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Hearts of Oak in Kickstarter

dimonator009

Landlubber
I think that it is necessary to place Hearts of Oak in Kickstarter.
What do you think about this?

P.S I live in Ukraine and my English is not perfect.
 
As stated on our FAQ page, we're not currently looking into a Kickstarter campaign because HoO is a volunteer project.
 
If we accept money for the project then it would invalidate the non-commercial licenses we are getting for the sound engine.
 
Does commercial licenses include funds received not by selling the product? I believe we'll need some kind of funding one way or another. Be it donations, educational or research grants, you just can't make it on empty tank. Even if we don't think about team compensation, CE has to be paid, texture licenses bought and other software, like tree generators, which cost ~$1000. I wonder if there are any non-commercial games or simulations that are funded only by each participant to himself.
EDIT: By the way, I constantly encounter delays or inability to produce something from 3D artist's part, because they can't afford 3D software (including me), and anti-piracy is enforced in their countries (excluding mine).
 
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In 8 years HoO will look as bad as POTC looks today. That means all potential for exceptional quality and it's rewards will be lost. Art survive such development times as the result can be timeless. But a sailing RPG - it's an entertainment, and that gets old quickly.
I really liked Martin Bodden's incentive, to apply for funding as pet project of Gamification Labs in Germany who do research on gaming and get funded by EU. With no strings attached + credibility as educational product. And if they or any similar institution would be open for offers next year, we shall miss no chance to apply again. To get funded is not exactly being commercial to my mind.

I'd appreciate greatly that a certain discussion be had: what HoO means to all the members. I understand that it started as a self tailored game for gamers that have careers outside of CG or other creative industries, but I'd argue that for the people that create content or professionals, deciding is the volunteering worth it, it's way more. Be it a portfolio piece, a way to have career in CG or writing or graphic design, it all only have sense if the overall product is a recognised success. And you can't have it with total grassroots. And I see how a lack of motivation and only short-termed enthusiasm is affecting progress, including mine. So, a proposition for a conversation, somewhere else perhaps.
 
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@Ashinokami, I understand your concerns and I guess that is something we need to discuss.

As for 3D software, there are plenty of free alternatives to Maya and Max out there (such as Blender and SketchUp).
Maya and Max can also be acquired for free via the Autodesk Education Community, but that does require one to be in education as a student or staff.
 
It's hard to grasp the opinion of the staff with sporadic posts, maybe a Skype conference call could be had?
And 3D software, I work primarily with Sketchup for 7 years and it's useless for most apart buildings. One can't have organic shapes without ability to manipulate vertices. And blender, well maybe it does the job (I tried it before I knew how to pirate stuff) but it has way less support and advanced tutorials. It took precious time for Wedori and others to compile wiki for Maya, how long again it'd take again to rewrite that for Blender.. But those are the least of our problems, because legalities there.. can be solved in other ways. However, likes of Speedtree or Vue Tree Generator have to be legitimate. Otherwise for plants alone we need artists with skill level higher than anyone we have and ask them to donate more and more time. Next thing comes to mind is World Machine, which gives JohnV headache since forever being a free version, and WM I believe is the only chance to have all islands of decent resolution and geology, with automated masks for vegetation and other placements.
 
This is a long post, but I am trying to answer all the points Ashinokami has raised, as well as try and clear up a few more issues. We have discussed Kickstarter and other funding options in the past, in fact that possibility is what initially motivated me to propose this project again after years of debate as to whether or not it was even feasible. Accepting funding opens up a whole new set of problems that we are in no way ready to deal with, and I doubt that we could be any time soon. If we were located in just one country, it might become a real option at some point. The international nature of PA makes that much more difficult with multiple tax laws, national and international copyright laws and currency exchange rates, just to name a few obstacles. There are many, many more.

As one of the few people still around from PA's founding, I understand completely about what you mean by people loosing interest, it is an issue we have dealt with continuously since we first started working on our mods for POTC over a decade ago. I think we have done a pretty good job both in recruiting people to work on our mods and creating content, considering the original mods were only a few hundred k, and now we have have enough content to put it well over 2 gig. All of which was done on a voluntary basis. Sure all the quality is not to the same standards, but it doesn't have to be, not everything in the real world is built to the same standards either.. Which leads a bit into the software discussion, as Armada has pointed out, there certainly are competent free alternatives to paid software, and that list is growing by the day.

Along the same lines, there are also communities out there that offer 3D models and other content for free for use in projects such as ours. So far, we have not had to rely on those for anything except maybe a few sound files. If we can't create what we need for some reason, those resources are always an option, although they certainly would not be our first choice. Island and terrain creation is certainly one of our biggest challenges, and it is one we faced in our mods as well.

