I hope you can find the time to read this.
Dearest cRPG developer crew, i'd like to first and formost thank you all for the great job you do with providing us with this awesome mod for such a long time and even more than that- for always trying to improve it with new features and make it better overall. It's a complete blast and probably the best mod to any game i've ever played, the only thing that keeps many people like me from deleting Warband from our hard drives.
I have a small bone to pick with you guys though , mainly with the crpg Item Team.
I think we all can agree that this mod highly depends on it's gaming society. Many developers and admins used to be normal players willing to help before they got their promotions, many people just help with some other things like promoting the game or helping out with some graphics for the website, etc.
One of the best things about this mod is it's great item variety. And many of these items come from players. Latest example being the very well made Turkish helmets. Another example can be the samurai armors that we (former Shogunate) made. For all the haters , i'd like to remind that at least when i started playing this mod (which was quite a while ago) , there was already a samurai set in the mod's arsenal by default. It was that pink hideous thing from the original M&B (not even Warband) that i believe not the samurai fans nor haters enjoyed to view on the battlefields. Than we've retextured it to make it look more appealing to the eye and than we've brought the samurai armors that you can currently observe in cRPG. Now it's another dispute if some people wanted to see samurais in these game or not, but since the developers put the pink armor in the first cRPG builds, i believe we can call the new armors an improvement. Improvement brought by players willing to make this mod look better.
Now , to the point.
As much as i appreciate all your tremendous work guys, i would also like you to appreciate ours too. It is not a matter of respect that people want to receive , it is a simple matter of them willing to do something for the mod again. I know already a couple of people that have given up on making new textures/models for the mod only because their work has been shown to you, approved, promised to be put in the mod and than completely forgotten about or ignored . Not a big loss , you may say (or who cares) , but those people genuinely love the mod and were actually willing to put their efforts into making something useful.
I know that the biggest premise in each patch released is usually either Strategus stuff or some major/minor changes for cRPG balancing. But i also do know that there are people in the developer team that each have their own roles, like approving new items or adding them in patches/ on the website.
Despite this every time a new patch comes out some of the items that have been given to you by players and approved by you are either glitched/not fully made in time or just completely forgotten about.
Alright, we all realise this is not your dayjob and you don't get paid for this, nobody is asking something impossible from you.
But if enthusiastic players approach you with new items that they either found or even made themselves and :
- consult with you about those items
- take your suggestions/advices about what you would like to see changed in those items
-spend a good amount of their time working on them
- send you all the files needed at least a couple of weeks before the patch strikes
- most importantly, get your approval and the confirmation that the items will make it in the next patch
PLEASE find a small portion of your time to ensure that the items actually do make it. All i'm asking of you is to not forget that these players actually work hard and every time a new patch shows up, they are hyped to their work make it in it. That's the only gratitude they can wish for and the main thing that will keep them going , as in working on new items in the future. I believe i am talking about a collateral thing here, am i not ? New good items in cRPG = good, enthusiastic model makers = good, satisfied players = check, proud developers = check.
If there are some problems that stop you from getting things done in time (or not forgetting about doing something), be it
- Messed up graphics for releasing patches and the general mystery (for the Item Team) about what their deadlines are before the new patch comes out
- lack of time
- laziness
- whatever else
You have a big playerbase willing to give you a hand and help you out. If you start treating the enthusiastic players at least slightly better (less sending the player from one developer to another like a tennis ball for example), this playerbase might actually grow.
With all due respect, please don't take this personally ,
Ujin.
P.S. yes, this whole thing was fueled because of the absence of the byzantine items (about 6 helmets, was hoping to see at least 2-3) we've brought to the Item Team some time ago in the patch. It is biased , of course, but this is not the first time we have encourted this problem and i think many people who have done textures or models for cRPG know about a certrain amount of frustration that can come along.
