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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / [LOCKED] Give the staff a break!

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Mirthin
21
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Joined: 13th Oct 2002
Location: Land of the Rising Haggis
Posted: 18th Oct 2002 23:17
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I'm typing in reply to every whine, rant and complaint that is fired at DBS. i'm not trying to start a flame war, wait 'til I get my matches. I'm just saying give all of us a break. Progress is being made. Let's all of us calm down, chill out, and get on with our programming. If there's a bug that will be ironed out with the next patch, give it a miss, take a walk around approach. It's not the end of the world.

I'm not blaming everyone, some people have been incredibly nice to share code, assets and ideas and this is what the forums are all about. DBPro will be updated. That's what a developer does. They create their software, share it with the world and lovingly care for it. I'm no Ghandi, but I don't see why we should fill these forums with mere bickerings on "what's best", "I can't get my BSPs to work", "DBPro is a ripoff." A lot of people in this community are either narrow-minded or pessimistic. People can search for answers if they don't know how things work, but if I see BSP one more time I'll jump out this window!

Perhaps this post won't change anything. Perhaps it will be labelled "FlameBait." Perhaps I'll get a severe beating for being "over-reactive," but let's face it, there's a dark side to everything. A community, The Force, even tapioca pudding.
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Carver
21
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Joined: 19th Sep 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 19th Oct 2002 03:27
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No Flame intended:
If I purchase a container stating the contents is tapioca pudding, I expect to be purchasing just that, when I get home and open it only to find it's vanilla with no tapioca I feel I have the right to complain. I purchased a product that indicated one thing and got something else, or not what I expected when I read the wrapper. A lot of the complaining as per, has answered several of my questions as to why I couldn't get something to work properly, and YES one of them was BSP. If you wish, go ahead and jump if the window is handy. The bsp remarks have answered several questions as well as providing some insight on how to implement them, to an extent. Thats not only on bsp but a lot of other repeated items of discussion. If you don't want to read certain posts then simply skip them. I skip a lot of them when I find they are mearly complaining and of no real help. Again no flame, beating or anything else itended, simply my opinion. If its a lagitimate complaint so be it if not then someone can provide assistance.

* AMD Athlon 1.33, 256meg SDRAM, GForce4 MX 440 64mb, Win ME *
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Rodro
21
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Joined: 17th Sep 2002
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Posted: 19th Oct 2002 04:53
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I agree 100% with Carver. I'm new to the 3D programming world, I have been programming for 20+ years. I have been waiting for a DARKBASIC type language for close the same amount of time, so I'm really excited about DARKBASIC. However, I can't tell you the number of hours I have worked needlessly trying fix my code, which was correct, when the language was was wrong......... very frustrating!! DBPRO people should say, which some have, "Our fault!! we'll fix". Mirthin's comment here should be erased by the DBPRO's team, if he/she is even on the team. If he/she was on my team and posted this msg, I'd give them hell.

Face it!! DBPRO wasn't ready for release and for what ever reason it was. I'm very happy I bought DBPRO and I'm really looking forward to the future of DBPRO. If Mirthin is truely on the DBPRO team, which I hope not, I'm disappointed. Guy is a true pro!!! He accepts the responsibity and moves on. BRAVO!!

Mirthin says "and get on with our programming", I wish I could!! I keep running into bugs. Grow up and accept responsiblity. Go DBPRO!!! (I have joined the DBDN)

Hey!! You talking to me?
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Necrym
21
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Joined: 4th Sep 2002
Location: Australia
Posted: 19th Oct 2002 04:58
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Here here i for one think there is nothing but complaints instead of looking at the positive side of whats happening. DB is a DEVELOPMENT language and as such will continue to grow and develop its not like buying an off the shelf product such as a game with fixed duties as such i for one give everyone at the small DB team a thumbs up on their efforts - remember your fee for the product is getting a great support with it. If you really want to gripe try paying hundreds even thousands for a development language and having also to pay dearly for the support patches. So lets give em a break sure there are a few clitches and im sure there will be more as cirtain commands get put to the test in certain circumstances they havent considered yet but they are doing a great effort at updating so lets try and be helpfull rather than critical when confronted with these bugs.

