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[Interview] Divergence Online: Catching Up on the Latest Happenings
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Divergence Online successfully completed a recent crowd sourcing campaign and has been busily working on the game. We took some time to catch up with the Ethan Casner to find out the latest developments in this anticipated title.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Divergence Online: Catching Up on the Latest Happenings.
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Comments
Sound advice, DO NOT donate, wait for a finished product or let this die. I think it's in bad taste for mmorpg.com to cover this and not ask the IMPORTANT questions. Why has there been very little development on this in THE PAST 7-8 YEARS? I was extremely interested in this when I first heard of it 7 YEARS ago. Why has Ethan gone through staff faster than a burger chain goes through dishwashers?
Stay away from this like the plague. Just Google information about this game, Ethan, and everything that has revolved around this title for years and you will thank me. Just ask anyone of a number of staff or employees at one point what Ethan's vision is.
I am ecstatic that this is one title I didn't throw money at.
Taking others freely accessible/paid game mechanics and using crowdfunding to cash in. Nothing unique being done here!
Feydikan sums up Divergence Online development.
"OMG working so hard..pant pant... need sleep... pant pant.... and money... pant pant....keep faith"
Did like youve said, found this:
http://source.crydev.net/viewtopic.php?f=355&t=106590&view=next
Yeah, so call me crazy, but I have more trust for this dude than any big name dev, who's under publishers like EA, Activision and Ubi
I remember a time the only thing keeping the game from release was bloom and animation morphs. Wonder why engine developers quickly wash their hands of Ethan?
Feydikan sums up Divergence Online development.
"OMG working so hard..pant pant... need sleep... pant pant.... and money... pant pant....keep faith"
You just linked to a thread where again he's claiming his game is almost done and the blocker is limitations of the engine.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
That was long before Esenthel.
Esenthel did enable Ethan to run his last 2 cash grabs. He has yet to showcase any original game mechanics, only modded works built by others.
Pretty inspiring stuff!
Feydikan sums up Divergence Online development.
"OMG working so hard..pant pant... need sleep... pant pant.... and money... pant pant....keep faith"
I also, agree(I guess?) that it was long before? Long before Esenthel engine was made, there were no games made on that engine. Problem is, however that to his day-there are barely any games made it to commercial release, that are based on this engine. And the damn thing exists since Y2K!!!
So what your point is? From what I've read, his first campaign goal was alpha, which he achieved, while second one was about combat, which kinda succeed, but kinda didn't?
I also recall reading about original assets and stuff? So what modded works made by others are used by that dude?
I don't mean to be rude, bit do think you're busting this dude's balls for no good reason.
Assets don’t make games but the mechanics.
First campaigns gameplay “Esenthel Engine - Ineisis Online” and to date the only game mechanics demonstrated.
No we have “Massive Customization Upgrade” see the pattern? Anything that takes a brain is derived from others work claimed as their own.
How someone can expect to be building a world changing MMO pieced together like lego is simply potty.
Esenthel is mostly targeted by hobbyist, regardless what’s been produced to date by that engine is more than Stainglass llama’s portfolio.
Projects like this are just abusing all the good that is crowdfunding and should be held accountable!
Feydikan sums up Divergence Online development.
"OMG working so hard..pant pant... need sleep... pant pant.... and money... pant pant....keep faith"
So your problem with this game is that small scale studio, that consists of several people and have minimal funding, are using engine's functions to make stuff happen, instead of reinventing the fifth wheel?
Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that how game engine is supposed to be used? What exactly is the problem here?
Exactly divergence are after a game builder not an engine as they lack the ability to realize their own propaganda.
Unique gameplay is not bought its made.
Feydikan sums up Divergence Online development.
"OMG working so hard..pant pant... need sleep... pant pant.... and money... pant pant....keep faith"
This might come as a shock to you, but devs use engines because of features that those offer. Like world editor and character customization-it's there, it works and therefore saves time and saves from reinventing fifth wheel.
What you're saying is like buying a license for Unreal engine and reinventing console or first/third person view. Nobody does that, unless it specifically collides with what the devs have in plan.
In addition to this, if you go to Esenthel forums and look for EthanC profile, you can see that half of his posts were left unanswered, I've went as far as asking people who played alpha if they had certain issues(same ones EthanC asked on Esenthel forums and got silence in return)-and those problems indeed were still there, back when DO used Esenthel. So yeah, most of the time, he got no support. Not from the devs and not from the forum dwellers.
On the other hand, it looked like the ability to create seamless world and giving players limited access to terraforming tools, results of which persisted even after player would log out and could be interacted with by other players-was his studio's work, with some help from forums.
Same goes for the later added copy/paste territory ability.
So it's not like it was all just copy/pasted Esenthel. When you pair that with the fact that it was only alpha...Wel I still don't see what your problem is.
"I'd like to think our project is further along than almost any indie MMO out there; Most of the heavy lifting is done as the video shows with only improvements to combat and one or two things left." - EthanC
It's from the first post of the link you posted.
