Why hasn't Single Player been updated yet?

[GigaX]

As far as I can tell, from what my friend who watches this board more closely than I do and some of the posts I've read, there's enough love for single player to go around. So why is it that all of the effort being put into this game is currently going to multiplayer? Why hasn't Dark City Zone, Arid Canyon Zone 2, Red Volcano Zone 2, Blue Mountain Zone, or the boss for Egg Rock Zone 3 even been publicly discussed? Heck, have any of them even been thought about?

Personally, I loved going through the main story. I've done so much in Co-op mode with my buddies. But now we don't even play the game anymore. There is nothing left for us in it, because we don't think the gametypes where SRB2 is turned into a FPS is fun.

You're probably going to brush this aside as a noob ranting about nothing, but honestly, there should be equal effort going to single player as there is going to multiplayer. And I'm not talking about level contests. I'm talking about development team effort.

 

[Arf]

Because MP has replay value, you can play it a lot and it will still be different each time!
Singleplayer is a one time thing kind of deal, play it once and it's over!

I fucking hate MP though and I'm as disappointed as you are for the lack of SP.

 

[MascaraSnake]

I think there is much more focus on the single player part than on the multiplayer part in development. It's just that a) making an SP level takes ages and b) you can't really show off incomplete levels to the public.

CEZ is being majorly revamped and according to Mystic, that revamp is mostly done. CEZ2 in particular has received a lot of new content. Mapping out ACZ2 has been attempted a few times, but nothing complete has come from that yet. To quote Mystic: "There are multiple started attempts, but nothing beyond that. We'll probably have to compile the different parts together and add a bunch of new stuff." Nothing has been said about RVZ as far as I know, and not even the dev team seems to know if the second act will be BMZ or a regular volcano level. And DCZ won't even be started until the rest is done.

What I do agree with is that information is pretty sparse. This is not the first time somebody complained about the lack of progress, so I think it's high time that the dev gives us a bit of information on what has happened since the release of 2.0 and what is gonna happen in the near future. Not huge spoilers or anything, just something that keeps everybody interested.

 

[DarkFireTheHedgeHo]

I feel your pain.
But I guess the point was getting ALL the secrets to hold it down.
And then multiplayer, was probably the answer for if you got bored with Singleplayer.

 

[Fawfulfan]

I'm not dismissing your concern about the Single Player levels. I too love Single Player far more than any Multiplayer environment, and don't want to see it neglected. However, I think it's very important to note a couple of things.

First of all, don't be too quick to doubt that the Single Player maps are getting the attention they deserve. If we have no evidence for that work, the most likely reason is simply that it isn't yet presentable. What the devs are doing is hard. Really hard. The standards for SRB2 levels, and particularly for the official levels, have been climbing steadily higher over time, and it's no easy feat to whip up something like CEZ2 or ACZ2.

The fact that the devs are necessarily the best level designers in the SRB2 community does not mean they are the fastest. Quite the contrary, I would tend to think that they would be very careful and deliberate in what they do, to make sure they can give us the very best. And let's face it--these guys have lives. They're older than they were when SRB2 started, and they have more responsibilities, which translates to less time for SRB2.

Second of all, there are probably plenty out there who will disagree with me on this, but the majority of the official Multiplayer maps are total garbage. I particularly despise the official Match maps, many of which are cramped, confusing, and just generally seem reserved and not totally realized; the only halfway decent ones are the revamped stages from 1.09.4, like Desolate Twilight and Meadow Match (which is particularly irksome for me because Match itself is actually my favorite gametype). Other gametypes don't have quite so awful an official set, but in general the basic Multiplayer package in SRB2 is pretty lacking. Frequently, the winning Multiplayer maps in the OLDC outshine not only their competitors but a sizeable portion of the official set as well.

But here's the thing. If Multiplayer is so lame, that's doesn't mean the devs should abandon it and devote 100 percent of their time to Single Player. It means they should fix Multiplayer. Though to be honest, I'd really rather that they stop doing whatever they're trying with new weapon rings and actually put some real effort into designing decent maps for those gametypes. Or at least, they should promote more OLDC winners to the official set, á la Thunder Factory Zone.

So, that's pretty much my view. However much I love Single Player, I don't believe the devs are somehow ignoring it, and nor do I believe that their work on Multiplayer is unjustified.

 

[SSNTails]

It's because other than me, Single Player is regarded as the bastard child by all of STJr.

