone who disagrees sucks diiiiicks!!!!!1111" are not. That is not constructive in the slightest. In fact, it's discouraging. Highly. It's probably what prompted Torm's outburst in the other thread, anyway.

To close, why don't we all just shut the fuck up. Save for the few people who are actually making an effort to fairly criticise the project.

[Tormentor667]

Jimmy91 said:

However, I think it's up to Torm to decide whether or not the project's development is continued. I don't really blame him if he doesn't want to work on it any more - it certainly hasn't been received with any degree of respect.

You know that this also depends on who is willing to help, but we've already talked about this.

[Xtroose]

Tormentor667 said:

Just a few things: Teleporters needed to look the same for orientation reasons, tunnel parts have been copied and pasted to make the milestone mode easier to understand, I just changed some little things and settings so the player knows WHERE he is.

I find this more disorienting, because it is hard to tell where in the map you are. If you want the player to be aware of his surroundings, then you should design maps with more differentiation in mind. This is where Romero's "creating easily recognizable landmarks in several places for easier navigation" guideline comes from. Excessive symmetry can kill any map.

Also, copy-pasted terrain is a big no no, especially considering that it is so easy to push some vertices around. It takes less effort than creating another ceiling light, computer terminal or a border. It may not be that noticeable, but people in general are good at recognizing patterns and something will bother them about it, though they will not be able to put their finger on it.

[Tormentor667]

Xtroose said:

Also, copy-pasted terrain is a big no no, especially considering that it is so easy to push some vertices around.

I agree with that, but take a look at this example, especially the objects described with the orange line: http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8329/ctrlcctrlv.png

These structures are not even walkable as they are only visuals and it is impossible to actually notice that these are copy'n'paste ones without using the automap. Sure, this is "lazy copy'n'paste", but honestly, does this make the map look bad? I could have moved vertices, but would that have improved this area noticeable? It's all about effort vs. usage, and in this case I simply decided for less effort as it's only a little addition to the map itself.

[WH-Wilou84]

Jimmy91 said:

I worked on this project's quality control team for nearly 2.5 years

I'm being curious here, how did you came up with the par times in time attack mode ?
Seriously, you can beat map 02 in under 5 minutes without any powerup, marine or turret ? ...

Copy-pasted elements aren't worthy of a re-release of course ( who gives a damn really ? ), but fixing a major flaw such as par times being way too tight / impossible could be a good idea, imho.

[infurnus1]

Tormentor667 said:

Infurnus said:

I never said that. Don't put words in my mouth and baselessly accuse me of being unfair.

Did I do that? Where did I refer to you?

Directing "Did I do that?" towards me is a loaded question, because you were responding to my post, and my basic understanding was that the comment was addressed towards me.
(Actually you only responded to part of my post, thanks for ignoring all the other issues I brought up though.)

Tormentor667 said:

What has been ignored? I never saw you giving any feedback anywhere on Stronghold after RC1 and RC2, so what are you refering to?

I didn't give "feedback" because it would have been redudant, everyone else stated all the issues I had found.
By the time I actually had something non redundant to post, the ZDoom thread was locked.

I'm referring to -

Tormentor667 said:

Which dramatic issue isn't fixed in v1.0 anyway? Which issue is critical? As far as I know - and this goes for ANYONE who has actually worked on Stronghold, so stop talking about my individual all the time - all the critical problems have been solved, so again, what are you talking about?

Oh please. Have you been ignoring Esselfortium?

And don't play the victim card, all I said was that the reason Stronghold is criticised is because of both you and the flaws in Stronghold.
You can't just pop in here right after saying how you won't change X Y Z because Stronghold is "finished", then turn around and take a contrary argument and state "Everything is fixed, so again, what is your argument?" and other weasel words.

Stop being a sanctimonious pissant and making pusillanimous petty arguments.
There are real issues that have been addressed many times. Issues stated in the idgames reviews, and right in this thread.
You are blatantly ignoring them and asking every individual who's caught on to this to re-announce a full list of errors/problems each time they bring it up, basically harassing people in an attempt to downplay their concerns, as a red herring argument.
Ignoratio elenchi.

