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Re: Recent Negativity Regarding OpenMW

Posted: 06 Dec 2018, 07:05
by Ravenwing
Jesus fucking Christ, someone just shut this thread down.

We’ve literally discussed all of these things in detail and recently. Forcing the devs to repeat themselves on the forums rather than spend time on coding is a literal time drain as well as a huge demotivator. Please search the forums for “PR content” if you want to have meaningful discussion on how things can be improved.

Re: Recent Negativity Regarding OpenMW

Posted: 06 Dec 2018, 08:16
by davidcernat
sonicboom12345 wrote:
06 Dec 2018, 04:04
This is a good distillation of the anxiety I have regarding the project. Speaking for myself, I'm not seeking to blast holes in team morale and sink the ship. My real goal is course correction. I would rather speak up now and risk a negative backlash, than see the project make mistakes and risk falling into obscurity. Believe me, if I didn't care about all of you and the hundreds of thousands of man hours you've already put in, I wouldn't be saying anything at all.
I'm not aware of any risk of the project falling into obscurity. Even just my own plans for loading up assets from the other Bethesda games in multiplayer will ensure that can't happen. Combine that with the plans of other contributors and it becomes clear that your anxiety in that regard is unwarranted.
sonicboom12345 wrote:
06 Dec 2018, 04:04
First of all, because you don't have to look beyond the cold reception Fallout 76 has gotten to see how Bethesda's chickens have come home to roost insofar as "industry standards" are concerned. But more apropos than that, because OpenMW's real competition isn't Bethesda or the modern industry. It's other unpaid hobbyists.

I can download the Morrowind Overhaul, and in fifteen minutes, have a kitted-out Morrowind with 100+ mods, model and texture upgrades, and graphics and gameplay extension via MGE and MWSE. Unless I'm a hardcore Morrowind fan with an extensive knowledge of the user-driven landscape, I'm not going to recognize all of the ways OpenMW is superior, because most of OpenMW's improvements are under the hood. I'm probably just going to download the Morrowind Overhaul and stop at that because 1. it looks prettier and 2. it's the path of least resistance. That's what you need to overcome, and that's the reason I don't necessarily agree that "a one-to-one recreation of the original Morrowind" is necessarily the best goal post to strive for.
Like most people expressing their neverending "worries and concerns" here, you seem to willfully ignore 90% of the context. (At least you're slightly more polite than the others, though.)

First off, the vast majority of the 100+ mods, model and texture upgrades work just fine in OpenMW. I don't see how OpenMW is competing with them.

Secondly, MGE and MWSE do not in any way adhere to the "industry standards" addressed in the quote, did not need to recreate an entire massively complicated engine before they could add extra functionality to it, and have severe limitations that OpenMW doesn't.

Thirdly, what does it matter that the average user would rather use the "prettier-looking path of least resistance" for now? This is an unfinished hobby project, and I'm getting pretty tired of random unhelpful bystanders coming in and going on like broken records about their profound disappointment that OpenMW hasn't yet wiped the floor with the existing engine hacks, as though this was some kind of bloodsport. I primarily work on my branch of OpenMW for my own pleasure and enjoyment, not to indulge the competitive shower thoughts of people uninvolved with the project.

Finally, there have been other projects trying to recreate Morrowind's engine and they have failed hard because they have overshot their mark. You should very seriously consider the possibility that what you regard as OpenMW's fatal flaw, its focus on doing things in the right order, is actually the only reason why it's still around as a project to this day.
sonicboom12345 wrote:
06 Dec 2018, 04:04
Ask yourself, why does Skywind get coverage while OpenMW doesn't? Answer: Because they put themselves out there. They make trailers. They post regular updates to social media, even if it's something as minor as an updated model or a pretty screenshot.
You're comparing apples and oranges. OpenMW is primarily a programming project, not an art project, recreating a game that's more than twice as old as Skyrim and has sold 7.5 times fewer copies. It's also focused on sane nonsuperficial plans and long term thinking, instead of flashy gimmicks and publicity stunts, which is precisely why it's not vaporware.
sonicboom12345 wrote:
06 Dec 2018, 04:04
Has anyone on the OpenMW team even talked to Zaric?
What do you think? (Unless I'm Schrödinger's OpenMW team member, whose existence can be denied whenever convenient to any given critic of OpenMW.)
sonicboom12345 wrote:
06 Dec 2018, 04:22
This is exactly what I'm talking about. No, PR isn't an impediment to getting OpenMW to 1.0, it's an essential tool for getting OpenMW to 1.0. If you had spent the last year advertising, you would have more monetary support on Patreon. If you had spent the last year advertising, you would have a larger team. If you had spent the last year advertising, you would have a bigger audience for your project, which would make each release more rewarding, which would improve morale, which would improve retention. Posts like this are so depressingly short-sighted. It makes me feel so defeated to read them. They're big red flags that warn against the future success of the project.
That's a gross oversimplification of how advertising and project management work in the real world. The briefest look at some other projects with large team sizes and budgets that have never had any releases whatsoever will clarify as much.