 

[Mystic]

There's actually a simple reason for the difference in information on single player and multiplayer. Multiplayer is immune to spoilers. If I went out before 2.0 and literally showed off a SRB2DB shot of each of the match stages, explained where all the items were and what everything did, nothing major would have been lost, because the gameplay of multiplayer is such that the information of where everything is isn't central to the game. The conflict with the other players is what makes the gametype interesting, and that won't be ruined no matter how much information I provide.

Single player, however, is dramatically different. Go look at the information we provided for single player compared to multiplayer prior to 2.0's release, and you'll notice the difference is dramatic. Single player had a couple videos showing off new engine features and texture sets, while multiplayer had a giant thread explaining every detail of the new system, listing the maps, and providing several screenshots for each of them. The reason is that the LESS information we provide on the single player campaign, the more you're likely to enjoy discovering things yourself when we actually release the new content. I don't think anyone here is going to try to argue that multiplayer had more effort spent in it for 2.0 than single player, but we simply intentionally didn't provide any information about single player so you got to discover all the secrets of Eggrock on your own. Would you have rather us spoiled everything for you so you knew what 2.0 contained?

This is why new single player content updates will ALWAYS be vague around here, while we're always going to be providing information about multiplayer readily. It has nothing to do with the amount of effort spent on each; in fact, single player is the clear priority in development. The difference is simply that we want our single player updates to be as enjoyable as possible when they DO come out, so we don't give you much information about them so it's a cool experience when you get to play it the first time.

 

[Metal-Rawr]

Hey, I've got a bit of a question, but I might be totally wrong because I don't know a thing about coding. SpiritCrusher said the other day that the main thing needed for SRB2 is mapping, and that if the coders have nothing to do now, they can put effort on porting SRB2 to other consoles. But then I read the Wiki and it said that CEZ3's boss DOES need coding in it. What does that mean...? That the coders don't know how to code bosses and there's someone else doing that, or what...?

 

[MascaraSnake]

TSecond of all, there are probably plenty out there who will disagree with me on this, but the majority of the official Multiplayer maps are total garbage. I particularly despise the official Match maps, many of which are cramped, confusing, and just generally seem reserved and not totally realized; the only halfway decent ones are the revamped stages from 1.09.4, like Desolate Twilight and Meadow Match (which is particularly irksome for me because Match itself is actually my favorite gametype). Other gametypes don't have quite so awful an official set, but in general the basic Multiplayer package in SRB2 is pretty lacking. Frequently, the winning Multiplayer maps in the OLDC outshine not only their competitors but a sizeable portion of the official set as well.

But here's the thing. If Multiplayer is so lame, that's doesn't mean the devs should abandon it and devote 100 percent of their time to Single Player. It means they should fix Multiplayer. Though to be honest, I'd really rather that they stop doing whatever they're trying with new weapon rings and actually put some real effort into designing decent maps for those gametypes. Or at least, they should promote more OLDC winners to the official set, á la Thunder Factory Zone.

Uh... no. The Match rotation is certainly not garbage, in fact it's much better than both the CTF and the Race rotation. None of the them is too cramped either, except maybe Infernal Cavern, and I'm not confused by any of them. Maybe you don't play them enough, because I don't see where you're coming from at all.

But maybe it's good news for you that both the Match and CTF rotation currently feature 19 maps each, most of which are contest maps.

This is why new single player content updates will ALWAYS be vague around here,

I'm fine with vague, it's just that there is no information at all. I don't what screenshots of the maps or anything, I just think that if you made an official post/thread that told everybody which levels you guys have been working on/how far you've gotten/what is left to be done, it would prevent threads like this one.

SpiritCrusher said the other day that the main thing needed for SRB2 is mapping, and that if the coders have nothing to do now, they can put effort on porting SRB2 to other consoles.

I certainly didn't. It's true that the coders are not as needed as the mappers currently, but I personally think that ports are a waste of time.

But then I read the Wiki and it said that CEZ3's boss DOES need coding in it. What does that mean...? That the coders don't know how to code bosses and there's someone else doing that, or what...?

It's not like there's no coding left to be done at all, it's just that most of the coding that has to be done is for potential new features inside the levels, i.e. new linedef types, new enemies, new bosses. There are no big engine updates to make anymore.

 

[BlueZero4]

If we as a community stepped up and started making our own SP maps in bulk, we wouldn't be so dependent on STJr for all of our single player needs.

(Which, if you didn't know, includes myself.)