Tormentor667 said:

I agree with that, but take a look at this example, especially the objects described with the orange line: http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8329/ctrlcctrlv.png

These structures are not even walkable as they are only visuals and it is impossible to actually notice that these are copy'n'paste ones without using the automap. Sure, this is "lazy copy'n'paste", but honestly, does this make the map look bad? I could have moved vertices, but would that have improved this area noticeable? It's all about effort vs. usage, and in this case I simply decided for less effort as it's only a little addition to the map itself.

Another red herring. It does not change the issues with any of the other copied and pasted elements.

[Tormentor667]

[WH]-Wilou84 said:
I'm being curious here, how did you came up with the par times in time attack mode ?
Seriously, you can beat map 02 in under 5 minutes without any powerup, marine or turret ? ...

Several members of the team played the maps without dieing or using powerups on HMP and recorded their times. Afterwards the best time was chosen and rounded up to 30 seconds, thats it.

Infurnus said:
I didn't give "feedback" because it would have been redudant, everyone else stated all the issues I had found.

I must have missed something then...

Infurnus said:
Oh please. Have you been ignoring Esselfortium?

Absolutely not, and I also understand some of his recommendations, even all of the ones posted in the internal Stronghold forum, but two things about this: First, to do such a huge load of cosmetical changes, you need more active persons or more time - I don't have one of these, second, some issues are script-issues which can only be solved by a experienced coder - that one's missing too since AgentME has left the building. So you have two choices now: Bring the project to a at least playable and entertaining status or simply abandon it. I think the first choice is the better one.

There have been many different reasons why things turned out the way they are now, but it has nothing to do with lazyness, with the missing acceptance of criticism or what else.

Infurnus said:
Another red herring. It does not change the issues with any of the other copied and pasted elements.

Beyond - also in terms of texturing - consider that this project was in development for almost 7 years, this is one of the maps that got finished very early and might not be up to par with newer maps. Though, it's not that - due to the copy'n'paste issue or texturing - it is unplayable or looks totally shitty and that's why it simply stayed as it is now.

I - and also the other teammates who approved v1.0 - don't consider this a serious issue that's the reason why Stronghold is the worst thing ever, same goes to several other things mentioned within this term ("base consistency" for example), so we never had the feeling "something must be done about this". Simply accept that.

[infurnus1]

Tormentor667 said:

Beyond - also in terms of texturing - consider that this project was in development for almost 7 years, this is one of the maps that got finished very early and might not be up to par with newer maps. Though, it's not that - due to the copy'n'paste issue or texturing - it is unplayable or looks totally shitty and that's why it simply stayed as it is now.

So you agree that the map in question was subpar?

Tormentor667 said:

I - and also the other teammates who approved v1.0 - don't consider this a serious issue that's the reason why Stronghold is the worst thing ever, same goes to several other things mentioned within this term ("base consistency" for example), so we never had the feeling "something must be done about this".

You must have misunderstood me. Allow me to clarify:
You should stop your irrationally strong defense against the criticism. You yourself stated many times that it is "done" and will not change anything, the main issue I raised is the way you reacted to said criticism.

Tormentor667 said:

Simply accept that.

Red herring here. You basically just repeated yourself using different words, but this time you included "Simply accept it."
I strongly discourage arguments that ammount to "Infurnus can't accept basic logic therefore all other arguments from them are invalid".
The thing you request I "accept" does not concern the issues I brought up, I will address it but I won't dignify that sentence with a serious response.

Like I said in my other post,

Infurnus said:

Stop being a sanctimonious pissant and making pusillanimous petty arguments.

Stop saying what basically ammounts to "We just couldn't do A B C because of X Y Z" over and over. I understand what you're saying, but that is not the issue that concerns me.
While Stronghold has issues and problems, I know that it's now "done" and you won't or can't do anything about it, and that is fact. Time, money, resources(coding,etc), you name it, I completely understand that.

