DoomRL > Discussion

How Dead is this Game?

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Clamp360:
So, I've been playing this since like 2012 casually on and off and it's been a really good time; it breaks my heart to come on here and see that the game seems to have died.  I mean I'm not surprised, given its age and the circumstances surrounding its development it realistically should have died years ago, but there is still something disappointing about the fact that we'll probably never complete every medal and challenge.  Anyways, I suppose my question is even if the forums aren't active anymore, how many of you guys still play the game?  Are you playing casually or still going for those insane achievements?  Personally I never grinded too hard or got too good, and my proudest achievement is just beating the game on UV.

thelaptop:
I won't call it dead because there are still folks who are playing it.  But I will call it dead from a "new features/bug fix" angle.

I've been here since 2009.  Life grinds on, and with it, priorities.  The day that Kornel decided to launch the Kickstarter for Jupiter Hell is the day that DRL fades quietly into the background, partly because of the development time needed to get Jupiter Hell on the road, and partly because by declaring that project on Kickstarter (with references to DRL), it is a very public statement that would (and did) incur the C&D request of using the old name.

DRL is open source now, which means that folks can compile their own version and do the necessary bug fixes/development.  But in many ways, it is a hot potato situation from the IP perspective; yes, the name is changed to not overtly reference and potentially mislead the provenance of the game, but there are still many entities and objects that are heavily referencing the source material that are just time bombs in disguise.  Because of that, I believe that it is hard for anyone to take up the mantle to further develop on DRL.

That aside, the code base is old.  We're talking Pascal levels of old.  I can program in Pascal, and probably a few others who are around my age group.  But most developers are more into C++, Java, C#, Python, JavaScript and other fun stuff.  You might say, "but the game is mostly in Lua!"; yes, but some of the bugs are in the Pascal code itself, and it is not exactly obvious how to fix it.  Old code eventually reaches a point where it is hard to maintain, especially when there is no champion for it.

As for whether DRL is still played by me, it's a hard and sad answer to say, not as much, inasmuch as I am still the Chaos Fanatic!.  Remember what I said about how life grinds on, and priorities change?  Yeah... that.

Also at this stage, my personal opinion is that more focus is/should be placed on Jupiter Hell to ensure that it is successful enough to keep ChaosForge going.  It's a lot of eggs in one basket, but it is the choice of Kornel, and I believe most of us are trying to help him there.  As such, I think much of the effort of playing/testing is on JH than DRL.

Except Tormuse.  He's nuts (in a good way) and is always trying to win every dang medal/badge/achievement he can get.  I can't even remember what he hasn't gotten at this point.  =)

Clamp360:
Yeah, I appreciate the response.  The game's development is absolutely dead, I was more wondering about the community.  I hope people like Tormuse prevail in their endless quest for 100%, It would be a damn shame otherwise.

thelaptop:
Community-wise, ever since JH became a thing, most people started talking more about that on the Steam forums, which I am not a big participant of.

There used to be an IRC, but it was abandoned in favour of Discord.

All in all, I think in many ways, the community has "moved on with the times".

It's sad for sure, but well... it is the way it is.

I will keep lurking here though.  Steam forums are terrible to work with, in my opinion.  XD

Tormuse:

--- Quote from: Clamp360 on February 04, 2021, 12:05 ---Yeah, I appreciate the response.  The game's development is absolutely dead, I was more wondering about the community.  I hope people like Tormuse prevail in their endless quest for 100%, It would be a damn shame otherwise.

--- End quote ---

Heh, I was never going to get 100%.  I'm just not good enough to avoid taking damage 100% of the time to get the badges that require it.  (I mean maybe, theoretically, I could, but it would take more time and patience than I have)  Besides...  not that I do this for the fame or anything, but the fact that there's less interest in the game than there used to does dampen my enthusiasm for it a bit.  There just doesn't seem to be any demand for me to keep pushing on to get 100%, so it's hard to keep that motivation to keep going, especially after all these years.  I'm pretty pleased with my Everyman Angelic game, (and especially pleased that I recorded it!)  :)  but even that didn't get a heck of a lot of attention by the time I accomplished it, so it's probably just as well that I leave off on that high note.  :)

Anyway, like Thelaptop said, people have just moved on to other things.  (Especially Jupiter Hell)  I actually haven't played DRL in a while, but I've played a fair bit of JH.  (And got a few of the Diamond badges!)  :D

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