The Future Of BSF

[CptObvious]

I'm sorry if i ask a question that have been answered infinite times before, but have th15 abandoned BSF? It have been so long without any update or news about an upcomming update.

I have looked through the forums but never actualy found an answere.

Excuse my spelling/grammar, English is not my native language.

[Danny420Dale]

YES. He didn't even bother to open-source it, either. He's stopped caring at all if BSF lives or dies.

Yes I'm a bit bitter over it.

[CptObvious]

I feel your pain.
Shame, i was realy looking forward to the end of the campaign and the rumored pvp-multiplayer mode...

[Wakerz]

unless we get the go ahead to do that I seriously thats going to happen

[Bad Boy]

To make things even better, he and kaelis (but really just kaelis) had apparently been working on a new version that added a lot of cool features. This included, among other things, lua scripting for the encounter maker which would have allowed people to make proper missions instead of the cobbled together stuff that is stuck around the level of 'here come some waves of ships, pewpewpew. Done.' However, some sort of falling out happened and the version never came out and probably never will.
I too am rather bitter, particularly about that.

Look here for info: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5472

[Danny420Dale]

Fuck the dumb shit. We're all extremely bitter over how Sean abandoned BSF. I also think Sean just suddenly quit talking to Kaelis, full stop. It's almost like he optimized the abandonment to render it completely untouchable by anyone else!

If you grow tired of your toys, please share them with us! Is that really too fucking much to ask?

Fuck it, I'm a dumbass. I need to watch what I post.

[Anna]

He did share it with you. You have a free game you got to play and support that lasted for years. Not to mention that he routinely added in features people asked for and let others add features as well, even though it deviated from what he originally intended the game to be. And now that he's gone on to do other things, you seriously have the balls to say "WELL YOU SHOULD GIVE US MORE FREE STUFF AND THE SOURCE CODE TO YOUR GAME AND I'M BITTER THAT YOU DIDN'T!"

Jesus Christ. I may be an asshole, but at least I'm not a self-entitled prick.

EDIT: No less than three people other than th15 also have the Source Code. Kaelis, Arcalane and Starstruck. And there might be more, I dunno! Hell, I could probably get Arcalane to send it to me too. I have no doubt he would if I asked him to. But I'm not gonna ask, because it would be useless to me and it is by all account the most tangled spaghetti code you'll ever seen.

Several people have also at one point or another started projects to rewrite BSF in a more friendly language with cleaner code. None of them have ever gone anywhere. So basically what you're bitching about is "nobody's giving me more free stuff and I am VERY UPSET".

Seriously Danny, I expected better from you. I'm not sure why, but I did.

Double EDIT:

To make things even better, he and kaelis (but really just kaelis) had apparently been working on a new version that added a lot of cool features. This included, among other things, lua scripting for the encounter maker which would have allowed people to make proper missions instead of the cobbled together stuff that is stuck around the level of 'here come some waves of ships, pewpewpew. Done.'

Kaelis was working on a lot of things at one point or another. None of it was ever really completed or bugtested, and there was honestly nothing at all stopping him and Arcalane or whatever from putting out another unofficial release, like the MIRV and metagame releases. Kaelis stopped working on it because he had lots of other things to deal with. The shit with th15 probably didn't help, but it was far from the only thing that prevented us from seeing those things he was working on.

[Bad Boy]

Fair enough about kae then. I'd always figured it wouldn't be okay for him to release it without th15's go ahead and due to their falling-out he never got that so we never got a release. If that's the case then perhaps I'm placing too much of the blame on th15.
You make a good point in the part of your post directed at danny, th15's not at fault for stopping game development, he was free to do that at any time. He may be at fault for hindering completion of the version kae was working on but I've passed judgement on that before only to find out I was wrong so I'm simply going to refrain from doing so this time around.

Also, I feel like my previous post made me sound more upset than I actually am (particularly the part saying I'm bitter about it). To clarify, I've gotten over it, it's a shame but shit happens.

All that said, I'd like it if th15 would come out of lurking and post, just to say that it's actually over. It'd be nice of him to put some proper closure on development and it'd make it clear to everyone that there are no new versions coming out. Alternatively, if by some strange chance it turns out that th15's been secretly working on it or someone else has made noticeable progress on it, it'd be nice if he made that clear instead.

[jwa8402]

Several people have also at one point or another started projects to rewrite BSF in a more friendly language with cleaner code. None of them have ever gone anywhere.

Which is a shame cuz even the newer version of gamemaker looks like it has some interesting features, plus it looks fairly easy to use though I know nothing about such things.

I'm as disappointed as the next person about not being able to look forward to new content, but its also been 'over' for quite awhile. In all honesty there was never much about the actual game or its functionality that appealed to me; its just reasonably unique for its freedom in assembling ships. Heck we can't even seem to manage a decent tournament these days.
Of course I stand by my opinion that with a decent amount of new content, people would readily buy a game like this, but thats in comparison to the crap being developed these days and inspite of the entitlement issues most of the internets seem to have. At this point I just like building for how relaxing it can be.

[CptObvious]

oops, didn't mean to resurect/create anger and disagreement.

[Wakerz]

don't worry about it, this has been going on for a while really.

[th15]

I guess I do owe you guys some explanation.

I've not been around much because I've been busy with school.

Yea I went back to school, I'm studying at Digipen Singapore now, taking a degree in Real Time Interactive Simulation (it's computer science for game development basically; half my professors were nintendo lead programmers).

So what it boils down to is that it'll take time, but at some point I'll just do BSF properly in my own engine. That's at least a few years coming though (I'm taking an accelerated course so I'll graduate in mid 2013). I do want to emphasize that making BSF properly is definitely one of my goals in life, its just become somewhat of a long term goal.

The reason I've put off remaking BSF until I am more capable is quite simply, the stuff that you guys have been posting in the custom ships forum. Clearly, people like making ships. Clearly, you guys deserve a tool to do that that isn't quite as messed up as it is now. I'll be honest, the custom ships thing started off as a neat little gimmick for me. But it rocketed into this huge thing on its own and people kept making awesome ships. I need to run off to school now so I'll have to post more later.

P.S: Arca/Anna, would you do me a favour and split this off into it's own topic, we might as well discuss things properly there.

[Wakerz]

Hope has returned to the world! HUZZAH!

[Bad Boy]

Thank you th15, both for letting us know what will be happening and for this wonderful piece of news. I really appreciate your doing this after being silent for so long.

Best of luck in your schooling, I hope it goes well and isn't too stressful. When you get the time and ability to remake the game so it fits your vision, I'm sure there'll still be a few of us putting around here waiting to play/buy it.

[Doogie12]

My heart just fluttered a bit now. Best of luck!