 

[Cue]

they can put effort on porting SRB2 to other consoles.

We only have 6 main coders, JTE, Logan, Alam, Inu, Callum and I, out of that I think only maybe 2 or 3 have any knowledge of porting perhaps? I know I don't, and hell if I want to start messing with it.

 

[Callum]

We only have 6 main coders, JTE, Logan, Alam, Inu, Callum and I, out of that I think only maybe 2 or 3 have any knowledge of porting perhaps? I know I don't, and hell if I want to start messing with it.

Add Oogaland to that, and it is mostly me, Alam, Logan and Oogaland doing the porting work.

 

[Zap610]

I'm fine with vague, it's just that there is no information at all.

I agree. It's a pretty lame excuse to blame spoilers for a lack of progress. It's a Sonic fangame; I'm sure people could live with knowing what to expect (and even prefer it).

 

[Larz T]

As far as I can tell, from what my friend who watches this board more closely than I do and some of the posts I've read, there's enough love for single player to go around. So why is it that all of the effort being put into this game is currently going to multiplayer? Why hasn't Dark City Zone, Arid Canyon Zone 2, Red Volcano Zone 2, Blue Mountain Zone, or the boss for Egg Rock Zone 3 even been publicly discussed? Heck, have any of them even been thought about?

Personally, I loved going through the main story. I've done so much in Co-op mode with my buddies. But now we don't even play the game anymore. There is nothing left for us in it, because we don't think the gametypes where SRB2 is turned into a FPS is fun.

You're probably going to brush this aside as a noob ranting about nothing, but honestly, there should be equal effort going to single player as there is going to multiplayer. And I'm not talking about level contests. I'm talking about development team effort.

I agree but if a new version comes out, your secrets don't get carried over. I'm just saying, if you want ACZ2 or even DCZ, maybe make it yourself and host a server with that level in the OL/DC and maybe they might review that to give themselfs a visual on what they might need to do.

 

[Krabs]

(Wall of text)

After at least a year now of zero content I think that spoiler protection should be on the bottom of your list of concerns.

 

[Mystic]

Because clearly after four years of no content we should have told you everything that was in 2.0 before we released it, right?

 

[Krabs]

Wrong, I just don't think that spoilers is a good excuse.

 

[Zap610]

Because clearly after four years of no content we should have told you everything that was in 2.0 before we released it, right?

Yeah that's exactly what he said; that you should reveal everything...

Honestly, claiming that you don't want to reveal content due to spoilers is pretty dumb. I repeat from my earlier post- this is a Sonic fangame. I think the community can handle a bit of information for upcoming content without "spoiling" anything. And if you don't have any content then you should probably admit it. It's not like you have to or anything, but clearly people are getting impatient.

Yeah I know; free time, don't get paid. But that doesn't make it any less important since we aren't paying anything to be here. Therefore if it gets boring we can just bounce without any guilt of wasted money.

 

[MascaraSnake]

Because clearly after four years of no content we should have told you everything that was in 2.0 before we released it, right?

Not everything, and not more than you did. But earlier. Like more smaller updates over a larger period of time.

Right now, we know almost nothing. Why are you so extremely reluctant to reveal even the tiniest things? I didn't ask you to spoil the actual content of 2.1, I asked you to give us an overview on how much work has been done and what you are planning to do in the near future. I ask you to answer questions like:

• Have any of the upcoming bosses been programmed, are any of them currently being programmed, or has nobody done anything on that yet?
• Will somebody fix the imbalance of the paths in the last half of THZ2? (This is sort of my "personal question" that has little to do with the actual progress on the game. I just wonder if anybody thought about fixing it.)
• It would hurt nobody if you told us what sort of content is going to be cut from CEZ, although I do understand that you kinda don't want to spoil what kind of content you added.
• How much of ACZ2 is finished and is anybody even working on it?
• Will RVZ1 be expanded or not?
• What theme will RVZ2 have? Ice or volcano or both?
• Will ERZ3 keep Brak Eggman as its boss as long as DCZ isn't done?
• How far is progress on the special stages? More importantly, how are they gonna be organized? One special stage for each zone (themed after that zone) or the same format as what we currently have (only with NiGHTS)?

As you can see, these are the kind of questions that will satisfy everyone's want for information without spoiling anything. I don't see why you wouldn't want to answer them.

 

[SSNTails]

Hey, those are awesome questions. They deserve their own thread. I could also talk a little bit about each point, but I'd like to get permission first.