The time that was invested in creating that Wiki article will go a long way in helping other members who think they do not have the skills to contribute. Reading through that may very well make them realize that they may indeed have the ability to contribute something after all, if they put forth a little effort. If you take a look in the Resources section, you will find a PDF manual full of tutorials that our original modders spent time creating that is still valid and useful to us a decade later. That PDF has been included with every copy of our mod for the past few years, and it teaches people the basics of modding. Those tutorials took quite a bit of time to write, but that time was VERY well spent!

As far as the game being outdated in the years that it will take to develop it, I disagree. It may not have the same “WOW” factor, but I don't see any other game on the horizon even attempting to do what we are. Which is why we are doing what we are, by the way. Considering the engine that POTC is based on is well over 15 years old, I think it still stands up quite nicely, even with games released today. The graphics may no longer be state of the art, but what really matters in a game is gameplay. I can think of many games off the top of my head that looked fantastic with groundbreaking graphics that died completely because of the lack of gameplay. The fact that we have been here for over a decade working on it is proof of that.

As an example, take a look at Minecraft, those graphics are pathetic for your wow factor, yet the game has sold over 15 million copies and continues to grow every day. I myself have been playing it for almost 4 years. The real challenge to our survival as I see it is Microsoft's insistence on turning a desktop operating system into a tablet/mobile phone operating system. There is however always Linux to fall back on if we need to, and that operating system isn't going to disappear any time soon.

We also certainly understand the need for someone to make a living and take care of real life changes as they come up. I myself have spent a total of over two years away from the forums dealing with real life issues. Our motto has always been that real life always comes first! We do this as a hobby, not to make a living.
 
Thanks for a detailed answer Thagarr, really needed to hear it to more extent. I'm still inclined to dissent, but won't continue it here. Just one thing: very strong point about Minecraft, and I was doing comparissons like that months ago, when I was reading on Gamification Labs' research, which led me to worrying conclusion: HoO concept is not of real value to them. It neither pushes fine art boundaries like bioshock did, nor has mind bending gameplay as Minecraft. It's RPG+Simulator. Good old stats and skills. And combat for combat's sake. An English heteronormative protagonist. And that's why I argue it has pretty limited lifespan.
 
Just a couple of short notes:

The main reason for starting a new game on a different engine was to have more freedom in and control over the gameplay.
While a jump in graphics is a nice bonus that should extend out longevity nicely, it was never the primary concern.
Even the 2003 PotC graphics still look quite pleasing today, even if not quite as impressive compared to current-day games.
Since the CryEngine looks much better and is still being updated, it should easily be able to last quite a bit longer than PotC has done so far.

While it would be great to maintain the dedication of the same people over the entire course of development, that is asking a bit much.
Again to bring in PotC, the only "constant" in modding has been myself and even I wasn't here when it all started.
In other words: 100% of the team has changed since starting, but the modding itself has continued and flourished quite impressively.

This is why we should not at the moment be aiming to make the most impressive Age of Sail game in the whole wide world.
The main thing we should focus on is to lay the foundation that other people might be able to continue to work from in the future.
People may come and go, but if the project continues throughout these team changes, then the eventual end result will be much better than any of us can now imagine.
Would it not be great to drop out for a couple of years, check back again later and see the amazing things other people have done with our work?
 
This here might be worth a read: http://www.cracked.com/blog/12-video-game-annoyances-that-need-to-die-part-1/
Seems like a good list of things that we should attempt to avoid in every way we can. :cheeky

I was reading on Gamification Labs' research, which led me to worrying conclusion: HoO concept is not of real value to them. It neither pushes fine art boundaries like bioshock did, nor has mind bending gameplay as Minecraft.
If we can accomplish even half of what we want, we can make HoO a pretty progressive game!
Fun, realism AND real history, all rolled into one. And hopefully as a unified whole, rather than a separate selection of good ideas that went wrong somewhere in the execution phase.

And that's why I argue it has pretty limited lifespan.
10 years on PotC: New Horizons say otherwise. The idea is that Hearts of Oak should be able to do infinitely better than that.
 
@Ashinokami Decent is certainly not a bad thing, if we all had the same opinions, this would be a pretty boring place indeed!

We were never motivated by making anything groundbreaking or state of the art, though we certainly would like that too, all we ever wanted was a game that let us choose the type of player we wanted to be and play the game how we wanted to play it. Instead of being forced in to stereotypical roles and pigeon-holed as one thing or another. In short, what we want in a game is freedom!

@Pieter Boelen Nice article mate, those are all quite valid points, and ones which most games fail miserably at. Hopefully we can at least avoid the monetary based ones! :wp
 
Yeah, some things need to die out. Or be killed.
And well, about everything, I guess I'm just not interested in games for the sake of playing them...
 
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