His IndieGoGo campaign was looking for 15k and got 24k.
His KS campaign (Sep 2013) was looking for 15k and got 19k. The reason for the campaign:
"The focus of this campaign is to allow us to hire on the additional staff required to take this game from an alpha prototype to a fully-launched title."
But... let's have some real fun. This is from his website in 2007:
Part #1 Mar 25th 2007
<BUSINESSSPEAK>
It's no secret that our one and only problem so far has simply been the lack of progress as a direct result of our as of yet inability to procure solid and reliable investors for our project.
</BUSINESSSPEAK>
It's damn depressing to pretty much have a completed product in high demand; to be 90% thereand unable to come the last 10% simply because of the lack of petty cash.
Here is a small chunk of undiluted truth about Divergence:
As far as the design and the overall plan are concerned, this game is nearly done.
Dozens of factions both human and alien alike, barely any of which are even announced.
Playable races already sketched, outlined, implimented and quasi-balanced.
Hundreds of special abilities pre-designed and scripted ready to be cut and pasted into the engine.
A gaming world just slightly smaller than the land mass of Sweden.
The combat and crafting models in their entirety.
A three-year story arch composed of 36 monthly and unique chapters.
Bandwidth and hosting provider ready to go.
3d assets and animations for all playable and NPC races, factions, creeps [mobs], items, components, doodads, weapons, armor, everything ready to be chucked out at a moments notice.
Voice actors on standby.
It's all done.
It's all been done for months upon months.
We've been done with this stuff for so long we're even past Convergence and into designing a D-O universe console for nextgen!
We just can't come up with the money we need. It's really as simple as that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
(It sucks you dont wanna see it)
Hey Poly, is it more or are 100% of your post all about Divergence? You must be some extremely butthurt individual to constantly troll this game. Lol. You should find something to do that benefits your life my friend
Originally posted by Loktofeit
Originally posted by dervimnorth
Please point me to where he said he was almost done?
"I'd like to think our project is further along than almost any indie MMO out there; Most of the heavy lifting is done as the video shows with only improvements to combat and one or two things left." - EthanC
It's from the first post of the link you posted.
His IndieGoGo campaign was looking for 15k and got 24k.
His KS campaign (Sep 2013) was looking for 15k and got 19k. The reason for the campaign:
"The focus of this campaign is to allow us to hire on the additional staff required to take this game from an alpha prototype to a fully-launched title."
But... let's have some real fun. This is from his website in 2007:
Part #1 Mar 25th 2007
It's no secret that our one and only problem so far has simply been the lack of progress as a direct result of our as of yet inability to procure solid and reliable investors for our project.
It's damn depressing to pretty much have a completed product in high demand; to be 90% thereand unable to come the last 10% simply because of the lack of petty cash.
Here is a small chunk of undiluted truth about Divergence:
As far as the design and the overall plan are concerned, this game is nearly done.
Dozens of factions both human and alien alike, barely any of which are even announced.
Playable races already sketched, outlined, implimented and quasi-balanced.
Hundreds of special abilities pre-designed and scripted ready to be cut and pasted into the engine.
A gaming world just slightly smaller than the land mass of Sweden.
The combat and crafting models in their entirety.
A three-year story arch composed of 36 monthly and unique chapters.
Bandwidth and hosting provider ready to go.
3d assets and animations for all playable and NPC races, factions, creeps [mobs], items, components, doodads, weapons, armor, everything ready to be chucked out at a moments notice.
Voice actors on standby.
It's all done.
It's all been done for months upon months.
We've been done with this stuff for so long we're even past Convergence and into designing a D-O universe console for nextgen!
We just can't come up with the money we need. It's really as simple as that.
1) Cryengine forums-he then goes and calls,"heavy lifting," about 2/3 of work and then admits that the remaining 1/3 takes too long because of the lack of support. Which I believe, after going through his posts on Esenthel forums. Regardless of that, he also gives a list of things left to do.
2)Yeah, his indiegogo got more than asked for and from what I've read, he did delivered milestones.
3)His KS campaign is a whole can of worms. From what I understood he had to throw in his money in order to help reach the first milestone. Then, on top of that, couple thousands worth of fundings were bounced back and he received a sum lower than the milestone. Which again-isn't an exception, it happens a lot on Kickstarter, thanks to Amazon payments. Even big name studios and their project, like InXile's Wasteland 2 and Torment(they were especially afraid during Torment campaign) are subjects to bouncing payments.
4) with lower than 15k fundings, lack of support from engine devs, and change of engine, it's understandable why there's such a delay. Also , according to project's forums, the goal of KS was combat system. And that kinda succeeded, but not really.
5)It would've helped if you'd post the link to wherever you got that 2007 quote from. However from what I've gathered it was back when the dev had just began working on it in 2006 and was looking for publisher to fund his project. If. He was supposedly using Hero Engine, back then? Regardless, the lines you're so selectively highlighting? The first one pretty much says that the design and plan of the game are done, not the game itself. He had the whole thing on paper, almost done.
