Metroid - Rogue Dawn

[altoiddealer]

@Thirteen1355 You seemed dismayed when Grim said the hack will probably not be released until after your summer break.

Do you realize that Grim may be taking time out of the project in order to respond to all of your questions?  Your curiosity could be delaying the release.

I've been following this for awhile, too, and am excited as well, but just be patient and let the guy do his thing.  :nod:

[Thirteen1355]

Sorry, I'm just really excited for the game!

Maybe it is best if I just stop commenting on here for now, you're right. :=x:

[Grimlock]

Sorry, I'm just really excited for the game!

Maybe it is best if I just stop commenting on here for now, you're right. :=x:

In the mean time fire up some good old NEStroid and give it a go (you said you never played it).  Then when you get your hands on RD you'll be able to better appreciate the changes and improvements.  It'll be like night and day but you won't notice as much without experiencing the original.  Things like custom music and modified sound effects won't have the same affect.

[Thirteen1355]

Hey, why not  :^_^:

[Grimlock]

So now custom NEStroid sounds are officially a thing.  Optomon went through and customized all of them!   :nod:  :cool:

Hey, why not  :^_^:

Did you get your M1 on yet?  :metroid:

[Grimlock]

Well thanks to "Hello games" I've been burning the last couple days away with No Mans Sky... got me to thinking.... if only there was a way to create procedurally generated Metroid worlds (wink wink, Snarf!?).  Then I could just create some cool tiles and let the algorithm do it's magic!  :bounce:  :nod:

[Zero One]

Ah, the ever-famous "Make My Hack" button :P

[Quietus]

If it's anything like others that have been created, it's not the creation that's the problem, but stopping all of the bugs and errors occurring in the build. I recall even the item randomisers required much fiddling before being considered complete.

[Thirteen1355]

Is this a serious thing? I was told it was a joke of Grimlock.
While I actually thought he was being serious.

[Quietus]

I suspect it's mentioned in jest, but it has been done for other things before. I know that Doom had SLIGE, but it was always a bit rubbish. :nope:

[snarfblam]

if only there was a way to create procedurally generated Metroid worlds (wink wink, Snarf!?).

I've actually looked into how to generate rogue-like Metroid maps. Once upon a time, somebody else actually started programming something like this, but I haven't heard any news on that in quite a while.  :neutral:

[Grimlock]

Looking for volunteers for our upcoming release candidate play test #3

I'd like to start lining a few people up for play testing of the final release candidate.  If you're interested please PM me.

I'll update this roster as people are added.  If you contacted me previously and you don't see your name on the list please let me know.  We'll probably put a cap on how many people will be involved but I'm not sure what that cap will be. 

Were looking for 3 types of testers, you can do any or all if you'd like. 

Casual
1. Play through game and give us a detailed impression of the game as a whole.  Keep a note pad open while playing and write your impressions and reactions in general.  Note any bugs you may run into.  Opinions on various aspects of the game pro and con should be expressed.

Bug Tester
2. Actively look for level design bugs, push the limits where you can, try to find perma-stucks.

Complete
3. Complete play through tester.  Like casual but you will be given hints to locate the hidden rooms and features of the game (or just a list of how many are in each area, TBD).  You would seek out these rooms and Easter eggs as well as all of the items in the game.  Basically we want feed back on how difficult it was to located these screens and such as well as what is described in the casual play tester description.

Current Play Testers (Play Test 2):

Trax
Metroid MST - Bug Tester
Mrrichard999 - Casual
MiKh
Infinitys_end
Dr. Floppy
Christopher Taber - Analogue Interactive
Smokemonster

New Play Testers Added (Play Test 3)

RHDN:

MegaManModelT101 - Casual
John Enigma - Casual
cospefogo - Casual
chikadubi - Bug Testing
020110 - Casual
J^P - Casual  (Video would be neat but please don't release until after official release of patch)
hossbags2 - Casual
Gamerhenky - Bug Tester
Ziko - Casual
seanph - Complete
w7n - TBD
el_seyf - Casual
tokyobatman - Casual
Ryan Williams - TBD
Link - Casual and/or Bug Tester
Sikkan - Casual
bohdee - Casual
Marcondes - Casual

Metroid Construction:

RT-55J - Complete
MollyAncalime - Complete
Kei - Casual
SacredHooves - Complete
Mayo-chan - Casual
SamplerInfo - Complete
RabbitBones - Casual
Tahazzar - Casual and/or Bug Tester
AuroraxPhilic - Casual and/or Bug Tester
Shinespark1983 - Casual
QwaserTresa - Casual
advancedpillow - Casual

I'll update this post as people are added to the list.


