I give up

Started by Crimson Wizard, Mon 01/02/2016 07:23:47

Previous topic - Next topic

Crimson Wizard

.

AnasAbdin

First of all, You haven't wasted your time. The amount of respect I personally have for you is unimaginable.

If you want to stop developing the engine, you have all the right to do so. If you wanna take a break you surely earned it.
But saying you wasted your time, NO.
Who really cares what platform we make AGS games with? Commercial devs? If you want something very bad and you can't do it, then hire someone to do it.
I know I might sound harsh, but I am direct and honest. This is to all AGSers here: If you expect someone is working hard day and night developing AGS engine so you can release your little one room mags game into all different platforms so 3 people can enjoy it then shame on you. If you are going commercially and expecting someone to work as much on the engine so you can get it for free and make loads of money out of it then shame on you.

Whether it's you CW or anyone else, if we want AGS to develop or if we want any special release that fulfills any specific purpose, the dev MUST be paid as a full time programmer.
End of discussion.

Problem

You did a good job, CW. The features you have added to AGS are a great improvement. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be trying to maintain and update such an old engine without breaking it, and you have my biggest respect for what you have achieved. Without your work, our last game probably wouldn't even exist.
But if you feel that you can't work on AGS anymore, then by all means stop. You owe nothing to anybody, and if you don't like to do it, if it becomes a chore for you, then there's no point. Thanks for all the hard work, we really appreciate it.

Dualnames

Lies. You can ask anyone around here, and I guarantee that nobody will say "pff that cw, what a useless bastard". These past few years the engine has evolved in many ways. I never thought someone would replace CJ in any way, but you've achieved that in a lot of ways. I really want to persuade you otherwise, but i feel that is also selfish. If this is your final decision, I cannot personally thank you enough for the fixes you've done. If this is you feeling down, then I'd like to say, that giving up won't accomplish anything, everyone in this community, I feel, believes in you, we don't care if things could be better and all that.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Retro Wolf

You don't owe us anything, we owe you our thanks for the time in your life you chose to sacrifice for our community.

As far as how the AGS community feels about you, from the top of your profile: "Crimson Wizard won a Best Innovation Award in 2013, for spearheading the AGS 3.3.0 project."

With whatever you decide to do, I wish you well.

Crimson Wizard

Sorry, I had a very bad day. I keep snapping like this lately.
It does not really matter what I said here, so I deleted my post.
The truth is however, that the planned versions will probably be the last ones I do.
It does not really mean that there is no sense in fixing AGS further. But I cannot do that anymore. The thoughts that I am stuck and do something wrong drive me mad.

Atavismus

CW, I just told you all the good I think about your dedication to AGS, so I won't add more, I agree with others.

Also, I agree with AnasAbdin: imo, we need a paid full time dev (I already proposed it in the past here and there).

I just made a poll here: http://goo.gl/s1MtKc.


Retro Wolf

I'd be more than happy to pay a yearly subscription/donation for AGS! I'm not saying donors should get any special treatment, but I would like my forum name to be GOLDEN 8-)

Crimson Wizard

You bring everything to payment. I find this terribly annoying. This never had anything to do with payment.
It could have if I knew that I was doing things right. But I didn't. So this is not an issue.

Peder 🚀


Retro Wolf

It's blue on my screen Peder, or are you messing with my head? :-D

Atavismus

I know - and I'm sure we all know - that it's not about money.

But that's so much hard work, it means so much time, issues, tough choices, hair pulling, etc. that imo it's not a shame to talk about money.

Also, fulltime means it should take less time and time is against us imo.

Sslaxx

If development of AGS is impacting on your mental health, Crimson, then take a break. Please. Your health is more important than whatever features AGS has. Burning yourself out over this any more isn't going to help you.

If we need to appeal to more developers outside of the AGS community, what can we do (beside just money) to attract them?
Stuart "Sslaxx" Moore.

kconan

  Thanks for your hard work on keeping AGS going!  I agree with the above post, take a well-earned break if it helps prevent burn out.

Mandle

Dear Crimson Wizard,

I understand very much so at this point in my own life what it feels like to be totally burnt-out with something that has been a large part of your life for a very long time...

What keeps me personally from just giving up on the whole deal and walking away is looking at the positive things my work has accomplished and just taking a moment to "smell the roses" and take pride in what others have achieved through my work...