Which can be considered a big deal, since, for example-Massive, who works for Ubi, doing The Division still doesn't knows WTF is it supposed to do, most of the game feature were still undecided during this year's E3 and Gamescom with release date set to next year.
As for 3d assets being done-that was back in 2006-2007. You don't think that five years later those assets become outdated? A bit of logic says that yes, they are.
Seriously, the more you post the more biased you seem to appear. Granted, his KS was a mess, but he wasn't the only one who tripped on Amazon payments post-KS campaign. As for the rest of your points-most of them are selective quotes that do not represent the whole picture.
So I still can't figure out why are biased so much against the project. And why do you expect so much from below 1M indie-MMO title?! All other indie mmo's gathered over several millions(almost 2M for Shroud of Avatar and 1M for Pathfinder Online, heck-it's tech demo has bigger budget-300k).
Actually... I finally noticed Project Gorgon. Wouldn't it be better to hype up Gorgon instead of desperately slamming other projects ?
Lol is funny to see ppl juggling like crazy to try making excuses for their bs. Ever heard about "Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta"
The harder you try the clearer the bs is.
The guy clearly wants to make something really good.. I have already backed this myself but not for much.. basically cash i will never miss so its no issue.
I like the sound of what he wants to do so I thought it was worth chucking a few $ his way , he already had a great early build up and running and had shown off quite a bit of it..
The fact he got to the point were he realised he needed to scrap a part of it and start again is a good thing.. he could have just carried on and released it or wahtever and we would have yet another sub par sandbox mmo out there.. no one wants that.
Will be keeping a keen eye on the development of this game thats for sure.
This isn't a true DO thread until Ethan comes in here and shits all over us and then asks for money two sentences later.
Also don't forget that that DO Kickstarter was only funded due to gaming the system where people put in loans to push the funding over the goal which had to be paid right back.
These projects always seem to get new sets of zealot defenders each cycle. It is sad to see because I was on the forums during the last batch where they worked for free for months and then if they asked any questions they were slammed and excluded from the group. At least a couple of them ended up over at the Repopulation IIRC.
That being said if there is ever a tangible release, I will check it out if they offer a trial of some sort. Not expecting too much with the liberal use of stock assets, but we'll see.
I have no bias against the project whatsoever. He's a source of amusement and little more. You asked when he said he was almost done and I linked to your own link to show you. The rest was added because anyone that has been following his project - except you, of course - has seen him say it is almost done and his only blocker is 'petty cash' repeatedly. He says it in forums, videos, interviews... wherever he can.
For seven years now he has been saying it's almost done and blaming his inability to complete the game on a lack of money.
As for what I expect... I expect absolutely nothing from EthanC. The only issue I have is that people like this - people who have no idea what they are getting into and do not know their limitations - give crowdfunding a bad name. This, in turn, makes it harder for actual game developers to get funding.
Here's the divide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trpmoQnEDfA
The difference is I am basing my perspective on the man's own history. Seven or eight years of it, in fact. You're basing yours on hope and wishful thinking, providing - as we have seen above - laundry lists of excuses for every fact you are presented with.
Is it possibly you see 'bias' and 'slamming' because the truth is inconvenient?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Thanks for your concern Ryyykkk life’s certainly not humdrum. I’d guess 100%.
Feydikan sums up Divergence Online development.
"OMG working so hard..pant pant... need sleep... pant pant.... and money... pant pant....keep faith"
No, what I see is the fact that for the larger part of those seven years, single ex-anarchy online employee was trying to do the job of entire fully staffed studio. All the while, also keeping in mind that usually it takes a fully staffed and fully funded team, to produce any decent MMO, all the while taking anywhere between three to seven years for it to happen, with more often than not the result being nothing special.
So while you see incompetence and blame shifting, I see a limit of what one person can do.
Also, your so called laundry seem to revolve around one single quote from five-six years a go, back when he was looking for sponsors/publisher, or so it seemed from what I gathered. As for present tense-he has one indiegogo campaign with delivered milestones and second partially successful campaign with results yet to show themselves.
So I'm gonna go into another slumber and pop back up in a year or so, just to check how things are going with this project.
If he'll end up switching to yet another engine-well then I'll apologize to you and admit you being right. If not, however-well then, you'll have a lot of apologizing to do to EthanC.
So, I'm correct about where the divide rests. Thank you.
Please note that you have been given links and references to where he has made that claim over the years, but you have twice now ignored that. In this last reply, you've gone as far as to deny that it even exists, despite it being quoted and linked to for you in this very thread.
" So I'm gonna go into another slumber and pop back up in a year or so, just to check how things are going with this project."
It will be interesting to see your thoughts on your replies here a year from now. See you then.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I wonder how many other games that have double or more the usual development cycle will use Kickstarter to extend their development cycle even further? Success breeds success and a successful Kickstarter seems like it will breed further Kickstarters for games that are never actually going to release.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.