Endless pointless hype can make you crash straight into a wall when you end up with overly impatient people nagging you forever and trying to derail the project in a hundred different directions.

Perhaps more advertising would be attempted if you armchair experts could just shut up for a little bit instead of being such a constant reminder of advertising's drawbacks.

Re: Recent Negativity Regarding OpenMW

Posted: 06 Dec 2018, 08:21
by lysol
Ravenwing wrote:
06 Dec 2018, 07:05
Jesus fucking Christ, someone just shut this thread down.
Gladly. Thread locked.

Since this thread has since long derailed into something else than it began as, I'll lock this. If you'd like further discussion regarding PR, start a new thread or post in another relevant PR thread.

If you'd like to discuss other issues regarding how OpenMW is organized, developed or other topics, start your own thread.

Re: Recent Negativity Regarding OpenMW

Posted: 06 Dec 2018, 09:44
by psi29a
sonicboom12345 wrote:
06 Dec 2018, 04:22
psi29a wrote:
26 Nov 2018, 09:48
Developers can't be expected to work on OpenMW and also manage PR. It is just another impediment to getting OpenMW to 1.0



If OpenMW is programmer-heavy, and if none of the programmers have the time to do PR, why don't you advertise for a public relations position? Why don't you blow the dust off that Twitter account and put out the word: "OPENMW IS LOOKING FOR A PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MEDIA OUTREACH VOLUNTEER." Why don't you advertise it on your website? Heck, why isn't there a giant, shiny button on that says "CLICK HERE TO VOLUNTEER", so interested parties with something to contribute know what you need and have an easy way to get in touch with the team leads? Even your website design is shooting you in the foot, and you don't even realize it, nor pay it any mind.
Let me _very_ clear on this important bit: OpenMW is a volunteer project, we have no money nor do we want to deal with money. Money is NOT the motivation of the project. If you donate money to individual developers then that is considered 'tipping', not a contract of work. As such, any 'demands' will be ignored at best of blasted at worst. No one has the right to abuse anyone who works on something for the love it. That is where some of this heads towards, the negativity towards OpenMW is sometimes openly hostile and totally unjustified. We're just a bunch of devs who like Bethesda games. We're not here to convince anyone to use OpenMW.

In addition to that OpenMW has been around a long time and will continued to be developed in the future. Those who have worked on OpenMW have done it for the love of the project not because the community wanted it. We want to work with the community, but the community does not dictate how OpenMW is developed. So even if the community abandons OpenMW, OpenMW will keep being developed. There has been a long stretch of time where the community largely ignored OpenMW and Zini was by himself. The project marched on regardless. OpenMW cannot be everything to everyone. We pick and choose our battles and people are going to disagree with us. That is a fact of life. Let us also not blow it out of proportion either, it is a hobby project.

That being said, OpenMW would prefer to work with the community.

Throwing more developers at a problem only exacerbates the problem. Please read "The Mythical Man Month" and it's update that software development/engineering just doesn't scale in the way people think. However leaving developers alone and not wasting their time helps them focus on the problem. This attitude rubs many people the wrong way, but this is how it is. Having people in-between that can buffer the two groups, re-work tickets/issues, talk technically to developers and handle community aspects could help.

So the point you make about having some doing PR and Outreach is perfectly valid. We have (or had?) something like this. The MrOpenMW account, in addition to this we used to have weekly updates/blog.

Is there anyone here willing to take up the call?