Update 1:

Thanks everyone for your interest and support.  I want to also point out that we'll be putting the names of all of our play testers in the final credits, it's important that everyone gets the credit they deserve.  Although, to be fair you have to actually follow through on your part and actually provide feedback to be included in the final credits.  Just getting the beta and not providing relevant feedback or replying with "I liked it" or "everything was good", or whatever won't get you in the credits.  Also we understand real life takes priority and that this is on a volunteer basis, if you sign on for complete but provide casual feedback because you didn't have the time you thought you would that's understandable.  If you want to help bug test and don't find any bugs just provide feedback as best you can, similar to a casual play through.

Also:  No distribution of the beta patch or ROM   we don't want an unfinished project floating around the internet....

[Thirteen1355]

Nice!
So it's almost time for a release!

Is what I'm writing right now allowed?

[AuroraxPhilic]

Alright. I have few things I feel I should say. I'm basing this off of the recent RHDN post of a Rogue Dawn.

My two cents on the whole 'releasing a fully tested game' are the same as sensible game developers who believe in what they are making. The game needs to be polished. Period. And it's true what was said, about people not downloading update patches. I have done this myself (just because I'm a lazy potato). There's a reason why AAA game publishers are a joke you know.

Now I have a bit of a gripe with the large number of "play testers". That's such a large list could delay the game. I'm giving my thoughts here, but, there's simply too many people on this list. I'm gonna keep it real here (but I'm sure Grimlock already knows this), but a small amount of the people who signed up just wanted to play the damn game early. I feel these people should not be on the list, but then again, what are you really gonna do..? Tell people to prove their honesty? What if they are honest but cannot prove their honesty (I.e Casuals who want to give legitimate criticism vs. other's who just want in early). It's bit of a hopeless conundrum... Especially when it comes to Nestroid.

As for me. I signed up with complete honesty. To break this game. Because that's what I enjoy doing. Destroying games to find odd way around the structured path. Any game I get my hands on, I immediately want to break it (Rogue Dawn is no exception;) ).  I've pretty much broken Nestroid in every way possible (I also speedran the game before in the past.)

One FINAL thing. Grimlock man... You promised Q1 release. We're in Q3 man. It's the same situation with Mother 4, announcing a Winter 2014 release, when in reality, the game was no where near finished, and those guys didn't take their personal lives into account.

There. I've said my thoughts. :3 I hope I don't come across as a condescending d%#k. Sorry for such a long write. (Also, sorry for any grammatical mistakes. No proofreading here folks :x)

[Thirteen1355]

And which members did only sign up because they wanted to play the game already, according to you?

How do you want people to prove they're honest?
Also, we actually get updates for Rogue Dawn, as opposed to Mother 4.
We know what Grimlock is doing, because he is constantly posting updates. That's a good thing, otherwise people will just forget about your hack/game.

Yeah, beta testing in order to completely break the game is my preferred way as well (although I won't be beta testing this one). It will get you the most bugs and flaws.

Also, Snarfblam quote:
"The first round of testing already showed us how easy it is for a very small group of people to overlook a lot of significant bugs. I figured out a long time ago that when you're working on a project, you tend to develop a form of tunnel vision. You have a specific idea of how something will behave because that's how you designed it to behave and there are just so many possible issues you overlook or never think to test for. It's better to have somebody with fresh eyes kicking the tires."

[Quietus]

I would add that this is why people shouldn't get their hopes up clinging to release estimates. It's a hack being worked on in somebody's spare time, and being made available free of charge. A lot of the time, estimated release dates are only offered because if the creator doesn't, people keep pestering for one. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. No date is set in stone, and it is subject to change at any time. It is much better to release a finished game late than a buggy game early.

As is the case with all hacks, the creator owes us nothing. The hack is done when it's done - be patient.

[AuroraxPhilic]

@Thirteen1355 I have no clue. That's why I said it's a conundrum. I have no clue (and neither does Grimlock probably) who's in it to really help or not.

Again, that's why this is a  "insert big fancy word meaning problem here".

Uhh...you do realize that the Mother 4 project also gives out updates on it's blog right? Just as Grimlock gives updated on Rogue Dawn.

That quote from Snarfy is what inspired me to write my prior reply. I've recently been creating a small Nestroid hack, and I realized that I had a form of tunnel vision when I told my brother to play it. He found a game breaking bug that I thought I fixed, but didn't. It's very true what Snarfblam senpai said. But on the other hand, this isn't a AAA size game either. There should be a limit.