Be afraid..be very afraid were all being watched!!
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AlecM
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Concord, MA
Posted: 19th Oct 2002 06:55
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Rodro and mirthin:

Personal attacks will not be tolerated on this board. As for you opions, they are yours.

Rodro and to a lesser extent carver:

One thing you don't seem to understand about DBP's release is that they were under immense pressure from the forums to get it shipped. They really were in a terrible double bind. If they waited to get all the bugs ironed out they would have taken a few more months and that would have meant alot of angry and lost cusomers. There idea was to let you fool around with it now and release free patches when they were ready. The massive DBP hype from the forums didnt help either. they remained pretty tight lipped and didnt really hype DBP at all. thats our fault.


After reading merthin's message I see no direct reference to the fact that he works for DBS.

Goto http://www.shellshockede.com
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Mirthin
21
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Joined: 13th Oct 2002
Location: Land of the Rising Haggis
Posted: 19th Oct 2002 16:35
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I do not work for DBS. Where did that come from? Well, thanks for clearing that up Froggermon, but if my last post was deleted, you should delete Rodro's too. Rodro stated that he thought my post should be deleted, which was an assault on my right to freedom of speech. If you want to look at it another way, my post shouldn't have been deleted because I was merely expressing my opinion. Looks like I'll never get justice in this insane world.
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Milamber
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Location: Australia
Posted: 19th Oct 2002 17:10
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Pointless and subversive posts should get deleted, so the first 3 posts have summed up all the points made in all the flamewars so far. Ultimately, this thread deserves the "flamebait" label, and the others deserve to be deleted.

System Specs: AMD Athlon 1700+ XP, GA-7VRX motherboard, 128MB DDR RAM, GeForce2 MX400 64MB VRAM
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Shadow Robert
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Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 19th Oct 2002 19:11
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You bought the Tropican Flavour get Home and find it is Vanilla - yeah you have the right to complain.
however nowhere on the box does dbpro say "now 100% bugless" or such... it also doesn't say 100% backward compatible

these are annoyances people, and they are issue as and when they are brought up - and personally i'd like to wait a month for a patch that fixes most of the major bug/oversights at once rather than a patch everyday fixxing one or two.

Everyone knows that DBpro wasn't a perfect product upon retail, so suck it up and live with it!
Now you can either wait for the patch or throw DBpro in the bin it is your choice really, but complaining about everything wrong will not help if it is said 1,000,000 times a day!!
With helpful input the team can make this product great, with whineing all you'll get is longer waits.

If you wish to report a bug make a single post STICK TO IT, and READ IT before posting your own findings!
Also don't just say "the rotation doesn't work" because that could mean anything ... saying "the x-axis rotation will move and then reset if not updated every loop" that will prevent alot of time wasting.
Not to mention you've found a stop gap solution of updating every loop - althought it is important it can be fixxed. Things that are IMMEDIATE however are/were the float problems!

Please rather than bitchin' just help the community and figure out a way AROUND the bug!
I swear it is lucky that most here are not actually looking for work as a programmer, because do you think Lee or Chris give up whenever they hit a problem ... do you see a post "Oh C++ doesn't seem to allow me to do this a certain way so i'm not gonna add that!"

Feel lucky that your getting a patch as Microsoft don't issue individual complaints about Visual Studio products, and i can name a few bugs that 6.0 still has even after 5 service packs!

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Carver
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Joined: 19th Sep 2002
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Posted: 19th Oct 2002 19:21
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As I stated I was not attacking, cutting or flaming. If someone has a problem and they want to complain thats their choice. I simply wanted to point out that if someone has a
problem, if its in the form of a complaint or whatever it has, at times, been a help to me. As with Redro I have been programming 20+ years, only recently in 3d graphics. The ref to the comment in Italic was intended to be in a joking manner, and probably should have been droped by me. I'm not cutting DBPro or the DBPro team, I have worked several ours on what I thought may be a code problem only to read in the forum and see a lot of others having the same problem. The repeat problems have also provided info, after working hours on something I discovered that I could change a structure and get it to somewhat work. It's very frustrating to put hours in a project that is allegedly capable, only to find that it actually won't work. I purchased DB at about version 1.? (3 to 6 I'd have to check) I'm not completely new at this. The DB Team is very good at addressing problems and even new function requests for that matter. I don't and won't cut someone simply because they have an opinion or express their feelings, up to a point of course. I usually avoid these threads and refrain from responding to them, the response above just jumped out, here I just wanted to clarify that all I was saying is keep the questions and comments comming, as they have been a help to me. You can say "good morning" and it can be misunderstood, I try to keep things brief in the forum to save space and I expanded this one a little. Have a good day, night, evening or whatever the time may be where you are...

