So how are YOU guys doing?!

[Unwanted Guest]

Sometimes I think about how much work all of you have been putting into this over the years - and wondered how well you are holding up?

 

- Getting burned out, fed up at times? I've worked on a project with quite a few people and have seen our group really knock heads, - at times people getting pretty upset at each other - just wondered if there are behind the scenes - uh..discussions between the team there..

 

I imagine with a project like this it may be hard to see eye to eye. Cant imagine some of you have not walked away from this project as it must be a draining, very prolonged , and is an involved project.

 

Maybe you are getting more energetic since the "end" can be seeen?

 

 

Thanks for sticking together on this and having the perserverence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

VERY IMPRESSIVE!

 

 

 

Matt

[Mortem Desino]

That's probably exactly it in a nutshell for me.

 

My collegues here are all so mature; I'm more than proud to be a contributor to the team. Sure, we debate, but I've never seen bickering. When you see [even a little] progress every day on the team's forums, it's very empowering.

 

Yes...being a programmer is pretty draining for me (I can't imagine the exhaustion of the true team members). You really have to love what you do to be a part of this kind of team. I think it's because Thief fans are mostly all 19+ years old now (with great taste, and thief-y patience ) that these are the best forums on TeH iNtErNeTz.

[Tushaar]

Keep up the good work guys, Thief is the best game ever =]

[Vadrosaul]

Looking from the outside in, I've never seen the team devolve into flaming and childish bickering ever to the public. These guys are so dedicated and intelligent that the worst I've ever seen is repetitious arguments for feature inclusion, to which they are always civil.

 

Speaking along these lines, whatever happened to oDDity?

[Mortem Desino]

oDDity was attacked by the evil of the dawn of the return of the attack of the son of the evil, mutant, zombified, living dead zombies. He will be sorely missed.

[Komag]

In the couple years I've been around here (which is a couple years after the main team got started) I've seen no major fighting/flaming/hating. There have been a couple times when stresses reached a bit high and such, but nothing catastrophic.

 

I think the general maturity of all of us helps a lot (Mortem says we are mostly all 19+, but I would say we are in fact mostly all 30+!), so we can more easily avoid the sort of hyper-impatient crap that 15 year olds might fling around.

 

Add to that the fact that we are all big Thief fans, and Thief is no Halo; Thief is a thinking person's game, a mature player's game, much more-so than the typical multi-player mod scene game like Unreal or Half-Life.

[jdude]

The progress of the mod has been, and continues to be excessive. I personally feel that strides are made everyday. But when you look at a game in it's entirety from a gamer's point of view it seems like a game isn't all that much. A couple of models, some textures some code vuala. However helping out with the darkmod has shown me that its about a million times more complex than that, and things are constantly developing, changing, improvements being made and so on. The darkmod is extremely structured in that sense which I think can account for much of it's success in terms of development. (trust me, the builds just get better and better) I think what we have right now, already exceeds retail production values.

 

In terms of exhaustion. I love mapping, I actually map to relax ironically so I enjoy doing it and rarely get tired from it. I get exhausted from real life though unfortunately. Most of us, many of us, have families jobs and I personally have school to contend with which drains me for 8+ months of the year But other than that I think TDM crew is the definitely one of the best groups I've ever worked with

[plasticman]

oDDity was attacked by the evil of the dawn of the return of the attack of the son of the evil, mutant, zombified, living dead zombies. He will be sorely missed.

 

...there's an odd reading on my tricorder here... ...wait! It's a life sign!

 

--

[Macsen]

I was part of the project about 5 years ago and there were a lot of internal arguments back then...

 

But then I left and the arguments stopped!

[Mr M]

oDDity was attacked by the evil of the dawn of the return of the attack of the son of the evil, mutant, zombified, living dead zombies.

 

 

I just hate it when that happens!

 

 

 

 

Hey, thanks for letting us outsiders ( see how many reads on this post?) get a small taste of your thoughts about the inner workings and interactions between everyone & especailly how each feels about the work load. I was guessing everyone was working pretty well together, otherwise, it would(may) have fallen apart a long time ago, or gone very very slowly if there were power games being played - or something similar. Glad it is not interfering with peoples lives ( well, too much anyway) and jJude makes out as he gets free therapy sessions from contributing.

 

When I talked to a few people about the work you have all been doing, they also mentioned with work like that, there must be stress; so I thought I'd ask. Not only can you guys be very derservably proud of what you created& started, but also you should feel good in that you built good relationships - instead of creating bad ones through this effort!

 

 

 

Thanks again guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just wanted to give you encouragement, though it doesent sound like you need it too much!

 

 

 

Matt

[Springheel]

When I talked to a few people about the work you have all been doing, they also mentioned with work like that, there must be stress;

 

 

Things were much more chaotic and heated in the early days of the mod, especially for the first year or two as we wrestled with all kinds of development decisions. There were several different opinions of the direction the mod should take, with strong-minded people on each side of every issue. There has been less of that in the last few years, however, as our focus shifted to just getting things done rather than arguing policy.

 

There is definitely stress, and blow-ups, and misunderstandings, however. I think all of the major contributors, myself included, have felt like quitting at one time or another.

[Tushaar]

Talking about zombies..Shall there be missions with zombies in TDM?

[Mortem Desino]

Actually, yes.

[Tushaar]

Yay! xD

[Mortem Desino]

Maybe I should qualify that: there will be zombies, but missions are up to you and other mappers.

 

...but yes. We're making zombies.