@Quietus Very very true. I have to absolutely agree with you on that one. 

[Thirteen1355]

It's bigger than NEStroid, which was once AAA.

I'm following MOther 4 for about three years, and the only thing they do is post some music. Countless delays have made me a bit hopeless. Not the delays themselves, but it looks like they don't do this just to improve the game even further.

But why remove the beta testers from the list? The people that 'just want to play the game' just add to the search for bugs and stuff. If they don't report to Grimlock, you can just ban them from the forum :)

[AuroraxPhilic]

Metroid wasn't technically a AAA title. Only a few people worked on it. Not even in the double digits.

Thirteen, I'm not sure what fantasy world you've been in, but here: http://blog.mother4game.com

have it mate.

Remove them because if the list is too big, Grimlock starts to have a hard time keeping up with everything.

...let's not argue about this. In the end, it's what Grimlock says that goes. 

[Thirteen1355]

Hey, so they're finally posting stuff again.
Last year summer (2015) brought some strange silence from that blog...

Nah, Metroid isn't AAA.

[Grimlock]

One FINAL thing. Grimlock man... You promised Q1 release. We're in Q3 man. It's the same situation with Mother 4, announcing a Winter 2014 release, when in reality, the game was no where near finished, and those guys didn't take their personal lives into account.

Well first of all I never "promised" anything.  Secondly the reason the date continuously changed is because the scope of the hack has continuously expanded.  Also the amount of free time available to work on a project such as this one is unpredictable due to obligations and responsibilities in our personal lifes, people get busy with work, people move, things happen.  Most people don't get it because they've never worked on a large scale long term project like this one, I can understand that but it doesn't make it any less irritating to have people complain about release dates.  Really most projects of this scope never get finished, there's countless examples of that on this site as well as at "romhackingdotnet".  There are a number of impressive accomplishments in this hack but the greatest accomplishment for me will be reaching full completion on top of completing the individual goals we've set for ourselves.  That has always been the case.  That doesn't mean exclude things in order to meet the release, that means actually achieving all of our development goals AND reaching 100% completion.  Another thing most people don't get is that during the development process of nearly all games professional and amateur alike the projects almost always develop and expand in scope, they evolve essentially.  That's why small team projects and "AAA" alike more often than not end up adjusting their projected release dates.  The final product almost never resembles the initial design documents, it's usually something much more vast, polished, and complex.

Regarding the play test, a lot of people open up their projects to open beta public beta testing fairly early in their development.  Look at "The Legend of Link", that was openly posted for download well before the final product was released.  Now we didn't choose to go that route initially because of the vast number of versions of TLOL that now populate the internet.  We opted for closed beta testing.  Now that we're just about ready to release the idea is somewhat of a hybrid of closed and publicly open beta testing.  We are trying to contain the beta ROM from distribution.  It will have "Beta Test ROM" plastered all over it, plus we're going to include the play testers name in the final credits if they follow through and offer legitimate feedback.  If they don't follow through, well, whatever, that's their choice, this is all on a volunteer basis.  It's not like we're mailing out checks or anything.  It's a personal choice they'll have to make based on their own personal situation and I will respect their choice so long as it doesn't involve circulating the beta ROM or patch file.

Anyway, that's a much longer post than I intended and I have things to do today so I'll leave it at that.

[AuroraxPhilic]

I had a large essay ready, but then I realized that I would just get down to the point.

When I said promise, I didn't mean "promised". What I meant was, you have a projection as to when it could possibly come out. That was bad wording on my end, and I apologize for that.
I've hacked games before; other than Metroid, I know the hassle and ridiculous amount of time a finished project takes.

I understand that life happens (trust me, I do. I really do. I've been there myself too many times to be quiet honest XD), but, it is my opinion, that if you ARE gonna make a projected release date, it should at the very least, be only 3 or so months off. Not an entire year.

I'm in the wrong here. I know that. I'm really sorry if I came across as an ignorant potato. I don't know what's going on in your life.
This was just some anger showing it's ugly face. I really hope this extended wait will bring about a phenomenal hack. I could really use some Metroid in my life (Especially since Nintendo hasn't been delivering as of late. :3)

[MetroidMst]

I mean, Fear was originally supposed to be out in like, 2009, and now it's 2032. If you have hacked before, you should be the last one to complain about a hack being released later than "promised"

[Thirteen1355]

Just don't give estimated release dates, and you should be safe.

I'm absolutely, totally, completely sure MST is will have released Fear in 2032, though.

[Mayo-chan]

>2049 was 70 years ago