But the thing I'm talking about is your reactions. To clarify: I honestly believe you should stop taking such an overly defensive stance against the criticism.

I think the saying goes "doth protest too much, methinks."

[ALMN]

a

[NaturalTvventy]

For my two cents worth on the subject, I don't think there is 'too much' copy/paste going on with these levels at all. Remember back in the NES days when backgrounds were the same screens repeated over, and over, and over again? And they were still fun to play. While playing Stronghold I never felt that if all areas had been made from scratch instead of copy/pasted I would have had any easier time finding my way around, or any less realistic. In fact I feel that the copy/pasted stuff helped maintain the theme. Quite frankly, criticism of it smells to me of people who just want to knock Torm and his crew down a few notches for their level building skills.

NT

[ALMN]

if it makes you feel any better i also think the gameplay sucks

[infurnus1]

NaturalTvventy said:

For my two cents worth on the subject, I don't think there is 'too much' copy/paste going on with these levels at all. Remember back in the NES days when backgrounds were the same screens repeated over, and over, and over again? And they were still fun to play. While playing Stronghold I never felt that if all areas had been made from scratch instead of copy/pasted I would have had any easier time finding my way around, or any less realistic. In fact I feel that the copy/pasted stuff helped maintain the theme. Quite frankly, criticism of it smells to me of people who just want to knock Torm and his crew down a few notches for their level building skills.

People criticise lazy copying and pasting because they're jealous of how good the copy/paste mappers are... what? This does not follow.
It's okay to simply disagree with criticism, but saying that anyone who criticises over it is just "jealous" is patently false.

I'm just talking about your thoughts on the criticism though, not about your commentary on Stronghold itself.
I personally didn't find it offputting, but it was noticable to me in the first half hour of playing. And I assume it would be noticable to anyone who had seen the maps for anywhere between 1-7 years, so it's understandable to me why the issue was brought up.

[ALMN]

a

[Graf Zahl]

Infurnus said:

You must have misunderstood me. Allow me to clarify:
You should stop your irrationally strong defense against the criticism. You yourself stated many times that it is "done" and will not change anything, the main issue I raised is the way you reacted to said criticism.

Allow me to clarify:

This is not about criticism but the ensuing shitfest that the moronic faction of this community had to start. They first sent the thread at the ZDoom forum to hell by bitching and bitching and bitching and...

And now, since that thread got closed they seem to have come here doing the same thing.

So, will this project please everybody: Certainly not! It was never meant to.

Also, do some of you bitch about every project that comes along and doesn't meet your tastes, either gameplay-wise or artistically? Since I see these kinds of shitstorms only in projects with Tormentor as project leader I can't say it's coincidence. So to be blunt, it doesn't matter that you don't like what he does. Unlike you he has been part of many high profile projects in the last few years. In fact he has probably initiated more such projects than anyone else. But what does he get in return? Insults over insults by immature people who demand that he jumps through hoops to accomodate their pitiful needs. It's utterly pathetic and I'm really surprised that he's still around doing more projects. The community needs such people to stay alive and extend their boundaries. What this community does not need is whiny threads like this one in which the constructive criticism is drowned in insults.

So, anyway, if you don't like it, Windows has a trashcan you can put the file into. I think it's the perfect place to put a mod if you got nothing constructive to say.
And 'I don't like the mapping style so it needs to be changed' is not constructive criticism. It's an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. Expressing your opinion as an absolute (as in 'this map's style is shit so the project is garbage') does not make it any more valid than expressing such an opinion in a neutral level-headed manner. Opinions differ and many people like this mapping style so one should certainly accept that not every map can match everyone's tastes. But such an insight seems to be completely absent here.

[ALMN]

a

[infurnus1]

Graf Zahl said:

Infurnus said:

Allow me to clarify:

Allow me to clarify:
[stuff]

Dear Doomworld:
I just want to publicly state that the views and opinions expressed in the posts responding to my posts and/or commentaries are solely of the individuals and are not the views of myself, affiliates, or subsidiary groups. Thank you.

