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[tootboot]

It's not a guarantee. I'll be completely honest - it's not. We're going to do our best, and I, personally, will do my best to ensure it is as close to a guarantee as humanly possible, but the only way you can be sure you'll be 100% happy with your contribution is if you make that contribution yourself, and Cataclysm is, thankfully, the kind of game where you can do that.

I do feel like you could be considerably more transparent about who the coder is going to be and how long they can work for the provided sum.  That's why I backed out my pledge, you announced your primary coder was missing and then there were no further updates on who would be doing the work or how long they would be working.  I'm not sure if I would even pledge again if you sorted it out at this point, it seems like you don't really have a plan for getting the actual work done and are just winging it right now.

[RedWarrior0]

From what I recall, the secondary coder is GalenEvil. I've no idea how the hunt for Soron goes.

[GlyphGryph]

I managed to get ahold of his family over the weekend. They apparently haven't seen him for several weeks either, but they also don't live in the same country so that's kind of understandable whatever is going on. But they said they'd look into it for me.

I'm going to be making an official announcement taking him off the project tomorrow either way, though, officially elevating Sean/GalenEvil to the projects programmer and establishing myself as his backup (even if I have to quit my job for 3 months, I am serious about my obligations - SOMEONE will be doing the things we've promised, and if no one else will, I'll do it myself - that's the promise I made to myself when I worked to reboot this game, that if something needed to be done and no one else could do it, I would do it myself, and that hasn't changed.) Unless I can find another contract coder that convinces me he's worth the money, but for this amount it's really got to be someone that already loves the game or it just plain won't work.

Ultimately, the buck stops with me. I am the one responsible for making sure things happen, and I take that seriously.

[SalmonGod]

I don't understand all the controversy and paranoia.  If you like the game and the direction it's aiming for, then that should be all there is to it.  If you don't like it enough to pay money to it, then nobody's going to twist your arm for it.  This isn't some kind of political or life-altering decision.  It's quite simple.  Questioning the character and motivations of the developers is just stirring up nonsense drama and making people look jerkish.

[Knight of Fools]

Yeah, it seems kind of wacky to accuse Glyph and Company of not being able to pull through with the Kickstarter just because of some issues that they had already made preparations for. I feel like they've been fairly transparent with everything that's going on, all things considered, which is a heck of a lot more than most Kickstarter projects get when they run into problems, especially when the project relies on such a small team to get things done.


In other news, I do hope Soron is alright. It's rather worrying that he's disappeared like this.

[Shakerag]

The gas station cartoon on the kickstarter page is cracking my shit up.  I'd donate for that alone. 

Also, yes, what the fuck is so hard to understand here?

Development on game will continue, kickstarter or no.  Game will be free and open source, kickstarter or no. 

Donate to kickstarter if you want development on game to go faster.  THAT'S IT. 

Honestly.

[Zyxl]

I literally cannot keep a single damned post in this thread with the nukes.

Anyway, this is bizzare. I can't understand what damned part of "Three months of fulltime" don't people get? Yet "Why doesn't Toady hire help" is a popular suggestion?

[Krevsin]

Toady is doing DF full time, living off donations.

Cataclysm (so far) is a part-time development, with a lot of the developer's time being eaten by such things as jobs. So they do not starve to death and/or get pneumonia from sleeping in the rain because they can't afford to pay the rent.

So, I entirely understand why this kickstarter is a thing. The only shame is that I can't donate to it.

[forsaken1111]

I do feel like you could be considerably more transparent about who the coder is going to be and how long they can work for the provided sum.  That's why I backed out my pledge, you announced your primary coder was missing and then there were no further updates on who would be doing the work or how long they would be working.  I'm not sure if I would even pledge again if you sorted it out at this point, it seems like you don't really have a plan for getting the actual work done and are just winging it right now.

Eh? There have been two kickstarter updated. In the most recent he explicitly states that Sean is the coder who will be doing the work if Ethan dropped out. Its right there, it was announced on the 27th. Its quite clear who will be doing the work and he hasn't hidden that fact. Sean was the backup for Ethan the whole time. The kickstarter is there to hire a coder for at least 3 months, be that Ethan, Sean, or Kevin, or whoever on the team can make that commitment. If the project earns more than the goal, the dev time will be extended commensurately.

As to your second point, do you demand a 'plan for getting the actual work done' from every kickstarter? I can't imagine most developers would give you their development plan, and such plans change over time any due to issues and difficulties which come up.

Either way, you're obviously free to not back the project but your stated reasons are erroneous at best.

[G-Flex]

The kickstarter is there to hire a coder for at least 3 months, be that Ethan, Sean, or Kevin, or whoever on the team can make that commitment. If the project earns more than the goal, the dev time will be extended commensurately.

You make good points, but there are two things worth pointing out here:

• The Kickstarter page explicitly says that they aren't sure how long the backup programmer would be able to work for using the funds provided. However, GlyphGryph has stated that it's on him to make sure the features are delivered as promised, regardless of what happens... which is good, since they're legally obligated to do so.
• The Kickstarter is a bit poorly-worded in some ways. It's not to hire someone for a certain period of time; in fact, this would be against Kickstarter guidelines. Kickstarter projects require, well, being projects, which is defined by Kickstarter as something with clear goals and a beginning and end, generally a product of some sort. In other words, this Kickstarter isn't to hire someone for three months, it's to get certain features (and possibly more) implemented, and hiring someone for three months is how they're doing it. This isn't a criticism of the project, just the way some people are characterizing it.

[Shakerag]

Oh, and, I hope that your primary coder didn't end up dismembered or something equally horrible

[Cthulufaic]

Oh, and, I hope that your primary coder didn't end up dismembered or something equally horrible

That would be quite bad.    Good luck Glyph!

[Fniff]

Not to doubt Soren, but I think he may have had an attack of anxiety and decided to pull out from the internet to recuperate himself. Sometimes that happens to me when I undergo big creative projects that everyone knows about.

[Tilla]

Not to doubt Soren, but I think he may have had an attack of anxiety and decided to pull out from the internet to recuperate himself. Sometimes that happens to me when I undergo big creative projects that everyone knows about.

His family aren't in contact with him either. So it is probably not that.

[Fniff]

Well, his family lives in another country, and they haven't heard from him for weeks, and I think the kickstarter only happened a few weeks ago. Plus, if an accident happened, they'd probably be contacted soonish.