* AMD Athlon 1.33, 256meg SDRAM, GForce4 MX 440 64mb, Win ME *
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RickV
TGC Development Director
24
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Joined: 27th Apr 2000
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 21st Oct 2002 12:04
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Hi, just to be clear. The team at DBS are dedicated to fixing all issues on DBPro. The latest patch should address the majority of issues that are causing you all pain. Remember you can email Lee direct with any bugs you find and he will, in time sort them.

There are other developments happening with DBPro that will enhance it significantly. So fear not, we will provide you with the tools you need.



Commercial Director
Dark Basic Team
[Everything in life is a choice. You don't HAVE to do anything]
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rapscaLLion
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Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location: Canada
Posted: 21st Oct 2002 15:32
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Come on people, no matter what your opinion on the matter, you can't rush this patch! If you do, the same thing will happen, we'll get something buggy, not quite finished! So GIVE THEM A BREAK and let them do what they have been trying to do all along.

Alex Wanuch
aka rapscaLLion
Get the DB Weekly Newsletter at www.dbwn.cjb.net
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Martyn Pittuck
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Posted: 21st Oct 2002 16:19
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lol

Should someone explain to the DBPro community that Bug Patches are not promised.

If Lee for some unknown reason got hit by a bus and died (not that i want him to), DBS do not have to release any patches.

What you get are free updates that could be sold but are given for free.


------


Maybe lee dying was not the right way to go about this point. But it illustrates that they do not need to do anything for us.

No offence Lee, DBS or the DBPro community

The Outside is a evil place to be, too much light, too much noise and too many distractions....
I went outside once and my FPS rate dropped to 5.
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NickIgoe
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2002 00:58
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So basically what you are saying is that its OK to write half a program, That is not capable of doing what it claims to, Not supply a manual so that people can use it, Charge a fortune for it by rebranding it. Sorry but I dont think it is on. Does anyone out there remember Amos Pro for the Amiga, Ok it was a long time ago but at least it did what it said it could do, You got a bloody good manual that taught you how to do it, Ok I admit it was rebranded but there was none of this waiting around for bugs to be sorted. Sorry but do feel completly ripped off. Have any off you tried to get the BSP`s to work, God knows I have tried, Theres no help at all in the manual on how to do it,only a program listing which we all used to copy out of magazines in the eighties, Can anyone explain what the eps & splitter buttons are for and what they actually do.
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Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2002 04:02
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I agree the manual isn't exactly that brilliant - but actually it's VERY similar to the AMOS manual and I have one sat right here infront of me. Hmmm let's take a command:

"LOKE address,number

LOKE loads address with a four-byte long word specified by number. Indiscriminate use of this function can lead to crashing completely, so take care."

Sounds amazingly similar to the DBPro manual to me! Ok it's no excuse and there will be a better manual over time, but actually it compares quite well.

I also remember an amazing amount of patches, updates and bug fixes for AMOS. I think what we have here is a case of rose-tinted syndrome.

Have I tried getting BSPs to work? Sure, got a Q2 map loaded up right here that I made with Quark. I understand frustration but I'm getting increasingly annoyed at posts claiming it's a "half finished" language because someone doesn't understand how to use it. There is a world of difference.

