Hi everyone,
Normally, I would wait until the end of the month to post updates about ENDGAME. However, some criticisms have been brought up to me fairly recently, and as the main (and only) developer of the project, I want to address these concerns.
ENDGAME has had a rocky development, with multiple engine changes, and some planned features being announced but were cut. I have said multiple things about the development, which have promised a lot of things about the update. In my recent blog post, I have stated that I won't be changing the engine, which lead to some of you criticizing me for falling back on a promise. I acknowledge that, and I deeply apologize. I respect whatever future decision you make with the mod, and I have no excuses for what I have potentially done. As a result, I'm going to address these concerns in this blog post.
In the Source SDK, the code itself is extremely limited, with zero to no access to the main engine code. However, the engine itself can be fixed using what we have. Valve has given us modders quite a few ways to fix engine-level issues, and a lot of fixes have been made alongside that. During ENDGAME's development, I have been and will be implementing multiple SDK fixes (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/pulls) that will enhance the stability of the engine, alongside implementing bug fixes contained in forks of the SDK code. Some of these fixes have been implemented recently, but I will implement more of these fixes to ensure engine stability. Engine fixes WILL be implemented to make sure FIREFIGHT is a stable mod.
In addition, very recently I have identified 5-6 sources of crashes and have fixed them accordingly. After these fixes were implemented, I have seen less crashes occur when playtesting. This may not be the case on other users' machines, but this is a big step forward towards stability for the mod. This is why i'm planning on releasing a snapshot of the current development process of the mod when it is decently stable. More crashes will be fixed in the future as I work on and playtest the mod. If you would like to view progress on the update, please look at the GitHub commit log here: https://github.com/FIREFIGHT-RELOADED/FIREFIGHT-RELOADED-src-sdk-2013/commits/endgame
I have known for a while that FIREFIGHT RELOADED is a very unstable mod in its current state. I will be implementing new fixes to counteract crashes with the game and engine issues, and delivering a new snapshot to further help with playtesting and debugging. I am committed first hand to focus on enhancing the stability of the mod first before gameplay. Fixing these crashes and issues is one of the main goals of the ENDGAME update. I take criticism of my projects very seriously, and I will work to address criticisms of the mod first-hand.
Now, onto gameplay plans for the update. After the majority of issues are fixed, development will focus solely on the planned wave system. One idea I recently had was to give NPCs attributes that enhance their abilities, such as a Hunter that fires rockets for example. However, I will say that these are merely just ideas at this point, and haven't been implemented in the mod yet. I will post later updates on this in next month's blog post.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for your patience. It has almost been 4 years since I announced this update, and I want to deliver ENDGAME by the end of this year. However, I want to deliver it in the best shape it can be, so fixes and crashes will take priority over gameplay changes. I hope this blog post addresses your concerns about the update. A future blog post will be released when the snapshot is out.
- Bitl