[Tormentor667]

Infurnus said:
So you agree that the map in question was subpar?

Compared to what? It's simply a question of what you are referring to.

Infurnus said:
You yourself stated many times that it is "done" and will not change anything, the main issue I raised is the way you reacted to said criticism.

No, I just said that the criticism that arose so far isn't worth doing a v1.1 and that point still stands. If there are really serious glitches which make Stronghold unplayable, feel free to point them out. But for aesthetical changes or minor bugfixes, a v1.1 doesn't make sense to me.

Infurnus said:
Red herring here. You basically just repeated yourself using different words, but this time you included "Simply accept it."
I strongly discourage arguments that ammount to "Infurnus can't accept basic logic therefore all other arguments from them are invalid". The thing you request I "accept" does not concern the issues I brought up, I will address it but I won't dignify that sentence with a response.

You forgot again that I am not your employee, so actually if you don't like how Stronghold has turned out and if you don't like my attitude towards this discussion or minor bugfixes, you simply have to live with that at least.

Infurnus said:But the thing I'm talking about is your reactions. To clarify: I honestly believe you should stop taking such an overly defensive stance against the criticism.

I feel accused if people say we've been lazy, and didn't test thoroughly enough, so my reaction is more than logical, just read what Jimmy already said and you might actually get the point.

[infurnus1]

Tormentor667 said:

Compared to what? It's simply a question of what you are referring to.

Well, I was responding to this:

Tormentor667 said:

consider that this project was in development for almost 7 years, this is one of the maps that got finished very early and might not be up to par with newer maps.

I was just asking if you really felt it was subpar, or if it was just a figure of speech.

Tormentor667 said:

No, I just said that the criticism that arose so far isn't worth doing a v1.1 and that point still stands. If there are really serious glitches which make Stronghold unplayable, feel free to point them out. But for aesthetical changes or minor bugfixes, a v1.1 doesn't make sense to me.

I understand that, and don't have an issue with it.

However, I do have an issue with this part of your post:

Tormentor667 said:

You forgot again that I am not your employee, so actually if you don't like how Stronghold has turned out and if you don't like my attitude towards this discussion or minor bugfixes, you simply have to live with that at least.

I can live with it. But I am not asserting any sort of superiority or acting like you're my employee. All I said was that you react a bit strongly, harshly at times, to criticism and such. You have also reacted a bit strongly to me, right in that quote for example.
I'll rephrase I guess, your stronger comments stir up drama (some of the things Graf mentioned above in passing, for example I guess), and I'm kindly asking you to stop that. I'm not asking you to stop saying anything or communicating, it's just that it does more harm than good to be on the ball about all the criticism.

Tormentor667 said:

I feel accused if people say we've been lazy, and didn't test thoroughly enough, so my reaction is more than logical, just read what Jimmy already said and you might actually get the point.

I did read his post, and I agree with his points.
I think people are using terms like "lazy" more as an umbrella term for the concern of the alleged 7 year development, I know that nobody sat down and started cranking out maps for 7 years straight with no sleep, food, job, etc.

I think some of the recent strong language from the critics is warranted(to them, not to me) for this reason, as well as others, due to the reactions to the early criticism basically being "We'll fix that in the next version", only to get the same basic response upon release of the next version. Repeat until the "final release".

Basically, I'm saying that you're only fueling the fire with some of your remarks. That's all.

[zap610]

Graf Zahl said:

They first sent the thread at the ZDoom forum to hell by bitching and bitching and bitching

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

If people are complaining across different communities then maybe, just maybe, the problem could be the actual project or the leader. You said yourself that there's drama when Tormentor releases something so it could be possible that he might be the problem instead of the tons of people who bring up issues.

Actually nevermind, I sound crazy. It's way more logical to think everyone who complains about his projects are all wrong. Carry on!

[ALMN]

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