Cheers,

Rich

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
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Necrym
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2002 12:08
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hahahah "LOKE address,number
ahhh i remember it well, as well as peeks & pokes on my c64
(wipes a tear from his eye)
Its nice to now some things stay the same


Be afraid..be very afraid were all being watched!!
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pathfinder
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2002 15:08
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plus its only 69 quid, i mean its the price of 2 games Ive spent 50 hours on DBPro already that the most ild ever get out of 2 games. I couldnt careless if it wasnt 90% bug free by March. This Darkbasic isnt like normal products, okay first release was a little painful but I hardly noticed it. So how could this have been avoided well Lee could have charged 300 quid and got it coded perfect, Lee could have charged every other patch as an upgrade. But Darkbasic is all about the hobbiest and its community. Showing what you can do, and getting an insite into game production is what its all about. Charging that amount would have locked loads of you people out.I dont remember normal staff putting their holidays on hold to get a patch out. To be honest Ild go on that holiday regardless, but iam a git . I got plenty of time to play with multiplayer, build my bsp maps in .x format which actually works. and all that level design on paper gees. Yes its still not all there yet but dosnt stop me from coding my functions and building up bits that do work. Come to think of it running into making a game without alot of prep work tends to be the painful way of doing things anyway.

To me Darkbasic is about talking to a group of mates, showing my models to the people and posting my lastest code. Funnly enough creating the game is the goal but getting there is where the fun is at!

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Andy Igoe
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Posted: 26th Oct 2002 14:17
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Rich, compare Amos to DarkBASIC compare Amos Pro to DarkBASIC Pro.

That is the comparison that Nick seems to be drawing, Amos Pro had a very good manual - I read through the DBPro manual and I am still very much at a loss to some fundamental principals, what is this z3 thingy!?

Read your Amos Pro manual, or email me and i'll post mine to you to learn from.

As for my opinion on the state of DB after patch 2. DBPro is currently not a completed product, the bugs & ommisions are currently at a state that it is impossible to complete a fully featured game to a high standard.

After consideration I would consider DBPro to currently be at the beta testing stage.

I've made mistakes on a few programs in the past:

On 'Dark Omen Control 110' I got the installer wrong so that under some versions of windows the installer did not work.

On 'Space Corpse' I compiled the archive wrong and ommitted a few files by accident upon initial release, and patched this very rapidly.

These where free releases, as for my commercial projects in the past I have never made an oversight. Lucky admitedly, but when I look at my record I seem to have made less cockups in my carear than DB has done in every release.

Remember you are selling a tool to programmers, people who on the whole test & release quality products. If we all followed the DB model of releasing products mid-way through development for a cash injection then the industry would be in a very sorry state indeed.

Now if we go back a year to when DBPro was supposed to be release intialy (February wasn't it?) then I seem to recall the official statement, 'we are holding back the release of the DBPro product until it is ready, rather than release it with lots of bugs'.

You have taken a year of bug fixing so far to get the product into the condition it is in now, how long until we finaly get something we can use?

Considering that for half a year the forums didn't even work - i'm guessing quite a while.

Now are you still saying we should stop ranting, or are you getting on with what you promised you would do?

Pneumatic of Xev@EQ
System Specs: 2Ghz; 512mb; 80gb; Tnt2; 17"/15" Dual Head; Video I/O; 2xPAL Video & 14" 25Hz Monitor
BotPC: 800Mhz; 512mb; 4gb; GeForce2; 17"
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Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 27th Oct 2002 17:09
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I'm saying you should stop ranting.

You cannot compare the development of a game with DBPro, you're working in a fixed and closed environment where you are 100% to blame for every single last error in the code because you rely on nothing by way of user input bar some feedback from a keyboard/mouse/joystick.

It is equally unfair (although to be expected) to compare AMOS with DB whatever the flavour. AMOS incase you don't remember was indeed bug riddled too, the manual was better than DBs but not by a great deal and (this is the real clincher) it only had to support the Amiga. That's it. A closed pretty un-expandable system - you knew what graphics chip/s you had to deal with, what sound capabilities, the operating system, the memory limitations, pretty much everything. Today show me two PCs that are alike after a few weeks of use by their owners.

These are not excuses, they are reasons why the comparisons are both unfair and ungrounded.

I am now locking this thread because as is evident from your post, there are no new arguments to be given on this subject. All that needs to be said has been said.

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
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