My advice is to take some time to look over all the amazing game projects that could have only happened due to your hard work on AGS. You have helped to hand an accessible tool for game creation to a lot of people who only ever dreamed of making their own game(s) (myself included) and transformed them from dreamer to developer.

I thank you personally from the bottom of my own heart for what AGS has given me: the ability to potentially achieve a dream I've pursued on and off since I was a child programming games from scratch in BASIC on my TRS-80, a dream that I thought had grown impossible as I lost touch with computer programming and now engines such as AGS have brought that back full-circle into the realms of possibility.

Thank you, mate. Whatever you decide to do about your future with AGS is your own descision: But please NEVER feel that what you have already done for the engine is in vain: There are so many games out there that would never have existed otherwise.

Cheers for everything and take some time to smell the Rosangelas if need be...

Crimson Wizard

#15
Quote from: Mandle on Mon 01/02/2016 14:35:56
My advice is to take some time to look over all the amazing game projects that could have only happened due to your hard work on AGS. You have helped to hand an accessible tool for game creation to a lot of people who only ever dreamed of making their own game(s) (myself included) and transformed them from dreamer to developer.

You are definitely confusing me with Chris Jones, which is more than embarassing. I just did few minor things on top of what existed in AGS before me.

AGS was not a big thing in my life for a long time. It was just a project I tried to continue, but failed to do properly. As well as some other projects before that.

I did not achieve any of the tasks that were standing when we started, except maybe custom resolutions, which still do not work very well because graphics renderer is still too weak for high-res.

What I was saying in the post I deleted, is that I was continuously chose wrong solutions to existing problems. I wasted my time, and I wasted the time of those who expected results.

Many people said I do "hard work" but it was hard work beating a wall with my head, while I should have made a door.

I am so disturbed by my incapability, that I feel uncertain to start any more projects now. I am literally afraid to write code.

Cassiebsg

I know it's now a cliché, but "failure is always an option!"
Take a break.
Use what you consider the "wrong path" and learn from it. It's only wasted time if you don't learn anything and just give up. Take a step back and a depth breath.

More important than adding new features, is patching bugs and making sure the engine runs. I haven't been here long, but appreciate all the work you have put into AGS. Would AGS still be a running engine if not for you maintaining and improving on it?
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

MiteWiseacreLives!

AGS is a very special thing. It has opened the door for so many arm-chair programmers and artist to express themselves and create all sorts of great things. We know Chris Jones started this, but look how the level of quality has rose the last few years, it's outstanding! I don't think for a minute that all the activity in the recent years would have been if the engine was not being supported and developed. So hats off to all those involved in the success of the AGS community!
I can only imagine how tricky it would be to build on and clean up the existing code, so your analogy of trying to make a door with your head is probably spot on  (laugh) but no one can fault you for trial and error along the way. Take a break, play some games as Mandle suggested, take pride in what you've done and pass the baton if like.

Snarky

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 01/02/2016 14:53:57
What I was saying in the post I deleted, is that I was continuously chose wrong solutions to existing problems. I wasted my time, and I wasted the time of those who expected results.

Many people said I do "hard work" but it was hard work beating a wall with my head, while I should have made a door.

I am so disturbed by my incapability, that I feel uncertain to start any more projects now. I am literally afraid to write code.

I know I've told you this before, but making mistakes is an inevitable consequence of challenging yourself and trying something. It doesn't make you a failure, or the effort meaningless. If you haven't been able to "fix" AGS, eh, it'll be be all right, and we certainly appreciate the attempt.

jwalt

I always get depressed when Crimson Wizard gets depressed. He does seem to be a major force around here for engine/editor development. I don't know if this helps, but R. Steven Glanville, creator of Anim8or may be sharing some feelings with The Wizard:

http://www.anim8or.com/smf/index.php/topic,5087.msg39762.html#msg39762

He's been trying to implement a Topo-tool in Anim8or, and the existing mirror mode is causing him trouble. His comment:

              Mirror mode has a lot of issues - I think it was neglected by it's mother when it was little.  I'm slowly cleaning them up.
              I have to admit that if I'd known how difficult it was going to be to add, I probably wouldn't have done it.

In the case of Anim8or, almost all of the code in the program is Steve's code.

The next response was:

http://www.anim8or.com/smf/index.php/topic,5087.msg39763.html#msg39763

              I always use mirror after I complete one side of the model, but I notice it must be aligned on a particular plane.... Even as a broken tool it is still
              super valuable.


SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk