Wow, look at all the squawking from the fanboys/fangirls here; it's like opening a door to a poultry house.
Someone is actually willing to work for the project for free, as if it was open-source, and to involve the community. After all, the Atomic Blue site calls PlaneShift an "open-source game", which is obviously a blatant lie. If only a small part of the project is open-source, it does not make the whole game open-source. In fact, it's mostly proprietary. Had this game been commercial, they could easily be sued for false advertising.
It's amazing to see one of the developers on the forum actually encourage people not to contribute to the project and call it a "waste of time" (maybe playing this game is a waste of time too then). They'd rather work on the project at a snail's pace than have the community finish it faster and maybe even with a better quality. Is that what they are afraid of? That someone in the community will actually come up with a character model and its texture, which is of higher quality and is done much faster than by the team? If so, it's an obvious ego problem. How dare someone come up with a compete and better model than the main developers! Blasphemy!
How does the saying go - "not for yourself, not for the people"? It seems the developers would rather squawk at anyone who suggests structural development improvements, it seems they'd rather keep making excuses how it's just a "hobby" because when the game development standards are this low, it's easy to call it "incredible job", even though it took only seven years, and technically fifteen because you already had the settings written then, including the races. Not to mention that this game is already using the existing Crystal Space 3D engine, written by someone else. Sure, they may have made some "tweaks" to it but the foundation was written by someone else. In fact, had the Crystal Space 3D license not required for its source code to be kept free, I wouldn't be surprised if Atomic Blue / PlaneShift team made that proprietary too. It is appalling that this project has taken so long with such laughable result. The whole thing is basically a vaporware.
I'd personally be willing to contribute to the project, having created several character models for popular game mods in some of the best selling games out there, if not for the proprietary license. However, there is absolutely no way I'd be contributing to a proprietary junk like this. Most people with fewer posts get attacked by PS fanboys/fangirls on this forum when something like this is posted but when someone more regular like Induane posts that he also has a problem with the proprietary license, the developerss and the fanboys/fangirls quickly tuck their tails in. Evidently, not all developers are comfortable with the internal development structure of PlaneShift. Several have already left because of it. Read the post on this forum titled "
The real PlaneShift development history and its "business model"", for example. I don't mean to drag Induane into this again but in yet another post on this forum he mentioned that he personally knows several developers/contributors who have had a problem with PS license and its team (and eventually left), that their ideas were not listened to or rejected.
Hey, Karyuu, I got news for you - if this game is "open-source" as Atomic Blue site claims, then *EVERYONE* has at least some say in its development, not just a few individuals in a closed team. If that is not the case, then this game is *NOT* open-source. Karyuu, weren't you one of the people who claimed several times that this game is not meant to compete with commercial projects because you are not a commercial team? The posts are in your posting history, even if the threads, which contained them have been deleted. The only problem with such claims is that Luca Pancallo states in his video presentation at Crystal Space that this game in fact tries to compete with
commercial MMORPGs and is designed to
commercial standards. Do you know what "compete with commercial games" and "commercial standards" means? If you are saying that is not the case, then the only conclusion is that Luca has been lying to the public. I don't even blame Karyuu. I think she's just a follower, who doesn't know any better. I blame the bureaucratic "board of directors" in Atomic Blue, which mostly cowers away from giving a straight answer: Luca "Talad" Pancallo, Keith "Vengeance" Fulton and Andrew "acraig" Craig.
The only "surprise" factor this game has is how unprofessionally it is managed and developed, and how bureaucratic its team is. Perhaps everyone should be reminded of the definition of the word
BUREAUCRACY:
An administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action
Ver, you will not get an unbiased reply on this forum. In fact, even the developers' and mods' attitude is often downright ugly and unprofessional, especially in this thread. Try more neutral sites like MMORPG.com, where they have their own PlaneShift forum. They don't have a vested interest in the game, so whenever I saw the same brown-nosing replies posted there, those fanboys/fangirls were quickly put in their place by the local community and admins/mods. In fact, I've never seen Luca Pancallo participate and PR-spam so much on a single forum in such a short period of time, as he did on that site. Suddenly, he wasn't "busy" and had all the time in the world to argue, yet he can't even answer simple monthly Q&A on this one.
If the "board of directors" and developers don't care about this game, why should the community? I certainly don't, not anymore anyway. They can play it among themselves till they drop, since it's "their" game, and then they'll never hear/see any criticism of it. But wait! Most of them don't even play the game anymore. Ask Karyuu, if she plays it or what she was playing instead of PlaneShift not too long ago (hint: Ryzom).
Not Soon Enough (tm)